Daily Briefing: India-US trade talks and India’s pick for Oscars 2026

Now, for today’s top five stories: 

🚨 Big Story

Trade talks: Dust off the negotiation table, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal is heading to Washington next week to lead India’s trade team. On the menu: ironing out wrinkles in bilateral trade and resumption of trade negotiations stalled by the tariffs. Talks may also be carried on at the political level by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio when they meet on the sidelines of the UNGA next week. The move follows a visit by the US Trade Representative Brendan Lynch to New Delhi earlier this week. 

⚡Only in Express

At Express Adda, Chief Economic Adviser V Anantha Nageswaran spoke about the impact of the US tariffs, saying, “If the extra 25% tariff on goods continues into the next financial year, it will be challenging for employment and growth.” In an interview with my colleague, P Vaidyanathan Iyer, he said that companies and enterprises in Tiruppur, Tamil Nadu were prepared to handle the first 25 per cent but the second 25 per cent makes life difficult. “The impact will be felt in the second half and estimates vary about the tariff exempted and tariff-affected sectors.” CEA Nageswaran also touched on economic and policy issues, such as the Maratha protests, India-China border issues, GDP and more. 

Zooming out: The RSS turned 100 this year. It was established in 1926 in Nagpur, when Keshav Baliram Hedgewar held the first shakha of 15–20 young men, combining physical training and ideological education. Successive leaders expanded the organisation: M S Golwalkar grew a national network and systematised pracharaks, Madhukar Dattatraya Deoras aligned shakhas with electoral constituencies and launched seeds for the Ram Janmabhoomi movement while Rajendra Singh represented a new face of the RSS — scholarly, open, modernising. Sudarshan focused on ideological purity, and Mohan Bhagwat has expanded shakhas to over 83,000. 

💡 Express Explained

Vanishing act: LoP Rahul Gandhi has alleged that thousands of voters’ names in the Aland constituency of Karnataka were removed from electoral rolls via deletion forms filed online, without their knowledge. What is the process of deletion? Electoral Registration officers (EROs) can correct or delete names via Section 22 of the Representation of People Act, 1950. Reasons include death, moving residences, or ineligibility (non-citizenship, underage). But, there are safeguards in place too. We explain. 

✍️ Express Opinion

Big ask: Kathryn March writes that social media is the lifeline of youth that feel like the life they aspire to create for themselves feels out of reach, with doors to education and jobs rigged for “children from families with unimaginable wealth.” The ban fuelled protests with borrowed hashtags like #NepoBabies and even anime flags, but also spread panic and AI fakes. With Sushila Karki sworn in as interim PM and the legislature dissolved, March says the real work must fall to parties to meet the patriotism of Gen-Z demanding a government not “exclusively to line its own pockets.” But she’s clear-eyed: “it’s a big ask.”

🍿 Movie Review

2 Jollys, no fun: Akshay Kumar and Arshad Warsi team up in Jolly LLB 3, but as Shubhra Gupta notes in her review, even double the Jollys can’t save the film from being “far and away the weakest part of the franchise.” The anti-establishment themes are there: corrupt builders, compromised leaders, farmers losing land. “But this element is weighed down by the slow-paced skirmishes between the two Jollys, in a film which feels too long even as it begins.” Saurabh Shukla once again steals the show as the judge with his witty asides and even a dating-app subplot. But the film drags, wastes its female leads, and drowns in basic storytelling. Verdict: case dismissed.

That’s it for today, happy weekend!

Malavika Jayadeep