'Politics now trumps economics, have to hedge against all odds'

EXTERNAL AFFAIRS MINISTER S Jaishankar on Saturday said politics increasingly trumps economics in the present era, and in an “uncertain world”, it is important that “we continuously diversify supply sources to guarantee national needs”.

- PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

Jaishankar was addressing a gathering after being conferred an Honorary Doctorate by IIM-Calcutta at its campus. He also said India has been actively pursuing self-reliance and making itself a manufacturing base for industries.

"This is an era where politics increasingly trumps economics...and that is not a pun... In an uncertain world, it is all the more important that we continuously diversify supply sources to guarantee our national needs,” Jaishankar said.

“The United States, long the underwriter of the contemporary system, has set radically new terms of engagement. It is doing so by dealing with countries on a one-on-one basis,” he noted. The external affairs minister said that China has “long played by its own rules”, and is doing so even now.