Department acceptance of appellate orders leads to non filing of review petitions and SLPs to reduce litigation and expedite similar cases.
Department issued a Circular compiling sixty three appellate and tribunal orders that it has accepted and will not challenge by filing review petitions or special leave petitions; fourteen involve High Court decisions on questions of law, while others rest on settled precedent, factual findings, or monetary dismissal. The Department's non filing policy is intended to reduce litigation and enable expeditious, uniform disposal of identical or similar indirect tax cases by making the accepted orders operative for field application.

Trade deficit widened as imports surged faster than exports, increasing overall external imbalance despite a services surplus.
Merchandise exports in January 2018 rose 9.07% in dollar terms driven by engineering goods, petroleum products, chemicals, drugs and pharmaceuticals, and gems and jewellery; imports rose 26.10% with strong increases in oil and several non oil categories. The merchandise trade deficit and the overall trade deficit (merchandise plus services) widened markedly for January and for the April-January cumulative period. Provisional commodity level estimates show mixed sectoral performance, and services trade for December 2017 recorded a surplus that partially offsets the merchandise shortfall.

Fraudulent letters of undertaking trigger criminal and regulatory probes and suspension of bank officers to protect interbank credit.
Detection of large scale banking fraud arising from issuance of fraudulent letters of undertaking by a single branch led to suspension of multiple officers and referral to investigative agencies. Unauthorised LOUs purportedly enabled other lenders and foreign branches to advance buyers' credit to select account holders without required margins or proper procedural entries, prompting FIRs and regulatory scrutiny of banks and beneficiary firms and directing system and process reviews to prevent recurrence.

Port infrastructure competitiveness: report urges standardisation and policy reforms to reduce congestion, delays, and unpredictable costs.
The report assesses 13 major ports, introducing a Port Performance Index combining stakeholder perceptions and quantitative data, and identifies five core bottlenecks-port congestion, customs clearance (including scanning and ICEGATE), shipping line issues and charges, documentation and paperwork, and regulatory clearances-that largely drive detention and demurrage. It presents 60 policy measures aimed at process standardisation, improving predictability of time and cost, and completing existing government initiatives to strengthen the ports sector; scope limited to container and bulk cargo.

Bilateral trade cooperation advances with emphasis on border infrastructure, non-tariff issue resolution and an institutional B2B mechanism.
Commerce secretaries met to strengthen bilateral trade cooperation by focusing on development of border trading infrastructure, expansion of Border Haats, resolution of non-tariff issues, regional connectivity under BBIN MVA, and measures to ease investment; they agreed to explore export promotion, capacity building and creation of an institutional B2B mechanism to provide policy inputs on trade and investment, with a follow-up meeting to be held in New Delhi.

Customs duty amendments: exemptions, rescissions and revised basic duty rates on specified imports following budget proposals.
Proposed customs tariff amendments adjust levy treatment on specified imports and exports by prescribing revised Basic Customs Duty rates, exempting certain duties and cesses (including road and infrastructure levies and components of Social Welfare Surcharge), prescribing a nil export duty for specified electrodes, and rescinding earlier notifications that granted exemptions, thereby aligning customs duty entries with the Budget 2018-19 tariff changes.

Finance Bill 2018 adjusts direct and indirect tax rates, introduces new tax rules and compliance measures.
The Finance Bill, 2018 sets new income tax rates and surcharges, updates withholding/collection and advance tax rules, and creates a ten percent tax on specified long term capital gains, with defined fair market valuation rules. It inserts accounting and computation standards for marked to market, foreign exchange gains and contract revenue recognition; limits deductions where returns are late; establishes electronic customs procedures, a Customs Authority for Advance Rulings, electronic cash ledger payments, and new Social Welfare and Road & Infrastructure cesses on imports and excisable goods; and makes consequential statutory amendments to savings schemes, securities and anti money laundering law with delegated rule making powers.