Current Affair 1:

Signing of the Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (ECTA) between India and Australia

 

India and Australia signed the India-Australia Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement.

The salient features of India-Australia ECTA are as follows:

The India-Australia ECTA is the first trade agreement of India with a developed country after more than a decade. The Agreement covers areas like Trade in Goods, Rules of Origin, Trade in Services, Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) measures, Dispute Settlement, Movement of Natural Persons, Telecom, Customs Procedures, Pharmaceutical products, and Cooperation in other Areas.

Impact or benefits:

1. ECTA provides for an institutional mechanism to encourage and improve trade between the two countries.
2. The ECTA between India and Australia covers almost all the tariff lines dealt in by India and Australia respectively.
3. India will benefit from preferential market access provided by Australia on 100% of its tariff lines.
4. This includes all the labour-intensive sectors of export interest to India such as Gems and Jewellery, Textiles, leather, footwear, furniture, food, and agricultural products, engineering products, medical devices, and Automobiles.
5. On the other hand, India will be offering preferential access to Australia on over 70% of its tariff lines, including lines of export interest to Australia which are primarily raw materials and intermediaries such as coal, mineral ores and wines etc.
6. As regards trade in services, Australia has offered wide ranging commitments in around 135 sub sectors and Most Favoured Nation (MFN) in 120 sub sectors which cover key areas of India’s interest like IT, ITES, Business services, Health, Education, and Audio visual.
7. On the other hand, India has offered market access to Australia in around 103 sub-sectors and Most Favoured Nation in 31 sub-sectors from sectors such as ‘business services’, ‘communication services’, ‘construction and related engineering services’, and so on.
8. Both sides have also agreed to a separate Annex on Pharmaceutical products under this agreement, which will enable fast track approval for patented, generic and biosimilar medicines.

Current Affair 2:

Signing of the Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (ECTA) between India and Australia

 

India and Australia signed the India-Australia Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement.

The salient features of India-Australia ECTA are as follows:

The India-Australia ECTA is the first trade agreement of India with a developed country after more than a decade. The Agreement covers areas like Trade in Goods, Rules of Origin, Trade in Services, Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) measures, Dispute Settlement, Movement of Natural Persons, Telecom, Customs Procedures, Pharmaceutical products, and Cooperation in other Areas.

Impact or benefits:

1. ECTA provides for an institutional mechanism to encourage and improve trade between the two countries.
2. The ECTA between India and Australia covers almost all the tariff lines dealt in by India and Australia respectively.
3. India will benefit from preferential market access provided by Australia on 100% of its tariff lines.
4. This includes all the labour-intensive sectors of export interest to India such as Gems and Jewellery, Textiles, leather, footwear, furniture, food, and agricultural products, engineering products, medical devices, and Automobiles.
5. On the other hand, India will be offering preferential access to Australia on over 70% of its tariff lines, including lines of export interest to Australia which are primarily raw materials and intermediaries such as coal, mineral ores and wines etc.
6. As regards trade in services, Australia has offered wide ranging commitments in around 135 sub sectors and Most Favoured Nation (MFN) in 120 sub sectors which cover key areas of India’s interest like IT, ITES, Business services, Health, Education, and Audio visual.
7. On the other hand, India has offered market access to Australia in around 103 sub-sectors and Most Favoured Nation in 31 sub-sectors from sectors such as ‘business services’, ‘communication services’, ‘construction and related engineering services’, and so on.
8. Both sides have also agreed to a separate Annex on Pharmaceutical products under this agreement, which will enable fast track approval for patented, generic and biosimilar medicines.

Current Affair 3:

WHAT ARE DRY PORTS

 

“Dry port is a yard used to place containers or conventional bulk cargo, usually connected to a seaport by rail or road”. – Wikipedia

A dry port can be understood as an inland setting with cargo-handling facilities to allow several functions to carry out, for example, cargo consolidation and distribution, temporary storage of containers, custom clearance, connection between different transport modes, allowing agglomeration of institutions (both private and public) which facilitates the interactions between different stakeholders along the supply chain.

The total number of dry ports/Inland Container Depot (ICD) in the country along with operational capacity currently, state-wise, as given by Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance, are:

Current Affair 4:

Recent Initiatives to Further Enhance Coal Production

 

As per Coal Directory 2020-21, India is the second largest coal producer and importer in the world.

 

The following steps has been taken by Government to boost coal production in the country:

Commercial Auction of coal on revenue share mechanism: Auction of commercial mining on Revenue Sharing Mechanism was launched on 18.06.2020 by Hon’ble Prime Minister. Under this scheme, total of 2 tranches have been successfully completed and third Tranche is currently under process. From these two tranches total of 28 coal mines have been successfully auctioned for which Vesting order have been signed for 27 coal mines.

Allowed sale of excess coal production: The Ministry of Coal has amended Mineral Concession Rules, 1960 with a view to allowing sale of coal or lignite, on payment of additional amount, by the lessee of a captive mine up to 50 percent of the total coal or lignite produced in a financial year, after meeting the requirement of the end use plant linked with the mine.

The Mines and Minerals (Development & Regulation) Act had been amended in 2021. This is applicable for both the private and public sector captive mines. With this amendment, the Government has paved the way for releasing of additional coal in the market by greater utilization of mining capacities of captive coal and lignite blocks, which were being only partly utilized owing to limited production of coal for meeting their captive needs.

Rolling auction: In order to expedite the process for conducting auction and to carry out more rounds of auction in a year, a mechanism of rolling auctions of coal mines has been planned. Under this mechanism, upon completion of the electronic auction process of a tranche, the next tranche of auction would be launched for following mines:

1. Mines where no bid or only single bid was received in the previous tranche of auction (except for those mines where Ministry of Coal decides to go for second attempt of auction
2. New mines, if any, identified by Ministry of Coal
3. In the current III tranche of commercial auction, total of 48 coal mines have been rolled over from the II tranche of mines.

Single Window Clearance: The Union government has already launched Single Window Clearance portal on 11.01.2021 for the coal sector to speed up the operationalisation of coal mines. It is an unified platform that facilitates grant of clearances and approvals required for starting a coal mine in India. Now, the complete process shall be facilitated through Single Window Clearance Portal, which will map not only the relevant application formats, but also process flow for grant of approval or clearances.

Details of Coal Reserves in India

As per the Inventory of India published by GSI for Coal and Lignite as on 01.04.2021, the total assessed geological coal resource is 352125.97 million tonnes.

The cumulative coal production since 1950 up to 2020-21 is 17,297.94 million tonnes as per Coal Controller, Ministry of Coal, Government of India. As per present rate of demand/consumption of coal there is sufficient resources of coal in India. Every year CMPDI is adding about 4000-6000 MT of proved resources in the coal inventory of India. There is no threat of coal resources for future coal demand in our country at present rate of extraction / demand.

Total quantity of coal imported in the country during the last five years, year-wise is as under:-

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