Daily Briefing: The high stakes of Putin’s India visit

🚨 Big Story

Russian President Vladimir Putin begins his two-day state visit to India today — the first since the start of the Ukraine war. Over the past few days, several envoys and officials of European capitals “privately” urged the Indian government to lean on Putin to end the war, The Indian Express has learnt.

Per sources, the messaging conveyed that Putin listens to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. As Shubhajit Roy writes, this marks a departure from earlier messaging in 2022, when Europe had asked India to pick sides. Notably, India has refrained from explicitly condemning the Russian invasion, while maintain that it was “not the era of war”.

As things stand: Hours before his arrival in Delhi, the Kremlin engaged in hours-long discussions with the US on ending the war. US President Donald Trump told reporters that they had gotten the impression that Putin “would like to make a deal”, however, the path ahead remained “unclear”. Ukraine and Europe have criticised initial peace plans proposed by the US for conceding significant ground to Russia.

Long arc: Putin’s visit is significant amid steep US secondary sanctions on India over its trade with Russia. Twenty-five years ago, when Putin first visited India, both countries were dealing with similar pressures: the Soviet Union had collapsed, and India was under sanctions for its nuclear tests. Since then, over a quarter of the century, India and Russia have reshaped their bilateral relationship and their roles in the global order. We trace this long trajectory of Indo-Russian ties.

⚡Only in Express

The Maoist movement has shrunk in recent years, with its top leadership either in jail or killed. In his first interview since his surrender in October, Mallojula Venugopal Rao alias Sonu, the ideological fountainhead of the CPI (Maoist), told The Indian Express that the armed struggle had failed in India. He spoke about the reasons for his surrender, the future of CPI (Maoist), and his idea of “home”. Read the full interview.

📰 From the Front Page

U-turn: The government has revoked its order directing phone makers to mandatorily pre-install the state-owned Sanchar Saathi application on all devices. This came after intense backlash over privacy and surveillance concerns, as well as pushback from firms like Google and Apple.

🎧For more on the Sanchar Saathi row, tune in to today’s ‘3 Things’ podcast episode.

Homebound? Sunali Khatun, 25 and nine months pregnant, has lived a year of upheaval. A migrant ragpicker from West Bengal working in Delhi, she was detained in June during the police crackdown on alleged illegal immigrants and pushed into Bangladesh. Her attempt to return ended in arrest and jail. Speaking to The Indian Express, Khatun, still stuck in Bangladesh, says she now has just one wish: to deliver her baby in India. She narrates her ordeal.

📌 Must Read

Free fall: The falling rupee breached the 90-mark against the US dollar for the first time on Wednesday. The depreciation has been attributed to the growing uncertainty around the India-US trade deal, among other factors. Meanwhile, the RBI has refrained from intervening, which many say is a boon for exporters, as a weaker rupee would keep Indian goods competitive in US markets, where they face steep 50% tariffs. We explain the factors behind the slide.

‘Picture abhi baaki hai’: All was going well for Nishant Aggarwal, an aerospace engineer, in 2018. He had won DRDO’s ‘Young Scientist Award’, had a job in BrahMos Aerospace, and even got married. But in October that year, his life took a turn for the worse. He was accused of leaking sensitive information to Pakistan, arrested and sentenced to life. On Monday, the Bombay High Court acquitted him of all charges. Aggarwal spoke to The Indian Express about his time in prison and his plans for the future.

⏳ And Finally…

Who rules Mumbai? The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, once known for its diversity — Gujaratis, Parsis, Marwaris, South Indians and other non-Marathis — has seen these groups shrink even as migrants and Hindi speakers now form a majority of the city. Zeeshan Shaikh crunches the numbers and traces the demographic history of Mumbai and the BMC.

That’s all for today, folks! Until tomorrow,
Sonal Gupta