Historic Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal

Historic Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal
Twelve Pacific Rim countries on Monday reached the most ambitious trade pact in a generation, aiming to liberalize commerce in 40 percent of the world’s economy in a deal that faces skepticism from US lawmakers.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) pact struck in Atlanta after marathon talks could reshape industries, change the cost of products from cheese to cancer treatments and have repercussions for drug companies and automakers.
Tired negotiators worked round the clock over the weekend to settle tough issues such as monopoly rights for new biotech drugs. New Zealand’s demand for greater access for its dairy exports was only settled at 5 a.m. EDT (0900 GMT) on Monday.
If approved, the pact would cut trade barriers and set common standards from Vietnam to Canada. It would also furnish a legacy-shaping victory for U.S. President Barack Obama, who will promote the agreement on Tuesday in remarks to business leaders in Washington.
The Obama administration hopes the pact will help the United States increase its influence in East Asia and help counter the rise of China, which is not one of the TPP nations.
Lawmakers in the United States and other TPP countries must approve the deal. Five years in the making, it would reduce or eliminate tariffs on almost 18,000 categories of goods.
Initial reaction from U.S. Congress members, including Democrats and Republicans, ranged from cautious to skeptical.
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, a Democratic presidential candidate, warned the pact would cost jobs and hurt consumers. “In the Senate, I will do all that I can to defeat the TPP agreement,” he tweeted.
Many of Obama’s Democrats, as well as labor groups, fear the TPP will cost manufacturing jobs and weaken environmental laws, while some Republicans oppose provisions to block tobacco companies from suing governments over anti-smoking measures.
Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, who heads the Senate Finance Committee, was wary. “I am afraid this deal appears to fall woefully short,” said Hatch, who had urged the administration to hold the line on intellectual property protections, including for drugs.
U.S. lawmakers can approve the deal or vote it down, but not amend it.
CURRENCY, DRUGS, DAIRY, AUTO POLICIES
Ministers said the agreement would include a forum for finance ministers from participating countries to discuss currency policy principles. This takes into account, in part, concerns among U.S. manufacturers and critics who suggest Japan has driven the yen lower to benefit its car exporters and other companies.
But Democratic Representative Debbie Dingell from Michigan, home of the U.S. auto industry, said currency has not been fully dealt with. “Nothing that we have heard indicates negotiators sufficiently addressed these issues,” she said.
The United States and Australia negotiated a compromise on the minimum period of protection to the rights for data used to make biologic drugs. Companies such as Pfizer Inc, Roche Group’s Genentech and Japan’s Takeda Pharmaceutical could be affected.
The agreed terms fell short of what the United States had sought. Under the deal, countries would give drugmakers at least five years’ exclusive access to clinical data used to win approval for new drugs. An additional period of regulatory review would likely mean drug companies would have an effective monopoly for about eight years before facing lower-cost, generic competition.
Politically charged dairy farming issues were addressed in the final hours of talks. New Zealand, home to the world’s biggest dairy exporter, Fonterra, wanted increased access to U.S., Canadian and Japanese markets.
New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said the deal would cut tariffs on 93 percent of New Zealand’s exports to the United States, Japan, Canada, Mexico and Peru. “We’re disappointed there wasn’t agreement to eliminate all dairy tariffs but overall it’s a very good deal for New Zealand,” Key said.
The United States, Mexico, Canada and Japan agreed to auto trade rules on how much of a vehicle must be made within the TPP region to qualify for duty-free status.
The TPP would give Japan’s automakers, led by Toyota Motor Corp, a freer hand to buy parts from Asia for vehicles sold in the United States, but sets 25-30 year phase-out periods for U.S. tariffs on Japanese cars and light trucks.
The deal between Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam also sets minimum standards on issues ranging from workers’ rights to environmental protection.
Trade ministers said the TPP would in future be open to other countries, including potentially China.
“There is a real opportunity for China to be a part of this,” Malaysian Trade Minister Mustapa Mohamed said.
Though Obama painted the deal in part as a way of stopping China from writing the rules of the global economy, China’s Ministry of Commerce broadly welcomed the agreement in the hope it would “promote and make common contributions to Asia-Pacific trade, investment and economic development”.


Should India be worried about Trans-Pacific Partnership?
Overall, the pact’s major impact on India would be through standards, or non-tariff measures, according to experts
A group of 12 Pacific rim nations led by the US on Monday hammered out the largest mega regional trade agreement which is expected to set higher standards for goods and services.
Although the deal aims at sidestepping China in setting rules of international trade, it is also expected to impact India.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a trade agreement under negotiation among 12 nations: Australia, Brunei, Chile, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the US and Vietnam, which comprise 40% of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP).
The other two large regional trade agreements being negotiated are the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the US and the European Union, and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and its four free-trade partners, including China and India.
In addition to greater market access for goods and services, the areas of negotiations covered by TPP include intellectual property rights, foreign investment, competition policy, environment, labour, state-owned enterprises, e-commerce, competitiveness and supply chains, government procurement, technical barriers to trade, transparency in healthcare technology and pharmaceuticals, and regulatory coherence.
Most experts, however, say that overall, a much larger impact of TPP would be through standards or non-tariff measures. Harsha Vardhana Singh, former deputy director general of the World Trade Organization, in a discussion paper on TPP last year, said the inclusion of two of the largest economic markets (the US and Japan) in this group implies these norms will effectively become global standards.
“In this situation, to adequately benefit from international markets, other countries such as India will have to improve their capacities both for developing policies and the capabilities of their producers to upgrade standards in line with the higher requirements. Some other countries have already begun to do so,” he added.
Speaking at an event in April, Sujata Mehta, economic relations secretary in the foreign ministry, had said that agreements like TPP and TTIP will have huge implications for India.
“From an Indian perspective, we would hope that the result would not be states accepting restrictions through trade instrumentality which they otherwise would not be willing to accept in the relevant forum or relevant discipline,” she said. “In other words, trade should not be an arena for settlement of debates on other issues which are not strictly related to trade.”
“They may endanger food safety, they may curb access to medicines by putting constraints on the pharmaceuticals sector and eventually may have an impact on sovereign issues. The net outcome will be blurring the local, domestic, regional and global,” she added.
The big regional trade deals are expected to allow foreign investors to have their grievances against governments arbitrated by dispute-specific panels under the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism clause, she said. “What impact it would have on other investment promotion agreements is a matter of grey area,” she said.
There are different estimates on the material impact on India not being part of the TPP.
The Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) in a report released in September said that if China and the rest of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum join a second stage of the TPP that continues to exclude India, India’s annual export losses will approach $50 billion. However, many analysts claim such projections are exaggerated.
Quoting a study by the East-Centre, Abhijit Das, professor at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, said trade diversion as a result of India not joining the TPP will not be more than $4-5 billion over 10 years. “India is not in a position to undertake obligations finalized under TPP with respect to intellectual property rights such as evergreening of patents,” he added.
Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance secretary general D.G. Shah said the branded medicines industry will be a major beneficiary of the trade pact, while the generic drugs industry in India will suffer. “It (branded medicines industry) will be able to improve its price realization in the low-priced markets. It will be able to delay generic competition in all markets, including the US and the EU. The generics decline will be discernible from the end of 2017. The full-blown impact of these mega trade deals will be felt by 2020,” he added.
D.K. Nair, secretary general of the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry, said the TPP will adversely impact the textiles industry because of the yarn forward provision. The yarn forward rule requires clothing to be made from yarn and fabric manufactured in one of the free trade partners to qualify for duty-free treatment under the trade pact. “At present, we export yarn and fabric to Vietnam which then makes the textiles and exports to countries like the US. Now, because of the yarn forward rule, they will be under pressure to develop local production,” he added.
While Vietnam will have zero-duty access to the US market for textiles, Indian players will have to pay 14-32% duties, which will make them uncompetitive, Nair said. “We are in favour of India joining TPP. We should also fasttrack the RCEP negotiations so that the textiles industry can have some advantages in the Asian region,” he added.
Lobby group Confederation of Indian Industry in a statement on 1 September said India should join the Apec forum, which accounts for nearly 60% of global GDP. This, it said, would provide a pathway for greater integration into the region’s economy.

India’s credible offer on climate change

India’s credible offer on climate change
India has sent a strong signal by announcing efforts to curb climate change
ndia has done well to send a strong signal that it will actively join global efforts to contain climate change despite its other development goals that require an increase in energy use.
In its voluntary commitment submitted ahead of the international negotiations on climate change in Paris, India has said it will, by 2030, seek to cut the emissions intensity of its gross domestic product by around a third, increase the share of non-fossil fuel based installed electricity capacity to 40% and create an additional carbon sink to absorb 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent by increasing forest cover.
Since the current share of the non-fossil fuel electricity capacity is already 30%, the target of 40% appears very much achievable. The more ambitious, and perhaps unrealistic, goals had been announced soon after Narendra Modi came to power—to reach 100 gigawatts (GW) of solar power and 60GW of wind power by 2022. Two facts will put these targets in perspective. One, India’s current solar and wind installed capacity are about 4GW and 24GW, respectively. Two, Germany, the world leader in solar power, has a much more subdued goal—it aims to achieve 66GW of solar power by 2030.
Such aggressive framing of targets helps in a couple of ways. One, they help assert India’s seriousness in addressing a global crisis which it has done little to bring about. Second, such high targets are a clear signaling instrument to attract firms which can invest in India’s renewable energy. India will need the partnership, finance and technology of the private sector if it has to reach anywhere close to its declared targets. Global giants like SoftBank and Foxconn have come together with Bharti Enterprises to invest as much as $20 billion in solar projects in India. Many global green energy firms want to make hay while the sun shines in India, quite literally. All such enthusiasm notwithstanding, the targets are a tad too high to be met on the back of public subsidy in the absence of a clear market-based model.
The more important question is whether India should commit itself to such high targets. The burden of fighting climate change should primarily fall on developed countries not just because they are responsible for it in first place but also because they are equipped with the wherewithal—the finance and technology—to deal with the problem much more adequately. India has therefore, justifiably, insisted on the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” and transfer of capital and technology to meet its goal. Even holding India to the standards of China’s commitments is unfair. But pressure is invariably put on India immediately after China—the world’s biggest polluter—announces any significant domestic milestone. With China’s announcements, which have been widely appreciated, its emissions intensity will exceed India’s by about two-thirds in 2030. It is clear that India’s peak emissions intensity will never be close to what China or developed countries have been culpable of.
All the heat and fury of target-setting notwithstanding, little can be achieved without a coherent set of policy and financial instruments. China has announced a clear policy instrument in the form of cap-and-trade to achieve its emissions target. On the other hand, India has a potpourri of regulatory and fiscal measures with different government departments accountable for them. The hike in fuel taxes in the expedient environment of low crude oil prices has been sold as carbon tax. With little available out of the Green Climate Fund, providing subsidies for investment in renewables, in the long term, is impractical, inept and ill-advised.
The sum total of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions by all the countries is, by all accounts, unlikely to keep the global temperatures below the targeted 2 degree Celsius rise. It could be far worse if China and developed nations fail to meet their share of obligations—not an unlikely prospect. This would require the international community to frame a legally binding arrangement in Paris, and India should insist on an appropriate differentiated accountability mechanism for the same. Otherwise, with more than 1,200 islands, a coastline of more than 7,000km, one of the world’s most disaster-prone landscape and two-thirds of the population dependent on agriculture fed by erratic monsoons, India will be left vulnerable to recklessness, followed by inaction, of richer countries.

The 2015 ‪#‎NobelPrize‬ in Chemistry has been awarded to Tomas Lindahl and Paul Modrich and Aziz Sancar for discoveries in DNA repair.

इस वर्ष रसायन शास्त्र का नोबेल पुरस्कार तीन वैज्ञानिकों - टॉमस लिंडल, पॉल मॉडरिश और अज़ीज सैंकर को दिया जाएगा।
The 2015 ‪#‎NobelPrize‬ in Chemistry has been awarded to Tomas Lindahl and Paul Modrich and Aziz Sancar for discoveries in DNA repair.
Their work uncovered the mechanisms used by cells to repair damaged DNA - a fundamental process in living cells.

Nobel Committee said today in Stockholm, Sweden that the recipients had explained the processes at the molecular level that guard the integrity of our genomes.
The prize money of eight million Swedish kronor will be shared among the winners
The Nobel was awarded “for mechanistic studies of DNA repair”.
Mr. Lindahl is from the Francis Crick Institute. "He demonstrated that DNA decays at a rate that ought to have made the development of life on Earth impossible. This insight led him to discover a molecular machinery, base excision repair, which constantly counteracts the collapse of our DNA," said the Nobel Institute in a statement. Mr. Lindahl is also the 29th Nobel Laureate born in Sweden.
Mr. Modrich is from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Duke University School of Medicine. "He demonstrated how the cell corrects errors that occur when DNA is replicated during cell division. This mechanism, mismatch repair, reduces the error frequency during DNA replication by about a thousandfold. Congenital defects in mismatch repair are known, for example, to cause a hereditary variant of colon cancer," added the release.
Mr. Sancar is from the University of North Carolina. "He has mapped nucleotide excision repair, the mechanism that cells use to repair UV damage to DNA. People born with defects in this repair sstem will develop skin cancer if they are exposed to sunlight. The cell also utilises nucleotide excision repair to correct defects caused by mutagenic substances, among other things," said the release.
"Their work has provided fundamental knowledge of how a living cell functions and is, for instance, used for the development of new cancer treatments," said the press release.
The winners will share the 8 million Swedish kronor (about $960,000) prize money. Each winner will also get a diploma and a gold medal at the annual award ceremony on Dec. 10, the anniversary of the death of prize founder Alfred Nobel.
This year’s medicine prize went to scientists from Japan, the U.S. and China who discovered drugs to fight malaria and other tropical diseases. Japanese and Canadian scientists won the physics prize for discovering that tiny particles called neutrinos have mass.
The Nobel announcements continue with literature on Thursday, the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday and the economics award on Monday.

Irish-born William Campbell and Japan's Satoshi Omura win half of the prize for discovering avermectin,

आयरलैंड में जन्‍में विलियम कैम्पबेल, जापान के सतोशी ओमूरा और चीन के यौयौ तू नामक वैज्ञानिकों को वर्ष 2015 के चिकित्सा का नोबेल पुरस्‍कार दिया जायेगा।
Irish-born William Campbell and Japan's Satoshi Omura win half of the prize for discovering avermectin, a derivative of which has been used to treat hundreds of millions of people with river blindness and lymphatic filariasis, or elephantiasis. China's Youyou Tu was awarded the other half of the prize for discovering artemisinin, a drug that has slashed malaria deaths and has become the mainstay of fighting the mosquito-borne disease.

The Nobel Prize 2015 in Physiology or Medicine jointly went to William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura, and Youyou Tu.
Mr. Campbell and Mr. Omura won it for "their discoveries concerning a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites", while Ms. Tu won it for "her discoveries concerning a novel therapy for malaria."
Mr. Campbell and Mr. Ōmura discovered a new drug, Avermectin, the derivatives of which have radically lowered the incidence of River Blindness and Lymphatic Filariasis, said a press relase. "The drug also showed efficacy against an expanding number of other parasitic diseases," it added.
Youyou Tu discovered Artemisinin, a drug that has significantly reduced the mortality rates for patients suffering from Malaria. The two discoveries have provided humankind with powerful new means to combat these debilitating diseases that affect hundreds of millions of people annually,” the committee said. “The consequences in terms of improved human health and reduced suffering are immensurable.”
Campbell is a research fellow emeritus at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. Omura, 80, is a professor emeritus at Kitasato University in Japan and is from the central prefecture of Yamanashi. Tu is chief professor at the China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
The medicine award was the first Nobel Prize to be announced. The winners of the physics, chemistry and peace prizes are set to be announced later this week. The economics prize will be announced next Monday. No date has been set yet for the literature prize, but it is expected to be announced on Thursday.
The winners will share the 8 million Swedish kronor (about $960,000) prize money with one half going to Campbell and Omura, and the other to Tu. Each winner will also get a diploma and a gold medal at the annual award ceremony on Dec. 10, the anniversary of the death of prize founder Alfred Nobel.
Last year’s medicine award went to three scientists who discovered the brain’s inner navigation system

KISAN Project [C(K)rop Insurance using Space technology And geoiNformatics]

Minister of State for Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare, Dr. Sanjeev Kumar Balyan today launched KISAN Project [C(K)rop Insurance using Space technology And geoiNformatics] of Department of Agriculture, Cooperation & FW, Ministry of Agriculture and FW. The project envisages use of Space Technology and geoinformatics (GIS, GPS and Smartphone) technology along with high resolution data from UAV/Drone based imaging for improvement in yield estimation and better planning of Crop Cutting Experiments (CCEs), needed for crop insurance programme.

The Pilot Study is proposed to be launched in one District each of Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra during Kharif season of 2015 and two Districts each of these States during Rabi season of 2015-16. While launching the project Hon’ble MoS informed that once the Pilot Study is successful, it will be extended to the other parts of the country. The KISAN project will be implemented by Mahalanobis National Crop Forecast Centre (MNCFC), an attached Office of Department of Agriculture, Cooperation & FW, in collaboration with ISRO Centres (Space Applications Centre, Ahmedabad & National Remote Sensing Centre, Hyderabad), India Meteorological Department, CCAFS, State Agriculture Departments and State Remote Sensing Centres.
Dr. Balyan also launched an Android App. Designed by ISRO (National Remote Sensing Centre, Hyderabad). This App will help real time data collection about hailstorm occurrences along with photographs and geographical coordinates (longitude and latitude). The Minister informed that App will help Government to get real time data about the Hailstorms which will be collected through the Agriculture Department officials of different States. This will support in deciding the crop loss more objectively and in a very fast manner.

India and Germany on Monday agreed to enhance ties in key areas

India and Germany on Monday agreed to enhance ties in key areas of defence manufacturing, trade, intelligence and clean energy during wide-ranging talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in New Delhi after which 18 MoUs were inked.
Describing the talks as “very good”, both the leaders expressed hope that their discussions will pave the way for more robust partnership between the two countries in strategic areas. “We see Germany as a natural partner in achieving our vision of India’s economic transformation. German strengths and India’s priorities are aligned.”

“Our focus tends to be on economic ties. But, I believe that in a world of seamless challenges and opportunities, India and Germany can also be strong partners in advancing a more human, peaceful, just and sustainable future for the world,” Modi said.
The Prime Minister also mentioned that he will continue his discussions with Merkel in Bangalore, where both the leaders will be attending a business forum. Modi noted that the partnership will also grow in “areas like defence manufacturing, trade in advanced technology, intelligence, and countering terrorism and radicalism. These are important security dimensions of our expanding relationship.”
The pacts signed included Joint Declaration of Intent between HRD ministry and the Federal Foreign Office of Germany regarding the Promotion of German as a Foreign Language in India and the Promotion of Modern Indian Languages in Germany.
The inking of the pact comes as both sides were working to resolve the contentious issue of Sanskrit replacing German as a third language in Kendriya Vidyalaya Schools, a decision which was criticised by Germany with Merkel raising the issue during her meeting with Modi on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Brisbane in November last year.
The two sides also announced setting up a fast-track system for German companies in Indi

Takaaki Kajita, Arthur McDonald win Nobel in physics

Takaaki Kajita, Arthur McDonald win Nobel in physics
Japanese scientist Takaaki Kajita and Canadian physicist Arthur B McDonald have won the Nobel prize in Physics 2015 "for the discovery of neutrino oscillations, which shows that neutrinos have mass".
Neutrinos are one of the fundamental particles which make up the universe. These subatomic particles produced by the decay of radioactive elements that lack an electric charge.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Science's this year's prize is about changes of identity among some of the most abundant inhabitants in this universe.
The two scientists received the Nobel for conducting key experiments which demonstrated that neutrinos change identities. This metamorphosis requires that neutrinos have mass.
Professor Mcdonald said "it was a very daunting experience when I came to know about the prize. There is great camaraderie associated with this work". "The discovery has changed our understanding of the innermost workings of matter and can prove crucial to our view of the universe," the Academy said.
The Academy said, "We live in a world of neutrinos. Thousands of billions of neutrinos are flowing through your body every second. You cannot see them and you do not feel them. Neutrinos rush through space almost at the speed of light and hardly ever interact with matter. Where do they come from? Some were created already in the Big Bang, others are constantly being created in various processes in space and on Earth - from exploding supernovas, the death of massive stars, to reactions in nuclear power plants and naturally occurring radioactive decays."
It added, "Even inside our bodies an average of 5,000 neutrinos per second is released when an isotope of potassium decays. The majority of those that reach the Earth originate in nuclear reactions inside the Sun. Second only to particles of light, photons, the neutrinos are the most numerous particles in the entire universe."
The Institute says that for a long time, however, their existence was not even certain.
This year's Nobel Prize in physics awards a discovery that solved a long-standing neutrino puzzle. Since the 1960s, scientists had theoretically calculated the number of neutrinos that were created in the nuclear reactions that make the Sun shine, but when carrying out measurements on Earth, up to two thirds of the calculated amount was missing.
Where did the neutrinos go? There was no lack of suggestions. Maybe there was something wrong with the theoretical calculations of how the neutrinos are produced in the Sun? One of the other suggestions to solve the solar neutrino puzzle was that the neutrinos change identities.
According to the Standard Model of particle physics there are three types of neutrinos - electron-neutrinos, muon-neutrinos and tau-neutrinos. Each has its respective charged partner, the electron, and its two much heavier and short-lived relatives, the muon and the tau. The Sun only produces electron-neutrinos. But if they would be transformed to muon-neutrinos or tau-neutrinos on their way to Earth, that would make the deficit of the captured electron-neutrinos understandable.
The Nobel in Physics in 2014 was awarded jointly to Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura "for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources".
White LED lamps emit a bright white light, are long-lasting and energy-efficient. As about one fourth of world electricity consumption is used for lighting purposes, the LEDs contribute to saving the Earth's resources, the Nobel Institute had sad. Materials consumption is also diminished as LEDs last up to 100,000 hours, compared to 1,000 for incandescent bulbs and 10,000 hours for fluorescent lights.
The Institute had said that the LED lamp holds great promise for increasing the quality of life for over 1.5 billion people around the world who lack access to electricity grids: due to low power requirements it can be powered by cheap local solar power.