The African Continental Free Trade Area launched in Niger Sunday at the opening of the African Union Summit.  The agreement, signed by 54 of 55 African nations, will form the largest free trade area in the world.  But while there is much hope that pan-African trade will grow, structural weaknesses are expected to make it a slow process.  Anne Nzouankeu reports from Niamey, Niger; narration by Moki Edwin Kindzeka.

The race for the Democratic nomination for president has only recently begun, yet the first candidate has already dropped out of the contest.
 
Eric Swalwell, a U.S. congressman representing a district in California, announced Monday that he will not continue to seek the presidential nomination but will instead run for a fifth term in the U.S. House of Representatives.
 
“Today ends our presidential campaign, but it is the beginning of an opportunity in Congress,” he said during a news conference in his East Bay congressional district.
 
Swalwell was a long-shot candidate in a crowded field of more than 20 vying for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination and he had languished near the bottom of the polls since he entered the race in April.
 
The congressman tried to raise his profile at the June debate in Miami by forcefully calling on front-runner former Vice President Joe Biden to “pass the torch” to a younger generation. While the moment received media coverage following the debate, it failed to improve Swalwell’s poll numbers.
 
Swalwell, 38, was one of the younger candidates in the race, along with Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and Representative Tulsi Gabbard from Hawaii, both of whom are 37.
 
Swalwell has represented northern California in the U.S. Congress since 2012 and has used his seat on the House Intelligence Committee to become frequent cable-news guest talking about the investigation between the Trump campaign and Russia.
 
The congressman said tackling gun violence and fixing the student debt crisis were two of the issues that compelled him to run for the presidential nomination.

Mexican officials using a large X-ray scanner at a checkpoint in the central state of Zacatecas found 51 Central American migrants in hidden compartments inside a truck.

Footage of the X-ray shows a ghost-like truck filled with the brightened silhouettes of the migrants, some sitting, others lying down along two levels in the crowded compartments.

The migrants from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Ecuador, 21 of whom were minors, are now in the custody of the country’s National Migration Institute (INM), government officials said in a statement late Sunday.

The migrants will be returned to their home countries, the statement said.

The apprehension comes weeks after the appointment of hard-charging former prisons chief Francisco Garduno as the new head of the INM. Under Garduno, the immigration authority has made a number of high-profile captures of migrants smuggled in vehicles.

The INM’s former chief official, an academic recognized for his work on immigration policy, left his position in mid-June amidst tensions over a June 7 deal with the United States under which Mexico averted tariffs threatened by U.S. President Donald Trump.

In return, Mexico promised to make palpable progress in reducing the number of mainly Central American migrants trying to cross the U.S. border illegally.

In another video of the X-ray-assisted detention released by Mexican authorities, an official approached the cargo vehicle at night to open the door to one of the crates. Sobs emerged from the otherwise-quiet container while he identified himself as a police officer and asked if the migrants were in good health.

The truck, the driver, and 225,000 Mexican pesos ($12,000) in cash found in the vehicle are now in police custody, and will be subject to investigation, INM said.

Mexico’s Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said the attorney general has about 11 open investigations into migrant smugglers.

“It is our strategic objective to end the impunity for human traffickers,” Ebrard said, at a news conference Monday.

President Donald Trump’s New York state tax returns could be given to Congress under a new law in his home state.

The measure was signed into law Monday by Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

It directs state tax officials to share state returns of certain elected and appointed officials upon request from the chairpersons of one of three top congressional committees.

The new law could give Congress a way around the president’s refusal to release his returns, though it’s expected to face legal challenges.

Cuomo says the change ensures no one is above the law and noted the law was carefully tailored to protect the tax privacy of everyday New Yorkers.

It’s unclear when or even whether state tax officials can expect a request for the tax returns.

Charging that human rights advocates have deviated from their original purpose, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday named a staunch abortion opponent to lead a new panel to set the U.S. direction.

Pompeo, an evangelical Christian who often speaks of his faith, announced the creation of a State Department commission on “unalienable rights” to look at how the United States advocates human rights.

Quoting Czech anti-communist icon Vaclav Havel as saying that “words like rights can be used for good or evil,” Pompeo said that the panel will “revisit the most basic of questions – what does it mean to say, or claim, that something is in fact a human right?”

“It’s a sad commentary on our times that more than 70 years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, gross violations continue throughout the world, sometimes even in the name of human rights,” Pompeo said without elaborating.

“International institutions, designed and built to protect human rights, have drifted from their original mission as human rights claims have proliferated,” he said.

Pompeo named as head of the commission Mary Ann Glendon, a Harvard Law professor under whom he studied and who is one of the intellectual leaders of the anti-abortion movement.

President Donald Trump’s administration has downplayed human rights, using it as a cudgel against adversaries such as China, Iran and Cuba but treading lightly with U.S. allies such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Some U.S. conservatives take issue with mainstream human rights groups, faulting their advocacy of issues such as women’s reproductive health, gay rights and income equality.

Conservative thinkers instead speak of God-given rights and “natural law,” a philosophy led by thinkers such as the late Germain Grisez who argued that contraceptives went against the “procreative good.”

Glendon represented the Vatican at the 1995 U.N. conference on women in Beijing – where then U.S. first lady Hillary Clinton, later secretary of state, gave a landmark speech in which she declared “women’s rights are human rights.”

Glendon criticized the conference’s push on sexual and reproductive health, warning of a “quick-fix approach to getting rid of poverty by getting rid of poor people.”

“Much of the foundation money that swirled around the Beijing process was aimed at forging a link between development aid and programs that pressure poor women into abortion, sterilization and use of risky contraceptive methods,” she later wrote in the conservative religious journal First Things.

Pompeo’s panel is not without diverse voices. It includes Katrina Lantos Swett, a Democrat who has worked to preserve the legacy of her father, late congressman Tom Lantos, an outspoken critic of oppressive regimes.

Science and the determination of the human spirit propelled Apollo 11 to the moon fifty years ago, but it was popular culture that imagined man there, long before July 16, 1969 say filmmakers, and popular culture experts.  VOA’s Penelope Poulou revisits landmark films and TV series that allowed people to dream and helped make Apollo 11 a reality and others, recent ones, that have paid tribute to this historic event.

Dozens of prominent Afghan citizens are meeting with Taliban representatives in Qatar’s capital Doha on Monday for a second day of a conference seeking to end the 18-year war in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, also in Doha, U.S. and Taliban negotiators are conducting a seventh round of talks with the U.S. looking to conclude its involvement in Afghanistan’s civil war. VOA’S Zlatica Hoke reports.

Kenyans affected by dwarfism are using football (soccer) to fight stigma. The Short Stature Society of Kenya formed East Africa’s first dwarf football (soccer) team just over a year ago, with the hope of turning it into a national league to spread across the region. Sarah Kimani reports from Nairobi. 

The head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is disputing reports of inadequate food, water and sanitation in crowded detention centers along the U.S.-Mexico border. At the same time, some members of Congress are calling for improved treatment of migrants in U.S. custody. VOA’s Marcus Harton has more.

She vowed to stay out of politics and even dropped the French far right’s signature name – Le Pen – from her moniker. But Marion Marechal, a former star lawmaker who’s still only in her 20s, is now tip-toeing back into the political arena, and is already causing trouble.

Widely seen as a potential party leader, the 29-year-old’s discreet meetings in recent days to build bridges with enemy conservatives, crippled by their crushing defeat in European Parliament elections, are further unsettling the mainstream right.

The forays into forbidden territory by the woman once voted the most popular in the far-right National Rally party (formerly the National Front) led by her aunt, Marine Le Pen, have also raised questions about Marechal’s political intentions – and whether a new war within the Le Pen clan is afoot.

Marechal is the darling of her controversial grandfather, Jean-Marie Le Pen, a National Front co-founder expelled by daughter Marine for repeating anti-Semitic remarks that got him convicted. Marechal is more conservative than her aunt. Addressing a major forum for American conservatives last year, she decried the European Union and said France is becoming “the little niece of Islam.”

To Jean-Marie’s disappointment, Marion dropped out of politics two years ago, refusing to seek a new mandate as a National Rally lawmaker to found a private school in Lyon seen as a training ground for far-right leaders.

She denies speculation she is making an end-run around Aunt Marine for a comeback. Nevertheless, the noise created after at least two below-the-radar meetings became known underscores Marechal’s potentially pivotal role in the power politics of the French right.

A dinner in late June between Marechal and more than a dozen officials and lawmakers of The Republicans, or LR, caused a firestorm within the main conservative party. The conservative mainstream has long been extremely wary of liaisons with France’s far right, but the meeting suggested that some conservatives may believe the only way to survive is by joining forces with the likes of Marechal.

Senate leader Gerard Larcher, of the LR, said those who met at a Paris restaurant with Marechal have placed themselves “outside” the party.

“I have always said there was a firewall between us and the National Rally,” party, he said on LCI TV. “Whether you like it or not, this (dinner) was a breach.” Those who attended risk exclusion from the party, Larcher said, making clear that for him they already had “placed themselves outside the values of our political formation.”

Meanwhile, France’s powerful business lobby Medef invited Marechal to speak about the rise of populism at its annual summer gathering – but then canceled the whole panel after the idea left many aghast.

The National Rally came to the forefront of French politics with its win in the European Parliament elections in May. The party bettered President Emmanuel Macron’s centrists and hopes to maintain momentum ahead of municipal elections next year.

In a TV interview in early June, she said she wanted to build a “grand alliance of the right” – though she insisted her intentions were devoid of personal ambition.

She had some stinging words for the National Rally, saying it is “indispensable to political life, but unfortunately it isn’t sufficient.” Defending the nation, and countering Macron’s progressives, needs “other voices from other movements, currents” to create alliances.

Marechal has been regarded as a potential presidential candidate in the 2022 election, or later, raising occasional tensions with her aunt, who was roundly defeated in 2017 by Macron after making it to the runoff. Former White House strategist Steve Bannon praised her as a “rising star” – on a stage he shared with Marine Le Pen at an important National Rally congress.

If Marine Le Pen is wary that her niece is setting the stage for a return to politics, neither she nor her camp is saying so.

Le Pen was politely dismissive of her niece’s initiatives.

“That Marion wants to build bridges with people of the traditional right closer to us than to Emmanuel Macron, so much the better,” she said in an interview with BFMTV this month after her niece’s remarks. As for Marechal’s “regret” about short-comings of the National Rally, Le Pen took a diplomatic dig.

“One should not be pessimistic when one is young,” she said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross is calling for the repatriation of families of foreign fighters suspected of being allied with Islamic State militants in Syria. 

More than 70,000 people fled to Al Hol camp after Syrian government troops regained control of Islamic State’s last stronghold of Deirel-Zour. This population includes more than 11,000 family members of suspected IS fighters from dozens of countries.

ICRC’s director for the Near and Middle East region, Fabrizio Carboni, said hundreds of thousands of people in Al Hol and the surrounding area are being kept in a legal limbo in an unstable, disputed place.

“Even for a state, it is difficult to manage a population like this one. Hundreds of thousands of people who spent the last months, if not years, under the bombs-starved, wounded, sick, traumatized. I mean it is just apocalyptical,” he said.

‘Stigmatized and categorized’

Carboni said people seen as related to IS are stigmatized and categorized as good victims or bad victims. He said this even extends to the children, most under age 12, who comprise two-thirds of Al Hol’s population. He calls this wholesale stigmatization a form of collective punishment.

He agrees the question of repatriating IS fighters is politically toxic. He notes many states are reluctant to bring back their nationals, even children, because of perceived security risks. But he said it is unconscionable and immoral to think of children in conflict as perpetrators and not as victims.

“Some of those states have for decades defended in various fora that kids are victims and cannot be considered as combatants, for instance. And, today, the very same states are reluctant to take those kids back. It does not look good,” he said.

Carboni warns that states will at some point pay a high price for failure to address this issue.

He said allowing people to fester in abysmal conditions with no end in sight is likely to result in further radicalization. He said stigmatizing such a large population is not the best way to reconcile and stabilize communities.

The wife of former Interpol President Meng Hongwei is suing the international police agency, accusing Interpol of failing to protect him from arrest in China and failing to protect his family.

Meng’s wife Grace Meng said her lawyers filed a legal complaint in the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, Netherlands. In a statement sent to The Associated Press, she says Interpol “breached its obligations owed to my family” and “is complicit in the internationally wrongful acts of its member country, China.”

Interpol said Sunday it strongly disputes the allegations.

The court in The Hague did not respond to requests for comment. Such cases generally take many months to settle, and its proceedings and rulings are not made public.

Meng Hongwei was arrested in September amid a campaign against corruption and political disloyalty led by Chinese President Xi Jinping. A Chinese court said Meng confessed last month to accepting more than $2 million in bribes, but his wife calls the case “fake” and politically driven.

The arrest, shrouded in secrecy, was a troubling episode for Interpol.

Meng – who was elected Interpol president in 2016 but retained responsibilities as Chinese vice minister of public security – vanished into custody while visiting China. Interpol was not informed about the detention, and was forced to ask China about his whereabouts.

After the arrest, Grace Meng and her family stayed in France, where Interpol is based. She said she received threats, and was put under French police protection.
Interpol’s general secretariat said in a statement Sunday that it “forcefully disputes” any wrongdoing.

The agency said the arbitration case was filed in April by lawyers representing Meng and his family, and says the allegations are “legally baseless.” Interpol says the proceedings are meant to be confidential.

Interpol denies the agency “had any involvement with China’s actions” against Meng.
There are suspicions Meng fell out of political favor with Xi, who has come down hard on corruption and perceived disloyalty in what observers say is a campaign calculated to strengthen party control while bringing down potential challengers to his authority.

Iran announced Sunday it will raise its enrichment of uranium, breaking another limit of its unraveling 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and further heightening tensions between Tehran and the U.S.

Government spokesman Ali Rabiei told a news conference that Iran will go beyond the limit of 3.67% enrichment Sunday and that the new percentage “will be based on our needs,” without specifying.

Iran made the decision a year after President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the deal. Iran has repeatedly warned Europe in recent weeks that it would begin walking away from an accord neutered by a maximalist American campaign of sanctions that blocked Tehran’s oil sales abroad and targeted its top officials.

Sunday’s decision came less than a week after Iran acknowledged breaking the deal’s 300-kilogram (661-pound) limit on its low-enriched uranium stockpile. Experts warn higher enrichment and a growing stockpile narrow the one-year window Iran would need to have enough material for an atomic bomb, something Iran denies it wants but the deal prevented.

In a last-minute diplomatic bid, French President Emmanuel Macron spoke to his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, by phone Saturday, saying he is trying to find a way by July 15 to resume dialogue between Iran and Western partners. 

Hopes for saving the faltering deal appear increasingly dim, as the Europeans have been unable to offer Iran any effective way around U.S. sanctions. While the steps are concerning to nuclear non-proliferation experts, they could be easily reversible if Europeans offer Iran the sanctions relief it seeks. 

Tensions began rising in May when the U.S. rushed thousands of additional troops, an aircraft carrier, nuclear-capable B-52 bombers and advanced fighter jets to the Mideast. Mysterious oil tanker blasts near the Strait of Hormuz, attacks by Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen on Saudi Arabia and Iran shooting down a U.S. military drone have raised fears of a wider conflict engulfing a region crucial to global energy supplies.

Greeks vote on Sunday in a snap election that polls say will bring opposition conservatives to power, ending four years of leftist rule blamed for saddling the country with more debt and mismanaging crises.

The election is largely a showdown of two contenders.

Incumbent Alexis Tsipras of the Syriza party is on one side — a 44-year-old radical leftist who stormed to power in 2015 vowing to tear up the austerity rule book, only to relent weeks later.

On the other side of the fence is Kyriakos Mitsotakis, 51, of New Democracy. He is from a famous political dynasty; he hopes to follow the footsteps of his father as prime minister, while a sister of his was foreign minister.

Opinion polls put New Democracy’s lead at up to 10 percentage points, potentially giving it an absolute majority in the country’s 300-seat parliament. Voting starts at 7 a.m. (0400 GMT) and ends at 7 p.m., with first official projections expected about two hours after voting ends.

Financial crisis

Greece endured a debilitating financial crisis from 2010 that saw the country needing a cash lifeline from its European Union partners three times.

The economy is the public’s main concern, said Thomas Gerakis of pollsters MARC.

“Voters want to know the government can give Greeks a better tomorrow,” he said. Some voters wanted to punish Syriza for reneging on past pledges, he added.

Tsipras was also roundly criticized for mismanagement of crises on his watch, and for brokering a deeply unpopular deal to end a dispute over the name of neighoring North Macedonia.

One hundred people died in a devastating fire that swept through a seaside village east of Athens last year; while Mitsotakis was quick to the scene to console survivors, Tsipras was out of the public eye for several days.

Greece wrapped up its last economic adjustment program in 2018, but remains under surveillance from lenders to ensure no future fiscal slippage. Though economic growth has returned to the country, unemployment is the eurozone’s highest at 18 percent.

New Democracy has promised to invest in creating well-paying jobs with decent benefits. The outgoing government, meanwhile, hopes voters will reward it for upping the minimum wage by 11 percent and reinstating collective bargaining.

Mitsotakis hopes that his reforms will persuade lenders to show more flexibility in due course.

“The first thing that is necessary for economic growth to be boosted is a stable government, a strong majority in the next parliament,” Mitsotakis told Reuters.

Tsipras said that a vote cast in favor of Mitsotakis would go to the political establishment that forced Greece to the edge of the precipice in the first place.

“Each and every one of you must now consider if, after so many sacrifices, we should return to the days of despair,” he told voters, wrapping up the pre-election campaign on Friday.

Haitian opposition lawmaker Printemps Belizaire said gunmen apparently targeted his vehicle Saturday.

The incident happened Saturday afternoon shortly after the deputy had attended the funeral of journalist Rospide Petion, who was shot and killed by unknown gunmen last month on his way home from reporting on anti-corruption protests. His killer has not been found, and colleagues believe he was slain for being too outspoken about the PetroCaribe corruption probe, which has implicated multiple government officials, including the president.

Belizaire represents the Lavalas party in the Chamber of Deputies and is vocal in his demands for President Jovenel Moise to resign amid corruption allegations. He said he had been invited to a wedding in the Fontamara neighborhood of Port-au-Prince but decided not to attend and loaned his car and driver to Pedrica Saint Jean, who handles protocol matters for the parliament. He said the car, a dark gray Toyota SUV, was “ambushed” after leaving the wedding.

“The shooters had high-powered long range weapons and were shooting from the front and behind the car,” the deputy told VOA Creole as he showed the reporter bullet holes the car sustained inside and out.

“Luckily one of the people sitting in the back got down and avoided being harmed but Mrs. Saint Jean didn’t have time to get down — unfortunately there was a gunman who shot at the window near where she was sitting and she was injured by projectiles.”

VOA Creole saw a bullet hole in the front seat backrest and the front windows of the vehicle were shattered.

“This is very sad, and it should remain in the hearts and minds of all Haitian citizens, and make them determined not to let this type of thing happen again,” Deputy Guerda Benjamin told VOA Creole. She said she came to lend her support to her colleague Belizaire and to Saint Jean for whom she has much admiration.

“It’s time for the security officials, the police to say enough and put an end to this terrible insecurity. We are not living in a jungle, this is supposed to be a (civilized) country. We can’t continue like this,” she said.

“I think Deputy Belizaire was definitely targeted,” lawmaker Sinal Bertrand told VOA Creole. “But God saved his life,” he added.

Bertrand said he thinks the ruling PHTK (Pati Ayisyen Tet Kale) was behind the attack but those allegations are unsubstantiated.

A life-size rough wooden sculpture of U.S. first lady Melania Trump was unveiled Friday near her hometown of Sevnica in southeastern Slovenia. 

Commissioned by Berlin-based American artist Brad Downey and carved with a chainsaw by local folk artist Ales Zupevc, the statue serves as a perhaps wry accompaniment to Downey’s exhibition in the capital, Ljubljana, exploring Melania’s roots in the small Alpine country. 

The blocky, rustic figure was cut from the trunk of a living linden tree whose base forms a tall plinth, in a field beside the Sava River in Rozno, eight kilometers (five miles) from Sevnica. 
 
There was no attempt to create an accurate likeness, to the point that the gallery in Ljubljana appears uncertain how seriously to take the statue.  

“Perhaps we are simply trying vigorously to make sense of things that might only be a slapstick prank,” it says in a leaflet. “Who knows?” 
 
Although the statue’s face is rough-hewn and unrecognizable, the figure is shown clothed in the pale blue wraparound coat that Melania wore at Donald Trump’s inauguration as U.S. president. 
 
Downey said he wanted to “have a dialogue with my country’s political situation” and highlight Melania Trump’s status as an immigrant married to a president sworn to reduce immigration. 

The sculptor, known as Maxi, was born in the same hospital as Melania Trump, in the same month, and now mostly works as a pipelayer. 
 
“Let’s face it,” he says in a short film being shown as part of the exhibition, “she owns half of America while I have nothing.” 

The United States on Saturday welcomed a provisional agreement forged by Sudan’s ruling military council and a coalition of opposition and protest groups to share power for three years as an “important step forward.”

The U.S. State Department said in statement that special envoy for Sudan Donald Booth will return to the region soon. The agreement brokered by the African Union and Ethiopia Union, announced on Friday, is due to be finalized on Monday.

“The agreement between the Forces for Freedom and Change and the Transitional Military Council to establish a sovereign council is an important step forward,” the State Department said. “We look forward to immediate resumption of access to the internet, establishment of the new legislature, accountability for the violent suppression of peaceful protests, and progress toward free and fair elections.”

The deal revived hopes for a peaceful transition of power in a country plagued by internal conflicts and years of economic crisis that helped to trigger the overthrow of Omar al-Bashir in April.

Relations between the military council that took over from Bashir and the Forces for Freedom and Change alliance broke down when security forces killed dozens of people as they cleared a
sit-in on June 3. But after huge protests against the military on Sunday, African mediators brokered a return to direct talks.

Ivanka Trump, daughter and adviser to the president, has been the subject of criticism and ridicule after her prominent involvement during President Donald Trump’s visit to Asia last week. Many are questioning her competence to be in such high-profile events, accusing the administration of harming the country’s interest through nepotism, as well as wondering whether the president is grooming his daughter for a bigger role in the future. White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has more.

Sen. Kamala Harris of California raised $12 million in the past three months, her presidential campaign said Friday. 
 
Harris’s second-quarter total was less than those of some other first-tier 2020 White House hopefuls, who had already released their totals ahead of the July 15 deadline to report to the Federal Election Commission. South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg brought in $24.8 million, former Vice President Joe Biden raised $21.5 million and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont collected $18 million, their campaigns said. 
 
Harris’s announcement came a week after the first presidential debate, during which she confronted Biden about his comments on his decades-old relationship with segregationist senators and his record on public school busing during the 1970s. Since then, her campaign has sought to capitalize on the moment. 
 
Previously, her campaign said it received online donations from roughly 63,000 people in the 23 hours following the debate, and that more than half of those donors had not previously supported her campaign. 
 
The Harris campaign added Friday that, of the money she raised this quarter, $500,000 came from her online store.  
  
The campaign is pointing to sales of a shirt that highlights a moment from her exchange with Biden during first Democratic presidential debate. The shirts feature a childhood photo of Harris, who at the debate discussed her childhood experience with the busing integration of elementary schools in Berkeley, Calif., in 1968. 
 
The $12 million that Harris raised was roughly equal to the amount the California senator brought in in the first fundraising quarter, which ended March 31. 
 

Also Friday, Steve Bullock reported more than $2 million in contributions during the second quarter. The Montana governor entered the 2020 primary race in mid-May, halfway through the quarter. 
 
Bullock’s campaign said he’d amassed his total without any transfers of money from other accounts. He missed the polling qualification cutoff for the first Democratic presidential debates in Miami but has a strong chance of making the stage for this month’s second set of debates in Detroit. 

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government on Friday proposed to invest heavily in infrastructure, digital economy and job creation to lift a slugging economy that’s burdened with a 45-year-high unemployment rate of 6.1 percent.

Unveiling the budget after a major victory in national elections, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman Sitharaman proposed a bigger role for foreign direct investment in aviation, media and insurance sectors.

The government set a target of a $5 trillion Indian economy by 2025 from the present $2.7 trillion. Sitharaman said the size of the economy would reach $3 trillion by March next year.

She told Parliament that India’s economy was now the sixth largest in the world. In terms of purchasing power parity, it is the third largest after the United States and China, she said.

She also announced cash handouts for small farmers, a pension scheme for informal workers and a doubling of tax relief for the lower middle class.

Small farmers would be paid 6,000 rupees ($85) annually, benefiting as many as 120 million households. Nearly 30 million retail traders and small shopkeepers with an annual income of less than 15 million rupees ($220,000) would get pension benefits, she said.

The budget doubled income tax exemptions for those earning up to 500,000 rupees ($7,142) a year from the existing 250,000 rupees ($3,571). The decision would benefit 30 million lower earning taxpayers.

Sitharaman said that foreign direct investment in aviation, media and insurance sectors could be opened further after multi-stakeholder examination. Also, insurance intermediaries could get 100% foreign direct investment. India at present allows 49% foreign ownership in the insurance sector.

She also said that local sourcing norms of 30% would be eased for foreign direct investment in single brand retail sector, a demand put forward by several multinational companies. India currently requires investors to source locally 30% of the value of goods purchased.

`These companies will certainly have to relook at their strategy to tap the large Indian consumption potential. It would now be a race for all these retail companies to evaluate the conditions and take a quick decision to invest into India,” said Anil Talreja, an industrialist.

The finance minister said the foreign direct investment into India has remained robust despite global headwinds. India’s FDI inflows in 2018-19 were around $64.375 billion, marking a 6% growth over the previous year.

Modi said that the budget would accelerate the pace of development, rationalize the tax structure and modernize the country’s infrastructure.

The government will invest 1,000 billion ($15 billion) in infrastructure over the next five years, Sitharaman said. She also said the government will raise 1,050 billion rupees ($15.5 billion) through disinvestment in government-owned companies in 2019-2020.
 
The government also earmarked 100 billion rupees ($1.5 billion) for creating an infrastructure for promoting electric cars in the country.