Sanjaya Baru A widening gulf: India’s trade policy needs a fix

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India has never shied away from picking a fight with its trade partners during negotiations at the meetings of the World Trade Organisation. Yet, it was certainly out of character for Indian negotiators to have picked a quarrel with their counterparts from Thailand. There was a time when India and Thailand were allies at the WTO and in 2002 India supported the candidature of Thailand’s trade negotiator, later its trade minister, Supachai Panitchpakdi, for the post of WTO director-general. But the spat with Thailand at last week’s WTO ministerial conference in Abu Dhabi over a Thai accusation that India was...