Modi Ducks Trump Confrontation Even as US Tariffs Hit Indian Exports and Russian Oil Is Sanctioned; How Modi Got LIC to Fund Adani
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Snapshot of the day
October 24, 2025
Siddharth Varadarajan
A day after the Opposition Mahagathbandhan alliance announced Tejashwi Yadav of the RJD as its chief ministerial face, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said the National Democratic Alliance, under the leadership of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, will script a “record-breaking” victory in the upcoming Assembly elections in the state. This marks the first time the prime minister has publicly endorsed the Janata Dal (United) chief as the alliance’s chief ministerial candidate. Earlier in the day, had alleged that the BJP did not want to make Kumar the chief minister again.
The Election Commission of India informed the Madras High Court that the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the Tamil Nadu electoral rolls would commence in a week. This comes as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin has slammed the revision in Bihar, comparing the exercise to “playing with fire.” On Thursday, the ECI directed the Chief Electoral Officers (CEOs) of the states to finalise their preparations for the SIR in their respective States/UTs and the schedule for a country-wide roll-out of the SIR is expected any day. The first phase of the process will be implemented in more than 10 states and one Union Territory, including election-bound Assam, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Kerala, and West Bengal.
Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries is in a frantic race to ship out battery components from China before Beijing’s new export restrictions kick in – a move that starkly exposes India’s vulnerability in its much-touted clean energy ambitions. Reuters reports that a Reliance team has been dispatched to China to fast-track the delivery of crucial battery gear, without which the conglomerate’s grand plan to locally assemble energy storage units for its mega solar project could grind to a halt. The scramble underscores an uncomfortable truth: even as India pitches itself as a renewable powerhouse, it remains deeply reliant on Chinese supply chains. Six of the world’s top ten battery makers are based in China, according to consultancy SNE Research – and Reliance’s dependence on them appears to be no exception. While China’s biggest player, CATL, has tried to calm nerves, saying it expects exports to continue “smoothly” under the new regime, Reliance’s rush betrays a deeper anxiety. For all its talk of self-reliance and “Make in India,” the country’s green transition seems perilously tethered to Beijing’s will.
Voting for four Rajya Sabha seats in Jammu and Kashmir took place today, with the ruling National Conference winning three (the victors being Chaudhary Mohammad Ramzan, Sajad Kichloo and Gurwinder Singh Oberoi) and the BJP winning one (Sat Sharma). The run-up to the polls was marked by ‘wild speculation’ due to the role of independent legislators in the Union territory: while Rajya Sabha elections are not held on a secret ballot, independents are not required to show their marked ballots to polling officers, recalls Jehangir Ali.
Several Jammu and Kashmir legislators, including Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, took a stand in the assembly today against the detention of Aam Aadmi Party MLA Mehraj Malik under the draconian Public Safety Act.
In its judgment quashing FIRs against officials of the Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences in Prayagraj earlier this month for allegedly converting Hindus to Christianity en masse, the Supreme Court said it ‘couldn’t help but observe’ that those provisions of Uttar Pradesh’s unlawful conversion law requiring people to issue declarations to the authorities before and after they convert “seem to introduce a very onerous procedure to be followed by an individual seeking to adopt a faith other than the one he professes”. Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra added that “the involvement and interference of the state authorities in the conversion procedure is also conspicuous, with the district magistrate having been legally obliged to direct a police enquiry in each case of intended religious conversion”. Gursimran Kaur Bakshi has the details.
Thousands of Indian artisans and weavers have been hit hard by US President Donald Trump’s decision in August to double tariffs on Indian goods to 50%. The move has dealt a severe blow to India’s carpet and handicraft sector, with exports falling over 16% in September from a year earlier, according to trade ministry data. In Kashmir, many weavers are being forced to abandon their craft. Bhat, 49, hired a worker to finish his last carpet before quitting. “This profession is dying,” he said. The US accounts for nearly 60% of India’s handmade carpet exports, leaving thousands of livelihoods at risk.
India needs a staggering $136.49 billion every year to help its smallholder farmers survive the mounting blows of climate change, according to a new report by Climate Focus for Family Farmers for Climate Action. The report paints a grim picture: Across India’s farmlands, yields are falling, pests and diseases are spreading, and water is vanishing. Droughts and floods now strike with unsettling regularity, threatening the livelihoods of millions who grow the food that feeds the nation - and nearly 70% of the world’s population. Yet, even as small farmers buckle under climate stress, support remains a fraction of what’s needed.
In the choking capital, the government has turned to theatrics. As a brown haze settled over Delhi after Diwali, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) launched a cloud seeding trial, claiming it would “clean the air.” The test flight, conducted as the city once again topped global pollution charts, was quickly called a “gimmick” by environmental experts, reports The Guardian.
Meanwhile, on social media, the right wing did what it does best – turned the crisis into a toxic war. As residents gasped through masks and air purifiers, pro-Hindutva accounts flooded timelines with celebratory posts, mocking environmental concerns and dismissing data on toxic air, finds Alt News.
Speaking of which, Artificial intelligence is being weaponised to spread anti-Muslim hate across India’s social media platforms, a new report by the Center for the Study of Organised Hate (CSOH) warns. Between January 2024 and April 2025, researchers identified 1,326 AI-generated posts targeting Muslims from 297 accounts on X, Instagram, and Facebook, including manipulated videos and images designed to stoke fear and mistrust. “As ChatGPT seeks to access the potentially vast Indian market by offering an inexpensive subscription plan priced at less than $5 a month, the need for such analysis becomes especially paramount,” said the report. “This report offers an early and urgent intervention into the ways AI tools such as Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and DALL·E are being used to generate synthetic images that fuel hate and disinformation against India’s Muslims.” The report highlights a critical gap in India’s ability to fight AI-driven disinformation. Unlike traditional hate speech, synthetic content is harder to detect, easier to scale, and more convincing, giving malicious actors a powerful tool to normalise prejudice and incite real-world harm.
Doubling down on Trump’s $100,000 fee hike for H-1B visas, the White House backed the US president on Thursday. In a briefing to the media, press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended Trump’s fee hike and stated that the administration is fighting a system which has been filled with “fraud”. The press secretary’s comments come after the US Chamber of Commerce filed a legal challenge to the Trump administration’s decision to hike the fee for a H-1B visa to $100,000.
The move has triggered deep concern among the roughly 50,000 India-trained doctors currently working in the United States. Many fear that the sharp increase in visa fees will make it far more expensive for hospitals – especially those in rural areas – to recruit and retain foreign medical professionals, reports the BBC.
Violent protests by the West Bengal unit of the BJP – based on the false claim that Muslims had vandalised the idol of a Hindu deity – failed to whip up any communal frenzy in a Bengal village and lost steam entirely when police said that a lone drunk man, that too a Hindu, had been arrested for the crime. Late on October 21, locals discovered that an idol of the Hindu deity Kali had been damaged in the Naskarpara area of Suryanagar village of Kakdwip area of the South 24 Parganas district. Joydeep Sarkar analyses the BJP’s communal spinning failures.
India’s Gen Z is deeply fragmented. Like their counterparts across the region, many are disillusioned by joblessness, corruption and widening inequality. Yet their frustration tends to erupt around local or issue-specific causes, rather than coalescing into a broader national movement – making a unified wave of youth activism unlikely, says the BBC.
Students of government-run residential schools for tribal children have been asked to debate how India’s indigenous knowledge is being diluted by modern education, a subject that is seen as a core agenda of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. During the EMRS National Cultural & Literary Fest and Kala Utsav 2025, the National Education Society for Tribal Students (NESTS) wants such schools to debate “Modern Education is Diluting Indigenous Knowledge Systems”, reports The Telegraph. Academics, however, said that the subject of the debate is based on a flawed idea that modern education is against the indigenous knowledge of India.
The BBC takes note of how India’s women bounced back to keep the World Cup dream alive.
With arguments in Sheikh Hasina’s trial on accusations of crimes against humanity concluding yesterday, the International Crimes Tribunal in Dhaka will deliver its verdict against the deposed premier on November 13. Prosecutors have demanded the death penalty against the ouster prime minister, who has called the trial a sham and continues to live in India.
Temple priesthood cannot be restricted to certain castes or lineages as doing so does not constitute an ‘essential religious practice’, the Kerala high court ruled earlier this week. It was hearing a petition filed by the Akhila Kerala Thanthri Samajam that argued that only those people who are trained by hereditary thanthris can become priests and that the Kerala Devaswom Recruitment Board’s recognition of Thanthri Vidyalayas in the state violated the rights to freedom of religion and freedom to manage religious affairs. Azeefa Fathima reports.
Dalit American author-activist Thenmozhi Soundararajan, head of the US-based Equality Labs, has been selected by the Tamil Nadu government for the 2025 Vaikom Award for Social Justice.
Five years after the nation’s collective hysteria over Sushant Singh Rajput’s death by suicide, the Central Bureau of Investigation has submitted its closure report – giving a clean chit to his close friend, the actor Rhea Chakraborty, and all the others accused. No evidence of abetment, confinement, or theft. Nothing. Poor Rhea was dragged through the mud – day after day, night after night – by television anchors in the run-up to the Bihar elections. She pleaded, with folded hands, and begged for basic decency as the “Godi media” turned her grief into a primetime spectacle. The CBI report exposes not just a failed witch-hunt, but is a permanent stain on Indian television journalism.
Modi govt quietly funnels billions in public funds to Adani group despite corruption allegation
The Modi government in May quietly approved a plan to channel nearly $3.9 billion in taxpayer money to the Prime Minister’s billionaire ally, Gautam Adani, according to the official documents accessed by The Washington Post. The scheme, designed in part to project “confidence” in Adani’s sprawling business empire and lure back wary investors, came just months after the tycoon was charged by the US Department of Justice and SEC – charges that rattled global markets and tarnished India’s corporate image.
According to the documents, the funds came from the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) – the state-run insurer that is supposed to safeguard the savings of millions of poor and rural families. Critics say the plan amounts to using public money to bail out a politically connected billionaire whose fortunes are deeply entwined with Modi’s rule.
Meanwhile, in a statement to the newspaper, the Adani Group “categorically denied” any role in the government’s decision, calling suggestions of political favoritism “unfounded” and insisting its rise “predates Modi’s national leadership”.
With Chhath Puja around the corner, VHP begins drive to exclude Muslim vendors, again
Ahead of Chhath Puja in Delhi, the Vishva Hindu Parishad intends to carry out a ‘verification’ process for vendors selling puja items ostensibly to ensure “quality and purity”, following which it will issue ‘verified’ shopkeepers a sticker proclaiming their sanatan pratishtha (sanatan prestige). It isn’t hard to see through this effort for what it really is: a way to single out and exclude Muslim vendors from business. This is part of what the VHP says is a drive to see through a ‘jihad-free’ Chhath Puja. Asked by Ankit Raj how selling puja items has anything to do with jihad, VHP official Surendra Gupta, who declared his organisation’s “respect for all communities”, offered the following reasoning in the same breath:
“Our stance is straightforward: if someone does not believe in our gods and goddesses, does not adhere to our religion, does not respect our idols and does not support our Jai Shri Ram slogan – what faith do they have in selling products during our festival? … They are willing to profit from us, yet their religion opposes these practices. How can this hypocrisy be justified?”
And it’s not just for Chhath Puja that the VHP plans to deploy its stickers: its ultimate goal is that ‘over time Hindus will also begin to buy everyday products based on this sticker’. Raj recalls that the idea of using stickers and pushing for the economic boycott of a particular community is not a novel idea.
‘Two steps ahead with the law, four steps back with the rules’, aircraft lessors complain
The Aviation Working Group collective that includes leasing companies as well as aircraft manufacturers has written to the Union government complaining that the draft rules for the Protection of Interests in Aircraft Objects Act passed earlier this year are impractical. The rules will require lessors looking to reclaim aircraft from distressed airlines to first clear pending employee wages, airport operator charges and fuel charges too. The rules don’t say why this is the case but Abhijit Ganapavaram notes that when Kingfisher Airlines and Jet Airways went belly up, millions of dollars in dues were left unpaid to the government and many workers left unpaid. He quotes a lawyer in the industry as saying: “It’s like we took two steps ahead with the law, and then we took four steps back with the rules … Some dues being sought are not even related to the aircraft.”
The Long Cable
Modi Ducks Trump Confrontation Even as US Tariffs Hit Indian Exports and Russian Oil Is Sanctioned
MK Venu
Prime Minister Modi’s decision to stay away from the East Asia Summit, and more importantly, his desire to avoid a meeting with President Donald Trump on the sidelines may have been triggered by the United States’s October 22 decision to blacklist Rosneft and Lukoil – Russian energy giants that together account for 57% of Russia’s crude output and export earnings.
According to Ajay Srivastata, former trade negotiator in the government and currently founder of Global Trade Research Initiative, Trump’s decision to sanction the two big Russian companies presents India with no choice but to stop importing from them immediately.
Neither Indian oil PSUs nor Reliance Industries which were importing crude from these firms can possibly do so anymore, says Ajay.
No wonder Reliance Industries issued a statement that it will recalibrate its crude imports from Russia as per guidelines provided by the government. The government’s silence on this issue is deafening given that events are already overtaking India in this regard.
The only question that now remains, according to Srivastava, is whether the US sanctions on Russian crude will extend beyond Lukoil and Rosneft. True to form, Trump has let some confusion prevail in this respect. One may recall Trump’s first statement was India would stop buying crude from Russia. Then he seemed to indicate that India would reduce Russian crude imports substantially.
So technically, other relatively smaller Russian firms that account for about 43% percent of crude output may remain unsanctioned for now, says Srivastava. India could possibly continue to buy crude from them.
Therefore this is the only limited space India may have for some time for importing crude from Russia. Modi will soon have to come out with a clear statement on how much reduction in crude imports will be effected by Reliance and other public sector companies like IOC, HPCL etc.
Given that the two large sanctioned Russian oil majors account for 57% of the output, it can be reasonably assumed that India will cut its imports from Russia by well over 50%.
It may be recalled that Russia’s share in Indian crude imports went up from 1% to 38% post the Ukraine war. Trump argues that India is helping fuel the Russian war in Ukraine the most given the massive increase in its purchase of Russian crude. Comparatively, China saw increased Russian oil purchases from 13% to 16% of its total imports after the Ukraine war.
So it is a near certainty that Modi will be forced to cut India’s import of Russian crude drastically in the first round. This is a fait accompli as the two largest Russian energy exporters stand blacklisted by US.
Imports from Russia still provide a discount to the market price of $4 to $5 per barrel. This is a meaningful discount though much less than the average discount of $11 per barrel that India saw in 2023 and 2024.
India’s priority will be to weigh the loss of the Russian discount against the gains made from the removal of the penal tariff of 25% imposed by Trump on Indian exports, taking the total tariff to 50%. Mixed signals are emanating from Commerce Minister Piyush Goel on the progress being made in regard to the trade talks with the US. Sometimes Goel says talks are progressing well. But yesterday he sounded a warning to suggest India will not negotiate with a gun on its head. “Trust is very important in a relationship. Trade is not just about tariffs”, he said. It appears there is a lot of waxing and waning happening behind closed doors. With Trump this process must be ever more painful for Modi and co.
Of course, this pain is never articulated publicly as the opposition seeks answers on a daily basis. Goel was dismissive of the opposition saying they don’t understand geopolitics and diplomacy. The truth is people inside the government, Modi included, are equally clueless. Even global experts have little clue as to where US trade and economic policies are headed and the IMF too is forecasting a risky ride ahead for the world economy and is advising developing economies to stay on the reformist path, whatever that means.
Meanwhile, the apex Federation of India’s Small and Medium enterprises (Fisme) has come out with a survey which says the apparel sector has seen a 40% drop in orders after the US imposed a 50% tariff. The carpet and home textile companies have seen a 30% fall in orders, the leather sector 20% and fisheries a 60% decline.
This is where the real pain will be felt in the next six months and Modi will not find it easy to address the concerns of these small/medium companies and their millions of workers who face a dark future. No wonder he doesn’t have the courage to meet Trump face to face and tell him some home truths.
Reportedly
Piyush Pandey, who died today aged 70, is widely credited with revolutionising Indian advertising, passes away at 70. He did indeed take the industry in India out of its stuffy English environment and bring in a refreshing Indian sensibility, using Hindi and Hinglish to democratise it, say his admirers. His memorable lines are being quoted all over, two more than most—his lyric ‘Mile Sur Sera Tumhara’, that paean to unity in diversity which was commissioned by the Rajiv Gandhi government and became the anthem of its times; and then, ‘Abki Baar Modi Sarkar’, coined for the 2014 elections which became the slogan that led Narendra Modi to victory. This dichotomy has divided people, including his fans. Some say it is a blemish on his record, because of what happened after 2014, others claim he was just doing what was best for his client. One way or the other, it shows the amorality of the advertising business, where the consequences of the product being sold — a toothpaste or a communal party — doesn’t matter so long as the creative director achieves maximum impact.
Drawn and quartered
Deep dive
Meera Nanda argues that the Hindu Right has increasingly drawn on postcolonial and decolonial theory – traditionally associated with the Left – to justify its project of “decolonising” Indian identity and reviving a Hindu “civilisational narrative”. She shows how both the Postcolonial Left and the Hindu Right share a critique of Enlightenment universalism, secularism, and scientific rationalism, valorising instead “indigenous” traditions and lifeworlds. But while the Left sought to empower marginalized subaltern voices, the Hindu Right has used the same critique to bolster majoritarian nationalism. This convergence, Nanda warns, has weakened India’s secular-democratic foundations.
Prime number: 180 crore
Last week, India’s food safety authority finally came around to cracking down on the rampant misuse of the term ORS and banned the sale ofany product that did not comply with the WHO’s Oral Rehydrating Solution formula that is used to treat diaorrhea. One company, ORSL, rushed to court pleading that it had Rs 180 crore worth of inventory which it should be allowed to sell, and the Delhi High Court allowed it do so. As one nutritionist noted on social media, “ORSL is kept next to real ORS pouches. ORS is a medical product used for dehydration, while ORSL is a sugary drink. When people ask for ORS at medical stores, they are often handed ORSL instead, which can mislead consumers and put health at risk.”Opeds you don’t want to miss
News channels around Diwali time should have called politicians to account “on their indifference to the [air pollution] crisis”, taken the public to task for flouting norms and spoken to experts and civil servants. But instead, writes Shailaja Bajpai in this survey of TV news programmes on or about Diwali, most of them chose to put the focus on bickering politicians.
At the end of the day, the Bihar election “will be about the BJP’s ability to shield its allies even as it outgrows them”, says Rahul Verma. Pointing out that if the saffron party alienates Nitish Kumar it may lose that section of voters who see him as a safer choice, he writes that
“… the BJP must internalise that even a resounding performance will not guarantee it the CM’s post right after the election. If it presses too hard, the cracks within the NDA coalition may become wide enough for the opposition parties to cannibalise its voter base at the margins and ruin its chances to win office.”
Ashoka Mody’s sharp critique of handout welfarism as a political short cut that does not create opportunity and capacity in the way that investment in universal education and nutrition does.
Non-communicable diseases are the leading cause of death and disease around the world, writes K Srinath Reddy, but the US has just torpedoed a new UN plan to tackle them that had been painstakingly negotiated.
Ranjeet Singh writes about the challenge of reintegrating Agniveers – the Army’s non-permanent soldiers — once their tenure ends:
“As the first batch approaches the end of its term in November 2026, much will depend on the government’s ability to ensure a smooth reintegration for the outgoing personnel…. There could be political repercussions in case the Agniveers are not absorbed effectively into the mainstream, apart from the challenges of criminal elements and drug cartels getting a fill-up with the availability of unemployed, armed and trained Agniveers in society.”
Casteism and corruption are tainting the police, writes Julio Ribeiro about the recent death by suicide of two Haryana officers, and no attempt is being made to rein them in:
“Narendra Modi rode to power in 2014 on the promise of eradicating the menace of corruption. However, he has been so busy trying to win every election in this vast country that corruption remains prevalent at the cutting edge of governance. And since it is the common citizen who bears the brunt of deep-rooted graft, the remedy is the one most easily available at hand — distribute freebies from depleted coffers just before elections are announced to win over the disgruntled poor people.”
Give Zoho a chance, says Arun Sukumar of the company that the Modi government has turned to for a ‘Made in India’ solution to email servers and instant messaging:
“The bottom-line is that there are good reasons for the Indian government to back Zoho. Facilitating its entry and those of Indian entrants into new segments of the digital economy requires policy action on open protocols. If it does go down that path, it is also New Delhi’s responsibility to hold Zoho’s feet to the fire on data protection and cybersecurity.”
So wary of journalists is the Modi government that it has lost the art of communicating even good news, writes TCA Sharad Raghavan of Keir Starmer’s recent visit to India: “One implication of the lack of information about British companies investing in India is that there were none or very few commitments made. The other possibility is that there were commitments made, but that the administration lacked the wherewithal to put together a list and share it. However, if a reporter were to highlight either possibility, they would immediately be branded ‘anti-government’ and lose the little access they have to officials. It is our lot to quietly accept what is offered to us.”
Listen up
As the Election Commission gears up to carry out the first phase of a nationwide special intensive revision in 12 states and territories, Sreeparna Chakrabarty and G. Sampath talk about a number of factors to watch out for that the Bihar SIR has presaged, including whether it is really needed, whether it will incorporate the Supreme Court’s orders relating to Aadhaar and searchable draft rolls, as well as how large the risk of disenfranchisement could be.
Watch out
Watch this fascinating discussion with Professor Nandini Sundar on Adivasis in India, their rights, and their plight. [In Hindi; YouTube allows you to generate automatic subtitles for the language of your choice]
Over and out
Most Afghan Sikhs left their home country and came to India when the Taliban stormed back to power in 2021. By one estimate, around 1,000 of them acquired Indian citizenship under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act over the past year. Vijaita Singh speaks to a number of Afghan-origin Sikhs living in Delhi about their roots, what they think of returning to Afghanistan one day and how they felt about the acting Taliban foreign minister’s recent visit to India.
VK. Krishna Menon, India’s iconic ambassador to the United Nations in the 1940s and 1950s and later defence minister, is the rebel voice India and the world need in 2025 to steer through the turbulent waters of global geopolitics says GC Gopala Pillai, who worked as Menon’s secretary from 1971 to 1974. (Watch the landmark speech Menon delivered at the UN in 1960, especially from the 3’16” mark).
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.
BAQWAS is hilarious! But the Hindutva-fuelled interpretation of AQI — Al Quadea International — surely takes the cake.