India: Government, Public Sector

The India Oman CEPA has come into force from 1st June 2026. The agreement was signed by both parties on 18th December 2025. Pursuant to the enforcement, Oman has offered zero duty on 98.08% of its tariff lines and India is set to offer duty reduction on 77.79% of its tariff lines.

India’s infrastructure sector continues to attract unprecedented international attention. From renewable energy parks and airports to data centres, logistics corridors, urban mobility systems and green hydrogen projects, global institutional investors are increasingly viewing Indian infrastructure as a long-term strategic asset class rather than merely an emerging market opportunity.

Recent Supreme Court decisions are dismantling longstanding regulatory barriers that have historically complicated the enforcement of foreign arbitral awards in India. By removing the Reserve Bank of India pre-approval requirement...

The enactment of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 was conceived as a beneficial and self-contained legislative code designed to safeguard the interests of home buyers and ensure timely...

The Supreme Court examined the validity of Haryana Government's 2014 notifications that sought to regularize ad hoc employees, addressing the critical question of whether regularization without public advertisement violates principles of fair employment. The judgment distinguishes between employees appointed against sanctioned posts with proper qualifications versus those regularized arbitrarily based on length of service alone.

A transgender individual challenged a government hiring process that restricted job applications based on binary gender classifications, arguing that an Advisory Committee's determination violated constitutional rights to equality, non-discrimination, and gender identity.

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (“DPIIT”), through its revised Standard Operating Procedure (“SOP”) dated 4 May 2026 for processing Foreign Direct Investment (“FDI”) proposals, has introduced what appears at first glance to be a procedural reform.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (“DPIIT”) had issued Press Note 3 of 2020 (“PN3”), mandating prior Government approval for investments originating from entities or citizens of countries sharing land borders with India (“LBCs”), or where the beneficial owner of the investment was situated in or was a citizen of such countries.

This edition of Defence Dispatch examines three pivotal developments from April 2026: India and Germany's ten-year defence industrial cooperation roadmap that advances the P-75I submarine deal, the newly published India-Russia RELOS agreement allowing unprecedented foreign military presence on Indian soil, and South Korea's state visit outcomes that shift the K9 Vajra partnership toward co-development and joint design of advanced military systems.

The regulatory framework governing environmental governance in India has undergone significant evolution since the enactment of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. At the heart of this framework lies...

India’s renewable energy market has now entered a more structured regulatory phase with the issuance of the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (“CERC”) Guidelines for Virtual Power Purchase Agreements (“VPPAs”) dated 24 December 2025 and the subsequent Statement of Reasons issued on 27 April 2026.

The applicability of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Act, 2006 ("MSMED Act") to a works contract has emerged as a contentious legal issue with significant ramifications for the construction and contracting industry in India. As infrastructure development accelerates across the country and contractual disputes proliferate between enterprises, a fundamental question has come to the fore: Whether Works Contract fall within the ambit of the MSMED Act's protective framework?