Indian Markets and the Rupee Fall Sharply Over Fear of Tariffs; US Official Navarro Doubles Down on Criticism of India's Russian Oil Purchases; The Misplaced Nostalgia for Soviet-Era MiG-21s
Canada and India Announce New High Commissioners; Muslims Should Voluntarily Give up Kashi, Mathura Mosques; Despite Panel's Warning, Uttarakhand Okayed Contentious Bypass Along Char Dham Route
A newsletter from The Wire | Founded by Tanweer Alam, Sidharth Bhatia, Pratik Kanjilal, Seema Chishti, Sushant Singh, MK Venu, and Siddharth Varadarajan | Contributing writer: Kalrav Joshi, with additional inputs by Anirudh SK
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Over to Sidharth Bhatia for today’s Cable
Snapshot of the day
August 29, 2025
Sidharth Bhatia
Markets extended their losing streak for the third consecutive session on Friday, with benchmark indices falling sharply as the rupee plummeted to an all-time low of Rs 88.31 against the US dollar on worries over the impact of 50% US tariffs on the country's economic growth and corporate earnings, raising alarm bells about the Modi government. The rupee is Asia's worst-performing currency this year, pressured by persistent foreign outflows from local equities. It is under pressure as new US tariffs took effect this week, targeting export-intensive industries such as textiles, footwear and jewelry. The BSE Sensex tanked 270.92 points or 0.34% to close at 79,809.65, while the Nifty 50 fell 74.05 points or 0.30% to settle at 24,426.85. The markets opened flat with Sensex at 80,010.83 and Nifty at 24,466.70, but selling pressure intensified during the final hour of trade, dragging indices to near their day’s lows.
Furthermore, analysts warn the rupee could weaken further to the Rs 89.5-90 range ahead of the US Federal Reserve’s September 17 policy meeting due to market expectations of a Fed rate cut. This forecast is driven by factors like Fed signals for a potential reduction in interest rates, which could weaken the dollar and influence the INR/USD exchange rate, alongside other impacts from US tariffs and foreign institutional investor (FII) outflows. However, critics argue the Modi administration has failed to provide a credible response, accusing it of being distracted by political optics while investors flee and corporate earnings come under severe strain. The slide of the currency, they say, underscores a deeper crisis of confidence in the government’s economic stewardship.
A day after claiming that the Ukraine conflict was “Modi’s war”, controversial White House trade adviser Peter Navarro has once again accused India of being an “oil money laundromat for the Kremlin”. Navarro, Trump administration’s Senior Counsellor for Trade and Manufacturing, in a lengthy thread on X on Thursday, ranted about India’s oil purchases from Russia and New Delhi’s high tariffs. “President Trump’s 50% tariffs on Indian imports are now in effect. This isn’t just about India’s unfair trade – it’s about cutting off the financial lifeline India has extended to Putin’s war machine,” wrote Navarro as he began the nine-part thread. The tweets begin with an AI-generated image of Trump holding up a placard saying ‘50% tariffs on India’ and end with an image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi meditating.
“Here’s how the India-Russia oil mathematics works: American consumers buy Indian goods while India keeps out U.S. exports through high tariffs and non-tariff barriers. India uses our dollars to buy discounted Russian crude.
Indian refiners, with their silent Russian partners, refine and flip the black-market oil for big profits on the international market – while Russia pockets hard currency to fund its war on Ukraine.
Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian oil made up less than 1% of India’s imports. Today? Over 30%—more than 1.5 million barrels a day. This surge isn’t driven by domestic demand—it’s driven by Indian profiteers and carries an added price of blood and devastation in Ukraine.”
Navarro’s line complements the official US position that India’s purchase of Russian oil helps a particular group.
“India’s Big Oil lobby has turned the largest democracy in the world into a massive refining hub and oil money laundromat for the Kremlin. Indian refiners buy cheap Russian oil, process it, and export fuels to Europe, Africa, and Asia—shielded from sanctions under the pretense of neutrality.
India now exports over 1 million barrels a day in refined petroleum—more than half the volume of Russian crude it imports. The proceeds flow to India’s politically connected energy titans—and directly into Putin’s war chest.”
Solar panels are among the Indian goods that Washington's 50% tariff has hit, with the US accounting for 90% of India's module exports until now. But if the Trump administration goes ahead and imposes anti-dumping duties against Indian panels – something that American solar firms have lobbied for – then Indian solar exports will find themselves in even more dire straits. Finding alternate markets will not be easy because Indian modules assembled using Chinese cells are 48% more expensive than China-made modules, while those assembled with Indian cells are 143% more costly, Sudarshan Varadhan and Sethuraman NR report. This comes against the backdrop of Indian manufacturers leveraging a dip in Chinese cell prices to boost exports, they note.
Former RBI governor Urjit Patel, who abruptly resigned for ‘personal reasons’ in late 2018 following a period of public confrontation between the cenbank and the Modi government, has been approved by the cabinet's appointments committee as an executive director at the IMF. His tenure in this post is to last three years.
“India abandoned us at sea,” say Rohingya refugees forced back into conflict-ridden Myanmar. This week marks eight years since Myanmar’s military junta and authorities unleashed widespread atrocities against the Rohingya community. In an exclusive interview, the deported refugees described how Indian officials put them on boats and left them adrift before pushing them back across the border. Reporting from Delhi, the BBC’s Samira Hussain brings their harrowing accounts. Watch here.
Four senior women advocates of the Supreme Court – Mahalaxmi Pavani, Shobha Gupta, Aparna Bhat, Kaveeta Wadia – have expressed concern at the way the Collegium has dealt with Justice B V Nagarathna’s dissent regarding the elevation of Justice Vipul Pancholi as an apex court judge, reports LiveLaw. Justice Pancholi, along with Justice Alok Aradhe were sworn in on Friday. Justice Nagarathna, the lone woman member of the five-judge Collegium, has strongly dissented in a written note against the elevation of Justice Pancholi, former Patna High Court Chief Justice, highlighting his “controversial” transfer from Gujarat High Court to Patna High Court in 2023 over “serious and grave” reasons. Her dissent was not made public by the Collegium, despite her request, as per a statement by the Centre for Judicial Accountability.In a solidarity statement addressed to Justice Nagarathna, the four senior women also questioned the Collegium’s “not consistent” approach with regard to elevating women judges to the Supreme Court.
Ten months after both countries expelled each other’s envoys, India and Canada returned to normal diplomatic relations as they announced the appointment of their high commissioners to Ottawa and New Delhi respectively. The Ministry of External Affairs said that senior diplomat Dinesh K. Patnaik has been appointed as India’s next high commissioner to Canada, while Canada’s foreign minister Anita Anand announced that Christopher Cooter will be the country’s new high commissioner to India. While India’s announcement was made in its usual clipped style, Anand described the Canadian move as part of a “step-by-step approach to deepening diplomatic engagement and advancing bilateral cooperation with India”.
Hindus should not ‘look for a temple or shivling everywhere’ but the latter two of the Ayodhya (Ram temple)-Kashi (Vishwanath temple)-Mathura (Krishna Janmabhoomi) trinity are too important to give up; the Muslim side ought to ‘let go’ of them in a gesture in the interests of “brotherhood”, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat said yesterday. He added that although the Sangh itself will not join ‘movements’ to dispossess Muslims of the mosques in Kashi and Mathura – as it did in Ayodhya, culminating in the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992 and nationwide riots – “swayamsevaks are free to join them”.
While he was at it, the sarsanghchalak also claimed that he never said he would retire at 75 years of age or recommended that others do too. Swayamsevaks are “given a job and we cannot say no to it”, he said in Delhi as part of a three-day lecture series celebrating the Sangh's centenary. His remarks earlier this year that RSS ideologue Moropant Pingle had ‘taught’ the Sangh to ‘retire after 75 years’ were interpreted as directed at Prime Minister Modi, who is set to turn 75 in less than three weeks.
The week-long lawyers’ strike in the national capital ended on Thursday after Delhi police’s assurance that the notification permitting police officials to depose before courts via videoconferencing from police stations has been put on hold. Lawyers across the city had launched a strike last week, which escalated sharply on Wednesday, opposing a notification passed by lieutenant governor V.K. Saxena allowed investigating officers and other witnesses to depose from police stations. Lawyers protesting the move argued that this could hamper the judicial process and impact the sanctity of trial proceedings. In a statement, Delhi Police commissioner Satish Golchha said, “The operation of the said notification on the ground would be carried out after hearing all stakeholders.” The announcement came after members of the bar associations met Union home ministry officials earlier in the day, The Hindustan Times reports.
The Allahabad High Court has delivered a significant judgement reinforcing the principle that police surveillance through a ‘history-sheet’ cannot be initiated based on a single, long-past criminal case. The court ruled that such an action required substantial evidence to reasonably believe a person is a habitual offender, quashing an order by the Superintendent of Police. The division bench, comprising Justice Siddharth and Justice Santosh Rai, allowed the writ petition filed by Mohammad Wajir, directing the police to close his history-sheet and cease surveillance.
Although Jammu and Kashmir lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha has claimed that the Vaishno Devi pilgrimage had been stopped by the time a landslide hit one of the routes to the temple, deputy chief minister Surinder Choudhary has said that pilgrims were still moving towards the shrine when the disaster happened. Jehangir Ali points out that the IMD as well as the Jammu and Kashmir administration had issued weather alerts for Jammu ahead of the landslide. An official spokesperson also said that the administration had found weather for the pilgrimage to be ‘conducive’ until 10 am on Tuesday but did not say how this was the case despite the earlier forecast of poor weather.
India has formally requested the United Nations Security Council’s sanctions committee to grant a travel exemption for Amir Khan Muttaqi, the acting Foreign Minister of Afghanistan’s Taliban government, to visit New Delhi. This follows reports that Muttaqi’s earlier travel exemption was revoked, prompting India to seek approval for his proposed visit by the end of the week. According to Indian media citing sources, New Delhi has extended an official invitation to Muttaqi and completed all logistical and diplomatic preparations for the trip. A source stated, “India awaits the UN Security Council’s decision on the travel exemption. Once approved, the exact travel dates will be finalised.” The request underscores India’s intent to engage with the Taliban government, despite its lack of international recognition.
South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR), along with more than 100 Afghan and international human rights and civil society organisations, have called on the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to urgently establish an independent international mechanism to investigate human rights violations and crimes under international law in Afghanistan. In a joint open letter released this week, the groups warned that nearly four years of Taliban rule have subjected Afghans – especially women, girls, minorities, LGBTQI+ communities, journalists, human rights defenders, and civil society activists – to “unprecedented repression.”
In May, Belgian diplomatic staffer Guillaume de Bassompierre plastered nine posters of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu across Delhi’s diplomatic enclave, each declaring the obvious: “Wanted for crimes against humanity.” It cost him his job, and his family was forced to leave India, reports Shivnarayan Rajpurohit. The very next day, Indian security officials stopped him near the Israeli ambassador’s residence, reportedly acting aggressively, rifling through his bag, and confiscating his bicycle key. A simple act of dissent became a high-cost punishment.
The District Education Officer (DEO) has reportedly given a clean chit to Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Prathmik Shala No 51 in Bhavnagar’s Gujarat, saying there was “no malicious intent” behind a play staged at the school on Independence Day in which burqa-clad girls were portrayed as terrorists. According to this report in The Indian Express, the decision was based on a factual report submitted by the Municipal School Board’s Administrative Officer, which stated the act was “completely unintentional” and carried “no malicious intent to hurt religious sentiments or disturb communal harmony”.
By criminalising so-called ‘digital propaganda’ and expanding police powers, Uttarakhand’s amendments risk turning the internet into both a surveillance trap for interfaith couples and a censorship tool against secular, pro–freedom of religion speech, writes Nidah Kaiser and Sabah Gurmat in an important piece. They argue:
“It risks throwing open a Pandora’s Box for internet vigilantes who will have one more tool to crack down on anything that fits the ambiguous definition of “promotion” or “incitement” to religious conversion.
Across states, anti-conversion laws have already disproportionately ensnared couples in interfaith relationships. Uttarakhand’s new digital clause heightens that risk. Sharing a marriage certificate online or interfaith ceremony photos or a few lines about the spiritual reasons for marriage could be characterised as “glorifying another religion” or booked as an “inducement”.
This could mean that even interfaith couples promoting their wedding celebrations by posting online, or people showing interest in another’s religion online, can face the ire of vigilantes misusing the law.”
The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) has released the results of the Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) 2023-24, presenting a strong performance of India’s manufacturing sector, with Tamil Nadu continuing to emerge as a leader in employment and the number of factories. It also ranks third in terms of Gross Value Added (10.26%) and output (10.11%), reflecting its balanced performance across industrial production and value generation. The state’s dominance in employment indicates the strong labour absorption capacity of its diverse industries, spanning automobiles, textiles, leather, food products, electronics, and pharmaceuticals.
Jailed anti-CAA activist Sharjeel Imam has said he plans to contest the upcoming elections in Bihar, describing political participation as a responsibility he feels as an educated Muslim. In a written interview from prison, Imam explains that his decision stems from a belief that Muslims must actively engage in shaping political discourse rather than remain on the margins:
“Why do you want to contest the Bihar elections?
The most important reason for contesting elections is to bring to the fore our narrative on positive politics, that is, constructive conversation on minority rights and structural changes which are necessary to ensure dignified life for minorities in the face of majoritarian tyranny.
The mainstream “secular consensus” led by Congress in Indian politics says that there is no “Muslim issue”. In systemic terms, they argue, everything is perfect – all we need to do is to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party. This secular consensus is not only a lie, but also a trap in which the Muslims have found themselves since 1947.
Unless we start talking about structural and constitutional changes, there is no way out of political marginalisation of Indian Muslims. These systemic changes include proportional representation in elections, Muslim reservations (divided internally into caste groups), federalism, autonomy from majoritarian oversight in religious issues.”
Government’s ‘reforms’ reward corporates, squeeze citizens: personal taxes now surpass corporate contribution
For the first time in India’s history, personal income tax collections have surpassed corporate taxes, indicating a structural change in the country’s direct tax framework, according to a report by JM Financial Institutional Securities. The share of personal income tax in total direct tax collections rose sharply from 38.1% in FY14 to 53.4% in FY24. In contrast, corporate tax contribution declined from 61.9% to 46.6% during the same period. The development reflects the impact of formalisation, digitisation and stronger compliance measures adopted over the last decade.
MGNREGS already close to half-yearly spending limit but Fin Min unwilling to part with funds
There's still a month for the second quarter of the ongoing financial year to come to pass, but the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme is already close to its 60% budgetary spending limit for the first half of the fiscal year, reports Sobhana K Nair. Having spent Rs 51,521 crore of its allocated Rs 86,000 crore so far this year – with almost 38% of the latter going towards covering pending liabilities from the last fiscal – the rural development ministry has Rs 79 crore left to spend on the MGNREGS in September. Its officials have written to the finance ministry seeking more funds but the latter appears unwilling to allocate any more money, Nair reports citing sources. The government, she adds, has also been dragging its feet on implementing the scheme in West Bengal, to which it stopped sending funds on grounds of irregularities.
Uttarakhand govt approved contentious Char Dham bypass project despite panel's warning
More than two weeks before the Dharali, Uttarakhand landslide of August 5, the state government issued its in-principle approval to a bypass road under the Char Dham highway project downstream the Bhagirathi, which a Supreme Court-appointed high-powered committee had demurred on in 2020. Nikhil Ghanekar reports that the Union defence ministry in September 2024 declared the stretch of land where the bypass has been proposed as strategically important, following which the Union environment ministry directed the Uttarakhand government to process approval for the bypass under an exemption clause of the Van Adhiniyam that allows such projects to skip New Delhi's approval. The apex court-appointed panel had recommended against the bypass – which falls in the Bhagirathi Eco-Sensitive Zone – saying the existing highway could be widened instead. Some members of the panel have pointed out in the Dharali disaster's aftermath that building the bypass will require cutting pristine forest and digging through tricky deposits.
The Long Cable
The misplaced nostalgia for the old warhorse MiG-21s
Rahul Bedi
The Indian Air Force’s (IAF) nostalgia for the imminently retiring Soviet-era MiG-21 ground-attack fighters—wryly nicknamed the ‘Flying Coffin’ and ‘Widow Maker’—perpetuates a romanticism that obscures the platform's grim legacy of frequent crashes, in which scores of pilots and civilians had, over decades, died.
In the run-up to the phasing out of the IAF’s last two MiG-21 ‘Bis’ squadrons on September 26 in Chandigarh, glamorised media narratives and macho veteran recollections of the fighter’s derring-do over 62 years, had transformed the outdated platform into a myth-laden symbol of valour and endurance. Such tributes also propagated a ‘halo effect’ around the fighter, glossing over its dismal safety record and the tragic human cost of keeping it operational, well past its prime.
Even highly symbolic farewell gestures—such as Air Chief Marshal A. P. Singh’s final sortie in a single-seat MiG-21 on Monday, dramatically escorted by a female fighter pilot in a similar fighter-too have been framed as proud tributes to the aircraft’s heritage and valour.
Yet, in such celebratory narratives, the fighter’s inherent risks are hastily airbrushed, relegated to a footnote, with its catastrophic accident record glossed over by fighter jocks. Instead, blame for this and the unfortunate earlier-mentioned sobriquets attached to the MiG-21 as a perilous platform, have been deflected by IAF veterans onto an ‘uninformed’ or ‘ignorant’ media. It’s almost as if critical scrutiny of the MiG-21’s accident-prone performance over six decades was the problem, rather than the ageing aircraft itself.
However, behind the MiG-21’s legendary status lies a stark reality: nearly 45%, or some 400 of the 874 fighter type, inducted since 1963—mostly licence-built by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited in Bangalore—were lost in accidents, claiming the lives of over 170 pilots and around 40 civilians on the ground.
What is also often obscured in these sentimentalised MiG-21 accounts is that this fighter's remarkable longevity was driven less by choice than by compulsion. Chronic delays in replacement programmes, funding shortfalls, and bureaucratic inertia left the IAF with little alternative but to persist with MiG-21’s, long after their expiry date had elapsed.
After entering IAF service in 1963, the MiG-21s were never expected to dominate the forces' frontline combat line for so long; at best, it was designed to serve for two or three decades, like most fghters of its generation. But instead, it remained in service for 62 years and through the 1980s and 1990s, comprised nearly 60% of the IAF's fighter squadrons—an extraordinary level of dependence that reflected institutional compulsions rather than deliberate choice.
The MiG-21s extended tenure, enabled by inimitable ‘desi jugaad’ or locally improvised engineering fixes, was driven entirely by systemic failures in defence planning, procurement processes and geopolitical constraints. These factors collectively presented the IAF with an operational fait accompli of economically extending the MiG-21’s total technical life (TTL) or maximum lifespan, by several decades. Thus, what had been conceived as a limited-term platform, had ended up being recast as a combat cornerstone, well into the 21st century.
Earlier, in the mid-1990s, the MiG-21 had begun showing its age.
By then, most air forces worldwide- including those of the Soviet Union-had retired, or were phasing out their MiG-21s-over 12,000 built in all-but unable to secure timely replacements, the IAF had little option but to continue flogging them. The indigenous Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), later christened Tejas, launched in 1981, was hobbled by shifting design goals, inadequate engine capability, and bureaucratic apathy. Intended for induction in the 1990s, its timelines had slipped by decades, leaving the IAF shackled to its hoary MiG-21 fleet.
Import alternatives were equally unviable, with little money to spare. In the meantime, French Mirage-2000Hs and Russian MiG-29 inductions into the IAF in the 1980s had added firepower to the forces combat fleet, but not the numbers needed to replace hundreds of MiG-21s. Widespread sanctions after India’s 1998 nuclear tests further choked access to Western platforms and technology and also stalled the development of the LCA, that conducted its first test flight in 2001, exactly two decades after its development was launched.
Therefore, with fighter squadron strength dwindling in a hostile neighbourhood, the IAF had no choice but to extend the MiG-21’s TTL. The late 1990s MiG-21 ‘Bison’ jugaad upgrade — new radar, avionics and missiles — referred to above, bought time, but could not mask the fighter's inherent flaws: ageing design and airframes, punishing maintenance, and above all, a fatal safety record.
Even some senior IAF veterans—declining to be named amidst the unquestioning MiG-21 adulation—grudgingly conceded that this fighter type endured in service, not for its merit, but for lack of alternatives. “What began as a time-bound fighter in the Sixties, became a decades-long bridge between the IAF’s needs and India’s inability to meet them,” said a decorated veteran. The IAF had no viable alternative at the time but to keep the MiG-21s in service, he added.
Nevertheless, it was not as if the issue of retiring MiG-21s was never raised.
Air Chief Marshals Denis La Fontaine (1985–88), Nirmal Chandra Suri, S.K. Kaul, and Fali Major had all announced MiG-21 phase-out plans, but each deadline slipped, as replacement programmes stalled, and operational compulsions forced repeated extensions of the legacy fighters service life.
The most visible episode of the MiG-21s' retirement emerged during ACM N.A.K. Browne’s tenure, when he firmly declared that the fighters' phasing out would begin from 2017. Expectedly, that deadline too slipped, once again leaving the MiG-21 holding the combat line.
Over time, nostalgia has blurred this reality, and uncritical praise of the MiG-21 risks not only subjectively distorts its history, but also masks the wider institutional failures of the IAF and the Ministry of Defence as a triumphant tale of endurance. Romanticising the platform is just another step away.
And, as the MiG-21 takes its final bow at Chandigarh next month, a surge of further sentiment is both inevitable and understandable. Yet such wistfulness must not eclipse the hard truths surrounding this Cold War-era fighter, lest memory harden smugly into comforting myth.
Reportedly
Indian diplomat Vikas Swarup is quoted at an event as saying—In India we talk too much on the international front. “There are too many tweets, etc, being sent from New Delhi to our missions that they are getting lost in the din.” He could have added—we also hug, laugh and crack jokes. But is this diplomacy, which is all about hard-nosed calculation based on self-interest? To a question about Hanuman being the first space traveller, Swarup reportedly said that science shouldn’t be mixed with mythology as pointed to China, which has progressed because of a thrust on science.
Pen vs sword
Deep dive
Read this piece by Vijay Kelkar and Ajay Shah on India's economic strategy in the “new Globalisation” and its perils.
Prime number: 3 years in a row
School enrolment in government and government-aided schools has dropped for the third consecutive year. The number shows a dip of 11 lakh in 2024-25 over the previous year. Interestingly, enrolment in private schools has gone up, belying the claim that the drop is because of falling birth rates.Opeds you don’t want to miss
In taking back his ‘retire-at-75’ remarks Mohan Bhagwat may have “declared a ceasefire” with the prime minister, but in saying that swayamsevaks are free to agitate to ‘restore’ Mathura's Shahi Idgah and Kashi's Gyanvapi mosques to Hindus, he has “invit[ed] … mobs to come out on the streets in defence of or against the two places of worship”, Harish Khare says. Coming at a time when “India should be presenting a united face to the world, the sarsanghchalak has thoughtlessly stoked the embers of old fault-lines” that could be exploited by the outside world, Khare warns.
India has made substantive concessions to China on the border to deter a two-front situation, says Defence Planning Staff ex-founding member Maj Gen Ashok K Mehta (retd) arguing that the Modi government “has had to feign real progress on the border in order to normalise ties with China. India has made substantive concessions to China on the border to deter a two-front situation.”
Jayati Ghosh explains why “India’s oligarchs have become pawns in a global power play with the US”.
The Presidential Reference case is riddled with flaws that go beyond technicalities, striking at the very heart of constitutional democracy and the sovereignty of the people, writes Kumar Kartikeya Dwivedi.
Modi’s visit to China provides a rare window of opportunity for improving China-India relations, notes an editorial in The Global Times. “Observers note that the two major countries are now making efforts to manage their ties as “partners rather than rivals.” While challenges remain in bilateral relations, both sides' willingness for pragmatic cooperation introduces a positive variable into global strategic balance.”
From recent events, one may be justified in inferring that the Collegium is acting as per the wishes of the Executive, writes Manu Sebastian. “If it cannot candidly disclose the reasons for its decisions, acknowledge dissent within its own ranks and can’t prove that it is immune from Executive influence, its legitimacy collapses”.
China is presenting South Asia with a stark choice between conflict and cooperation, writes Imran Khalid, as Wang Yi’s recent visits to India, Afghanistan, and Pakistan sent distinct messages to each country and the broader region.
Read this analysis by Rahul Singh, a former MoD official, on how Trump’s Ukraine gambit leaves Modi outplayed, India exposed to Tariff wrecking ball.
The Indus river system has seen a million cusec plus flood surge on nine occasions only since 1959. Since 2010, this is the third such peak. Khurram Husain weighed in right as the flood waters were crossing into Pakistan.
Listen up
Can the RBI's ‘Framework for Responsible and Ethical Enablement of AI’ in the financial sector – which has used AI to detect fraud and rate credit among other things – “regulate the use of AI, without slowing down innovation”? The Indian School of Business's Prasanna Tantri joins Nivedita V in The Hindu's InFocus podcast to discuss.
Watch out
Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty and Supreme Court lawyer Shahrukh Alam join Sravasti Dasgupta for a wrap up of the week's developments, most prominently the fears of disenfranchisement amid Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma's eviction drives, and the Delhi high court's decision to set aside the Central Information Commission's directive to allow inspection of – indirectly – the prime minister's BA degree.
Over and out
This is hardly the first time that Guru Nanak's samadhi – currently taking the form of the Kartarpur Sahib just across the border in the Pakistani Punjab – lies inundated, notes Rahul Bedi, who uses the current flood as a jumping-off base for a history of the shrine. He writes: “… As waters swirl dangerously and silently around the Gurdwara’s corridors … the Ravi – indifferent to barbed wire, border guards or passports – reminds us all that Kartarpur belongs first to the river, before it does to either country.”
That’s it for today. We’ll be back with you on Monday, on a device near you. If The India Cable was forwarded to you by a friend (perhaps a common friend!) book your own copy by SUBSCRIBING HERE.