Best of BS Opinion: Reading the silence before the damage becomes obvious

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

Have you noticed that silence is often misread as peace? Like a quiet room often feels settled, until you notice the furniture has been somehow rearranged in the dark. Today’s writeups sit inside that deceptive hush as well, where moments that look like withdrawal, calm, or mere background noise, are really about power quietly shifting hands, and risks being pushed elsewhere, as the damage is deferred rather than defused. The illusion of silence was comforting for some time but it is beginning to appear dangerous, because what doesn’t announce itself still moves. Let’s dive in. 

In Washington’s case, the quiet is not absence but impunity as Joseph E. Stiglitz argues. Donald Trump’s recent actions, from an allegedly illegal intervention in Venezuela to open threats against allies, signal a turn toward straightforward American imperialism. What is striking is not the noise of aggression but the lack of constraint where legal checks have been ignored, accountability is muted, and the Congress is subdued by party dominance. Stiglitz warns that when the rule of law is treated as optional, the silence left behind corrodes institutions at home and legitimises similar sphere-of-influence claims abroad, especially from China. 

 

That same quiet is being misheard across the Global South, argues Mihir Sharma. What some countries mistook for an opening through what they thought was the erosion of a hypocritical, Western-led order, is actually the prelude to raw hierarchy. Trump’s unrestrained actions, from yanking leaders to threatening allies and gutting global health and climate forums, mark not continuity but acceleration towards a US-only dominance. But when rules disappear, so do buffers. For India and others, the calm after multilateralism is not freedom, it is exposure. 

Closer home, silence hangs thick over North India’s winter air. Devangshu Datta reminds us that Delhi’s pollution is not an act of God but a fully human creation that is sustained by coal, traffic, dust and politics. The problem is diagnosed endlessly, treated cosmetically, and allowed to spike quietly when data presentation changes the pollution peaks. Without sustained pressure or reputational shock, the damage will simply keep migrating into lungs, invisibly but relentlessly. 

Trade, meanwhile, shows how noise can be productive. Shekhar Gupta makes the counterintuitive case that Trump’s refusal to soothe India with an easy deal jolted New Delhi out of a deep reform slumber. Tariff walls are now coming down, labour codes are stirring, and old fears of trade are being rethought. Yet Gupta warns that prolonged conflict could still destroy jobs. This is pressure, not punishment but only if India acts before the silence of complacency returns. 

Even sport is learning to live without roar. In today’s Eye Culture, Ayushi Singh observes that motorsport’s fading noise ahead of 2026 does not mean less power, only redistributed power. Formula One’s quieter future shifts drama from overwhelming sound to precision and strategy. The spectacle hasn’t slowed, it has just learned to move without announcing itself, a proof that silence too can carry force. 

Stay tuned!