Sherbir Panag 🇮🇳

Financial crimes & corporate governance lawyer.

[ThePrintIndia @ThePrintIndia]

ThePrint #50WordEdit:

Bull-headed prudery of the brass apart, there’s indeed scandal in the picture of a captain proposing to his fiancée with the helicopter he flies. It is not in two people sharing their joy. The cheetah/chetak, originally French Allouette, is a six-decade-old museum thing. It’s embarrassing we’re still flying this.

https://t.co/3Kwzy5a6lM

[KJS DHILLON🇮🇳 @TinyDhillon]

@rag_jantantra That’s the most disgustingly atrocious argument… sacrificing life for salary. Go take a break

[Sherbir Panag 🇮🇳 @Sherbir]

The toughest exam in the world and yet the Indian bureaucracy has produced gems and brought ridicule to India that the Army can’t manage even if it had lost the country all its wars. There’s merit in your argument on how the Army has mismanaged the situation, but the first part of your statement is reprehensible.

[मुकेश देवराड़ी @m_devrari]

Army officers are not every intelligent individuals. As a policy we don't take extremely bright individuals in the army as it may pose challenge to civilian supremacy in the long run. Then political promotions impose another check on them. This fact is displayed in this case where army is bullying this newly commissioned officer for proposing his to be wife in front of a helicopter that should be in Museum.

[Aditya Raj Kaul @AdityaRajKaul]

Chinese Spies Posing As HRs On LinkedIn To Recruit Assets, Warn US, Five Eyes Partners - @NDTV https://t.co/Sf6Kl9saEk

[Sherbir Panag 🇮🇳 @Sherbir]

Stronger displeasure should have been shown when Colonel Bath was beaten up by the Punjab Police (inclduing when a High Court had to intervene on fairness and Nanak Singh became a DIG) - even if it had to be through sources. You cannot outrage qua honour and decorum on somedays and not all.

[IANS @ians_india]

Army Officer Captain Bharat Bhardwaj allegedly violated military decorum and protocol by proposing to his fiancee in uniform during a Passing Out Parade-like ceremony in front of military equipment. The Army expressed displeasure, calling the act inappropriate in timing, place, and tradition: Army Sources

[Roland-Garros @rolandgarros]

Celebrating together through the years 🎂

Happy 40th birthday, dear Rafa 🧡

[Ira Dugal @dugalira]

Friday will be a defining moment for the current RBI.

Not only do they have to pick a very carefully chosen path between their inflation mandate and market realities, they have to make sure their communication hits the way they intend it to.

Many perceive that action on the rupee is well delayed, so action will need to match communication.

Equally critical - a credible analysis of the macro picture.

The world is watching.

This week's India File:

https://t.co/M9wJETlJTs

[Nitin Pai @acorn]

India's digital victories were won in a world that no longer exists. They were built during the heydeys of globalisation. Now that order has given way to mercantilism and vertical integration, and we are in an age of economic statecraft in which the powerful seek to own entire supply chains and see interdependence for its chokepoints rather than mutual gain.

SIDE 2026 makes clear that India’s digital weight is concentrated at the upper layers of the stack—in adoption, in applications, and in services delivered at enormous scale. We are, above all, a vast market and a vast user base. In an open world, this was purely an asset. A large buyer was respected and was capable of shape the terms on which it is served.

However, we might a large market but we have modest purchasing power relative to the West and China. And because our digitalisation is broad but shallow, depending on chips, compute, cloud and models produced almost entirely elsewhere, our success becomes a point of vulnerability rather than a source of strength.

(Today's Mint column covers the remarks I made at the @ICRIER SIDE 2026 launch.)

[Sherbir Panag 🇮🇳 @Sherbir]

If you are going to condone violence and then follow it with a “but”, then you aren’t condoning violence.

Same goes for freedom of speech. Reasonable restrictions are the refuge of the coward, scoundrel and abuser.

[Colonel Mukul @Warrior_Mukul]

Making Indian Army Proud:

Maj Prabhat Mishra of 22 KUMAON passed out as a distinguished graduate of US Army Comd and Gen Staff College, Fort Leavenworth with max awards to his name.
- Birrer Brooks Award for Best Masters of Mil Arts and Science Thesis. The thesis was titled 'India's Pursuit of Military Strategic Autonomy in a Multipolar World'. First Indian officer to win this award since 1948.
- Douglas MacArthur Military Leadership Award. First Indian to receive this feat.
- Golden Pen for scholarly contributions during the course.
- Overall graduated in top 1 percentile of the course with an order of merit of 4 out of 1185 mil offrs (Incl 129 international officers from 93 countries).
Well done!

Jai Hind.

[All India Radio News @airnewsalerts]

📸 #GurindervirSingh clinches the gold medal in the men’s 100m event at the 2026 Athletics Federation Cup, with a new national record timing of 10.09 seconds. #IndianAthletics #AthleticsIndia #AFI

@YASMinistry II @MIB_India II @PIB_India

[Sherbir Panag 🇮🇳 @Sherbir]

The ITBP has shown more gumption to stand for their own than the Indian Army did for Colonel Bath.

[Dushyant Singh 🇮🇳 @dushyant_singhh]

A Force becomes truly powerful not only because of weapons or training, but because its men know their officers will stand beside them when the system refuses to listen.

Respect to the #ITBP Commandant.

#Kanpur #PoliceCommissionerate

[Shiv Aroor @ShivAroor]

Miracle escape for a Major General & 2 other officers in Cheetah helicopter crash. The Army has tried to replace these copters for virtually the entire duration of my career as a defence correspondent (21 years). One of the biggest stains in our defence procurement priorities.

[Bar and Bench @barandbench]

#BreakingNews
Delhi High Court allows Vinesh Phogat to participate in Asian Games trials; terms WFI action vindictive

Read here: https://t.co/LDAR3KN0Nk

[Nitin Pai @acorn]

We’ve seen this before. Indian leftists opposed factories, nuclear power plants, GM crops & even the IT industry.

A lot of this was “imported thinking”, our left liberals copy-pasting Western fads on Indian policy.

We shouldn’t make the same mistake with AI and data centres.

[Nitin Pai @acorn]

And just like that, it’s been 9 years since we started the Post Graduate Programme in Public Policy.

Be part of the 10th. 👇🏽

[Sherbir Panag 🇮🇳 @Sherbir]

@Rezhasan The exception doesn’t alter the mean unfortunately. But I will concede to some good folks.

[Sherbir Panag 🇮🇳 @Sherbir]

This rebuke would stand for the entirety of our bureaucracy especially the IAS, IRS and IPS.

The bureaucracy defeats the government’s agenda everyday, and not as a constitutional check but through sheer inertia, lack of imagination and abysmally poor implementation - over and above the corruption.

India grows inspite and despite its bureaucrats.

[Bureaucrats Media @MBureaucrats]

Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently issued a sharp rebuke to the Indian Foreign Service (IFS), expressing dissatisfaction with senior diplomats for their slow, cautious, and narrow approach to international relations. The appointment of Dinesh Trivedi as India’s Ambassador to Bangladesh signaled this shift, highlighting a move toward more strategically calibrated appointments.

The core criticism centers on "diplomatic vectoring" a tendency to reduce diplomacy to routine courtesies, cultural events, and bureaucratic rituals rather than substantive strategic engagement. This inertia, observed in both veteran and younger officers, is seen as a structural fault line that hinders India’s global ambitions and doctrine of strategic autonomy.

To address this, the government is advocating for a transition to "Smart Power Diplomacy." This model demands a "whole of government" approach, where officers move beyond siloed operations to build deep, resilient networks and actively engineer pathways for India’s strategic and economic interests. The message from the top is clear: the era of "photo op diplomacy" is over. The IFS must now replace bureaucratic routine with intellectual sharpness and purposeful urgency to match India’s accelerating rise on the global stage.

[Arvind Panagariya @APanagariya]

Dear @RBI: Do not let the psychology of Rs 100 per dollar determine your policy response. 100 is just a number, like 99 and 101. Whether the oil shortage is short-lived or long-lived, the right response at this moment is to let the rupee depreciate. 1/6