Best of BS Opinion: Quad relevance, fuel pricing, and a Cockroach Party

From the implications of warming US-China ties and the future of the Quad to fuel-pricing reforms, SpaceX governance and youth discontent, here are today's key opinion pieces

Hello, and welcome to Best of BS Opinion, our wrap of the day's Opinion page. 

 

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s India visit was a calculated effort to repair strained bilateral ties after months of tariff disputes, immigration curbs, and renewed US engagement with Pakistan, writes Shyam Saran. The meetings reaffirmed cooperation on defence, technology, and counter-terrorism, while signalling that the Quad remains central to Washington’s Indo-Pacific posture. Yet the deeper concern lies in warming US-China relations following US President Donald Trump’s Beijing visit and the push for 'strategic stability' between the two powers. Even small shifts in relations between them - what Mr Trump calls the 'G-2' - could result in bigger shifts for other partners on both sides. This may also have prompted Russian President Putin's visit to Beijing shortly after Trump. Saran cautions that if Washington begins treating the Quad merely as leverage against Beijing, rather than as a durable strategic framework, the grouping could gradually lose relevance. Given that the US has sidelined the Quad once before to assuage Russia and China, India would do well to be alert to a similar possibility. 

 

 

Ajay Tyagi points out that India’s petroleum pricing regime remains trapped between market economics and political compulsions despite the dismantling of the administered pricing mechanism more than two decades ago. The government, he says, faces a trilemma: keeping domestic prices low, not losing out on tax revenue, and containing the forex outgo and current account deficit. Challenging times, like the present one due to the West Asia conflict, pose a serious stress test to the system. With oil import dependence rising and fiscal space shrinking, artificially suppressing fuel prices imposes significant economic costs and delays necessary market signals. A better model would be a rules-based framework under which governments lower taxes during periods of elevated global prices and raise them when crude prices ease. The government should also consider privatising one of the major oil marketing companies (OMCs) so that some of the political pressure on it for fuel prices is reduced. 

 

Gautam Mukunda argues that the governance structure proposed for SpaceX reflects a broader trend in corporate America towards unchecked founder control. By concentrating voting power in the hands of executives such as Elon Musk, companies are weakening the institutional safeguards designed to improve decision-making and protect shareholders. Such an approach ignores hard-earned knowledge about what really helps corporate leaders succeed. History, science, and management practice all demonstrate the value of dissent, accountability, and constructive confrontation. Google started the trend, and was quickly followed by Meta, Snap, Roblox and Pinterest, Indeed, the failure of Meta Platforms’ costly Metaverse push is a prime example of the dangers of insulated leadership. The attempt to bypass Wall Street short-termism by creating corporate monarchies risks producing far deeper governance failures.

 

The speedy, almost surreal, rise of the meme-packed 'Cockroach Janata Party' reflects deep frustration among young Indians over unemployment, inflation, compromised examinations, and distrust of political institutions, writes Devangshu Datta. What began as a satirical response to the 'cockroach' slur - from no less a eminence than Chief Justice of India Surya Kant - quickly evolved into a wider digital protest movement, fuelled by a generation adept at bypassing online restrictions and sceptical of establishment narratives. Attempts to ban or suppress the movement may only amplify its reach through the Streisand Effect. More importantly, the CJP’s popularity reveals a widening disconnect between mainstream politics and younger voters, whose anxieties increasingly centre on economic insecurity driven by a lack of jobs, and made worse by the mishandling of the NEET exams, as well as the easy hacking of the CBSE website, both of which have severely dented institutional credibility.