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  • India-EU Free Trade Agreement feasible by end of 2025: S Jaishankar

    India-EU Free Trade Agreement feasible by end of 2025: S Jaishankar

    India places a high priority to its relations with the European Union, the centrepiece of which is the Free Trade Agreement negotiations that are making very good progress, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said here on Wednesday.

    During a conversation with The Financial Times Brussels Bureau Chief Henry Foy at the German Marshall Fund (GMF) Forum, the external affairs minister expressed confidence that the year-end timeline set for the completion of the India-EU Free Trade Agreement (FTA) seems “feasible” following his in-depth talks with EU officials this week.

    He also highlighted the strength of the two-way relationship that goes beyond trade to cover aspects of defence and security, mobility, talent flows and education.
    “I would give it (India-EU ties) pretty high priority… right now you catch us at a very important moment,” said Jaishankar.

    “We had the (EU) College of Commissioners, very soon after they came into office, visit India collectively. We know that’s a very unusual and very positive step, and we are really looking at deepening our ties,” he said.

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    “So, the centrepiece is the FTA, which has been under negotiation for some time now but everything I have heard… I think we are making very good progress,” he added. Against the backdrop of his talks earlier on Wednesday with MaroS Šefčovič, the EU Commissioner for Trade and Economic Security, Jaishankar was asked about the prospect of completing the FTA by the end of this year. “A lot has been done, and everything that I heard on this trip gives me the confidence that it’s within sight, that by the end of the year it is feasible to do this,” he said.

    The conversation session at the high-profile forum covered a broad spectrum of issues governing India’s foreign policy perspectives, from its relations with the US and closer in its neighbourhood with China.

    “We are conditioned to deal with situations and challenges, think it through for ourselves and essentially make decisions based on what capabilities we have and what we are able to leverage from the world. And that’s because we have never been an alliance partner. So, by the nature of our foreign policy structure, our strategic choices, we sort of have that mindset and approach,” Jaishankar said.

    Contrasting this with Europe’s history and experiences, the minister noted that India is accustomed to dealing with shifting geopolitical realities and any “trans-Atlantic divergences” in outlooks that emerge.

    “We are objective about it. We value our relations with the US, as we do with the EU, we will deal with each one on terms which are best for both of us,” he said.

    On the issue of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Jaishankar highlighted India’s stance favouring a negotiated settlement of differences.

    He said: “We have felt from the start that even if two countries, two neighbours, have differences, even very deep differences, it cannot be settled by recourse to war. If war has started, you are not going to get a solution out of the battlefield. If you’re not going to get a solution out of the battlefield, then the answer is to negotiate.

    “And if you are going to negotiate, it makes sense to negotiate directly, rather than through very convoluted signalling. So that’s been our position. It wasn’t necessarily widely accepted in 2022, but I think a lot of people have come around to that point of view right now… the United States today, under President Trump, also is an advocate of the fact that there has to be a negotiated solution.”

    On China, Jaishankar reflected upon the “incredibly complicated matrix” with several different dimensions. Asked if the EU remains naive vis-a-vis China, he added: “I would point to a certain evolution in Europe’s position and stance, but I would also make the point that it’s a very differentiated picture.

    “Not all of Europe is obviously moving at the same speed and on the same wavelength. So, there are some which have different views, some who are more hard-headed. I would make that distinction.”

    Jaishankar has been holding a series of wide-ranging discussions in Brussels this week, including with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas for the first India-EU Strategic Dialogue.

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  • Gabbard: AI used to decide continued JFK files’ classification

    Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said the Trump administration used artificial intelligence to help determine which documents related to the assassination of former President Kennedy should remain classified.

    Gabbard, speaking at an Amazon Web Services conference Tuesday, touted how the agency fed tens of thousands of pages of materials into AI systems ahead of their declassification to speed up the otherwise lengthy process.

    “We have been able to do that through the use of AI tools far more quickly than what was done previously — which was to have humans go through and look at every single one of these pages,” Gabbard said, according to the Associated Press.

    The process could have taken several months or years without the technology, AP reported.

    Gabbard called for using private-sector technologies to speed up these types of processes, save money and allow intelligence officers to spend more time gathering and analyzing information.

    “How do we look at the available tools that exist — largely in the private sector — to make it so that our intelligence professionals, both collectors and analysts, are able to focus their time and energy on the things that only they can do,” she said, the AP reported.

    The US intelligence community already engages in various public-private partnerships and Gabbard said she hopes to expand this, according to the AP.

    The release of the remaining JFK assassination files built upon a promise President Trump made on the campaign trail and followed an executive order he signed in January at the start of his second term.

    Multiple analyses determined many of the documents had already been released to the public in some form but were previously redacted.

    Gabbard’s push for AI comes amid broader efforts from the Trump administration to increase the efficiency of the federal government’s work. Trump signed an executive order earlier this year calling for the modernization of federal technology and software.

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  • How overconfidence can kill a COO’s shot at the corner office

    For many senior executives, the COO role is viewed as a pivotal on-ramp to the CEO seat. In fact, last year, 57% of new S&P 1500 CEOs were promoted from COO roles. And some of today’s most notable business leaders, including Apple’s Tim Cook and Chipotle’s Scott Boatwright, made the leap from COO to CEO. But leadership experts warn that what looks like a fast track can just as easily become a dead end.

    Stephen Miles, founder and CEO of leadership consultancy The Miles Group, shared two critical missteps for CEO aspirants during Fortune’s 2025 COO Summit. He recounted a story of one COO who began referring to themselves as the company’s heir apparent and not just within the company, but in the boardroom too. The fallout was swift, prompting an emergency board meeting to decide on whether or not to dismiss the executive.

    “The board had to be talked off the ledge,” says Miles. “They want the ultimate decision to choose their next CEO.”

    This kind of overreach, whether motivated by ambition or miscommunication, can be fatal to a leadership trajectory and demonstrate characteristics counterintuitive for those in the top role, namely arrogance and hubris. More broadly, the COO role, as Miles notes, is often a highly customized position designed to achieve specific outcomes. Treating it as an automatic stepping stone to CEO can alienate key decision-makers.

    Aside from overstepping, Miles cites a COO’s failure to align tightly with the CEO as another succession roadblock. Organizations, he says, will constantly test the blueprint for synchronizing and reducing friction between COOs and CEOs. 

    “What they do is they go to you as COO and say, ‘Make a decision,’ and then they try to take that decision to the CEO, assuming they want a different decision, or slightly different and see if the CEO will bite,” Miles explains. “As soon as they bite, they erode the entire construct of the CEO-COO relationship, and generally that goes really poorly for the COO.”

    While the COO’s job is to “win in the business of today,” as Miles puts it, the CEO’s role is to “build the business of tomorrow.” The leap from one to the other requires more than operational excellence. It demands strategic vision, leadership acumen, and humility.

    This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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  • After MCX, NSE Gets SEBI Nod To Launch Monthly Electricity Futures

    India’s leading bourse, the National Stock Exchange, has received market regulator SEBI’s nod to launch monthly electricity futures contracts, as per a press statement.

    Ashishkumar Chauhan, MD & CEO of NSE, said the SEBI approval marks the beginning of a larger plan to create a broader electricity derivatives ecosystem. NSE intends to gradually introduce Contracts for Difference (CFDs) and longer-duration contracts such as quarterly and annual futures, subject to regulatory approvals.

    NSE will adopt a phased approach to ensure market integrity and build investor confidence. A financially settled futures market will help participants manage risk effectively, while a reliable day-ahead spot market will aid in accurate price discovery.

    NSE Clearing Limited, India’s largest clearing corporation, will manage the clearing and settlement of these contracts.

    In its earnings call last month, the NSE management clarified that the product will be settled on a platform regulated by SEBI. This would make it differ from spot electricity markets operated by exchanges like IEX, which are not under SEBI’s jurisdiction.

    The management said that power derivatives represent one of the largest commodities markets globally, and once introduced in India, they will allow power buyers, sellers, and producers to hedge their price risks more effectively.

    NSE is also on its way to a major expansion of its co-location infrastructure. Responding to a question on the call, the management said the exchange has been receiving steady applications from entities seeking co-location rack space, leading to a backlog.

    To address this, NSE will add 300 new racks by the first quarter of fiscal 2026, which will ease much of the waiting list, though it may take a few additional months to clear the entire backlog.

    To cater to longer-term demand, NSE is planning to expand its co-location facility by 2,000 racks over a phased period. The total cost for adding these 2,000 racks is estimated at Rs 520–550 crore.

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  • Trump Says Trade Deal With China ‘Is Done,’ but Offers Few Details

    President Trump said Wednesday that a trade deal with China “is done,” hours after the United States and China agreed to roll back some of the punitive measures they had taken against each other’s economies and return to a trade truce reached in May.

    After two days of marathon negotiations in London, top economic officials from the United States and China were expected to present the new “framework agreement” to Mr. Trump and China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, for final approval.

    The agreement, the full details of which were not immediately released, is intended to return the relationship to the terms that the United States and China reached in Switzerland last month. That deal fell apart in recent weeks, after China continued to restrict shipments of valuable rare earth minerals and magnets needed by U.S. manufacturers.

    Mr. Trump said on Wednesday morning that he backed the updated framework.

    In a Truth Social post, he said that China had committed to supplying the United States with magnets and rare earth minerals. He said that Chinese students would continue to have access to American colleges and universities.

    Mr. Trump said that the tariff rate for Chinese imports would be 55 percent, while China’s tariff rate would be 10 percent.

    “Relationship is excellent,” Mr. Trump wrote, but provided few other details.

    The expression of support from Mr. Trump came hours after Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who was part of the negotiating team, told reporters gathered in London following the talks that American concerns over China’s restrictions on exports of minerals and magnets had been resolved. He also said that the measures that the United States had taken in response to those Chinese restrictions would be reversed “in a balanced way.”

    U.S. officials had tried to put pressure on China in recent weeks by clamping down on exports of American products and technology, including chemicals, airplane parts and software, as well as proposing barring Chinese students from enrolling in universities in the United States.

    A person familiar with the negotiations who was not authorized to speak publicly said the Chinese side had agreed to begin sending the United States rare earths, while the United States would roll back export controls implemented on Chinese products since the meeting in Geneva, and that both efforts would happen simultaneously.

    Mr. Lutnick, along with Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative, and Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, will brief Mr. Trump on the deal on Wednesday, the person said.

    “We do absolutely expect the topic of rare earth minerals and magnets with respect to the United States of America will be resolved in this framework implementation,” Mr. Lutnick said.

    Mr. Greer, who took part in the discussions, said the two sides would remain in regular contact as they tried to work through their economic disagreements, a point both sides had also agreed to after the Geneva talks. But he said that another meeting had not yet been scheduled.

    Officials had met at Lancaster House in London, adjacent to St James’s Palace, to try to restore their truce. The talks continued late into the night, at times growing tense and seeming as if they might fall apart, the person familiar with the negotiations said.

    Last week, Mr. Trump held a 90-minute phone call with Mr. Xi — the first time the two heads of state had spoken directly since Mr. Trump returned to office in January.

    A 90-day pause on some tariffs, which the countries agreed to in Geneva, is scheduled to expire in August. Mr. Greer said that both sides were “motivated,” but that it would be up to Mr. Trump to decide if the pause would be extended as additional negotiations proceeded.

    Mr. Greer also said that the topic of a broader trade deal had come up, but that the current meetings were focused on implementing the agreements reached in Geneva and by the two leaders in their call.

    China’s official Xinhua news agency issued a cautious statement, saying the two sides had agreed “in principle” — a term used by state media and diplomats to indicate that details have not been worked out. According to Xinhua, the discussions were “professional, rational, in-depth and candid.” Chinese state media often uses the term “candid” when there have been considerable disagreements.

    The countries made the announcement shortly before the Trump administration attained an early yet important win in a fight over the legality of its tariffs.

    In Washington, a federal appeals court agreed on Tuesday to allow Mr. Trump to maintain many of those import duties, which a lower court declared to be illegal in late May. The stay will preserve the centerpiece of the president’s trade agenda while federal lawyers battle with states and businesses that say they were harmed by tariffs that Mr. Trump had no authority to issue.

    U.S. officials said that the court rulings on tariffs had not come up in the discussions with the Chinese.

    Mr. Bessent, who had led the American delegation, left the talks late Tuesday to return to Washington for congressional hearings on Wednesday. On the Chinese side, the negotiations were led by He Lifeng, the vice premier in charge of economic policy.

    American dependence on China for rare earth metals and rare earth magnets has given Beijing a formidable tool for putting pressure on the American economy. After Mr. Trump ratcheted up tariffs on Chinese goods in April, Beijing clamped down on exports of critical minerals and magnets, threatening to shut down operations by American manufacturers, defense contractors and others.

    The United States has a single rare earth mine in Mountain Pass, Calif., and has very little capacity to process rare earths into needed chemicals and then into magnets. The rare earth restrictions motivated the U.S. side to meet with Chinese officials in Geneva last month.

    But after that meeting, Trump administration officials were dismayed when Chinese shipments of the rare earth minerals, and the magnets made with them, remained infrequent. They accused China of violating the Geneva agreement.

    In an effort to pressure China to lift its curbs, U.S. officials clamped down on exports of some American products and technology to China, including software for making semiconductors, gases like ethane and butane, and nuclear and aerospace components. U.S. officials also proposed the ban on enrolling Chinese students.

    It remains unclear whether the latest framework will hold, and analysts were skeptical that a broader pact was imminent.

    “Two days of negotiations are better than none, but frankly, we’ve seen these extended negotiations in the past,” Henrietta Treyz, director of economic policy at Veda Partners, wrote in a research note. “There’s a lot of time spent translating, confirming meaning and reiterating framing that goes on in these negotiations that make them time consuming but ultimately keep a lot of the status quo, which appears to be what’s come out of London.”

    Keith Bradsher contributed reporting from Beijing, and Tony Romm from Washington.

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