The Wire Talks

Foreign money is moving out of Indian stock markets and the reasons are not associated with profits but something more basic.“Right now, with taxation and with currency against them, they don't feel very welcome in India,” says Ajit Dayal a veteran investment manager. “Hence, there is dismay,” among them, he said in a podcast discussion with Sidharth Bhatia.According to Dayal, who has been engaging with FPIs for over 35 years, they had adjusted to the idea of the depreciation of the Indian rupee against the dollar. “But recent currency depreciation since March 2025 has accelerated way beyond this long-term average of 2.5% and 2.7%. It's gone to over 5% annualized.” The other reason, he says, is the long-term capital gains tax. All of which makes it unattractive to invest in countries like India, especially with US bond rates inching up.He says India needs to make investing and spending here attractive. “For that, have a policy of not deliberately weakening currency, never tax a foreign investor on home soil and do away with retrospective taxation. They will pay whatever taxes they wish to from the soil where they brought the capital, not the soil where they made the money.” India needs to get tens of billions of dollars of inflows. But, he said “we are arrogant and tone deaf to the extent that we don't recognise the changes in the world environment.”

The free bandying around of insulting language, not just by trolls but also by leaders has become a virtual epidemic. Cockroach, presstitute, Dimagi Naxal-these were not phrases used by small time party foot soldiers but by people in high office.“There were previous incarnations, (of using such language), but we've never seen such an escalation of it in recent times,” says Dilip Cherian, former journalist turned Image Guru who has been an observer of the public and political scene for a long time.One reason is that we don’t have leaders of stature who had self-restraint and also had “both the power and the speed with which to quickly tell their stormtroopers, who were usually at fault, to shut up,” he said to Sidharth Bhatia in a podcast discussion. “Now, when it escalates from leadership to actually, in a sense, adding fire and brimstone to just abuse, then we are in very dangerous grounds.”Today he said, the very users of such “putrid phraseology are now scurrying for cover because during the cockroach rally, you saw that girls and young boys were describing members of the establishment in the most colorful and profane words that previously had never been heard in the mouths of young girls or young boys.”He said many of his clients who had got themselves in a fix because of something they had said, and his advice to them was always the same: “Three steps. Apologize, retreat, and promise never to repeat. I've been able to salvage really hairy situations, hairy corporate situations, by just making sure that they stick to this formula. “

There is competition among Indian states to welcome multi-billion dollar data centres with subsidies, tax holidays and electricity grid and water priorities. But does this translate into jobs, or some other form of social service payments for the local communities. “No one is looking into that,” says Sharmila Chavaly, a former civil servant and an expert on infrastructure projects.“All we are looking at is, how can I incentivise a data centre to be set up in my state? We are not looking at what are the commitments we can get for this, because when we give, say, a tax holiday for 20 to 30 years, when we give them grid connection priority, etc., we need to look at certain commitments from them,” she said to Sidharth Bhatia in a podcast discussion.Data centres require a lot of electricity and water to cool down the equipment, resources that may be scarce in many areas. In Vishakapatnam, locals and environmental activists have protested against the 16 billion dollar Google-Adani project which is being constructed. “The centre is coming up abutting a wildlife and natural reserve and there are fears the environmental checks that were required were not followed.”After the mandate by RBI, SEBI and others that Indian data must be stored within the country, many companies have plans to set up data centres here. Besides, India generates a lot of data and is therefore an attractive place to be.There are many alternative models available around the world for setting up centres which don’t impose on the local communities. “Malaysia offers quick electrical connections, but two states they're using sewage water which is recycled.” Chavaly said Tamil. Nadu has not joined the “rat race” in rushing to invite data centres.

Recently Kapil Dev, Sunil Gavaskar and Dilip Vengsarkar were among those who signed a letter along with 18 other captains to the Pakistani prime minister, appealing for more humane treatment to Imran Khan.It comes at a time when relations between the two countries are fraught and rival captains don’t even shake hands on the field.Things were different when players like Gavaskar and Kapil Dev and Imran Khan were active, says veteran cricket writer Ayaz Memon. On the field, they were rivals and off the field, buddies, he said to Sidharth Bhatia in a podcast discussion.“You will find many videos of Gavaskar praising Imran Khan, what made him such a great captain, a great bowler, and so on. In 1986 Pakistan beat India in India for the first time, but Gavaskar, with his 96 nearly saved the match And Imran Khan took time out to discuss Gavaskar's virtuosity as an opening batsman.” Memon recalled how in 1987, India and Pakistan had jointly hosted the World Cup.Now, the rivalry “It’s become hardened. It's got a very hard edge to it.” There are many reasons for it. Memon also blames the media for pumping it up. “What they say carries influence.” He says a game between the two countries is like ‘fisticuffs’ rather than the beautiful game of cricket. “The weaponization of sport is an unfortunate development,” he said.

Three Muslim-majority countries — Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan have come together and signed a mutual defence agreement — popularly called the “Mecca Pact“. What are the implications?“The primary impact of the Pact is diplomatic and psychological. It gives a sense of security,” says Navdeep Suri, Indian diplomat and former Ambassador to UAE and Egypt, who knows the region well. “The military impact of this could come in due course once you start seeing the convergence of their respective strengths”, he said to Sidharth Bhatia in a podcast discussion. That could see an even more militarised and adventurous Pakistan, he said.Though India has publicly remained neutral, “it doesn't really mean that we are not watching it very carefully or not doing anything about it.” Suri said India has very good relations with the Saudis, and though Türkiye helped Pakistan with drones during Operation Sindoor, we should still engage bilaterally with them.He said the Saudis are looking at the Mecca Pact as a “U.S.-plus scenario where they are hedging and they are creating other options for their security.” “Turkey is extremely concerned about Israel trying to position itself as the regional hegemon,’ he said, adding, “today, whether it is the Turks, the Saudis, and Pakistanis for long have been worried that Israel could target their nuclear program”

After the Jantar Mantar protests, Narendra Modi and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat tried to reach out to Gen Z. But these have not been successful because “Gen Z knows that the RSS is part of the problem,” says Dhirendra Jha, journalist and author of several books on Hindutva and the RSS. “Why is Gen Z hesitating? Because RSS is trying to capture institutions, RSS is trying to capture whatever jobs are created,” he said to Sidharth Bhatia in a podcast discussion. “ That is why whatever drama he sought to do while interacting with GenZ was understood properly by youngsters, and they are no longer afraid now.”Analysing the RSS, he said it thrived on “ambiguity.” It controlled the system through BJP and Modi and Amit Shah. “This is unnatural in a democracy.” But after the protests, things had changed. That is why “if you talk to anybody in the RSS or the BJP, you will feel this sense of fear. They don’t know how to manage the situation.”He added, “They have no other tool left with them other than using fear, using manipulation, rigging the election, using all the institutions to remain in power. And if people don't fear, then perhaps they may not be able to use those institutions”.

Seven years ago Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir was read down and done away with and the region was converted to two Union Territory-J & K and Ladakh. The BJP had then said that this would fully integrate the state into the country and that it would bring peace.“Article 370 was there from the 1950s. And there was no terrorism in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, until things changed and Pakistan got an opportunity. So, to say that Article 370 has anything to do with the terrorism and separatism, I don't think the fact support that,” said Salman Soz, economist and national spokesperson of the Congress.In a podcast discussion with Sidharth Bhatia, Soz said Article 370 was “in the vanguard” of the Constitutional spirit of decentralisation, of reflecting the local sensibilities of the people. “This was the only Muslim-majority state in the country in a Hindu-majority country and that was a wonderful thing. That was Sheikh Abdullah’s vision. Instead of celebrating it, there was a concerted effort to tear it down,” he said.Soz said that Article 370 could have been “a kind of a prototype for how Indian federalism would evolve. But unfortunately, the BJP and others did not see it that way. I think there will be a cost to that.”

“The youth movement consisted of many who were supporters of this government and that is significant”, says Tariq Ali, the icon of protest movements in the 1960s and after.“This is not a movement orchestrated by China, or Pakistan, or internal opposition parties. This is a movement that has risen from below,” he said in a podcast discussion with Sidharth Bhatia.Ali, apart from being a campaigner and activist, is also a film maker and author of novels, biographies and even a play. He closely follows global events and particularly of South Asia. His most famous book, Street Fighting Years, An Autobiography of the Sixties, has gone into multiple editions and provides a ring side glimpse of the big events of that decade.When asked about accusations against the protesters of using abusive language, he said that it goes on in many parts of the world. “One country where the president is subjected continuously to ridicule is the United States of America. I mean, it's difficult to go into a social network without seeing absolutely vicious and savage attacks on Trump who replies in kind.Unlike the Indian prime minister, he doesn't say, oh, I'm above all this, you shouldn't abuse me.”The BJP and RSS too used to mock Nehru and Gandhi and no one said to them don’t do it, he said.Speaking of global demonstrations against Israel’s bombing of Gaza, he said, “Of all the big countries in the world, the only one where there haven't been any big demonstrations in solidarity with Palestine is India. The Indian left has a lot to answer for. They should have organized them, even if just a few thousand people turned up.”Did he have anything to say to young protesters? “You've won a temporary victory. It's partially psychological, partially political. It can disappear very quickly. Don't let it disappear. That would be my message.”

The sudden takedown of the film Satluj from an OTT platform within 48 hours of release sparked a lot of discussion. The film was made four years ago and the censors had asked for 127 cuts which the director Honey Trehan refused. Once it was pulled down, it was distributed all over Punjab for free for audiences to watch. “I'm quite surprised at the way the government has behaved in the whole thing”, veteran journalist Kanwar Sandhu said in a podcast discussion with Sidharth Bhatia.He said the manner in which the film was pulled down “raised the curiosity of the people.” He managed to see it online but “in the last two minutes there was a message that there was a technical error and I couldn’t see any more. What is it that they don't want the people to know?”He said Khalistan was not an issue at the moment at all in Punjab. “There are Sikhs abroad who have certain grievances, they feel slighted, they feel hurt,” he said.Sandhu also spoke of the government’s handling of the protests of the last few weeks. “My mind goes back to the farm protests. I see similarities in the playbook. You take decisions without consulting the stakeholders. That's what they did when they brought in the farm laws.” When the prime minister finally relented, it was done in a “half-hearted way.”

Actor and activist Shabana Azmi was among those who joined the protestors at Jantar Mantar and says she saw “hope and anger” among them. “I and Javed saab (Javed Akhtar) wrote a letter directly to the prime minister appealing initiate a dialogue with the students. We got an acknowledgement” but nothing else, so she joined the protests.In a podcast discussion with Sidharth Bhatia, Azmi said the students had insisted they wanted the protest to be peaceful. But “I saw the tear gas and then the lathi charge.” After that the students were “very angry.” She added, “We have a ruling party and the leaders always saying the youth are our biggest strength”. But, “They were not even ready to address any of these issues.” She said now the opposition parties must come together and work out a strategy and meanwhile the government has to rethink its attitude.”Asked why her colleagues from the industry were not speaking up, she said many had. But, if someone hasn’t “I think it's not fair for us to judge them. The people who choose not to can do so because they weigh the consequences differently and that is their right. Why is it necessary that just because we are actors, we should have a view on everything?”