| Dear Express Explained reader, President Donald Trump’s 10% “baseline reciprocal tariff” went into effect yesterday, three days after the “Liberation Day” ceremony at the White House where he held up a table of tariffed countries and territories that included a volcanic speck at the edge of the Antarctic where only penguins and seals live and another tiny island that sells nothing to America – but not Russia, the world’s largest country by area, with which the US runs a $2.5 billion trade deficit. India has chosen, wisely, to not “panic”, and react, as the Trump administration has said some others like China have done. Udit Misra, who has been tracking the whole baffling drama closely from the beginning (do bookmark his author page on our website), wrote a ground-setter explainer ahead of the April 2 announcement, and subsequently broke down and analysed its components, including the odd way in which the tariff calculations seem to have been made. Do read. The seeming effort to upend the seven-decade-old postwar global economic order is predicted to have ramifications in virtually every sector, the full import of which is likely to become apparent only in the coming months (unless the Trump administration self-combusts in some way or is forced to walk back sooner by market pressures or lawsuits, in which case another layer of uncertainty could be added to the chaos). India’s leading expert on migration of Indian labour overseas, Prof S Irudaya Rajan, co-wrote an article on what impact these developments in the US could have on remittances from workers to India, given that advanced economies have now replaced the Gulf as the top source of these inflows. The India Meteorological Department has predicted a hotter-than-usual summer for the country with more heatwave days, and indications are already clearly visible at many places. In the context of worsening climate change, this is only to be expected, and we in India should start to think more about adaptation than mitigation, which is probably a lost cause now. Amitabh Sinha wrote a general primer on the increasingly hot Indian summer and the country’s heat action plans for the months ahead. India will have an altered regime for the administration of properties donated in the name of God under Muslim personal law. The passage of the Waqf Bill in Parliament saw long, passionate, and very substantive debates, the outcomes of which were ultimately determined by the majorities in both chambers. Many of you have been writing to us asking for a full, one-place explanation of the history, evolution, significance, and disagreements on Waqf over the decades, a difficult ask given the sprawl of the material and the many social, economic, and political aspects that are inextricably intertwined with the current, core issue of the legislation. I would request you to perhaps Google “Indian Express Waqf Explained” and spend some time with some of our explainers there to get an idea of what I am suggesting. In the meantime, I am recommending to you our newest piece on the subject, written by Apurva Vishwanath, on the key concerns over the provisions of the Bill, and the government’s reasoning, that we published just ahead of its tabling in Parliament. Thank you for reading The Indian Express Explained. There is a large body of explanatory journalism, on a wide range of topics, on our website, and I hope you will check it out soon if you haven’t already. Also, many of our best explainers are now behind a paywall, so I hope you will subscribe. Sincerely, Monojit |
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