Sunday View: The Best Weekend Opinion Reads, Curated Just for You

In this piece for The Indian Express, senior Congress leader P Chidambaram talks about India's evolving approach to foreign trade, contrasting it with the recent global protectionist trends, particularly under US President Donald Trump. Critiquing Trump's recent high tariffs, he writes that they will likely end up harming the US economy by raising prices and inflation without creating jobs.As for India's relationship with the US, he adds, "The first lesson in foreign relations is, if one bends, kneels and crawls, one is bound to be kicked to the ground. Mr Modi forgot this lesson in his dosti with Mr Trump."India cannot, obviously, bend over. Nor does India need to be defiant. We must clearly declare our willingness to negotiate however long and painful the process may be. The laws of economics will force Mr Trump to reconsider his weaponisation of tariffs: high tariffs will increase prices of hundreds of goods that Americans consume, inflation will rise, American companies will drag their feet on re-shoring, jobs will not increase, and the US growth rate will inevitably slow down. The mid-term elections in 2026 may check the hubris of Mr Trump.P Chidambaram, The Indian ExpressIn his weekly column for the Hindustan Times, journalist Karan Thapar raises concerns about the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Bihar, highlighting a significant reduction in registered voters. This is in light of the Election Commission of India (ECI)'s draft rolls published on 1 August which reveal that 6.56 million names, nearly 9% of those who were there before the exercise began have been deleted. With the exception of the two assembly elections of 2005, the total number of registered voters in Bihar has increased with every election since 1977. That won’t be the case when the assembly elections are held later this year. Given Bihar’s high fertility rate, this is perplexing, to put it mildly. This newspaper reports that between 2001 and 2011 the number of adults increased by 28.5%. Isn’t it odd that the total number of registered voters should fall rather than increase in 2025?Karan Thapar, Hindustan TimesMoreover, referring to Yogendra Yadav's estimates, Thapar fears that the total number deleted or not included in Bihar could touch 15 million. "One can only hope he’s wrong. However, his second concern should worry all of us. Even if you limit yourself to the nearly 9% deletions that the ECI has confirmed in Bihar, this would equate at a national level — when the SIR happens nationwide — to 90 million names being deleted. That’s one-and-a-half-times the population of Britain or France!" Journalist and author, Coomi Kapoor, in her column for The Indian Express draws attention to the straining of relations between US and India. She states that perhaps Trump's frustration stems from India's slow progress in trade talks, particularly over agriculture and dairy, key sectors for his Republican supporters. Further, she talks about varied issues, such as retired IAS officer Subhash Chandra Garg's book 'No Minister' and a Constitution Club Election which drew national attention.At the start of 2025 we were led to believe that we were Donald Trump’s special friend and that India would probably be the first to conclude a trade tariff agreement with the US. Now we are not just back of the queue, but could be blackballed! A close observer of Trump-India relations has a different take from others for the mysterious fallout. It was not initially about Russian oil, Pakistani perfidy or thwarting Trump’s Nobel Peace Prize ambitions. Trump was infuriated with India’s dilatory tactics in signing a deal, which goes back to his first presidency.Coomi Kapoor, The Indian Express"Much to the BJP’s horror, however, this exercise is no longer confined to the Congress party alone." This is what Congress leader Pawan Khera observes in his The Indian Express column about Rahul Gandhi's findings of Mahadevapura seat in Bengaluru.Pointing out that an electoral fraud was orchestrated by inserting over 1 Lakh fake votes for the BJP in 2024 general elections. He zeroes in and calls for making machine-readable digital rolls available to ensure audit and more transparency but criticised the ECI for failing to do so.If the referee is not neutral, there is no sport. If the Election Commission is not impartial, there is no democracy. And if there is no democracy, there is no India as we claim to know it. Potentially, India is being ruled by the unelected, imposed through fraud. The question that haunts the Indian public is: If it happened in Bangalore Central, what’s the guarantee it didn’t happen everywhere?Pawan Khera, The Indian ExpressIn this piece for The Times of India, Tanvi Ratna states that the recent 50% tariffs on India aims to curb Russia's war funding by reducing its oil revenue, as India, a major swing buyer, could cut purchases and force Russia to offer deeper discounts. However, she notes that this standoff is about much more than tariffs or few oil shipments. "For Washington, it is a test of whether it can squeeze Russia’s war chest without spiking global fuel prices, hold China in check, and prevent the BRICS bloc from hardening into a true economic counterweight — all while keeping US inflation low enough for interest rates to fall," she adds. For New Delhi, the irritation is real. It has watched Washington oscillate between warm words and hard edges — like this tariff move that risks raising Indian fuel costs while shielding US consumers. Yet this is also a moment to read beyond the headlines. Pakistan, despite entering this cycle with less leverage, has found its way into Trump’s good books by using a cryptocurrency gambit and backing his bid for a Nobel Peace Prize. This has helped it carve out a tariff deal. India’s own leverage is far greater: market size, strategic geography, technology and defence partnerships, and a pivotal role in energy flows. The smart play is to deploy that leverage to meet Trump’s immediate need in exchange for wins of India’s choosing. When both sides know they hold valuable cards, the game would be to trade them well, rather than escalate.Tanvi Ratna, The Times of IndiaIn this piece for The Times of India, Sandip Roy, succinctly notes, "Language is not a Citizenship ID" talking about the Delhi police's notice which referred to Bengali as the "Bangladeshi national language." He elaborates on misconceptions about Bengali language and the linguistic nuances to show that it's not a homogeneous language and has spanned differently through generations.In a strange way what the current furore over Bengali has inadvertently done is re-ignite pride in Bangla as a language at a time when more and more of us have gotten used to not reading a Bengali newspaper, let alone a Bengali book. Memes have flooded social media reminding everyone that Bengali is not a “foreign language”, that it has given us a national anthem and a Nobel laureate; India’s only Oscar winner for lifetime achievement Satyajit Ray made most of his films in Bangla. Even Vande Mataram, when read in its entirety, was written in Bengali script in a mix of Sanskrit and Bangla. I spotted a meme showing Rabindranath Tagore delivering a stinging slap to a Delhi police officer while saying, ‘This slap is in Unicode Bangla’.Sandip Roy, The Times of IndiaRoy adds, "Each side has its own political agenda. BJP wants to root out illegal migrants from Bangladesh from electoral rolls. Some of its supporters think they can use language as a quick and dirty way to mark people as the other. The Trinamool Congress wants to frame this as an attack on Bengali as a language rather than on illegal immigration."Chandan Gowda, in this piece for the Deccan Herald talks about the aggressive escalation by Israel in Gaza amid the ongoing genocide, lack of active intervention by major world leaders and the manufacturing of consent by Israel. "If Israel forces out the one million Palestinians living in Gaza in the coming weeks, it is possible that there won’t be a city to come back to later on," he writes.‘Israel to take control of all of Gaza, says Netanyahu’ and ‘Israel set for full Gaza city control’ – the headlines over the last two days should make anyone ask: How dare he say that? What gives Israel the right to do this? But, no, the dominant moral milieu in the world has minimised the scope for raising these questions. The militarily and economically mighty Western countries, which have not shown a resolve to stop Israel’s barbaric violence on Palestinian civilians for almost two years now, have played a large role in bringing about this state of affairs.Chandan Gowda, Deccan HeraldIn this piece for The New Indian Express, Prabhu Chawla states that "Trump’s tariff tyranny hands India a historic opportunity for triumph." To elaborate on the same, he proposes various economic reforms such as slashing taxes, harnessing technology, opening FDI in defence and infrastructure and creating jobs, investing in AI, among others.In this storm lies India’s chance to reshape its destiny with audacious reforms that ignite demand, attract investment, and rival China’s manufacturing might. It requires a major reversal of economic model which places emphasis on supply. In fact, excessive supply hasn’t been able to create demand proportionally. To spur demand, India’s middle class, burdened by a 30-40 percent income tax on earnings above Rs 15 lakh, needs urgent relief. Cutting the rate to 15 percent for incomes under Rs 15 lakh would lift disposable income by 12-15 percent, unlocking $50 billion in fresh consumption, according to Niti Aayog’s 2024 estimatePrabhu Chawla, The New Indian ExpressGopalkrishna Gandhi, in this column for The Telegraph, writes on the 80th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, stating that nuclear weapons, due to their indiscriminate devastation, defy justification as they risk humanity and the environment beyond any conflict’s scope. "This 80th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is not about commemorating a crime against humanity but chastising the criminality of continuing nuclear mindsets being so blinded by geopolitical egoisms," he analyses.We have a need to mourn 1945 but more, we have to heighten alertness for 1945 is right upon us, this 2025. We are all in potential Hiroshimas and Nagasakis. I said earlier in this column and will repeat that it is natural and right for nations to be prepared to defend themselves against aggression and, now, against the ogre of terrorism. But are we going to let this defence preparedness stay within its proportions or turn it into nuclear manoeuvres that can spiral out of control and annihilate humanity? How strong is the ‘No First Use’ policy today? Trump, Putin, Netanyahu are not superhuman. They are like any other human being, fallible. The secrecy surrounding the internal processes in North Korea makes the nuclear perils growing there even more dangerous. The access of non-State players to nuclear decision-making in Pakistan is anyone’s guess.Gopalkrishna Gandhi, The Telegraph1.US-India-Pak: India “Deeply Loved” Bush Jr For Ending Her Nuclear Isolation2.The Caste Dynamic in Persecution of Bengali Muslims That No One's Talking About3.Smriti Irani’s Tulsi Returns, with Hindutva’s Stamp of Womanhood4.Inside BJP’s High-Stakes VP Race: RSS, Coalitions, and Power Politics5.The End of ‘Jab We Met’: How the Modi–Trump Romance Soured

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Sunday View: The Best Weekend Opinion Reads, Curated Just for You

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