India excludes agri items, gold, silver, footwear from trade pact with Oman
Muscat (PTI): India has protected the interest of domestic farmers and MSMEs by not extending any duty concessions on products across several sectors, including agricultural items such as dairy, as well as chocolates, gold, silver, jewellery, footwear, and sports goods, under the trade pact with Oman.
The comprehensive economic partnership agreement (CEPA) was signed on Thursday in Muscat.
The commerce ministry said to safeguard its interest, sensitive products have been kept in the exclusion category by India without offering any concessions.
It includes "agricultural products, including dairy, tea, coffee, rubber, and tobacco products; gold and silver bullion, jewellery; other labour-intensive products such as footwear, sports goods; and scrap of many base metals," the ministry said.
Further, for products of export interest to Oman and which are sensitive to India, the offer is mostly a tariff-rate quota (TRQ)-based tariff liberalisation.
Under the TRQ mechanism, India has extended duty concessions up to a specified quota, beyond which the normal import duty will apply. Goods under this category include dates, marbles, and petrochemical products.
An official said Oman has allowed Indian firms to import marble blocks, which is a banned export item in the Gulf nation.
As per the CEPA, the annual quota for duty-free dates will be 2,000 tonnes.
As per the pact, dairy sector goods, which are out of the purview of the agreement are milk products, cheese, butter, dairy spreads, ghee, and yoghurt.
Cereals like wheat, rice, maize and millets too are out of the pact.
Number of vegetables where no duty concessions will be given by India include tomatoes, onion, garlic, cauliflower, cabbage, peas, beans, radish, pumpkin, lady finger, and bitter gourd.
Similarly, no duty benefit will be given by Indians on edible oils like soybean oil, mustard oil, groundnut oil, and sunflower oil, besides oil seeds like soyabean, mustard and sesame and natural honey.
Further, under the CEPA, India will eliminate import duty in a phased manner for Oman for processed products such as sweet biscuits, rusks, toasted bread, pastry and cakes, papad, dog, or cat food.
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Screenwriter Salim Khan on ventilator support and stable, say doctors
Mumbai (PTI): Veteran screenwriter Salim Khan suffered a brain haemorrhage which has been tackled, is on ventilator support as a safeguard and stable, doctors treating him said on Wednesday, a day after he was admitted to the Lilavati Hospital here.
The 90-year-old, one half of the celebrated Salim-Javed duo which scripted films such as "Sholay", "Deewar" and "Don" with Javed Akhtar, is in the ICU and recovery might take some time given his age.
"His blood pressure was high for which we treated him and we had to put him on a ventilator because we wanted to do certain investigations. Now the ventilator was put as a safeguard so that his situation doesn't get worse. So it is not that he is critical," Dr Jalil Parkar told reporters.
"We did the investigations that were required and today we have done a small procedure on him, I will not go into the details. The procedure done is called DSA (digital subtraction angiography). The procedure has been accomplished, he is fine and stable and shifted back to ICU. By tomorrow, we hope to get him off the ventilator. All in all, he is doing quite well," he added.
Asked whether he suffered a brain haemorrhage, the doctor said, "Unko thoda haemorrhage hua tha, which we’ve tackled. No surgery is required.
As concern over Khan's health mounted, his children, including superstar Salman Khan and Arbaaz Khan, daughter Alvira, and sons-in-law Atul Agnihotri and Aayush Sharma, have been seen outside the hospital along with other well-wishers. His long-time partner Akhtar was also seen coming out of the hospital.
Khan, a household name in the 70s and 80s, turned 90 on November 24 last year. It was the day Dharmendra, the star of many of his films, including "Sholay", "Seeta aur Geeta" and "Yaadon Ki Baraat", passed away.
Hailing from an affluent family in Indore, Khan arrived in Mumbai in his 20s with dreams of stardom. He was good looking and confident he would make a mark in the industry as an actor. But that did not happen. And then, after struggling for close to a decade and getting confined to small roles in films, he changed lanes.
He worked as an assistant to Abrar Alvi and soon met Akhtar to form one of Hindi cinema's most formidable writing partnerships. They worked together on two dozen movies with most of them achieving blockbuster status.
Other than "Sholay", "Deewar" and "Don", Khan and Akhtar also penned "Trishul", "Zanjeer", "Seeta Aur Geeta", "Haathi Mere Saathi", "Yaadon Ki Baarat" and "Mr India".
