Negotiations on a free trade agreement between India and the European Union began on June 28, 2007. They stalled in 2013. On June 17, 2022, the two sides formally relaunched them. The conclusion of the negotiations was announced on January 27, 2026, at a summit at Hyderabad House in New Delhi.
Putting Off
Taal-matol: putting off. The Rekhta dictionary defines it as postponing a task instead of completing it, and also as the excuse made in order to postpone.
Aaj kal karna: to say today, tomorrow. Rekhta gives the same meaning, to put off, and adds a second one: to put someone off with a false promise.
No Agenda at Wuhan
On April 27 and 28, 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping met in Wuhan for an informal summit. There was no agenda and no joint statement. The two leaders walked along East Lake, rode a houseboat and talked over tea. China’s ambassador to India said they spent nine hours together.
The talks between the delegations “went well beyond the budgeted time,” said India’s Foreign Secretary, Vijay Gokhale.
Waiting for Delhi
On December 24, 1999, hijackers took over Indian Airlines flight IC-814 and brought it down at Amritsar. The plane stood there for about 45 minutes, according to Sarabjit Singh, then the head of the Punjab Police. Other accounts give 40 or 74 minutes. Then it took off again, and the hijackers flew on.
In Delhi, the government’s Crisis Management Group was deciding what to do. “No one was willing to take a decision and in that confusion no instructions were passed on to Punjab Police,” A.S. Dulat later said. According to ThePrint, officials in the Amritsar control room waited for instructions from Delhi that never came.
The Remote Control
Bal Thackeray, the founder of the Shiv Sena, never held public office. “Whoever becomes chief minister, the remote control will always be with me,” he told the journalist Rajdeep Sardesai in 2004, when asked whether his son Uddhav would be the candidate for chief minister.
The One-Line Resolution
On May 14, 2023, the newly elected Congress legislators in Karnataka met to choose their leader. They “passed a one-line resolution, moved by Siddaramaiah and endorsed by Shivakumar and other leaders at the meeting, authorising Kharge to name the new CM,” The Tribune reported. Mallikarjun Kharge was the party’s national president.
Siddaramaiah and D.K. Shivakumar were the two contenders for the post.
The Slip of Paper
On December 12, 2023, the BJP’s newly elected legislators in Rajasthan met to choose the Chief Minister. Their choice was Bhajan Lal Sharma, a first-time member of the assembly. His name was proposed by the former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje.
According to Newslaundry, the party’s observer, Union minister Rajnath Singh, had handed Raje a slip of paper that allegedly carried the new Chief Minister’s name.
The Head of the Family
Under Hindu law, a Hindu Undivided Family is headed by a senior member called the karta. The karta, usually the oldest man, makes decisions on economic and social matters for the whole family. The other members are coparceners.
In 2016 the Delhi High Court ruled that the eldest woman of such a family can also be its karta. The court reasoned: “If a male member of an HUF, by virtue of his being the first born eldest, can be a Karta, so can a female member.”
The Mother Decides
After the death of Dhirubhai Ambani, his sons Mukesh and Anil fought for control of Reliance, one of India’s largest business groups. On June 18, 2005, the split was announced by their mother, Kokilaben Ambani. The dispute had drawn her out of her role as a homemaker.
“I have today amicably resolved the issues between my two sons, Mukesh and Anil,” she said. Mukesh took Reliance Industries. Anil took the energy, finance and telecommunications companies.
Into the Arabian Sea
In Maharashtra, the Shiv Sena and the BJP campaigned on a promise to push Enron’s Dabhol power project “into the Arabian Sea.” After winning the 1995 state election, their government halted construction on August 3, 1995.
In 1996 the state electricity board and Enron renegotiated the contract. Enron cut its power costs by 20 percent, and the board agreed to buy more electricity.