New Delhi, Dec. 25 -- At the end of each year, I search my soul to draft a New Year message for near and dear ones, among others, assessing the year gone by and looking forward to the coming year with hope and expectation.

While global economic growth has settled at a little above 3% over the last few years after recovering from the covid crisis, uncertainty arising from US President Donald Trump's tariffs hangs over the global economy, haunted as it is by the century-old ghost of America's Smoot-Hawley tariffs.

Indeed, the fate of the entire post-war order currently hangs in the balance.

Man doth not live by bread alone. There has also been a growing unease for some time and a somewhat sombre state of mind.

There was a sense that the...