Bolstering India’s Independence in Tariff Negotiations with US

It’s been six months and more since India had been anticipating increased tariffs on exports to the US in Trump’s new term as US president, and yet there was no reporting on it in the Indian news media, except to keep harping on the fact that India could attract 26% reciprocal tariffs. The Indian government… Continue reading Bolstering India’s Independence in Tariff Negotiations with US

Dalrymple’s Golden Road Dazzles, But Lacks Depth

At a time when India seems to be scaling new heights at least in GDP rankings globally, there couldn’t have been a timelier book on India and its place in the world than The Golden Road. William Dalrymple’s latest book, The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World attempts to tell the story of… Continue reading Dalrymple’s Golden Road Dazzles, But Lacks Depth

Brands Addressing Global Issues – Part 1

As I’d written in my Owleye column this month, there are plenty of global summits and conferences this summer and all the way up to the new year. It makes sense at a time of heightened conflicts and geopolitical tensions, not to mention wars. In a year where my blog is celebrating 25 years of… Continue reading Brands Addressing Global Issues – Part 1

Have Non-Tariff Ticket, Will Travel

The Trump administration just announced a set of new reciprocal tariff rates for more countries and has set a new deadline of August 1, 2025 for these to take effect. It’s still early days, and it’s hard to tell their effect on consumer prices, on trade, and on consumption and economic growth, both in the… Continue reading Have Non-Tariff Ticket, Will Travel

Summer Summitry Amid Geopolitical Tensions

While preparing a reading list for The Whistle Library monthly post exclusively for subscribers to The Whistle (my blog’s free monthly newsletter), I realized that this June and July have been months of intense international summitry around the world. From the G-7, NATO and SCO to the BRICS summit, an EU Summit, and the 4th… Continue reading Summer Summitry Amid Geopolitical Tensions

Why Cities Are Harbingers of Change

The idea for this blog post was prompted by a photograph that someone had shared on Blue Sky Social – where I have only just joined – of a McDonalds eatery being gobbled by a large medieval gate in some city in Estonia, I think. I shared the image post on LinkedIn and X as… Continue reading Why Cities Are Harbingers of Change

Protected: Summer Summitry Reading

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

AI Entrepreneurs in Serious Need of Child Protection Lock

It’s hard to believe that half of 2025 has just flown by. At the start of the year the two most anticipated developments of 2025 were going to be Trump tariffs and a wave of AI innovations. You could say that these phenomena are opposed to each other, with the first slowing down the economy… Continue reading AI Entrepreneurs in Serious Need of Child Protection Lock

Why the G20 is the only fit-for-purpose group in this fragmented world

I can’t remember any year in recent memory that has seemed so chaotic and out-of-control, save the 2008 Financial Crisis and the break-out of Covid in 2020. Not that we’ve had any similarly major earth-shattering event or disaster this year, thank goodness. But there are plenty of smaller crises and fires all over the world,… Continue reading Why the G20 is the only fit-for-purpose group in this fragmented world

When Brands Can Guide Strategy and Execution

Having just read the book, HBR’s 10 Must-Reads on Strategy, that I ordered from Amazon India, I am once again reminded of how central brands are to strategy. Not merely product brand strategy, but to corporate strategy. It’s something I have been thinking about for the past couple of decades that I have been unemployed,… Continue reading When Brands Can Guide Strategy and Execution