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Recognising the difference

BS OPINION

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Business Standard New Delhi
Last Updated : Feb 26 2013 | 1:25 AM IST
 The venue is Cancun in Mexico and the purpose is to review what has happened since the Doha meeting two years ago. There, it will be recalled, everyone had piously agreed to something grandly called the Doha Development Agenda.

 Broadly, the idea was to ensure, along with the usual give and take of trade talks, that international trading rules were no longer seen as one-sided deals in which the rich countries gained more than the poor ones, largely by ignoring earlier commitments and by introducing new elements to be covered by the WTO regime.

 The so-called Singapore issues are a good example of this, just as in the 1980s intellectual property rights and services were. As a habitual picketer, India had protested then, and it is protesting now.

 But, as Commerce Minister Arun Jaitley prepares his brief for the Cancun meeting, he should decide whether India should go in there in a pugnacious,

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First Published: Aug 13 2003 | 12:00 AM IST

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