Comment by Riaz Haq on September 26, 2026 at 10:32am

India's 'unsettled relations' with US a headwind for economy, adviser says | Reuters

https://www.reuters.com/world/india/indias-unsettled-relations-with...

NEW DELHI, Sept 25 (Reuters) - The Indian ‌economy is facing ​near-term headwinds ​from "unsettled relations" with ⁠the ​United States, ​global energy prices, and ​the ​absence of "AI play" ‌in ⁠the country, the country's chief ​economic ​adviser ⁠said on ​Friday.

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 28, 2026 at 7:39am

Kushagra 🇮🇳
@KushagraSaxena_
India's former Ambassador to the United States has just demolished the Modi government's biggest foreign policy myth.

Mr Navtej Sarna who represented India in Washington & London, writes in The Week that the India-US relationship has cratered significantly & that in America's eyes, India is not the strategic partner we believed we were.

Read that again. This is not the opposition. This is one of India's most senior diplomats.

Here is what 20 months of Modi-Trump friendship has produced -

🔹A US sanctions law threatening India with 100% tariffs for buying Russian oil
🔹India clubbed with just four other countries for punishment
🔹Votes against India cutting across party lines, including from the Congressional India caucus
🔹Even an Indian American congressman voted in favour
🔹US senator publicly told India - Clean up your act
🔹A bipartisan consensus built over 25 years has now cracked

& what was the government's strategy? Mr Sarna spells it out -
🔹Begging for investment in the US
🔹Ego massages for Trump AND his family
🔹Fawning over his envoys

His verdict - it has NOT worked.

PM who shouted Ab ki baar Trump sarkar in Houston owes the nation an answer:

🔹Where is the strategic partnership you sold to India?
🔹What did years of hugs and stadium rallies actually get us?
🔹Why is India being lectured instead of respected?

India stood up to the world on the nuclear file and came out stronger. That took spine, not selfies.

Mr Sarna says it plainly, dignity of a nation is non negotiable.

Stop the photo ops. It is time to call the bully's bluff.


https://x.com/KushagraSaxena_/status/2104440762972959047?s=20

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 28, 2026 at 9:11am

Sadanand Dhume
@dhume
I wish Indians would stop pretending—to themselves and to the world—that China and India are still clubbed together in any meaningful way. China has emerged as a major world power. There’s no guarantee that India will automatically follow suit.

https://x.com/dhume/status/2104039466369200343?s=20


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Jayant Bhandari
@JayantBhandari5
The gulf between China and India is not merely economic. It is cultural. China has virtue, work ethic, honor, and skills. If India can bridge the gap in 17 centuries, it will be lucky. For now, India is falling apart, degrading, and getting lost in debauchery.

https://x.com/JayantBhandari5/status/2104290922762842220?s=20

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 28, 2026 at 12:26pm

Pravin Sawhney
@PravinSawhney
Contrary to what most analysts believe, President Xi's state visit to America was good for America, China & Russia with negative implications for India. The multipolar world is a reality & President Trump has acknowledged this.
Will explain all this in a video to be online by tomorrow ( September 29) evening!

https://x.com/PravinSawhney/status/2104458588660121809?s=20

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 29, 2026 at 8:48am

India readies $25 billion for Deep Tech investment as U.S. and China race ahead

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/29/india-investment-billions-tech-ai-u...


India is planning to invest $25 billion in its nascent deep tech industry as it tries to catch up to China and the U.S.
Deep tech is a broad term used for start-ups in artificial intelligence, semiconductors, advanced manufacturing, drones and space tech.
Deep tech is becoming “very critical” to every country amid rising geopolitical tensions, leading to an investment push from the Indian government.
While venture capital and private equity leaders in India are confident that a global Deep Tech champion would emerge out of India, they were hesitant to put a timeline on it.

India is preparing to deploy $25 billion to support Deep Tech start-ups in the country, as it tries to catch up with the U.S. and China in the global tech race to cut its reliance on frontier foreign technology.

In the last decade, India invested $11.6 billion in Deep Tech, Rajat Tandon, president of the Indian Venture and Alternative Capital Association, told CNBC.


But now, the government alone has committed to invest $11 billion under the Research Development Infrastructure Fund, which will be matched by venture capital and private equity fund managers, he said.

Three or four billion more will be added, making ”$25 billion available to be spent on Deep-Tech investments,” Tandon said.

Deep Tech is a broad term used for start-ups in artificial intelligence, semiconductors, advanced manufacturing, drones and space tech. Experts told CNBC that the funding push comes as the government has realized that frontier tech is becoming “very critical” amid rising geopolitical tensions.

China and the U.S. currently lead the global AI race, and while Chinese tech is seen with suspicion in India, Washington’s curbs on tech exports make it unreliable.

“Tariffs from the U.S. actually help this [Deep Tech] segment a lot,” Anandamoy Roychowdhury, managing director of Crane Venture Partners, said, adding that India will develop local Deep Tech companies as it fears that “important technology can get cut off at any point.”

Some of these fears were realized earlier in June when Anthropic disabled access to its new models — Fable 5 and Mythos 5 — for foreign nationals, complying with an export-control directive from the U.S. government.

The start-up funding leaders who had gathered for SuperReturn Asia said that India’s Deep Tech companies were at a nascent stage but added that the ecosystem was poised to create global champions eventually given the quality of ideas and talent in the country.

There is a “dramatic acceleration of innovation” in the Deep Tech space in India, Shweta Rajpal Kohli, president and chief executive of Startup Policy Forum, said, adding that some companies are moving from prototype to “real commercialization.”

Earlier this year, Vibe-coding startup Emergent, space tech company Skyroot and India’s full-stack sovereign AI company Sarvam became unicorns as their valuations crossed $1 billion during the latest fundraising round.

‘Candy store’

“I feel like a kid in a candy store,” Roychowdhury of Crane Ventures said, describing his experience of scouting for Deep Tech start-up investments in the country. About 80% of his $150 million APAC fund is currently concentrated in India, he shared.

In August, the IVCA, in a report, said that its survey across 100 funds in the country showed that nine out of 10 funds in India were deploying capital in Deep Tech startups, with 37% holding a stake in 11-20 such companies,

The report added that in 2025 the sector received nearly $3 billion in funding—its highest ever, even as overall start-up funding in India fell. However, it also underscored the massive funding gap with the U.S., where $136 billion was raised.

One of the key disadvantages for Indian Deep Tech start-ups over those in the U.S. is the lack of domestic capital required to scale these long-gestation, innovative investments.

Comment by Riaz Haq 3 hours ago

Ignis Rex
@Ignis_Rex
Sunak’s Slap in New Delhi: China Is a Superpower, India Is the Aspirant

Multipolar Reality Check: Vietnam Won ‘China+1,’ Not India

Rishi Sunak stood in New Delhi, in front of India’s business elite, and said the quiet part out loud: China is now a peer competitor to the United States. Not India.

For years, since the US–China trade war heated up in 2018, Indian elites have been thumping their chests, declaring India the “next economic superpower.” They told themselves that as America tried to “decouple” from China, India would be the natural replacement. Western think tanks and media fed this fantasy, calling India the “counterweight” to China. But Sunak’s words were a slap across the face: the world has already moved to multipolarity, and India is not sitting at the top table among the 2 superpowers.

Multipolar Reality

Sunak’s statement confirms what many outside the Western bubble already know: the US-led order is finished. Trump is not the cause of this collapse—he’s the symptom. His rise reflects America’s contradictions: a superpower drowning in debt, polarized at home, overstretched abroad. Just like late Ottoman sultans who clung to populism while their empire crumbled, Trump embodies decline, not renewal.

China, meanwhile, has emerged as a full-spectrum rival—economically, militarily, technologically. That’s the reality Sunak acknowledged. And he did it in India, where elites have been desperate to believe they are equal to China. The contrast could not be sharper.

India as “Supply Chain Hub”?

Sunak dangled a carrot: India could be a “trusted partner” and “potential supply chain hub” as the West diversifies away from China. But let’s be honest—this is the same “China + 1” narrative we heard back in 2020. Back then, Western firms said they’d move factories out of China. The winner wasn’t India. It was Vietnam.

Why? Because Vietnam is next door to China, plugged directly into Chinese supply chains. Its ports, logistics, and industrial clusters are integrated with southern China’s manufacturing ecosystem. Multinationals could shift assembly lines to Vietnam without breaking their supply chain backbone. India, by contrast, was too far, too bureaucratic, too expensive in logistics, and too unpredictable in policy. India had a PR win over China – when it was crowned “most likely to succeed” in China + 1 as Modi was a good friend of Trump! See where Modi is now with Trump?

India’s Missed Chances

If India truly wants to be a manufacturing hub, it needs to face hard truths:
1.Foreign investment friendliness – Investors complain about red tape, sudden tax changes, and weak infrastructure. India must fix this.
2.Integration with Chinese supply chains – Pretending you can replace China is fantasy. The smart move is to plug into China’s ecosystem, not fight it. Vietnam understood this. India resisted, and lost.
3.Geopolitical realism – India wants to be a “swing state,” hedging between blocs. But hedging only works if you have leverage. Without manufacturing depth, India’s leverage is limited.

OECD Debts near Breaking Points?

Western debt markets are turning into a casino. Just look at US, Japan and France.
Sunak warned tech firms may soon issue more debt than the US government, showing how private capital dominates—chasing quick profits and leaving economies unstable.
In my opinion, China’s model is different. Debt is directed by the state, used to build railways, factories, and green tech, not gamble on short term returns. This approach is civilizational: China has always valued stability and long term planning. For developing countries, that predictability is far more sustainable than Western finance, which is predatory and short lived. In a multipolar world, China’s debt system looks built to last.

The Bigger Picture

Sunak’s speech in India was more than a policy talk. It was a reality check.
•China is the new superpower and peer to the US.
•India is still the aspirant.
•Multipolarity is here.
•OECD debts are worrisome

https://x.com/Ignis_Rex/status/2110124311310991813?s=20

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