Severely criticised old firm organised trade around India (10)
I believe the answer is:
excoriated
'severely criticised' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both to do with communicating as well as being past participle verbs.
Perhaps there's a link between them I don't understand?
'old firm organised trade around india' is the wordplay.
'old' becomes 'ex' (prefix meaning former or onetime).
'firm' becomes 'co' (a firm is a company).
'organised' is an anagram indicator.
'around' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'india' becomes 'i' (phonetic alphabet: alpha, bravo, charlie etc.).
'trade' with letters rearranged gives 'rated'.
'rated' placed around 'i' is 'riated'.
'ex'+'co'+'riated'='EXCORIATED'
Can you help me to learn more?