#Indian export documentation

[exportersworldb2b]

How to Export to the USA from India: A Complete Guide for Indian Exporters

The United States is one of the biggest markets for Indian products. Every year, thousands of businesses in India export goods to the USA, taking advantage of the high demand and trade opportunities. If you are looking to export to usa from india, this guide we will explore the process step by step.

Why Export to the USA?

The USA is one of the top trading partners of India, with billions of dollars worth of goods exchanged every year. Indian products, especially textiles, pharmaceuticals, IT services, and food products, have a huge demand in the US market. Here are some reasons why exporting to the USA is beneficial:

Large Market: The USA has a massive customer base looking for high-quality imported goods.

Diverse Opportunities: From handmade crafts to industrial machinery, Indian businesses can export a wide variety of products.

Trade Agreements: India and the USA have trade relationships that provide benefits like reduced tariffs and easier trade regulations.

High Profit Margins: Indian products are often cost-effective, allowing exporters to make good profits in the US market.

Step-by-Step Guide to Export to the USA

1. Identify the Right Products to Export

Before starting, research what products are in demand in the USA. Some of the top Indian exports to the USA include:

Textiles and garments

Pharmaceuticals and medical equipment

IT services and software

Handicrafts and home decor

Spices and food products

Automobile parts and machinery

Choosing the right product ensures better market success and profitability.

2. Obtain the Necessary Licenses and Registrations

To export legally, you need to have the right documents and registrations:

Import Export Code (IEC): You must apply for an IEC from the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) in India.

GST Registration: Ensure that your business is registered under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in India.

FDA Approval (for food and pharmaceutical products): If you are exporting food or medicine, you need approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Certificate of Origin: This proves that your goods are manufactured in India and are eligible for trade agreements.

3. Find Buyers in the USA

Finding reliable buyers is crucial for successful exports. Here are some ways to connect with potential buyers:

Online Marketplaces: Platforms like Exporters Worlds, Amazon, and TradeIndia can help you reach international buyers.

B2B Portals: Register on B2B platforms like Exporters Worlds to connect with US importers.

Trade Fairs and Exhibitions: Attending trade shows in India and the USA can help you find direct buyers.

Networking: Use LinkedIn and other social media to connect with businesses looking for Indian products.

4. Understand USA Import Regulations

The USA has strict import regulations that every exporter must follow. Here are some key points:

Customs Duties & Tariffs: Check the US Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) to know the duty rates for your products.

Labeling & Packaging: Products must have clear labels with details like ingredients, manufacturing date, and country of origin.

Compliance with US Laws: Ensure your products meet US safety and quality standards (such as FDA, EPA, or FCC regulations).

5. Choose the Right Shipping Method

Export to usa from india requires efficient logistics. You can choose from different shipping methods based on your product type and budget:

Air Freight: Faster but more expensive, best for high-value or perishable goods.

Sea Freight: Cost-effective for bulk shipments but takes longer.

Courier Services: Good for small shipments but may have higher costs.

6. Complete Customs Clearance

When your goods reach the USA, they must go through customs clearance. Here’s what you need:

Bill of Lading (BOL) or Airway Bill: Proof of shipment details.

Commercial Invoice & Packing List: Details of the goods, their value, and quantity.

US Customs Declaration: Filed electronically through the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) system.

Importer Security Filing (ISF): Required for sea shipments before goods are loaded in India.

Hiring a customs broker in the USA can help speed up this process and avoid any delays.

7. Market and Expand Your Business in the USA

Once your products reach the US market, you need strong marketing strategies to grow your business:

Digital Marketing: Create a website and use SEO to attract US customers.

Social Media Advertising: Promote your brand on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

E-commerce Platforms: Sell directly on Exporters Worlds, eBay, or Walmart Marketplace.

Local Distributors: Partner with local sellers and wholesalers for better reach.

Challenges in Exporting to the USA and How to Overcome Them

While exporting to the USA is profitable, there are challenges that exporters face. Here’s how to handle them:

1. High Competition

The US market is highly competitive. To stand out, focus on quality, competitive pricing, and strong branding.

2. Complex Regulations

US import laws can be strict. Hiring an export consultant or customs broker can help navigate regulations smoothly.

3. Currency Exchange Fluctuations

Since trade happens in USD, currency fluctuations can impact profits. Using forex hedging services can help manage risks.

4. Shipping Delays

Delays in shipping can affect business. Work with reliable logistics partners to ensure smooth delivery.

How Exporters Worlds Can Help You Export to the USA

At Exporters Worlds, we help Indian exporters successfully enter the US market. Our services include:

Expert Consultation: Guidance on licenses, documentation, and regulations.

Buyer Connections: Helping you find genuine buyers in the USA.

Logistics Support: Assisting with shipping, customs clearance, and warehousing.

Marketing Assistance: Helping you promote your products in the US market.

Conclusion

Exporting to the USA from India is a great opportunity for businesses looking to expand globally. By following the right steps, understanding regulations, and finding the right buyers, you can successfully grow your export business.

If you’re ready to start exporting to the USA, Exporters Worlds is here to support you every step of the way. Contact us today to take your business global!

[blueiscoool]

900 Artifacts From Ming Dynasty Shipwrecks Found in South China Sea

The trove of objects—including pottery, porcelain, shells and coins—was found roughly a mile below the surface.

Underwater archaeologists in China have recovered more than 900 artifacts from two merchant vessels that sank to the bottom of the South China Sea during the Ming dynasty.

The ships are located roughly a mile below the surface some 93 miles southeast of the island of Hainan, reports the South China Morning Post’s Kamun Lai. They are situated about 14 miles apart from one another.

During three phases over the past year, researchers hauled up 890 objects from the first vessel, including copper coins, pottery and porcelain, according to a statement from China’s National Cultural Heritage Administration (NCHA). That’s just a small fraction of the more than 10,000 items found at the site. Archaeologists suspect the vessel was transporting porcelain from Jingdezhen, China, when it sank.

The team recovered 38 items from the second ship, including shells, deer antlers, porcelain, pottery and ebony logs that likely originated from somewhere in the Indian Ocean.

Archaeologists think the ships operated during different parts of the Ming dynasty, which lasted from 1368 to 1644.

Many of the artifacts came from the Zhengde period of the Ming dynasty, which spanned 1505 to 1521. But others may be older, dating back to the time of Emperor Hongzhi, who reigned from 1487 to 1505, as Chris Oberholtz reported last year.

Archaeologists used manned and unmanned submersibles to collect the artifacts and gather sediment samples from the sea floor. They also documented the wreck sites with high-definition underwater cameras and a 3D laser scanner.

The project was a collaboration between the National Center for Archaeology, the Chinese Academy of Science and a museum in Hainan.

“The discovery provides evidence that Chinese ancestors developed, utilized and traveled to and from the South China Sea, with the two shipwrecks serving as important witnesses to trade and cultural exchanges along the ancient Maritime Silk Road,” says Guan Qiang, deputy head of the NCHA, in the agency’s statement.

During the Ming dynasty, China’s population doubled, and the country formed vital cultural ties with the West. Ming porcelain, with its classic blue and white color scheme, became an especially popular export. China also exported silk and imported new foods, including peanuts and sweet potatoes.

The period had its own distinctive artistic aesthetic. As the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art writes, “Palace painters excelled in religious themes, moralizing narrative subjects, auspicious bird-and-flower motifs and large-scale landscape compositions.”

The shipwreck treasures aren’t the only recent discoveries in the South China Sea, according to CBS News’ Stephen Smith. Just last month, officials announced the discovery of a World War II-era American Navy submarine off the Philippine island of Luzon.

By Sarah Kuta.

[neuroticbookworm]

Engagement of QL Fandom in Indian Queer Media

I was tagged by @lurkingshan and invited to respond to an ask she received from @impala124 that noted the absence of India in the Asian queer media spaces and discussions, and questioned the reasons behind it. @starryalpacasstuff has also responded to it in a great post (check out the reblog additions for a treasure trove of Indian queer media recs), discussing, among many things, Korea’s culture export aiding their queer media ventures, access to Indian queer media, and the quality of Indian queer media. @twig-tea’s addition discussed the ease of access of Thai BLs via YouTube and how it prompted Korea and Japan to re-enter the genre.

My thoughts on Indian queer media are complicated and involve several detours to understand Indian media culture, its economic power, and how it navigates international viewership. For context, I am an Indian cinephile who grew up watching a wide variety of Indian media in terms of both language and genre. I naturally transitioned into watching Western content as globalization of the 2010s brought HBO and Comedy Central to Indian screens, and later sought out queer media, Asian media and Asian queer media on the internet.

Indian Media Industry - A Primer

I know there are a lot of countries right now that produce QL media, so I am gonna mainly consider Thailand, Japan, and Korea, the three countries most prolific with ql, for the purpose of this discussion. All of these countries, while regionally diverse, have managed to considerably homogenize in language and culture over the course of history and colonization. India, on the other hand, is still significantly and distinctly diverse in language, culture, religion, food, media styles, social norms, and on and on. India has 22 official languages and thousands of regional ones that are used in various capacities everyday. This diversity is then reflected in the media produced by India, with multiple powerhouse film industries dominating box offices simultaneously. Bollywood is the biggest one and obviously well known internationally, but Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Punjabi, Bengali-language film industries are successful in their own right and consistently produce box office hits and self-sustain in the larger Indian media landscape. This makes domestic media highly regional in India. Even today, in the age of social media, it takes a box office success to the tune of hundreds of millions of rupees for a film to break out of its domestic audience and cross over into other Indian states.

This diversity has also led to the different industries developing media styles unique to them. I watched this video a while ago of a creator documenting his experience of dipping toes into Indian Cinema for the first time, and he ends up covering three movies from three different industries, because the pathos of each of them is so fundamentally different yet effective in their own ways. This diversity also applies to the television industry, both traditional cable TV soaps, and the modern shows made for streaming sites. And all of this, *waves hands*, presents a set of challenges like no other country faces for both Indian queer creators and Indian queer media audiences.

The Challenges for Creators

Since the Indian media industry is not a big monolith and is made up of multiple film industries, queer creators who are trying to get their foot in the door will face a unique uphill battle in whichever regional industry they’re trying to break into. And trying to research, learn, and understand each and every single one of them will take me and my non-existent research team years, so the simpler thing to do would be listing the factors that have worked for other countries to foster their media industries to produce QL content, and discuss if India could replicate them. The list goes like this:

Japan’s rich history in yaoi

Thailand’s use of BL as a soft power to promote tourism

Korea’s culture export via kpop and other media

While India does have religious mythology that discusses sex, gender and queerness, it is often subtext with a lot of intersectionality. Does Ardhanarishvara represent fluid gender, or a symbol of harmony, or both? The debates are endless. Japan’s yaoi roots are as deep as they are explicit. And this rich history could be why the Japanese domestic audience is open to queer media even when the country is still conservative.

Thailand’s rise as a major player in the QL industry is remarkable, but there is a case to be made that the country’s media industry was directly and indirectly boosted by the government’s interest in establishing revenue from tourism, and exporting culture to international audiences via food and media. While the revenue from tourism in India is substantial, the Indian economy is not built on it. And the Indian media industry is thriving and regularly makes bank with their already established content models, so the producers have a pretty low incentive to deviate and fund queer media.

I bet every coin I own that not a single one of us on this hellsite have successfully eluded the allure of Korean media in our lives. The Korean media industry is a well-calibrated machine that shall and will target every single human into funneling their time, attention and money into the Korean culture and economy. And I think queer creators looking to make queer content in Korea would’ve had good incubation in an industry that was looking to make as much content as possible. And once again, while Indian movies have significant international box office collections, that is not where the Indian media industry, and just India in general, makes its money. The priorities are just not the same. And to be perfectly honest, India is nowhere near the level of Korea at producing and exporting television shows to international audiences.

All of this is a long winded way of saying that the conditions required to foster a QL industry in India are not the same as what we have seen work so far from the other major players. And sadly no one has really figured out the winning formula yet.

These are just a few reasons, and I haven’t even discussed nepotism and how painful class mobility is in India, making it even harder for new queer creators to break into the industry. There’s a reason why movies with queer representation like Badhaai Do, Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan, Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga, and Kapoor & Sons all feature characters in the upper middle class or above. Hell, they’re even played by actors whose portfolio is already filled with daring and experimental roles, or by first- or second-gen nepo babies who would literally have nothing to lose from the potential backlash for playing a queer character. Poor, queer characters in Indian media have never been a part of a fluffy romance as far as I know. They are reserved for the gritty dramas where intersectionality of queerness, poverty, class and caste could be examined.

The Challenges for the Audience

And once again, all of this, *aggressively waves hands*, makes things harder for even the domestic audience to engage with Indian queer media, let alone international audiences. Kathaal - The Core, a 2023 Malayalam movie about a queer man in his fifties coming out of the closet and contesting in his village body elections, was a box office success in Kerala, and I can tell y’all with complete certainty that not many people outside of Kerala would’ve even heard of it. And this was not some small indie venture – in fact, the lead characters were played by Mammootty and Jyothika, who are both absolute legends in their own right in the South Indian film industry.

Super Deluxe was a 2019 Tamil-language black comedy film that tells four interwoven stories that run in parallel, and one of the stories is about a trans woman who, pre-transition, was married and had a son. She returns to her family as her post-transition self after years of disappearance, and the film engages in conversation around sex and gender, through the innocent questions of her young son. The movie is gorgeously made, and outrageously sharp and witty in its commentary on society’s views on sex, morality, religion and family. And once again, I don’t think it is well-known outside of the domestic and international award-circuit audiences it was promoted to (last I checked, it was available to domestic audiences on Netflix).

Sometimes, even the domestic audience might miss the queer representation in their regional media when it is indie enough to not get aggressively promoted. The Hindi-language anthology movie from Netflix, Ajeeb Daastaans (2021), featured a story where two women from different caste and social class meet at the workplace (the sapphic story, Geeli Pucchi, starts at 1:17:05, if anyone wants to check it out). It served biting commentary on the intersectionality of queerness, misogyny, caste and class. And once again, I’ve never found a person with whom I could discuss it with (other than my mom, with whom I watched it).

And sometimes, even when a massive show with queer representation is well promoted and well received by critics, it still manages to fly under the radar in Indian queer fandom spaces. Amazon Prime India spent a lot of coin on the show Made in Heaven (2019) – and it was worth it. The show follows the lives of two wedding planners, Tara and Karan. Karan is closeted (except to his close friends) for most of the show, but after he makes some powerful enemies in his line of work, he gets publicly outed, which puts him on the path of dealing with his family’s shades of acceptance, queer rights activism, and reconciling with an old friend. The car scene in episode 9 made me cry, and yet I’ve never read a word about this show from Indian QL fan blogs here on Tumblr.

Following every film and TV show that releases in one language, across all modes and platforms, and keeping an eye out for queer representation is hard enough. Doing it in multiple languages is downright impossible. And then personal preferences come into play. Personally, I enjoy nearly all genres of media, but I am primarily an angst monster, so I seek out and watch sad shit on the regular. All four examples I’ve listed in this section are good queer representations, but they are deeply sad, rage-inducing, heartbreaking and realistic. If one wanted to watch an Indian queer romance that’s inside the bubble, I’m not sure if they can even find one – I have certainly not come across any. Even the queer Bollywood movies designed for a box office run, paying homage to iconic Bollywood romance sequences, were still outside the bubble. When a niche audience like the QL fandom collides with a complex media-churning machine like the Indian media industry that is fundamentally not designed to cater to them, all we get is a lot of puzzled looks and question marks.

A Thought Experiment On The Future Of Indian QLs

Now that I have established the challenges, I want to engage in a little thought experiment – if we were to receive a steady stream of Indian QL content, what would it look like, and how can the fandom engage with it?

If we are looking for content from a stable production entity for Indian queer media, like Thailand’s GMMTV, Japan’s MBS Drama Shower, and Korea’s Strongberry, we would be waiting for a long time, at the very least a decade or two. What we could get are small indie queer shows like Romil and Jugal, squirreled away in a streaming platform exclusive to India and only accessible internationally via VPN. Another example is the list of sapphic shows @twig-tea shared with us a while ago, here. These are gonna be low budget, probably-not-great-quality shows reminiscent of early GMMTV.

Another variety of QL content we could get are the Bollywood queer romance films and TV shows. They will be cheesy and tropey and romantic, and might interact with the bubble, but probably mostly from the safety of an upper middle class setting. This means they would eventually run out of fresh perspectives they could tune into in their limited scope and the stories might turn stale and repetitive (I’m deriving this from the general state of things in the Indian media landscape over the last couple years). International access might be a little easier than the previous case, but not as easy as going to YouTube and hitting play.

The third and final variety are the gritty dramas with heavy social, cultural, religious, gender and class commentary that Indian cinema industry has always made, and has upgraded in the recent years to include queerness. Once again, the access will be hard, but if we are looking for queer stories that also show the audience what it is like being queer in India, beyond the glitz, the glam and the colors of pre-packaged Indian experience often sold to the West, this is where we will find it. Most of it will be sad, but we are a sad bunch who constantly make sad shit, so it will be on brand for us.

And all of these different varieties of content are gonna need to be picked up and promoted by the Indian folks in the QL fandom who are tuned into these regional industries. India not being a cultural monolith that is easy to package and ship is precisely why we have all these beautiful and crazy and sometimes even contradictory styles of media that are offered for us to explore. And therefore, the fandom engagement on Indian QL content would also vastly differ from the fandom engagement for Japan, Thailand and Korea. A dedicated fandom captain might not emerge, but rather, a collective group of folks tuning into and promoting finds from their regional industries would be the way to go. In addition, if this content is not available in English, we would need fan subbers to provide translation expertise to even make it accessible, something we see often for Japanese media on Tumblr.

I know from observation that watching media in a different regional language could sometimes be as foreign to Indian audiences as watching media from other countries. The language, traditions, mannerisms, social mores and food would all be different from region to region, but I guess it would be a good litmus test to observe how well the fandom acclimates to a culture that is so eye-wateringly diverse and not as constantly promoted to them.

When I was texting @waitmyturtles discussing how we can approach answering this question (remember when this all started with a question, some two thousand-ish words ago? Yes, that question), at a point in our conversation I exclaimed "Ugh, everything in India is too complicated!" This long-ass post of mine is in no way the complete account of why things are the way they are in the Indian queer media landscape. But all I know for sure is that it’s not simple. And I really do not want anything related to India to be simple, because being unbearably frustrating and complicated is not a bug, but a feature of India. The road to Indian QLs is unique, but I will do my best to check the paths and share and recommend them to my friends whenever possible. And I invite my fellow Indian QL fans to do the same.

[arkipelagic]

Trade routes, Austronesian peoples, and shared culture among Southeast Asians during the Iron Age

As many scholars have noticed, the Indianized polity of Champa [established in AD 192] in central Vietnam provides functional parallels for its Sa Huynh predecessor [until AD ~200], in that it served as a gateway to the Indianized world for the Philippines and Vietnam, and also a gateway to the Chinese world for Malaysians and Indonesians. During the Han dynasty, the Chinese historical documents Discourses on Salt and Iron (鹽鐵論) and Book of Han—Treatise of Geography (漢書.地理志) record that the Chinese exported gold and silk to the lands around the South China Sea in exchange for glassmaking materials, crystal, agate, rhinoceros horn, aromatic woods, and spices. It was also recorded that Champa people were expert traders and sailors. We can imagine that the Sa Huynh ancestors of Champa probably traded on many geographic scales, all with considerable impact on neighboring countries.

At least some pottery traditions were shared cross the South China Sea prior to the appearance of diagnostic Sa Huynh and Kalanay pottery forms. These earlier connections may have created the contacts, channels, and contexts that facilitated other networks, such as we can trace more abundantly with Sa Huynh-Kalanay.

[…] The Pre-Sa Huynh assemblages and earlier Neolithic assemblages in central coastal Vietnam reflect a certain degree of cultural relationship with the Austronesian island world to the east, commencing most likely around 1500-1000 BC, demonstrated for instance by the similar baked clay earrings from Thach Lac, Savidug, and Nagsabaran. These relationships long preceded the Iron Age arrival of the ancestral Chamic-speakers in central Vietnam, and they were perhaps correlated with earlier contacts between other (non-Chamic) Malayo-Polynesian-speaking peoples. Current linguistic knowledge derives the Malayo-Chamic languages from Borneo, not the Philippines, reminding us that people very likely sustained a number of connections without currently documented archaeological or linguistic outcomes.

The classic Sa Huynh culture of Iron Age central Vietnam expressed considerable internal variation in pottery shapes and covered a very large area, and this diversity appears incongruent with a single and tightly defined ethnolinguistic entity such as Proto-Chamic. Modern linguistic distributions, and especially the recent discovery of Sa Huynh sites in the inland regions of the Thu Bon River Valley, make it likely that both Malayo-Polynesian and Mon-Khmer populations played important roles in the development of Iron Age Sa Huynh culture. From a longer term archaeological perspective, we see in central Vietnam an in situ native Neolithic culture of northern Phung Nguyen affinity (expressed in the Long Thanh assemblage), that received putative Island Southeast Asian cultural influences from about 1500-1000 BC onwards.

In many ways, the conspicuous archaeological record of the Iron Age has distracted our attention away from the likelihood of older cultural links across the South China Sea. In fact, the Iron Age connections very likely followed much older sea-lanes and trade-routes, but new materials and attendant social practices were introduced into the long-running system during the Iron Age. New materials, such as glass, metal, precious stones and large burial jars arguably became dominant in the archaeological record, but most importantly the associated cultural practices became and remained pervasive throughout the Iron Age communities. For whatever reasons, people in widely separated locations began following many of the same cultural traditions and expressions, seen in their persistent choice of the same types of jewelry, pottery, and burial practice.

Excerpt from “Coastal Connectivity: Long-Term Trading Networks Across the South China Sea” (2013) by Hsiao-chun Hung et. al.

[bijoumikhawal]

The Song of Songs has quite recently (1973) been assigned to the time of Solomon by a distinguished Hebraist, Professor Chaim Rabin of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. For more than forty years now evidence has been accumulating for some kind of relationship between the cities of the Harrapan civilization of the Indus Valley and lower Mesopotamia during the latter part of the third millennium B.C. and into the second (cf. C. J. Gadd, PBA, 1932). Rabin (205) called attention to the few dozen typical Indus culture seals which have been found in various places in Mesopotamia, some of which seem to be local imitations. He suggested that these objects were imported not as knickknacks, but because of their religious symbolism by people who had been impressed by Indus religion. To the examples of Indus type seals in Mesopotamia cited by Rabin (217n2), we may add a dated document from the Yale Babylonian Collection, an unusual seal impression found on an inscribed tablet dated to the tenth year of Gimgunum, king of Larsa, in Southern Babylonia, which according to the commonly accepted "middle" chronology would be 1923 B.C. (B. Buchanan, 1967).

[...]

Rabin cited a story from the Buddhist Jatakas, the Baveru Jataka, which tells of Indian merchants delivering a trained peacock to the kingdom of Baveru, the bird having been conditioned to scream at the snapping of fingers and to dance at the clapping of hands. Since maritime connection between Mesopotamia and India lapsed after the destruction of the Indus civilization, and since the name Baveru (i.e. Babel, Babylon) would hardly have been known in the later period when trade with India went via South Arabia, Rabin concluded that the Jataka story about the peacock must ultimately date before 2000, an example of the tenacity of Indian tradition (p. 206). Ivory statuettes of peacocks found in Mesopotamia suggest that the birds themselves may also have been imported before 2000 B.C. (cf. W. F. Leemans, 1960, 161, 166), and Rabin (206) wondered whether the selection of monkeys and peacocks for export may not have derived from the Indian tendency to honor guests by presenting them with objects of religious significance. Imports of apes and peacocks are mentioned in connection with Solomon's maritime trade in I Kings 10:22 [=II Chron 9:21], the roundtrip taking three years. The word for "peacocks," tukkiyyim, singular tukki, has since the eighteenth century been explained as a borrowing of the Tamil term for "peacock," tokai. Tamil is a Dravidian language which in ancient times was spoken throughout South India, and is now spoken in the East of South India. Scandinavian scholars claim to have deciphered the script of the Indus culture as representing the Tamil language (cf. Rabin, 208, 218n20). Further evidence of contact with Tamils early in the first millennium B.C. is found in the names of Indian products in Hebrew and in other Semitic languages. In particular Rabin cites the word 'ahalot for the spice wood "aloes," Greek agallochon, Sanskrit aghal, English agal-wood, eagle-wood, or aloes, the fragrant Aquilaria agallocha which flourishes in India and Indochina. The Tamil word is akil, now pronounced ahal. Its use for perfuming clothing and bedding is mentioned in Ps 45:9 [8E] and Prov 7:17 and Rabin surmised that the method was one still current in India, the powdered wood being burned on a metal plate and the clothing or bedding held over the plate to absorb the incense. Rabin supposed that it was necessary to have observed this practice in India in order to learn the use of the substance (p.209). Aloes are mentioned in 4:14 among the aromatics which grace the bride's body. The method of perfuming bedding and clothing by burning powdered aloes beneath them may clarify the puzzling references to columns of smoke, incense, and pedlar's powders in connection with the epiphany of "Solomon's" splendiferous wedding couch ascending from the steppes (3:6-10), bearing it seems (cf. 8:5) the (divine?) bride and her royal mate. Myrrh and frankincense only are mentioned, but "all the pedlar's powders" presumably included the precious aloes from India.

Opportunity to observe Indian usages would have been afforded visitors to India in the nature of the case, since the outward journey from the West had to be made during the summer monsoon and the return trip during the winter monsoon, so that the visitor would have an enforced stay in India of some three months. Repeated visits with such layovers would provide merchant seamen with the opportunity to learn a great deal about local customs, beliefs, and arts.

After a brief critique of modern views about the Song of Songs, none of which has so far found general acceptance, Rabin ventured to propound a new theory based on Israel's commercial contacts with India during Solomon's reign.

There are three features which,in Rabin's view (pp. 210f), set the Song of Songs apart from other ancient oriental love poetry. Though occasional traces of these maybe found elsewhere, Rabin alleged that they do not recur in the same measure or in this combination:

1. The woman expresses her feelings of love, and appears as the chief person in the Song. Fifty-six verses are clearly put into the woman's mouth as against thirty-six into the man's (omitting debatable cases).

2. The role of nature in the similes of the Song and the constant reference to the phenomena of growth and renewal as the background against which the emotional life of the lovers moves, Rabin regarded as reflecting an attitude toward nature which was achieved in the West only in the eighteenth century.

3. The lover, whether a person or a dream figure, speaks with appropriate masculine aggressiveness, but the dominant note of the woman's utterances is longing. She reaches out for a lover who is remote and who approaches her only in her dreams. She is aware that her longing is sinful and will bring her into contempt (8:1) and in her dream the "watchmen" put her to shame by taking away her mantle (5:7). Ancient eastern love poetry, according to Rabin, generally expresses desire, not longing, and to find parallels one has to go to seventeenth-century Arab poetry and to the troubadours, but even there it is the man who longs and the woman who is unattainable.

These three exceptional features which Rabin attributed to the Song of Songs he found also in another body of ancient poetry, in the Sangam poetry of the Tamils. In three samples, chosen from the Golden Anthology of Ancient Tamil Literature by Nalladai R. Balakrishna Mudaliar, Rabin stressed the common theme of women in love expressing longing for the object of their affection, for their betrothed or for men with whom they have fallen in love, sometimes without the men even being aware of their love. The cause of the separation is rarely stated in the poem itself, but this is rooted in the Tamil social system and code of honor in which the man must acquire wealth or glory, or fulfill some duty to his feudal lord or to his people, and thus marriage is delayed. There is conflict between the man's world and the woman's and her desire to have her man with her. This conflict is poignantly expressed in one of the poems cited (Rabin, 212) in which a young woman whose beloved has left her in search of wealth complains: I did his manhood wrong by assuming that he would not part from me. Likewise he did my womanhood wrong by thinking that I would not languish at being separated from him. As a result of the tussle between two such great fortitudes of ours, my languishing heart whirls inagony, like suffering caused by the bite of a cobra.

In the Tamil poems the lovelorn maiden speaks to her confidante and discusses her problems with her mother, as the maiden of the Song of Songs appeals to the Jerusalem maids and mentions her mother and her lover's mother; but neither in the Tamil poems nor the Song of Songs is there mention of the maiden's father. In Rabin's view the world of men is represented by "King Solomon," surrounded by his soldiers, afraid of the night (3:7-8), with many wives and concubines (6:8), and engaged in economic enterprises (8:11). Significantly, however, according to Rabin (p. 213), Solomon's values seem to be mentioned only to be refuted or ridiculed: "his military power is worth less than the crown his mother (!) put on him on his wedding day; the queens and concubines have to concede first rank to the heroine of the Song; and she disdainfully tells Solomon (viii 12) to keep his money."

Since the Sangam poetry is the only source of information for the period with which it deals, Rabin plausibly surmised that the recurring theme of young men leaving home to seek fortune and fame, leaving their women to languish, corresponded to reality, i.e. the theme of longing and yearning of the frustrated women grew out of conditions of the society which produced these poems. Accordingly, the cause for the lover's absence need not be explicitly mentioned in the Tamil poems and is only intimated in elaborate symbolic language. Similarly, Rabin finds hints of the nonavailability of the lover in the Song of Songs. The references to fleeing shadows in 2:17, 4:6-8, and 8:14 Rabin takes to mean winter time when the shadows grow long. The invitation to the bride to come from Lebanon, from the peaks of Amana, Senir, and Hermon in 4:6-8 means merely that the lover suggests that she think of him when he traverses those places. The dream like quality of these verses need not, inRabin's view, prevent us from extracting the hard information they contain. The crossing of mountains on which or beyond which are myrrh, incense, and perfumes all lead to South Arabia, the land of myrrh and incense. Thus the young man was absent on a caravan trip. Even though he did not have to traverse Amana or Hermon to reach Jerusalem from any direction, he did have to traverse mountains on the trip and in South Arabia he had to pass mountain roads between steep crags ("cleft mountains") and it was on the slopes of such mountains that the aromatic woods grew ("mountains of perfume"). Coming from South Arabia, however, one had to cross Mount Scopus, "the mountain of those who look out," from which it is possible to see a caravan approaching at a considerable distance. In 3:6 "Who is she that is coming up from the desert, like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and incense, and all the powders of the perfume merchant?" is taken to refer to the caravan, the unexpressed word for "caravan" sayyarah, being feminine (Rabin, 214 and 219n29). "The dust raised by the caravan rises like smoke from a fire,but the sight of the smoke also raises the association of the scent a caravan spreads around it as it halts in the market and unpacks its wares."

The enigmatic passage 1:7-8 Rabin also related to a camel caravan despite the pastoral terminology. Rabin's theory encounters difficulty with the repeated use of the verb r'y, "pasture," and its participle, "pastor, shepherd" in view of which commentators commonly regard the Song as a pastoral idyl. His solution is to suggest that the term may have some technical meaning connected with the management of camels.

The list of rare and expensive spices in 4:12-14 reads so much like the bill of goods of a South Arabian caravan merchant that Rabin is tempted to believe that the author put it in as a clue.

Be it what it may, it provides the atmosphere of a period when Indian goods like spikenard, curcuma, and cinnamon, as well as South Arabian goods like incense and myrrh, passed through Judaea in a steady flow of trade. This can hardly relate to the Hellenistic period, when Indian goods were carried by ship and did not pass through Palestine: it sets the Song of Songs squarely in the First Temple period (Rabin,215).

As for the argument that the Song contains linguistic forms indicating a date in the Hellenistic period, Rabin points out that the alleged Greek origins of 'appiryon in 3:9 and talpiyyot in 4:4, the former word supposedly related to phoreion, "sedan chair," and the latter to telopia, "looking into the distance,"are dubious.

The phonetic similarity between the Greek and Hebrew words is somewhat vague, and this writer considers both attributions to be unlikely, but even acceptance of these words as Greek does not necessitate a late dating for the Song of Songs, since Mycenaean Greek antedates the Exodus. Neither word occurs elsewhere in the Bible, so that we cannot say whether in Hebrew itself these words were late. In contrast to this, pardes "garden, plantation," occurs, apart from 4:13, only in Nehemiah 2:8, where the Persian king's "keeper of the pardes" delivers wood for building, and in Ecclesiastes 2:5 next to "gardens." The word is generally agreed to be Persian, though the ancient Persian original is not quite clear. If the word is really of Persian origin, it would necessitate post-exilic dating. It seems to me, however, that this word, to which also Greek paradeisos belongs, maybe of different origin.

[...]

Rabin's summation of his view of the Song of Songs is of such interest and significance as to warrant citation of his concluding paragraphs (pp.216f):

It is thus possible to suggest that the Song of Songs was written in the heyday of Judaean trade with South Arabia and beyond (and this may include the lifetime of King Solomon) by someone who had himself travelled to South Arabia and to South India and had there become acquainted with Tamil poetry. He took over one of its recurrent themes, as well as certain stylistic features. The literary form of developing a theme by dialogue could have been familiar to this man from Babylonian-Assyrian sources (where it is frequent) and Egyptian literature (where it is rare). He was thus prepared by his experience for making a decisive departure from the Tamil practice by building what in Sangam poetry were short dialogue poems into a long work, though we may possibly discern in the Song of Songs shorter units more resembling the Tamil pieces. Instead of the vague causes for separation underlying the moods expressed in Tamil poetry, he chose an experience familiar to him and presumably common enough to be recognized by his public, the long absences of young men on commercial expeditions. I think that so far our theory is justified by the interpretations we have put forward for various details in the text of the Song of Songs. In asking what were the motives and intentions of our author in writing this poem, we must needs move into the sphere of speculation. He might, ofcourse, have been moved by witnessing the suffering of a young woman pining for her lover or husband, and got the idea of writing up this experience by learning that Tamil poets were currently dealing with the same theme. But I think we are ascribing to our author too modern an out look on literature. In the light of what we know of the intellectual climate of ancient Israel, it is more probable that he had in mind a contribution to religious or wisdom literature, in other words that he planned his work as an allegory for the pining of the people of Israel, or perhaps of the human soul, for God. He saw the erotic longing of the maiden as a simile for the need of man for God. In this he expressed by a different simile a sentiment found, for instance, in Psalm 42:24: "Like a hind that craves for brooks of water, so my soul craves for thee, O God. My soul is a thirst for God, the living god: when shall I come and show myself before the face of God? My tears are to me instead of food by day and by night, when they say to me day by day: Where is your god?" This religious attitude seems to be typical of those psalms that are now generally ascribed to the First Temple period, and, as far as I am aware, has no clear parallel in the later periods to which the Song of Songs is usually ascribed.

Rabin considered the possibility of moving a step further in speculation about Indian influence.

In Indian legend love of human women for gods, particularly Krishna, is found as a theme. Tamil legend, in particular, has amongst its best known items the story of a young village girl who loved Krishna so much that in her erotic moods she adorned herself for him with the flower-chains prepared for offering to the god's statue. When this was noticed, and she was upbraided by her father, she was taken by Krishna into heaven. Expressions of intensive love for the god are a prominent feature of mediaeval Tamil Shaivite poetry. The use of such themes to express the relation of man to god may thus have been familiar to Indians also in more ancient times, and our hypothetical Judaean poet could have been aware of it. Thus the use of the genre of love poetry of this kind for the expression of religious longing may itself have been borrowed from India.

Rabin's provocative article came to the writer's attention after most of the present study had been written. It is of particular interest in the light of other Indian affinities of the Song adduced elsewhere in this commentary.

pg 27-33, Song of Songs (commentary) by Marvin Pope

[scbhagat]

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[standphillindia]

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[snickers-the-fluffy-boi]

Abusive Sexual Contact

Advocating Overthrow of Government

Aggravated Assault/Battery

Aggravated Identity Theft

Aggravated Sexual Abuse

Aiming a Laser Pointer at an Aircraft

Airplane Hijacking

Anti-racketeering

Antitrust

Armed Robbery

Arson

Assassination

Assault with a Deadly Weapon

Assaulting or Killing Federal Officer

Assisting or Instigating Escape

Attempt to commit Murder/Manslaughter

Bank Burglary

Bankruptcy Fraud/Embezzlement

Bank Larceny

Bank Robbery

Blackmail

Bombing Matters

Bond Default

Breaking and/or Entering Carrier Facilities

Bribery Crimes

Certification of Checks (Fraud)

Child Abuse

Child Exploitation

Child Pornography

Civil Action to Restrain Harassment of a Victim or Witness

Coercion

Commodities Price Fixing

Computer Crime

Concealing Escaped Prisoner

Concealing Person from Arrest

Concealment of Assets

Conspiracy (in matters under FBI jurisdiction)

Conspiracy to Impede or Injure an Officer

Contempt of Court

Continuing Criminal Enterprise

Conveying False Information

Copyright Matters

Counterfeiting

Counterintelligence Crimes

Credit/Debit Card Fraud

Crime Aboard Aircraft

Crimes on Government Reservations

Crimes on Indian Reservations

Criminal Contempt of Court

Criminal Forfeiture

Criminal Infringement of a Copyright

Cyber Crimes

Damage to Religious Property

Delivery to Consignee

Demands Against the U.S.

Destruction of Aircraft or Motor Vehicles Used in Foreign Commerce

Destruction of an Energy Facility

Destruction of Property to Prevent Seizure

Destruction of Records in Federal Investigations and Bankruptcy

Destruction of Corporate Audit Records

Destruction of Veterans’ Memorials

Detention of Armed Vessel

Disclosure of Confidential Information

Domestic Security

Domestic Terrorism

Domestic Violence

Drive-by Shooting

Drug Abuse Violations

Drug Smuggling

Drug Trafficking

DUI/DWI on Federal Property

Economic Espionage

Election Law Crimes

Embezzlement

Embezzlement Against Estate

Entering Train to Commit Crime

Enlistment to Serve Against the U.S.

Environmental Scheme Crimes

Escaping Custody/Escaped Federal Prisoners

Examiner Performing Other Services

Exportation of Drugs

Extortion

Failure to Appear on Felony Offense

Failure to Pay Legal Child Support Obligations

False Bail

False Pretenses

False Statements Relating to Health Care Matters

Falsely Claiming Citizenship

False Declarations before Grand Jury or Court

False Entries in Records of Interstate Carriers

False Information and Hoaxes

False Statement to Obtain Unemployment Compensation

Federal Aviation Act

Federal Civil Rights Violations (hate crimes, police misconduct)

Female Genital Mutilation

Financial Transactions with Foreign Government

First Degree Murder

Flight to Avoid Prosecution or Giving Testimony

Forced Labor

Forcible Rape

Forgery

Fraud Activity in Connection with Electronic Mail

Fraud Against the Government

Genocide

Hacking Crimes

Harboring Terrorists

Harming Animals Used in Law Enforcement

Hate Crime Acts

Homicide

Hostage Taking

Identity Theft

Illegal Possession of Firearms

Immigration Offenses

Impersonator Making Arrest or Search

Importation of Drugs

Influencing Juror by Writing

Injuring Officer

Insider Trading Crimes

Insurance Fraud

Interference with the Operation of a Satellite

International Parental Kidnapping

International Terrorism

Interstate Domestic Violence

Interstate Violation of Protection Order

Larceny

Lobbying with Appropriated Moneys

Mailing Threatening Communications

Major Fraud Against the U.S.

Manslaughter

Medical/Health Care Fraud

Missile Systems Designed to Destroy Aircraft

Misuse of Passport

Misuse of Visas, Permits, or Other Documents

Molestation

Money Laundering

Motor Vehicle Theft

Murder by a Federal Prisoner

Murder Committed During Drug-related Drive-by shooting

Murder Committed in Federal Government Facility

Narcotics Violations

Obstructing Examination of Financial Institution

Obstruction of Court Orders

Obstruction of Federal audit

Obstruction of Justice

Obstruction of Criminal Investigations

Officer Failing to Make Reports

Partial Birth Abortion

Penalties for Neglect or Refusal to Answer Subpoena

Peonage

Perjury

Picketing or Parading

Pirating

Possession by Restricted Persons

Possession of False Papers to Defraud the U.S.

Possession of Narcotics

Possession of Child Pornography

Private Correspondence with Foreign Government

Probation Violation

Product Tampering

Prohibition of Illegal Gambling Businesses

Prostitution

Protection of Foreign Officials

Public Corruption Crimes

Racketeering

Radiological Dispersal Devices

Ransom Money

Rape

Receiving the Proceeds of Extortion

Recording or Listening to Grand or Petit Juries While Deliberating

Reentry of an Alien Removed on National Security Grounds

Registration of Certain Organizations

Reproduction of Citizenship Papers

Resistance to Extradition Agent

Rescue of Seized Property

Retaliating Against a Federal Judge by False Claim or Slander of Title

Retaliating Against a Witness, Victim, or an Informant

Robbery

Robberies and Burglaries Involving Controlled Substances

Sabotage

Sale of Citizenship Papers

Sale of Stolen Vehicles

Searches Without Warrant

Second Degree Murder

Serial Murders

Sexual Abuse

Sexual Abuse of a Minor

Sexual Assault

Sexual Battery

Sexual Conduct with a Minor

Sexual Exploitation

Sex Trafficking

Shoplifting

Smuggling

Solicitation to Commit a Crime of Violence

Stalking (In Violation of Restraining Order)

Stolen Property; Buying, Receiving, or Possessing

Subornation of Perjury

Suits Against Government Officials

Tampering with a Witness, Victim, or Informant

Tampering with Consumer Products

Tampering with Vessels

Theft of Trade Secrets

Torture

Trafficking in Counterfeit Goods or Services

Transmission of Wagering Information (Gambling)

Transportation into State Prohibiting Sale

Transportation of Slaves from U.S.

Transportation of Stolen Vehicles

Transportation of Terrorists

Trespassing

Treason

Unauthorized Removal of Classified Documents

Use of Fire or Explosives to Destroy Property

Use of Weapons of Mass Destruction

Vandalism

Video Voyeurism

Violation of Prohibitions Governing Atomic Weapons

Violence at International airports

Violent Crimes in Aid of Racketeering Activity

Willful Wrecking of a Train Resulting in Death

Wire Fraud

That’s the list of all of my crimes

[anjali-rawat]

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[wishesofeternity]

Harkha Bai, now Maryam-uz-Zamani and queen mother of the empire, is a prodigiously wealthy woman with her own ship, who controls her finances and trades under her own name. Indeed, many of the Mughal noblewomen, since the time of Akbar, have become independently wealthy as the Mughal empire has flourished. In addition to their monthly allowances, Mughal noblewomen are given expensive gifts by courtiers, own property, and further increase their wealth through trade. Of all the Mughal nobles who conduct trade, fully half of the names documented are that of women. Akbar had prodigiously increased the wealth of the Mughal empire and the Mughal noblewomen became consequently immeasurably wealthy. When Akbar dies, according to a Flemish visitor’s calculations, his gemstones alone, ‘his diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, pearls and other jewels’ will be valued at 60,520,521 rupees.

... Maryam-uz-Zamani’s favoured status at Jahangir’s court is reflected in the fact that she is one of only four members of the court (one of whom is Jahangir himself) and the only woman to have the high rank of 12,000 cavalry, and she is known to receive a jewel from every single nobleman at court ‘according to his estate’ every year on the occasion of the new year’s festival. But what Maryam-uz-Zamani is most interested in, what she invests her money in and actively participates in, is trade.

...It is from the hustling, garrulous town of Surat, where a scattershot of languages ricochets off the lanes while the merchants work, that Harkha Bai trades through the enormous ship that sails under her colours, the Rahimi. Harkha Bai, like the other Mughal noblewomen, cannot trade directly with the merchants and so the zenana employs a huge number of agents, middlemen and financial advisers, ‘mirroring in miniature the emperor’s own finance ministry’. The women send out their personal servants to bargain and negotiate with the Europeans at the court and gifts and favours are exchanged. The Rahimi is one of the largest vessels of any kind to sail the Indian seas. Her capacity is upwards of 1,500 tons and the ship has room for a load of 1,500 passengers. In 1613, the Rahimi is transporting goods worth 100,000 pounds equivalent to, in today’s currency, half a billion rupees. But the Rahimi, like Gulbadan’s Salimi and Ilahi thirty years previously, is also a Hajj ship. The Rahimi trades in Hindustan’s major exports—indigo, cotton and silks, but also leather, metal, carpets, spices, opium and jewels. In return, it brings back goods of particular interest to the noblewomen—gold, silver, ivory, pearls, amber, perfumes, wines, brocade, cutlery and glassware. But it also carries passengers to and from Mecca, for the sacred Hajj pilgrimage. Indeed the Rahimi is famous amongst the Europeans for being ‘the great pilgrimage ship’. Which is why the outrageous and scandalous piratical attacks by the Portuguese against the Rahimi in 1612 and 1613 will be considered so grave as to bring about a complete reversal of fortunes, both for the Portuguese and, incidentally, for the newly arrived English.

When the Rahimi is seized by the Portuguese in the autumn of 1613, just after the end of the monsoon season, and carried off to Goa, the tumult and outcry at the Mughal court is unprecedented. Everyone knows the Rahimi is Maryam-uz-Zamani’s ship, and she carries the requisite and loathed Portuguese pass, with its sacrilegious image of the Virgin Mary. The English are aghast at this action and describe the Rahimi as being ‘verye richly laden’, and even more provocatively, not only do the Portuguese seize the ship and its goods ‘but took also 700 persons of all sorts with them to Goa; which deeds of theirs is now grown so odious that it is like to bee the utter undoing of the Portungales in their parts’. So the Portuguese, in seizing the goods and passengers of a Hajj pilgrim ship filled with pilgrims, have carefully gauged the freight of their action and this is not only an act of piracy, but an act of religious persecution against the Mughal empire. It is clearly intended to be both a rebuke and a scathing warning to Jahangir, to dissuade any further contact and trade with the recently arrived English adventurers. But the Portuguese have miscalculated their hand. Jahangir is furious.

When it becomes clear to Jahangir and the court that the Portuguese are not going to return the Rahimi immediately, the emperor acts with crackling speed. Jahangir orders the halt of all traffic through Surat and this immediately paralyses the lucrative trade which has made the fortune of this city. He further shuts down the Jesuit church in Agra, which had been built under Akbar, and suspends all allowances to Portuguese priests living in Mughal India. Jahangir also sends his agent, Mukarrab Khan, to lay siege to the Portuguese town of Daman. These extreme actions taken by Jahangir are unusual, for the Mughal court has become used to the rapacious brutality of the Portuguese and has usually reacted by ignoring it or accommodating it if possible. But this is the Rahimi which has been seized by the Portuguese, Maryam-uz-Zamani’s flagship pilgrim ship, and the queen mother demands retribution. This is an altogether unusual situation, demonstrating the great cultural upheavals and the tectonic changes that are shaping the Mughal empire—this is a Hindu queen’s Muslim ship, carrying Hajj pilgrims in Christian waters patrolled by the Portuguese armada. This fraught situation lasts a long time, with neither side willing to concede defeat. But the age of Portuguese dominance in Indian waters has effectively been ended. ‘The Great Mogul’s mother was a great adventurer,’ writes an English agent succinctly, ‘which caused the Great Mogul to drive the Portingals out of the place.’

The capture of the Rahimi, and the insult it is perceived to be to the queen mother of the Mughal empire, precipitates the decline of Portuguese fortunes. Already in 1612, an EIC fleet under Captain Thomas Best had decisively defeated a Goa armada off Surat and had shown the Portuguese to be less than invincible. Jahangir even writes about the ‘good news’ of Portugal’s defeat at English hands with satisfaction in his Jahangirnama. ‘Battle had taken place’, he writes, between the English and the Portuguese, ‘most of whose ships were burned up by English fire’. This is the only incident involving the ‘firangis’ that Jahangir ever writes about in the Jahangirnama. Now, after the perfidious actions of the Portuguese, Jahangir is increasingly inclined to negotiate trade agreements with the English and in the next few years the English will slowly replace the Portuguese as the primary foreign power at the Mughal court. Harkha Bai lives another ten years, dying at the very respectable age of eighty-one in 1623. She never will get back the Rahimi, but this daughter of the desert, who has never seen the ocean, will have the satisfaction of knowing that she has been part of the process that evicts the great naval force of the Portuguese from Indian shores.

- Ira Mukhoty, Daughters of the Sun: Empresses, Queens and Begums of the Mughal Empire

[exportersworldb2b]

Export from India: A Guide on How to Export Products from India

India is one of the top exporters in the world, offering a variety of products like textiles, spices, handicrafts, and more. If you are looking to start exporting from India, this guide will help you understand the process and required documents.

List of Documents Required to Export from India

To export products from India, you need to have the right documentation. Here are the essential documents required:

Import Export Code (IEC) – This is a mandatory registration for every exporter in India. You can get it from the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT).

Goods and Services Tax (GST) Registration – GST registration is necessary for tax compliance.

Bill of Lading or Airway Bill – This document is issued by the carrier and is proof of shipment.

Packing List – A detailed list of items being exported.

Commercial Invoice – An invoice that contains details of the goods, quantity, and price.

Customs Declaration Form (Shipping Bill) – Required for customs clearance.

Certificate of Origin – This proves that the goods were made in India.

Insurance Certificate – Protects against any loss or damage during transit.

Get Documentation Assistance on Export Navigator

Managing export documentation can be overwhelming. This is where Export Navigator helps. It is a one-stop solution for handling all your export documents, ensuring compliance, and avoiding errors. With expert guidance, you can focus on growing your business while we take care of the paperwork.

Why Export from India Through Exporters Worlds Global Selling?

Exporters Worlds provides a hassle-free platform to help Indian businesses sell globally. Here’s why you should choose us:

Easy Registration – Sign up quickly and start selling worldwide.

Wide Global Reach – Connect with international buyers effortlessly.

Reliable Logistics Support – Get help with shipping and delivery.

Secure Payments – Ensure safe transactions with trusted payment gateways.

Expert Guidance – Get professional support for documentation and compliance.

Conclusion

Exporting from India is a great way to expand your business globally. With the right documentation and support, the process becomes easy and efficient. Exporters Worlds makes exporting simple with its global selling platform. Start your export journey today with https://exportersworlds.com/and take your business to the next level!

[southasianstakingaction]

ASATA Statement on Palestine | October 2023

ASATA members joined hundreds of protesters in front of the Israeli consulate in San Francisco on October 8, 2023.

The Alliance of South Asians Taking Action stands in solidarity with the people of Palestine in the face of the current escalation of violence unfolding in Gaza and the West Bank. Over the last two weeks, ASATA members looked to the leadership of Palestinian activists in the San Francisco Bay Area who continue to lead protests that lift up the unrelenting resistance of those living under violent occupation. 

As we mobilized for direct actions and joined the call for Palestinian liberation, we also deepened our understanding of how the state of Israel’s settler colonial tactics are proliferated and being replicated in the Indian government’s violent occupation of Kashmir. As part of a diverse South Asian Diaspora, ASATA members clearly see the close relationship between Hindutva (Hindu Nationalism) and Zionist ideologies. As South Asians, we challenge all forms of imperialism. Thus, we oppose Zionism, a settler colonial project displacing indigenous Palestinians, resulting in the world’s largest diasporic refugee population. 

The current close relationship between India and Israel has enabled a security regime where India has adopted Israeli tactics of collective punishment (such as the arbitrary revocation of residency and citizenship rights, arbitrary detention, statewide suspension of internet, etc.) in its occupation of Kashmir.  The deployment of the Israeli hacking software Pegasus to spy on Indian journalists, lawyers, activists, academics, supreme court judges, opposition politicians, and many others must be seen in the context of the announcement by India and Israel that cyber security is a key area of cooperation between them. The NSO group, an Israeli firm that’s an expert in cyber surveillance, has in effect abetted the Indian government’s surveillance of its own citizens as it has done in a dozen other countries.  

The Israeli government’s alliance with and support of the BJP’s Hindutva agenda is part of a longer history where it has exported its violent policies and military tactics to South Asia in order to suppress resistance movements there. For example, The New York Times has reported that as early as the 1980s, Israeli intelligence agents trained their Sri Lankan counterparts in their fight against Tamil groups. Israeli human rights lawyer Eitay Mack has raised questions about Israel’s more recent role in war crimes committed during the Sri Lankan civil war, and has called for criminal investigations into the involvement of Israeli companies, officials, and individuals. 

India’s embrace of Israel is polarizing the Indian-American diaspora, and has exacerbated the islamophobia of those who subscribe to the toxic ideology of Hindutva. The US-India Political Action Committee (USINPAC) is modeled after AIPAC and the AJC, and the Hindutva lobby’s use of the accusation of “Hinduphobia” to shut down critical discourse is inspired by the Zionist lobby’s success in silencing critics of Israel’s policies by weaponizing charges of anti-semitism.  

The BJP’s fearsome “IT Cell” is a massive disinformation machine that amplifies Hindutva propaganda through an army of paid employees and volunteers that flood social media with fake news, and through a large-scale use of bots that power harassment and trolling campaigns. Many accounts known to push Hindutva content are now being used to spread disinformation about Hamas while continuing their systematic spreading of islamophobic content. 

Indeed, as documented by BOOM, one of India's most reputable fact-checking websites, India is now one of the largest sources for disinformation targeting Palestinians negatively. We call on fellow South Asians in the diaspora to condemn the demonization of Palestinians, and ensure we do not contribute to the spread of disinformation and anti-Muslim hate. 

We take inspiration from the women of India’s National Federation of Dalit Women (NFDW) who have declared their solidarity with Palestinians —  invoking the “historic oppression” and “systematic dehumanization” that both communities have faced. 

We are also in solidarity with the many anti-Zionist Jewish groups and individuals both within Israel and world-wide that are opposing the Israeli state’s attacks on Palestine, and its long standing policy of apartheid against the Palestinian people.  

We call on our fellow South Asians and South Asia- led organizations in the United States to reject the “both sides” argument that invisiblizes the experiences and dignity of the Palestinian people. We call for an immediate ceasefire and end to the ongoing siege and genocide in Gaza. We call on the US to stop arming the Israeli apartheid regime with billions’ of dollars worth of weaponry. And finally, We invite our communities to embrace the ways our histories of anti-imperialist struggles are connected so that we may build power and protect our communities against anti-Musilm hate violence and state-sponsored terrorism. Free Palestine.  

[udyam-registration]

Unlock the Secrets of Udyam Registration for Partnership Firms

The Udyam Registration, previously known as Udyog Aadhaar Memorandum (UAM), has been a transformative initiative by the Indian government to support and empower micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). For partnership firms, this registration offers a host of benefits and opportunities.

Update Udyam Certificate: One of the key advantages of Udyam Registration is the ability to Update Udyam Registration online. Business details may change over time, and this feature allows you to keep your registration accurate and up-to-date, reflecting the current state of your partnership firm.

Apply Online for Udyam Partnership Firm: The online application process for partnership firms is user-friendly and efficient. You can easily submit the necessary documents and information online, reducing the time and effort required for registration.

Online Enquiry for Udyam: The digital platform has simplified the process of making inquiries related to Udyam Registration. You can get information, clarification, and assistance regarding the registration process, making it easier to navigate.

Print UAM Registration Online: Once your partnership firm's Udyam Registration is approved, you can conveniently print your Udyam Certificate online. This certificate is not just a document; it's your ticket to a plethora of benefits and opportunities reserved for MSMEs.

Print Udyam Certificate: After successfully obtaining your Udyam Registration, you can print the Udyam Certificate, which serves as proof of your registration. Displaying this certificate can build trust among clients and partners, enhancing your firm's credibility.

Access to Government Schemes: Udyam Registration opens the door to various government schemes and incentives specifically designed for MSMEs. These schemes can provide financial assistance, subsidies, and priority in procurement, giving your partnership firm a competitive edge.

Financial Benefits: Banks and financial institutions often offer preferential treatment to Udyam-registered businesses. This includes easier access to credit facilities and lower interest rates, which can be advantageous for managing finances and expansion.

Global Opportunities: Udyam Registration can also pave the way for international collaborations and exports. Many foreign companies prefer to engage with Udyam-registered Indian businesses, offering the potential for global growth.

Simplified Compliance: Udyam Registration streamlines the compliance process by consolidating various government-related registrations into one. This reduces the administrative burden on your partnership firm.

Competitive Advantage: Displaying your Udyam Certificate on your website and marketing materials can enhance your firm's reputation and attract clients who prefer working with registered MSMEs.

Conclusion

Udyam Registration is a game-changer for partnership firms in India. It offers numerous benefits, ranging from financial advantages to global opportunities. By utilizing online services such as updating your Udyam Certificate, applying online, making online inquiries, and printing your Udyam Certificate, you can unlock the full potential of this registration and take your partnership firm to new heights of success. Don't miss out on the secrets of Udyam Registration; embrace them and witness the transformation in your business.

[shantitechnology]

Top 10 ERP Software for Engineering Industry

In the contemporary and dynamic commercial environment, the engineering sector in India is confronted with a diverse range of obstacles, including intense competition, increasing client expectations, intricate project administration, and resource allocation optimisation.  In the contemporary era of technology, the utilisation of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software has become an essential and irreplaceable instrument for engineering firms aiming to optimise their operational processes, improve productivity, and foster long-term and sustainable expansion.  Boost your engineering company's efficiency with cutting-edge ERP software – STERP software offered by STERP (Shanti Technology) – one of the most trusted firms offering ERP software for engineering companies in Mumbai.  Take the first step towards success today with STERP!

This blog article offers a comprehensive examination of the ten leading enterprise resource planning (ERP) software packages specifically designed to cater to the distinct requirements of the engineering sector in India.  The aim is to assist organisations in making well-informed choices that will contribute to their future success.

·         STERP Software:

STERP Software is a cutting-edge ERP solution offering an array of features to streamline business operations.  It excels in location tracking, task management, and mobile user visit reports.  Additionally, it enables seamless tracking of finished goods progress and efficient document management.  ISO audit reports and vendor ratings ensure compliance and supplier assessment.  The dynamic dashboard provides real-time insights, while multi-currency support facilitates global transactions. 

The export documents feature simplifies international trade, and auto-email & SMS integration enhances communication.  Quotation lost analysis ratio aids in optimizing sales strategies.  Depreciation calculation and auto JV streamline accounting.  Moreover, it's Android & iOS mobile app enables easy on-the-go access, including component process tracking.

·         Tally.ERP 9:

Tally.ERP 9 is a highly renowned and extensively utilised enterprise resource planning (ERP) software in India, serving a diverse range of businesses, including engineering enterprises, irrespective of their scale or magnitude.  Tally.ERP 9 offers comprehensive financial management, inventory control, and taxation modules that enable engineering organisations to adhere to Indian accounting rules and effectively handle financial data management.

·         Oracle NetSuite:

Oracle NetSuite is a cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) software that offers a cohesive platform, encompassing ERP, customer relationship management (CRM), and electronic commerce (eCommerce) capabilities.  The software's adaptability and capacity to accommodate the needs of engineering businesses of varying sizes in India allow for the optimisation of operations and the acquisition of significant knowledge regarding their business procedures.

·         Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP:

Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a multifaceted enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution that encompasses several functionalities like financial management, supply chain operations, and project accounting.  By incorporating localization capabilities specifically designed for India, the software enables engineering organisations to effectively streamline their processes, adhere to regulatory standards, and improve overall client satisfaction.

·         Ramco ERP:

The Ramco ERP system has been specifically developed to cater to the distinct needs and demands of the engineering sector within the Indian market.  The inclusion of modules pertaining to project management, asset management, and production planning facilitates the attainment of operational excellence and the stimulation of growth within engineering enterprises. 

Empower your engineering firm with advanced ERP tools offered by STERP – one of the renowned ERP solution providers in Mumbai.  Get a free consultation to discover how!

·         EPPS ERP:

The EPPS ERP is a software solution originating from India that has been specifically designed to cater to the needs of the engineering industry.  The EPPS ERP system offers a comprehensive range of modules that encompass several aspects of project management, including project planning, procurement, and quality control.  By leveraging these modules, firms can effectively streamline their project management processes while upholding stringent quality standards.

·         Marg ERP 9+:

Marg ERP 9+ is widely favoured among small and medium-sized engineering enterprises in India.  The programme provides a wide range of capabilities, encompassing inventory management, order processing, and adherence to GST legislation, so facilitating operational efficiency and ensuring compliance with local legal requirements for enterprises.

·         Infor CloudSuite Industrial (SyteLine):

Infor CloudSuite Industrial, previously recognised as SyteLine, is a comprehensive enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution that specifically caters to the needs of process manufacturing and job shop industries.  Its suitability for engineering firms in India lies in its ability to effectively manage different production requirements.

·         Focus i:

Focus i is an ERP software that has been designed in India specifically to address the distinct requirements of the engineering industry in the country.  Focus i is a software solution that offers several functionalities, including project management, production planning, and HR management.  This comprehensive suite of tools enables engineering organisations to enhance their operational efficiency and financial performance.

Optimize your engineering projects and increase profitability.  Get ERP solutions offered by top ERP for manufacturing company in Mumbai – STERP (Shanti Technology).

·         Reach ERP:

Reach ERP is a nascent participant in the Indian enterprise resource planning (ERP) industry, specifically tailored to cater to the needs of small and medium-sized engineering enterprises.  The cloud-based design of this system, in conjunction with its various capabilities such as inventory control, order management, and financial accounting, facilitates efficient operational administration for organisations.

Final Thoughts:

The pursuit of efficiency, innovation, and sustainable growth holds significant importance in India's engineering business.  The adoption of digital transformation within the industry has led to the recognition of ERP software as a crucial facilitator.  This software plays a significant role in assisting engineering companies in optimising their operations, enhancing the efficient allocation of resources, and ultimately improving customer satisfaction.  The aforementioned list comprises the top 10 enterprise resource planning (ERP) software systems that are tailored to address the unique requirements of the engineering sector in India.  These software solutions offer a wide range of comprehensive features and functionalities, specifically designed to effectively address the many difficulties and opportunities prevalent in the market.

When making a decision on the choice of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, engineering businesses should take into account many variables like scalability, localization capabilities, simplicity of integration, and vendor support.  Gain a competitive edge in Mumbai's engineering sector - Implement effective ERP solution offered by STERP (Shanti Technology) – one of the distinct ERP software providers in Mumbai!  The use of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) technology represents a strategic decision that holds the potential to bring about dramatic changes within the engineering industry in India.

[scbhagat]

GST Registration Services in Delhi by SC Bhagat & Co.

Navigating the complex world of taxation in India can be challenging, especially for businesses in a dynamic city like Delhi. One critical aspect of compliance is GST registration, a mandate for businesses exceeding specific turnover thresholds. SC Bhagat & Co., a trusted name in accounting and taxation, offers seamless and reliable GST registration services in Delhi to help businesses stay compliant and thrive.

Why GST Registration is Crucial The Goods and Services Tax (GST) is a unified tax structure introduced to simplify India’s taxation system. GST registration is mandatory for businesses that:

Have an annual turnover exceeding ₹40 lakhs (₹20 lakhs for service providers). Are engaged in inter-state supply of goods or services. Operate under specific sectors requiring GST compliance (e.g., e-commerce, exporters). Failing to register for GST can lead to penalties, restricted operations, and reputational damage. This is where SC Bhagat & Co. steps in with expert assistance.

GST Registration Services by SC Bhagat & Co. SC Bhagat & Co. provides end-to-end GST registration solutions tailored to the unique needs of your business. Their services include:

Eligibility Assessment The experts at SC Bhagat & Co. assess whether your business falls under the mandatory GST registration criteria and advise accordingly.

Document Preparation and Submission Their team ensures that all necessary documents, including PAN, Aadhaar, business registration certificates, and bank statements, are prepared and submitted correctly.

GST Identification Number (GSTIN) Generation Once registered, SC Bhagat & Co. helps you obtain your unique GSTIN, ensuring compliance with Indian tax laws.

Post-Registration Compliance Support GST registration is just the beginning. The team provides ongoing support, including:

Filing GST returns Addressing notices from GST authorities Maintaining compliance records Benefits of Choosing SC Bhagat & Co. Here’s why SC Bhagat & Co. is the go-to partner for GST registration services in Delhi:

Expertise in Tax Laws With years of experience, the firm offers in-depth knowledge of GST regulations, ensuring accurate and hassle-free registration.

Personalized Solutions They understand that every business is unique. SC Bhagat & Co. provides tailored solutions to meet specific requirements.

Timely and Efficient Service Their streamlined processes ensure quick GST registration, enabling businesses to operate without delays.

Cost-Effective Services SC Bhagat & Co. offers affordable services without compromising on quality, making them a trusted partner for businesses of all sizes.

Why Delhi Businesses Trust SC Bhagat & Co. Delhi’s diverse business landscape demands a taxation partner that understands its challenges. SC Bhagat & Co. has established itself as a reliable ally for startups, SMEs, and large enterprises, helping them navigate GST complexities with ease. Conclusion GST compliance is a non-negotiable aspect of running a business in India. With SC Bhagat & Co.’s GST registration services in Delhi, you can ensure seamless compliance while focusing on growing your business.

[ercsprivatelimited]

How can foreign manufacturers obtain BIS certification for products sold in India?

India's rapidly growing economy and consumers have made it a key market for producers across the globe. Yet, the Indian government demands some certifications to ensure uniformity, safety, and quality of products. The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) provides an essential certification known as the BIS Certification. International companies must obtain BIS certification before their products can legally enter and be sold in the Indian market.

The emphasis in this article is on how following Indian standards is important, as it describes steps and requirements necessary for foreign enterprises to obtain BIS certification.

What is BIS Certification?

The Bureau of Indian Standards, which is India's national standards body under the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, issues BIS Certification. It confirms a product to be under the relevant Indian Standard (IS). In certain products, the certification is mandatory to ensure consumer safety, quality assurance, and national standardization.

Electronics, household appliances, chemicals, cement, steel products, and others are some of the products that need BIS certification. Foreign manufacturers who wish to export certain products to India under the Foreign Manufacturers Certification Scheme (FMCS) need to obtain BIS certification.

Products Covered Under FMCS

FMCS covers a broad spectrum of consumer and industrial products, such as but not restricted to:

Products made of steel and aluminum

Cement

Home appliances, such as switches and electric irons

Pressure cookers

Toys

Gas Cylinders

Food-grade plastic containers

Note: The list of products that need BIS certification is revised from time to time. To check the status of their product, manufacturers can either check the official BIS website or consult a compliance expert.

Why is FMCS Certification Important?

Here are a few points that explain why BIS Certification for foreign manufacturers is important:

Required for Market Entry: Goods subject to BIS's mandatory certification cannot be sold in India in the absence of a valid FMCS license.

Clearance of Customs: Goods not bearing the FMCS clearance or ISI mark are not allowed in Indian ports.

Brand Credibility: Consumers and Indian retailers have greater trust in products bearing the BIS mark.

Adherence to the Law: Penalties, product rejection, or even an import ban may follow noncompliance.

Step-by-Step FMCS Certification Process for Foreign Manufacturers

Given below is the procedure involved in the BIS FMCS Certification:

1. Ensure that the BIS Standard applies

Find out if your product is on the list of mandatory BIS certification first. All regulated products are assigned an exclusive Indian Standard (IS) code that stipulates quality and safety standards.

2. Appoint an Indian Representative with Authorization (AIR)

There should be an Authorized Indian Representative (AIR) appointed by overseas manufacturers to act as the lawful link between them and BIS. This is a requirement under FMCS.

3. Prepare Documentation

The Foreign Manufacturer Certification Scheme application requires a range of documents, including:

Application Form VI and Form VII

Factory layout and manufacturing process details

Quality control plan and testing equipment list

Authorization letter for AIR

ISO 9001 certificate (if available)

Test reports from in-house labs or previous compliance certificates (optional)

4. Submit Application to BIS

Apply online via the Manakonline Portal and pay the applicable fees. This includes:

Application fee

License fee

Inspection charges

Marking fee (based on annual production volume)

5. Factory Audit by BIS Officials

This is a critical part of the BIS Certification for Foreign Manufacturers process. BIS sends its inspection team to the overseas factory to:

Verify the production and testing facilities

Ensure quality control measures align with Indian Standards

Draw product samples for independent testing in India

6. Product Sample Testing in India

Indian testing labs approved by the BIS test samples collected during the industrial audit. Testing ensures that products are up to the relevant Indian Standards prior to a license being granted.

7. FMCS License Grant

BIS issues the foreign manufacturer a license if the product is tested and the factory inspection is satisfactory. Each approved unit of the product must bear the ISI Mark, which is allowed under the license.

Validity and Renewal of FMCS License

The FMCS BIS Certification is initially valid for one year and can be renewed annually upon:

Submission of required fees

Continued compliance with standards

Factory re-inspection (if deemed necessary by BIS)

Challenges in the Long FMCS Certification Process:

The FMCS License Process takes four to six months or more from application through licensure.

Factory Inspection at the Site: Organizing the visit of the BIS officials can be expensive and practically difficult.

Indian Testing Requirements: Testing of products has to be conducted in India in BIS-approved laboratories, which is time-consuming and costly.

Complex Documentation: One requires professional training to present accurate technical information, processes, and test plans.

Conclusion

For foreign manufacturers looking to bring regulated products into the Indian market, BIS certification under FMCS is a requirement. The process ensures that products meet India's high standards of safety and quality, although it demands technical sophistication, factory inspection, and testing.

International producers can gain long-term exposure to India's large and vibrant consumer base through an understanding of the FMCS BIS Certification for Foreign Manufacturer arrangement, the appointment of a capable AIR, cautious preparation of documentation, and coordination with BIS inspections.