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NDTV
21 minutes ago
- NDTV
Video: Air Force Shares Glimpse Of Attack On Terror Camps During Op Sindoor
New Delhi: The Indian Air Force (IAF) on Sunday shared a video showing a glimpse of an attack on terror camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) during Operation Sindoor, which was launched in May to avenge the Pahalgam attack. The 5-minute video posted on X first showed the newspaper clippings on the April 22 Pahalgam attack, in which 26 civilians lost their lives. It then showed Prime Minister Narendra Modi holding a high-level meeting with Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Anil Chauhan, and the tri-services chiefs. A black background then appeared, with the text " Operation Sindoor", followed by "IAF responded with precision, speed, resolve". It then showed aerial strikes by the Indian fighter jets on terror sites in Pakistan and PoK. It also featured clips and pictures that showed the "decimated" terror camps. Indian Air Force -Touch the Sky with Glory #IndianAirForce #YearOfDefenceReforms @DefenceMinIndia @SpokespersonMoD @HQ_IDS_India @adgpi @IndiannavyMedia @indiannavy @CareerinIAF — Indian Air Force (@IAF_MCC) August 10, 2025 The video also showed fighter jets in action during the 1971 war with Pakistan. It also mentioned the Kargil war and Indian strikes in response to the Pulwama attack in 2019. "When the skies grow dark and danger looms across land or sea, there's one force that rises. Vast, fearless and precise. The Indian Air Force," narrated the voiceover. The Indian armed forces launched Operation Sindoor on May 7 after finding cross-border links to the Pahalgam attack. They struck multiple terror camps and killed over 100 terrorists. Pakistan then launched a massive missile and drone attack, which India intercepted. In retaliation, Indian forces struck airfields in Pakistan. A ceasefire on May 10 ended the hostilities. Air Chief Marshal Amar Preet Singh last Saturday said the IAF shot down five Pakistani fighter jets and a large aircraft during Operation Sindoor. "We have an indication of at least one AWC in that AWC hangar, and a few F-16s, which are under maintenance there. We have at least five fighters confirmed killed and one large aircraft, which could be either an aircraft or an AWC, which was taken at a distance of about 300 kilometres. This is actually the largest ever recorded surface-to-air kill that we can talk about," he said during an event in Bengaluru.
Economic Times
21 minutes ago
- Economic Times
Cameron Brandt says Trump-Putin meeting unlikely to spark major market shifts
India is a major provider of affordable pharmaceuticals to the US, and people are trying to make sense of what that might mean both for India and for US healthcare policy. Synopsis Geopolitical events have limited long-term impact on fund flows, with investors often viewing dips as buying opportunities. While some money is slowly exiting the US amidst tariff negotiations, it's primarily moving into liquidity funds. India's fund inflows, previously recovering, have been impacted by new tariffs, particularly on pharmaceuticals, creating uncertainty in the market. "In terms of market impact, however, from where we sit—watching big universal mutual fund and ETF flows—geopolitics has really not been a meaningful long-term driver of flows for quite some time," says Cameron Brandt, EPFR Global. ADVERTISEMENT Firstly, let us talk about what you think will really come out of Trump and Putin's meeting in Alaska, because it seems like there could be some resolution to the war in Ukraine. Cameron Brandt: Well, the war has been going on for so long and so much has been invested in it by multiple actors that hoping for a resolution within just a week or so is overly optimistic. That said, there is definitely some fatigue on the Russian side, and Trump taking a stronger line might encourage them to look for a terms of market impact, however, from where we sit—watching big universal mutual fund and ETF flows—geopolitics has really not been a meaningful long-term driver of flows for quite some time. It will sometimes move the needle week to week, but partly because of the enormous post-Great Financial Crisis liquidity, investors have become conditioned to see geopolitical events as providing a short dip that they should buy into. So, I am not going to predict any enormous shifts, even if we get the best-case scenario next week. So, what is going to drive the movement of flows? Amidst all the tariff negotiations, are you already seeing money move out of the US, and is that money being deployed into other emerging markets? Or do you think people are still in just a wait-and-watch mode? Cameron Brandt: More wait-and-watch than redeploy. We are seeing a little bit of money move out of the US, and we are certainly seeing fund managers who have the option of reducing their exposure to the US—by this I mean global equity funds with a truly global mandate—they have certainly been trimming their exposure, but without a full-on rush to the exits. We are not seeing significant outflows from US funds. It has been more of a slow grind— a few billion here, a few billion there—and people are certainly on edge. But the moment there was some clarity on tariffs with the two key trading partners, the EU and Japan, there was definitely a pickup in flows back into dedicated US equity funds. I do think the tariff uncertainty is not helping, but as you mentioned before I joined you, US markets continue to move higher and the general market sentiment is that this too shall pass. ADVERTISEMENT Also, help us understand a little more about these fund flows we have seen. While you say that flows out of the US have not been very significant, flows into the US are also not looking very attractive right now. But you have seen significant outflows from China, Taiwan, and other markets. Help us understand where these fund flows are actually going and where India stands amid all of this, because we have also seen consistent FII selling in India. Cameron Brandt: To answer the first question: recently, funds have been moving into liquidity funds. Last week, US and Europe money market funds absorbed about a hundred billion dollars, so I think that at the moment is the main offramp for the US flows, four, five, six billion dollars represent only 0.01% of the total AUM of the US equity funds we track, so we are seeing a trend away from US assets, but it is not a very strong one—certainly not yet. In terms of emerging markets, no, we are not seeing much of a rotation toward them. There was a little thaw coming into the third quarter, and there has been more interest on the emerging market debt side than on emerging markets equity. ADVERTISEMENT Flows into dedicated India funds were recovering until the latest inflection point caused by higher tariffs due to India's consumption of Russian oil. What is worrying people more, in many ways, are the pharmaceutical tariffs. India is a major provider of affordable pharmaceuticals to the US, and people are trying to make sense of what that might mean both for India and for US healthcare there is more uncertainty to navigate, but once that uncertainty goes away, I think you will see more money come back into the US, and India—which was doing quite well until this happened—will probably start to see things pick up as well. ADVERTISEMENT (You can now subscribe to our ETMarkets WhatsApp channel) NEXT STORY
NDTV
21 minutes ago
- NDTV
Hypocrisy, In Numbers: A List Of All That EU And US Still Buy From Russia
Let's connect the dots: Prime Minister Modi is heading to China, ostensibly to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit, by the end of this month. Russian President Vladimir Putin is scheduled to visit India before the year ends. Brazilian President Lula is also planning a trip to India - either by year-end or early next year - after a meaningful phone call with Modi, in which both leaders strongly underscored the need to promote multilateralism. Read between the lines, and a pattern emerges: this is a coordinated signal to the United States and its maverick president, Donald Trump, who has passed an executive order to increase tariffs on Indian imports to a sweeping 50%. The order will come into force by the last week of the month. Trump, now seven months into his second term, has unleashed another wave of punitive tariffs on Indian exports, citing Delhi's continued purchases of Russian oil. Indian goods are now among the most heavily taxed imports in the United States, matched only by tariffs against Brazil. The White House's rationale is that India's Russian oil imports are "helping fund the war in Ukraine". The President's actions have come in for sharp criticism in his own country. For example, Kurt Campbell, former US Deputy Secretary of State, criticised Trump's tariffs on India in a media interview. He said that the US-India relationship was now under threat because of the tariffs. These were his words: "America's most important relationship in the 21st century is with India. Much of that is now at risk," he said. "The way President Trump has spoken about India and PM Modi has put the Indian government in a difficult position." India, for its part, has responded with calculated firmness. The Ministry of External Affairs called the tariffs "unfair, unjustified, and unreasonable", and pointedly highlighted the hypocrisy of Western nations that continue to import energy and strategic materials from Russia while pressuring India to stop. The numbers make that case clear. Behind The Scenes Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, trade flows have fallen sharply, but they have not vanished. EU imports from Russia dropped roughly 86% between Q1 2022 and Q1 2025; total EU imports from Russia in 2024 were on the order of EUR 36 billion, down from far higher pre-war levels. The United States likewise shrank its Russian trade: US goods imports from Russia were about USD 3-3.3 billion in 2024 (a steep fall from 2021 levels). These are big declines, but not the kind of economic divorce news headlines sometimes imply. Billions in trade value continued to move both ways in 2024 and in the first quarter of the current year. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Mercedes Chandler (@campcallout) The EU, for instance, sources several strategic commodities from Russia despite the sanctions squeeze. Energy remains the headline item: maritime crude oil shipments to the EU have collapsed. European Commission data suggest that Russia's share of EU oil imports fell from the high 30% range down to about 2% by 2025 in some measures. But refined products, pipeline gas and LNG-related flows have not been erased everywhere. Beyond hydrocarbons, the EU continues to import fertilizers, nickel, iron and steel and certain critical raw materials. Mind you, Russia remained the EU's major fertilizer supplier well into 2024-25. In short, energy and agricultural-input dependencies (and some metals) account for much of what the EU still buys from Russia. Similarly, US imports from Russia are smaller in dollar terms but concentrated in high-impact, hard-to-replace items. Recent data show that a large share of US imports from Russia in 2024 consisted of fertilizers (urea, potassium-bearing fertilisers), palladium (used in catalytic converters), and uranium/enriched nuclear materials - together making up the lion's share of the remaining import value. These are not casual consumer goods; they feed manufacturing, automotive emissions controls and civilian nuclear fuel cycles, which complicates any push for immediate, total decoupling. According to the data provided by the United States Trade Representative, the Russian import items are critical and nearly impossible to replace. Europe's trade story mirrors this: while crude oil from Russia now mostly flows to Asia, Europe's remaining purchases are concentrated in fertilizers, metals and nuclear-related material. Political rhetoric may call for total isolation, but the data show selective exposure - essential goods still flow, because replacing them overnight would be expensive and disruptive. The pattern explains the policy problem: sanctions can choke off some flows, but shutting every channel hurts critical supply chains and domestic consumers. Europe's trade picture shows a dramatic re-orientation of Russian crude exports towards Asia, and the remaining Western purchases tend to be concentrated in fertilizers, certain metals and nuclear-related material. The practical upshot is straightforward: while political rhetoric calls for total economic isolation, the data show selective exposure - essential inputs and uneven global demand mean a full cut-off is far harder to achieve without coordinated, costly alternatives. Moscow's War And India's Logic Against this backdrop, India's argument gains credibility. Delhi began purchasing discounted Russian oil not as an ideological endorsement of Moscow's war, but as a response to market disruptions caused by the West's sanctions. As European buyers snapped up Gulf supplies, Indian refiners turned to available, affordable sources. Today, Russia remains India's largest energy supplier, replacing traditional Gulf partners - ironically, with US encouragement at the start of the war. But Trump's foreign policy has rarely followed traditional diplomatic contours. It is personal, transactional and often whimsical. Therein lies the ambiguity: is this a genuine policy pivot, or just an opening bid in a larger deal Trump wants to strike? No one seems to know. "Extremely Shocking" The Federation of Indian Export Organisations has called the tariffs "extremely shocking," estimating they could hit more than half of India's exports to the United States. According to the media, the Delhi-based Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI) warned exports could fall by 40-50%. Ajay Srivastava, GTRI's founder and former Indian trade official, has urged patience: "India should remain calm, avoid retaliation for at least six months, and recognise that meaningful trade negotiations cannot proceed under threats or mistrust." India's policy on China is not part of any third-country strategy: it is rooted in India's own national interest. In other words, India is not America's proxy - nor will it allow itself to be treated as one. Taking the long view Even more telling is India's refusal to take Trump's bait. Delhi has not retaliated with counter-tariffs or public theatrics. Instead, it has kept its focus on energy security, economic stability and geopolitical balance. The contrast is striking: India's calm maturity versus Trump's bombast. Growing Discontent Yet unease in Washington continues to grow. Some of the very officials who once championed stronger Indo-US ties now fear the relationship is slipping. They worry that Trump's tariff offensive risks squandering two decades of painstakingly built goodwill. As one former US ambassador to India remarked, "If India walks away from us, it won't run into China's arms. But it will carve its own path - and we may not like where that leads." That independent path is already visible. From its growing role in BRICS to its leadership in the Global South, India is signalling it listens, but does not bend. This does not mean abandoning the West - but it does mean resisting being boxed into one bloc. It must be noted that for decades, the US urged India to rise, modernise and assert itself. Now that it has, America seems uneasy with India's autonomy. The coming weeks will show whether cooler heads prevail. Trade talks are scheduled before the new tariffs kick in on August 27, leaving a narrow window for dialogue and compromise. If the current trajectory holds, the fallout could extend far beyond economics. In Delhi, one imagines the mood is cautious but confident. India will continue to act in its own national interest - as it should. If Washington wants to be part of that story, it must learn to listen. Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
