Bharat Business Economy Geopolitics International Policy Trade War World

Currency Conundrum

Create dedicated war chest to cushion against conflicts, defer non-priority imports, go big on dollar trades, currency swaps & non-dollar deals. K.A.Badarinath Is Bharatiya Rupee under attack? Will conversion ratio cross the psychological barrier of Rs 100 per one US dollar? Would that mean Bharat’s economy gets more susceptible or vulnerable to external currency market churns? Or, will it be oil and war? How does one make sense of rupee valuations that fluctuate wild these days? There’s a vertical divergence in Bharat on Reserve Bank of India (RBI) strategy to stem continued slide in rupee. One big section led by sixteenth finance commission chairman Dr Arvind Panagariya argue that crossing Rs 100 mark against one US dollar should not be viewed too seriously. “It’s just a number” is what Dr Panagariya wrote in his column earlier this week pushing for free fall or depreciation of rupee. Owing to continued shortages in crude oil, forward market rate to dollar was pegged at Rs 100 a piece triggering a big debate on future of Bharatiya currency. Dr Panagariya advised RBI not to defend the rupee with its huge foreign currency reserves by intervening in markets. Oil shortages and higher inflation at retail level coupled with healthy interest rates were causing free fall of rupee that crossed 97 per dollar. There’s a significant group that recommended a more conservative approach to rupee valuation. Swadeshi Jagaran Manch, an RSS inspired organization has asked RBI not to allow rupee depreciation further and touch 100 per dollar. SJM’s argument is simple: imports for domestic industry and trading community would become expensive. Cost of products and services would move up swiftly thereby impacting consumption demand and eventually hit growth. Make in India for the world campaign with self-reliance or swadeshi as motto would be hampered if rupee depreciated beyond 100 per dollar. Further slide in rupee may not be tenable politically also given that in forward markets, US dollar is already being quoted beyond Rs 100. Soaring prices of crude oil in Bharat’s diversified energy basket also had its impact. For instance, crude oil prices surge of beyond 70 per cent during April 2025 and April 2026 is something which has seriously impacted Bharat’s energy import bill. Aggregate price of crude during the period was US $ 114.48 as against US $ 67.62 per barrel in previous year. Every dollar increase in crude oil per barrel translates to over US $ one billion in import bill for Bharat. Even an aggregate US $ 85 per barrel could put pressure on budget projections for 2026-27 given that fiscal deficit would expand, subsidy bill on fuel would spike and capital investments as well as development projects spending may have to be curtailed. This provides the logic, reasoning and rationale for Prime Minister’s call for belt tightening measures that have been rolled out over last two weeks. In this backdrop, liberalists led by likes of Dr Panagariya have opposed measures like floating dollar denominated government paper or mobilization through high cost NRI deposits in dollars to shore up the reserves. Deferring payments against currency value spikes or transferring currency gains to NRIs was not an option, they argued. Better option would be to attract long term investments, defer non-priority imports and make goods and services industry in Bharat attractive in terms of ‘ease of doing business’. During financial year ending March 2026, Bharat attracted gross foreign direct investments of US $ 95 billion. But, the net inflows which discounts investment outflows, profits repatriation, disinvestments etc and interest payments was pegged at a very modest US $ 7.7 billion. Quickly expanding net FDI inflows needs to be attempted. For starters, can we target net FDI inflows at US $ 25 billion this financial year? Secondly, currency swaps in medium to long term is an idea that bankers and policymakers cannot ignore. Leveraging volatility in the currencies market and taking positions is something that needs to be done in a calibrated way. Already, currency traders have reported that RBI booked healthy margins on sale of US dollars over last one year. Apart from swaps that spread currency risks, dollar trade is something that RBI and top Indian banks must continue to minimize the adverse impact of volatility in the markets. In last one year ending April 1, 2026, RBI sold US $ 53 billion to either defend rupee or book profits. As on date, Bharat’s foreign exchange reserves are reported at US $ 688.9 billion. Expanding and diversifying Bharat’s foreign currency basket moving away from US green back is an option. President Donald J Trump may be averse to the idea of developing countries especially India ‘de-dollarizing’ its economy. But, settling trade deals in local currencies could be a big opportunity. Merchandise and services trade settlements in respective currencies can be considered beyond BRICS group. Deferring gold and silver imports by a year is not a bad option either. During 2025-26, gold import bill had crossed a whopping US $ 71.98 billion on 702 tonnes. A 24 per cent increase in gold import bill over 2024-25 is something that stares in the face. There’s no harm whatsoever for families to stagger out their gold and silver purchases given the big economic cost. Resetting or revisiting priority areas for foreign exchange deployment may be considered seriously. For instance, pharmaceutical sector is one big consumer of foreign exchange especially for ingredients to undertake production of end-use formulations. Here again, without restrictions, priority may be assigned to life saving drugs, those intermediates and formulations that are produced for re-export purposes. One big idea could be to create dedicated ‘war chest’ of currency reserves to tide over conflict situations. On lines of strategic oil reserves why not build conflict currency reserves? Only recently, during Prime Minister Modi’s brief stopover, an agreement was concluded to shore up strategic oil reserves by 36 million barrels. Each year, a chunk of RBI surpluses can be contributed to the war chest reserves. This is in addition to general foreign

Bharat China Geopolitics Politics United States

156

G-2 Emerge to Bharat’s Discomfort

Trump – Xi Beijing Summit 2026 resets US – China ties, calibrates business deals involving Boeing & chips pushing Bharat to look for its own rhythm. N. C. Bipindra The two most powerful leaders on earth met in Beijing on May 14 and 15, 2026. The world watched. So did New Delhi. This was only the second face-to-face summit of Donald Trump’s second term and first US presidential state visit to China since Trump himself made the trip in 2017. Trump-Xi summit was billed as a potential turning point in one of the most consequential bilateral relationships in modern history. In the end, the outcome was largely characterised as stabilising rather than transformational, heavy on symbolism and light on substance. But for India, even a modest recalibration between Washington and Beijing carries profound strategic implications. Most significant conceptual outcome of the summit was the agreement by both sides to build a “constructive China – US relationship of strategic stability,” according to Beijing’s official readout. Xi Jinping framed this as a governing framework for next three years, a deliberate attempt to convert Trump’s transactional deal-making instincts into a more durable operating baseline for US-China relations, one that would constrain even the next American president. On the economic front, the leaders agreed to preserve and extend the fragile trade truce brokered in South Korea in October 2025. In Beijing, China committed to purchasing at least $ 17 billion in US agricultural goods annually through 2028 along with soybean purchase commitments made in October 2025. China agreed to buy 200 Boeing aircraft, notably fewer than 500 planes Trump had floated ahead of the visit contributing to four per cent drop in Boeing shares. The US readout mentioned Chinese commitments to address shortages of rare earth elements including yttrium, scandium, neodymium, and indium. Beijing’s readout was conspicuously silent on this. Reports also emerged that US approved around ten Chinese technology companies to purchase Nvidia’s advanced H200 chips sending tech stocks higher though the sales may not fully materialise given China’s push for domestic semiconductor self-sufficiency. Xi reserved his sharpest language for Taiwan, warning that mishandling the issue would put the US – China relationship into “great jeopardy.” While American readout of the summit did not mention Taiwan at all which in itself is a striking omission, Trump later revealed an in-depth conversation with Xi about potential US military involvement in a possible Taiwan Strait crisis. Taiwan, meanwhile, has been watching nervously for any signs that Trump might soften US policy commitments in exchange for Chinese concessions elsewhere. Regarding Iran war which had delayed the summit by over a month, both sides agreed that the Strait of Hormuz must remain open and that Iran must never acquire nuclear weapons. Xi expressed China’s willingness “to be of help” in brokering a resolution and pledged not to send military equipment to Iran. However, Beijing’s public readout declined to echo many of these commitments and no breakthrough framework regarding Iran emerged. China may exert quiet influence on Tehran in the coming weeks but little will be visible publicly. Perhaps most concrete outcome was the agreement to meet again. Xi is invited to Washington for an official state visit on September 24, his first in more than a decade. Further meetings in Shenzhen in November and at G-20 in Miami in December are also on the calendar suggesting both sides see the diplomatic channel as worth maintaining, even if the substantive gaps remain wide. For India, the Beijing summit is not a bilateral event happening at a comfortable distance. It is a direct variable in New Delhi’s most sensitive strategic calculations. India has long benefited from US-China tensions. Washington’s pivot to position India as a counterbalance to China in the Indo-Pacific brought strategic partnerships, defence technology transfers, and elevated India’s role in the Quad alongside the US, Japan, and Australia. But India now has a different worry: the revival of a so-called “G2” dynamic, a Washington-Beijing axis that sidelines middle powers like India. The three-year “strategic stability” framework agreed in Beijing feeds this anxiety precisely. One of the most tangible economic stakes for India is its emergence as an alternative manufacturing and sourcing destination for Western companies seeking to reduce China exposure. If US – China tensions ease significantly and particularly if American firms are incentivised to re-engage with China through summit-level deal-making, the urgency for supply-chain diversification toward India could diminish. The Nvidia chip deal and Boeing order, if they solidify, signal willingness in Washington to deepen commercial ties with Beijing rather than decisively redirect them. The relationship between Washington and New Delhi has itself been under strain. Trump’s administration imposed punitive secondary tariffs on India over its purchases of Russian oil even as China continued buying the same oil without an equivalent penalty. The diplomatic fallout pushed India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi to engage more openly with Beijing and Moscow including at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit. Xi’s declaration that it is “time for the dragon and elephant to dance together” was not just rhetoric. It was a strategic signal that Beijing sees an opportunity in India’s alienation from Washington. China’s dominance over rare earth processing remains one of India’s most pressing concerns. Beijing controls the midstream supply chains for minerals critical to semiconductors, defence systems and clean energy technology. The summit’s ambiguous outcome on rare earth access, acknowledged by Washington, ignored by Beijing leaves this leverage firmly in Chinese hands. For India, which is developing its own rare earth processing capacity but remains years from self-sufficiency, a US – China deal that quietly restores Chinese mineral exports to American firms could undercut the very supply-chain diversification argument that benefits Indian industrial ambitions. The South China Sea, a flashpoint that directly concerns India’s maritime interests and regional partners in ASEAN, was largely absent from public summit readouts. The lack of any strong US statement on freedom of navigation or territorial integrity in the region may embolden Chinese assertiveness, directly affecting Indian interests in maintaining a rules-based Indo-Pacific

Bharat Hindus Judiciary Leadership Policy

182

Bhojshala Verdict: Constitutional and Historical Perspectives

On May 15, 2026, the Indore Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court delivered a historic decision recognizing the Bhojshala complex as the temple of Goddess Vagdevi (Saraswati), overturning 2003 dual-use arrangement barring namaz on Fridays inside the site. Court established an evidence-based system for resolving heritage disputes based on the ASI’s 2024 scientific study, historical evidence connecting the site to Raja Bhoj’s Paramara-era Sanskrit learning center and the persistence of Hindu worship while allowing the Muslim community to seek alternate site for a mosque in the Dhar area. The decision, which prioritises historical and archeological evidence over administrative compromise, is a significant development in India’s heritage jurisprudence.

Bharat Disinformation International Media Misinformation News World

229

The Oslo Press Incidents

On 18 May 2026, Norwegian commentator Helle Lyng of Dagsavisen heckled Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a joint press appearance with Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre in Oslo. That same morning, Aftenposten, Norway’s newspaper of record, had published a curtain-raiser caricature depicting Modi as a snake charmer. This report situates both incidents within four interlocking structures. First, a colonial visual grammar with documented antecedents in The New York Times (2014) and La Vanguardia (2022). Second, the methodology of the World Press Freedom Index, on which India’s 2026 ranking of 157 of 180 rests: a sentiment survey of selected respondents per country, applied to a press environment of 146,045 newspapers, 903 broadcasters, and 22 official languages. Third, the transatlantic funding ecosystem that sustains and shapes Europe’s India narrative, traced from George Soros’s Open Society Institute and Norway’s Fritt Ord in 2008, through the Rausing-Baldwin estate’s Arcadia commitment in 2021, to the European Commission’s emergence as the largest single donor by 2025. Fourth, Norway’s own documented record of Norwegianization, assimilation, and abuse against Native and minority populations, audited by the Storting in November 2024, ongoing in the Fosen case, and recorded in approximately sixty-five Barnevernet judgments at Strasbourg. The report concludes that the index, the journalist, and the publication that converged on Modi in Oslo are not three independent witnesses but three institutional outputs of one ideologically coherent ecosystem, and that India’s response that evening exposed that ecosystem for what it is. Download & Read Full Report:

Bharat Business Hindus Technology World

180

Artificial Intelligence: Dronacharya of Our Time

Siddharth Sehgal In Mahabharata, Eklavya, if explained in modern terms, was an archery aspirant from a disenfranchised section of society at the time; he wanted to study under Dronacharya, who only taught the princes from the royal household. So he took it upon himself to master the art under the symbolic tutelage of Dronacharya’s statue that he carved. His story highlights three key points that are relevant to current context. First, an underprivileged background cannot hold someone back if they have the dedication and will to put in the effort. Second, someone’s background can impede his or her progress despite the talent, an unfortunate fact that is true to this day. Third, Dronacharya was the “technological advantage” of his era that enabled students like Arjuna, Bheema and Duryodhana to excel in warfare. AI is the technical advantage today and it increases asymmetry in favour of students who have access to this technology and can leverage it in the exam-heavy Indian education system. Consider a scenario: a son or daughter of a tech executive who is preparing for NEET will be able to augment his exam preparation using Large Language Models (LLMs) like Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini; whereas son of a poor farmer in Madhya Pradesh may have limited access to devices like laptops or mobile phones and may not be aware of maximizing output from an AI app. This is where the gap between students from haves and have-nots becomes significant when we consider the fact that we have millions of families in Bharat that live below the poverty line. In fact, speaking from personal experience of preparing for a certification exam, I realized that my preparation time was reduced by half when I started interacting with LLMs to work on my weak areas. The model not only corrected mistakes but provided specific inputs on how I can try other ways to improve my performance. In a sense, it became my Dronacharya, so imagine the difference this technology would make in the hands of those who know how to use it. Another element in this unlevel playing field is the Education ecosystem itself. Schools in many tier-2 and tier-3 cities, towns, and villages have challenges related to the availability of technical labs; moreover, AI education is far from embedded into the education system, and teachers and educators are not adequately trained or equipped to guide students on these emerging technologies. Majority of these models are trained in English though that is changing lately by the emergence of native Indian models and inclusion of Indian languages in mainstream models’ training data, but still, the volume of knowledge base available in English language in the training data is vast when compared to other languages. So, writing prompts in English is the default choice if someone wants to extract insights on any given issues. Plus, prompts and engagements from users all over the world enrich the training data available in English. In essence, students who have completed senior secondary education in Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu and Assamese or any other language other than English may find a steeply inclined learning curve when it comes to catching up in the AI space. International schools in tier-1 cities like Gurgaon and Mumbai, ed-tech companies and coaching institutions are already taking initiatives in these areas to give their students an edge in the hyper-competitive entrance exam domain. They have means to buy expensive subscription for their students that has more services like image and content generation. The concern here is that technology is evolving at a pace that our education system can never catch up with and it presents a risk not only to our society but it has long-term consequences to our economy, safety and development. One sometimes find it ironic that government officials like District collectors, Magistrates and Police Commissioners are essentially selected on virtue of clearing an exam or two that has little to do with individual abilities like leadership, teamwork or communication skills. People worry about AI regarding more near-term problems such as job losses but it is changing the way we learn, rationalize and think. Countries that embrace this technological revolution will reap tremendous benefits for their citizens. We need to rethink the exam system as a whole; it has to go through an underlying transformation towards learning based structure rather than an exam-ranking system. (Author works in the AI field and holds an MBA from INSEAD)

Bharat Business Economy Geopolitics International Policy Politics Trade United States USA War World

180

Pragmatism Over Ambition

BRICS currency may not be shelved all together. Non-dollar settlements, digital currencies, regional payment gateways to take precedence. N. C. Bipindra A common BRICS currency is an idea that once symbolised the grouping’s ambitious challenge to dominance of US Dollar. The common BRICS currency was proposed to reshape the global financial order apart from geo-political realignments. But the geopolitical climate is rapidly going downhill, what with the West Asian conflict engaging global attention over last two-and-a-half months now. The diverging national interests of BRICS nations are compounding the challenge. This divergence is exposing deep structural limits of the group’s common currency proposal. Instead of accelerating toward a unified currency for the 11-nation grouping, BRICS members are increasingly moving more toward a fragmented but practical financial system built around national digital currencies and local-currency trade settlements. BRICS originally with just four members in Brazil, Russia, India, and China, has grown to include South Africa (and hence became BRICS from BRIC). The BRICS now includes world’s major energy producers and regional powers, essentially positioning itself as a counterbalance to the G7, which is unwilling to accommodate other major economies within its architecture. The expanded BRICS has repeatedly discussed reducing dependence on US Dollar in trade settlements. Yet, despite the strong rhetoric from nations like Russia and China, a consensus among the member states is elusive. There is no real agreement on creating a single BRICS currency notwithstanding the Delhi declaration that had the currency as a big selling point for the group. The latest instability in West Asia, a major energy-producing region, has only complicated the situation. The conflict-driven volatility in oil markets, sanctions risks, supply chain disruptions and currency instability have all highlighted a basic geopolitical reality. BRICS economies are too diverse in structure, political orientation, and monetary priorities to surrender sovereignty over currency policy. Unlike the Eurozone, BRICS lacks integrated fiscal systems, coordinated central banks or a unified political architecture for it to move towards a common currency. Without these foundational similarities, a common currency would risk becoming economically unsustainable. The changing geopolitical environment is especially significant for Bharat. New Delhi has historically and consistently supported multi-polarity in geopolitical order. India has also emphasised greater use of local currencies in trade, particularly in energy transactions, such as with Russia and Iran. However, India has remained cautious about any arrangement that could disproportionately strengthen China’s financial influence within BRICS. With tensions across West Asia and Europe intensifying and global markets becoming more unpredictable, India may increasingly rethink the feasibility of a BRICS currency altogether. India’s concerns with a single BRICS currency are not just political. Adapting to a unified BRICS currency would require India to significantly align its monetary policy, exchange-rate management, and reserve coordination. India’s economy operates under vastly different conditions than those of China, Russia, Brazil, or South Africa. India’s inflation management, capital controls, banking regulation, and trade priorities differ sharply from those of the other BRICS nations. In times of geopolitical crisis or a pandemic situation like COVID-19, nations typically prefer stronger control over domestic monetary tools rather than less. This explains why an alternative model, such as digital national currencies for intra-bloc settlements, is gaining traction inside BRICS. Instead of replacing sovereign currencies with a single BRICS unit, member states are increasingly exploring Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and bilateral payment systems that bypass the Dollar without requiring full monetary union. China’s digital Yuan initiative remains the most advanced example of the CBDC. Russia has accelerated the development of digital payment systems after Western sanctions. India, meanwhile, has actively tested its own digital Rupee infrastructure through the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). These developments in CBDCs suggest that future of BRICS financial integration may be technological rather than monetary. Under this evolving framework, BRICS nations could settle trade in their own currencies using interoperable digital platforms. For example, energy exports could be priced in Yuan, Rupee, Rubble, or other local currencies, depending on bilateral arrangements. Such a system would gradually reduce exposure to US Dollar, while avoiding the political and economic complications of a shared currency within BRICS. This approach offers several advantages to BRICS nations. One, it preserves monetary sovereignty for all its member states. Two, it lowers transaction costs and reduces vulnerability to sanctions. Three, it allows nations to deepen financial cooperation incrementally rather than through a risky “big bang” currency union. President Donald J Trump had been fuming on the very idea of BRICS currency and threatened to slap huge imposts on member countries in case they moved ahead. Though US dollar continues to be the major preferred currency to settle transactions, it’s slowly losing sheen. President Trump expects that a strong alternative BRICS currency would dampen the US dollar’s primacy as the major international paper. Till now, US Dollar remained the most deeply embedded in global financial system due to scale of the American economy, liquidity of US financial markets, and institutional trust surrounding Dollar-denominated assets. Even nations critical of American financial influence continue to rely heavily on US Dollar reserves and US Dollar-based trade mechanisms. Therefore, future of BRICS currency project depends less on political declarations and more on whether the grouping can build a credible financial infrastructure capable of rivaling the existing US Dollar system. At present, BRICS lacks the institutional cohesion needed for such a transformation. Moreover, internal contradictions within BRICS remain substantial. China and India continue to compete strategically and militarily in Asia. Russia’s economy faces sanctions-driven isolation. Newer BRICS members have differing alignments with the West and varying levels of dependence on US Dollar-based trade. These realities weaken possibility of a unified BRICS currency. Current West Asian conflict-induced instability may further reinforce caution among BRICS members. In periods of geopolitical uncertainty, investors and governments typically gravitate toward stable and liquid reserve currencies. And, the US dollar still dominates that space. Even today, oil exporters exploring non-Dollar trade continue to benchmark much of global energy commerce in US Dollars, because of market familiarity and financial stability. But this doesn’t

Bharat Education Hindus International Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)

223

RSS at 100: A Civilisational Dialogue

In April 2026, in the centenary year of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). RSS Sarkaryavah, Dattatreya Hosabale, undertook a sequence of engagements across the United Kingdom, the United States and Germany. During his engagements, he addressed Chatham House in London, the inaugural THRIVE 2026 summit at the Stanford Faculty Club, the Hudson Institute in Washington, the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik and Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung in Berlin, alongside Nobel laureates, legislators, academic communities, business leaders, community leaders and members of the Indian diaspora in all three countries. Centre for Integrated and Holistic Studies has released RSS at 100: A Civilisational Dialogue, a structured account of these engagements and of the philosophical foundations on which the world’s largest socio-cultural movement now offers a hundred years of reflection and experience to humanity at large for global good. Download & Read Full Brief:

Bharat Disinformation Hindus Khalistan Pakistan Security Terrorism World

199

Referendum Farce: Story Written in Karachi, Staged in New York

Rohan Giri On April 29, 2026, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun announced a Khalistan Referendum voter registration drive from the Karachi Press Club. He was speaking via video link from New York. He was targeting Sikhs who live inside Bharat. The venue, the man and the medium together tell a story that his words never could. There is a particular kind of political performance that is designed not to succeed, but to persist, not to achieve a goal, but to manufacture the appearance of. On April 29, 2026, Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) chief Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a man proscribed under Bharat’s Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act along with his organisation, delivered precisely such a presentation from the Karachi Press Club. Speaking via video link from New York, he announced that SFJ would launch a phased voter registration drive for the purported Khalistan Referendum targeting Sikhs residing across all Bharatiiya states. Beginning in Delhi, moving to Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, and ending the registrations in Punjab itself. The sequencing was revealing. A movement that claims Punjab as its spiritual and political homeland does not begin its campaign there. It begins in Delhi, because it knows Punjab will not listen. Bharatiya officials did not miss the significance of the venue. Pakistan’s establishment was openly offering its platform to an organisation that has called for violent attacks inside Bharat and the assassination of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The SFJ has glorified terrorist Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and treated perpetrators of the Air India Kanishka bombing in which 329 people were killed, as heroes. That Pakistan now provides this group a podium at one of Karachi’s most visible press institutions is not coincidence. Pakistan is playing this game out in the open and is not even bothering to conceal its backing to a terrorist organisation. The brazenness is itself the message, a message directed not at Sikhs in Bharat, but at the ISI’s own operatives, diaspora handlers and global media amplifiers, telling them that the Khalistan project retains state-level patronage. One has to look at trail of its failures in order to comprehend why Karachi has now again emerged as this campaign’s operational hub. In order to undermine and divert Indian government, the ISI started protracted proxy war by aiding the Khalistan movement in Punjab, as this timeline already makes clear. Since 1980s, this tactic has never been formally discontinued. What has changed is the terrain. Operations for SFJ have become significantly harder in Canada and United Kingdom where governments have come under growing domestic and diplomatic pressure to scrutinise separatist activities more carefully. With Western soil getting increasingly inhospitable, Rawalpindi has fallen back on what it controls directly. Offering Karachi Press Club to Pannun is a desperate move to rake up the movement in Bharat after multiple attempts have failed, as officials have assessed. Timing of April 29 announcement was again not coincidental. That same week, Punjab Police dealt another significant blow to ISI – Khalistan terror network recovering a cache that included a rocket-propelled grenade, two packs of RDX, a metallic improvised explosive device, hand grenades, detonators, high-end pistols, wireless sets and timer switches which meant to be used in massive attacks across the state. Director General of Police Gaurav Yadav confirmed the recovery was linked to an ongoing investigation into the Shambhu railway track IED blast case, as well as grenade attack on the Crime Investigation Agency (CIA) office in Moga in 2025. This was not an isolated seizure. In prior weeks, Punjab Police had busted two separate ISI-backed Babbar Khalsa International terror modules recovering RPG launchers, additional IEDs, RDX and a fleet of vehicles with accused persons linked to Pakistan-based handler Harvinder Singh Rinda. The farce of referendum announcement and arms consignments are not parallel stories. They are part of same story, one being propaganda arm and the other as operational arm of the same ISI-directed network. Pannun’s remarks at Karachi press conference stripped away whatever pretence of a civic movement SFJ has had claimed till date. He also claimed that 1.8 million people had participated in the referendum worldwide (a figure that Intelligence Bureau officials dismissed as fabricated, noting that the SFJ has consistently fudged numbers in the past, putting out exaggerated figures to give the impression of traction for a movement that demonstrably lacks it). He pledged to back Pakistan to the fullest in the event of any future tensions with Bharat. He heaped praise on Pakistan Army chief Asim Munir, the same officer who, after Bharat’s Operation Sindoor in May 2025, was promoted to Field Marshal by the Pakistani government for his role in the conflict. A designated terrorist, operating out of New York, cheering a Pakistani general from a Karachi press club, Pannun promised to stand with an adversarial state against Bharat. One must ask: who precisely is Pannun speaking for? The answer is not the Sikh community. The referendum in itself carries no significance whatsoever. SFJ held the first phase of its unofficial and non-binding referendum exercise in London in October 2021. Since then, it has conducted similar theatrics in Canada, Switzerland and Australia, each time claiming record numbers that no independent body has verified. Not one government has moved a single step towards recognising outcome. The reason is structural given that international law’s right to self-determination applies to peoples under colonial domination or foreign military occupation. Bharat’s Sikhs meet neither criterion. They are full citizens of the world’s largest democracy, represented at every level of Bharatiya state from Parliament to judiciary, armed forces to highest office on the land. The legal and philosophical scaffolding for the farcical Khalistan referendum does not exist anywhere in serious jurisprudence. What SFJ produces instead is theatre, elaborate, expensive and entirely hollow. Punjab’s own ballot boxes deliver most decisive verdict. The 2022 Punjab Assembly elections saw Aam Aadmi Party win 92 of 117 seats, majority 79 per cent on an agenda of governance, farmers’ welfare, and electricity. The demand for a separate Sikh homeland did not feature in that mandate. The trauma of

Bharat Business Economy Policy

289

Modi’s Mandate to Fuel Reforms

Big wins in state assembly polls especially in West Bengal would hasten pace of economic, governance reforms and spreading the growth story. Bharat continues to be brightest star. K.A. Badarinath West Asia conflict, Russia-Ukraine war notwithstanding, Bharat will continue to be the brightest spot globally on economic front. It will continue to be the fastest growing large economy next three years and bring tangible prosperity to Indians and contribute a large chunk to global communities. Thanks to a stable government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP heading 80 per cent states, union territories, this economic consolidation and expansion will continue into 2029, beyond. A big show of expanding political strength in five states legislative assembly elections would only bolster pace of economic reforms in the country. There’s virtually no stopping despite global uncertainties throwing intermittent challenges to Bharat’s sweepstakes as an economic behemoth. A recent Morgan Stanley report has projected Bharat’s economy to expand beyond US$ 5.7 billion in two years from now. The report released a week ago also talks about continued foreign investment flows during next five years. A whopping US$ 800 billion is expected to be invested in Indian projects, markets and paper by foreign companies spread over 5 years. If we go by the report, at a time when key stakeholders were complaining of uncertainties bogging down the market sentiment, Bharat seems to be the only big exception. What’s more likely is that while domestic demand in India continues its upward swing, export markets may contribute an additional US$ two trillion. Energy, infrastructure, data centres and rural economy will be the biggest drivers of this new growth cycle even as Bharat tests its ‘strategic autonomy’ framework for its global engagement. Till date this framework has delivered handsomely as Bharat continues to carve out its own space internationally without getting bogged down in cliques. For instance, doing energy business with US, Europe, Russia, Iran and engaging both Israel and Palestine have been hallmark of this policy framework. Getting access to energy in gallons of hydrocarbons, Bharat has played its cards deftly to keep its business communication open. Balancing competing forces, holding on its aces and pro-actively pursuing its goals is something Bharat has done amazingly well. It’s not energy front alone. Concluding a raft of free trade and investment agreements with over a countries or unions proves Bharat’s dogged perseverance. From European Union, United Kingdom to signing these agreements with Oman and New Zealand, free trade, investment and economy pacts have demonstrated Bharat’s widest arc of economic engagement. In 2025-26 alone, nine such agreements were concluded while such arrangements are in place with 38 countries. Initial apprehension on such agreements seems to have been set aside while Bharat’s leadership confidently moves forward. Differences notwithstanding, Bharat continues to engage two largest economies internationally, United States and China. Geo-political, border issues, security and perspective continue to be limiting factors. But, that has not stopped Bharat from doing business with these powers that be. Only a couple of days back, companies like Sun Pharma, JSW Steel, Sterlite group and nine others have committed to invest over US$ 20.5 billion in pharmaceuticals, steel, advanced manufacturing, artificial intelligence and infrastructure. At the Select US Invest summit the investments flummoxed markets as it demonstrates the resilience and confidence with which Bharat goes ahead doing business. One would not have imagined targeting US$ 500 billion worth economic engagement between US and Bharat notwithstanding the quixotic Republican White House led by President Donald J Trump. Today, these are the kind of figures being discussed as part of on-going trade talks. Definitely, China is a tricky customer on business front and a difficult northern neighbour from strategic point of view. But, the two uneasy neighbours have been doing business while China has emerged as the largest trading partner for Bharat with bilateral trade of over US$ 151 billion in financial year ending April 1, 2026. There’s no denying the fact that this trade engagement is completely lopsided and in favour of China by many times over. While New Delhi works hard to balance out the trade, go up the value chain and enhance exports to China, the two continue to talk, invest and do business. It does not mean that border disputes with China can be wished away. Out of the US$ 863 billion, services account for about half at US$ 421.32 billion during financial year ending April 1, 2026. Also, the massive trade surplus from services has been making up for huge deficit on merchandise trade. While this anomaly gets corrected, US$ two trillion services exports are something that Bharat is working towards. While there are no shortcuts, artificial intelligence is bound to impact the IT services exports in particular. As the rejig in strategy happens with short term adverse impact staring in the face, Bharat’s biggest bet may be to expand merchandise exports market, go for high value products while retaining the small ticket items. Strengthening agriculture and farm-based rural economy, expanding the allied agricultural services is yet another area that Bharat has been working for long term. Given that economic expansion has shifted to sub-urban, semi-urban and rural areas, the government in Bharat seems to have changed track to capitalize on the opportunities. When the Narendra Modi government announced US$ 26.5 billion credit guarantee fund for micro, small and medium enterprises, it was one way of addressing the West Asia impact on both businesses and jobs. Political stability with the massive mandate that Prime Minister Modi and his party got in West Bengal, Assam, Puducherry, things could not have been better for India. Analysts expect economic reforms apart from politically nuanced policy issues like delimitation of constituencies and bringing in more women into governance would gain pace. While that happens, Bharat continues its economic expansion and prosperity spread drive. (Author is veteran journalist, Director & Chief Executive of New Delhi based non-partisan think tank, Centre for Integrated and Holistic Studies)

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Vermilion and the War Cry: What Operation Sindoor Was Really About

Every analyst who measured Operation Sindoor in airbases missed the war. Operation Sindoor was not just a reply to an attack. It was a reply to a narrative. Rahul PAWA | x- @iamrahulpawa To understand Operation Sindoor, begin not in 2025 but in the ideological soil from which Pakistan itself was carved, a two-nation theory that turned faith into geography. Its first armed expression on Jammu and Kashmir came in October 1947, when Pakistan launched Operation Gulmarg, an invasion by the Pakistan Army alongside tribal raiders rallied under the cry that “Islam is in Danger.” Behind it sat a second inherited fallacy, the colonial martial race theory, which had convinced Pakistan’s officer class that they were born soldiers and Hindus were not. That sentence was not a slogan of the moment. It became the operating system of every campaign Pakistan would run on Jammu and Kashmir for the next eight decades. By the 1990s, the cry had gone international. Regional terrorists merged with foreign fighters drifting east from the Soviet-Afghan war. Between 1991 and 1999, Indian forces neutralised roughly 1,379 foreign terrorist fighters and arrested 142, men from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sudan, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Chechnya, operating through outfits such as Harkat-ul-Ansar and Lashkar-e-Taiba. The invasion was no longer regional. It was a franchise. The narrative that justified it abroad was a fiction. Kashmir Valley takes its name from the Hindu rishi Kashyapa, after whose Kashyapa-mira, the valley was settled. Thousands of years of Hindu heritage still stand in plain sight, from the Naranag temples to the ruins of the Martand Sun Temple, from the caves of rishis once revered by Hindus and Muslims alike to folklore still shared in valley villages. Yet through the late 1980s and 1990s, more than four hundred thousand Kashmiri Hindus were driven out of their homes in an internal displacement campaign that successive governments preferred not to name. In August 2019, India amended Article 370 of its own constitution. For Pakistan’s terror economy this was a structural blow: funding networks frayed, separatist leaders faced courts, and the long-cultivated story of an essentially Islamic valley began to lose its global gloss. Two months later, in October 2019, The Resistance Front was launched, a new face on an old body, an offshoot of Lashkar-e-Taiba which Indian agencies traced without difficulty. Since its founding, TRF has been at the centre of a campaign of targeted killings whose names are on record. Makhan Lal Bindro, a Kashmiri Hindu chemist, was shot dead in his Srinagar shop on October 5, 2021. Two days later, Supinder Kaur, a Sikh school principal, and Deepak Chand, a Hindu teacher, were lined up and killed inside their school in Srinagar. In 2022, Kashmiri Hindus Sunil Kumar Nath and Puran Krishan Bhat were gunned down in Shopian, both among the few who had stayed in the valley. On New Year’s Day 2023, seven villagers, including two children, were massacred at Dhangri in Rajouri. In June 2024, nine Hindu pilgrims were killed when a TRF attack sent their bus off a gorge in Reasi. Through all of it, migrant workers from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, daily-wage labourers and street vendors who had come from across India to make a living, were shot at point blank. The principle was always the same, what TRF itself called the “outsider-insider” line. Domicile certificates issued to resident and returning Kashmiri Hindus, were reframed in their literature as demographic invasion. The script was adapted, with little edit, from the Hamas playbook. In February 2025, Hamas’s Iran-based representative Khalid Al-Qadoumi shared a stage at Rawalakot in Pakistan-Occupied Jammu and Kashmir with Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed commanders at a conference titled “Kashmir Solidarity Day and Al-Aqsa Flood.” Two months later a Hamas delegation visited JeM’s Bahawalpur headquarters. The ideological alignment had a name: Ghazwa-e-Hind, the Islamist project of conquest in India. The same vocabulary had by then surfaced inside India’s elected politics. In January 2025, Srinagar MP Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi of the National Conference described tourists visiting Jammu and Kashmir as a “cultural invasion,” warning in a separate interview that the 1990s-style exodus of Kashmiri Pandits “could be repeated.” Former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, leader of the Peoples Democratic Party, has for years framed domicile certificates and resettlement policy as engineered “demographic change,” most recently in February 2026 describing a forty-township plan as a “demography plan for Hindu settlement.” Her daughter Iltija Mufti has spoken of the Centre’s “rush to appropriate our land.” By July 2025, Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha said the quiet part aloud: those claiming “cultural invasion” and “demographic invasion,” he warned, were echoing “the same narrative as the terror outfit TRF.” Three months later, on April 16 and 17, 2025, Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff General Asim Munir spoke at an Overseas Pakistanis Convention in Islamabad. He reasserted the two-nation theory, declaring Muslims “different from Hindus in every possible aspect of life,” “better and more civilised,” with “nothing common” between the two. He revived the old line that Kashmir is Pakistan’s “jugular vein,” and instructed parents to raise children who would never “forget the story of the creation of Pakistan.” Indian security officials and the Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan have since identified that speech as the catalyst for what came next. What came next was Baisaran. On April 22, 2025, terrorists at the Pahalgam meadow separated Hindu men from their wives and shot them at point blank, sparing the women so they could carry the message home. This is the detail most international coverage missed. Sindoor, the vermilion a Hindu wife wears, marks the life of her husband. Wiping it off was the message. The message that Kashmir is not theirs. TRF claimed the attack on Telegram, citing “demographic changes” and residency permits to “outsiders,” repeated the claim with photographs the next day, and on April 26 retracted it, blaming a “cyber intrusion”, a retraction widely read as an attempt to dodge scrutiny once gravity of Indian response was clear. On May

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