Best of BS Opinion: Fizzy disruptions in policy, green finance, and EVs

Business Standard

24-07-2025

There's a moment we've all seen when someone shakes a soda bottle and pops it open. The fizz, once contained, rushes out in a messy, uncontrollable burst. The silence, just before opening the bottle carries a warning, the cap twists, and then? Pssst! Everything bursts out. Not all at once, but in waves: fizz racing to the top, foam threatening to overflow, some bubbles dying instantly, others lingering on the surface. Today's world feels a bit like that — stories building pressure across different fronts, each one releasing its own distinct effervescence into the policy air. Some refreshing, some overwhelming, all demanding attention. Let's dive in.
Take the EV scene. Vietnam's VinFast and Tesla are making sharply different bets on India — VinFast doubling down with a $2 billion plant in Tamil Nadu, and Tesla, as noted in our first editorial, entering quietly but expensively with import duties. The domestic industry finds itself caught between the promise of electrification and the threat of disruption, with government policy trying to juggle protectionism, green targets, and geopolitical caution, all without letting the bottle explode.
Meanwhile, a record fizz of another kind appeared in the EPFO numbers. In May, 2 million new members joined, nearly 60 per cent of them aged between 18 and 25. First-timers, returnees, and more women suggest a growing sense of social security consciousness. But as our second editorial cautions, this bubble sits atop a still-fragile structure. The pension floor is too low, and wage thresholds are outdated — enough pressure, perhaps, to shake up long-needed reforms.
Finance, as M S Sahoo and CKG Nair argue in their column, isn't the hero of climate action it's sometimes made out to be. Markets may glitter with green labels, but they follow profits, not principles. Without strong policies and pricing that penalises pollution, this fizz too will flatten out into greenwashing rather than green progress.
In global trade, Pravin Krishna and Monil Sharma write of a new carbonated coercion — where the US uses its market heft to extract bilateral concessions. India and others now face a choice: bend to power or rebuild the WTO's fizzled-out framework.
Finally, Sanjay Kumar Singh reviews H.I.T. Investing: Strong returns through high-impact investing leveraging technology by Mahesh Joshi, a book which insists that investing with impact doesn't mean compromising returns. True value, he suggests, is like the best kind of fizz — not trend-driven sparkle, but lasting effervescence.
Stay tuned!