Best of BS Opinion: Who ends the awkward silence after an argument?

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

There’s a particular tension in the air when someone kicks off an argument at a dinner table. And after the heated reasons settle, the awkward silence hits. That odd hush that settles in a room when a bold sentence is thrown but no one steps forward to claim its consequences. And in that split second when everyone freezes, we are left wondering who will break the awkward silence. That charged pause, that suspended breath, is where India seems to be living currently, holding its ground, raising difficult questions, yet waiting to see who steps in to steady the room. Let’s dive in. 

The IMF’s latest report sits in that space, as if tapping the table and asking whether India is ready for a little more uncomfortable honesty. It applauds stable macro fundamentals but also nudges policymakers to allow more currency flexibility, even as the RBI insists it only curbs volatility, notes our first editorial. That awkward silence deepens around fiscal rules as the Fund wants wider debt anchors, clearer yearly adjustment paths and an independent oversight body. The IMF points to stalled reforms and slow-moving trade agreements, reminding everyone that long-term growth demands follow-through. 

That same uneasy stillness hangs over the Supreme Court’s decision on Sterling Biotech’s fugitive promoters, as banks accept a Rs 5,100-crore settlement while criminal cases fall away. The reasoning that money is being recovered anyway may calm the room momentarily, but the moral discomfort lingers, highlights our second editorial. If the Sandesaras can return through a back door, what stops other absconders from attempting the same? The order, even if described as unique to this case, unsettles a fragile system still recovering from an NPA storm. 

Meanwhile, R Kavita Rao writes that India’s tax system, too, is trapped in this uncomfortable pause. TDS compliance has improved, yet nil returns remain stubbornly high for individuals and companies. Mandatory filing linked to high-value transactions hasn’t translated into more taxpayers paying tax. For firms, GST and demonetisation briefly shifted behaviour, but Covid reversed gains. The awkward silence here is analytical, that why aren’t compliance tweaks producing deeper change? 

And Bhuvana Anand shows how the recent labour reforms open the conversation but leave key questions hanging. The codes expand women’s freedoms, legalise fixed-term work and raise retrenchment thresholds, which are big shifts. Yet rigid overtime rules, steep premiums and compliance-heavy scale hurdles dull the reforms’ promise. Workers gain rights on paper, but the pathways to higher earnings and mobility remain only half-built. 

Finally, Amritesh Mukherjee reviews Innovation’s Holy Grail by Sushil Borde and Raghunath Mashelkar, and notes that ending the silence around manual scavenging required innovation to speak in a new language, one of dignity and universal access. The book shows how Genrobotics turned the dehumanising silence around manual scavenging into a conversation on dignity by making workers robot operators. Through MLM, “More from Less for More”, the book argues that innovation must not just start arguments about equity, but finish them with solutions everyone can access. 

Stay tuned!