Farm subsidies: Jaitley seeks support at Cancun meet
New Delhi: The fifth ministerial of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) will start today. In the eve of the meet India has made an effort to rope in like-minded countries to its demand for substantial and drastic reduction in the farm subsidies, domestic support and export credit of advanced countries such as the European Union and the US, reports say. Union Commerce and Industry Minister Arun Jaitley said he had bilateral talks with US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick and EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy.

Jaitley said he impressed upon them that "any outcome short of complete phasing out of export subsidies on all products is a clear violation of the Doha mandate." The recent EU-US framework agreement establishes permitted level of subsidies through "export credit which is large step backwards which would just allow the US to re-bind its Uruguay Round commitments of export subsidies."
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Cabinet decision on sell-off of airports today
New Delhi: The Union Cabinet will today take up the long-standing issue of upgrading and privatising the New Delhi and Mumbai airports through the joint venture route. The Cabinet will discuss the proposal for setting up joint ventures for these airports, official sources were quoted as saying.

In the proposed joint ventures, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) will have 26-per cent equity, while the private partners will own the rest of the stake. The pattern of privatisation of these airports could become the basis for other airports as well, the sources said. "As soon as the Cabinet nod came through, expressions of interest will be sought on a global basis from interested parties, especially from those associated with aviation and airports."
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Indo-Israeli may cooperate on farm sector
New Delhi: India and Israel plan to increase cooperation in various fields of agriculture, and a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in this respect will be signed soon. A decision to this effect was taken at a meeting that Union Agriculture Minister Rajnath Singh had with visiting Israeli Agriculture Minister Yisrael Katz here on Tuesday.

With both countries evincing interest in greater cooperation in the fields of horticulture, floriculture and aquaculture, it was also decided to set up a joint committee of officials that will have frequent meetings for discussions on various agricultural issues. Emphasis was also laid on the need to exchange the latest technologies in these and other related fields.
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