On November 4, at the 3rd RCEP Summit in Nonthabhuri, Prime Minister Modi chose to pull India out of the 16 nation mega trade treaty. The RCEP, touted as the world’s largest Free Trade Agreement (FTA) has been under negotiation for the past 7 years. What drove India to take this drastic step and what is the way forward in terms of addressing the crisis of Indian agriculture and manufacturing? Benny Kuruvilla from Focus on the Global South spoke with trade expert, Prof. Biswajit Dhar from the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi and Ranja Sengupta, senior economist with the Third World Network. The panel also addresses the need for the urgent democratisation of trade policy making processes in the country.
