Trump's Romance With Pakistan Continues; Bihar Voter List Deletions, Additions Raise Concerns; Sordid Cricket Saga Drags On; Pragya Poison is Back; RSS at 100

Wanghcuk speech deliberately clipped to falsely link him to Leh violence, Between Riyadh and Islamabad, India and other regional players confront costs of strategic ambiguity

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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Snapshot of the day

September 30, 2025

Siddharth Varadarajan

Pakistan continues to be the South Asian flavour of choice at the White House with President Donald Trump publicly thanking Islamabad and its top military man for backing his latest proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza:

“The Prime Minister and Field Marshal from Pakistan were with us from the beginning. They’re incredible. They just put out a statement that they fully believe in this pact. They backed this 100 per cent and are fully in support of this plan.”

For the record, Prime Minister Modi has also backed Trump’s proposal but there was no shout-out for his friend Narendra.

Speaking of Gaza, former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis’s critique of ‘Trump’s personal annexation’ plan is worth reading.

“This year has been the worst for Modi in his 11 years as prime minister, with both external and internal events contributing to a general souring in his popularity,” writes Veena Venugopal in the Financial Times:

“The most marked change, though, is in Modi’s popularity online. While he used to always command ringing support on social media, no matter the issue, that is less visible these days. Yesterday the prime minister posted on social media after the Indian cricket team beat Pakistan in the Asia Cup final, calling it “Operation Sindoor on the games field”. The replies were full of ordinary citizens chiding him for comparing a game to a military operation…”

Amid unabating strain on the Indian economy, the rupee crashed to 88.80 against the US dollar on Tuesday, breaking the dismal record it set just last week. Battered by escalating trade tensions with Washington and relentless dollar demand, the rupee has now suffered its fifth consecutive monthly