New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is on a spree to find new economic partners and strike bilateral deals to fortify the Indian economy, and the global media has been paying close attention.
“France. New Zealand. The Seychelles. Malaysia. Slovakia. Italy. In the past year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India has zigzagged around the world at a breathless pace, pursuing new partners or bolstering ties with existing ones, jolted into action by a grim reality: India’s only way to combat the global turbulence unleashed by President Trump and fortify its economy is to spread its bets widely,” Anupreeta Das writes for The New York Times.
Das notes that since 2025, Modi has paid official visits to at least 20 countries, and is now in Kyrgyz Republic for the annual Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit, where he is also expected to hold a bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Modi has also secured important deals with different countries, Das writes, citing agreements on submarine technology with Germany, student visas with France, and cheaper Scotch whisky with the United Kingdom.
The NYT report, relying on the assessment of analysts, adds that many “so-called middle powers”, including France and Canada, now find themselves constrained by many of the same geopolitical forces confronting India. This, in turn, has made them more receptive to Modi’s outreach, Das argues.
For some, engaging with India serves a strategic purpose of their own, while also offering them a foothold in the world’s fastest-growing large economy, she adds.
Modi’s new approach comes after Trump slapped 50 percent punitive tariffs on India for buying Russian oil. Since then, India has, as Das writes, “rushed” to find alternative economic partners as the US was its single largest export market.
India trade deals broadly reflect their shared goals, “of creating well-functioning economic corridors within which they can build resilience to future geopolitical shocks,” Das writes citing analysts.
Meanwhile, Sadanand Dhume writes in The Wall Street Journal that India has an image problem. He cites a new Pew Research Center survey that shows India’s global image has become more divided. Across 36 countries, a median of 45 percent of respondents had a favourable view of India, while 41 percent viewed it negatively.
The gap was considerably wider just three years ago, when a Pew survey across 23 countries found that 46 percent viewed India positively, compared with 34 percent who held an unfavourable opinion.
In the US, Dhume writes, views of India have worsened considerably over time. While 45 percent of Americans now view the country favourably, half hold an unfavourable opinion. According to the survey, these are some of the lowest scores India has seen since 2008 when the think tank began asking this question.
Favourable public opinion has long been a key pillar of America’s close ties with its traditional allies in Western Europe, East Asia and Canada. Dhume argues that, if India’s image continues to deteriorate, it could eventually weaken the bipartisan consensus on Capitol Hill in favour of strengthening ties with New Delhi.
A decline in India’s popularity could also make it harder for Washington to argue for closer US-India cooperation in the developing world, he adds.
Dhume blames the decreasing favourable opinion on a combination of factors.
While some on the Right see India as a source of immigrants threatening American jobs and culture, others point to issues related to the treatment of religious minorities under the Modi government. “Every negative anecdote—a highway accident caused by an illegal Punjabi truck driver, a software job lost to an Indian H-1B visa holder, a cyber scam traced to India—becomes an indictment of the country,” says Dhume.
In its India-focused column Ashoka, The Economist looks at the evolution of the United Payments Interface (UPI) and the latest legislation that paves the way for banks and other service providers to levy charges on payments made through UPI. The column adds that though new rates have not yet been set, the idea is that “only big businesses will pay”.
“Oddly for India, where big business is unpopular, the reaction has been mostly negative. Critics of the proposed fees have argued that the government’s costs are offset by savings from printing less money; that UPI’s benefits outweigh its costs; and that consumers will ultimately bear the burden,” the column adds.
It also points out that UPI now accounts for more than 85 percent of all non-cash transactions in India, while the “share of cheques has fallen to just 0.2 percent”.
The system is run by the National Payments Corporation of India, a non-profit owned by public and private financial institutions. But while banks bear the cost of maintaining payment networks, preventing fraud and ensuring smooth transactions, government subsidies cover only a fraction of these expenses, the column says.
The lack of adequate funding has also left banks with little incentive to innovate, while making it difficult for them to keep up with even basic maintenance and fraud prevention, it adds. The column goes on to say that the Indian government deserves praise for building UPI and “turning it into the backbone of the country’s payments and for making the right decisions about fees twice over”.
At the same time, it cautions that “none of those achievements will amount to much if the system stagnates or weakens.”
Andres Schipani and Krishn Kaushik of the Financial Times report on the resignation of Sashidhar Jagdishan, CEO of the HDFC Bank. Jagdishan, who had been the bank’s chief since 2020, will not seek re-appointment upon the completion of his term on 26 October, HDFC said in an exchange filing.
Jagdishan’s exit comes less than six months after the abrupt resignation of the bank’s chairman Atanu Chakraborty, who indicated “ethical differences” between him and the bank, FT notes. “The lender, with a market capitalisation of $116bn, will embark on a search for a new chief executive at a time when its shares have also come under pressure, shedding 27 per cent this year,” it adds.
The report points out that the leadership shake-up comes as the lender continues to adjust to its 40 billion dollar-merger in 2023 with parent company Housing Development Finance Corp. The deal, it underlines, created a financial giant with an asset base of $340 billion.
While critics of the bank have raised concerns about “compliance and governance issues”, bankers and shareholders consulted by FT at the time of Chakraborty’s exit had said that “the crux of the issue was a clash of strategy, personality and leadership style with Jagdishan”.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)