Best of BS Opinion: Bold strokes, fading truths, and unfinished lines

Here are the best of Business Standard's opinion pieces for today

Every era unfolds like a canvas — with some bold strokes, others hesitant, yet the colours blending in unexpected ways. Today, the brushstrokes of global events create a landscape of shifting fortunes, economic dilemmas, and streaming wars. Some paintings promise renewal, while others reveal the cracks beneath the surface. 

China’s leadership is painting over economic distress with the bright hues of technological ambition. As our first editorial reveals, falling consumer prices and a crumbling property market spell trouble, yet Beijing is clinging to innovation as its escape. With R&D spending approaching US levels, the bet is that technology will redraw China’s future before deflation sets the colours permanently. But can innovation alone repaint an economy on the brink? 

Closer home, India’s agricultural policy is a study in contrast. MSP was meant as a protective frame for farmers, but it has splashed unintended distortions onto the field. With only 15 per cent of paddy and 9.6 per cent of wheat farmers benefiting from public procurement — primarily large landowners — the vast majority remain outside the frame. Instead of deepening old lines, market reforms could create a broader, more resilient landscape. Here’s our second editorial for more. 

India’s economic sketch is equally layered. AK Bhattacharya’s column highlights that the portrait of India’s GDP growth seems subject to overpainting. The NSO has trimmed GDP revisions from six to five, but the shifting numbers leave observers wondering if the final image is ever definitive. A startling 1.9 percentage point variance between initial and final estimates over recent years suggests an evolving, sometimes politically tinted canvas. Is this an artist refining their masterpiece — or painting over inconvenient realities? 

Meanwhile, streaming platforms are splashing bold new hues. Vanita Kohli-Khandekar explores how platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime are pivoting to mass-friendly content, moving from niche to mainstream. But will this chase for reach blur the fine details that once set them apart? 

And then there’s the Bofors scandal — an indelible stain on India’s political history. In her review of Chitra Subramaniam’s BoforsGate: A Journalist’s Pursuit of the Truth, Aditi Phadnis talks about the relentless pursuit of truth, a story of leaks, whistleblowers, and political cover-ups. A reminder that sometimes, the brushstrokes we try to erase are the ones that define history. 

Stay tuned, and remember, the canvas of today’s world is messy, layered, unfinished!