1.   

Biden proposes trilateral talks between US, India and China

American Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday proposed closer coordination between the US, India and China, saying trilateral talks between the three "big" nations would benefit the entire region. Biden, while delivering a lecture on 'US-India Partnership' at the Bombay Stock Exchange, underscored the need for enhanced engagement between India, China and America. "The cooperation between the three big nations, India, China and the US, will help grow world economy," he said.

2.   

Pawar asks PM to ensure stable agri export policy

Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has written a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, urging him to maintain a stable policy environment for the export of agriculture products, in the interest of farmers and the general economy. His letter comes in the wake of talks of a curb on export of farm commodities such as onions to check domestic prices. Officials said Pawar in his communique, which has also been sent to Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Commerce Minister Anand Sharma, has said sudden policy changes in knee-jerk reactions to domestic price situations create an environment of uncertainty and cause unintended distress to farmers.

3.   

India — the world’s rice raja

Paddy cultivation is highly water-intensive. A good monsoon and improved acreage in this kharif season portend higher output of milled rice in 2013-14 — more than the highest of 104 million tonnes (mt) rice in 2011-12. Production of both basmati (8-9 mt) and non-basmati (98-100 mt) is likely to surpass the earlier record. For the second year in a row, India will again be the world’s “Raja of Rice” exports in 2013-14, touching about 11 mt ($6.5 billion or Rs. 40,000 crore) against 10 mt last year, with a basmati (fragrant/aromatic) component of 3.5-4 mt and non-basmati 6.5-7 mt. Monthly shipments at present are 0.85 mt per month.

4.   

Govt to go easy on more FTAs

The government will examine existing trade agreements with foreign countries before entering into new ones. The move comes after the FTAs signed with many countries have shown a declining trend. “We did enter into FTAs (Foreign Trade Agreements) and PTAs (Preferential Trade Agreements) with many countries. But again whether these FTAs and PTAs have really delivered is something that we need to very closely look at, which the government intends to do,” Minister of State for Commerce and Industry D Purandeswari said here.