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The U.S. perception that the shadows from the period of non-alignment in the Nehru era still linger in Indian policy, a sort of ambivalence that has denied India's true potential as an alliance partner for the free world. A perception in the U.S. that has not seen the true potential of the largest population in the world of 1.5 billion people in India and Bangladesh has also colored perception of the relationship. This population is now at a point at which a broad based development is not only possible (sab ka vikas sab ke sath) but also moving at an accelerated pace. With a combination of cumulatively increasing inputs of technology, capital, land and educated labor force this is now at the potential of becoming a very doable world changing event by 2035- a $20 trillion economy by doubling every 5 years based on renewable energy and dedicated to health, education and development. What makes this a world changing event is the opportunity to meet the aspirations of about 2 billion people in India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and surrounding nations, offering new hope for Africa and Latin America. For this the U.S. commitment cannot have any traces of ambivalence, and the Indian commitment cannot have any traces of ambivalence. India needs one more change in its perceptions - to realize that for the first time in its history that this is within its reach. ...

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BBC's Mark Tullly reflects on the period of coverage from 1962-1994 of South Asia. He says of Indira Gandhi that she took the democratic process out of the Indian National Congress party, and set up her sons as future leaders that was undemocratic. Here he reflects on that period in an intervew with the BBC after he left the BBC.  He has deep connections to the Indian period after 1800 as his great grand father on his mothers side was around 1840 in a part of Uttar Pradesh where British planters had farmers plant opium that would later be bought by planters for export. This coincides with the period when Britain in Hong Kong traded in opium as part of British trading in the emerging colonial culture British Empire. There is mixed legacy for Britain in India and China. The history of the Opium Wars in the 1850's and opening up of colonial ports ended with the 1900's revolution and the emergence of the CCP in China by 1950. In India the legacy was mixed bringing together this part of Asia into a new nation and bringing parliamentary traditions of Britain that provided the basis for good governance.  Tully is a softspoken thoughtful Englishman who revolted against British classical education in his youth and studied history and religion at Cambridge, made friends with the future bishops of Canterbury and Lincoln at Cambridge. He is not the Englishman of the Empire as his fondest memories are of the servants verandahs on the bungalows of Britishers and the smoke from their quarters, and the language. So it is a thoughtful view that he gives of the undemocratic nature of Indira Gandhi and mismanagement of the economy that could have changed if India had gone in a different direction under other leaders in the the 1990's. Why is this significant? China's modernization drive started in the 1990's. India's by the undemocratic nature and mismanagement under Indira Gandhi did not start its modernization till 2010, about 20 years after China, opening up a huge gap that is only now being corrected leading to problems for world security, US security, European security and Indian security. And delaying the aspirations of development of 1.4 billion people for 2 decades. Vikshit Bharat cannot come fast enough for both Merz in Germany and Leyen at the European Union, who last week and this week visit Ahmedabad and India for the Kite festival and for Republic Day 2026. ...

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India imports 2 million barrels a day of oil from Russia. It now faces the need to address the problem this has created for Germany and US seeking an end to Russian missile attacks on Ukraine. Without other leverage DJT and indirectly Germany are putting pressure on India to shift these purchases to the US and cut India's $46 billion deficit with the US.  India needs to accept that the reprieve it got during the covid years to import from Russia to help it control inflation at home would at some time come under increasing pressure from the US. That time may be now as DJT and Merz see this as the only few areas of leverage they have to get Russia to reconsider its position for settling the Ukraine war entirely on its terms. Just as in the India Pakistan war the current talk of nuclear escalation resulting from the Ukraine war has to be a major consideration for US, EU, Russia, China and India, all the world's leaders, to step back and see ways to work for an overall interest than in time to come will help these nations national interests.  It will require brave moves from India, China, the US and Russia. Yet this is the new course that alone can bring a return to a world focused on modernization and improving the lives of the people of these nations. ...

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Sky Sports talks to Gill and Stokes at Headingley Leeds First Test. Stokes says the confidence in the dressing room made a difference. India scored five centuries and Britain 3 centuries. This is the second highest run chase for England in Test cricket. Pant got a century in both innings another first for Indian wicket keeper.

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After a weeks long standoff both sides disengage expeditiously in the India's border dispute with China over construction of a road in the Doklam plateau region of Bhutan. In this NYT report experts in Hong Kong point out that it is not in China's economic interest with an aging population and debt crisis, tense economic relations with the U.S., and for India struggling with modernization issues, to turn a remote border issue into an open conflict. It would also complicate relations in the Asian region with Japan and economic relations with the U.S, countries with whom China's economy is intertwined through supply chains and other ways. Disputes with China and South Korea have in the past affected the Chinese economy, and China has developed trade with India as its companies look for growing markets. India's Modi administration is focussed on the economy. In this context of broader relations the road construction in Doklam appears to be an aberration that is hard to explain except as a miscalculation and poor understanding of the best interests of the region and of the world.   ...

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Following Scotland's decision to provide women's hygiene products free can India do the same and provide women's period products free, asks Isha Bhatia. She describes her experience with the lack of hygiene products for periods when she was growing up in India and remembers being handed a dirty cloth by her grandmother. About 70% of all reproductive diseases in women are caused by poor menstrual hygiene. The cost of Rs. 100-250 is too much cost for average Indian families. Only 18% of Indian women have access to sanitary pads. The cost should be brought down with government subsidizing manufacturing of sanitary pads so that it would cost less than 10 rupees or be provided free under government subsidized initiative for women's health.

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India is storing as much oil as it can at today's low oil prices of about $20-$30 per barrel in May 2020. With India asking the U.S. to store oil from U.S. shale producers at its strategic petroleum reserve storage facilities in the U.S. Already its existing storage facilities of 5.3 million tonnes (39 million barrels) are full, and the storage capacity will be more than doubled with an additional 6.5 million tonnes (48 million barrels) to be built quickly. About 8.5 million tonnes (62 million barrrels)  are in ships on oceans around the world. Demand is only 20% during the lockdown but is expected to reach levels of 2019 by June 2020. Only about 20% of oil consumption comes from existing storage.   That Indian oil capacity is 39 million barrels of storage shows how little was done over succeeding administrations without national aspirations for a growing country with hundreds of million of young people, when the oil storage capacity today of 39 million barrels compares with over 500 million barrels for Japan and for China. A huge Indian government aid package of $280 billion for the economy can be offset by gains in other areas such as low oil price oil storage, and gains in supply chain manufacturing, increasing the size of the domestic market for local manufacturers with incentives and loans, and new rules for stressing local manufacturing for a self-reliant economy. ...

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The clash in Arunachal Pradesh comes from new Chinese roads in the area of the Line of Actual Control in the Tawang area. This Times of India shows the specific area and how the new Chinese capabilities replacing dirt roads with sealed roads is leading to clashes such as the one on December 9. India is only beginning serious infrastructure and roads in this region and in the entire border region with China in this decade. The coming decade will see an acceleration of India's efforts.

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India's Supreme Court dismissed petitions challenging the validity of the Army's Agnipath recruitment scheme for recruiting soldiers for a period of 4 years. A bench led by Chief Justice Chandrachud said "there was nothing for us to do in the Delhi High Court judgement." That Delhi High Court judgement called the Agnipath scheme "a well thought out one." In its February 27 judgement the Delhi High Court said: "A perusal of material on record shows that the scheme is a well thought out policy decision of the Government of India. The candidates selected under the impugned scheme would be enrolled as Agniveers, a distinct rank in the Indian Armed Forces.

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Indian oil minister Hardeep Singh Puri says India has diversified its sourcing of oil supplies to avoid dependence on the Straits of Hormuz. It has weeks of reserves. Saudis have 5 million barrel a day pipeline to bypass Hormuz waterway and UAE 1.5 million barrel a day pipeline to bypass Hormuz waterway, so that 6.5 million barrels a day could be added to meet Asian oil demand, in addition to convoys escorted by US warships  in Hormuz waterway to meet demand from China, India and Japan. This would mean China is itself dependent on American seapower to maintain it's oil supplies, a third of which come through the Hormuz waterway and keep important sealanes of navigation open. China, India, Japan, and other World are critical for the world economy manufacturing sector and comprise 3.5  billion or about half of the world's population. In addition Latin America and Africa are dependent on oil supplies and prices.  New pipelines, renewable energy, will become more important in the years ahead, and figure more in planner's minds after this Hormuz episode. ...

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Indian prime minister Modi speaks to a special session of parliament on the 75th anniversary of the Quit India Movement. Modi says by 1942 conditions were right for the goal of independence declared by the Quit India Movement and its leader Mahatma Gandhi. He suggested a slogan in Hindi for "we will do and surely will do" to overcome corruption, illiteracy and poverty. For 2017 to 2022 five year period he suggested taking the resolve for "Sankalp se Siddhi." Making the good thoughts happen. Modi told parliament that just as in 1942 the global conditions are favorable for India today.

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Mark Tully BBC's voice in India, a child of the British Raj born to a British mother herself born in India, covers India after Independence 1962-2020. He opposed the BBC's centralization culture in 1994 with Tory emphasis on management methods saying it was an attempt to make the BBC the best managed broadcasting institution instead of the best broadcasting institution in the world. He was for modernization and improvements but thought Tory methods were haphazard and destroyed the spirit of the BBC under management of the time. He covered India at atime when there was avast Indian audience for the BBC and a vast Asian audience for the BBC for its broadcasting reputation and the spirit of the BBC. Some of this is missing today.

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Superb batting by Elgar in the second test, Peterson in the third test and bowling performance of Rabada, Ngidi and Jansen, take South Africa to a 2-1 win in three Test series against India. The resilience of Dean Elgar, the South African captain in facing a good Indian team was evident throughout the Test series. Elgar had to build a team from players coming from different racial backgrounds, the Afrikaans, English Afrikaans, Black, Colored, Indian, and listen, empathize with these players to get them to work as one team. It is a statement on the new South Africa, that struggles hard to build a new multi-racial society through sports.

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As Foreign Minister in the Moraji Desai government he met Premier Deng and restored ties with China in 1979, leading to yearly meetings that continue to this day for keeping peace- following the invasion of Tibet by China in the 1950's and the border war with India in 1962. That border in Ladakh and Arunachal is again the place of border disputes and casualties at the LAC in 2021-2022. China completes its first phase of modernization by this time, India embarks on its first phase of modernization and seeks calm on the border in alliance with the US to concentrate on development efforts. The British period in India brings with it borders set from that time. The invasion by the Japanese of China leads to Communist control following a civil war and a sense in China that it needs borders that extend to Tibet to be secure. This generates the Indian Chinese border disputes that extend from Ladakh to Arunachal in the high mountain altitudes of the Himalayas. 

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India received $135 billion in remittances in 2024-25 from the 18.5 million Indian diaspora, of which 10 million live in the Middle East region sending $51 billion a year. This finances the merchandise trade deficit.  In UAE alone there are 247,000 Indian students and immigrant labor is the main labor supply in the Gulf kingdoms.  Crude oil of 25-30 million barrels is on the seas as inventory to which India has access making crude oil supplies not an issue for the short term. Indian refinery production for export can also be adjusted if needed. India has received a 100 day exemption to import Russian oil from the US since the Gulf war began easing concerns for crude oil supplies. Situation for LPG is more complicated. India has used the Chabahar port to ship supplies of aid to Afghanistan on an overland route which will not operate till the tensions ease. 

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India's currency is one of the hardest hit in emerging markets. India's rupee dropped by about 14% in 2018. India increased import duties by about 10% on airconditioners, refrigerators, washing machines and other categories for a total of $11.8 billion in imports in fiscal year ending in March.

India sees the possibility that with rising trade tensions between China and the U.S., president Trump increasing tariffs on Chinese imports, some of these Chinese exports to the U.S. could be dumped into the Indian market. The Federation of Indian Export Organizations sees the move in a positive light that it would help the rupee, increase local manufacturing and lead to foreign investments. India's current account deficit increased to 1.9% in the year ended March 31, 2018, from 0.6% a year earlier.

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The Guardian provides this first account of what happened in the Galwan Valley border between India and China at the Line of Actual Control. It is described as the worst fighting in 60 years. On the high steep ridge lines above the rapidly moving Galwan River a patrol of Indian soldiers encountered Chinese troops in a steep section of a high mountainous region. They believed the PLA Chinese Army had withdrawn from the ridge in line with a June 6 disengagement agreement. The Indian government says that what happened afterwards was pre-meditated ambush by the PLA forces. In the fighting that ensued the Indian commanding officer was pushed from the narrow ridge falling to the gorge below. Reinforcements from the Indian side were called from a post 2 miles away and about 600 men were fighting in near total darkness in high mountain ridge with stones iron rods for upto 6 hours. Following a decades long tradition to avoid escalation of hostilities because of nuclear weapons of both countries the two sides have not used other weapons. Most deaths on both sides were from soldiers falling or being knocked from mountain ridges. The main problem in the conflict is the Line of Actual Control exists but since China's takeover of Tibet in 1950 there is no agreement that has set the official border. The British Simla agreement in 1912 set the border with Tibet in an agreement between Tibet and the British Empire in India, when Tibet was an independent country. China claims that historically going back to Ming and Qing dynasty Tibet was part of its region. For most of its history Tibet was an autonomous region with closer contacts with India because it is close to Nepal and Nepal is very near the Indian Bihar state border.  A new rail link from Raxaul, Bihar in India to Kathmandu is only 137 kilometres, and from Kathmandu to the Tibet border is only 205 kilometres. Fast rail or road links would put Tibet within a few hours by rail or road to Tibet from India. For the entire period the US exists as a nation about 250 years and from the first landing of the colonists on American shores about 1607 Tibet was a mountainous region that was so remote that few people even knew about the country's existence. Beijing and Shanghai are four thousand kilometres away, India much closer to Tibet through Kathmandu, Nepal and India sharing a common culture, and no one thought much about the mountainous borders at 15000- 20,000 feet in the western Himalayas, till China's takeover of Tibet in 1950. India had no clear idea what this meant in 1950- no clear border except for what was agreed between the Tibetan independent government  and the British in 1912 which was set under the British Empire- resulting in a fluid border. And China had no clear idea that this would put in a place it would not want to be thousands of miles from the Yangtse valley region home to most of China's population, in a remote mountain region at heights of 15,000 -20,000 feet, with little to gain. Throughout history since 1000 and earlier Tibet remained a region that acted as a buffer between China's western provinces and India, the high mountains at 15,000- 20,000 feet making it inaccessible. Which is why the Ganges plains and the Yangtse river valley plains contact was made more through the oceans than by land, and the areas developing distinctly different language and cultures. All this changed after 1954 when the Qinghai Tibet highway was built, the closest city on the Chinese side is Xining. Xining to Tibet is a distance of about 2000 kilometres at an average height of 4500 metres or about 14,000 feet.  ...

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India is seen as critical for the US to develop alternatives to the existing supply chain where manufacturing is concentrated in only one country. US is positioning itself as a key supplier of defense needs of India through joint development and manufacturing in India. GE has a proposal to build jet engines in India, which Jake Sullivan, US National Security Advisor, calls just the kind of effort that will make it possible to rapidly build up the American relationship with India for advanced technologies and the supply chain in manufacturing. 

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Wisdom and common sense made Michael Boskin to suggest that trade between India and Pakistan should increase in 2012. Boskin was the elder Bush's chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and helped setup the NAFTA, North American Free Trade Agreement. Boskin says in this WSJ article on April 15, 2012 that trade between India and Pakistan of $2.7 billion was only two thirds of the trade India had with much smaller Sri Lanka. In 2020 OEC data show it to be less than $300 million for trade between India and Pakistan,  and in the Pakistan floods year of 2022 with a third of the country below water the smooth flow of goods and products over borders never made more sense. Boskin said in the WSJ in 2012 that normally bilateral trade follows the "gravity model" of being proportional to the countries GDP and inversely proportional to the distance between them. He then cites estimates of Amrita Batra of Nehru University and Mohsin Khan of the Petersen Institute that show bilateral trade should be 20 times the $2.7 billion in 2012. This would be $50 billion in 2012 ten years ago. In 2020 this would be over $100 billion, not one three hundredth of that at $300 million in 2020 an alarmingly low level of trade between neighboring countries.   ...

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India's 267 million farmers 44% of the workforce that make it difficult to reduce 39% tariff on imported dairy and grain. Older Americans have lost the memories of famines in India including one in Bihar in the 1960's, not to mention the Bengal famine during the British rule in 1944 in which Britannica says 3 million people lost their lives. By 1965 India depended on US grain. Dhume reminds readers that in as recent as 1966 9 million tons, a quarter of US wheat crop, was sent to India to prevent famine. China had a similar situation of famine and starvation in the 20th century. This is why India and China have focused effort on achieving self sufficiency in food, and  agricultural productivity is one of the great achievements of the 20th century ranking with electricity and other inventions. When it comes to other upscale agricultural products such as walnuts, blueberrries, and almonds, and other, India's middle class would benefit from nutritional benefits of US agriculture in these fields at low or no tariffs. This suggests there is room for opening some sectors other than dairy and grain that are staple to the Indian diet of the vast population. US 50% tariff is motivated by India going from 2% Russian oil imports in 2019, to shifting importing from Saudis and UAE to Russia so that Russia now makes up a third of it's oil imports by 2024. In May it reached 4 million barrels a day dropping to 2 million barrels a day by July 2024.   ...

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The lockdown in India has been extended. Prime minister Modi met with state chief ministers and all agreed to extend the lockdown.

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Indian access to Canadian oil and gas uranium supplies in deals Feb 2026.  India Canada trade agreement negotiations planned. This happens as Canadian PM Mark Carney visits New Delhi, Feb 28, 2026. The problems created by Mark Trudeau's failure to work with the Indian government on trade and business relations, is now a thing of the past as both Canada and India look for new buyers and markets for trade following US tariffs.