Daily Briefing: Trump hints at ‘opening up India' with trade deal; L K Advani's prison notebook; Maa movie review
Good morning,
Remember that cup of your favourite tea, served with some biscuits or wafers, and that tempting whiff of cakes getting baked in your neighbourhood, on a cloudy morning? Well, that's what the mood is like among the cricket club members in Yorkshire, England's deeply traditional county. With about 800 clubs and over 125,000 recreational players, just like at home, tea here is never taken light or lightly. The 'Cricket Yorkshire Tea of the Year' competition is back, with participants gearing up to send pictures of their mouth-watering tea spreads to the organisers. Word of mouth appreciation and some field trips during tea time shall decide the winner. The contest is expected to get spicier in the coming years with a few Indian clubs.
With that, let's move on to the top 5 stories from today's edition:
🚨 Big Story
Indian trade negotiators landed in the United States on Friday for in-person talks before the July 9 deadline for the reciprocal tariff pause runs out. American President Donald Trump said that the US and India 'may' sign a trade deal under which the country would 'open up.' The roadblock to a trade deal comes as the US has flagged several non-tariff barriers and high duties in India; however, it has yet to commit to several Indian demands.
As the negotiations between India and the US for an interim trade deal enter their final phase, India's oil imports from the US jumped over 270 per cent year-on-year in the first four months of 2025. This jump underscores Delhi's strategy of enhancing American imports amid trade pact negotiations and diversifying its sources of crude oil in a volatile geopolitical and geo-economic environment. India is attempting to step up imports from the US across categories to address America's key concern of a widening goods trade deficit.
⚡ Only in Express
The Emergency, 50 years on: Meenakshi Datta Ghosh was the youngest of the five ADMs posted in the national capital when the Emergency was imposed, only to find herself witnessing the Ramlila Maidan rally that preceded, and maybe even hastening the Indira Gandhi government's crackdown. The silence on the Delhi streets was heavy, laced with fear and dread, carving a perfect sight for Ghosh to see how the levers of power were oiled and wills were bent. 'The issue was do I comply with the law, or follow the political cum bureaucratic commands? Do I preserve process and procedure, or do I enable power?… I feel that the Emergency prepared me to overcome everything that came my way,' Ghosh recalls.
From the prison diaries: Detained without trial for months in Bangalore Central jail, Lal Krishna Advani maintained a prison notebook. On December 28, 1975, when Emergency was in full swing, the then Jana Sangh leader wrote that PM Indira Gandhi wanted the Constitution to be changed after a public debate, but questioned her intentions, and countered her claim that the Opposition was in favour of an 'inflexible Constitution'. 'It is the democratic content of the Constitution which the present Establishment regards as a roadblock to its ambitions,' the Jana Sangh leader wrote. Read Advani's full entry here.
💡 Express Explained
Danish pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk launched its blockbuster weight-loss injectable semaglutide earlier this week, months after its competitor Eli Lilly's tirzepatide hit Indian markets — and nearly four years after these GLP-1 therapies took the United States by storm. These drugs are highly effective for weight loss, helping people lose 15% to 20% of their body weight. So, how do these 'miracle drugs' work? How were they discovered? And what are the other benefits of these drugs? We explain.
✍️ Express Opinion
In our Opinion section today, Kanti Bajpai delves into the three major issues arising from American strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities, and the possibility of a nuclear deal. He writes: 'The conditions are ripe, therefore, for a new nuclear deal. That said, the ceasefire must hold, and Iran must have an authority figure that can deliver a deal. Neither is certain. In addition, the US may have to sweeten the deal economically by lifting sanctions. This will depend on Trump overcoming domestic and Israeli opposition. In short, there is a road ahead, but it is a rocky one.'
🍿 Movie Review
Wondering what to watch this weekend? We've got you covered! Kajor-starrer 'Maa' has hit your nearby screens this Friday, presenting the story of a mother who would go to any lengths to save her family. Shubhra Gupta, in her review, writes: 'Mixing mythology and technology, 'Maa' presents Kajol as a contemporary woman fighting with all her might to keep at bay the dark forces targeting her young daughter… This is a film which is clearly well-intentioned. Smashing patriarchy is a task that films need to keep taking up, and Kajol has the heft to get the job done.'
That's all for today. Have a lovely weekend!
Until next time,
Ariba
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Your film 'Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi' (2005) had the Emergency as a backdrop as does your upcoming eight-part series 'Summer of '76'. How do you look back at the events of those days? Fifty years on, it's complicated when you look at it. You have to see that those who fought against it, what happened to them, were they very different from those they opposed? Of course, the imposition of the Emergency was, for want of a better word, a not-so-great chapter in Indian history. It gave permission to a lot of petty tyrants. There was a government and from the village-level up, there were tin-pot tyrants who ruled the roost. Anybody could arrest anyone, say he is a Naxal and shoot him. This is what caused the actual problem. What Mrs Gandhi and her people did not understand was that it was a 'conference of the upset' movement against the Emergency, against them. There was a whole disappointed generation. My series is about this moment. 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So, factual parts of it come from there, then there are a lot of stories, fiction and imagination. The series is about what happens to the passionate, who think they are not living in the best of all possible worlds and want to change it. It's an exciting journey of seven young people and the problems they will face. The Emergency is a metaphor. This is a story of any time. It's a tribute to youth, to curiosity, to rebellion, to holding each other's hands, to taking risks. Rebellion is often at the heart of your films. At the time of the Emergency, I was very young but I know how my grandfather felt about it. He died in 1988 and I was a filmmaker by then. I'm not a faithful family boy, I have a point of view and everything's filtered through my eyes. I'm a scientist's son, a mathematician's son. So when I see a hypothesis, I need to evaluate if it's true or not. And if it's not, then I look at it straight in the face. We are, perhaps, the last generation that believes life is not only about loving your parents or obeying your parents. There were many rebellions happening at that time. Women were breaking free, landless peasants were attempting to break free, many lower castes were coming to the fore, claiming their place in India, the Dalit movement was gaining strength. This is what the Congress didn't see. Unfortunately, sometimes it ended up being led by the wrong people but that desire to break free was genuine. Your films have captured the angst and idealism of a generation. Do you think people are less idealistic now? I don't blame the youth because this is the world we gave them. The poor are bereft of one kind of nutrition; the upper class or the so-called middle class are bereft of another. The whole education system is geared to mugging up information and vomiting it out. It is not geared to create a mind which can analyse, understand and take things forward. Curiosity is not encouraged. So you have a nation of educated illiterates. You have prepared a world where anything can be said and the majority will believe it, which is why most of them will be replaced so easily by AI. There is extreme self-centeredness and a disrespect of any kind of idealism. It's not only that they do not want to be idealists but they disrespect them. And then there is a pseudo-Left, a cultural Left, which I think is the fig leaf of the Right. So there is actually no real opposition and everybody is the same. The censorship that started then, do you see its shadow in current times? Yes, a nation starts getting used to self-censoring. Anyway, it's not so difficult in our country because we always say, 'badon ke saamne aise nahi bolna chahiye' (you shouldn't speak like that before elders). We have a culture of censorship. Be polite, don't say this in front of your grandfather. If you have censorship in your head, then you cannot be scientific, right? Do you think there are still ways of saying what you want to say? Well, in Iran, filmmakers say what they want to say and make films. So, you can. If you have a negative mindset and say I cannot express myself, then what is the message you send to other people? You become a bore. You should keep expressing yourself in a rational, non-sensationalist way but you should be prepared for repercussions that may happen.
