Best of BS Opinion: Deadly risks in global supply chains and more

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

The pager and walkie-talkie explosions in Lebanon in mid-September added a scary dimension not just to the war in West Asia but also to the risks embedded in global supply chains. The devices were ostensibly made in Taiwan and Hungary but were eventually tracked down to an Israeli entity that inserted the explosives and distributed the product through financial entities based in West Asia. This episode showed how a country took advantage of the global supply chains which typically leverage efficiencies from different entities to maximise value. The success of the pager attack is likely to have every security agency and terrorist network gaming similar scenarios. It is a security nightmare given the impossibility of checking every electronic component of every device in existence. A globalised economy is truly vulnerable in ways which we can barely comprehend, writes Devangshu Datta here

In other views:  

Alison Fragale and Adam Grant analyse Kamala Harris’ power moves, balancing forcefulness with friendliness. Read it here

In eye culture I explain why Kolkata’s decision to scrap tram services is regressive. Read it here

Mihir Sharma examines the inevitability of political party splits. Read it here

QUOTE OF THE DAY

 

‘The mother of all bear markets in equities is dead, only the children are alive, which do not have the potential to put equities in bear territory’

 

Shankar Sharma, founder, GQuant Investech