Do it yourself

  1H2025 was marked by stressful events, high volatility, and uncertainty. In geopolitics, several conventions were breached and new doctrines established. The war between Russia and Ukraine continued. India and Pakistan had a brief but intense conflict. The US entered the Middle East (Israel-Palestine) conflict by attacking Iran. Climate wise, India had a mild winter followed by a mild summer, impacting crops. Europe continued to witness warmer weather, while the US, Canada, UK, Korea and several other countries in Africa witnessed intense and widespread wildfires, causing immense damage to the climate, lives of people and economy. Politically, the US witnessed one of the most boisterous power transitions with Donald Trump taking over as the President (POTUS). He started his second term in the White House with radical changes in immigration, trade, and climate change policies. This put the US administration on the path to confrontations with citizens, judiciary, major trade al...

  South Block’s Doctrine, North Block’s Dilemma Past four weeks have marked a watershed in the geopolitics of South Asia. A terrorist attack in Pahalgam (J&K, India) on 22 nd April 2025, resulted in the brutal killing of 26 tourists (25 Indian and 1 Nepalese). The terrorists were believed to be from groups actively supported by the Government/Army establishment of Pakistan; and operating from the Pakistan Occupied Jammu & Kashmir (PoJK) and Pakistan. The Government of India responded to the attack by (i) taking several diplomatic and economic measures against Pakistan over the next couple of weeks, and (ii) targeting terror infrastructure in PoJK and Pakistan, on 7 th may 2025, reportedly killing 70-100 terrorists and their allies. A number of terrorist training camps and hideouts were also destroyed in the targeted precision airstrikes by the Indian Airforce (IAF). The operation was code named “Operation Sindoor”. Pakistan escalated the conflict by launching artill...

Continuing from my previous post ( View from the Mars ) “Make America Great Again” (MAGA), campaign of President Trump has been one of the most successful political campaigns of recent times. The campaign won Mr. Trump and his Republican Party (GoP), a clear control of the white house, the Senate and the Congress. From the campaign material available publicly, it is not clear what is the reference point for President Trump’s MAGA pledge. The campaign did not seem to have specified when did the greatness of the US begin to diminish and how much of the global stature, it supposedly enjoyed at some point in history, has been lost. For the lack of adequate information, it is safe to assume that the campaign of Mr. Trump, referred to the term of his predecessor, Joe Biden (2021-2025), as period of decline of America, and intends to revert to the status quo ante as on 19 th January 2021, when he vacated the White house after a four-year stay, and carry forward the unfinished agenda fro...

 My dilemma this morning is whether I should be concerned about the internal politics of the United States of America, as most of my colleagues and financial market participants appear to be! In past 20yrs, we have seen George Bush Jr. (Republican, 8yrs), Barak Obama (Democrat, 8yrs) and Donald Trump (Republican, 4yrs) as presidents of United States. In these 20years, India witnessed Atal Bihari Vajpayee (NDA, 3.5yrs), Manmohan Singh (UPA, 10yrs) and Narendra Modi (BJP, 6.5yrs) as India’s prime minister. Evidently, a Socialist India (UPA) has lived well with Republican US (Bush); and a free economy supporter India (BJP) has lived well with Democrat (Obama) US. In past two decades, we have achieved progress in our civil nuclear program and we have been able to materially enhance our relationship with key US allies like Japan, Australia, UAE, Saudi Arab, and France; while maintain our strong relationship with Russia and Iran. The relationship with China has been volatile all throug...