A week before another Independence Day; Patriotism is back.
Let us call it Anti-Americanism. Pro-Left media houses know how to 'harvest' in the right season.
India’s tariff liberalisation has had a quietly powerful impact.
The lower tariffs have gone 'hand-in-hand' with rising consumption. This boosted economic growth.
Media needs to debate all these.
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“India’s sovereignty is non-negotiable and its foreign policy choices cannot be manipulated by other countries, no matter how significant their own ties with India are,” ran an editorial in The Hindu newspaper.
Pratap Bhanu Mehta wrote in 'Indian Express' that Donald Trump has displayed “imperialism on steroids”.
Mehta also wrote that “capitulating to this emerging American imperial state, under the euphemisms of reform, realism or capitalist reset, is an affront to both India’s dignity and its interests”.
The US is accused of hypocrisy, as China – another major buyer of Russian oil – was not facing the same punishing tariffs.
Even Turkey has been spared by Trump.
When the Ukraine-Russia war kicked off during the Biden administration, everyone knew that India is buying oil from Russia.
The US and other Western nations "tolerated" it because everyone knew that if India is not buying oil from Russia, then inflation would have gone up.
Developing economies have outpaced advanced ones in tariff liberalisation this millennium.
India tops the chart with a dramatic drop in average tariff rates—from 23.4% in 2000 to just 4.6% in 2022.
China follows closely, slashing its average tariffs from 15% in 2000 to 2.5% by 2020.
Russia too liberalised briefly—cutting rates from 8.6% in 2008 to 3.1% in 2015—but post-2014 sanctions reversed the trend, pushing it toward protectionism under the weight of geopolitics and security concerns.
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Other issues in debate include Rahul Gandhi's 'election fraud' bomb.
It has left Youtubers and columnists among Sickular gang in India excited.
Others are not impressed. In fact, a pro-BJP ecosystem has merits in their argument that unknowingly perhaps Rahul Gandhi has endorsed the 'much maligned' SIR (revision) in Bihar.
A few years earlier, the Sickular twist to the tale would have been - Will Priyanka Gandhi Vadra chip in and help her brother become Prime Minister of India ????
What to do competition is stiff. PM Narendra Modi is on the other side.
In 1960 – the Congress party held 367 of the 500 seats of the Lok Sabha – the Lower House of Parliament – and certainly a commanding strength of 2105 out of 3177 seats in the state assemblies.
In contrast, the Congress in 2014 had 44 seats in Lok Sabha. It was less than one-tenth and hence even the unthinkable had happened – Congress floor leader in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge did not 'recognition' as the official Leader of the Opposition.
For sometime, in Rajya Sabha, the Congress remained very strong but now the single largest position has also gone to the BJP.
Okay. Let us change the debate.
Late Rajiv Gandhi was definitely right when he said – Congress is always powerful when in power --- but it is doubly powerful when in opposition. ...... This theory is also no longer working.
The Congress spirit is all time low. There is chance of a big-time rebellion against the first family.
The so-called INDI-alliance -- named so fondly - is practically not existing.
Jagdeep Dhankhar was being cultivated for a while. He has been forced into retirement and even possible 'silence zone'.
Thapars and Shekhars are waiting for an interview. Unfortunately, Satya Pal Malik, who gave an-Modi interview on 2019 'security lapse' in Jammu and Kashmir has expired.
The Article 370 has been abrogated. Operation Sindoor might have made someone 'bigger' in Pakistan; in India Sickularism - the balloon that depended a lot on anti-Hindu narratives - has been pricked.
Imagine 2026 -- when Mamata Banerjee will be called a former Chief Minister. What names ad adjectives will we have for Shashi Tharoor and a few other friends and compatriots of his?
Rahul Gandhi's 'election fraud' claim may be a self-goal.
The 'affidavit' demand from the poll panel has caught the virtuous Crown Prince off-guard. And I am not talking about cricket.
In Maharashtra, the eternal 'strongman' and once upon a time a PM-in waiting is in his weakest form !
The US is India’s largest export market, where shipments totalled nearly $87bn in 2024.
The economic impact of 50% tariffs on Indian exports to the US was likely to be sizeable, particularly in certain sectors such as textiles, ready-made clothes, auto-components, steel and gems, and would put India at a major disadvantage compared with regional competitors such as Vietnam, Bangladesh and China.
Walter Ladwig, a senior lecturer in international relations at King’s College London, emphasised that trade had long been a “testy issue” between New Delhi and Washington.
However, what’s happening now is not unprecedented, it is sharper in tone and more coercive in method”.
“This is the most serious public rift in years, but neither side benefits from a rupture,” he said.
“I expect India to hold firm on buying Russian oil, frame it as a matter of sovereignty and energy security, and quietly look for an off-ramp.”
Russia’s oil not only feeds India’s economy.
It helps New Delhi in the global oil trade.
India argues that its purchases from Russia have kept global oil prices lower, as it’s not competing with Western nations for Middle Eastern oil.
ends
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