40 years are enough: US tells Pak to support PM Modi's peace efforts

New Delhi/Washington, Feb 14: India has offered to partially open up its poultry and dairy markets in a bid for a limited trade deal during US President Donald Trump's first official visit to the country this month, people familiar with the protracted talks say.

India, the world's largest milk-producing nation, has traditionally restricted dairy imports to protect the livelihoods of 80 million rural households involved in the industry.

But Prime Minister Narendra Modi is trying to pull all the stops for the US President's February 24-25 visit, aimed at rebuilding bonds between the world's largest democracies.

In 2019, President Trump suspended India's special trade designation that dated back to 1970s, after PM Modi put price caps on medical devices, such as cardiac stents and knee implants, and introduced new data localization requirements and e-commerce restrictions.

President Trump's trip to India has raised hopes that he would restore some of the country's US trade preferences, in exchange for tariff reductions and other concessions.

The United States is India's second-largest trade partner after China, and bilateral goods and services trade climbed to a record $142.6 billion in 2018. The United States had a $23.2 billion goods trade deficit in 2019 with India, its 9th largest trading partner in goods.

India has offered to allow imports of US chicken legs, turkey and produce such as blueberries and cherries, government sources said, and has offered to cut tariffs on chicken legs from 100 per cent to 25 per cent. US negotiators want that tariff cut to 10 per cent. The Modi government is also offering to allow some access to India's dairy market, but with a 5 per cent tariff and quotas, the sources said. But dairy imports would need a certificate they are not derived from animals that have consumed feeds that include internal organs, blood meal or tissues of ruminants.

New Delhi has also offered to lower its 50 per cent tariffs on very large motorcycles made by Harley-Davidson, a tax that was a particular irritant for President Trump, who has labelled India the "tariff king." The change would be largely symbolic because few such motorcycles are sold in India.

President Trump will be feted in PM Modi's home state of Gujarat, then hold talks in New Delhi and attend a reception that the hosts have promised will be bigger than the one organised for former president Barack Obama in 2015.

But it is far from clear whether India's offers will be enough to satisfy US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, who cancelled plans for a trip to India this week. Instead, he has held telephone talks with Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal.

The US dairy industry remained sceptical on Thursday that a viable deal is at hand.

"We're always looking for market access, but in terms of India, as of today I'm not aware of any real progress going on," said Michael Dykes, president of the International Dairy Foods Association and a member of USTR's agricultural trade policy advisory committee.

Mr Dykes said the US dairy industry was looking for access in viable commercial quantities.

A USTR spokesman and India's trade ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

A parliament panel is reviewing a draft data privacy law that imposes stringent controls over cross-border data flows and gives the government powers to seek user data from companies.

It is not clear whether it will be passed, or in what form, but the possibilities have unnerved US companies and could raise compliance requirements for Google, Amazon.com Inc, and Facebook.

The draft law is not part of the trade discussions, Indian officials say, because the issue is too difficult to resolve at the same time.

"The privacy and localization piece will be raised independently and in concert with the trade discussions," said a Washington-based source with knowledge of the US administration's thinking.

President Trump on Tuesday was non-committal about sealing a trade deal before his visit. "If we can make the right deal, we'll do it," he told reporters.

Two US sources said progress had been made on proposed alterations to the medical device price caps. India's new import tariffs on medical devices, walnuts, toys, electronics and other products on February 1 surprised US negotiators, however.

The new tariffs were aimed at China, which also makes medical devices, according to an Indian government source. "We have to protect our market and our companies," the source said.

Langkawi, Jan 20: Malaysia will not take retaliatory trade action against India over its boycott of palm oil purchases amid a political row between the two countries, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said on Monday.

India, the world’s largest edible oil buyer, this month effectively halted imports from its largest supplier and the world’s second-biggest producer in response to comments from Mahathir attacking India’s domestic policies.

“We are too small to take retaliatory action,” Mahathir told reporters in Langkawi, a resort island off the western coast of Malaysia. “We have to find ways and means to overcome that,” he added.

The 94-year-old premier of Muslim-majority Malaysia has criticised New Delhi’s new religion-based citizenship law and also accused India of invading the disputed region of Kashmir.

Mahathir again criticised India’s citizenship law on Monday, saying he believed it was “grossly unfair”.

India has been Malaysia’s largest palm oil market for the past five years, presenting the Southeast Asian country with a major challenge in finding new buyers for its palm oil.

Benchmark Malaysian palm futures fell nearly 10% last week, their biggest weekly decline in more than 11 years.

New Delhi is also unhappy with Malaysia’s refusal to revoke permanent resident status for controversial Indian Islamic preacher Zakir Naik, who has lived in Malaysia for about three years and faces charges of money laundering and hate speech in India.

Mahathir said even if the Indian government guarantees a fair trial, Naik faces the real threat of vigilante action and that Malaysia will only relocate the preacher if it can find a third country where he would be safe.

“If we can find a place for him, we will send him out.”

New Delhi, Jan 24: Although India's Ujjwala programme encouraged adoption of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) for cooking among the poor, households availing the scheme have not shifted away from using highly polluting fuels like firewood, a study reveals.

The researchers, including those from the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Canada, found that additional incentives to encourage regular use of cooking gas are necessary for a complete transition to clean cooking fuel among poor rural households.

They noted that about 2.9 billion people across Asia, Africa, and Latin America burn solid fuels like firewood to meet their cooking energy needs.

This has significant negative implications for public health, the environment, and societal development, according to the researchers.

Through the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY), India has provided capital cost subsidies to poor women to adopt a clean-burning cooking fuel or LPG.

The researchers explained that within the first 40 months of the scheme, more than 80 million households obtained LPG stoves.

However, the full benefits of LPG adoption depend on near complete replacement of polluting fuels with LPG, according to a research-based policy brief published in the journal Nature Energy.

The scientists said this cannot be assumed solely on the basis of LPG presence in the household.

"Our research shows that Ujjwala was able to attract new consumers rapidly, but those consumers did not start using LPG on a regular basis," Abhishek Kar, a postdoc at Columbia University in the US, told PTI.

The study analysed LPG sales data for over 25,000 consumers, including PMUY beneficiaries, as well as general rural LPG consumers in Koppal district of Karnataka.

The scientists employed data covering all LPG purchases of PMUY beneficiaries through their first year in the programme.

They also assessed the general rural population's purchases during their first five years as consumers to assess the effect of experience on use.

The findings estimate that an average rural family needs to purchase five 14.2 kilogramme-cylinders annually to meet half of their cooking needs.

However, the study said just seven per cent of PMUY beneficiaries in Koppal purchased five or more cylinders annually, suggesting that the beneficiaries seldom use LPG.

The general (nonPMUY) consumers in this region use on average two times more LPG cylinders than PMUY beneficiaries, the researchers noted.

Yet, only 45 per cent of nonPMUY consumers use five or more cylinders per year -- even after several years of experience with LPG, they said.

The team assessed price and seasonal factors affecting LPG use among the general population over a three-year period.

It found that LPG consumers are sensitive to price and seasonality -- LPG cylinder refill rates are lower in the summer when agricultural activity is limited, and cash is scarce.

"There was no scheme incentives to promote use, except general LPG subsidies which is available to all, including the urban middle class," said Kar, who was a Ph.D. scholar at UBC when the research was published.

"If there is no additional income, what cost would a poor family on an already tight budget cut to pay for an extra expense on a regular basis.

"Ujjwala has started the scheme of 5 kg-cylinder in response, but the impact of that on LPG sales is still publicly unknown," he said.

These findings, the researchers noted, suggest the need for additional measures to promote regular LPG use for all rural populations.

Although the finding come from a single district in Southern India, it may also apply to other areas with similar socio-economic conditions, they said.

A more expansive evaluation of PMUY would help design targeted incentives to transform infrequent users to regular users, according to the researchers.