ICYMI #TheTribuneOpinion: Modi-Xi meeting, Trump’s rage against India and Punjab’s critical flood situation

With Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping holding two crucial meetings on the sidelines of the SCO summit, Sino-India relations may see a new dawn, as the summit of the 10-member bloc is regarded as significant and consequential following Trump’s imposition of 50 per cent tariffs on Indian exports.

Only a grand bargain can settle the boundary question with China, writes Maj Gen Ashok K Mehta (retd) in his Op-ed piece Resetting ties with China: A mirage of stability. This would involve substantial and difficult compromises on both sides; failing that, it will be more of the same "management of disagreements and unsettled borders”. India has already made substantive concessions to China on the border to deter a two-front situation, he adds.

One figure will shadow the Modi-Xi discussions without being named: the Dalai Lama. What makes the Dalai Lama particularly threatening to China is his refusal to demonise his oppressors, writes Rajiv Mehrotra, Managing Trustee of the Foundation for Universal Responsibility of the Dalai Lama, in his Op-ed Why is China afraid of the Dalai Lama? The Dalai Lama's intellectual range creates a global constituency that no government can fully control, he argues.

Even as White House trade adviser Peter Navarro continues to blame India for bankrolling the Ukraine war by buying Russian oil, The Tribune's Op-ed articles have examined the issue threadbare through incisive contributions from foreign policy experts. Why did India go so wrong in assessing that Trump 2.0 would be so inflexible on trade issues, asks former MEA Secretary Vivek Katju in his Op-ed Has India been blindsided by Donald Trump? He also questions how the Modi government plans to invoke the three 'brahmastras' in its quiver.

In his Op-ed Trump is upset Modi is standing up to him, former Ambassador to France Jawed Ashraf writes that President Trump only respects nations that have leverage — evident in his dealings with China and Russia. But his rage against India, he notes, is primarily driven by the fact that he feels India, a country without the same kind of power as Russia, is daring to stand up to him.

India needs the US Congress to preserve its gains in relations with America, writes strategic analyst KP Nayar in his Op-ed India misreads Washington: Why Congress still matters. He argues that because Trump is high-handed, capricious, and autocratic, India wrongly assumed that the US Congress no longer mattered under the new dispensation. In reality, the House of Representatives and the Senate continue to hold significant power to influence the course of America’s policies.

Applying the famous mantra Saam, Daam, Dand, Bhed — which roughly translates to “discuss, bribe, punish, and exploit weaknesses” — in different contexts, The Tribune Editor-in-Chief Jyoti Malhotra writes in her editorial The season of Saam, Daam, Dand, Bhed that Chanakya’s Arthashastra makes Machiavelli look like child’s play. She considers several current scenarios where this slogan fits: Manish Sisodia’s campaign for the Punjab Assembly poll, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and PM Modi aiming to remain in office beyond 75, and Trump attempting to bring India in line through punitive tariffs.

Turning to developmental issues, nuclear power can play a vital role in building a truly self-reliant India. But building public trust is a prerequisite for the successful deployment of nuclear plants, given the unease shaped by memories of Chernobyl (1986) and Fukushima (2011), write K Ramanathan and Arunendra Kumar Tiwari from The Energy and Resources Institute in their Edit piece Public trust key to India’s nuclear push. They note that India’s operating nuclear power plants have demonstrated a commendable safety record, recently validated by the International Atomic Energy Agency in its latest safety review.

Meanwhile, floods have wreaked havoc in Punjab, displacing millions and marooning hundreds of acres of land. The magnitude of the disaster underscores that floods in Punjab are not isolated events but a recurring challenge. In their Op-ed Year after year, Punjab drowns in mismanagement, Deepratan Singh Khara and Anmol Rattan Singh from the PANJ Foundation argue that Punjab must treat floodplains as shared resources and enforce strict zoning, embankments, drainage, early warning systems, and immediate disaster relief funding.

Another pressing issue plaguing Punjab is rising unemployment. In his Op-ed Punjab economy a victim of neglect & populism, GNDU Professor of Eminence Ranjit Singh Ghuman writes that agricultural employment opportunities are shrinking, while non-agricultural jobs are failing to attract youth due to a mismatch between job quality and aspirations. He adds that Punjab’s economic slowdown is largely due to the state’s shift in focus from development to law and order.

One of the Modi government’s most publicised welfare schemes — the Ayushman Bharat-PM Jan Arogya Yojana, the world’s largest health insurance programme — has failed to meet expectations, writes former Indian Society of Gastroenterology president Rakesh Kochhar in his Op-ed Fraud and flaws mar Ayushman Bharat scheme. Arbitrarily low package rates, bureaucratic delays, and widespread fraud and corruption have severely hampered the scheme. Despite its grand launch, it failed to consider regional disparities and the limitations of existing healthcare infrastructure.

In the remote Northeast, decades-old allegations of extensive corruption in coal mining continue to swirl. The disappearance of lakhs of tons of coal under the noses of officials — despite court orders — has provoked widespread anger. In his edit Land, coal & corruption: NE’s battles, independent columnist Sanjoy Hazarika writes that coal mining in Meghalaya remains a deeply sensitive political, economic and environmental issue. The lost funds, he argues, could have met the difference between continuing in poverty and lifting communities out of it.