Dear Insighter, Sitting on a rooftop, I’m watching the streets in the Old Quarter of Hanoi stretch themselves back to life. Just a few hours ago it was pure chaos: families hunched over bowls of bun cha on stools that looked too small to hold them, beer cans clinking, a band blasting out Attention by Charlie Puth (and Vietnamese pop tracks I didn’t recognise) while motorbikes provided the backing track. The heat is so thick you could cut through it. The humidity should be unbearable, yet somehow this city wraps you in warmth that goes beyond temperature. A smile, a gesture, a quick point at food, and suddenly you’re best friends with a street vendor who’s handing you the best banh mi of your life. The area, including Hoan Kiem Lake, turns into one vast living room: kids running between stools, uncles hunched over chessboards and beers, aunties and grandmothers breaking into Zumba by the lake, couples on motorbikes. And then… reset. By the time most of us are asleep, the city has already started tidying up. Between three and five at dawn, the noise gives way to the scratch of brooms and the splash of hoses. Beer spills, sugarcane peels, cigarette stubs, all vanish down the drains. When the sun climbs back up, you’d never guess there’d been a party at all. It’s like the whole thing was a dream the city had, then wiped clean before breakfast. This resilience feels organic, woven into the rhythms of the city. It’s not just the streets. It’s the food, light and fresh enough to explain why Vietnam has the world’s lowest adult obesity rate at 2.1%, according to the WHO. It’s the traffic, millions of motorbikes threading through gaps that don’t exist, sometimes colliding, always flowing. It’s history itself, worn openly: National Day is around the corner, and the reverence for “President Ho” is everywhere, from quiet bows at the mausoleum to children reciting stories with unfeigned respect and fighter jet drills piercing the sky. The past here isn’t buried; it’s a thread in daily life. Hanoi doesn’t fight its chaos. It leans into it and lets people’s instincts sort it out. Watching that reset every morning makes me think about India. We’re doing something similar in our own way, trying to give shape to our mess through policies and reforms, hoping that somehow the whole thing holds together. But our reset is less ritual than experiment. India is in the midst of a vast economic recalibration. At the heart of it lies the Atmanirbhar Bharat policy. Former RBI governor Duvvuri Subbarao captures the dilemma best: is this global ambition dressed as protectionism, or protectionism masquerading as ambition? The risk is real—that in building a fortress, we wall ourselves in. Trade pressures make the question sharper. Trump’s tariff theatrics, more political theatre than serious economics, have jolted India into long-delayed reforms. Sangeeta Godbole notes the paradox: external coercion works where internal consensus stalls. Vijay Chauhan points out that the trade tussles don’t even pause for weekends; our holidays aren’t immune to foreign pressure. Srinath Sridharan goes further, framing India’s refusal of “asymmetric bargains” not as petulance but as sovereignty: a necessary stand against weaponised economics. Ajay Srivastava adds the China dimension. Yes, Beijing has eased some export restrictions, but that shouldn’t distract us. With a $100 billion trade deficit, our relationship with China is less partnership and more like Hanoi traffic: constant near-misses, plenty of honking, but movement nonetheless. There is promise in regional supply chains, though, as Rajesh Kumar suggests: cotton spun in Gujarat, woven in Bangladesh, stitched in Vietnam. A new Asian fabric, literally. At the same time, the government is attempting its own domestic reset. The GST overhaul, dropped almost theatrically on Independence Day, is meant to simplify and rationalise the system. But it has split the experts. Rajesh Mahapatra warns that lofty promises won’t survive the grind of political negotiation. N. Srinivasa Rao crunches the numbers and finds that collapsing four slabs into three could strain state finances more than boost growth. He estimates a potential 10–15 basis point drop in the GST-to-GDP ratio in year one. Yield Scribe adds that even if rationalisation boosts consumption, it will deepen deficit worries, trapping the bond market in a “higher for longer” yield cycle: costlier money for everything from highways to home loans. From afar, the human cost of these debates looms largest. Arvind Mayaram cuts through the GDP euphoria with a blunt truth: we’re seeing growth without jobs, wealth without equity. Urban youth unemployment sits at 17%. One in five young Indians idle while the headlines trumpet India as the world’s fastest-growing economy. The so-called demographic dividend is looking uncomfortably like a demographic debt. Meanwhile, monetary policy is a high-wire act. The RBI’s next rate decision hangs on transmission, tariffs, and Rajiv Ranjan’s exit from the MPC, which removed a dovish voice. BasisPoint Groupthink frames it as a delicate balance between fuelling growth and preventing tariff-driven inflation. Yield Scribe notes how bond yields remain stuck, while R. Gurumurthy observes that even our reserves are shaped more by gold revaluation than genuine accumulation. It’s a diversification game prompted by the freezing of Russian assets that proved “safe” isn’t always safe. Across the Pacific, Jerome Powell faces his own Jackson Hole puzzle: how to talk down inflation without talking up unemployment. Central bankers everywhere are speaking a nervous, cautious dialect. Corporate India isn’t standing still either. Krishnadevan V sees Jio pivoting away from discounts to profitability, positioning for its long-awaited IPO. PB Fintech, on the other hand, is stretching its boundaries, risking dilution of its insurance-first brand. He also raises the uncomfortable question of regulatory silence: markets function better when regulators explain violations, not just punish them. Ajay Srivastava’s probe into the DFIA scheme shows why. Export incentives morphed into loopholes for luxury imports, with items like champagne slipping in as “inputs” for biscuits. The messiness of regulation feeds exploitation. None of this is abstract. It filters down into investment hesitancy, consumer caution, the price of onions and petrol, the tenor of boardroom conversations. Growth charts may look impressive, but the foundation is fragile. And so, I return to Hanoi, where the resilience feels less engineered and more lived. Here, the chaos is embraced, trusted, worked with. Every morning, the city power-washes away its excesses and begins again. In India, we’re trying to engineer resilience through policy resets, fiscal balancing, and trade manoeuvres. The parallel isn’t exact, but Hanoi does suggest something: resilience isn’t about erasing the mess, but about learning to move with it. Here, order comes out of the madness itself. Back home, India is trying its own balancing act: growth and fairness, openness and protection, ambition and caution all pulling at each other. How it plays out won’t just depend on spreadsheets, but on whether people feel part of the story. Until next time, sipping on cà phê sữa dá while battling existential crisis. Phynix Also read:• How India’s Great Urban Decentralisation Experiment Has Stalled by Sharmila Chavaly: Three decades after the 74th Amendment, urban reform risks becoming a stillborn promise.• Buy Now, Cry Forever as India Turns Housing Into a Rigged Board Game by R. Gurumurthy: In India’s real estate Monopoly, the landlords win, buyers lose, and sachet homes may be the only square left to land on.• Getting Credit Flow Where It Matters Most by Sujit Kumar: India’s lenders look flush and NBFCs are growing, yet without private capital stepping up, the credit engine risks running idle.• US, EU Framework Agreement on Trade and Lessons for India by Ajay Srivastava: New Delhi should push for carve-outs in CBAM and sustainability rules to shield SMEs and exporters from disproportionate costs.• Transit-Oriented Development Could Rescue Mumbai by Alok Kumar Mishra: Mumbai’s floods are man-made. Transit-oriented growth can turn recurring monsoon misery into a model of resilience and equitable living.• Lilavati Case Puts HDFC Bank Chief in Unwanted Spotlight by BasisPoint Groupthink: A courtroom battle over Mumbai’s Lilavati Trust has put HDFC Bank chief Sashidhar Jagdishan’s reputation on trial far beyond the balance sheet.• Ten Digits That Quietly Steal Freedom by Kalyani Srinath: From Punjab’s fields to Delhi’s malls, a mobile number has become the key to convenience and a quiet surrender of privacy.• You’re Not a Referee – Stop Breaking Up Fights and Start Changing the Game by Kirti Tarang Pande: Why do Indian grandparents’ stories work better than your MBA? Science agrees.• Sarci-Sense: The Guest Room Host Sleeps In by Srinath Sridharan: Every luxury apartment flaunts it: the “guest bedroom.” But what it becomes in real life is far more interesting.• AI Self-Reliance Will Need Strategic Realignment, More Capital by Indra Chourasia: India’s AI mission blends self-reliance with coalition-building, positioning it as a Global South voice for inclusive and fair AI.
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