Best of BS Opinion: The world never runs out of drama, data, or diplomacy

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

There’s something oddly poetic about holding a cup of coffee and realising that the air you’re breathing just hit a new record for carbon dioxide. 2024 saw the sharpest rise in COâ‚‚ levels since 1957, a chilling prelude to COP30 in Belem, Brazil, highlights our first editorial. The Amazon, once the planet’s green lungs, is now coughing up carbon, while global pledges fade like the rainforest canopy. The US’ backpedalling on climate finance, Wall Street’s retreat from net-zero alliances, and political amnesia in the face of burning forests have left negotiators facing an awkward truth: the planet’s patience is wearing thinner than the ozone layer once did. 

Meanwhile, back home, our second editorial notes how India’s Ministry of Labour and Employment is attempting a reboot of its own ecosystem. Its new draft, Shram Shakti Niti, promises to make India’s labour force future-ready with AI-enabled job matching, digital credentials, and portable social security. Think of it as the government’s attempt to turn the National Career Service into a job portal that doesn’t ghost you. Yet, the challenge remains of how to balance tech-driven efficiency with actual job creation for millions in the informal sector. After all, a data-driven dream only works if people can afford the data packs. 

Over in global trade, economists Shoumitro Chatterjee and Arvind Subramanian warn of a new “China Shock.” China’s $2-trillion trade surplus, powered by low-skill manufacturing and industrial subsidies, isn’t just rattling the West anymore, it’s squeezing developing nations. Countries like Bangladesh and Indonesia are losing their manufacturing edge while Beijing reaps the benefits. It’s a global game of musical chairs, except China seems to own the music, the chairs, and the floor. 

And then there’s the chaos closer to home — India’s cities. Amit Kapoor paints a familiar picture: clogged drains, gridlocked roads, and local governments with less power than your Wi-Fi signal during monsoon. Despite the 74th Constitutional Amendment promising real urban autonomy back in 1992, most local bodies remain puppets in state hands. Only 29 per cent of funds reach development work, proof that decentralisation still hasn’t found Google Maps. 

To close the week on a quieter, more reflective note, Shyam Saran dives into Peacemaker: U Thant, the Untold Story of the U.N.in the 1960s by Thant Myint-U, a biography that resurrects one of the most underrated diplomats in modern history, the Burmese Secretary-General who steered the UN through the Cuban Missile Crisis, the India-Pakistan conflict, and the turbulent birth of Bangladesh. His story, told with scholarly precision and emotional depth, reminds us that diplomacy was once an art of restraint and empathy, not posturing and photo-ops.  

Stay tuned!