Logistics excellence awards recognising supply chain best practices and pandemic response; entries via ministry site, jury selects winners.
Launch of the National Logistics Excellence Awards to recognise operational excellence in two categories-logistics service providers and user industries-focusing on best practices such as consolidation, process standardisation, technological and digital upgrades, sustainable practices and COVID-19 response measures. Entrants submit via the Ministry website; shortlisted cases are presented to a National Jury chaired by the Special Secretary, Logistics Division, whose finalists' case studies will be showcased in an online Logistics Excellence Gallery hosted by the Ministry.

Engineering goods exports growth drives strong sectoral recovery, led by metals and two wheelers while some machinery panels lag.
India's engineering goods exports rose markedly in June 2021 versus June 2020 and June 2019, and cumulative April-June 2021 22 exports showed strong growth against April-June 2020 21 and positive gains against April-June 2019 20. Growth was concentrated in metal and auto related panels-notably copper, iron and steel, zinc, aluminium, and two and three wheelers-while machinery like boilers, nickel products, air conditioners, motor vehicles/cars, aircraft/spacecraft parts, and ships/boats experienced declines.

Fisheries subsidy equity: ensure sustainability disciplines protect development space and robust special and differential treatment.
India argues that WTO fisheries subsidy disciplines must balance sustainability with equitable development space, requiring major subsidizers to reduce harmful support under the Polluter Pays and Common but Differentiated Responsibilities principles. It cautions that the Overcapacity and Overfishing pillar, if framed to constrain capacity without disciplining non-specific fuel subsidies or excluding Government-to-Government access payments, will unfairly burden developing countries. India seeks effective Special and Differential Treatment for countries as a whole, respect for coastal State sovereign rights under the law of the sea, and proposed text amendments to preserve future growth space for developing fisheries.

Special and Differential Treatment must preserve developing countries' fisheries policy space and livelihood protections in multilateral negotiations.
India urges fisheries subsidy rules that balance subsidy reduction and overfishing controls with recognition of differing development stages, requiring major subsidizers to curb capacities under Polluter Pays and Common but Differentiated Responsibilities. It rejects limiting Special & Differential Treatment to only poor and artisanal fishermen, demanding S&DT that safeguards livelihoods, food security, policy space to develop fisheries, and sufficient transition periods to avoid perpetuating unequal entitlements and to preserve future capacity growth.

Green channel deemed approval enables notified acquisition of equity stake to proceed without in-depth merger scrutiny.
Notice concerns acquisition of an equity stake in JSW Cement by Synergy Metals Investments Holding Limited filed under the Green Channel and treated as deemed approved; the acquirer is an investment vehicle of Synergy Metals and Mining Fund I LP and the target is an unlisted public company of the JSW group engaged in cement production, mining, transport and real estate activities, with the filing qualifying for expedited treatment that permits the transaction to proceed without further competitive investigation.

Livestock sector package central support to realign schemes and boost dairy and disease control over a multi-year period.
A centrally approved livestock sector package restructures Department of Animal Husbandry schemes into three categories: Development Programmes (including Rashtriya Gokul Mission, NPDD, NLM, and Livestock Census & Integrated Sample Survey), Livestock Health and Disease Control (merging existing disease control scheme with the National Animal Disease Control Programme), and an Infrastructure Development Fund (merging AHIDF, DIDF and support to dairy cooperatives and farmer producer organisations), with central financial support over a multi-year period to leverage larger total investments from multiple stakeholders.

Dearness allowance increase recognises previously frozen instalments and raises pension relief under the revised consolidated rate.
Increase in Dearness Allowance for Central Government employees and Dearness Relief for pensioners to a revised consolidated rate reflecting recognition of three previously frozen instalments; the earlier period's DA/DR rate remains unchanged and the revision applies to basic pay and pension.

GIS-based land bank expands remote investor access with real-time state integration and mobile no-login availability.
India Industrial Land Bank (IILB) is a GIS-based portal that centralises industrial infrastructure and plot-level vacancy data to support remote investor decision-making; it maps approximately 4,000 parks across 5.5 lakh hectares and is integrated with industry GIS systems of seventeen states for real-time updates while offering a mobile application and no-login web access to broaden accessibility.

International cooperation in competition law enhances enforcement and capacity building through information exchange and technical assistance.
Approval of an international Memorandum on Cooperation establishes a framework for bilateral collaboration to strengthen enforcement and policy development in competition law through information exchange, experience sharing, coordinated enforcement cooperation, capacity building initiatives, and technical assistance, enabling the domestic competition authority to learn operational lessons from a foreign counterpart and improve application of the Competition Act under statutory authority permitting such arrangements.

Ministerial appointment: Anupriya Patel assumes charge as Minister of State for Commerce and Industry with prior ministerial and parliamentary experience.
Anupriya Patel assumed charge as Minister of State in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry; she is a two term Member of Parliament from Mirzapur and formerly served as Minister of State in the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Geographical Indications enable export of Madurai malli and traditional flowers, supporting packaging innovation and rural employment.
Export consignments of Geographical Indications-certified Madurai malli and traditional flowers were sent from Tamil Nadu to the USA and Dubai, sourced from Nilakottai, Dindigul and Sathyamangalam by an APEDA-registered exporter. Floriculture specialists provided packaging technology to extend shelf life, exporters set up direct farmer procurement to secure quality, and the initiative created local employment; reported aggregate export values for fresh cut flowers and bouquets in 2020-21 and Tamil Nadu's reported share via major airports contextualise the commercial impact.

Set-aside application of international arbitral award pursued; government contests enforcement and seeks amicable resolution.
The Government denies receipt of any notice or order regarding seizure or freezing of State property in Paris, is ascertaining facts and will pursue appropriate legal remedies if notified. It has filed a set-aside application challenging the December 2020 arbitral award before The Hague appeal forum, will vigorously defend those proceedings, and remains open to constructive discussions with Cairn for an amicable resolution within the legal framework.

Geographical Indication certified Bhalia wheat exported, enhancing market access and export growth for regional producers.
Exports commenced of Geographical Indication-certified Bhalia wheat from Gujarat to Kenya and Sri Lanka; the variety is high in protein, sweet, grown rainfed across the Bhal region on around two lakh hectares, GI-registered in July 2011 with Anand Agricultural University as registered proprietor, and the initiative is expected to boost wheat exports and market diversification following marked export growth in 2020-21.

Advisory Council for open digital commerce formed to advise on design and adoption of interoperable open network protocols.
Constitution of an advisory council to guide governmental design and accelerated adoption of the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) establishes an advisory mechanism to develop open-source methodology, open specifications, and open network protocols for platform-independent digital commerce. The council is tasked with recommending measures to standardise the digital value chain, promote supplier inclusion, improve logistics efficiency, and enhance consumer value, and its membership comprises senior public and private sector technology, payments, standards, and trade representatives with the Additional Secretary (ITeC), DPIIT as convener.

Freight Smart Cities initiative promotes city-level logistics committees and a handbook of measures to improve urban freight efficiency.
The Ministry's Logistics Division launched the Freight Smart Cities initiative with a portal and a handbook of 14 measures-including peri urban freight centres, night deliveries, truck routes, ITS, electrification and parcel terminals-to reduce urban freight congestion and costs. States are urged to nominate ten pilot cities, form multi stakeholder city level logistics committees, and co create City Logistics Plans for local implementation, with technical cooperation from domestic and international partners and phased scaling to more cities in consultation with State governments.

Minimum tax and profit reallocation principles shape a new international tax consensus affecting market jurisdiction revenues.
International tax reform moves forward under a two-component OECD/G20 framework: Pillar One reallocates additional profits to market jurisdictions, while Pillar Two provides a minimum tax and subject to tax rules; technical details on profit allocation and scope of subject to tax provisions remain to be finalized, and India advocates a simple, implementable package that ensures meaningful, sustainable revenue for market jurisdictions and prevents treaty shopping.

Critical infrastructure project monitoring: directives issued to resolve pending issues and enforce multi-level timelines and oversight.
The Commerce and Industry Minister chaired a Project Monitoring Group review of 59 issues across 20 critical infrastructure projects, highlighting the Dedicated Freight Corridors and the Amritsar-Kolkata Industrial Corridor; directions were issued to ministries and states to adopt specific timelines, expedite pending approvals and institutionalise multi-level monitoring to protect project schedules and promote economic growth.

Professional ethics: chartered accountants urged to adopt world-class standards and scale globally while supporting public health and startups.
Chartered accountants are urged to pursue mergers, acquisitions, partnerships and larger ventures to build world class firms, predicated on professional ethics, technical competence and stringent standards to secure global credibility. Members are also called to engage with the startup ecosystem and support public health vaccination efforts, reflecting collective responsibility to maintain integrity, accountability and service to the nation.

Resilient supply chains: India seeks deeper engagement with like-minded trading partners to expand trade, technology and vaccine cooperation.
India will pursue an expanded role in forming resilient supply chains by deepening trade and investment engagement with democracies that share transparent, rules-based trading norms, seeking accelerated negotiations with partners to foster investment, technology transfer, high-quality goods and services. It advocates a TRIPS waiver at the WTO to broaden access to vaccines and medicines and promotes sharing pandemic-response tools, notably offering the COWIN vaccination platform for adoption abroad, while noting export growth and strong railway freight performance as indicators of resilience.

Merger approval under competition law permits Tech Data to combine with SYNNEX via sequential statutory mergers and share exchange.
Approval under Section 31(1) of the Competition Act, 2002 was granted for a merger in which Tech Data will be combined with SYNNEX through sequential statutory mergers resulting in Sub II becoming a direct wholly owned subsidiary of SYNNEX, and SYNNEX issuing equity to Tiger Holdings in exchange for Tiger Parent's shares, reflecting the parties' described ownership and control by funds managed by affiliates of Apollo Management L.P.