February 13, 2026
The Indian Exp.
Global economic engagement is and was riddled with contradictions. We aspired for growth yet feared competition. This diffidence shaped our early approach to trade. PM Narendra Modi has acted with panache. The present engagement on FTAs with the EU and US represents a discontinuity with the past. The US deal is not an isolated initiative but integral to a long, uneven journey from protectionist to purposeful participation in global trade. After Independence, barter trade was inescapable. In the gray corridors of the Soviet bloc, we swapped tea for machinery and rice for oil. It was a world where freedom of choice was traded for the comfort of certainty. State entities like the State Trading Corporation and the Mines and Minerals Trading Corporation canalised foreign trade in a debilitating trade regime. I witnessed this caution firsthand in 1973 while negotiating concessional oil with the Shah of Iran as the global economy buckled under the first oil crisis. Today, however, ... Read More