PM Narendra Modi to review 'Most Favoured Nation' status India accorded to Pakistan in 1996

New Delhi: Weighing options to hit back at Pakistan for sponsoring terror in the wake of the Uri attack, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Thursday hold a meeting to review the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status to the neighbouring country.

The Congress had on Monday demanded the withdrawal of the MFN status to Pakistan and an imposition of economic sanctions.

India had unilaterally granted the MFN status to Pakistan in 1996 under WTO's General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

Both India and Pakistan are signatories to this, which means they have to treat each other and rest of WTO member countries as favoured trading partners.

According to Assocham, out of India's total merchandise trade of USD 641 billion in 2015-16, Pakistan accounted for a meagre USD 2.67 billion.

India's exports to the neighbouring country worked out to USD 2.17 billion, or 0.83 percent, of the total Indian outward shipments while imports were less than USD 500 million, or 0.13 percent, of the total inward shipments.

India has decided to revisit the 56-year-old Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan as PM Modi on Monday bluntly said that "blood and water cannot flow together".

Using water as a weapon, the government has decided there would no meeting of the Permanent Indus Commission set up to overlook implementation of the treaty till "terror is in the air", and that India would also take a final call on the unilateral part of suspension of the Tulbul water navigation project in Jammu and Kashmir depending on what Pakistan did next.

 

Notably, India has forcefully asked the world to isolate Pakistan for nurturing terrorism and firmly advised Islamabad to stop dreaming it can ever capture Jammu and Kashmir with the help of its aided terrorists.