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US President Donald Trump’s decision to slap harsh tariffs on Indian exports and a “penalty” on purchases of Russian weapons and energy will cost thousands of jobs and could fundamentally change the nature of bilateral ties, experts said Wednesday.Months of negotiations between the two countries over an interim trade deal had stalled in recent weeks over Trump’s sweeping demands and New Delhi’s reluctance to fully open its agricultural and dairy sectors to US imports.On Wednesday, two days before the deadline for the reintroduction of Trump’s so-called “reciprocal tariffs”, the US president announced that Indian shipments to the United States would be hit with a 25 percent tariff.He added that an unspecified “penalty” for acquiring military equipment and oil from Russia would also kick in from August 1.Kirit Bhansali, Chairman of India’s Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council, said the move was a “deeply concerning development” that would have “far-reaching repercussions across India’s economy” and threaten “thousands of livelihoods”.For his sector alone, the United States is India’s “single largest market, accounting for over $10 billion in exports — nearly 30 percent of our industry’s total global trade,” he said.”A blanket tariff of this magnitude will inflate costs, delay shipments, distort pricing, and place immense pressure on every part of the value chain — from small karigars (artisans) to large manufacturers,” he added. “We recognise the need to address trade imbalances, but such extreme measures undermine decades of economic cooperation.”Indian goods exports to the United States amounted to $87.4 billion in 2024, according to US data, with top sectors including pharmaceuticals, gems, textiles and smartphones.- ‘Completely unacceptable’ -Trump’s targeting of India with such a high rate of levies would complicate ongoing negotiations for a more comprehensive trade agreement, said Biswajit Dhar, of the Council for Social Development think tank. “It was already a difficult set of negotiations, but both sides said we were making progress. And there was no hard and fast deadline,” he said, referring to previous dates for the imposition of his tariffs that Trump had extended unilaterally.Dhar added that Trump’s threatened “penalty” for India’s ties with Russia was “completely unacceptable for a sovereign state”.”A sovereign state can’t be told who to maintain relations with. Whether it’s Russia or China or whoever. You can’t browbeat a country into accepting your conditions,” he said.Analysts warned that US-India relations may be entering new territory, after years of warming as Washington has cultivated New Delhi as a counterweight to rising Chinese power.”President Trump’s messaging has damaged many years of careful, bipartisan nurturing of the US-India partnership in both capitals,” said Ashok Malik, of business consultancy The Asia Group, in a social media post.”Politically the relationship is in its toughest spot since the mid-1990s.”Praveen Donthi of the International Crisis Group said the announcement underscored the fact that Trump did not “differentiate between friends and foes when it comes to tariffs”.”In the past when India purchased S400 missile system from Russia, there were no sanctions because of the bipartisan consensus that existed in the US about India because of its value as a democratic counterweight to China. “But now that’s gone.” The move could have far-reaching consequences, including seeing New Delhi attempt “to mend its relations with Beijing,” he said.

India has recovered a set of relics linked to early Buddhism more than a century after they were removed from the country during the British colonial period, officials said Wednesday.The Piprahwa gems date back to around the third century BC and were unearthed in 1898 by Englishman William Claxton Peppe in northern India.India’s culture ministry said it secured the return of the gems, which had been slated for auction in Hong Kong in May, in partnership with Mumbai-based conglomerate Godrej Industries Group.”These relics have long held immense spiritual value for the global Buddhist community and represent one of the most important archaeological discoveries in India’s history,” the ministry said in a statement.The gems will be put on public display soon, it added, without giving further details. Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed the recovery as a “joyous” occasion for India’s cultural heritage. “It may be recalled that the Piprahwa relics were discovered in 1898 but were taken away from India during the colonial period,” he said in a post on social media. “When they appeared in an international auction earlier this year, we worked to ensure they returned home,” he added.”I appreciate all those who have been involved in this effort.”In May, the culture ministry issued a legal notice to Sotheby’s, the auction house that had organised the sale of the gems, demanding it be cancelled and the relics returned to India.The ministry also called for an apology and full disclosure of provenance documents. Sotheby’s postponed the auction in response. The auction house said in a statement Wednesday that it was “delighted to have facilitated the return of the Piprahwa Gems to India”. “Sotheby’s is thrilled to have played such a central role in securing this historic outcome,” it added.The gems were excavated at the Piprahwa village near the Buddha’s birthplace and have been attributed to a clan linked to the religious figure.”This is one of the most significant instances of repatriation of our lost heritage,” culture minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat said.

A formidable new radar satellite jointly developed by the United States and India launched Wednesday, designed to track subtle changes in Earth’s land and ice surfaces and help predict both natural and human-caused hazards.Dubbed NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar), the pickup truck-sized spacecraft blasted off around 5:40 pm (1210 GMT) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on India’s southeastern coast, riding an ISRO Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle rocket.Livestream of the event showed excited schoolchildren brought to watch the launch and mission teams erupting in cheers and hugging.Highly anticipated by scientists, the mission has also been hailed by US President Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a milestone in growing cooperation between the two countries.”Congratulations India!” Dr Jitendra Singh, India’s science and technology minister wrote on X, calling the mission a “game changer.””Our planet surface undergoes constant and meaningful change,” Karen St Germain, director of NASA’s Earth Science division, told reporters ahead of launch.”Some change happens slowly. Some happens abruptly. Some changes are large, while some are subtle.”By picking up on tiny shifts in the vertical movement of the Earth’s surface — as little as one centimeter (0.4 inches) — scientists will be able to detect the precursors for natural and human-caused disasters, from earthquakes, landsides and volcanoes to aging infrastructure like dams and bridges.”We’ll see land substance and swelling, movement, deformation and melting of mountain glaciers and ice sheets covering both Greenland and Antarctica, and of course, we’ll see wildfires,” added St Germain, calling NISAR “the most sophisticated radar we’ve ever built.”India in particular is interested in studying its coastal and nearby ocean areas by tracking yearly changes in the shape of the sea floor near river deltas and how shorelines are growing or shrinking.Data will also be used to help guide agricultural policy by mapping crop growth, tracking plant health, and monitoring soil moisture. In the coming weeks, the spacecraft will begin an approximately 90-day commissioning phase during which it will unfurl its 39-foot (12-meter) radar antenna reflector.Once operational, NISAR will record nearly all of Earth’s land and ice twice every 12 days from an altitude of 464 miles (747 kilometers), circling the planet near the poles rather than around the equator.- Microwave frequencies -As it orbits, the satellite will continuously transmit microwaves and receive echoes from the surface. Because the spacecraft is moving, the returning signals are distorted, but computer processing will reassemble them to produce detailed, high-resolution images. Achieving similar results with traditional radar would require an impractically large 12-mile-wide dish.NISAR will operate on two radar frequencies: L-band and S-band. The L-band is ideal for sensing taller vegetation like trees, while the S-band enables more accurate readings of shorter plants such as bushes and shrubs.NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and India’s ISRO shared the workload, each building components on opposite sides of the planet before integrating and testing the spacecraft at ISRO’s Satellite Integration & Testing Establishment in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru.NASA’s contribution came to just under $1.2 billion, while ISRO’s costs were around $90 million.India’s space program has made major strides in recent years, including placing a probe in Mars orbit in 2014 and landing a robot and rover on the Moon in 2023.Shubhanshu Shukla, a test pilot with the Indian Air Force, recently became the second Indian to travel to space and the first to reach the International Space Station — a key step toward India’s own indigenous crewed mission planned for 2027 under the Gaganyaan (“sky craft”) program.

India captain Shubman Gill said the head groundsman at the Oval had sparked an “unnecessary” row with coach Gautam Gambhir following the latest flashpoint in a fractious series against England.Gambhir shared terse words on Tuesday with Lee Fortis at the Oval, the London venue for the fifth Test.India trail 2-1 in the series ahead of the deciding match, which starts on Thursday.Former India batsman Gambhir was caught on camera wagging his finger as Fortis towered over him, repeatedly stating: “You can’t tell us what to do.”Gambhir was also heard adding: “You’re just the groundsman, nothing beyond.”Surrey groundsman Fortis is understood to have been keeping a protective eye on the playing area during India’s practice session, with plenty of cricket still to be played on it this season.But India have insisted they simply wanted to have a look at the pitch and had done nothing to spark any kind of reaction from Fortis.”What happened yesterday, I thought, is just absolutely unnecessary. I mean, it’s not the first time that we were having a look at the wicket,” Gill said on Wednesday.The skipper, who has scored 722 runs in the four Tests so far, added: “As a captain, I don’t know what the fuss was all about.”The series has become increasingly heated, with India refusing to shake hands on a draw early in the fourth Test in Manchester to allow Washington Sundar and Ravindra Jadeja to reach centuries, a decision that angered England.Gill previously accused England of ignoring the “spirit of cricket” with time-wasting tactics in the third Test at Lord’s, where India fast bowler Mohammed Siraj was fined for the aggressive send-off he gave to Ben Duckett.But he said the incidents were not connected.”I think I have already explained what happened at Lord’s and about even the incident that happened on the last day in the previous Test,” he said.”Both the teams have been very competitive. And sometimes when you are competitive, you know, in the heat of the moment, you do or say things that you might not do (otherwise).”But I think once the match is over, there is mutual respect between both the teams.”Despite India’s superb rearguard action to earn a draw in Manchester, Gambhir remains under pressure.  Since he took over as head coach, India have won just two and lost eight out of 12 Tests. 

German double biathlon champion Laura Dahlmeier was confirmed dead on Wednesday after she was seriously injured by a rockfall on a Pakistani mountain.The dangerous nature of the site made rescue efforts “impossible”, her agency said in a statement issued on Wednesday, which confirmed her death.”Rescue efforts to recover her failed and the operation was suspended,” the statement continued. The accident happened around midday on Monday at an altitude of 5,700 metres (18,700 feet) on Laila Peak in the Karakoram range, according to a statement from her team on her official social media pages.Dahlmeier’s climbing partner was able to sound the alarm after reaching safety.”It was determined that a helicopter rescue is not possible,” Areeb Ahmed Mukhtar, a senior local official in Ghanche district, where the more than 6,000 metre mountain is located, told AFP earlier on Wednesday.”The conditions at the altitude where she was injured are extremely challenging,” he added.Shipton Trek & Tours Pakistan, which organised the expedition, confirmed the ground rescue by a team of four that includes three Americans and a German mountaineer.The 31-year-old was “hit by falling rocks,” her team said on Tuesday, adding no one had yet been able to reach her due to the danger of further rockfalls and the site’s “remoteness”.Earlier, a helicopter managed to fly over the location and rescuers saw that “the experienced mountaineer is at least seriously injured”, it said.”No signs of life were detected.”Muhammad Ali, a local disaster management official, told AFP that weather conditions have been “extremely harsh” in the region for the past week, with rain, strong winds and thick clouds.Dahlmeier, an experienced mountaineer, had been in the region since the end of June and had already ascended the Great Trango Tower.German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier issued a statement on Wednesday calling Dahlmeier “an ambassador for our country around the world (and) a role model for peaceful, joyful, and fair coexistence across borders.”She won seven world championship gold medals, and at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang she became the first female biathlete to win both the sprint and the pursuit at the same Games.Dahlmeier retired from professional competition in 2019 at the age of 25.She went on to become a commentator on biathlon events for German broadcaster ZDF, and also took up mountaineering.She was a certified mountain and ski guide and an active member of the mountain rescue, according to her team.

A team of foreign climbers were on Wednesday due to launch a rescue mission for German double biathlon champion Laura Dahlmeier, days after she was seriously injured by a rockfall on a Pakistani mountain.The accident happened around midday on Monday at an altitude of 5,700 metres on Laila Peak in the Karakoram range, according to a statement from her team on her official social media sites.Her climbing partner was able to sound the alarm after reaching safety.”It was determined that a helicopter rescue is not possible,” Areeb Ahmed Mukhtar, a senior local official in Ghanche district, where the more than 6,000 metre (19,700 feet) mountain is located, told AFP.”The conditions at the altitude where she was injured are extremely challenging, and a team of foreign climbers will launch a ground rescue mission today,” he added.Shipton Trek & Tours Pakistan, which organised the expedition, confirmed the ground rescue by a team of four that includes three Americans and a German mountaineer.The 31-year-old was “hit by falling rocks,” her team said on Tuesday, adding no one had yet been able to reach her due to the danger of further rockfalls and the site’s “remoteness”.A helicopter managed to fly over the location and rescuers saw that “the experienced mountaineer is at least seriously injured”, it said.”No signs of life were detected.”Muhammad Ali, a local disaster management official, told AFP that weather conditions have been “extremely harsh” in the region for the past week, with rain, strong winds and thick clouds.Dahlmeier, an experienced mountaineer, had been in the region since the end of June and had already ascended the Great Trango Tower.The International Biathlon Union said in a statement it was “thinking of Dahlmeier and her family, hoping for good news to emerge soon”.She has won seven world championship gold medals, and at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang she became the first female biathlete to win both the sprint and the pursuit at the same Games.Dahlmeier retired from professional competition in 2019 at the age of 25.She went on to become a commentator on biathlon events for German broadcaster ZDF, and also took up mountaineering.She is a certified mountain and ski guide and an active member of the mountain rescue, according to her team.

A formidable new radar satellite jointly developed by the United States and India is set to launch Wednesday, designed to track subtle changes in Earth’s land and ice surfaces and help predict both natural and human-caused hazards.Dubbed NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar), the pickup truck-sized spacecraft is scheduled to lift off at 5:40 pm (1210 GMT) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on India’s southeastern coast, riding an ISRO Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle rocket.Highly anticipated by scientists, the mission has also been hailed as a milestone in growing US-India cooperation between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.”Our planet surface undergoes constant and meaningful change,” Karen St Germain, director of NASA’s Earth Science division, told reporters. “Some change happens slowly. Some happens abruptly. Some changes are large, while some are subtle.”By picking up on tiny changes in the vertical movement of the Earth’s surface — as little as one centimeter (0.4 inches) — scientists will be able to detect the precusors for natural and human-caused disasters, from earthquakes, landsides and volcanoes to aging infrastructure like dams and bridges.”We’ll see land substance and swelling, movement, deformation and melting of mountain glaciers and ice sheets covering both Greenland and Antarctica, and of course, we’ll see wildfires,” added St Germain, calling NISAR “the most sophisticated radar we’ve ever built.”Equipped with a 12-meter dish that will unfold in space, NISAR will record nearly all of Earth’s land and ice twice every 12 days from an altitude of 464 miles (747 kilometers).- Microwave frequencies -As it orbits, the satellite will continuously transmit microwaves and receive echoes from the surface. Because the spacecraft is moving, the returning signals are distorted — but computer processing will reassemble them to produce detailed, high-resolution images. Achieving similar results with traditional radar would require an impractically large 12-mile-wide dish.NISAR will operate on two radar frequencies: L-band and S-band. The L-band is ideal for sensing taller vegetation like trees, while the S-band enables more accurate readings of shorter plants such as bushes and shrubs.NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and India’s ISRO shared the workload, each building components on opposite sides of the planet before integrating and testing the spacecraft at ISRO’s Satellite Integration & Testing Establishment in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru.NASA’s contribution came to just under $1.2 billion, while ISRO’s costs were around $90 million.India’s space program has made major strides in recent years, including placing a probe in Mars orbit in 2014 and landing a robot and rover on the Moon in 2023.Shubhanshu Shukla, a test pilot with the Indian Air Force, recently became the second Indian to travel to space and the first to reach the International Space Station — a key step toward India’s own indigenous crewed mission planned for 2027 under the Gaganyaan (“sky craft”) program.

England and India head to the Oval for the decisive fifth and final Test of a hard-fought campaign on Thursday, with both teams battling mental and physical fatigue.A congested schedule of five Tests in less than seven weeks has proved gruelling, especially for the fast bowlers from both teams, with every match going the distance so far.Remarkably, India can still end the series all square at 2-2 after salvaging an unlikely draw in the fourth Test at Old Trafford, keeping the hosts on the field for 143 overs in their second innings.Tensions spiked at the end of the game when India allowed Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar to complete their centuries after England captain Ben Stokes offered to shake hands on a draw, adding spice to the Oval Test.AFP Sport looks at the key talking points ahead of the fifth Test in London.India weigh up Bumrah decision Jasprit Bumrah’s back injury earlier this year prompted India to announce the fast bowler would only feature in three games during the current series.The world’s top-ranked Test bowler made his third appearance on a docile pitch in Manchester and has little time to recover after bowling a gruelling 33 overs, during which he took two wickets.But India coach Gautam Gambhir says all of his squad’s quicks are fit for the finale including Akash Deep, who took 10 wickets in Bumrah’s absence during India’s 336-run win in the second Test at Edgbaston before suffering a groin injury in the next match at Lord’s.England must decide whether to risk express paceman Jofra Archer, who has bowled nearly 90 overs in two Tests after more than four years of injury-enforced exile.The home team took just four wickets on a flat Old Trafford pitch during India’s battling second innings, with seamer Brydon Carse also worked hard.Jamie Overton has been added to an England squad that already has extra pace options in Josh Tongue and Gus Atkinson.England may need to rein in StokesCan England stop skipper Ben Stokes from bowling himself into the ground at the Oval? The Old Trafford match was a personal triumph for the all-rounder, who became just the fourth England cricketer to score a hundred and take five wickets in the same Test.Stokes has now sent down 140 overs — the most he has bowled in any series — and is the leading wicket-taker on either side with 17 scalps.Yet in Manchester he was in evident pain, often clutching his thigh as well as nursing a bicep injury.With the skipper central to England’s hopes of regaining the Ashes on their upcoming tour of Australia, concerns remain over his workload.”Bowling, being in the field is tough work, so I am pretty sore,” said Stokes after the fourth Test. “We are going in 2-1 up but we want to put that last big performance in.”Remarkable Gill eyes another recordCaptaincy appears to be doing wonders for the career of previously inconsistent India batsman Shubman Gill.The elegant 25-year-old scored his fourth century of an extraordinary debut series as skipper at Old Trafford.He came in with the tourists in dire straits at 0-2 in their second innings, responding with a marathon 103 in 238 balls that laid the foundations for a great escape. Gill has set a new record for the most runs scored by an India batsman in a series against England of 722, surpassing team-mate Yashasvi Jaiswal’s tally of 712 in 2023/24.At the Oval he could eclipse Sunil Gavaskar’s all-time India series record of 774 runs, set in a four-match campaign against the West Indies in 1971.One downside for Gill is that he will be without vice-captain and prolific runscorer Rishabh Pant, who sustained a foot fracture in Manchester.

The IMF raised its global growth forecast Tuesday as efforts to circumvent Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs sparked a bigger-than-expected surge in trade, while the US president stepped back from some of his harshest threats.The International Monetary Fund still sees growth slowing this year, however, even as it lifted its 2025 projection to 3.0 percent — up from 2.8 percent in April — in its World Economic Outlook update.In 2024, global growth came in at 3.3 percent.Looking ahead, the IMF expects the world economy to expand 3.1 percent next year, an improvement from the 3.0 percent it earlier predicted.Despite the upward revisions, “there are reasons to be very cautious,” IMF chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas told AFP.”Businesses were trying to frontload, move stuff around, before the tariffs were imposed, and so that’s supporting economic activity,” he said.”There is going to be payback for that. If you stock the shelves now, you don’t need to stock them later in the year or into the next year,” he added.This means a likelihood of reduced trade activity in the second half of the year and into 2026.”The global economy has continued to hold steady, but the composition of activity points to distortions from tariffs, rather than underlying robustness,” the IMF’s report said.For now, a “modest decline in trade tensions, however fragile, has contributed to the resilience of the global economy,” Gourinchas told reporters Tuesday.Trump imposed a 10 percent levy on almost all trading partners this year, alongside steeper duties on autos, steel and aluminum.He paused higher tariffs on dozens of economies until August 1, a significant delay from April when they were first unveiled.Washington and Beijing also agreed to lower for 90 days triple-digit duties on each other’s goods, in a halt expiring August 12. Talks that could lead to a further extension of the truce are ongoing.Trump’s actions have brought the US effective tariff rate to 17.3 percent, significantly above the 3.5 percent level for the rest of the world, the IMF said.If deals unravel or tariffs rebound to higher levels, global output would be 0.3 percent down next year, Gourinchas said.- US inflation hit -US growth for 2025 was revised 0.1 percentage points up, to 1.9 percent, with tariffs anticipated to settle at lower levels than initially announced in April.The country is also set to see a near-term boost from Trump’s flagship tax and spending bill.Euro area growth was adjusted 0.2 percentage points higher to 1.0 percent, partly reflecting a jump in Irish pharmaceutical exports to the United States to avoid fresh duties.Among European economies, Germany is still expected to avoid contraction while forecasts for France and Spain remained unchanged at 0.6 percent and 2.5 percent respectively.While the IMF anticipates global inflation to keep declining, with headline inflation cooling to 4.2 percent this year, it warned that US price increases will remain above target.”The tariffs, acting as a supply shock, are expected to pass through to US consumer prices gradually and hit inflation in the second half of 2025,” the IMF report said.Elsewhere, Trump’s duties “constitute a negative demand shock, lowering inflationary pressures,” the report added.- China challenges -Growth in the world’s number-two economy China, however, was revised 0.8 percentage points upwards to 4.8 percent.This reflects stronger-than-expected activity in the first half of 2025, alongside “the significant reduction in US–China tariffs,” the IMF said.Gourinchas warned that China is still experiencing headwinds, with “fairly weak” domestic demand.”There is relatively little consumer confidence, the property sector is still a black spot in the Chinese economy, it’s not been completely addressed,” he added. “That is resulting in a drag on economic activity going forward.”Russia’s growth was revised 0.6 percentage points down, to 0.9 percent, partially due to Russian policies but also oil prices, which are set to remain relatively subdued compared with 2024 levels, Gourinchas said.

Indian security forces have killed three Pakistani gunmen who were involved in an April attack on Hindu tourists in Indian Kashmir that led to an intense military conflict between the two countries, home minister Amit Shah said on Tuesday.The heavily-armed men were killed in a military operation on Monday, more than three months after 26 people were gunned down in a popular resort town of Indian Kashmir on April 22.”I want to tell the parliament (that) those who attacked in Baisaran were three terrorists and all three have been killed,” he said.Shah said all three were Pakistani nationals and identified two of them as members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a UN-designated terrorist group based in Pakistan.”Indian security agencies have detailed evidence of their involvement in the attack,” he said in a speech in the lower house of parliament.Monday’s operation took place in the mountains of Dachigam, around 30 kilometres (18 miles) from the disputed region’s main city of Srinagar, the army said in a statement.The attack in April saw gunmen burst out of forests near Pahalgam and rake crowds of visitors with automatic weapons.All those killed were listed as residents of India except one man from Nepal. Survivors said gunmen had separated the men from the women and children and ordered some of the men to recite the Muslim declaration of faith.India accused Pakistan of backing the attackers, a charge Islamabad denied, sparking an intense four-day conflict between the nuclear-armed rivals in May that killed more than 70 people on both sides.Muslim-majority Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since their independence from British rule in 1947, and the neighbours — who both claim the region in full — have fought two wars and several conflicts over its control.Shah said a security meeting was held immediately after the attack and it was decided that the attackers should not be “allowed to leave the country and return to Pakistan”.Investigators relied on eyewitness accounts and forensic evidence to establish that the rifles found on the men were the same that were used in the April attack, he said.”It was confirmed that these three rifles were involved in killing of our innocent civilians,” said Shah.A shadowy group called The Resistance Front (TRF) initially claimed responsibility for the April attack.But as public criticism mounted over the killings, the group retracted its claim. Earlier this month, the United States described the TRF as a “front and proxy” of Lashkar-e-Taiba.