prem narayan mishra

Journalist

[Minhaz Merchant @MinhazMerchant]

India’s rise unnerves the West & China because it’s a democracy that’s risen from colonial ruins to #3 and is growing faster than #1 & #2.

India’s rise discredits America’s rise through slavery, land theft & wars & discredits China’s rise over genocide of millions of Chinese.

[Sridhar Vembu @svembu]

We think the Economics Nobel Prize confers some kind of real economic insight about how a poor country becomes rich. It does not.

If you want real insight about how a developing nation gets rich, study Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore, study Japan, study South Korea, study Taiwan, study post-Mao China. They have all lifted people up from poverty, produced widely shared prosperity but they do not produce Nobel Laureates in Economics.

The book "How Asia Works" by Joe Studwell is a great read.

Tldr; ignore Nobel Laureates in Economics. That is not the path to wealth.

[Chenthil @jcrajan00]

The Dutch built 12,000 km of canals between 1650 and 1850. By 1670, Amsterdam handled 40% of European trade. Water moved goods at a tenth the cost of roads.

India has 14,500 km of navigable waterways. Mostly unused for cargo. Now there's an 18-city water metro plan taking shape.

I think this could be the most underrated infrastructure play of the decade. Not because of scale — because of economics. Moving freight on water is absurdly cheap. We just forgot that for 70 years.

[Harsh Gupta Madhusudan @harshmadhusudan]

US market is overvalued.
US dollar is overvalued.
US security umbrella is overvalued.
The empire is gradually cracking.

India is, despite its significant growth, in a complicated geopolitical situation.

It could play the Soviets against the Americans earlier.

But now the US peer competitor is China with whom we have a border dispute and who (like the US) also sees us, rightly so, as a long term threat to their hegemony dreams.

We have no option but to triple down on Atmanirbhar Bharat in key areas of technology and defense while creating healthy interdependencies.

[Sidharth @Cloudwatch199]

Bashing Indian IT service companies for not building frontier AI is fair.

But they were built for services.

The real question is much sharper:

Where is Tata’s Qwen?

Qwen came from Alibaba — a company smaller than the listed Tata empire.

Where is Ambani’s ERNIE? ( Baidu )
Where is Mahindra’s Hunyuan?
Where is Adani’s Pangu?
Where is L&T’s defence AI foundation model?
Where is Birla’s industrial AI model?

China’s established corporate giants are building frontier models.

Alibaba built Qwen.
Baidu built ERNIE.
Tencent built Hunyuan.
Huawei built Pangu.
ByteDance built Doubao.
iFLYTEK built Spark.

So stop gaslighting people with “India lacks capital.”

India does not lack capital.
India does not lack engineers.
India lacks a billionaire class willing to risk serious money on frontier AI.

There is money for weddings, cricket, retail, ports, media, and political access.

But when it comes to building India’s Qwen, suddenly everyone becomes a cautious accountant.

That is the scandal.

[Kunal Singh @d_extrovert]

The strategic interests of India and the US do not converge. This has been clear for the last four years. Some people who believe in a simplistic application of structural realism, according to which both countries have a common rival in China,... 1/8

[Chenthil @jcrajan00]

Unpopular take: the 'Make in India' photo-ops are distracting us from the bigger gap — 'Test in India.'

We have maybe 20 world-class product testing and certification labs for the entire manufacturing sector. Germany has 200+ for automotive alone.

Without domestic certification, every Indian manufacturer ships samples to Singapore or Germany for approval. Adds weeks, adds lakhs, adds a dependency nobody discusses.

You can't export what you can't certify at home.

[Chenthil @jcrajan00]

18 cities getting water metro systems. Draft National Water Metro Policy is out.

• Phase 1: Guwahati, Srinagar, Patna, Varanasi, Ayodhya, Prayagraj
• Based on Kochi model — 38 boats, 38 stops, ₹747 crore total
• A single metro rail line costs more per km than Kochi's entire water metro system
• No land acquisition. No tunnelling. Boats on rivers that already exist
• India has 14,500 km navigable inland waterways sitting underused

Best part? It's boring. No prestige architect, no signature station. Just cheap public transport that tier-2 cities can actually afford. The most scalable infra is the kind nobody tweets about.

[idrw @idrwalerts]

Just wait until you see the state media in France, Germany, and smaller European nations like Norway—you’ll realize how deep the anti-India bias runs.

[Arun Pudur @arunpudur]

National leaders don't speak Bengali, yet they won in WB.

National leaders don't speak Odia, yet they won in Odisha.

National leaders don't speak Tamil, yet they won in Puducherry.

National leaders don't speak Konkani, yet they won in Goa.

The problem is the local leader who can't win.

[Mohit @Warlock_mohit]

In 2014, 1 dollar in:

India - 60 INR
Pakistan - 98 PKR
Bangladesh - 76 Bangladeshi taka
Turkey - 2 Turkish lira

In 2026, 1 dollar in:

India - 95 INR
Pakistan - 279 PKR
Bangladesh - 122 Bangladeshi taka
Turkey - 46 Turkish lira

But trust me Saar only Modi is Bad !!

[Aravind @aravind]

I was thinking there was a US hand behind this. Now with Turkey, Pak, Bloomberg, FT, leftists, Soros suckers and all traditional GLISCO-DS media and parties behind this new movement, I am beginning to think both are together hitting India.

This shows nothing but the true sovereignty in which India has acted. All of them do not like India acting in its own interests. They are joining hands to try force a regime change.

So 100% everyone needs to back the govt on this one to keep India stable now and pull through the tough geopolitical & economic climate created by multiple external factors.

My message for any Gen-z or whoever thinks anarchy and political instability is good: Look around India - Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Maldives etc - everyone is ruined economically now after regime changes. India is the one supporting them.

If you have problems with the govt, go vote in elections and vote out whoever is non-performing. Don't let foreign forces use you to meddle in India. Nothing good ever comes out of it.

[prem narayan mishra @premnarayanmish]

@priyankac19 Even several freedom fighters too had studied in foreign countries.

[Xu Feihong @China_Amb_India]

🇨🇳 #China and 🇮🇳 #India are projected to contribute over 40% of global real GDP growth in 2026.

Credit: IMF World Economic Outlook data

[Ram VamsiKrishna @ramvamsikrishna]

The @naralokesh data centre water debate has everyone arguing past each other.

“Data centres will drain Andhra Pradesh dry. There is no environmental flow after water allocation”

I have seen these wrong claims everywhere this week. I am a water resources engineer from IIT Bombay. I did my master’s thesis on Polavaram and just finished a 29 year daily simulation of the reservoir. Let me show you what the Godavari actually does with its water every year. 🧵 (1/15)

[prem narayan mishra @premnarayanmish]

@ArvindKejriwal Foolish argument 😠

[Aviator Anil Chopra @Chopsyturvey]

INDIA KA JUGAD KARTA HAI KAMAAL : Mera Bharat Mahaan!🤪

[Aravind @aravind]

This is not a "real story". This is just a story.

Indians earn, save, and spend in INR. This sort of misrepresentation, coming from a professor, seems purposefully creating fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

The USD itself has lost ~32% of its purchasing power in the last 15 years. This is because of inflation.

Controlled inflation (under 5-6%) is considered normal and even healthy for a growing economy. A fast growing economy like India tends to have higher inflation naturally.

In fact, central bankers and finance ministers get worried if inflation drops too low. Focusing only on the nominal USD rate without this context is purposefully misleading.

So while INR has lost its purchasing power, it is natural just like the USD has lost its purchasing power. Someone's savings in India, to be used in India, suddenly doesn't become 50% less due to USD/INR rate increase.

One day in the coming time, INR will suddenly start appreciating against the USD quickly. Then what will they say? They will change the attack to "inflation" then. These are the same people talking about de-dollarization and USD "crashing soon" as well.

So assuming they are right, if suddenly we wake up to 1 USD = 50 INR, did every Indian become twice as rich in the night? Because its GDP and GDP per capita is suddenly 2x now in USD terms? No.

The real story is, for those who can understand these things and see the pattern, there's an orchestrated attempt from a large network of anti-establishment types to fear monger and incite Indians to try cause political and economic instability in India.

[prem narayan mishra @premnarayanmish]

These are anarchist elements and working on behalf of anti India forces from within India and outside.

[Prof. Krishnamurthy V Subramanian @SubramanianKri]

Did you know that the U.S. defaulted on its sovereign obligations in 1971 when it unilaterally reneged on dollar-gold convertibility.
Russia defaulted in 1998 and 2022.
Argentina: 9 times since independence.
Pakistan: required IMF bailouts 23 times.
Greece defaulted in 2012.
And India? Zero defaults. Not even in 1991!

Yet Western investors classify India as "emerging risk" and call U.S. Treasuries the "risk-free rate."

This isn't risk analysis. This is cognitive bias a la Daniel Kahneman's book "Thinking, Fast and Slow". Humans systematically overweight culturally proximate information while underweighting statistical patterns that don't fit our mental models.

Western strategic planners trust Western partners not because the data supports it, but because the cultural markers feel familiar.

Three facts that challenge everything about how we assess partnership risk:

FACT 1: Across 5,000 years of recorded history, India has rarely waged wars of territorial conquest. Not in 3000 BCE when the Indus Valley Civilization had technological superiority. Not in 1000 CE when Indian mathematics and metallurgy exceeded Europe by centuries. Not in 2026 when it possesses nuclear weapons and the world's 4th-largest military. Not in 2047 when it projects to be a top-two economy.

Compare: China (annexed Tibet 1950, 14 territorial disputes, South China Sea expansion). Russia (Georgia 2008, Crimea 2014, Ukraine 2022). Europe (500 years of colonial conquest across three continents). U.S. (military interventions in 20+ countries since 1945).

This pattern is observable strategic behavior anchored in the Arthashastra, Kautilya's 2,300-year-old treatise arguing that short-term territorial expansion undermines the systemic conditions for sustained prosperity. The concept of "mandala" (circle of states) recognizes that each power's long-term interest depends on system equilibrium.

FACT 2: India has never defaulted on debt, treaties, or security guarantees since independence in 1947. The most revealing test: 1991 balance of payments crisis. Reserves fell to $1.2 billion = just three weeks of imports. Default appeared certain. Instead, India implemented painful reforms, honored every obligation. India didn't use political costs as an excuse to default. Commitments were kept.

This behavior isn't accidental. It's anchored in the Sanskrit concept of ṛṇānubandhaḥ, that obligations are metaphysically binding across time. The Mahabharata established 2,000 years ago that rulers who break commitments violate cosmic order and create systemic instability.

Philosophy became institutional architecture: investment-grade credit through multiple crises, $600B forex reserves (6th globally), zero defaults on government securities across 77 years.

FACT 3: During COVID-19, India exported 300 million vaccine doses to 110 countries while its own vaccination was incomplete. 96 countries received doses free through "Vaccine Maitri."

Meanwhile: U.S. ordered 1.2 billion doses for 330 million people (4x population). EU ordered 4.6 billion for 450 million (10x population). Canada ordered 400 million for 38 million people (10x population).

Western nations didn't begin international distribution until domestic targets were substantially met.

The distinction? India's Economic Survey 2020-21 quoted Sanskrit: "āpadā hi prāṇa rakṣā hi dharmasya prathama aṅkuraḥ" (in calamity, protecting life is the first duty). Not Indian life. Life in general.

This aligns with Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (the world as one family), not as rhetoric but as policy. India supplies 60% of global vaccines and 20% of generic medicines normally, maintained production during its own constraints, built digital public infrastructure (UPI processes more transactions than all nations combined) and offers it open-source to developing countries.

WHY THIS MATTERS NOW:

Every CFO, sovereign wealth fund, and policymaker is asking: "Who can we depend on for the next 50 years?"

Ukraine shattered the illusion that economic integration prevents aggression. COVID exposed single-source dependencies. Taiwan reveals semiconductor concentration risk.

The global economy is re-optimizing from efficiency to trust.

But here's where Kahneman's research becomes critical: most strategic planners are making decisions using "System 1" thinking (fast, intuitive, pattern-matching based on cultural familiarity) rather than "System 2" thinking (slow, analytical, data-driven assessment of long-horizon behavioral patterns).

The result? Systematic mispricing of partnership risk.

Strategic planners face a choice:

- China: manufacturing efficiency + demonstrated willingness to weaponize interdependence (sanctions on South Korea over THAAD, Australia over COVID inquiry, Lithuania over Taiwan, Belt & Road debt traps in 60+ countries)

- Russia: resource access + repeated weaponization (invaded Ukraine despite economic integration, cut gas to freeze European cities)

- U.S.: innovation + extraterritorial enforcement (billions in fines on European banks for transactions legal in Europe, CLOUD Act overrides local privacy laws, "America First" tariffs hit Canada, Mexico, EU alongside rivals)

- India: 5,000-year track record of territorial restraint + zero defaults + systemic thinking during crises +
challenges (infrastructure gaps, bureaucratic complexity, uneven state capacity).

The question isn't perfection. It is: which risk profile aligns with 50-year partnership objectives when analyzed through System 2 rather than System 1 thinking?

THE UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTH:

If India's pattern suggests lower long-duration risk, why is trust in India still "emerging"?

Kahneman would predict exactly this outcome. Three cognitive biases at work:

1. **Availability bias:** We assess risk based on vivid, recent, culturally proximate information. NATO expansion incorporated Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary rapidly because they registered as "European." India's democracy, rule of law, English-language business environment gets discounted because cultural markers differ.

2. **Confirmation bias:** Western institutions have decades of frameworks built around current partnerships. New data contradicting established models gets filtered out rather than integrated.

3. **Status quo bias:** Existing relationships are comfortable. The U.S.-Europe alliance, U.S.-Japan partnership, Five Eyes intelligence sharing operate with established protocols. Structural change requires crisis-level disruption to overcome inertia.

The crisis arrived.

For boards evaluating long-term partnerships—semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, digital infrastructure, maritime security, critical minerals—India presents a risk profile worth systematic, System 2 analysis.

Because of demonstrated behavior across sufficient time horizons to be statistically meaningful.

In an era of fragmentation, weaponized interdependence, and trust deficits, historical patterns become predictive indicators.

Kahneman spent decades showing that intuitive judgments systematically diverge from statistical reality. Strategic partnership assessment is no exception.

The question is: Are we assessing risk based on data, or based on what feels familiar?

In the 21st century, power matters. But trust may matter more.

And trust should be measured by track record, not by cultural proximity.