<ul><li>India has reportedly decided to not participate in the e-commerce discussions with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) scheduled to begin in March. </li><li>India is concerned about the proposed custom duties of electronic transmissions. </li><li>India’s own draft e-commerce policy that was released on Saturday could help strengthen the opposition against the WTO’s e-commerce rules.</li></ul>India won’t be participating in the World Trade Organization (WTO) talks on e-commerce next month because of concerns over unfair market access to foreign players. India also just came out with its own draft of the e-commerce policy on Saturday, but its main concern with WTO is the proposed custom duties on electronic transmissions. A commerce department official <a href="https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/india-refuses-to-join-e-commerce-talks-at-wto-says-rules-to-hurt-country-119022500014_1.html">told</a> Business Standard, “WTO rules come into effect for all 164 members and need to be ratified by each, but for the first time a major decision has been taken without complete consensus among member nations. We will not encourage a multilateral platform to run, based on the interests of a few nations. Our policy will deal with concerns such as cross-border data flow.” Most global e-commerce players haven’t been too subtle about the fact that India is a ‘strategic market’ for them. India claims the new rules put forth by the WTO could provide unfair market access to foreign companies, something they’ve been working hard to deter despite opening the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) pipelines. Tax on tax The draft e-commerce policy that the Indian government put out on Saturday favours not imposing any customs duties on electronic transmissions — basically any type of digital trade — which is in contradiction to the WTO’s e-commerce policy. 
 
 
 
 
 <div type="ExtQuote" text="“With increasing digitisation, more and more products such as books, music, films, video games, etc. are being traded electronically. By agreeing to the permanent moratorium, countries with tariff schedules, which allow putting duties on these kinds of products, will give up these rights and lose revenues.”" auname="India’s draft e-commerce policy"></div>









 Even developed nations like the US have called for “non-discrimination in treatment of digital products” since it is “at the core of the digital trading system.” Other developed nations likes the Singapore and South Korea are also propagating that custom duties should not be imposed on the transaction of digital products. On the other hand, China is in favour of the deal, according to officials. They told Business Standard that Alibaba, the Chinese multinational conglomerate, has partnered with the WTO and the World Economic Forum (WEF) to create an Electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP). While data is at the heart of India’s new e-commerce, it can help India’s cause at the WTO by strengthening the opposition. See also: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/amazon-india-finds-way-around-new-e-commerce-rules-for-cloudtail-and-appario/articleshow/67831376.cms">Amazon may have found a way around India’s new e-commerce rules</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/e-commerce-wars-amazons-jeff-bezos-vs-mukesh-ambani-in-india/articleshow/67620116.cms">Amazon's newest challenger may be the richest man in Asia</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/amazon-walmart-owned-flipkart-set-back-by-new-e-commerce-rules-that-help-mukesh-ambanis-reliance-retail/articleshow/67751026.cms">Mukesh Ambani may be the surprise winner from India's new rules hurting Amazon and Walmart</a>

India decides to opt-out of WTO e-commerce talks over digital tax concerns: Report

China has taken a sudden turn toward "gross aggression" against its neighbours, including India, and in the Indo-Pacific, a senior administration official said after the conclusion of the Quad ministerial in Tokyo, wherein the leaders vowed to coordinate in ensuring peace and stability of the strategically vital region. The foreign ministers from the Indo-Pacific nations known as the Quad group - the US, Japan, India and Australia - met in Tokyo on Tuesday in what was their first in-person talks since the coronavirus pandemic began. The meeting took place in the backdrop of China's aggressive military behaviour in the Indo-Pacific, South China Sea and along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh. Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne affirmed strengthening of a free, open and rules-based international order. Chinese aggressiveness was a matter of concern, a senior State Department official told reporters travelling with Pompeo. "That is the concern. I mean, if you look at the conflict in the Himalayas between China and India, something that has been in the past handled according to unspoken or unwritten rules to prevent these things from getting out of control, and then you look at what happened here recently, where you've got actually people beating each other to death," the official said. "If you look at the single thing that's driving all this, it's a sudden turn toward gross aggression by the Chinese government in its entire periphery. I mean, you take it all the way around the Indo-Pacific and its western borders; you're seeing things that you haven't seen before, and these are responding to that," said the official. India and China are locked in a nearly five-month-long border standoff in eastern Ladakh China is engaged in hotly contested territorial disputes in the South and East China Seas. Beijing has also made substantial progress in militarising its man-made islands in the past few years. Beijing claims sovereignty over all of the South China Sea. But Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei and Taiwan have counterclaims. In the East China Sea, China has territorial disputes with Japan. The South China Sea and the East China Sea are stated to be rich in minerals, oil and other natural resources. They are also vital to global trade. Although the US lays no claims to the disputed waters, it has challenged China's growing territorial claims in the South China Sea by deploying warships and fighter jets to assert freedom of navigation and overflight patrols in the strategically vital region. Another US official said that the Chinese aggression certainly draws a big part of this. "But it's also about the different models that we stand for, democratic countries and an authoritarian model, and which ones will be sort of more successful in the long run. We obviously believe ours is the one to follow to ensure that countries can best deal with the problems that they face and the common challenges that we have," the official said. In Beijing there seems to be a race to get to certain goals, the official said. "They talk about their 2021 centenary goal, their 2035 goal, and their 2049 goal. They're accelerating. There's also been this unfortunately bashing of nationalism inside the People's Republic of China by the government, which then corners it to do things that it otherwise would have been able to back down from," the official said. A third official said that the problem also has to be framed correctly. "This isn't about a US-China dispute. This is about the free world versus Chinese authoritarianism. The secretary (Pompeo) speaks frequently about that, and that's the way he framed his discussions, and there was a lot of agreement around that table," he said. As a growing power, they need to understand that there are things that great powers do. They participate in arms talks when they have a nuclear capability with delivery systems. "These are all things that we've talked about they talk about, again, the US versus China," the official said. "It's everybody is saying if you're going to have these capabilities and if you're going to have this economic power - WTO, you should use it in ways that are acceptable to everybody and not exclusively for your benefit as part of a global system," the second official said. The Quad ministerial lasted for about three hours in Tokyo, during which the leaders discussed topics of mutual interest and concern. "There is no avoiding the fact that it's China and its actions in the region that make the Quad actually matter and function this time around," the official said. "When you think of the Quad, you think of security. But as the secretary said yesterday, security comes in many forms: economic security, protecting intellectual property rights. I mean, all things that we do, to include the traditional security, all figure into this," the first official said. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/malware-infiltrates-the-defenses-of-common-antivirus-softwares-like-mcafee-kaspersky-symantec-and-others/articleshow/78515377.cms">Malware infiltrates the defenses of common antivirus softwares like McAfee, Kaspersky, Symantec and others</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/space/news/andrea-ghez-is-the-fourth-woman-to-win-the-nobel-prize-for-physics/articleshow/78514164.cms">Andrea Ghez is the fourth woman to win the Nobel Prize for Physics — found the first signs of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/corporates/news/tcs-expected-to-post-higher-revenue-and-margins-led-by-a-streak-of-deal-wins-over-the-last-three-months/articleshow/78511834.cms">TCS expected to post higher revenue and margins led by a streak of deal wins over the last three months</a>

China's 'gross aggression' was a matter of concern at the latest QUAD meeting, says US official

<img class="gwt-Image" src="/photo/49336571.cms" /> In India, we have engineers and MBAs in abundance. All thanks to numerous institutes in the country that students get the chance to pursue these professional courses at. 
 
However, all institutes don’t have great placement rates. Students of top institutes prove to be the luckiest. Take for instance the case of MDI, IIFT and other top <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=B-schools">B-schools</a>. This year, their students got placed in the first two days of the summer placement session; companies which came in later had to return bare-handed. 
 Kanwal Kapil, Associate Professor &amp; Chairperson- Placements at <keyword id="481185" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Management-Development-Institute">Management Development Institute</keyword> (MDI), Gurgaon shares, "Companies have been so upbeat on hiring that this was waiting to happen. By noon on the third day, all our students had been placed. For the human resource programme, it was over on the first day itself. We had to send back the companies slotted over the next couple of days.” 
 
Not just at MDI, but other leading business institutes including Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Kozhikode, XLRI Jamshedpur and the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) in Delhi were confident about business prospects. 
 
The sectors taking the lead so far were: investment banks,<a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=+eCommerce+companies"> eCommerce companies</a> and consumer goods makers, who look forward to an augmentation as India retains its place of world’s fastest growing economy. 
 
This year placements were completed in a record time of 3-7 days. 
 "Most companies across sectors have hiked stipends," shared Rajul Mangal, placement committee member at IIM-Kozhikode. The percentage increase is observed somewhere between 20-50%. <keyword id="63460" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="JP-Morgan">JP Morgan</keyword> Chase is paying Rs 5 lakh at XLRI Jamshedpur for a two-month internship. 
 Boston Consulting Group and Reckitt Benckiser are paying Rs 3 lakh each at IIM-Kozhikode and MDI Gurgaon. <keyword id="48670" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Morgan-Stanley">Morgan Stanley</keyword> is paying Rs 4 lakh at Faculty of Management Studies (FMS) Delhi while at IIFT, average stipends are up by 30% from last year. 
 Sources informed that <keyword id="6361649" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Goldman-Sachs">Goldman Sachs</keyword> and American Express have also increased stipends to Rs 2 lakh from Rs 1.5 lakh for two months. Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages has raised it to Rs 1.5 lakh from Rs 75,000 and Tata Steel to Rs 1 lakh from Rs 50,000. 
 
L'Oreal is paying Rs 1.6 lakh, up from Rs 1.2 lakh, and Arvind Lifestyle is paying Rs 1 lakh versus Rs 70,000 last year. 
 The number of offers too have increased as Microsoft, RPG, American Express, JP Morgan Chase and <keyword id="6357341" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Deutsche-Bank">Deutsche Bank</keyword> have all made 60-100% more offers at IIM-Kozhikode than previous year. 
 
With the highest recruit ever, Accenture Strategy hired 12 interns at FMS Delhi. 
 New recruiters on campuses included the Bill and <keyword id="131379" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Melinda-Gates">Melinda Gates</keyword> Foundation, Shell, Ola Cabs and Quikr at XLRI; <keyword id="270433" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Anheuser-Busch-InBev">Anheuser-Busch InBev</keyword> and Dr Reddy's at FMS Delhi; Edelweiss and Glenmark Pharma at MDI; and Marico and GSK Consumer at IIFT. 
 Surprisingly, IIFT got 12 international offers for internships this year, up from eight last year. International recruiters included the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (<keyword id="6356984" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="OECD">OECD</keyword>). 
Image: thinkstock

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India decides to opt-out of WTO e-commerce talks over digital tax concerns: Report

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