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1Front Page

US President Donald Trump unleashed a barrage of tariffs going up to 99% against the country’s trading partners, making good on his long-standing threats and potentially dragging the world into a trade war as he sought to address a $1.2 trillion goods trade deficit and revive local manufacturing.

2Pure Politics

SGPC, an apex gurudwara body, has said the Waqf (Amendment) Bill is a “direct interference” by the Centre in minority-related matters. In a statement, SGPC president Harjinder Singh Dhami said the bill was introduced without consulting the concerned parties and alleged that it appears the government intends to “curtail” minority rights and administer matters according to its own agenda.

Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Thursday raised the issue of reciprocal tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump in the House on Thursday and said it will “completely devastate” the Indian economy.

The India-Sri Lanka memorandum of understanding (MoU), which will be signed on April 5 during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Colombo trip, will be an umbrella agreement that aims to bring all aspects of bilateral defence cooperation under one framework pact, said people familiar with the matter.
Behind TDP’s nuanced stand on the waqf bill is a well-crafted strategy to woo Muslim voters and make inroads in Rayalaseema — YSRCP chief Jagan Mohan Reddy’s stronghold.
The way forward for India in Donald Trump’s tariff diktat lies in the clause on ‘Modification Authority’, which empowers the US President to reduce tariff rates if a country takes ‘significant steps’ to remedy non-reciprocal trading arrangement.
Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi termed the Waqf (Amendment) Bill as an assault on the Constitution and as part of BJP’s polarisation plank.
Tension gripped Assam’s Tinsukia district after several organisations opposed Chaiti Chhath puja on the banks of Na-Pukhuri, a cluster of nine ponds, and a historical monument.
India will continue engaging with the US while protecting its national interests, even as Washington’s new tariffs impact all Quad members—India, Japan, and Australia.
In a blow to the West Bengal government, the Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a Calcutta High Court order cancelling the appointments of over 24,000 teaching and non-teaching staff by the West Bengal School Service Commission in 2016 in connection with the school jobs-for-cash case.
The Rajya Sabha on Thursday held a comprehensive debate on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill. The debate was marred by frequent heated exchanges between the treasury and the Opposition benches. The Lok Sabha has already passed the bill.
The Supreme Court on Thursday again reprimanded Telangana CM Revanth Reddy over his alleged remarks in the House. A division bench of Justices BR Gavai and Augustine George Masih, disapproving of the objectionable remarks, questioned whether it erred in not issuing a contempt notice to Reddy over his comments on the bail to BRS leader K Kavitha
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday met his Thai counterpart Paetongtarn Shinawatra in Bangkok and upgraded their relationship to a strategic partnership finding common grounds of cooperation.
West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said that she has the ‘highest regard for judiciary and Supreme Court judges’, but ‘cannot accept the judgment from a humanitarian point of view’.
Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Thursday spoke about the government’s attempt to revive BSNL. After he completed his reply during question hour in the Rajya Sabha, Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar said that BSNL now means ‘Bhai Sahab Nishchit Lagega’ while in the past people used to criticise BSNL for poor connection by mocking it as ‘Bhai Sahab Nahi Lagega’.
The Rajya Sabha witnessed frequent run-ins between BJP and Congress-led Opposition during the debate on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill on Thursday.
A division bench of Justices Abhay S. Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan reaffirmed that restricting the firecracker ban to just a few days around Diwali would be ineffective, as people could purchase and store them in advance.

3Companies & Sports

Venkatesh Iyer smashed 60 off 29 balls before Vaibhav Arora’s fiery spell fired holders Kolkata Knight Riders to a 80-run hammering of Sunrisers Hyderabad in a comeback IPL win on Thursday.

Packaged daily essentials maker Marico said the consumer sector experienced stable demand trends and volume pick-up in the three-month period ended March 2025 in its quarter update on Thursday, which it attributed to improving trajectory in rural markets and mixed trends across mass and premium urban segments.

Global Capability Centres (GCCs) are continuing to drive India’s office market expansion, fuelling strong absorption across major cities.
India’s housing market continued its upward momentum in the first quarter of 2025, with property prices rising across all major cities, driven by strong demand for premium, high-rise developments, particularly in key metros.
​The turbulence in the paint industry is leaving its mark, with some companies seeing more shades of red than they'd like. As two major conglomerates rise as formidable challengers, they are chipping away at the dominance of legacy players.
The global oil market appears to be facing a problem of plenty with producers having a combined spare capacity of 9 million barrels a day (mbd) at a time when demand is muted, ONGC chairman Arun Singh said.
IndusInd Bank had hired KPMG and EY for a few months in early 2024 to assist internal teams with a review of its treasury policies, procedures and accounting processes, including of the forex derivative contracts that burnt a ₹25,000-crore hole overnight in the lender’s market value three weeks ago, a senior banking source with direct knowledge of both Big-4 engagements told ET.
From staying at luxurious vineyard estates like Castelfalfi in Italy that cost around ₹600-800 per night to more immersive and accessible distillery experiences back home, vineyard tourism or whisky trails are emerging as major travel trends among India’s jet setters.
Gujarat Titans' Kagiso Rabada has returned to South Africa due to personal reasons, the franchise said in a statement on Thursday.
India’s Manish Rathore, Hitesh and Abhinash Jamwal registered commanding victories to storm into the semi-finals of their respective weight categories in the World Boxing Cup Brazil 2025 on Wednesday.
Barcelona will face fierce rivals Real Madrid in a mouth-watering Copa del Rey final after they beat Atletico Madrid 1-0 at a feverish Metropolitano Stadium on Wednesday to complete a 5-4 aggregate win.

4The Edit Page

After the hustle of security, and before the hassle of boarding, the airport lounge provides a cocoon of relative tranquillity. Within this setting, watching planes take off and land becomes an unexpectedly blissful experience.

It’s just yesterday that we first got acquainted with the mobile phone. No, literally yesterday, 52 years ago. On April 3, 1973 — an era of bell-bottoms, disco, both Bobby and Zanjeer, and two months into what would be Dow’s seventh-worst bear market in its history — Motorola engineer Martin Cooper made the first mobile phone call in the world with the words: ‘Joel, this is Marty.

Countries across the world running trade surpluses with the US waited with bated breath as ‘Liberation Day’ approached. With wide-ranging estimates, ongoing negotiations and likely retaliations, markets were braced for reciprocal tariffs.
It’s a little more than ‘upsy-daisy’. T² — Trump-tariffs — have inverted an economic order that, for decades, fostered global growth and kept a lid on inflation.
Whenever something is done, the doer should follow specific rules and regulations, and the authority that creates those rules and regulations is known as the ‘controller’.
India has come in for lenient treatment in Trump’s reciprocal tariffs spree. A few mind-clearing coffees later, it can be converted into an opportunity. It excludes the possibility of retaliation that cushions the economy against imported inflation.
Trump wants to rework an international trading system that he genuinely believes has cheated the US. He doesn’t want to just tweak it. He wants to take it behind a garage and go over it with a tyre-iron. Or a tariff-iron.

5Trump’s Tariff Tantrums

The reciprocal levies lift the total tax on India’s exports sharply. This may not pinch much as India’s competitors face even higher effective tax on their shipments to the US

A factsheet on reasons for US reciprocal tariffs and when they can be removed.

Last decade and half saw India’s exports to the US rising by 266% while imports increased by 127%. Imports from the US peaked in FY23.
The US said it considered tariff and non-tariff factors while arriving at reciprocal tariffs after subjecting them to a complex formula. Others say it is far simpler math of trade deficit with a country divided by the total imports from that country.
The tariffs announced by the US could lead to an around 1% contraction in global merchandise trade volumes this year, the World Trade Organization said Thursday.
The Trump administration’s “reciprocal tariff” could prompt affected nations to weigh more bilateral trade deals and explore the feasibility of a realignment of global supply chains.
The Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) with the US would be used to deal with the reciprocal tariffs to get them rescinded or settle them bilaterally, officials said, and the trade pact talks likely to get fast tracked after Washington imposed additional 27% tariffs on New Delhi.
Large Indian drug makers, some of which get as much as half their revenue from the US market, were relieved as President Donald Trump spared the sector from reciprocal tariffs.
US President Donald Trump’s tariff fury has offered India an unlikely advantage in textile exports over rival exporting nations. Trump slapped India with 27% reciprocal tariffs though it is lower than Vietnam’s 46%, Bangladesh’s 37%, Cambodia’s 49% and Pakistan’s 30%–all major textile exporters.
India’s medical devices and technology industry is a worried lot after the Trump administration slapped a steep 27% reciprocal tariff, intensifying concerns for the fledgling industry. Some though say the hit could have been harder.
India is not overly worried about the 27% reciprocal duty levied by the US, officials said after a quick assessment, taking comfort in the fact that its competitors face higher levies and New Delhi and Washington are already close to a bilateral trade agreement.
Several Indian companies with significant exposure to the United States markets are turning to legal and trade experts as they brace for potential fallout from sweeping new tariffs imposed by the US government.
India faces a risk of steel and aluminium dumping from Asian countries with US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs kicking in. The domestic copper industry though may remain undisturbed as local production is not able to meet the country’s demand.
The government is working to assess the impact of the reciprocal tariffs imposed by the United States, said Union Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary on Thursday.
The US’ reciprocal tariffs violate global trade norms but they are no threat to multilateralism as 80% of the global trade is still on World Trade Organization (WTO) terms, experts said, warning that India should be wary of such actions becoming a trend.
India’s export insurance segment, worth around ₹5,000 crore could benefit from rising shipment values, even as exporters brace for financial strain due to the proposed US tariff of 27% on imports from India.
The first phase of the US-India Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA), expected to take effect by fall 2025, will offset most of the impact of the new US tariffs on India's manufactured exports, according to NITI Aayog member Arvind Virmani.
India’s gems and jewellery industry is set to be hit hard by US President Donald Trump’s move to impose a 27% tariff on imports from the country, with American retailers seeking to stall new orders as they try to understand the impact of the increased cost on their retail pricing, said industry executives.
An ungainly US inflation spike spawned by tariffs could temporarily dent Indian electronics exports, industry executives said, but smart supply chains that can outflank harder-hit China and other East Asian rivals should offer New Delhi long-term competitive edge in the zero-sum game of commercial diplomacy.
With the ‘Liberation Day’ and related announcements by President Trump, global trade has entered a new phase which may facilitate transformation into a completely new trajectory.
Indian marine product exporters are likely to bear losses of ₹600 crore on shipments in transit to the US as they face cancellation of orders and revision of prices due to the new US tariffs. The industry has sought government intervention to weather the storm.
Taking a cue from the global prices, gold prices moved up by almost 0.5% on Thursday from a day before and crossed ₹91,250 per 10 gm after US President Trump announced reciprocal tariffs.

6Economy

Indian startups are focusing on food delivery apps, turning unemployed youth into cheap labour, while Chinese startups are working on electric mobility, battery technology, and building chips and AI models, commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal said on Thursday as he asked them to become bolder and bigger.

7ET Markets

Tariffs raise the levels of uncertainty around global trade and will have a significant long-term impact. Investment in capacities for tradeable goods will change to industry policy and national security choice. If this causes the US economy to slow down, it will lead to valuations coming down.

Financial markets around the world are reeling Thursday following President Donald Trump’s latest and most severe set of tariffs, and the US stock market is taking the worst of it so far.

The rupee ended at ₹85.43 to the dollar Thursday, seven paisa stronger from its previous close, as the dollar index weakened to a six-month low of 101.5. The local unit opened weaker at ₹85.77, but gained during the day to end stronger, traders said.
The impact of the US reciprocal tariffs on India Inc will be two-pronged: a direct effect of tariffs which when compared with even higher tariffs on majority of the Asian countries is expected to offer a relative advantage to Indian exporters.
Information Technology stocks slumped by as much as 10% on Thursday amid renewed inflation concerns in the US, following President Donald Trump’s announcement of long-anticipated reciprocal tariffs.
India’s equity indices weakened on Thursday in response to the reciprocal tariffs by the US, but losses were limited as investors judged that the impact of the move on the economy would be mixed.
Oil prices fell on Thursday as the decision by the OPEC+ group to speed up unwinding of oil output cuts in May compounded already heavy losses following US President Donald Trump’s announcement of sweeping new import tariffs.

8Smart Investing

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has issued a letter of “displeasure” to Bajaj Finance, citing the failure of the NBFC to identify potential risks to customers in its co-branded credit card business, according to media reports.

Lenders want the central bank to move back to the daily overnight borrowing window as the main cash management tool to help improve overall systemic liquidity — a prerequisite for quicker transmission of reductions in policy rates.

Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies dipped after President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on US trading partners worldwide, triggering a slump in risk assets.
Life Insurance Corporation and the National Payments Corporation are among entities the Oval Office has mentioned as recipients of favourable treatment from New Delhi, which Washington says has erected barriers for overseas firms seeking to compete in India’s financial industry.
For Indian textiles, the Oval Office has woven a tale of relative surprise, damaging Vietnam, Bangladesh, China or Sri Lanka with punitive tariffs way more than the hubs of Tirupur, Surat, or Noida.
Banks are bracing for defaults from exporters that predominantly rely on supplying to the US and whose finances have weak profit margins, as the tariffs could make loan servicing difficult.
The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) Thursday approved Bharti Telecom’s 2018 capital reduction scheme, dismissing minority shareholders’ argument that the scheme was unfair and failed to comply with the law. Bharti Telecom is the parent company of Bharti Airtel.
The Reserve Bank of India’s first open market operation (OMO) purchase of the financial year 2025-26 saw bids of four times the notified amount. After reviewing available liquidity, the RBI also decided not to conduct the 14-day main variable rate repo operation for the upcoming fortnight of April 4 to 17.
Shares of Indian pharmaceutical companies were among the top gainers on Thursday after the sector was exempted from the new trade tariff regime in the US.

9Disruption: Startups & Tech

BlackSoil Capital, an alternative credit platform, and Caspian Debt, an impact investment lender, have received approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for their merger.

India’s toll collection touched an all-time high in FY25 at ₹72,931 crore, an increase of 12.5%, with the number of instances of toll use climbing about a tenth.

Ola’s AI arm Krutrim is ramping up hiring for its AI labs even as it continues to see exits, including that of senior resources.
Travel-focused fintech startup Scapia, founded by former Flipkart senior executive Anil Goteti, has secured $40 million (about ₹340 crore) in an equity funding round led by Peak XV Partners, with existing investors Elevation Capital, Z47 and 3State Capital participating.
South Indian food brand Sweet Karam Coffee (SKC) announced on Thursday that it has raised $8 million in Series A funding from Peak XV Partners and existing investor Fireside Ventures.
Amazon and, separately, a consortium led by OnlyFans founder Tim Stokely are the latest to throw their hats into the ring for TikTok. The site faces an April 5 deadline to reach a deal to find a non-Chinese buyer under threat of being banned from the United States.
Competition Commission of India (CCI) chief Ravneet Kaur has been given additional charge as chairperson of the National Financial Reporting Authority (NFRA), people privy to the matter said.
The round, which was a mix of equity and debt, also saw participation from British International Investment (BII), SE Ventures, and Riverwalk Holdings, along with existing investors Blume Ventures and Avaana Capital.
EAC-PM member Sanjeev Sanyal was on Thursday removed as the chancellor of Pune-based Gokhale Institute of Politics & Economics, an official of the Servants of India Society (SIS), which governs the institution, said.
Funding for Indian technology startups in 2024 increased by 23% from the previous year to $7.4 billion. Of this, deep tech startups raised $1.6 billion, registering a 78% year-on-year growth, as per a new report by Nasscom and consulting firm Zinnov.
UltraTech Cement will acquire Wonder WallCare, a manufacturer of wall putty, for an enterprise value not exceeding `235 crore as part of its aggressive expansion strategy.

10Around the World

Sweeping new tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump provoked dismay, threats of countermeasures and urgent calls for talks to find ways to rescind the stiff new import taxes imposed on goods from countries around the globe.

China firmly opposes this and will take countermeasures to safeguard its own interests. There are no winners in trade wars, and there is no way out for protectionism.

Apple is finding itself squarely in the crosshairs of President Donald Trump’s new tariffs, even after a yearslong effort to insulate the iPhone maker from trade wars and supply chain disruptions.
Donald Trump picked April 2 to roll out his signature tariff policy, hoping perhaps to avoid late night show jokes about Liberation Day on April Fools’ Day.
China vowed to retaliate against US President Donald Trump’s biggest tariffs yet, putting the world’s largest economies on a collision course that risks decimating bilateral trade and upending supply chains.
TikTok owner ByteDance is set to be hit by a privacy fine of more than ₹500 million ($553 million) for illegally shipping European users’ data to China, adding to the growing global backlash over the video-sharing app.
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