India, Jan. 31 -- The conclusion of the free trade agreement between India and the European Union comes at a moment when the global trading system itself is undergoing profound stress. The post - Cold War economic order - built on assumptions of open markets, multilateral dispute resolution, and gradual tariff reduction - is no longer intact. In its place has emerged a fractured landscape marked by tariff wars, unilateralism, and deep uncertainty.

It is against this unsettled backdrop that the India-EU agreement must be read - not merely as a bilateral trade pact, but as a strategic statement about how nations choose to engage the world when rules fray and predictability erodes. When the President of the European Commission described the...