US president arrives in India on 3-day visit
New Delhi: US president, George W. Bush has arrived in India on a 3-day visit. The visit is expected to culminate with the announcement of several new initiatives aimed at boosting trade between India and US over the next three years.

Just before the US president's visit, the two sides have resolved the long-pending dispute over India gaining entry into the US market. For several years, Indian mangoes have been facing non-trade barriers such as sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures from the US side.

The issue was resolved at a meeting of the India-US Trade Policy Forum, co-chaired by the commerce and industries minister, Kamal Nath, and the United States trade representative (USTR), Rob Portman.

Portman indicated that the high-level trade policy group was looking into the issue of US allowing entry to refurbished Indian computers, as also lifting anti-dumping duty on Indian shrimp.

The forum also proposed to hold a bilateral Investment Summit with a focus on small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The US is India's largest trading partner and accounts for 16.48 per cent of India's exports and 6.26 per cent imports. However, India accounts for only 1.06 per cent of the total external trade of the US.

Setting aside protocol, prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh, greeted the US leader at the heavily-guarded Delhi airport where the Boeing 747 Air Force One landed shortly before 8 p.m after a surprise four-hour stop over at Kabul.
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CPI to move amendments to Budget
New Delhi: The Communist part of India (CPI), which provides key outside support to the ruling UPA coalition government, on Wednesday said it would move "suitable amendments" to the Union budget as it overlooked the interests of the common man.

In usual practice the opposition moves amendments to the budget proposals — in the form of cut motion for demand of grants from ministries or amendments to the finance bill. However, the passing of a cut motion or amendments to the finance bill amounts to loss of confidence in the government in Lok Sabha.

The Left parties said, "The content of the budget is clear. It has little for 'aam aadmi' (common man) as it catered to the interests of corporate houses and stock markets."
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BPOs come under service tax
New Delhi: Service tax which has been hiked from 10 per cent to 12 per cent will now be levied on BPO services also.

BPOs providing services to international clients pay service tax on inputs and then claim refund while domestic call centres, who provide services to clients in India are supposed to pay tax on input services.

But since there was no service tax on output services, the setting off of input tax, was not possible. So, the exemption was granted to them through a notification.

In the Budget this year, the notification exempting domestic call centres from paying service tax has been revoked.
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IOC's loss from LPG sales to come down
New Delhi: Indian Oil Corporation said its revenue loss on sale of cooking gas (LPG) would come down by Rs600-650 crore a year because of certain Budget proposals announced by the Finance Minister, P Chidambaram.

S V Narsimhan, director (finance), IOC, said, the company was losing Rs223 per cylinder on the sale of liquefied petroleum gas but by bringing in LPG in the category of declared goods, a great relief has been provided to downstream companies.

Indian Oil is currently suffering a revenue loss of Rs1,600 crore a month on retail sales of petrol, diesel, cooking gas, and kerosene.
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