INDIA has said that the US influence on the negotiations on rules at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) was clear as the earlier draft has remained unchanged despite most countries rejecting the text. Instead, the chairman of the committee on rules has come up with a working document, which, according to commerce and industry minister Kamal Nath, was a mere compilation of "who said what', which did not help an iota in moving the negotiating process forward. "Despite the near unanimity of the entire WTO membership to have a revised text on rules before moving into a horizontal process on agriculture and Nama modalities, we are deeply disappointed to note that one major developed country has again succeeded in holding up the process because of its desire to protect its WTO inconsistent measure of zeroing in anti-dumping,' commerce and industry minister Kamal Nath said. The minister said that the deep imbalance created by the chair in his draft text of November 30 2007, in his effort to provide comfort to one major country, was the root cause of reluctance on his part to come forward with a balanced revised text. He rejected the reasoning advanced by the chair for not coming out with a revised text, as a piece of "inspired fiction'. In the draft text, the chair had tried to legitimise the much disputed "zeroing' methodology used by the US in calculating dumping margins, which could lead to levying of much higher anti-dumping duties than otherwise warranted. On the issue of special and differential treatment of fisheries subsidies, which is of vital concern to India, China, Indonesia and many other developing countries, Mr Nath said that the draft rules text, which stands unchanged even now, was fundamentally and deeply flawed. The proposals of the draft text, if allowed to go through, would imperil the livelihoods of millions of poor and vulnerable small, artisanal fishers and just could not be accepted by India. "The issue of fisheries subsidies is on exactly the same footing as special products in agriculture, because both seek to protect the livelihood and food security of the most vulnerable sections of the population,' he said. He added that without much greater clarity through a revised text, he did no see much chances of moving into a horizontal process on agriculture and Nama modalities. The on-going Doha round will be concluded only if there is an agreement on every sector being negotiated which includes, agriculture, industrial goods, services and rules.