New Delhi, July 28: Disinvestment minister Arun Shourie will lead the Indian delegation to the two-day WTO mini-ministerial in Montreal beginning on Monday which provided for narrowing down differences on contentious issues in multilateral trade negotiations.
This decision has been taken as commerce minister Arun Jaitley, who is also holding law portfolio, would be required in Delhi in the face of raging issue in Parliament on the alleged dropping of conspiracy charges against deputy prime minister L K Advani, human resource development minister Murli Manohar Joshi and six other in the Babri Masjid demolition case.
Opposition parties have served a privilege notice in Parliament against Jaitley, entrusted with the task of defending the government in the debate on the issue in both houses of Parliament early this week.

The Montreal mini-ministerial is perhaps the last before the WTO ministerial at Cancun in Mexico in September. The mini-ministerial assumes significance as strategies is expected to evolved narrow differences on contentious issues like agriculture, trips and public health and four Singapore issues of investment, competiton, government procurement and trade facilitation.
Before Jaitley took over commerce portfolio early this year, Shourie was temporarily incharge of the ministry during which he led the Indian delegation to the Sydney mini-ministerial late last year.



External affairs minister Yashwant Sinha made this announcement in the course of a reply to a question on WTO in Rajya Sabha on Thursday.


Bureau Report