Taliban is in Delhi, Formally,
☕ India’s Morning Briefing: Mon, January 12
Hello, and welcome to the brief.
Good morning, family.
It’s Monday, and the geopolitical scriptwriters are clearly on strike. We have an American President eyeing Greenland like a distressed asset on Zillow, US fighter jets back in Syrian skies, and India, in a plot twist worthy of Netflix, quietly opening the side door to Chinese investment. It seems “certainty” is the new luxury good, and PM Modi is trying to corner the market in Rajkot. Grab your coffee; the world is being weird again.
Welcome to the 206th edition of The India Brief
🇮🇳 The India Brief
The Dragon at the Door
🇨🇳 Action: Indian Express report claims Govt is considering “graded” easing of Chinese investment rules.
🏭 Trigger: Stalled PLI projects needing Chinese components/tech.
📉 Shift: Reversal of strict 2020 Press Note 3 stance.
The Take: It is a geopolitical walk of shame disguised as pragmatism. We finally admitted that to beat the “World’s Factory,” we need its spare parts first. Nationalism has met the supply chain reality.
ISRO’s 2026 Lift-off
🚀 Action: Countdown begins for PSLV-C62 launch today.
🛰️ Payload:EOS-N1 (defence optics) plus 13 commercial satellites.
💰 Angle: NSIL monetising India’s launch reliability.
The Take: ISRO remains the only government entity that delivers Amazon-like punctuality. Launching spies and startups on the same rocket is the ultimate dual-use efficiency.
Tamil Nadu’s Tariff Panic
⚠️ Action: TN Finance Minister warns 30 lakh jobs at risk.
🇺🇸 Cause: Potential Trump-era tariffs on textiles/autos.
📉 Plea: Centre needs to resolve fiscal accounting disputes.
The Take: Chennai is the canary in the coal mine for trade wars. While Delhi talks diplomacy, Tamil Nadu is doing the math on lost factory shifts, a grim reminder that tariffs hit postcodes, not just GDP.
Saffron Push in Kerala
🚩 Action: Amit Shah launches “Mission 2026” in Kerala.
🗳️ Tactic:Demands central probe into Sabarimala gold theft.
🎯 Goal: Consolidate Hindu vote against Left/Congress.
The Take: Shah is weaponising faith to breach the Left’s fortress. By framing the state as incapable of protecting deities, he is trying to turn a local theft into a spiritual crisis for the voter.
Box Office Monster
🎬 Action: Dhurandhar crosses ₹850 Cr, beats Pushpa 2.
📈 Record: Inching closer to become third highest grossing Indian film of all time.
⭐ Star: Ranveer Singh reclaims top-tier status.
The Take: Patriotism is the new superhero genre. Aditya Dhar has cracked the code: mix high-octane action with national pride, and the Indian audience will throw their wallets at the screen.
Diversity Hypocrisy
♿ Action: Report shows <1% disabled employees in top firms.
📉 Gap:Massive disconnect between D&I PR and hiring data.
🏢 Reality: Workplaces remain physically/socially inaccessible.
The Take: Corporate India’s diversity pledges are mostly PDF decorations. They love the idea of inclusion, but won’t build the ramps or adjust the software to actually make it happen.
Taliban in Delhi
🇦🇫 Action: Noor Ahmad Noor takes charge as Afghan envoy; three months after Indian government allowed Taliban to send its diplomat to its embassy in Delhi.
🤝 Shift: India accepts “de facto” diplomatic presence.
📦 Focus: Consular services and humanitarian aid.
The Take: Realpolitik wins over optics. India hates the regime but needs the geography; hosting a Taliban envoy is the bitter pill swallowed to keep an eye on Pakistan’s backyard.
School Access Reform
🏫 Action: UP removes mandatory Aadhaar for RTE admissions.
✅ Relief: Ensures marginalised kids aren’t excluded.
📜 Law: Aligns with constitutional right to education.
The Take: A rare victory for common sense in bureaucracy. An identity number should never be a gatekeeper to a classroom; UP just removed a wall that should never have been built.
🌍 World Watch
Arctic Invasion Plans
🇺🇸 Action: Trump reportedly orders plans to seize Greenland militarily.
🇩🇰 Reaction: Denmark calls it “end of NATO”; Nuuk refuses.
🧊 Goal: Counter Russian/Chinese Arctic influence.
The Take: This isn’t diplomacy; it’s a hostile takeover of an ally. Trump treats NATO territory like distressed real estate, forcing Europe to realise their security guarantor might be their biggest headache. Control Arctic influence is another way of saying, we want it for the massive oil reserve. I have a feeling, that this is the moment our kids in the future will ask us, where were you and what were you doing during this time? Why didn’t you try and stop him?
Syria Skies Burn
💣 Action: US “Operation Hawkeye Strike” hits 35+ ISIS targets.
✈️ Force: AC-130 gunships and F-15s used in massive retaliation.
💀 Trigger: December ambush killing US soldiers.
The Take: The “Forever War” just hit the snooze button. The deployment of heavy gunships signals punitive rage, proving that despite the South America pivot, the Middle East quicksand still pulls America back in.
Iran on the Boil
🇮🇷 Action: President Pezeshkian blames US/Israel for “riots.”
🔥 Context: 2 weeks of protests, 100+ dead.
🗣️ Tactic: Regime deflects internal anger to external enemies.
The Take: The classic dictator’s playbook: when the streets scream “freedom,” accuse them of reading a foreign script. It’s a desperate attempt to delegitimise genuine rage.
🌟 The Good Stuff
🎋 Weaving Dignity: Tribal women near Telangana’s Kawal Tiger Reserve are earning ₹600/day by crafting premium bamboo furniture, replacing plastic and poverty with sustainable art.
🎨 Global Canvas: Purnama Chary, a carpenter’s son from Warangal who once funded his art degree by making pizzas, now showcases his surrealist paintings in Brazil.
🐛 Silk Genius: A 75-year-old farmer in Chittoor invented a “Six-in-One” machine that cuts sericulture labour costs by 80%, proving innovation has no retirement age. https://www.newindianexpress.com/good-news/2026/Jan/11/75-year-old-farmer-revolutionises-sericulture-with-innovative-machine
🧐 The Deep Dive: The Masterclass
The Ice Cold Heist: Why the US Wants Greenland (By Cash or Force)
“Greenland is not for sale.” That was the polite Danish headline in 2019. Yesterday’s headline—”Trump Orders Military Plans for Greenland”—is less polite. It turns out that when you can’t buy the house, you might just break down the door. But why is Washington obsessed with a frozen island with a population smaller than a cricket stadium?
1. It’s About the Rocks, Not the Views Beneath the ice, Greenland is a geological jackpot. It holds some of the world’s largest untapped deposits of rare earth minerals—neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium. These unpronounceable elements are the vitamins of modern tech, essential for everything from fighter jets to EV batteries. Currently, China controls ~90% of this supply chain. By securing Greenland, the US isn’t just buying land; it’s breaking China’s chokehold on the future of technology.
2. The “Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier” Geography is destiny, and Greenland sits squarely in the “GIUK Gap” (Greenland-Iceland-UK), a critical naval chokepoint for monitoring Russian submarines entering the Atlantic. The US already operates Thule Air Base (Pituffik) there, its northernmost military post. But “renting” space from Denmark is no longer enough for an America terrified of Russian hypersonic missiles and Chinese Arctic ambitions. They want the landlord’s keys, not a lease, to ensure total operational freedom.
3. Why Just the Land? When the US says “Greenland,” they mean the strategic asset, not the welfare state. The “Just the Land” approach is a brutal calculation: they want the territory for bases and mines without necessarily wanting the complexities of Danish social governance or the indigenous independence movement. It’s the ultimate eminent domain—treating a nation as real estate. This clash between American strategic necessity and Greenlandic self-determination (”We want to be Greenlanders, not Americans”) is where the real friction lies.
The Verdict The shift from “buying” (2019) to “taking” (2026) signals that the US no longer views the Arctic as a zone of cooperation, but as a theater of survival. It’s a move that threatens to fracture NATO, pitting the US against its own ally, Denmark. In the freezing cold of the Arctic, the western alliance is feeling the heat.
Ps: See that video above. It’s related and you’ll love it.
👋 Sign-Off
Question of the Day: In a world where nations are simultaneously trading partners and military adversaries (India-China), and allies threaten to invade allies (US-Greenland), is “Non-Alignment” no longer just a choice, but a survival strategy?
See you tomorrow.
- Aditya S. Editor-in-Chief, OneRead.News
America isn't falling to enemies overseas. It's dying because the people have stopped trusting each other. Greenland, Powell, Trump, courts, media—every scandal just proves what we already suspected: the system is rotting. And foreign powers are simply watching us eat ourselves alive in plain sight. No tanks needed. Just patience. The real threat was always internal—you just didn't want to see it. I broke down exactly how:
https://substack.com/@geopoliticsinplainsight/p-184355102