Blind Men of Naya Bharat; Joint Statement on Trade Deal in '4-5 Days', Says Piyush Goyal; Modi Government Continues to Duck Epstein
Plus: Podcast—'The Idea that Tagore Wrote Jana Gana Mana in King George V’s Honour is Total Rubbish' | TM Krishna in conversation with Sidharth Bhatia on India and its symbols
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February 5, 2026
Siddharth Varadarajan
The Epstein Files continue to roil the establishments in the US, Britain and elsewhere but in India the Big Media is papering over the India connections which have emerged and the government too is acting as if this is an issue which does not concern it. “The Epstein storm could topple a world leader — but it’s not Trump,” reports CNN, focusing on how British Prime Minister Keir Starmer finds himself in a tight spot because of what we now know about the relationship between the disgraced pedophile and Peter Mandelson, whom he sent as ambassador to the US in February 2025. Starmer has issued a public apology in an attempt to draw a line under the controversy but that might not be enough to save him.
India’s Epstein docket is much less damning but the fact that Anil Ambani, a top businessman known to be close to Narendra Modi, was meeting Epstein and exchanging messages with him as part of some sort of lobbying effort for the Indian government raises disturbing questions about the political judgment and moral compass of the prime minister and his advisers. Yet silence prevails.
A joint statement on the Indo-US trade deal will be out in four or five days and the formal signing will take place in March, Union commerce minister Piyush Goyal said on Thursday, adding that Washington would reduce its tariffs on Indian goods to 18% via executive order soon after the joint statement is out. He said India would buy American goods worth $500 billion – as US President Donald Trump announced on Monday – over five years, and that these purchases would involve Boeing aircraft worth $70-80 billion.
Earlier, external affairs minister S. Jaishankar when asked for a timeline for
