India pushes its agenda on WTO
Cancun: The G-21, which is a coalition of 21 developing countries, has scored a major victory at the fifth World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial meeting. It got the trade body to include its proposals on agricultural negotiations in the draft ministerial text. Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez Bautista, the chairman of the Cancun ministerial, said the facilitators preparing the ministerial text had been asked to consider all proposals submitted by members and factor in the mandate given in Doha in 2001.

The G-21 (India is part of it) had said the WTO draft text was not in line with the goals set out at the Doha ministerial meeting. The framework presented by the G-21 was in response to the joint proposal submitted by the US and the EU on 13 August. The US and the EU have opposed the alliance's stand. The G-21 received another boost when the Strategic Products and Special Safeguard Mechanism (SP& SSM) Alliance (a coalition of 22 developing countries that include Indonesia, Kenya and the Philippines) submitted a proposal to the WTO seeking flexibility for poor countries to designate some of their products as special products.
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New FDI rulebook for the print media
New Delhi: The print media is having a look at the rulebook now; that is if it wants foreign direct investment (FDI). The revised print media guidelines, which are yet to be issued, will insist on adequate financial muscle of media companies seeking FDI. The government woke up to the necessity of including a clause on 'adequate financial strength' in FDI norms for media, once it began scrutinising the Star News uplinking application.

The process began last month when government revised the guidelines for uplinking news channels from India, to bring television on par with print media. If FDI rules mandated 51 per cent single Indian shareholding in print (news and current affairs), it was made the same for the electronic media.
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