Editorials/Opinions Analysis For UPSC 29 January 2026

Content

1. India’s Tourism Paradox — Potential Without Performance
2. India–EU FTA — A Case of Mature and Pragmatic Negotiation

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India’s Tourism Paradox — Potential Without Performance

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Context

• Despite unparalleled natural, cultural, and civilisational diversity, India attracted only 5.6 million foreign tourist arrivals (FTAs) till August 2025, far below global peers with smaller size and resources.
• Comparative underperformance is stark: Singapore received 11.6 million FTAs, while Thailand earned over $60 billion from tourism, highlighting India’s unrealised economic and strategic potential.

Background — Why Tourism Matters ?

• Tourism is a high employment-multiplier sector, generating more jobs per unit investment than manufacturing, especially benefiting unskilled and semi-skilled workers.
• According to World Tourism Organization, tourism-led growth supports inclusive development, regional balance, and social stability in youth-heavy economies.

The Three ‘I’s Holding India Back – 1.Image Deficit

Perception vs Reality

• India’s global image is shaped less by its heritage and more by concerns around women’s safety, sanitation, scams, bureaucratic hurdles, and inconsistent tourist experiences.
• Branding campaigns like Incredible India cannot offset repeated negative narratives unless safety, predictability, and ease of travel improve on the ground.

Need for Segmented Branding

• India’s vast diversity requires multiple targeted narratives — Spiritual India, Adventure India, Luxury India — marketed distinctly to specific international audiences.
• Thematic circuits such as Buddhist, Ramayana, Himalayan, Coastal, and Cricket circuits offer scalable, story-driven tourism products with global appeal.

Infrastructure Gap

First and Last Impressions Matter

• Tourist experience begins at airports, immigration counters, roads, signage, Wi-Fi, and sanitation, where inconsistency erodes perceived value.
• Poor last-mile connectivity, inadequate public toilets, and under-maintained heritage sites dilute gains from premium hotels or iconic attractions.

Cost Competitiveness Paradox

• While India is marketed as a budget destination, mid-range and luxury travel often costs more than Southeast Asia, reducing competitiveness in high-spending segments.

India Itself’ — Experience Management Challenge

Scale and Service Culture

• Crowds, noise, touts, scams, and harassment overwhelm first-time visitors, creating trust deficits and discouraging repeat tourism.
• Hospitality sector faces a ~40% shortage of trained personnel, with limited vocational appeal and weak professionalisation of tourism services.

Immigration as Soft Power Interface

• Although e-visas improved access, India lags in ease-of-travel indices due to discretionary immigration practices and inconsistent visitor treatment.
• Denial of entry based on past criticism undermines India’s democratic confidence and damages its international image disproportionately.

Fixing the Deficit — A Multi-Pronged Strategy

Rebrand with Precision

• Shift from generic messaging to targeted, circuit-based branding, supported by digital storytelling, virtual tours, influencer partnerships, and authentic user-generated content.
• Tourism branding should sell experiences, not monuments, positioning India as a world to inhabit, not merely a destination to visit.

Infrastructure That Matches Ambition

• Expand public–private partnerships through schemes like Adopt a Heritage for site maintenance, digital museums, and visitor amenities.
• Launch a nationwide Clean Tourism Mission focusing on toilets, signage, waste management, and sustainable transport at all major destinations.

Safety, Skills, and Service Quality

• Scale up tourist police, especially women officers; enforce strict action against scams and harassment; provide multilingual helplines and verified service platforms.
• Invest in vocational training, local guides, homestays, eco-tourism operators, and artisans to professionalise grassroots tourism.

Visa and Regulatory Reforms

• Simplify and fast-track e-visa processes, explore selective visa-on-arrival, and offer long-term multi-entry visas for repeat travellers.
• Shift immigration culture from gatekeeping to facilitation, recognising tourism as soft power diplomacy.

Sustainability and Authenticity

• Regulate footfalls at fragile sites, promote community-based tourism, and ensure ecological and cultural preservation alongside growth.
• Align tourism expansion with climate resilience, local livelihoods, and cultural integrity.

Economic Opportunity and Strategic Imperative

Jobs, Stability, and Growth

• Tourism can absorb India’s growing workforce amid automation-driven job losses in manufacturing, particularly in youth-dense regions vulnerable to unrest.
• Strategic tourism investment strengthens economic resilience, regional stability, and India’s global influence.

Policy Coherence Needed

• GST structure has unintentionally hurt hospitality by denying full input tax credit, making hotels worse off at lower nominal rates — a distortion needing urgent correction.
• Treat tourism as a core industry, not a peripheral service, with tax rationalisation, policy incentives, and institutional support.

Conclusion

• India does not lack attractions; it lacks consistency, coordination, and experience management across the tourism value chain.
• Refining image, infrastructure, and service culture can convert India from a tantalising idea into a top-tier global destination — the world is ready; India must be too.

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India–EU FTA — A Case of Mature and Pragmatic Negotiation

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Context

• India has concluded a Free Trade Agreement with the European Union, a significant milestone given the scale, complexity, and negotiating asymmetry between the two economies.
• The agreement comes after prolonged negotiations, earlier stalled in 2013, particularly over automobiles, and amid rising global trade fragmentation and protectionism.

Background — Why the India–EU FTA Matters ?

• The European Union accounts for nearly 12% of India’s total trade, compared to about 16% combined share of India’s other eight FTAs signed over the past four years.
• Unlike previous FTAs with smaller partners, this deal tests India’s capacity to negotiate with a large, rules-intensive, and politically complex trading bloc.

Core Strength — Negotiating Maturity and Balance

Market Access Gains

EU Concessions

• The EU has agreed to eliminate tariffs on 99.5% of India’s exports, with most lines moving to zero duty immediately, significantly improving India’s export competitiveness.

India’s Reciprocal Commitments

• India has offered tariff concessions on 97.5% of EU exports, reflecting reciprocity while carefully sequencing liberalisation to protect sensitive domestic sectors.

Protection of Strategic Interests

Agriculture and Dairy

• India successfully excluded sensitive agricultural sectors and dairy, preserving farmer livelihoods and food security, while the EU also protected its own vulnerable farm segments.

Automobiles — From Deadlock to Design

• Earlier negotiations collapsed over autos; the current quota-based tariff system protects India’s mass-market manufacturers while opening controlled access for European luxury carmakers.

Wine and Spirits

• Quota-based concessions on wine meet long-standing EU demands, particularly from France, while shielding India’s nascent domestic wine industry from sudden import surges.

Beyond Tariffs — Strategic Complementarity

• Parallel agreements on mobility, defence cooperation, and technology signal a broader strategic partnership, moving the relationship beyond transactional trade liberalisation.

Key Concerns and Structural Challenges

Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM)

Unresolved Cost Pressure

• India could not secure exemptions from the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, which currently covers six products but is designed to expand across industrial goods.

Partial Mitigation

• India negotiated a most-favoured treatment clause, ensuring that any CBAM concession extended to another country would automatically apply to India.

Manufacturing Readiness

• To leverage the FTA as an export platform, India must accelerate large-scale manufacturing reforms, including logistics efficiency, scale economies, and regulatory predictability.
• Without domestic capacity expansion, tariff concessions alone may not translate into sustained export growth or FDI inflows.

Implementation Lag

• The FTA must be translated into 27 European languages, approved by individual EU members, and ratified by the European Parliament, delaying on-ground benefits.
• Prolonged ratification risks diluting the agreement’s relevance, especially as India faces tariff pressures from the United States.

Strategic Assessment : What the Deal Signals ?

• The agreement reflects India’s evolution from a defensive trade posture to calibrated openness, combining market access with sectoral safeguards.
• It demonstrates India’s ability to negotiate rules-based trade without surrendering policy space, a key requirement for a large developing economy.

Way Forward

• India should push for expedited EU ratification, align domestic manufacturing and logistics reforms with export opportunities, and proactively prepare for CBAM through green industrial transitions.
• Continuous review mechanisms will be essential to ensure that negotiated gains translate into real trade flows, investment, and technology transfer.

Conclusion

• The India–EU FTA is not flawless, but it is balanced, realistic, and strategically sound, reflecting negotiation maturity rather than headline-driven liberalisation.
• In an era of geopolitical trade realignments, the agreement positions India as a credible, confident, and pragmatic economic partner, provided implementation keeps pace with ambition.

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