Best of BS Views: When systems face the stress test

From oil shocks and capital flows to climate stress and chess scandals, today's opinions examine how credibility, resilience and institutions hold up under pressure

Crises have a way of turning policy into an examination hall. The questions are rarely new, but the pressure is. A sudden oil shock, a weakening currency, volatile capital flows, climate-stressed cities, and even a chess scandal — all test the same thing: Do systems have enough credibility, discipline and resilience to hold up when conditions turn hostile?

 

Our first editorial today, “Tango and cash”, looks at the carefully choreographed moves by the government and the RBI to calm concerns over India’s current account and balance-of-payments position. With foreign portfolio investors pulling money out and inelastic imports becoming costlier, the Centre has moved to make Indian sovereign bonds more attractive by removing short- and long-term capital gains taxes and withholding tax on interest income for foreign investors. The RBI, meanwhile, has announced measures on external commercial borrowing, foreign currency non-resident deposits, export proceeds and government securities. The message is clear: India wants capital that is green, patient and responsive to investors’ concerns. 

 

Our second editorial, “A growth surprise”, offers the cushion against which this anxiety must be read. India’s GDP grew 7.8 per cent year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2025-26, taking provisional full-year growth to 7.7 per cent. Services and manufacturing both showed strength. Yet this is not a reason for complacency. The West Asia crisis, high energy prices, supply chokepoints and the risk of a weak monsoon could all test this resilience. Growth has given India breathing room; reforms must now turn that breathing room into a stronger economic bulwark. 

 

In his column, “EMs in the oil shock”, Ajay Shah takes the oil shock into a wider arena. Emerging markets, he argues, are entering an examination hall. The test is whether they will allow prices, exchange rates and central banks to do their work. Developed economies learnt from the 1970s that suppressing fuel prices, managing exchange rates and weakening inflation discipline only worsen the damage. For emerging markets, including energy importers such as India, the temptation to shield consumers through administrative controls is strong. But the cost may be shortages, fiscal strain, weaker credibility and more painful stagflation. 

 

Sunita Narain’s column, “The new environmentalism”, brings the same question to the climate crisis. On World Environment Day, she rejects the tired environment-versus-development binary. Delhi’s extreme heat, polluted air and vanishing natural buffers are not signs that development must stop; they are signs that development must change. Clean air, water, sanitation and mobility cannot be secured through technocratic fixes alone. Environmentalism, she argues, must be rooted in inclusive and affordable growth, stronger institutions, accountable regulation and fairer sharing of natural resources. 

 

Dylan Loeb McClain’s review of Ben Mezrich’s Checkmate, titled “The scandal that roiled the chess world” finds a gripping story in the Hans Niemann-Magnus Carlsen cheating scandal, but also points to errors, exaggeration and a rush to turn drama into spectacle. The chessboard becomes another test of credibility.

 

In markets, climate, public policy or storytelling, the lesson is similar: When the stakes rise, rules, institutions and facts matter more than theatre.