India’s Economic Growth Sharply Decelerated in 2024-25; India Will Use Navy’s Firepower in any Future Conflict with Pakistan; Russia Finalises Deal with Pakistan to Revive Defunct Steel Plant
Opposition Owes Indians Some Answers, Amit Shah Reviews Security Situation in Kashmir Ahead of Amarnath Yatra, India’s FDI Story is a Mirage, not a Success
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
May 30, 2025
Sidharth Bhatia
Pakistan and India are close to reducing the troop build-up along their border to levels before conflict erupted between the nuclear-armed neighbours this month, General Sahir Shamshad Mirza, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee told Reuters on Friday, although he warned the crisis had increased the risk of escalation in the future. Gen Mirza said the two militaries had started the process of drawing down troop levels. “We have almost come back to the pre-22nd April situation… we are approaching that, or we must have approached that by now,” said Mirza, the most senior Pakistani military official to speak publicly since the conflict.
However, India’s ministry of defence and the office of the Indian chief of defence staff has not confirmed the developments.
India will use the firepower of its “navy in response to any future aggression by Pakistan,” India’s defence minister said earlier today. “If Pakistan resorts to anything evil or unethical, it will, this time, face the firepower and ire of the Indian Navy,” Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said on the aircraft carrier INS Vikrant off the coast of the western Indian state of Goa. He also warned that India will use every method to root out the menace of terrorism if Pakistan instigates any terror act against India.
Meanwhile, the country’s economic growth decelerated sharply to 6.5% in FY 2024-25, marking a four-year low, according to data released by the National Statistics Office (NSO) on Friday. The slowdown was underscored by a weaker-than-expected 7.4% growth in the March quarter, down from 8.4% in the same period a year earlier. The annual figure, though marginally above market expectations of 6.3%, reflected a steep drop from the 9.2% expansion recorded in 2023-24. Despite a stronger January-March performance compared to projections, the overall trajectory points to waning momentum. The NSO stated, “Real GDP has been estimated to grow by 6.5% in FY 2024-25,” highlighting a significant loss in economic pace over the year.
India’s long-time strategic partner Russia has finalised a deal with Pakistan to revive a defunct Soviet-era steel plant. The move has raised eyebrows in New Delhi. The new steel facility will occupy a 700-acre section of the 19,000-acre PSM site near Karachi and will utilise Pakistan’s estimated 1.4 billion tons of iron ore reserves. Powered by advanced Russian steel manufacturing technology, the revival project is expected to cut Pakistan’s annual steel import bill by 30% and slash $2.6 billion in foreign expenditures. This cooperation could reshape economic ties in the region and spark new diplomatic friction between India and Russia.
The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) dismissed as a “figment of imagination” the allegation that it is disinterested in publishing the report on the Keeladi excavation. It called such claims misleading and an attempt to malign the department. This comes after the ASI had asked archaeologist Amarnath Ramakrishna, who unearthed an ancient civilisation in Keeladi in Sivaganga district, to resubmit his report about the excavation after making necessary corrections for taking further action. However, Ramakrishna defended his conclusions and refused to revise the findings.
The relationship between the United States and India under President Donald Trump’s second term presents a difficult picture with modest signals towards India and Narendra Modi. Most of US’s diplomatic infrastructure for dealing with India remains absent and the administration’s policy decisions have created friction, particularly regarding the Quad’s strategic purpose and unresolved trade disputes, furthering the narrative of India’s deprioritization in Trump 2.0. In addition, the absence of high-profile advocacy from Trump himself, his utterances regarding Pakistan and hard line on stalled trade negotiations underscore growing concerns in New Delhi about a tough time ahead in Washington D.C., despite the personal and political investment by Modi. The Wire has an important analysis.
The Iranian Embassy in India has said it is investigating the case of three Indian nationals who went missing in Tehran earlier this month. The men, all of whom are from the northern state of Punjab, had a stopover in Iran on 1 May, and were on their way to Australia, where they were promised lucrative jobs by a local travel agent. Their families allege that they were kidnapped upon their arrival by unknown men, who are now demanding a ransom of 5m rupees ($63,000; £47,000). On Thursday, the Iranian Embassy said, external on X that it was keeping Indian authorities informed of all developments “within the judicial system” and warned about the dangers of taking illegal immigration routes.
In an interview with The Financial Times, Jamshyd Godrej, head of one of India’s oldest conglomerates, expressed frustration over the challenges posed by bureaucratic red tape in India. The 76-year-old leader detailed his ambitious plans to transform the company’s sprawling factory complex in Mumbai by relocating production to an industrial park outside the city. However, Godrej emphasised that navigating India’s complex regulatory environment remains a significant obstacle to executing these plans and doing business efficiently.
Bank frauds have reduced in FY25 but the amount involved went up almost three-fold and most cases occurred in digital payments, according to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Private-sector banks reported more cases but state-owned lenders “contributed maximum” to the fraud amount. As many as 23,953 incidences of fraud involving banks took place, down 34% from FY24, said the regulator’s annual report for FY25. The amount involved in frauds in FY25 was Rs 36,014 crore, up almost three times. Out of which, private-sector lenders reported the highest number of fraud cases (14,233) in FY25, accounting for 59.4% of all cases in the banking sector.
India’s crypto sector is intensifying its efforts to lobby the government for tax reforms, capitalizing on a growing receptiveness with “New Delhi’s softening stance towards digital assets as lawmakers negotiate a wider trade deal with the US”, reports The Financial Times. This shift in engagement is particularly notable following Trump’s return to the White House and his vocal support for cryptocurrency. Industry leaders are advocating for a rollback of the steep taxes introduced in 2022, which include a 30% capital gains tax and a 1% levy on every crypto transaction. These measures, aimed at curbing illegal activities, have reportedly driven more than 90% of Indian crypto trading offshore.
The installation of a portrait of Veer Savarkar in the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) office this week has sparked a controversy over procedural norms and ideological contestations on campus. The initiative, undertaken by JNUSU Joint Secretary Vaibhav Meena of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), coincided with the birth anniversary of Savarkar. The president of JNUSU, Nitish Kumar, and general secretary, Fathima Munteha, released a joint statement on Thursday opposing the act. “It has come to our notice that portraits are being installed in the JNUSU Office without prior consultation in the Council meeting. A portrait in the JNUSU Office can’t be installed without a resolution being passed in the council meeting, which has long been a convention,” they said.
The Indian chapter of South Asian Women in Media (SAWM) has released a statement condemning “the online abuse and doxxing” of Anuradha Bhasin, editor of Kashmir Times, and a valued member of the association by another journalist. It reads, “The journalist carried out her threat, selectively and egregiously posting parts of the discussion that also displayed Ms Bhasin’s phone number, thereby seriously compromising her security and right to privacy. SAWM is shocked and dismayed by her conduct.”
In a significant move aimed at countering rising communal tensions, the Karnataka government has officially rolled out a new Special Action Force, dubbed the Anti-Communal Force, which will operate in three communally sensitive districts, Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, and Shivamogga. The role of the special action force will include having an intelligence unit comprising a technical cell for collecting and monitoring media and social media along with intelligence about hate speech, inflammatory incidents and communal incidents.
Home minister Amit Shah is in Jammu and Kashmir to review the security situation in the aftermath of the India-Pakistan conflict and ahead of the Amarnath Yatra, one of the routes for which passes through Pahalgam, which is where the April 22 terror attack took place. A day before Shah’s arrival in Jammu yesterday, chief minister Omar Abdullah shot a veiled barb at the Union government, saying that “we [in Jammu and Kashmir] have a strange arrangement. Tourists are my responsibility but the security of tourists is not my responsibility. Here three governments will have to work together – the elected government of J&K, the unelected government of J&K and the government of India.”
From Wickets to Warfare – Sushant Singh writes on the Indian Premier League’s (IPL) troubling new playbook of cricket’s militarisation. He writes,
“Far more sinister is the fact that the BCCI’s decision exploits genuine public sentiment about the military for commercial and political gain. The IPL, valued as the world's richest cricket league generating massive revenues, benefits from nationalist fervour that boosts viewership and engagement. By wrapping military tributes in the spectacle of cricket entertainment, the BCCI cynically commodifies patriotism even as it tries to appear virtuous. This fusion of entertainment and military glorification normalises warfare and makes military actions appear celebratory and entertaining, rather than sobering realities of death and devastation requiring serious reflection.
This alignment of commercial cricket with military triumphalism exemplifies Marqusee's prescient critique of sports being co-opted to serve exclusionary nationalist agendas. The tragic paradox of the BCCI’s decision is of a celebration masquerading as unity that deepens the very divisions cricket should overcome. As Marqusee himself observed in War Minus the Shooting: “Cricket can be unifier or divider, symbol of solidarity or 'war minus the shooting.’ It is up to us.””
The CBI has had an FIR registered after it learnt that some people in parts of India including Delhi, Noida and Varanasi scammed people in Japan by convincing them that their computer had been infected by malware and proceeding to extract money from their bank accounts on the pretext that they could fix the issue. The scam, reports Ananya Bhardwaj, was orchestrated mostly by students learning Japanese. However, their Japanese was “notably unnatural and non-fluent”, per a source.
In a striking move to revive the Supreme Court’s traditional aura, Chief Justice of India B.R. Gavai has reinstated the old Supreme Court logo, reversing changes introduced by his predecessor, DY Chandrachud, reports Bar and Bench. Alongside this, CJI Gavai has announced plans to remove the glass partition at the court’s front area – another bold step aimed at enhancing openness and restoring the Court’s classic dignity.
Last week, several news outlets reported that FDI into India reached $81 billion in 2024-25. But beneath the headline, the picture is far less encouraging. Net FDI stood at just 0.01% of GDP — the lowest level in 25 years. Economic commentator Vivek Kaul unpacks why India’s FDI story is less a success and more a mirage. He argues, “Behind the glossy numbers lies a revealing truth: both foreign and Indian investors – foreigners more than Indians – are losing enthusiasm for India’s growth story. The detailed digging up of data tells a far more sobering tale.”
Mumbai's Metropolitan Region Development Authority informed the Supreme Court today that it cancelled its tendering process for the construction of the Rs 8,000 crore Thane-Ghodbunder–Bhayandar tunnel and Rs 6,000 crore elevated road projects. L&T had alleged that it was unfairly disqualified from the tendering process without being apprised of the status of its technical bid. Debayan Roy reports.
Shashi Tharoor, who was criticised by a fellow Congress leader for saying that India crossed the Line of Control to target terrorist infrastructure for the first time in 2016, tweeted a rejoinder yesterday saying his remarks “were preceded by a reference to the several attacks that have taken place in recent years alone”; he went on to say that “critics and trolls are welcome to distort my views and words as they see fit”. Tharoor – who appears isolated in his party – seems to be aiming for the Kerala chief minister's post, senior journalist MG Radhakrishnan tells Ajoy Ashirwad, adding that if the grand old party's power-starved UDF allies ‘decide to support him, the Congress may have to take a tough decision’.
An Uttarakhand court on Friday sentenced the son of a former BJP leader and his two associates to life imprisonment in the 2022 Ankita Bhandari murder case. The Additional District and Sessions Court in Kotdwar also imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 each on Pulkit Arya, son of former BJP leader Vinod Arya, and his associates Saurabh Bhaskar and Ankit Gupta. All three were convicted for the murder of the 19-year-old.
There were ‘repeated attempts’ to merge the Bharat Rashtra Samithi with the BJP, including when she was in jail in connection with the Delhi liquor policy case, BRS MLC and party scion K Kavitha has said, adding that she was not on board with such a merger. The Hindu reports that she also said she would only accept her father, longtime BRS president and former Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao, as the party's leader – this at a time when his son KT Rama Rao is perceived as heir apparent. Recently a letter that Kavitha wrote to KCR in which she expressed dissatisfaction at the latter's inadequate criticism of the BJP was leaked. Meanwhile, the firebrand Telangana BJP MLA T Raja Singh criticised his party's leadership for its alleged willingness to ally with the BRS.
Apologise, Karnataka HC tells BJP legislator for communal remarks against district collector
While hearing Karnataka BJP MLC N Ravikumar’s petition against an FIR lodged against him for his remarks against Kalaburagi collector Fouzia Tarannum – Ravikumar had said she “seems to have come from Pakistan” – the Karnataka high court orally asked the legislator to apologise to Tarannum. The bench noted the similarity of his case and that of Madhya Pradesh minister Vijay Shah and, when told Ravikumar had already apologised, said it would consider his plea after she accepts his apology, reports Deccan Herald.
Demonetisation 2.0? Fake Rs 500 notes hit six-year high while Modi govt prints promises
The Reserve Bank of India’s annual report revealed that counterfeit Rs 500 denomination notes (excluding specified banknotes) detected in the banking system soared 37.35% year-on-year to 1,17,722 in 2024–25 from 85,711 in 2023–24 – the highest in six years. Additionally, counterfeit notes of denominations below Rs 200 rose by 13.9% YoY to 32,600.
The Modi government promised to flush out fake notes with demonetisation – turns out, the only thing in circulation more than ever is irony.
How the poor bear the brunt of necessary Aadhaar verification and e-KYC
That Aadhaar-based verification is becoming a necessity to access more and more things – including education and rations – and hits the poor hardest is well-known. Reporting from a long queue in front of the Inderlok Aadhaar centre in Delhi during the late-April heat, Aparna Kalra in this special piece offers a glimpse of what this difficulty looks like for various people, including a woman who waited in line to change a half ‘s’ in her name in Hindi to a full one. She also foregrounds her reportage amid that by others in recent months about how Aadhaar and e-KYC requirements are affecting school enrolment and access to welfare schemes, including for India’s first ever Aadhaar recipient.
The Long Cable
The Opposition owes the Indian public some answers
Omair Ahmad
India has followed up its military operation against Pakistan with an extensive outreach with cross-party delegations travelling the world. This is an undeniably good thing for India as a whole. Security involves the whole of the Republic, and should not become a political football. That said, it is shameful that the government and opposition parties are travelling the world to speak about an issue but have not felt the need to do so with the Indian public.
Politicians are public servants. They are elected by the people, they are paid by the people, and they need to answer to the people first and foremost. The politicians, press, and public of other countries are – at best – secondary to the work of Indian politicians. Briefing them first, and the Indian public second, is an abdication of responsibility. And ‘confidential information’ is no defence. Whatever can be shared with foreign civilians, media, and politicians is – by definition – information that should be accessible to the Indian public.
Unfortunately, this abdication of responsibility is personified by Narendra Modi, who has rarely explained the choices of the government, or chosen to be questioned. Sadly, we expect nothing from him or the party and coalition he leads. The Opposition, if it deserves to be called as such, needs to do better.
While the mistake of not briefing the Indian public about their mission is a grave one, a bigger mistake, a bigger failure, would be to stay quiet after they come back.
There are three main questions that the delegations will have been asked abroad, and one major one they can answer when they are back.
1. What were the goals of Operation Sindoor, and have they been achieved? If not, why not?
War is only the pursuit of politics by other means, wrote Carl von Clausewitz. No matter how precise, how catastrophic, or how smart any military operation is, if it does not change political realities, it is a waste of lives and material. What political realities did the operation try to change? Have those political realities changed, or not? If not, and if – as the Indian government says the operation is only paused – how does India plan on changing those political realities? Does it have the capability to do so?
In simpler words, does India have a plan for its citizens not to be ritually murdered once again in Kashmir? Did Operation Sindoor manage to move this plan forward or not?
2. Does India have a plan for dealing with the issue of Kashmir?
There has been a lot of bluster by the Indian government on Kashmir. Everything from demonetisation to the dismemberment of the state of Jammu & Kashmir, to the legal chicanery involved in denuding what was left of Article 370 has been justified as a way to end terrorism. The result seems to be even worse. The atrocities in Pahalgam, where Indian tourists were separated based on religion and then murdered, have not been seen before. Now Modi and his ministers say that the only thing to talk about is the part of Kashmir under Pakistani control. If so, they are implicitly acknowledging that the final status of the former princely state of Jammu & Kashmir has still to be resolved. What is the end goal on Kashmir and what is India’s plan to get there? What is entirely clear is that the government’s current strategy is a stinking failure, and it would be good to hear whether the opposition leaders have a better plan, or if they are also as clueless as the government.
3. What do India’s neighbours think of Operation Sindoor?
One would think that India’s first, and most important, foreign outreach would be to its (and Pakistan’s) neighbours. Has not every government of note in the last two decades talked about a Neighbourhood First policy? But, no, we have chosen not to do that. SAARC remains in coma because India will not allow it to meet because its next venue would have to be in Pakistan. India and Pakistan’s most influential neighbour is China, but we have chosen to send no delegation there. Still, countries in Latin America, in Sub-Saharan Africa, in Western Europe, all places that have some working (however poorly) regional or sub-regional security arrangements will undoubtedly ask, so what do your neighbours think? If peace is a priority, I am sorry to say, only a fool thinks that the opinion of a small country far away matters more than of a neighbouring country that shares a border. Do we have an answer? Are we prepared even to ask the question?
4. Is India seen as part of the problem or part of the solution?
This question is one that the delegations can only answer after their trips. To be fair, it is a hard one, largely because we do not have a national security strategy, or a published vision for South Asian security, or even a published vision of how to tackle terrorism (let’s not talk about accusations that we are murdering dissidents abroad). It is, thus, impossible to assess by any official metric whether we are pursuing a strategy that will bring peace to us and to the region or one that begets further violence and greater risk, but what do other countries think of our strategy and the outcomes of Operation Sindoor?
A lot of Indian commentators are offended that Operation Sindoor has led to the re-hyphenation of India-Pakistan as troubled siblings, but the real question is whether foreigners see us as the more problematic country in this relationship. As bad as Pakistan’s reputation is, it is India that is throwing Rohingya refugees into the sea and forcing hundreds across the border into Bangladesh without any due process, it is India that is publicly sidling up to the Taliban, that supported the Sheikh Hasina regime despite its well-documented human rights violations, that continues to partner with Myanmar’s abusive military dictatorship. And this is all without the hideous communal and anti-democratic domestic politics that have dominated the domestic sphere for more than a decade. Add to that it is India that raised the ante by carrying out a major military campaign into Pakistani territory based on no public evidence, and violating a major international agreement like the Indus Waters Treaty. How does the world see all this, and does this explain why not one major country went out of its way to back Operation Sindoor, while almost all of them loudly welcomed the ceasefire that ended it?
Any responsible government would already have answered these. Ours, of course, feels no need to. Since the opposition parties have chosen to support the government in the outreach, the responsibility falls on them too, to explain themselves, and justify the direction they think we should pursue so that our people are not murdered again.
(Omair Ahmad is an author. His last novel, Jimmy the Terrorist, was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize, and won the Crossword Award.)
Reportedly
The BJP has been forced to withdraw its contentious plan to distribute sindoor to the general public as part of marking one year of its minority coalition government at the Centre. The initiative faced widespread pushback, derision and disgust on social media, putting the party’s plan under intense scrutiny. It took BJP three days to say that news prominently published in a friendly Hindi newspaper was ‘fake’.
Meanwhile, here is a piece of advice from …
Pen vs sword
Deep dive
The Pakistan air force’s stronger performance vis-a-vis the army during Operation Sindoor – something acknowledged by the country’s political leadership, media and veterans – may be a reason behind army chief Asim Munir's elevation to field marshal, as part of a move to signal that the army is still in charge, according to defence analysts and Pakistan observers. Rahul Bedi fleshes out the backdrop against which this ‘operational imbalance’ has occurred – i.e. the army’s historical dominance over the air force and navy – why the air force earned praise for its work earlier this year and where things could go from here.
Prime number: 51.6%
A little less than half of rural women aged 15 and above (48.4%) own a mobile phone (and therefore 51.6% do not), according to the Comprehensive Modular Survey (Telecom) conducted earlier this year and released yesterday. The corresponding figure for men is 80.7%. Close to three-quarters of urban women (71.8%) own mobiles as compared to 90% of urban men. The survey also has statistics on internet usage and message use among these groups.
Opeds you don’t want to miss
India last week declared its intent for fast-track development of an indigenous fifth generation fighter aircraft (FGFA). This comes after India had withdrawn in 2018 from a joint programme with Russia to develop a Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft after spending $ 295 million. In the post Operation Sindoor environment, India now wants to suddenly develop its own FGFA. “This is not India’s first brush with such lofty ambitions”, writes Rahul Bedi. But analysts say the road ahead to develop Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) is “riddled with multiple challenges.”
By now, a replacement for the BJP president’s post should have been found, but the incumbent J P Nadda is still in the post. This is mainly because of the tussle between Narendra Modi and the RSS, writes Harish Khare on a mutually acceptable name. Modi will not yield to the RSS bosses in Nagpur on their suggestion and a “larger battle” between both sides is coming, he says.
Why did Narendra Modi, instead of taking a statesman-like stance in the aftermath of declaring victory in the Indo-Pak conflict, go all aggressive and start bringing “cinematic menace to everyday politics?” Bharat Bhushan gives a few possibilities: Is it because of his penchant for headline worthy copy for news? Or for the sake of the Bihar elections? Or, is he “apprehensive that come September, the RSS will replace him with a younger person?” Modi turns 75 in September and he had once said that leaders should retire at that age.
When Modi first campaigned to be prime minister he promised to make all of India like Gujarat. Drawing from Salil Tripathi's new book The Gujaratis, The Economist notes that “where India today most closely resembles Gujarat is in its growing communal segregation, increasing religious tensions, the mounting assertiveness of vegetarians and attacks on its cosmopolitan instincts”.
A group of practicing doctors, professors and health administrators has urged professional bodies, civil society leaders and academia in India and Pakistan to pave the way for peace between the two countries in light of the fact that they can hardly afford protracted tensions given their poor health indicators.
Listen up
Sandipto Dasgupta, author of the new book Legalizing the Revolution, speaks with Milan Vaishnav on Grand Tamasha about “the two-way relationship between decolonisation and constitution-making, the absence of representation unity between the Congress party and the masses, and why India’s leaders believed a planned economy would forestall a social revolution”.
Watch out
Satirist ROFL Gandhi and Anurag Minus Verma talk Indian politics.
Over and out
Scientists have discovered a new species of cave fish in Meghalaya that is distinctive for its possessing eyesight and its ability to live both under- as well as overground. It is the sixth new species of cave fish discovered in Meghalaya – whose complex cave systems are underexplored due to their inaccessibility – in the past two or three decades, notes Cherylann Mollan, who learns that netting these creatures can be quite arduous.
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.