Daily Briefing: Straight from Davos

On that note, let’s get into the rest of today’s edition👇

🚨 Big Story

“The mother of all deals” is how President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, described the much-awaited India-EU trade agreement in her speech at Davos, where global leaders have gathered for the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting. von der Leyen said that they were “on the cusp of a historic trade agreement”, which would give Europe a “first mover advantage” with “one of the world’s fastest growing and most dynamic continents.”

Officials on both sides are looking to conclude negotiations before the European leaders arrive in India for the Republic Day celebrations and a bilateral summit. The agreement would come against a backdrop of renewed tariff threats from US President Donald Trump over the Greenland issue.

On Tuesday, the US President took to his social media platform, Truth Social, to double down on his threat to take over Greenlan, writing, “There can be no going back — On that, everyone agrees!” Trump shared screenshots of his texts with French President Emmanuel Macron, who questioned what he was “doing on Greenland”, and NATO general secretary Mark Rutte. Trump will be speaking at the Davos summit today.

👉 In his weekly column, C Raja Mohan writes that Trump arrives at Davos “not as the manager of the liberal international order but as its main challenger”. As Trump faces few internal checks, Raja Mohan questions if we are “back to the era of kings”. Read.

⚡Only in Express

Big Picture: Nitin Nabin took over as the 12th president of the ruling BJP on Tuesday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi threw his weight behind the party’s new national chief, calling Nabin his “boss”. As per sources, the party will likely bring Nabin into the Rajya Sabha in line with his “new stature”. With no vacancy in RS seats from Bihar, Nabin’s home state, the party could send him to the Upper House on a Jharkhand seat.

Nabin becomes the youngest president in the party’s history. His elevation, however, is part of a larger, carefully managed churn within the BJP under PM Modi to create a younger, less entrenched party.

📰 From the Front Page

EPFO 3.0 incoming: Following the introduction of changes to the withdrawal norms last year, the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) is now ready for the next phase of reforms. The changes are aimed towards a core banking solution that would centralise the EPFO’s operations. This includes a new portal, new software to cater to expansion over the next 10 years, and the use of AI-powered translation tools to give information to members in their vernacular languages.

15 hours: The Jammu and Kashmir Police called The Indian Express Assistant Editor Bashaarat Masood to the Cyber Police Station in Srinagar on four days between January 15 and January 19 and asked him to sign a bond that he would not do anything that would disturb peace. An officer, who wished to remain anonymous, said the action came after his news report about the police distributing a document to all mosques, seeking information about their budget and funding sources.

📌 Must Read

Reset: If Russia was Europe’s greatest threat at the start of 2025, the year since has made it clear that the danger posed by Trump is now almost inconceivable. Among the most consequential of his actions — ones with the potential to reshape the global order — were the steep tariffs he imposed on America’s allies. Yet his trade war has produced an unintended consequence: “Making China Great Again.” Rather than isolating Beijing, Trump’s policies pushed China to integrate more deeply with the rest of the world. Anil Sasi explains.

Also read: Who pays Trump tariffs? Almost exclusively Americans

On diplomacy: ‘Both of our countries are victims of transnational terrorists…’
Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, who was in India for a bilateral visit this week, sat down with The Indian Express for an interview. From his early days as a journalist at an Indian newspaper to his views on the India-Poland ties and the EU FTA talks, read all that he had to say.

⏳ And Finally…

India face New Zealand once again today, kicking off a five-match T20I series in Nagpur. The Kiwis have increasingly become India’s bogey side: they whitewashed the hosts in a three-match Test series in late 2024 and, on Sunday, created history by winning their first-ever ODI series on Indian soil. If recent patterns are any indication, could New Zealand make it three in a row — this time in the T20 format? Much may rest on skipper Suryakumar Yadav, who will be eager to lead from the front after going 22 innings without a 50-plus score.

🎧 Before you go, do tune in to today’s ‘3 Things’ podcast episode. The lineup: The Venezuelan oil dilemma, midday meal cooks protest in Chhattisgarh, and communal tensions in Assam’s Bodoland.

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

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