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Business Standard

Best of BS Opinion: Bright notes, broken chords, and new symphonies

There's something timeless about the sound of a flute — light, sweet, yet layered with a melancholy that bends and distorts with each breath. It is a strange thing — breath made visible, sound shaped from emptiness. Its notes can be piercing or tender, pure or fractured, depending on the player's touch. A single tune can shimmer like sunlight on water, then twist into something unexpected. Much like the world today, bright beginnings, sudden breaks, melodies interrupted and remade. Let's dive in. Apple, it seems, is preparing to play a new symphony. It plans to shift all iPhone production for the US market from China to India — potentially doubling output. After assembling $22 billion worth of iPhones here last year, Apple's next move could send ripples through India's manufacturing landscape, notes our first editorial. Yet for all its noise, this opportunity needs careful tuning — simpler rules, easier land access, lower duties — or the music may fade before it soars. Meanwhile, the sudden suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty between India and Pakistan hits like a discordant note. Once the background hum of diplomacy, the treaty now strains under the weight of geopolitics, argues our second editorial. The change is largely symbolic today, but like a low, trembling drone beneath the melody, it may reshape water politics across South Asia, with China and Bangladesh close by, listening. In a similarly fluid dance, India's trade negotiations with the United States, as Ajay Srivastava explores, reveal another layered tune - the enticing promise of a bilateral agreement, overlaid with the harsher demands of market access, agricultural concessions, and digital control. India must play carefully and resist trading away its core strengths for superficial wins — keeping its tune, and tone, intact. On the corporate side, Amit Tandon notes that AGMs — once vibrant assemblies — have faded into near-irrelevance. Shareholder votes now happen silently online, and managements dodge the tough questions. The music has moved elsewhere, but the old stage still stands, silently, and strangely out of sync. Finally, Chintan Girish Modi reviews Raisina Chronicles edited by S Jaishankar and Samir Saran, a new book capturing the diplomatic symphony of India's Raisina Dialogue. A celebratory, if slightly selective, anthology — reminding us how sometimes the brightest notes are the ones left unsaid. Stay tuned, and remember, it's not just the volume of a note that matters, but the honesty of its sound!