India, Feb. 8 -- After nearly two decades of stop-start talks, India and the European Union recently announced the conclusion of negotiations on a free trade agreement.The trade deal is India's ninth trade agreement in four years and its 19th overall, alongside six narrower preferential trade agreements.

The deal is being concluded now not because differences between the two sides have vanished, but because geopolitics forced pragmatism. Recent tariff shocks under Donald Trump and rising dependence on China pushed both sides to narrow ambitions and shift to an executable deal. India and the EU together account for 23 per cent of global GDP and 25 per cent of the world's population - nearly $25 trillion and two billion people - making thi...