Bloomberg: Behind the scenes of India's push with Trump to seal a long-awaited trade deal

Doval met Rubio in Sept to help smooth over fraying ties. He told Rubio that India wouldn’t be bullied by Trump and his aides, and would wait out his term. /1
bloomberg.com/news/articles/… New Delhi wanted Trump and his aides to dial down their public criticism so they could get relations back on track. Trump had called India a “dead” economy with high tariffs and that it was funding Putin’s war in Ukraine by buying Russian oil. /2

The grand strategy behind Trump’s Venezuela raid and Greenland grab

What Trump’s moves have done, apart from triggering high-octane news cycles that he typically revels in, is thoroughly tighten the screws on China. My latest.

1/5
firstpost.com/opinion/moors-… Trump gets a crucial point that most analysts, policymakers and even global leaders miss. China, for all its claims and status as America’s peer competitor, is not interested in an open conflict with the United States. 2/5

How To Look At The Tejas Crash In Dubai Without Falling For The Noise. By @prakharkgupta

"This was not a systems failure or a design flaw or a structural collapse. This was the razor’s edge of air-show flying, and this time the edge won."
🧵 (1/11)
swarajyamag.com/defence/how-to… Even before the smoke cleared, the usual ecosystem of Pakistani and Chinese social media “defence experts” began doing what they always do, which is to turn a tragedy into a talking point. They have jumped on this moment with predictable glee. (2/11)

More details, purportedly of the FBI affidavit, in this report.

Tellis was the subject of "multi-year investigation" for allegedly "using his top secret security clearance to access and share sensitive information with Beijing officials."
🧵 1/8
telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2025/1… On Sept 25, Mr Tellis was accused of printing documents marked “secret” at the State Department’s Harry S Truman building that “referred to US Air Force tactics techniques and procedures”. 2/8

Anatomy of a protest in PoK, and @nytimes, the flagbearer of journalism in western media.
As Pakistan unleashed brutal force on PoK protestors, killing *at least 9* and injuring *over 150*, see how NYT covered the development. 🧵1/5
nytimes.com/2025/10/02/wor… Straight up, Salman Masood of NYT, reporting from Islamabad, portrays Pakistan PM Shehbaz Sharif as a deeply empathetic leader who's very worried over the violence, wants cops to "show restraint" and is determined to uphold "democratic rights" of the protestors. 2/5

How Tariffs Hurt My American Factory, by George Matouk Jr.

As 50% tariffs take on products and manufacturing materials imported from India, Americans should know what these levies are doing to U.S. companies like my family’s. 🧵(1/8)

wsj.com/opinion/how-ta… Matouk is an American maker of luxury bed and bath linens, founded by my grandfather in 1929. While much of our industry has abandoned domestic production, we have built a profitable production operation in Mass., where we have nearly 200 employees. (2/8)

Just a few years ago, very few people drove electric vehicles in Nepal. Today, the majority of vehicles in Nepal are electric. India's dominance of Nepal's auto market has evaporated as Chinese carmakers have overtaken Indian brands.
1/5
asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/China-… By 2030, Nepal's government wants 90% of private vehicle sales and 60% of public four-wheel passenger vehicles to be electric. This is not just about health or climate, it's about economics. Electric vehicles are fast, quiet and, until recently, very cheap to run. 2/5

Pakistan symbolises the lingering presence of Muslim political power in India. It keeps alive the memory of the Islamic invasions that began in 712 CE, when Muhammad bin Qasim invaded Sindh: @IbnKhaldunIndic

A thread on this fabulous piece. 1/6
theprint.in/opinion/pakist… Pakistan is not a state in the conventional sense. It is to India what Granada was to the Spanish Reconquista—the last post of Islamic retreat... There is no real “idea” of Pakistan. The nation is not the embodiment of an idea, but the expression of hatred for Hindus. 2/6

"I made myself read the remarks of Judge Peter Rook after the trial of Akhtar Dogar, Anjum Dogar, Kamar Jamil, Mohammed Karrar & Basam Karrar. In para after para, the judge outlines what those Pakistani-heritage brutes did to their victims." 1/6
telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/0… “Years of sheer torture...great brutality... torment and distress.. apart from using her for sexual gratification you coerced her into providing sex to vast numbers of strangers. Up to four or five men would be invited to addresses so they could have sex with her." 2/6

Awesome article by @DalrympleWill. I wish the writer was an Indian. Sadly, it has fallen upon western scholars to write about India's civilizational achievements. A nation that has memory-holed its past cannot build a confident future. A thread.
1/14
theguardian.com/world/article/… "In Britain, our education still gives us the impression that most of the great scientific advances of antiquity were the productof the brilliance of ancient Greece. We learn about Pythagoras and Archimedes at primary school..." 2/14

A short🧵on my latest, where I push back against the narrative that Putin has made Russia a satellite of China. I argue that Russia is too important, too resourceful and too proud a civilization to accept Chinese vassalge. (1/6)
firstpost.com/opinion/putins… Narratives of a compliant Russia beholden to China not only animates discussions in Washington and in the western capitals, but also in New Delhi where it is taken as axiomatic and drives a paranoid discourse. (2/6)
firstpost.com/opinion/putins…

Napalm-level truth bombs in this @tavleen_singh piece. She argues that behind Modi's popularity and irrelevance of the elites, lies decoloniality. But there's more. A 🧵

"I met nobody in rural India who saw Modi as corrupt and autocratic." indianexpress.com/article/column… "What is it about ‘autocratic’, ‘dictatorial’ Modi that attracts ordinary voters more? The answer that I got to this question on my recent travels in rural India is that people have seen changes in their lives, and they believe that these changes have happened because of Modi."

Clueless, pontificating western journalists and 'South Asia specialists" should spare a little time to read Captain Amarinder Singh's column, a former soldier, military historian and former chief minister of Punjab.

indianexpress.com/article/opinio… "When I met Trudeau as Chief Minister of Punjab on behalf of the Government of India in February 2018 at Amritsar, I handed over a list of nine A-category terrorists to him for action. But the Canadian government chose to ignore the list completely."

British newspaper The Guardian gave extensive coverage to #MeToo movement, all the time while this was going on inside its premises.
And when an FT reporter wanted to file the story, her editor killed it. Read the thread.
nytimes.com/2023/05/30/wor…

Biden admin's 'dual' strategy of intensifying strategic partnership with India, while pressing Modi govt on 'values' through disinformation campaigns, is unsustainable. US may think it's a clever strategy, we think it's duplicity.
A 🧵on my latest. (1/8)
firstpost.com/opinion/the-bi… US State Dept's latest report on 'religious freedom' in India is based on data sourced from advocacy groups such as Indian American Muslim Council, a radical Islamist organization, and Christian evangelist groups. Conflict of interest is clear. (2/8)
firstpost.com/opinion/the-bi…

China may not have America's troop presence in West Asia, but it possesses huge leverage that Beijing has put to use while brokering the deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia. A thread on my latest piece. 1/9
firstpost.com/opinion/china-… The deal projects China as a responsible major power, catches the US — the resident power broker in West Asia — between a rock and a hard place, and puts forward Beijing’s statement of intent as a legitimate stakeholder in the region. 2/9
firstpost.com/opinion/china-…