Best of BS Opinion: Defining moves in foreign policy, travel, and memory

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

You know that sound? That one deliberate whack when a carpenter fixes a nail with finality. Not the first cautious tap, nor the adjusting thumps in between but the thud that says, “It’s done. No going back.” It echoes in the everyday, a wobbly signboard being fixed, a loose step being secured. And yet lately, it seems to resound everywhere. From Himalayan passes to Delhi’s war rooms, decisions, identities, and legacies are being hammered into place. Let’s dive in. 

Like Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s new counter-terror doctrine. In his national address on Monday, he didn’t hedge. He declared ‘Operation Sindoor’ as a new line in the sand, that India will strike beyond borders if terror returns, reject nuclear threats, and treat Pakistan’s state and its terrorists as one and the same. This isn’t rhetorical posturing, notes our first editorial. It's a policy, fixed into place with the steel of fighter jets and the weight of 26 Indian lives lost in Pahalgam. His message? Terror and talks can’t co-exist. The nail has been driven in.  

Meanwhile, the government is also forging something less headline-grabbing but equally ambitious, a National Manufacturing Mission. It aims to finally make 'Make in India' real by supporting MSMEs, cutting red tape, and investing in clean-tech and quality, highlights our second editorial. It’s an attempt to reset decades of industrial policy that never quite held. If successful, this mission might be what finally anchors India’s manufacturing share closer to 25 per cent of GDP.  

But fresh conflict on the border has fiscal consequences. As A K Bhattacharya explains, history shows that wars rattle deficit targets. This time too, the government may have to trade its fiscal glide path for ramped-up defence spending. With excess GST cess and RBI transfers offering cushioning, there’s room for careful slippage. But make no mistake, the budget screws will tighten, and choices will be nailed down. 

One place that feels future-facing amid this turbulence? Airports. Jayant Sinha charts how DigiYatra, India’s biometric travel ID system, is quietly transforming air travel. Opt-in, privacy-safe, and now at 13 airports — it’s an infrastructure win hammered into our everyday lives with tech and trust, not force. 

And in High Altitude Heroines, reviewed by Chintan Girish Modi, we meet four women who, a century ago, broke ground and rules to map the Himalayas. Their journeys, though flawed through colonial lenses, remind us that some frontiers are conquered not with guns or GDP but with stubborn, solo willpower.  

Stay tuned!