The world looks a different place through the other end of the telescope. For westerners, the crisis in Ukraine is about the threat to the European order posed by Russian revanchism. Visiting New Delhi the other day, I was presented with a different perspective. There was only one winner from President Vladimir Putin’s confrontation with the west: China’s Xi Jinping.

India’s Narendra Modi has surprised during his first months in office. The pace of economic modernisation has fallen short of high expectations. Indian business leaders mutter that while the prime minister has set off in the right direction, his caution has belied an unchallenged grip on power.

Many expected a “big bang”. They are getting instead a series of useful but unspectacular advances. Foreign investors have been reminded of the ruling Bharatiya Janata party’s mercantilist roots. Mr Modi is navigating – by most accounts a bit too cautiously – between the need for foreign capital and knowhow, and the defensive nationalism of his own party.