Best of BS Opinion: India must reform QCO regime to meet global standards

Today's Best of BS Opinion analyses India's Quality Control Order overreach, dim prospects for COP30, Ajay Shah on Trump's tariff shock, and Jordan Ellenberg's review of The Great Math War

Hello and welcome to the Best of BS Opinion, our daily wrap of the opinion page. 

 

The recent recommendation to scrap or delay over 200 Quality Control Orders (QCOs) show how such regulatory moves have outlived their purpose. Ever since their scope was expanded from finished goods to raw materials and intermediates, they have only created more barriers, slowing production, growth, and innovation, observes our first editorial. In the name of quality assurance, QCOs have become a protectionist, bureaucratic wall. If the government wants to impose quality checks, it must first focus on how standards are implemented, starting with certification infrastructure that is aligned with global standards, which in turn would strengthen India's integration into global supply chains. 

 

The outlook for the 30th annual United Nation climate meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP30), to be held at Belem in Brazil, looks bleak, notes our second editorial. For starters, two of the world's largest emitters - the United States and China - will be absent. The Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), created to provide long-term finance for forest preservation, is to be raised mostly through private investment, a long shot at best. Only a handful of nations have pledged funding, with India joining only as an observer. Only a third of countries have submitted plans for how they would cut emissions of greenhouse gases. Solutions to reach a climate fund for third-world countries have been elusive, too. 

 

Sunita Narain writes that the COP30 is being held against the backdrop of massive global churn - collisions of powerful forces working against one another. The world is now in two camps: Countries that have invested in “older” technologies and fossil fuels, and those that can invest in greener technologies. The nub is that the transition to new energy systems will hinge on access to finance so that the new world can leapfrog to new green technology. Meanwhile, even as renewable energy output overtook coal for the first time in the first six months of this year, countries are reverting to fossil fuel-based power to meet rising energy demands of AI data centres. China and India are both building new coal-fired power plants. And China's monopoly over rare-earth magnets means many countries are rolling back plans for phasing out ICE vehicles. While carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have risen, the question of which ideas will win remains: the urgency to act in the face of mounting climate threats, or inaction driven by economic interests? 

 

There has been much hand-wringing over the Trump administration's double-whammy against Indian goods and services exports: the 50 per cent tariff rate and the hiking of H-11B fees to $100,000. However, the data through August shows that the Indian export engine is far from the feared collapse, writes Ajay Shah, although there might be shocks in the future. India, however, must leverage three key strengths. Indian exports must redirect their trade to other markets. The best Indian firms should reorganise their global production to low-tariff geographies; this is an incentive to accelerate outbound FDI. And third, the Trump chaos will likely lead to firms outsourcing more of their work to India, rather than depend on inbound talent. The government's role should be to reduce tariff and non-tariff barriers, increase competitive pressure faced by Indian firms, and to host more global MNCs here.

 

Jordan Ellenberg writes in his review that Jason Bardi's new book does something most popular math books don’t; it situates mathematics in the context of the people doing the mathematics, as well as the lives they were living outside the profession. THE GREAT MATH WAR: How Three Brilliant Minds Fought for the Foundation of Mathematics retraces the history of intellectual fights over what normal humans take as a given: numbers, and their very existence. There are even numbers we simply cannot describe, which, by definition, there can be no examples of. But the core of this conflict among these three mathematicians was this: What should mathematics be allowed to be about?