In Grief And Grit, Navigating Global Tensions And Homegrown Shifts

"In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer."
– Albert Camus

Dear Insighter,

In the valleys of Pahalgam, where 28 lives were snatched mid-laughter, a nation’s heart fractured. Grief, thick as Kashmir’s winter fog, clings to the air. Yet, life—stubborn, scrappy, relentless—dances on, even when the music falters.

As India grieves, the world barrels ahead in its usual chaos. Across the Line of Control, India and Pakistan trade barbs. Meanwhile, China demands the US drop its "beehive of duties" as a show of goodwill, but Trump, ever the reality TV producer, insists tariffs will merely "shrink, not vanish." Negotiations, you ask? China calls them a figment of Trump’s imagination.

In this theatre of tantrums, India played it cool. As this BasisPoint Insight column notes, New Delhi’s silence on Trump's tariff threats wasn't weakness—it was tactical restraint. While China went full tit-for-tat, India quietly secured a 90-day pause from Trump’s sharpest knives. Turns out, our notoriously high tariffs, once branded a liability, now serve as rare bargaining chips. As Vivek Johri writes, we actually have concessions to trade. Low-tariff economies? Not so much. The former Chairman of CBIC also shares his argument in a video interview. 

But leverage alone isn’t enough. As Ajay Srivastava reminds us, real Make in India isn't about slapping labels on imports and calling it patriotism. Companies need to rewire supply chains, rebuild manufacturing processes, and yes, maintain something called documentation. 

At home, the Reserve Bank of India has confirmed that growth, not inflation, is now centre stage. Yet MPC member Saugata Bhattacharya keeps throwing in some useful friction, making sure we know this isn't a mechanical cutting cycle. What Basis Pundit notes is that the RBI could actually cut much deeper than consensus imagines. The real interest rate in India is a remarkably fluid concept—governors have historically deployed multiple definitions as circumstances demand.

Under the hood, though, things get weirder. Banks, hoarding liquidity like squirrels before winter, are all parking funds in the SDF, turning the RBI into the borrower of first resort instead of the lender of last resort. Kalyan Ram begsthe question: is the SDF a temporary convenience or a long-term structural fix?

In corporate land, the mood is just as split, Richard Fargose analyses. ICICI Bank is pivoting to protect margins. HDFC Bank, after a messy post-merger indigestion, is finally stabilising—focusing on margins over madcap growth. 

But IDFC First Bank’s ₹75 billion raise from Warburg Pincus and ADIA smells less like strategic capital and more like a lavish wedding during a drought. As R Gurumurthy dissects here, the structure—8% compulsory convertibles—hands all the upside to new investors while existing shareholders get to hold the bag.

Markets, meanwhile, remain jittery. Between September 2024 and February 2025, Indian equities shed over ₹100 trillion in market cap—almost 30% of nominal GDP. Small and mid-cap investors bore the brunt, proving once again that wealth isn’t a lottery win; it’s a slow-cooked biryani, as Chokkalingam G notes. His recipe? Diversify, scrutinise debt, and for heaven’s sake, don't confuse a bull market with genius.

Pairs trading is one lifeline to ride out the volatility. As Suresh Iyer and Balachandran Venkataraman explain, it could turn chaos into opportunity if you bet on the natural rhythm between similar stocks. But it’s a game for the patient, not the greedy.

On the consumer front, the revival is very real—but also very picky. Food, predictably, is thriving while personal care brands flail, observes Krishnadevan V. Tata Consumer clocked a 59% jump in quarterly profit, and Nestle’s India business posted robust double-digit growth, while HUL stuck to 2% underlying sales and volume growth; proving that in tough times, Maggi noodles beat sunscreen both in sales and soul-soothing power.

Speaking of sunscreen, HUL and Mamaearth have been busy baking each other in court. HUL’s SPF "lie detector" ad campaign, implying Honasa's products were more fiction than function, triggered a Delhi High Court facepalm. 

In tech, India’s IT giants are chasing AI rainbows even as margins slip and clients raise skeptical eyebrows, writes Dev Chandrasekhar. Infosys warned of a revenue decline; Wipro expects a 3.5% Q1 drop. Nasscom's $300 billion growth target by 2025-26 suddenly feels like one of those New Year’s resolutions made on January 1st... and quietly abandoned by February.

Digital payments, too, are flashing warning lights. The recent UPI outages are a rude reminder that reach without resilience is a ticking time bomb. As Srinath Sridharan puts it, a payments outage is like a power cut during a dinner party: Guests forgive, but they never forget. India needs to revisit redundancy plans with the urgency of a fire drill, not a quarterly offsite.

One company that seems to have gotten the memo is Rio Tinto, according to Krishnadevan V. After a decade-long absence, it's tiptoeing back into India—banking on ESG premiums and the Western buyer’s new guilt complex about carbon footprints.

Meanwhile, internal challenges demand attention. India's federal compact stands at a critical juncture, requiring trust beyond mere transactions, argues Srinath Sridharan. While the GST Council—with its one-third central, two-thirds state voting structure—represents collaborative federalism at its best, the growing use of central investigative agencies in opposition-ruled states threatens this delicate balance. On a brighter note, Vivek Johri expects GST rate rationalisation to arrive within six months.

And because the universe insists on balancing grief with grace, teenage cricket prodigy Vaibhav Suryavanshi burst onto the IPL stage. Manoj Rane puts it aptly: the teenager’s rise from Bihar’s hinterland to stardom is less about cricket and more about the art of dreaming audaciously—and making the world pay attention.

Much like Suryavanshi’s defiant adolescence, India marches on—even when grief shadows our steps, and the global power games feel exhausting. Somewhere within, that invincible summer endures.

Until next week, finding resilience in tough times.

Yours truly, 

Phynix