Trade policy: India must reverse its tariff barrier uptrend

News Snapshot:

Free trade is out of favour in much of the world, with barriers being upped in the West, the World Trade Organization largely ineffective and globalization subject to a geopolitical split once again after a three-decade run. Not that it was a garden walk earlier, as fractious talks had left the globe with a jumble of bilateral deals instead of an orderly layout for a global market. India’s import tariffs were slashed by a big policy shift towards openness in the 1990s, but had crept up on average by the time New Delhi signalled an emphatic trade reorientation in late...