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Good evening, Hope you had a great weekend! I’ll begin this edition with some fantastic sporting news from unexpected shores. Karkala in Karnataka’s coastal region isn’t the place you’d associate with badminton. However, it is home to Indian badminton’s newest star: the 20-year-old Ayush Shetty. On Sunday, Shetty, India’s second-ranked men’s singles player, claimed his biggest title to date by winning the US Open 2025, defeating Canada’s Brian Yang in Iowa’s Council Bluffs. The 6-foot-4 Shetty required just 47 minutes to secure a two-game victory, beating Yang 21-18, 21-13. As my colleague Shivani Naik notes in her match report, Shetty was more than ready and “simply unleashed an unfettered attack against an opponent who deflated and got defused with what was peppered at him.” However, in the women’s singles final, there was some heartbreak for India’s teenage shuttler Tanvi Sharma, who went down to the 34-year-old American Beiwen Zhang, 21-11, 16-21, 21-10 in her maiden Tour final. On that note, let’s dive in 👇🏽
📝 The Debrief
As countries rush to secure a trade deal with the United States, India has a wishlist. But conditions apply
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman did not hesitate. Speaking to the Financial Express, Sitharaman conveyed India’s hopes for a deal to US President Donald Trump in words familiar to him. She said, “Yes, I’d love to have an agreement, a big, good, beautiful one; why not?” (Read the full interview here). - Her statement comes as numerous countries, including India, are negotiating a bilateral trade agreement (BTA) with the US, with the July 9 deadline looming in just 10 days. Last week, Trump hinted at a “very big” interim deal that could “open up India.”
- Meanwhile, Bloomberg, citing sources, reported that the US is “nearing agreements with some economies,” including Taiwan and Indonesia, alongside Vietnam and South Korea.
Sticking points: To quote Sitharaman, India has drawn two “very big red lines," including in agriculture and dairy, where she says the negotiating team has exercised “a high degree of caution.” In agriculture, the US seeks greater market access for its exports, including soybeans and corn. - A recent report by the US Department of Agriculture suggests that India’s consumption of animal products (milk, eggs, fish, and meat) is likely to increase with population growth and rising per capita GDP.
- This could, in turn, boost demand for feed and create opportunities for US exports of these commodities (corn and soybeans) by the early 2030s, the report says.
- That’s unlikely to suit India’s soybean industry, which has a strong foundation in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. Ditto for corn, where millers aren’t too pleased about importing genetically modified corn as a feedstock for fuel ethanol.
Think about it: In a working paper, the government’s think tank, the NITI Aayog, has proposed that India import GM maize and soybeans, with the former as a feedstock for ethanol production, and the latter to extract oil for domestic consumption. - In both cases, it calls for the export of their byproducts in their entirety – distiller’s dried grains with solubles (maize) and de-oiled cakes and meals (soybean).
- It also called for lower tariffs on the import of apples, one of the US’s key agriculture-related demands.
Pushing back: Sitharaman also took severe exception to Trump’s oft-used moniker for India being the “tariff king”, terming it “absolutely unjustified.” She added that India has only “eight duties, inclusive of zero tariff.” - She stated that India drastically cut tariffs during the July and February budgets, with the effective rates “lower than the limits…which is itself far below the WTO boundary.”
- Sitharaman added that the broader deal could see lower tariffs for India, but given that it is a time-consuming process, it “has to be done after the agreement.”
✍️ From our newsroom
The Racket: If you're curious about how a digital scam unfolds, be sure to read this thoroughly reported investigative story. Spoiler alert: it reads like a thriller.
- The scam spans 15 states and 28 bank accounts, with a 44-year-old Gurugram-based advertising executive losing nearly Rs 6 crore in minutes. But how did it happen?
- It started with a fake video call interrogation, ending in cryptocurrency purchases, and involved the account of a 26-year-old job seeker in Jhajjar, Haryana.
- From there, the money was transferred into 11 suspicious accounts at a small co-operative bank in Hyderabad, five of which were opened under the instruction of a director with a history of crypto fraud.
- Victims were often low-income workers tricked into opening accounts with promises of jobs. Several addresses and identities were fake. The SIT has recovered Rs 58 lakh and involved the ED.
- The total loss? Over Rs 21 crore transferred through just 11 accounts—and that’s only the Gurugram part of a countrywide digital racket.
🔎 Need to know
Unagi time: China has lifted a two-year ban on fish imports from most Japanese prefectures, reopening its market to Japanese seafood. However, China will continue to ban seafood imports from 10 of Japan’s 47 prefectures, including Fukushima.
Rescue ongoing: A Palau-flagged oil tanker, MT Yi Cheng 6, with 14 crew members on board, caught fire on Sunday while transiting from India’s Kandla to Oman’s Shinas. The Indian Navy deployed INS Tabar on a rescue mission. Exiting stage: Thom Tillis, the Republican Senator from North Carolina, announced he will not seek re-election next year, a day after President Donald Trump threatened to support a primary challenge against his candidacy. Tillis voted against Trump’s sweeping tax-cut and spending bill, along with Kentucky’s Rand Paul, also a Republican.
🎙️Expresso Playlist!
In today’s Playlist, I’ll recommend an episode from our in-house sports podcast, Game Time, where hosts Amit Kamath and Mihir Vasavda discuss all things athletics this week. They focus on Neeraj Chopra’s NC Classic, while also exploring Australia’s teenage track prodigy Gout Gout, and Faith Kipgeyon’s attempt to break the 4-minute mile barrier.
✋🏽 One last thing
I’ll leave you today with two stories. Both concern OnlyFans, the subscription-based online sex platform currently valued at $8 billion. The Wall Street Journal offers an excellent profile of its enigmatic billionaire founder, Leo Radvinsky, which you could pair with The Economist’s article on how OnlyFans “transformed porn”. Needless to say, both are worth reading.
That’s all from me today. Thank you so much for reading this edition. If you enjoy the Evening Expresso, tell your friends to subscribe to the newsletter. You can do so by signing up for the Morning Expresso. Additionally, you can reach me via email for tips, feedback, or simply to say hello! 😀 Until tomorrow, Venkat Ananth |
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