Customs regimes can lead to labyrinthine legal disputes. Budget 2026 must recognise that an excessively defensive Customs posture can itself become a trade barrier, point out Mukesh Butani and Shankey Agrawal.
The matter has now been escalated and the ministry has written to Customs, Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) and the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) to investigate it thoroughly.
From Rs 73k to over Rs 1.2L between January-December 2025 -- is buying gold in 2026 still sensible?
The US Department of the Treasury on Wednesday imposed sanctions on Russia's two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, in an effort to pressure the Kremlin to end its war in Ukraine.
The MiG-21's sharp silhouette and supersonic roar will live on in the memories of those who flew it, those who maintained it, and those who watched it streak across the sky as a symbol of India's strength, asserts IAF veteran Air Commodore Nitin Sathe (retd).
The ministry stated that for vehicles designed for E10 and calibrated for E20, mileage may drop by just 1-2 per cent, while in other vehicles, it could be around 3-6 per cent.
Since India relies heavily on specialised imported fasteners for critical applications in industries, such as automobiles, aerospace, electronics, and defence, their sudden unavailability will jeopardise production.
Various industry bodies have sought immediate government intervention through the imposition of anti-dumping duties, claiming India has seen a surge in imports of Chinese goods over the past two weeks.
The US wants India to recognise internationally accredited labs, harmonise labelling requirements and the validity period of test reports and certification with global practices, and eliminate retesting requirements.
In a significant move, the United States on Wednesday removed restrictions on three Indian nuclear entities, over a week after National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan announced that Washington was finalising steps to 'remove' hurdles for civil nuclear partnership between Indian and American firms.
Consumer rights regulator CCPA has ordered a detailed probe into complaints related to alleged "deficiencies" in services and electric two-wheelers manufactured by Ola Electric. The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) headed by Nidhi Khare has directed the Director General (Investigation), who is also head of the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), to investigate this matter.
Industry associations and companies in the United States, including the US Chamber of Commerce, Coalition of Services Industries and the iconic bike company Harley Davidson have called on the Donald Trump dispensation to push India to reduce tariffs, non-tariffs, and regulatory barriers to boost American exports.
Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) plans to invest Rs 75,000 crore ($9 billion) each into its new energy business and petrochemical expansion, according to a company presentation. In its FY25 result statement, Ambani said the company has laid a strong foundation for its projects in renewable energy and battery operations. "In the coming quarters, we will see the transition of this business from incubation to operationalisation.
Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL), which operates India's largest airport, dismissed the expert committee report as "inaccurate", claiming it relied on "probabilities, hypothesis, and conjectures" rather than empirical data or complete documentation.
As temperatures shoot up this month signalling an early onset of summer, sales of air conditioners (AC) are set to increase, with companies expected to hike the prices of ACs by 4-5 per cent due to component shortages. Leading players like Haier and Bluestar and suppliers like EPack Durables have raised their production capacities to meet the 25-30 per cent rise in demand expected in the coming months.
High nitrate levels have been found in groundwater of 440 districts across India, with 20 per cent of the samples collected exceeding the permissible nitrate concentration, the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) has said in a report.
An order, issued last year, makes it mandatory for certain electronic products being sold in the Indian market to comply with BIS specifications
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) added another 102 metric tonnes to the domestically held gold in the April-September period, as per a disclosure made on Tuesday. The overall quantity of the precious metal stored in local safes stood at 510.46 metric tonnes as of September 30, which was up from over 408 metric tonnes as on March 31, 2024. The central bank said it added another 32 metric tonnes of gold reserves in the six-month period to take the overall tonnage to 854.73 metric tonnes, as per the half yearly report on management of foreign exchange reserves.
In a huge setback to Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a United States court has ruled that the Pakistani-origin Canadian businessman could be extradited to India where is wanted for his involvement in the 2008 Mumbai terror attack carried out by Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists.
The Bureau of Indian Standards said on Saturday it conducted raids on a number of manufacturing units using ISI brand without getting valid licence from BIS.
The state is in the process of grooming a supplier ecosystem, for which India is almost entirely dependent on imports.
The jackets have been developed at the DRDO Industry Academia Centre of Excellence at IIT-Delhi, the ministry said in a statement.
The committee set up by the consumer affairs ministry to probe into the alleged presence of pesticides in bottled drinking water has asked the Bureau of Indian Standards to overhaul its procedures for developing standards
From toys, footwear and furniture to insulated flasks, smart meters, and air coolers - the Central government over the last decade has mandated higher standards for production and imports of such items. Sample this: Till 2014, there were 14 Quality Control Orders (QCOs) covering 106 products. By the latest count, there are 156 QCOs on 672 products.
If a majority of the countries vote in favour of Microsoft, the world will have to contend with two open-source formats -- ODF and OOXML -- and 'multiple standards are always bad,' according to ODF supporters.
From its lows over the past month, the stock of footwear major Campus Activewear gained 13 per cent to Rs 280.4 a share. The gains came on the back of better than expected operating profit margins in Q4, reduction of debt and expectations of market share improvement. The company expects volume growth, which has thus far missed expectations, to recover going ahead on the back of multiple triggers.
The Bureau of Indian Standards has decided to authorise non-governmental organisations of repute to lift samples of ISI marked products and get them tested in BIS laboratories at their own cost.
Bureau has registered just one product so far despite 1,500 applications.
'India has established probable cause to prosecute him for his role in terrorist attacks that resulted in 166 deaths and 239 injuries'
The science and technology ministry has written to the prime minister suggesting that the BIS standards for packaged water 'be set up into more precisely defined and quantitative standards,' the Rajya Sabha was informed on Friday.
The government on Thursday said 18,600 toys have been seized in the last one month from major retail stores, including those of Hamleys and Archies, at airports and malls across India for lack of BIS quality mark and use of fake licences. Meanwhile, consumer protection regulator CCPA has also issued notices to three major e-commerce players -- Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal -- for alleged violation of toys quality control order, it said. Since January 1, 2021, the government has made it mandatory for toys to conform with safety norms specified by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), a national standard setting body.
The Softbank-backed company has set a price band of Rs 72 to Rs 76 per share for the maiden share sale and is expected to test the appetite for new-age loss-making companies.
Are faulty design, hurried construction and private ownership to be blamed for the incidents of airport roofs crashing?
We are looking at bringing quality control orders for mass production items such as smart meters and ceiling fans. This will benefit our own industry and consumers, a government official said.
The customs officials, based on an intelligence input, halted a Malta-flagged merchant ship -- CMA CGM Attila -- at the port en route to Karachi on January 23 and inspected the consignment, which included a Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machine, originally manufactured by an Italian company.
The Chinese dependence is far from over, industry players are also citing a shortage of electronic toys in the country.
The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) will engage stakeholders in the e-commerce space to establish standards with the objective of self-regulation, said its deputy director Parul Gupta at the Internet Commerce Summit 2022 in Bengaluru. "Standardisation will allow parties to transact qualified commodities and services at any location and time," said Gupta. BIS recently released standards for e-commerce players, travel portals, and food delivery platforms that publish consumer reviews online, as part of the government's efforts to crack down on fake reviews, said Gupta.
According to industry sources, domestic toy manufacturers are seeing a sharp rise in sales during the current financial year. On January 1, 2021, India had banned the sale of toys that are not certified by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). This meant that all factories churning out toys to be sold in India had to be certified by the bureau along with mandatory product testing, including for units abroad.
The government on Tuesday said it is fully prepared to implement mandatory hallmarking of gold jewellery and artefacts from June 1, 2021. Gold hallmarking is a purity certification of the precious metal and is voluntary in nature at present. The Centre, in November 2019, had announced that hallmarking of gold jewellery and artefacts would be made mandatory across the country from January 15, 2021.
A federal United States court has allowed Pakistani-origin Canadian businessman Tahawwur Rana time till November 9 to file a motion against his extradition to India to face a trial in the 2008 Mumbai terror attack.
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