Vikram Rajan has spent fifteen years tracking the Indian Administrative Service — its transfers, its empanelments, its quiet deals. He writes about the permanent government with the same scepticism most journalists reserve for politicians: the career bureaucrat who collects departments like stamps, the lateral entrant who never stood a chance, the property return that never quite adds up. His column treats every appointment order as a document worth reading twice.
Recent work
The $103.8 Billion Illusion: Strip Out Apple, and India's US Exports Actually Declined
US Census Bureau data reveals India's record $103.8 billion export year to the United States was built overwhelmingly on Apple iPhone assembly. Stripping out smartphones, Indian exports actually declined 3 per cent in 2025. Gems and jewelry collapsed 44 per cent — Surat's 20,000 diamond traders lost half their American market in twelve months under tariffs that escalated from 26 to 50 per cent. The China+1 narrative is a myth: India gained one percentage point of US import share in a decade while Vietnam, Mexico, and Thailand captured the real displacement. The Prime Minister personally rescued the trade relationship in February 2026. The Commerce Department under Darpan Jain — the same officer who delivered zero services MRAs and zero EU CBAM relief — watched the tariff ratchet upward for eight months.
Modi's Europe Tour Confronts EUR 559 Billion China Gap That Jain's EU Deal Ignored
EU's carbon border tax and deforestation rules have effectively embargoed 794 Indian product categories worth $183.5 million annually. Darpan Jain, parachuted into EU FTA negotiations with just two months' preparation, secured no exemptions while China dominates EU trade with EUR 559 billion in imports.
Darpan Jain Has Spent Seven Years Negotiating India’s Services Trade. Where Are the Results?
Darpan Jain has overseen India’s services trade negotiations since 2019, producing seven FTAs with services chapters. An analysis of implementation records reveals zero concluded mutual recognition agreements, Mode 4 provisions that preserve partner-country quotas unchanged, and 70 per cent sectoral concentration in IT — the sector that needs FTAs least.