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Business Standard
22-05-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Best of BS Opinion: Amid crises and growth, who withstands the heat?
During a summer long ago, I watched a patch of forest behind my grandmother's house catch fire. Dry leaves, brittle branches, a few huts made of thatch, all gone in minutes. But amid the char, one towering peepal tree stood scorched but firm, its roots deep, bark resilient. Crisis doesn't just reveal the fragile. It reveals what endures. Let's dive in. Vi, once a telecom titan, now looks like a hollowed-out trunk after lightning. With the Supreme Court tossing out its AGR dues plea, the telco finds itself stripped of last hopes, notes our first editorial. Airtel is flying high, Tata Teleservices has stepped back, but Vi remains stubbornly stuck, relying on a government that owns nearly half of it but would rather not raise another sickly sapling like BSNL. Bailouts won't work forever. For Vi to survive, its roots must reach deeper into capital markets, technology, and honest reinvention. This tree won't stand unless its promoters act, and act now. Meanwhile, in the mutual fund world, a quieter fireproofing is underway. The AMFI report shows Indian households are becoming financial survivalists with steady SIPs, growing patience, and record inflows, highlights our second editorial. From just 63 million SIP accounts last year to 81 million now, this is more than retail enthusiasm; it's discipline taking root. Sure, we're far from global MF maturity, but this new crop of investors is learning to thrive in volatility. They're not flameproof yet but they're learning not to panic when smoke rises. But not all resilience is about waiting. Manufacturing in India needs kindling, not comfort. As Prerna Prabhakar, Sanjay Kathuria, and TG Srinivasan explain, while global trade reshuffles, India has barely moved in the value chain. Vietnam's catching up; we're crawling. High tariffs, low R&D, lacklustre FTAs, these are wet logs. If we want manufacturing to blaze, we need coordinated reforms, fewer barriers, and boldness. The window's still open, but the wind's rising. And then, there's water, the most overlooked fuel of all. Amit Kapoor's reflection on the blue economy shows us cities that treat water not as waste, but as wealth. From Chennai's mangroves to Kochi's electric water metro, some places are learning to adapt. Others still drain their lifelines. When the next urban crisis hits, we'll know who remembered water is not just scenery, it's survival. Lastly, in Sanjeev Chopra's The Great Conciliator: Lal Bahadur Shastri and the Transformation of India, we revisit a leader who refused to burn out. Aditi Phadnis's review paints a portrait of a man who listened more than he spoke, and whose strength lay in staying rooted, even in Tashkent's cold winds.
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Business Standard
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Business Standard
Sanjeev Chopra's book details Shastri's many contributions to nation, party
The 1965 war, Pakistan's second attempt to seize Kashmir, ended in Tashkent with Lal Bahadur Shastri returning the Haji Pir Pass - a gesture that disappointed even his family Listen to This Article The Great Conciliator: Lal Bahadur Shastri and the Transformation of India by Sanjeev Chopra Bloomsbury 370 pages ₹899 India's stated policy is that there can be no international intervention to resolve the Kashmir issue — that it can only be done bilaterally. Variations on this theme range from total rejection of any international intervention to tentative acceptance of technical assistance. But the reality is that in past wars (including near-wars/skirmishes/standoffs) with Pakistan, pressure, even direct intervention, from foreign powers has contributed significantly to ending them. The most manifest evidence of this was the 1965 war that concluded with the Soviet Union-brokered Tashkent Agreement
