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India offers SAARC nations facility of daily flights to metros
Dhaka: India has unilaterally offered Saarc nations the facility of daily air services to six metros in India and an unlimited number to 18 other major destinations on a reciprocal basis.

Apart from this, India has offered granting Fifth Freedom Rights to all designated carriers of Saarc nations, under which airlines from these countries could pick up passengers from Indian cities and fly off to third countries.

The metro cities offered are Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore and Hyderabad.
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Charitable societies, non-profit companies could go under service tax net
New Delhi: The Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) is mulling doing away with the requirement that a service provider should be a 'commercial concern' for it to pay service tax.

Should this happen charitable societies and non-profit organisations providing any of the 81 taxable services would be required to pay service tax at the rate of 10.2 per cent. However, such entities with a turnover of less than Rs4 lakh may continue to enjoy the exemption.
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Australia to shore up presence in Indian retail food market
Chennai: Australia has launched a five-year initiative aimed at giving its food products more presence in the retail markets in India. The country will spend Rs40 crore in the first two years, and will increase space for Australian products in various supermarkets in India. The initiative will be managed by the National Food Industry Strategy (NFIS) Ltd and Austrade.

Australia estimates that India's annual food and beverage market at Rs6 lakh crore, is growing at 5 per cent a year. Australia's food and beverage exports to India last year were worth Rs225 crore.

These included pulses and vegetables, apples and fruit juices, canned fruits, biscuits, breakfast cereals, salad dressings, wine and honey.
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Forrester: Huge potential seen in legal outsourcing to India
Houston: A study by US research firm, Forrester has said that India has huge potential in legal outsourcing, with the number of jobs in the area increasing to 79,000 by 2015.

The study felt that though India earned over US$6.7bn in US-based outsourcing services such as software and call centres till March 2005, the field of legal outsourcing remained untapped.

The study estimated that revenues in legal outsourcing was poised to increase dramatically from about US$80mn annually to approximately US$4bn, and jobs would grow to 29,000 in 2008, 35,000 by 2010, and 79,000 by 2015.

Indian outsourcing offers the following economic advantages: A significant wage differential with Indian firms paying legal researchers around $12,000 per year. There are also savings in perks, overhead, and working conditions, the study said adding that time zone differences allowed for overnight and 24x7 operations.
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India throws open farm research sector to U.S. companies
New Delhi: India has thrown open its public sector agriculture research to U.S. private companies and will enable the private sector to identify research areas that have the potential for "rapid commercialisation" with a view to developing new and commercially viable technologies for agricultural advancement in both countries.

This public-private partnership was described as a key feature of the U.S.-India Knowledge Initiative on Agricultural Education, Research, Service and Commercial Linkages.

Areas of collaboration are expected to include research on sustainable agriculture and marketing systems, the use of new information and communication technologies commercialisation, and implementation of international food safety and sanitary requirements.

The agreement stems from the joint statement signed between U.S. President George Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during the latter's visit to the U.S. in July and is a precursor to Bush's visit to India next February. The declaration said a "key feature" of the initiative would be the public-private partnership between the U.S. and India.
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Exports grow 28 per cent in October
New Delhi: India's exports in October grew 28 per cent, from a year earlier, as manufacturers from US and European Union markets rushed to meet Christmas orders. Exports in October crossed US$8bn compared with US$6.3bn in the same month last year, the commerce ministry said.

India's exports between April and October rose 22 per cent to US$51bn. The country's imports during the period were valued at US$75bn.
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India, US to double trade by 2008
New Delhi: India and the United States have decided to double two-way trade to US$40bn by 2008. The countries have identified small and medium enterprises sector as a focus area for achieving the ambitious target.

At a FICCI meeting with visiting US trade representative Rob Portman, commerce minister, Kamal Nath said "We should aim to achieve a trade target of US$40 billion in the next three years."

India's total merchandise trade with US stands at about $21 billion, of which Indian exports stand at US$14bn while imports are at about US$7bn.
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BIS to set strict standards for hallmarking of jewellery
Kochi: The Bureau of Indian Standards has taken steps to popularise the hallmarking scheme of gold jewellery to protect consumers against irregular gold quality as well as to develop export competitiveness to make India a leading gold market centre in the world.

BIS has, in an affidavit filed before the Kerala High Court, said that several measures are under its active consideration for the growth of the hallmarking scheme based on the recommendations of the committee set up by the Union Government.

One such step is to request the Finance Ministry to spend one per cent of the sale proceeds of the confiscated gold for promotion and publicity of the hallmarking scheme for gold jewellery and also to introduce a small cess on import duty of gold to finance promotion of campaign of a gold hallmarking scheme, the BIS official submitted before the court.

The committee had also recommended giving preference to hallmarked jewellery for loans by banks and also to abolish service tax on assaying and hallmarking centres.

The affidavit comes after a public interest litigation was filed to prohibit the ill-equipped quality assaying and hallmarking centres from conducting hallmarking and assaying of gold products in Kerala.

The petition alleged that the present system of BIS hallmarking is totally defective as most of the hallmarking centres are ill-equipped.
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