Best of BS Opinion: Stray dogs, trade deals, and a seahorse on a mountain

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

Some situations feel made for poetry, others for politics. But every now and then, life hands you one that belongs in both — like a seahorse on a mountain. Picture it. A delicate ocean dweller, bobbing midair on a rocky ridge, far from its tide, yet somehow upright, surviving. It shouldn’t be there, and yet there it is — like many moments in India currently that shouldn’t quite work, but somehow do. A trade deal cracking open new risks. A manager reading a horoscope and a balance sheet. A hungry dog tamed with a roti. Sometimes the most mismatched things are the ones that carry us forward. Let’s dive in. 

Take Ajay Srivastava’s column on India’s CETA deal with the UK — a daring leap from protectionism to partial liberalisation. India, long a cautious swimmer in global trade, has suddenly landed on high, rocky terrain: opening procurement, slashing tariffs on luxury cars, and inviting foreign firms into its domestic core. Yet like the seahorse, it seems oddly stable. The strategy is bolder, the concessions deeper, but the footing is firm. Whether this altitude helps or harms Indian industry is still unclear, but the view is undeniably different. 

R Gopalakrishnan offers a cultural counterpoint, reminding us that Indian management, too, has always been a creature of adaptation. Office pujas and astrologically timed board meetings may seem out of place on the global corporate peak, but they coexist with Harvard MBAs and data dashboards. Indian managers, he notes, thrive not by removing ambiguity but by riding it, balancing rituals with results, jugaad with KPIs. No contradiction there, just another seahorse perched on another mountain. 

Ram Singh looks at inequality and turns the usual narrative on its head. While global discourse frets about the 1 per cent, India’s post-tax, post-welfare numbers tell a different tale — inequality is down, and first-generation wealth is rising. Here again, the terrain has shifted. The old economic assumptions aren’t holding; the new ones, though strange, may just work. 

Meanwhile, Shekhar Gupta compares Modi and Indira—not to glorify or vilify either, but to observe how each, in their time, defied gravity. Their nationalism, governance, and use of power sit atop different ideological mountains, yet share that same improbable balancing act. One led with iron fists, the other with digital dashboards — but both stood where few expected them to. 

And in Kanika Datta’s corner, the seahorse metaphor finds its most literal expression. Feeding stray dogs in India. A small act of care has become a societal flashpoint, twisted by ignorance and abandoned by institutions. But feeding strays, as she explains, isn’t just charity, it’s population control. It is order in chaos. It’s a soft hand holding steady on a cliff edge. 

Just like a seahorse on a mountain. Stay tuned!