Manu Misra

Lecturer in Law @UniofExeter. International Investment Law, FDI Policy & Politics. Law & IR/Security. PhD @Unibocconi. Usual caveats. 🇮🇳, 🇧🇷.

[Politics and International Law @PoliticsIntlLaw]

Foreign investment in lithium mining is reshaping Zimbabwean society. #InvestmentLaw https://t.co/o1eyh0gRQd

[Shantanu S @shansebolo.bsky.social @shansebolo]

India-US interim trade deal talks conclude without an outcome: "Teams held constructive and positive discussions across a wide range of issues covering Trade in Goods, Non-Tariff Measures, CTF, Economic Security Alignment, other areas of mutual interest." https://t.co/P9rRV5L2Dk

[Shantanu S @shansebolo.bsky.social @shansebolo]

Friends like us: Senior Indian government officials have said that an agreement with the US might leave India in a difficult position, particularly in its relationship, as the US has been nudging countries to wean away from their dependence on China. https://t.co/JUsTkkwOVu

[Prabhash Ranjan @pranjan12781]

Regardless of the intention or context, the use of dehumanizing language by anyone for anyone indicates a disturbing mindset of othering and exhibits a pernicious ideology of exclusion. This can't be the vocabulary of anyone, let alone those sworn to uphold the majesty of law and promote a constitutional order.

[Oona Hathaway @oonahathaway]

My latest, with @scottjshapiro:

"A world in which the powerful no longer feel the need to justify themselves is not merely unjust. It is barbaric . . . . That world does not have a legal order at all. It has only force, guided by one man’s whims."

https://t.co/fN2iOhaPg7

[Sam Greene @samagreene]

Hollywood would have us believe that authoritarianism wins when Voldemort takes over Hogwarts or Sauron conquers Gondor. But that's wrong. There are no pitched battles between good and evil. Democracy dies in banality and plain daylight, not glory and darkness.

/2

[Christopher Clary @clary_co]

Two govt sources tell Reuters that the Indian finance ministry plans to relax restrictions on Chinese firms bidding for government contracts. One specific reason offered is Indian difficulty meeting its goals for greater domestic power generation absent Chinese firms.

[David Blagden @blagden_david]

The US ruling coalition’s descent into hypernationalist revisionism is very much consistent with - and explicable by - US relative decline.

Unfortunately for them, that’s also why it’s such a bad strategy…

1/3

[Martijn Rasser @MartijnRasser]

In 2025, surface-level relocation doesn't cut it.

If you want Western exits (or compute), you need "jurisdictional surgery."

The Manus blueprint for clearing CFIUS is the new gold standard for AI startups. Here is how they did it:

[Saurav Das @SauravDassss]

One tweet has opened a Pandora’s box on #corruption in India, bursting the government’s “ease of doing business” propaganda. In reality, corruption has increased manifolds over the past decade, and the government’s apathy towards reform now stares it in the face.

[fDi Intelligence @fDiIntelligence]

The US the #immigration raid on the $4.3bn Hyundai-LG battery plant reveals a gap in policymakers’ bid to use FDI as a vehicle for job creation and knowledge transfer. The deported workers were doing jobs it's infeasible for US workers to do https://t.co/5ZgAKLXgoL #Hyundai #LGES

[David Henig 🇺🇦 @DavidHenigUK]

A UK-US tech deal appears to have become a bunch of investments that multinationals would probably have made anyway, because that's how they operate.

Once again our politics will fail to learn lessons from this in a clash of glib soundbites. https://t.co/iejVxqdemV

[The Caravan @thecaravanindia]

A joint investigation by the German publication Süddeutsche Zeitung and the Venezuelan media outlet Armando Info has revealed that Vantara, owned by Anant Ambani, the youngest son of the Reliance chairperson, Mukesh Ambani, has received at least thirty-nine thousand wild animals from over thirty countries since 2022. Several of the imported animals in Vantara actually belong to species that are subject to an international trade ban, under the CITES. The report notes that Vantara has been under international scrutiny for bypassing restrictions under the CITES, possibly with cover from the Indian government.

Read @akhileshhpandey's cover story on how Modi's Project Cheetah is falling apart from our April 2025 issue:
https://t.co/0bbjfYM2ld
#Vantara

Cover illustration by Radhika Dinesh.

[Henry Gao @henrysgao]

Just spoke on @BBC Business Today on the US–China trade talks. Key takeaways:
1. TikTok is not a game-changer. The deal helps ease tensions, but it sits low on Beijing’s priority list. Don’t expect it to pave the way for a broader breakthrough.

[Bonnie Glaser / 葛來儀 @BonnieGlaser]

The US and China reach a 'Framework’ Deal on TikTok. Bessent says Chinese side had “very aggressive asks.” Trade, export controls and critical minerals will be discussed next month. https://t.co/Lvb2MogF66

[Satvik Pendyala | 彭尚威 | సాత్విక్ | सात्विक @Satvik_Pen]

You can tell that no one in this administration has any India expertise or really even cares.
For Indian politicians near Modi's age, pretty much every one of them remembers India being dependent on grain food aid.
Agricultural self-sufficiency is the real sacred cow for them

[Robert Manning @Rmanning4]

Denmark is not alone in that sentiment.

[Raphael Rashid @koryodynasty]

1/ S. Korea's entire media establishment across political spectrum has united in unprecedented editorial consensus expressing profound betrayal, outrage, national humiliation, and fundamental breach of US-ROK alliance re: mass arrest of Korean workers at Hyundai's Georgia plant.

[Evan A. Feigenbaum @EvanFeigenbaum]

A tariff deal is not the point. Sooner or later, there will be a tariff deal—and this has always been patently obvious. But you can’t just undo the unraveling of 25 years of trust building. I worked my ass off for US-India ties so I take no pleasure in saying it, but that’s done.

[Kanwal Sibal @KanwalSibal]

It’s the first time that a US ambassador to India is also a Special Envoy for South and Central Asian affairs.

This means he will have a much wider mandate covering the jurisdiction of the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs in the State Dept.

Ipso facto he will be supervising India’s relationship within this region. With Pakistan and our other neighbours.

This means he will be consulting and coordinating with other US ambassadors in the region to develop a more integrated approach.

This is a new form of “ hyphenating” India and Pakistan again, amongst other things.

This Special Envoy mandate also blurs the focus on the Indo-Pacific dimension of US- India ties.

The intention behind this double nomination is problematic.

A version of Holbrook’s mandate as Special Envoy for India and Pakistan which we rejected.

This time the same approach is being pursued by giving the Ambassador himself a double role to which we can’t object.

The responsibility of a US ambassador to a huge country like India with many US Consulates and massive amount of bilateral work ( the US embassy in India is amongst its biggest in the world) is such that this kind of “ concurrent accreditation” is not normal.

Senate confirmation hearings on his nomination may bring some clarity about the meaning of his mandate.