Foreign Trade Policy aims to boost exports through district export hubs and MSME e commerce incentives to reduce trade frictions.
The Foreign Trade Policy 2021-2026 establishes a five-year framework to promote exports and manage external trade, authorised under the statutory trade-development regime and implemented by the national commerce administration. It prioritises export promotion, district-level export hubs to leverage regional strengths, state-led export strategies, and incentives for MSMEs and e commerce exporters, while identifying infrastructure, logistics, customs complexity, manufacturing capacity and service diversification as core constraints the policy intends to address. (AI Summary)

Coastal Economic Zones policy: proposed fiscal and institutional incentives to attract port-linked investment and maritime clusters.
Proposed policy measures under the Sagarmala programme seek to establish Coastal Economic Zones (CEZs) and related port-linked clusters with SEZ-like legal status and incentives. Consideration is being given to producer-focused maritime subsidies comprising direct transfers, tax expenditures and other revenue concessions-ranging from corporate and business tax exemptions, accelerated depreciation and sector-specific exemptions to grants for ship acquisition, green shipping conversion, bunkering and port infrastructure. Complementary reforms include institutional arrangements modelled on industrial corridor authorities, infrastructure investments for last-mile connectivity, and regulatory ease-of-doing-business measures implemented through single-window clearances. (AI Summary)

Border Adjustment Tax to equalise import and domestic pricing by charging non creditable duties under the destination principle.
A Border Adjustment Tax is proposed as a non creditable import charge under the destination principle to offset embedded domestic levies not creditable post GST, thereby equalising competition between imports and domestically produced goods. The measure seeks WTO compatibility by applying taxes equally to imports and like domestic products and avoiding export subsidies, while recognising risks of international retaliation and sectoral dependence on competitive imports. (AI Summary)

Companies Fresh Start Scheme enables regularisation of delayed statutory filings with waiver of additional fees and immunity from penalties.
The Companies Fresh Start Scheme (CFSS-2020) allows companies to regularise delayed statutory filings on the MCA-21 registry by paying only normal filing fees and grants immunity from prosecution and penalties for specified delays. It specifies covered forms (including annual returns and financial statements), lists exclusions (such as companies already under strike off proceedings, prior dormant status applicants, amalgamated companies, vanishing companies, increase in authorized capital, and charge related filings), and permits concurrent applications for dormant status or striking off at normal fees; procedural and fee rules remain governed by section 403 and related rules. (AI Summary)

Open Market Operations used to inject liquidity and stabilise markets through targeted purchases of government securities.
The note explains OMOs as the RBI's tool to manage rupee liquidity by buying and selling Government Securities via auctions on the E Kuber platform, with the Public Debt Office as registry and mandatory dematerialized SGL holdings for regulated entities. In response to Covid 19 liquidity stress the RBI conducted multi security purchase OMOs through multiple price auctions and supplemented them with dollar rupee swaps and Long Term Repo Operations to ensure market liquidity and stability. (AI Summary)

Passing on GST rate reduction must reach each recipient; cross-subsidising via other packs is not permitted.
Whether a reduction in tax rate must result in a commensurate reduction in price to each recipient was examined where a seller kept the cum-tax MRP unchanged for a smaller packaged commodity by raising its base price while reducing prices of larger packs. The authority rejected allocation of benefit across distinct packaged commodities, relied on Legal Metrology rounding rules limiting arbitrary MRP fixation, found non compliance with Section 171, quantified profiteering for the smaller pack, and required monetary settlement with interest. (AI Summary)

Compounding of FEMA contraventions: voluntary penalty settlement in lieu of prosecution, allocated between banking and enforcement authorities.
Compounding under the Foreign Exchange Management framework is a voluntary settlement mechanism allowing payment of a penalty in lieu of prosecution for most contraventions, excluding non quantifiable contraventions. Jurisdiction is allocated between the central banking authority and the enforcement agency according to seriousness and intent; the banking authority classifies contraventions and delegates powers to regional offices for certain reporting and transactional breaches. Applications must follow prescribed rules, include the prescribed fee and mode of payment, and are subject to procedural timelines and possible late submission fees. (AI Summary)

Anti-profiteering: require tax reductions or input credit benefits to be passed through as commensurate price reductions to consumers.
Anti-profiteering requires that reductions in tax rates or the benefit of input tax credit be passed to recipients by way of a commensurate reduction in prices. An Authority will determine non-passage, identify responsible registered persons, and may order price reduction, refund of the unpassed amount with interest, recovery and deposit into the Consumer Welfare Fund, imposition of penalties, or cancellation of registration. A three-tier mechanism-State Level Screening Committee, Standing Committee, and Director General of Safeguards-handles complaints, evidence assessment, and investigations for enforcement. (AI Summary)