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The average tariff rate for WTO member countries was down to nine per cent in 2013.

It is increasingly becoming clear that the battle is less about the trade deficit and more about America’s intention of preserving its global primacy.

While the establishment of new Integrated Check Post at Attari is a welcome move, there are certain issues which have dampened the spirits of Punjab's traders. The Pakistan government has still not allowed trade of items freely from the Attari-Wagah land route despite it being the cheapest and shortest trade route.

While there has been no perceptible effect of tariffs on the economy of either the US or China so far, additional tariffs which could eventually cover the entire $500 billion of US imports from China will most certainly have a negative effect on both countries and the world.

The world sees India as not contributing positively to the international trade negotiations and this makes it difficult for India to actively participate in ongoing major plurilateral trade negotiations, according to Dr. Harsha Vardhana Singh, India's former DDG to WTO.

The indecision of the AAP since the announcement of the Delhi poll results has the potential for the national voter to prefer national parties or alliances, rendering regional parties minimal players with maximalist muscle-flexing.

The motor vehicles agreement between BBIN nations is a welcome development and marks a good beginning. But now what is needed is a sustainable approach to infrastructure development in the region.

The solution is simple in concept but difficult to implement. Judicial administration will have to be separated from the administration of justice. A separate class of court administrators, reporting to the presiding officer but not having to take orders from him, may have to be formed.

An 'Agreed Line of Administrative Control' in the place of the existing Line of Actual Control (LAC) could free India and China from some of current problems at the bilateral border talks, feels Mr R Swaminathan, former Secretary and Director-General (Security), Government of India.

Experts at a conference on "Internet Governance and India: The Way Forward" have unanimously agreed that "anonymity" in cyber world is important for protection of dissenting voices. They also accepted that internet stands on three basic tenets of openness, freedom, universality.

Experts at a discussion on Indus Water unanimously agreed that a 'blue revolution' must follow the 'green revolution' so that the human possibilities for development are not compromised in the basin.

Reported jihadi threats forcing the down-grading of a New Year Eve entertainment programme and those regarding seven more Maldivians joining the civil war in Syria have revived the on-again-off-again national discourse on religious radicalism in Maldives.

By ratcheting up tension, China is causing alarm in other countries that use the busy South China Sea as the shortest and most convenient link between the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The Chinese could well end up the losers as the countries affected could band together to offset Chinese aggressiveness. Worse, it could well trigger off Japanese nationalism and rearmament.

What was not acceptable to Karnataka have been made acceptable to Sikkim now. Naturally, advocates in Sikkim too would not want to have a judge, allegedly tainted by misdemeanour, to be their Chief Justice.

The attack on Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar at a function in New Delhi, where a kirpan-wielding individual popped up to hit him, should be viewed not as a stand-alone case.

There is a lot to feel hopeful about the maiden meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan President Pervez Musharaff in distant New York. If the two nations needed to move ahead with the peace process, set in motion by predecessor Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, Manmohan Singh needed the personal chemistry working with Musharaff. At the end of the day, both said it did work.

At this rate, the TNA can become 'untouchable' in national politics, as they were earlier. It does not serve the Tamil cause - and certainly not the moderates' cause. It is the hardliners alone, many of whom are outside the country forever that will be happy.

Is green tax an answer for a cleaner India? The author contemplates if taxation is an answer

In Bangladesh, the municipal elections held last month (January 2011) provided an opportunity to assess the trends in the country's politics. The results showed that the ruling Awami League is on a declining graph as far as its popularity is concerned.

Chinese foreign policy statements may seem sloganistic, ritualistic and without content but one has to realise it need not be articulated in the Euro-American way, says Prof. Geremie Barme of Australian National University College of Asia and Pacific.

Tehran has responded in a carefully structured, calibrated fashion to the resolution passed by the IAEA Board of Governors last Saturday regarding Iran's nuclear programme. We may not have heard the last word yet, but are quite close to it.

The Government and the political and bureaucratic class should be sensitive to the cause professed by the civil society and acknowledge that absence of accountability and responsibility could lead to anarchy of a more militant kind.

Pakistan's "memogate" controversy has raised questions about the strength of the country's civilian government. This has been admitted even by Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar.

Proceedings of the weekly interaction in the Chennai Chapter of the Observer Research Foundation

The IAC is at the cross-roads now. That it has also been the fate of most such organisations over the past years in various parts of the country should not also be lost sight of. Many have come and gone, but very few have remained as an electorally successful political outfit.

The 'multiple identities' of the Tamil-speaking people in the country have suddenly acquired an urgent need for mutual understanding between the State and the citizen. There are contextualised circumstances, which may not provide for a yard-stick to measure 'national interests' or prioritise them.

Today, the Government(s) should not be looking into questions like 'Why Telangana?'. It has lost the luxury of thought process already. Instead, it should be looking at the when and how of it.

The trilateral maritime cooperation initiative by India, Maldives and Sri Lanka, and the Outcome Document signed recently by the NSAs of the three countries, has the potential for further improving naval ties in the shared Indian Ocean Neighbourhood.

Prudence lies in following the Chinese strategy of subordinating muscular diplomacy to economic growth. It remains in India’s interest to adhere to the open economy model.

जागतिक पातळीवर पर्यावरणपूरक गोष्टींचा वापर वाढल्याने वाहन कंपन्यांना तंत्रज्ञान बदलावर मोठा खर्च करावा लागतो आहे. त्यामुळे खर्च वाढून नफा कमी होतो आहे.

The real objective of the historic Indo-US civil nuclear initiative was to end decades of alienation between the world's largest democracies and build a genuine strategic partnership. Delhi and Washington knew that there could be no real partnership without resolving differences on non-proliferation that had so severely poisoned the bilateral relations from the early 1970s.

9/11 and 11-M (11th March). Two traumatic experiences ---one for the Americans and the other for the Spanish.

Senior leader of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Mr Satish Chandra Misra, has claimed that the Vishwa Hindu Parishad's (VHP) Ayodhya Yatra in Uttar Pradesh, supported by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is an attempt to communalise the political atmosphere in the State.

While enough has come out with regard to the 1971 India-Pakistan conflict, it is imperative to ensure that the humane side of 1971 is brought to the fore, though this may not have any bearing on policy making and future geo-political developments.

The 1971 Indo-Soviet Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation was probably the most seminal foreign policy arrangement entered into by India in the 20th century. It had a profound effect on the politics and geography of South Asia, cementing what many thought was the pre-eminence of India in the region

Because of the confusioni created by different agencies in calcuating the loss to the national exchequer caused by the 2-G scam, it is imperative that the exact figure and dimensions of the scam should be arrived at by an expert body.

The US is currently training various African economies on how to meet common value systems standards, and India along with other economies, needs to press for a more inclusive system where countries "pressurise on how to manage concerns and reach viable solutions."

While the year 2003 saw many acts of terrorism in South, South-East and West Asia, as well as in Chechnya in Russia, very few major acts of terrorism were reported from Central Asia. In fact, ever since the US-led coalition went into action against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Central Asian Republics (CARs) have remained largely free of major acts of terrorism

Twelve innocent civilians, 11 of them Indonesian nationals, were killed in an explosion on August 5, 2003, in the US-franchised JW Marriott hotel in Jakarta. The Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) was suspected. If the JI is ultimately established to have been responsible, it would be the second major post-9/11 terrorist strike organised by it