Customs Valuation in India: Identifying Trade Facilitation related Concerns
India has introduced several trade facilitation related measures in the last couple of years. The pro-active strategy adopted by the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) has helped in introducing several policy measures which have not only streamlined the role of the customs department but has also helped industry in a major way without compromising collection of revenue.
Assessing the Market Openness Effects of Regulation in India: An Overview of Emerging Trends and Policy Issues
Though since 1991, India has been actively pursuing liberalization in external sector, including regulatory processes; however, still there are many initiatives which are to be taken to their logical end. The paper has identified some of the trade-related sectors, which require urgent attention of the policy makers. These sectors include government procurement, trade facilitation, and mutual recognition agreements (MRA) for implementation of sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS)-related provisions. Policy reforms in these areas may further help in rationalizing India’s continuously expanding frontiers of new free-trade agreements (FTAs) with that of multilateral commitments. It may also provide further fillip to the idea of reducing transaction costs for the external sector.
PRECISION FARMING APPROACHES TO SMALL-FARM AGRICULTRUE
Precision farming implies a management strategy to increase productivity and economic returns with a reduced impact on the environment. It is based on the application of information technology to a description of variability in the field, variable-rate operations and the decisionmaking system. There are three technology levels and three strategies in the development of precision farming. Precision farming practices can be used on small farms as well as big ones, and they play a core role in rural development programs which are integrated with industry. A real-time soil spectrophotometer was developed to describe soil variability in farmers' fields, to be used in precision farming.