Liberalisation & Industrial Policy

India and the United States have made progress towards an interim bilateral trade agreement, but uncertainty over American tariffs, manufacturing overcapacity investigations, agricultural market access and Russian oil purchases continues to complicate negotiations. On 15 October 2026, India's Commerce Secretary said the first phase had been finalised and was undergoing legal drafting, although the agreement was not yet signed. The issue highlights Section 301 investigations, changes in US trade law following a Supreme Court judgment, forced-labour import restrictions, India's export competitiveness and the challenge of securing a stable, mutually beneficial trade relationship.

The Union Cabinet on 15 July 2026 approved Semicon 2.0, the second phase of the India Semiconductor Mission, with a total outlay of ₹1,27,500 crore to build a complete semiconductor ecosystem across six pillars. The Cabinet also cleared the Mobile Phone Manufacturing Scheme (MPMS) worth ₹62,500 crore as the successor to the PLI scheme for smartphones. This article explains what semiconductors are, the journey of ISM 1.0, the six pillars of Semicon 2.0, the incentive structure of MPMS, India's mobile manufacturing success story, approved chip plants and their locations, and the challenges ahead.

India has amended the Foreign Trade Policy 2023 through DGFT Notification No. 23/2026-27 to prohibit imports produced wholly or partly through forced labour. The amendment inserts Paragraph 2.20B, establishes an enquiry mechanism and adopts the International Labour Organization’s definition of forced labour. The decision comes while the United States Trade Representative is considering a 12.5% additional tariff on Indian goods under its Section 301 investigation.

The Union Government is reportedly working on a scheme to absorb 90% of the compliance cost faced by MSME exporters under the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. The issue is important for UPSC because it links climate policy, global trade, MSME competitiveness, carbon pricing, WTO concerns and India’s export strategy in carbon-intensive sectors such as iron, steel and aluminium.

The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) has notified amendments to the Drugs Rules, 1945, expanding the QR code-based track-and-trace framework to cover all vaccines, antimicrobials, anti-cancer medicines and narcotic and psychotropic drugs by bringing them under Schedule H2. The move aims to curb counterfeit and substandard medicines and strengthen India's fight against antimicrobial resistance (AMR). This article explains the new notification, India's drug-regulation framework under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, the meaning of various drug schedules, how QR-code traceability works, the law on spurious and substandard drugs, and the AMR connection.

India and the United States have concluded two days of negotiations in New Delhi on their Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA), with both sides reviewing "core elements" such as market access, digital trade, supply chain resilience and the reduction of non-tariff barriers. The talks, led on the US side by Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, came as Washington prepares a new tariff architecture under Section 301 after the US Supreme Court struck down its "reciprocal" tariffs. This article explains what the India-US BTA is, how the tariff stand-off escalated and de-escalated, the significance of the IEEPA ruling, the meaning of Section 301 and non-tariff barriers, the key sticking points, and the strategic stakes captured in "Mission 500."

On 21 June 2026, the Indian Navy commissioned three indigenously built warships at Kolkata in a single ceremony — the stealth frigate INS Dunagiri, the survey vessel INS Sanshodhak, and the anti-submarine craft INS Agray, all built by GRSE. This article explains the three distinct strategic roles of these ships, decodes Project 17A stealth frigates, hydrographic survey vessels and Anti-Submarine Warfare Shallow Water Craft, and situates the event within India's Atmanirbhar Bharat defence drive and its maritime strategy in the Indian Ocean Region.

The United States Trade Representative (USTR), Jamieson Greer, is set to visit New Delhi on June 23-24, 2026, to give the "final touches" to the framework of the much-awaited India-US trade deal and to push the broader Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA). It is the first visit by a US trade chief since negotiations began in early 2025 under the Mission 500 target. The talks come amid a lingering US Section 301 investigation into India's "industrial overcapacity" and a separate forced-labour probe that could trigger fresh tariffs. This article explains the trade deal, the tariff timeline, the working of Section 301 of the US Trade Act of 1974, the BTA roadmap, the key sticking points such as farm market access, and what the deal means for India.

Amid rising public attention on youth and jobs, India's employment data is again under the scanner. Private data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) shows the share of working-age Indians holding a job falling over the past decade, even as official Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) figures from the government show participation and employment ratios improving. This article explains the core concepts — working-age population, labour force, the Employment Rate (Worker Population Ratio), Labour Force Participation Rate and Unemployment Rate — clarifies why these data sources diverge, and links the debate to "jobless growth" and India's demographic dividend.

India is reworking the template for its Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) to make them more investor-friendly while protecting its sovereign policy space, after years of falling net foreign investment and costly arbitration defeats. Reports indicate the Centre is anchoring the new model on three principles: a minimum two-year window for exhausting local remedies before international arbitration, no Most-Favoured Nation (MFN) clause, and exclusion of tax matters. This article explains what BITs are, how India's treaty regime evolved from 1994 to the restrictive 2016 Model BIT, the arbitration losses (White Industries, Vodafone, Cairn, Devas) that reshaped policy, the working of Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), and what the proposed changes mean for India's FDI strategy and regulatory autonomy.

From June 1, 2026, India is enforcing a major new domestic-sourcing rule under which "net-metering" and "Open Access" solar projects must use solar PV cells made by manufacturers listed on the ALMM List-II, not just domestically assembled modules. Aimed at cutting import dependence and deepening Atmanirbhar Bharat in clean energy, the mandate has triggered concern that smaller, non-integrated module makers could be squeezed because India's cell capacity (~30 GW) lags far behind its module capacity (~200 GW). This article explains the ALMM framework, List-I vs List-II, the Domestic Content Requirement, net-metering and Open Access, PM Surya Ghar Yojana, the PLI scheme, BCD walls, the overcapacity problem, and the federalism and trade dimensions — everything a UPSC aspirant needs on India's solar manufacturing push.

On March 27, 2026, the government introduced the Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Bill, 2026 in the Lok Sabha. The bill seeks to amend 79 central acts administered by 23 ministries and proposes to decriminalise 717 minor procedural offences while removing or changing 67 more provisions. This is the second edition of the Jan Vishwas initiative after the 2023 Act. Congress members raised strong objections during introduction, but the government rejected them, saying there is no precedent for sending such bills to a parliamentary committee at this stage.