Best of BS Opinion: Careful steps, hidden triggers, and loud echoes

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

Some days, every step feels like it might blow up in your face. The ground doesn’t tremble. It waits. Everything looks normal until it doesn’t, and by then, it’s too late. That’s the thing about minefields: the danger isn’t in what you see, but in what’s buried just beneath the surface. So you step carefully, eyes scanning the horizon but mind tuned to what’s right underfoot. In today’s world, every move - political, economic, or social - comes with the weight of potential detonation. Some mines are legacy leftovers, others freshly planted. But none are easy to sidestep. Let’s dive in. 

The Centre’s decision to reintroduce caste enumeration in the next census is a step on contested ground. It hasn’t been done since 1931, and it’s arriving just as caste-based politics regains centrality. As our first editorial points out, the push for ‘accurate data’ comes with electoral echoes and policy consequences. Southern states fear under-representation, fresh demands for quota could erupt, and the country may step into a cycle of permanent identity math. 

Markets too are gingerly inching forward. The Nifty gained 3.5 per cent in April, marking its seventh straight monthly gain. But our second editorial highlights, the rally is increasingly narrow, driven by select stocks, while retail exuberance seems to be wearing thin. The underlying minefield? Global tensions, a stubborn US Fed, and a summer that could play havoc with rural incomes and inflation. 

Meanwhile, India’s economic future is shifting geographically, but not without casualties. Shishir Gupta and Rishita Sachdeva map how cities like Mumbai, Bengaluru, Gurugram and Dehradun are emerging as national growth nodes. But old industrial bastions like Ludhiana and Kanpur are fading. Uneven policy support and weak infrastructure are the buried charges under India’s balanced growth dream. 

Whereas in the investment world, as Puneet Gupta and Siddharth Shekhar Singh write, private equity money is cautiously retreating from China and sliding into India. But the catch is control. Global funds now want decision-making authority, not just passive returns. India may benefit from this pivot, but only if it offers clarity, not complexity. 

Finally, in Ananda: An Exploration of Cannabis in India, Karan Madhok’s new book on cannabis in India, Amritesh Mukherjee finds a story of legal confusion and cultural contradiction. One step wrong, and what should be reform can quickly blow back as backlash. 

Stay tuned, and remember, some weeks you stroll and others, you listen for the click underfoot!