Best of BS Opinion: Trade data should not distract from US trade deal

Today's pieces look at why a US trade deal is critical, issues in the higher education reform, the need for more services exports besides PMC, why India must develop design skills, and Malala's memoir

Hello, and welcome to Best of BS Opinion, our daily newsletter that wraps up the day's opinion page for you.  Despite trade headwinds brought on by the US-imposed tariffs, data for November came as a surprise, with merchandise exports increasing 19.4 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y), the quickest pace in 41 months. Exports to the US also jumped by over 22 per cent. As a result, the trade deficit narrowed in November. Nonetheless, says our first editorial, the better-than-expected numbers should not distract policymakers from the aim of sealing a trade deal with the US, which will be critical in closing the trade differential with competitors. Failing to do so could mean that demand for some Indian goods may be permanently lost. Higher tariffs curtailing export demand are also a constraint for investment, both domestic and foreign. Given the negative balance of payments in Q2FY26, a trade deal could also possibly reduce or reverse capital flows.  The new higher education Bill looks to set up a single regulator, with three distinct but interlinked verticals: a regulatory council, an accreditation council and a standards council. At present, higher education regulation in India is spread across multiple agencies with overlapping mandates, resulting in slow approvals, inconsistent norms, and excessive compliance requirements. Additionally, the higher education system continues to struggle with faculty shortages, uneven funding, and limited research capacity. The proposed law’s attempt to merge multiple regulatory functions into one framework will need detailed rules, clear division of roles, and close coordination between the Centre, states and institutions, writes our second editorial. While grant-making powers will be with the ministry of education, it raises fears of greater centralisation of financial control. There are other operational issues, too, that the select committee must take note of.  The proportion of services in total global exports climbed up a good 500 basis points to 27 per cent between 2014 and 2024, spurring job creation, especially in developing economies. In this milieu, India’s services export trajectory has been phenomenal, write Dharmakirti Joshi, Adhish Verma, and Bhavi Shah. While it accounted for only 1.8 per cent of global goods exports over the past decade and ranked 18th globally, its share of global services exports rose to 4.2 per cent in 2024, from 3 per cent in 2014. That is a services export growth rate of 9.1 per cent, making India the world's eighth-largest services exporter in 2024. But stripped of professional and management consulting (PMC) and computer services, it does not rank even among the global top 10 exporters in any other large services categories. What India needs is a strategy that maintains its lead in PMC, while raising competitiveness in other services. Enhancing services exports across multiple flanks must become a priority.  While India's urban landscape evolves at extraordinary speed, the institutions shaping it have barely kept pace, writes Amit Kapoor, resulting in visible design problems, and a municipal architecture too constrained to solve them at scale. Improving the design of cities needs building the design capacity of the state itself, so that good ideas are not defeated by procedures. One of the key reasons is the paucity of urban planners. India’s city-making machinery is also structured in ways that often override, dilute or reverse design intent. It is time to treat design as a civic skill, and shift budgets from line items to outcomes. Only then will cities begin to work in ways that feel intuitive rather than exhausting.  For more than a decade, Malala Yousafzai has existed in the public imagination as a symbol rather than a person. Her memoir Finding My Way, writes Veenu Sandhu, sets out to answer a quieter question: Who is Malala to herself? The book is a coming-of-age memoir that insists on the legitimacy of ordinariness, about wanting to fit in at school, about girlhood, campus life, and first love, but also the uncomfortable truth that living fully can feel like a betrayal. Finding My Way is also candid about the costs of 'sainthood', as Yousafzai writes about PTSD and therapy, about the pressure to be constantly useful — to travel, give persuasive speeches. And yet, if the world expects solemnity from her, the book gleefully refuses to comply.