Parley by The Hindu

Can the ICJ ruling force rich nations to pay for historical emissions?

Thu, 31 Jul 2025 16:56:00 -0000

On July 23, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a landmark advisory opinion reaffirming states’ legal obligations to mitigate climate change.

The court emphasised that countries are required to reduce their greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions and support vulnerable nations. The ruling has sparked debates over sovereignty, enforcement, and global equity.

Can the ICJ ruling force rich nations to pay for historical emissions?

Guests: Ted Nordhaus, American environmental thinker and co-founder of the Breakthrough Institute, which is based in California, and Anand Grover, U.N. Special Rapporteur on health, and has represented environmental and health related cases at the Supreme Court.

Host: Kunal Shankar

Edited by Jude Francis Weston

Should India relax its adoption procedures?

Thu, 24 Jul 2025 14:27:00 -0000

By analysing data from the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA), The Hindu data team recently found that for every child free for adoption in India, 13 parents wait in line. The Supreme Court has directed CARA to take measures to streamline and expedite the adoption process.

Should India relax its adoption procedure? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Aloma Lobo, adoptive parent, a former chairperson of CARA, and an adoption counsellor; Smriti Gupta, adoptive parent. She runs an NGO called ‘Where Are India’s Children?’, which supports efforts to bring eligible children into the adoption pool

Host: Priscilla Jebaraj

Edited by: Sharmada Venkatasubramanian

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Should political leaders retire at 75?

Thu, 17 Jul 2025 16:44:00 -0000

The suggestion of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat last week that leaders should step aside at the age of 75 triggered a debate. Opposition leaders saw Mr. Bhagwat’s comment as a nudge from the RSS to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is turning 75 in September, to step down. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has maintained a studied silence on the issue.

Should political leaders retire at 75? Here we discuss the issue.

Guests: Manisha Priyam, Sir Louis Matheson Distinguished Visiting Professor, Monash University; Rahul Verma, Associate Professor, Shiv Nadar School of Law, and Fellow, Centre for Policy Research

Host: Sobhana K. Nair

Edited by: Sharmada Venkatasubramanian

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Are existing mechanisms effective in preventing custodial violence?

Thu, 10 Jul 2025 15:23:00 -0000

The gruesome death of security guard Ajith Kumar, 27, while in police custody in Tamil Nadu’s Sivaganga district last month, is yet another grim addition to the long and growing list of custodial deaths in India. In response, Chief Minister M.K. Stalin has ordered a CBI probe to ensure a transparent investigation, and the Madras High Court has directed the agency to complete its inquiry and submit a report by August 20.

Are the existing institutional mechanisms effective in preventing custodial violence? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Anup Surendranath, Professor and Executive Director of The Square Circle Clinic, NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad; M. Srinivasan, Professor of Criminology at the University of Madras

Host: Aaratrika Bhaumik

Edited by Sharmada Venkatasubramanian

Read the parley article here.

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Is U.S. imperialism a threat to the world?

Thu, 03 Jul 2025 15:49:00 -0000

Beginning with the Maharashtra Assembly elections last year, Opposition parties have made many allegations regarding manipulations in electoral rolls. The Leader of the Opposition, Rahul Gandhi, and others have raised the matter both inside and outside Parliament. The Election Commission of India (ECI) has maintained that it is impossible to tamper with voter rolls. Two days ago, it issued instructions for holding Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar for the Assembly elections to ensure that the names of all eligible citizens are included, the name of no ineligible citizens are included, and to introduce complete transparency in the process of addition or deletion of electors in the electoral rolls.

Is voter registration being subject to fraud? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Happymon Jacob, founder-director of the Council for Strategic and Defense Research; Prakash Karat, former general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)

Host: Vighnesh P. Venkitesh

Edited by Sharmada Venkatasubramanian

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Is voter registration being subject to fraud?

Thu, 26 Jun 2025 16:45:00 -0000

Is voter registration being subject to fraud? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Praveen Chakravarty, head of the Congress’s data analytics department; Rangarajan R., former IAS officer and author of Courseware on Polity Simplified

Host: Sreeparna Chakrabarty

Edited by Sharmada Venkatasubramanian

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Will delaying the Census affect its implementation?

Fri, 20 Jun 2025 01:55:00 -0000

On June 16, the Registrar General of India under the Union Ministry of Home Affairs issued a notification that India’s population will be counted in 2027. Following demands by the Opposition parties, among other reasons, the government has also announced the inclusion of caste enumeration in the Census for the first time in independent India.

The last Census was held in 2011. The exercise was to take place in 2021, but was delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It has now been further pushed to 2027.

Will delaying the Census affect its implementation? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Sanjay Kumar, Co-Director of Lokniti, a research programme at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi; Poonam Muttreja, Executive Director, Population Foundation of India

Host: Vijaita Singh

Is Bangladesh slipping into authoritarianism?

Thu, 12 Jun 2025 16:22:00 -0000

On June 7, on the eve of Eid ul Azha, the Chief Adviser to the interim government in Bangladesh, Dr. Muhammad Yunus, delivered a televised address to the nation, promising to hold elections in April 2026. He also announced that the country would witness the launch of the ‘July Proclamation’, which had been earlier planned by student activists to “bury” the Constitution of Bangladesh, as it is linked to the founder of Bangladesh and Awami League co-founder, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Prof. Yunus said that the document will “include a list of reform proposals, agreed upon by all parties, aimed at building a welfare-oriented state.” As the interim government of Bangladesh has announced that there could be constitutional reforms, there are concerns that the country is slipping into authoritarianism.

Is Bangladesh slipping into authoritarianism? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Smruti S. Pattanaik, Research Fellow, Manohar Parrikar Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses; Sanjay Pulipaka, Chairperson of the Politeia Research Foundation

Host: Kallol Bhattacherjee

Audio edited by Sharmada Venkatasubramanian

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Should India amend its nuclear energy laws?

Thu, 05 Jun 2025 17:59:00 -0000

Discussions are ongoing in India to amend both the country’s nuclear liability framework, regulated by the 2010 Civil Liability for Nuclear Damages Act (CLNDA) the 1962 Atomic Energy Act to allow private companies to build and operate nuclear energy generation facilities. This move is part of a broader strategy to expand India’s nuclear energy capacity from the current 8 GW to 100 GW by 2047, aligning with the country’s clean energy goals. India has 22 nuclear power generation plants operated by the state-run Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL), while two more sites in Andhra and Maharashtra have ongoing projects that have been delayed mainly due to reservations that Electricite de France through Areva and the American Westinghouse Corporation - have on India’s supplier liability clause. India’s CLNDA is unique in explicitly allowing the operator of a nuclear facility to seek recourse against suppliers in specific cases of defective equipment or services. There have been both support for these amendments and criticism against them.

Should India amend its nuclear energy laws? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Dr. Ashley Tellis and D. Raghunandan

Host: Kunal Shankar

Edited by Jude Francis Weston

Is the three-year practice mandate for judicial service welcome?

Thu, 29 May 2025 18:04:00 -0000

On May 20, 2025, the Supreme Court restored a minimum of three years of legal practice as a mandatory condition to apply for entry-level judicial service. The ruling reverses the Court’s 2002 decision that had removed the practice requirement, originally mandated by a 1993 judgment.

Is the three-year practice requirement a welcome move? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Prashant Reddy T., co-author of Tareekh Pe Justice: Reforms for India’s District Courts; Bharat Chugh, Delhi-based advocate and former civil judge

Host: Aaratrika Bhaumik

Edited by Jude Francis Weston

Is establishing the truth a problem during a conflict?

Thu, 22 May 2025 15:35:00 -0000

Parallel to the escalation of the recent military tensions between India and Pakistan, misinformation and disinformation surged online, making it increasingly difficult for the public to distinguish between fact and fiction. Many media outlets published sensational stories, riddled with unverified claims, and disseminated fake pictures and videos. Jingoism often drove the public response.

Is establishing the truth a problem during a conflict? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Nirupama Subramanian, independent journalist who was The Hindu’s correspondent in Pakistan from 2006 to 2010; Pratik Sinha, co-founder, AltNews, a fact-checking website

Host: Mandira Moddie

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Is Bihar’s high replacement rate a consequence of poverty?

Thu, 15 May 2025 15:04:00 -0000

According to the Sample Registration System report for 2021 released by the Registrar General of India on May 7, the Total Fertility Rate (TFR), which is the average number of children that a woman is expected to have in her childbearing years, in India was 2.0 in 2021, the same as in 2020. While Delhi and West Bengal reported the lowest TFR of 1.4, Bihar reported the highest at 3.0.

Is Bihar’s high replacement rate a consequence of poverty? We discuss the question here.

Guests: Saswata Ghosh, Prasenjit Bose

Host: Shiv Sahay Singh

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Can parents keep tabs on the social media use of teens?

Thu, 08 May 2025 18:46:00 -0000

The recent death of a young entrepreneur, who reportedly took the extreme step after she lost followers on social media, is sufficient reason for us to pause and assess the role of social media in our lives.

There is no doubt that social media is here to stay and has a huge role to play in our lives. By holding up a world that seems perfect, and fickle with its devotion, social media can take a toll on mental health, particularly that of youngsters. On the other hand, the Netflix series Adolescence dragged us willy-nilly into a world of teenagers that adults thought they understood but were actually far off the mark from.

Given the centrality of social media in the lives of children, how can adults navigate this terrain?

Can parents keep tabs on the social media use of teens? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Meghna Singhal, clinical psychotherapist from NIMHANS and parenting coach; Sannuthi Suresh, programme co-ordinatior, healing and support services, Tulir Centre for Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse

Host: Ramya Kannan

Edited by Jude Francis Weston

Has the Pahalgam attack crossed a red line?

Thu, 01 May 2025 16:11:00 -0000

The calculated brutality of the terror attack in Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir appears to have crossed a red line for India-Pakistan ties that were already at an all-time low. Following its diplomatic measures against Pakistan, what appropriate military response can India craft?

Has the Pahalgam attack crossed a red line? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Sharat Sabharwal, Former High Commissioner to Pakistan and author of India’s Pakistan Conundrum: Managing a Complex Relationship; Lieutenant General (Retired) Deependra Singh Hooda, Former Commander in Chief of the Indian Army’s Northern Command and oversaw the surgical strikes across the Line of Control in 2016

Host: Suhasini Haidar

Is the World Trade Organization still relevant?

Thu, 24 Apr 2025 16:02:00 -0000

United States President Donald Trump’s ‘reciprocal tariffs’ have been compared to the Smoot-Hawley tariffs of the 1930s, which many say hastened the slide into the Great Depression. The difference between the 1930s and now is that we have the World Trade Organization (WTO) to oversee and enforce global trade rules. However, some argue that over the years, the WTO has gradually lost its compass and is in need of massive reforms.

Is the WTO still relevant? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Mohan Kumar, Professor of Diplomatic Practice at the Jindal School of International Affairs, O.P. Jindal Global University. He previously served as India’s lead negotiator at GATT and WTO; Mark Linscott, Senior Adviser with the U.S.India Strategic Partnership Forum and former assistant, United States Trade Representative for South and Central Asia

Host: Samreen Wani

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Are Indian startups not scaling up on innovation?

Thu, 17 Apr 2025 19:28:00 -0000

Recently, while speaking at the Startup Mahakumbh in New Delhi, Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal said that startups were not innovating enough and were limiting themselves to grocery delivery.

Are Indian startups not scaling up on innovation? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Thillai Rajan, Professor and Head, Research Centre on Startups, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras; P.K. Jayadevan, author, communications professional, and former journalist

Host: Ashokamithran T.

Edited by Jude Weston

Are existing mechanisms effective in combating judicial corruption?

Thu, 10 Apr 2025 16:21:00 -0000

Last month, unaccounted cash was reportedly recovered from the official residence of former Delhi High Court judge, Justice Yashwant Varma. In response, Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna initiated an in-house inquiry into the matter. Justice Varma has since been repatriated to his parent High Court in Allahabad and will not be assigned any judicial work until the Supreme Court-mandated inquiry is completed.

Are existing mechanisms effective in combating judicial corruption? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Sanjay Hegde, senior advocate based in Delhi; Alok Prasanna Kumar, co-founder of Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy

Host: Aaratrika Bhaumik

Edited by Jude Francis Weston

Should India reduce tariffs given the U.S. moves?

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 15:24:00 -0000

U.S. President Donald Trump’s move to impose reciprocal tariffs on many countries, including India, has caused significant uncertainty in the global economy. Indian policymakers have tried to placate Mr. Trump by reducing tariffs on a number of U.S. goods, and they have also been in talks with U.S. trade negotiators about a possible bilateral trade agreement.

Should India reduce tariffs given the U.S.’s moves? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Ajay Shah, economic columnist affiliated with the XKDR Forum; Laveesh Bhandari, president and senior fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress

Host: Prashanth Perumal J.

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Should the free movement regime between India and Myanmar remain?

Fri, 28 Mar 2025 08:04:00 -0000

In February 2024, Union Home Minister Amit Shah announced that the Free Movement Regime (FMR) along the Myanmar border would be scrapped but there has neither been any notification by the Ministry of External Affairs in this regard nor any bilateral agreement with Myanmar so far. Former Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh’s insistence is said to have led to the decision following complaints that unregulated movement of people from across the border was fuelling the ethnic conflict in his State. Mizoram and Nagaland opposed this decision, which has not yet been implemented on the ground. The FMR came into existence in 1968 as people on either side of the border have familial and ethnic ties. The territorial limit of free movement then was 40 km, which was reduced to 16 km in 2004, and additional regulations were enforced in 2016. Should the FMR between India and Myanmar remain?

Guests: Henry Zodinliana Pachuau and Likhase Sangtam

Host: Rahul Karmakar

Should immigrants have the same right to protest as citizens?

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 17:37:00 -0000

Ranjani Srinivasan, an Indian doctoral student at Columbia University, left the U.S. on March 11, 2025, following the revocation of her student visa by the U.S. State Department. Her departure followed a raid on her campus residence by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, who have accused her of being a “pro-Hamas sympathiser”. Earlier, on March 8, immigration authorities arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian student activist and green card holder, for allegedly violating his terms of residency by supporting a U.S.-designated terrorist organisation.

Should immigrants have the same right to protest as citizens? Here we discuss the issue.

Guests: Happymon Jacob, professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University and founder-director of the Council for Strategic and Defense Research; Prabhash Ranjan, professor at Jindal Global Law School

Host: Aaratrika Bhaumik

Recorded and edited by Jude Francis Weston

Is learning a third language, especially Hindi, necessary?

Thu, 13 Mar 2025 19:05:56 -0000

The National Education Policy, 2020, encourages students up to at least Class 5 to learn a regional language in addition to the local language or mother tongue and English. While the Central government asserts that the choice of the additional regional language is left to the States, the NEP’s strong pitch for the three-language formula has led to fear, especially in Tamil Nadu, that there is an attempt being made to impose Hindi on non-Hindi speaking States. This week, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin dubbed the NEP a “Hindutva policy” aimed at promoting Hindi, rather than focusing on India’s overall development.

Is learning a third language, especially Hindi, necessary? Here we discuss the issue.

Guests: Yogendra Yadav, psephologist and founding national president of Swaraj India; T.M. Krishna, carnatic musician and author

Host: K.V. Prasad

Recorded and edited by Jude Francis Weston

Is Artificial Intelligence affecting critical thinking skills?

Thu, 06 Mar 2025 18:11:20 -0000

Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools are increasingly being used in classrooms around the world. Last month, British universities were warned to “stress-test” all assessments after new research revealed that “almost all” undergraduates are using generative AI (GenAI) in their studies. Last year, a study by TeamLease EdTech revealed that over 61% of educators in India are using AI tools. All this has given rise to fears that students will likely begin accepting information at face value rather than critically analysing it.

Does the use of AI in education affect critical thinking skills? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Arun Kumar Tangirala, Professor Chemical Engineering, IIT Tirupati, and Professor, Wadhwani School of Data Science and AI, IIT Madras; Arul George Scaria, Professor of Law, National Law School of India University, Bengaluru

Host: Sai Charan

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Will the U.S. change in its Ukraine policy end the Russia-Ukraine war?

Thu, 27 Feb 2025 17:12:03 -0000

On February 19, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Riyadh in a dramatic reversal of the previous U.S. administration’s policy not to have peace talks with Russia since the beginning of the war with Ukraine in February 2022. This happened because of Donald Trump’s election campaign, which called for “ending the war in Ukraine”. Since taking office, President Trump has spoken on phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is also criticised on Truth Social.

Will the U.S.’s change in its Ukraine policy end the Russia-Ukraine war? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Kanwal Sibal, former Foreign Secretary; Anuradha Chenoy, adjunct professor, Jindal Global University

Host: Kallol Bhattacherjee

Is there a right to take offence? | The Hindu parley podcast

Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:01:00 -0000

The popular YouTube show ‘India’s Got Latent’ has sparked controversy after criminal proceedings were initiated against its creators and participants over allegedly obscene remarks in one of its episodes. On February 18, 2025, the Supreme Court granted interim protection from arrest to podcaster Ranveer Allahbadia, one of the participants named in the FIRs. This has reignited the debate on whether stringent criminal sanctions are justified for contentious speech.

Is there a right to take offence? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Justice Gautam Patel, former judge of the Bombay High Court; Dushyant Dave, senior advocate based in Delhi

Host: Aaratrika Bhaumik

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Is appointing ad-hoc judges a viable means to reduce backlog?

Thu, 13 Feb 2025 16:51:13 -0000

The Supreme Court on January 30, 2025, permitted High Courts to appoint retired judges on an ad-hoc basis to address the mounting backlog of cases. However, these judges were authorised to hear only criminal appeals as part of a bench led by a sitting judge.

Is the ad-hoc appointment of judges a viable remedy for reducing pendency? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Justice Rajeev Shakdher, former Chief Justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court; Shadan Farasat, senior advocate based in Delhi

Host: Aaratrika Bhaumik

Should India build a sovereign, foundational AI model?

Thu, 06 Feb 2025 18:50:47 -0000

In 2023, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s remarks in India on the cost of training foundational AI models — like the ones that power ChatGPT — sparked a debate on whether Indian firms should spend millions of dollars on the aim of that technology. The issue pits sovereignty and national pride against financial constraints.

Is it necessary for sovereignty and business reasons for India to work towards a foundational model, as the IT Ministry’s IndiaAI Mission has announced it will? Here we discuss the issue.

Guests: Pranesh Prakash co-founded the Centre for Internet and Society, and is currently an Associate Fellow at the Yale Law School Information Society Project; Tanuj Bhojwani was until recently the head of People + AI, and has worked extensively on IndiaStack projects like UPI and Aadhaar as a part of iSPIRT

Host: Aroon Deep

Edited by Jude Francis Weston

Has the INDIA bloc lost its vitality after the Lok Sabha polls?

Thu, 30 Jan 2025 19:02:34 -0000

The INDIA bloc managed to prevent the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from reaching the majority mark in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. However, it went on to lose the Haryana and Maharashtra Assembly elections. In the ongoing campaign to the Delhi Assembly elections, the INDIA bloc appears fragmented as certain constituents of the coalition, such as the Samajwadi Party and the Trinamool Congress, are supporting the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), leaving the Congress to fight on its own.

Has the INDIA bloc lost its vitality after the Lok Sabha polls? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: K.K. Kailash, Professor, Department of Political Sciences, Hyderabad University; Hilal Ahmed, Associate Professor, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies

Host: Sobhana K. Nair

Edited by Jude Francis Weston

Is poverty being underestimated in India?

Thu, 23 Jan 2025 17:20:16 -0000

Last month, the government released a factsheet on the 2023-24 Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES), which recorded a decline in poverty in urban and rural areas. Over the last few years, policymakers and academics have debated the issues of incomparable data sets, the unavailability of data, and the definition of an adequate consumption basket to determine a poverty line.

Is poverty being underestimated in India? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: P.C. Mohanan, former member of the National Statistical Commission; N.R. Bhanumurthy, Director of the Madras School of Economics

Host: Samreen Wani

Edited by Jude Francis Weston

Has T20 cricket deskilled Indian batting?

Thu, 16 Jan 2025 17:15:36 -0000

India’s 1-3 loss in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy marked the end of its decade-long dominance in the series against Australia. This was not an exception; India’s performance in Test cricket has been dismal for a while now. Over the last four months, the team has lost six out of eight Tests, including a shocking 0-3 defeat against New Zealand at home.

Has T20 cricket deskilled Indian batting? Here we discuss the question.

Is India open to the idea of dual citizenship?

Thu, 09 Jan 2025 16:49:13 -0000

At an event in December, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said there are a lot of challenges in providing dual citizenship to Indians settled abroad. He pointed out that the Overseas Citizenship of India drive is a step towards meeting the demand and added that the debate on dual citizenship is “still alive”.

Here we discuss the issue.

Guests: Vivek Katju, Diplomat Ambassador; Amitabh Mattoo, Dean of the School of International Studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University

Host: Kallol Bhattacherjee

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Should voter ID be linked with Aadhaar to combat voter fraud?

Thu, 02 Jan 2025 17:57:31 -0000

On December 29, 2024, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accused each other of manipulating the Delhi electoral rolls in an attempt to win the Delhi Assembly elections, scheduled to be held in February. While the AAP has accused the BJP of submitting applications to the Election Commission of India (ECI) to get the names of voters removed from the list in its strongholds, the BJP has claimed that the AAP government is aiding Rohingya immigrants to settle in the capital so that it can secure their votes. Earlier, the Congress had accused the ECI of arbitrarily deleting or adding voters’ names in electoral rolls before the Maharashtra Assembly elections.

Should voter IDs be linked to Aadhaar to ensure transparency and put all these political claims and counterclaims to rest? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: S.Y. Quraishi, former Chief Election Commissioner of India; R.S. Sharma, former Chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and the first Director General of the Unique Identification Authority of India

Host: Sreeparna Chakrabarty

Edited by Jude Francis Weston

Should wealth tax be brought back to address inequality in India?

Thu, 26 Dec 2024 16:38:34 -0000

At a recent panel discussion in New Delhi, French economist Thomas Piketty suggested that a wealth and inheritance tax be imposed on the super-rich in India, which, in turn, could fund health and education. India’s Chief Economic Advisor, Anantha Nageswaran, opposed the idea, arguing that higher taxes could encourage fund outflows.

Should the wealth tax be brought back to address inequality in India? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Ajay Shah, Senior Research Fellow and Co-founder Xkdr Forum; Rahul Menon, Associate professor at the Jindal School of Government and Public Policy

Host: Samreen Wani

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Should legislatures in India have fixed tenures?

Thu, 19 Dec 2024 17:58:26 -0000

The Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Ninth Amendment) Bill, 2024, introduced in the Lok Sabha on December 17, 2024, mandates a fixed five-year term for the Lok Sabha, with State Legislature elections aligned to this cycle. If the Lok Sabha or any State Assembly is dissolved before completing its full term, mid-term elections will be held only for the remainder of the five-year term.

Should legislatures in India have fixed tenures? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: P.D.T. Achary, Former Secretary General of the Lok Sabha; M.R. Madhavan, Co-founder and president of the PRS Legislative Research

Host: Aaratrika Bhaumik

Edited by Jude Francis Weston

Should the executive have the power to pardon?

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 17:27:23 -0000

United States President Joe Biden’s recent decision to pardon his son Hunter Biden for any federal crimes he committed or may have committed between January 1, 2014, and December 1, 2024 has brought renewed focus on the expansive clemency powers granted to the President by the U.S. Constitution. The President’s volte-face has provoked strong condemnation from both Republicans and Democrats.

Should the executive possess clemency powers? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Sanjay Hedge, Senior advocate based in Delhi; Alok Prasanna Kumar, Co-founder and Karnataka lead of Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy

Host: Aaratrika Bhaumik

Edited by Jude Francis Weston

Is Israel’s war in Gaza putting the global order at peril?

Thu, 05 Dec 2024 14:41:33 -0000

Nearly 400 days since the October 7 attacks on Israel that led to the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, West Bank, and Lebanon, more than 43,000 have been killed, mostly civilians. Despite calls by the United Nations (UN) for urgent action to address the humanitarian crisis; an International Court of Justice (ICJ) verdict on the risk of genocide being perpetrated in Palestine; and warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif for alleged war crimes, there seems no let-up in the violence.

Is Israel’s war in Gaza putting the global order at peril? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Navtej Sarna, served as India’s envoy to the United States, Israel and the United Kingdom; Trita Parsi, Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute in Washington, and author of books on Iran-U.S. relations

Host: Suhasini Haidar

Edited by Sharmada Venkatasubramanian

Do new schemes ahead of elections amount to ‘voter bribes’?

Thu, 28 Nov 2024 18:36:00 -0000

On November 23, the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party-led Mahayuti alliance won a landslide victory in Maharashtra Assembly elections. Among several reasons cited for this victory are the implementation of the Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana — a direct benefit transfer programme introduced by the Maharashtra government in July 2024 – four months ahead of the polls. The scheme, much like its Madhya Pradesh counterpart, which was also introduced ahead of the Assembly elections there, aims to provide monthly financial assistance of ₹1,500 to poor women between the ages of 21 and 65 whose incomes are less than ₹2.5 lakh annually.

Critics say such schemes amount to bribing voters and giving the incumbent government an unfair advantage. Here we discuss the issue.

Guests: Reetika Khera, a development economist working on social policy in India and a professor of economics at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi; Vikas Rawal, Professor, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University

Host: Kunal Shankar

Edited by Jude Francis Weston

Is social media doing more harm than good to democracy?

Thu, 21 Nov 2024 18:00:33 -0000

The U.K.’s The Guardian newspaper announced earlier this month that it will no longer be posting on X, claiming that it is “a toxic media platform” and that its owner, Elon Musk, “has been able to use its influence to shape political discourse.”

Is social media a useful tool or is it becoming a threat to democratic societies? Here we discuss the question

Guests: Alan Rusbridger, Editor of Prospect Magazine, former editor-in-chief of The Guardian and a member of Meta’s Oversight Board, which makes content and policy recommendations for Facebook, Instagram, and Threads; Pratik Sinha, co-founder and editor of AltNews, a fact-checking website

Host: Priscilla Jebaraj

Are pro-natalist policies the way to address the ageing population problem?

Thu, 07 Nov 2024 13:12:48 -0000

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu recently expressed concern about Andhra Pradesh’s ageing population and urged the people of his State to have more children. Days later, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin attended a mass wedding event in Chennai. He said that the Census and delimitation process may encourage couples to give up thoughts of having a small family.

Are pro-natalist policies the best way of addressing the ageing population problem? Here we discuss the issue.

Guests: Gita Sen, Honorary Senior Advisor and Distinguished Professor, Public Health Foundation of India; Udaya Shankar Mishra, Honorary Professor, International Institute for Migration Development, Thiruvananthapuram

Host: Jagriti Chandra

Edited by Jude Francis Weston

Should chess be an Olympic sport?

Thu, 24 Oct 2024 17:23:12 -0000

India won a historic double gold at the 2024 Chess Olympiad in Budapest, Hungary, by clinching the top spot in both the open event and women’s team competitions. These victories will forever remain among India’s greatest achievements in sport. Chess enjoys huge popularity across the world. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) considers chess as a sport and recognises the International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation (FIDE) as an official federation. Yet, chess is not yet an Olympic sport.

Should chess be an Olympic sport? Here we discuss the issue.

Guests: Viswanathan Anand, five-time world champion and deputy president, FIDE; Pravin Thipsay, Grandmaster and coach

Host: P.K. Ajith Kumar

Edited by Jude Francis Weston

Has the Congress internalised its message of social justice?

Thu, 17 Oct 2024 17:17:06 -0000

The Congress’ social justice platform, centred around the call for equal representation at the caste-level and a nationwide caste census, has been hailed after the Lok Sabha elections this year. But within four months of the general election results, the results of the Haryana Assembly polls have raised questions about how well this messaging has percolated to the lower rungs of the party organisation.

Has the Congress internalised its message of social justice? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Sudha Pai, Retired Professor, Centre for Political Studies, JNU; Aditi Narayani Paswan, Assistant Professor Lakshmibai College, University of Delhi

Host: Abhinay Lakshman

Edited by Jude Francis Weston

Should EC ensure internal democracy in political parties?

Thu, 03 Oct 2024 16:16:19 -0000

India’s multi-party democracy thrives on diversity but often sees political parties driven by individual charisma rather than internal democracy. Despite their role in upholding the nation’s democratic framework, many parties struggle to maintain democratic structures. Can the Election Commission (EC) ensure these organisations practice internal democracy?

Guests: O. P. Rawat, Former Chief Election Commissioner; M.R. Madhavan, PRS Legislative Research President

Host: Sreeparna Chakrabarty

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Is India’s growth story benefiting only big capital?

Thu, 26 Sep 2024 15:50:55 -0000

India’s impressive economic growth since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic has surprised many, including those who were critical of the Centre’s economic policies. The Indian growth story is today widely praised across the world. In 2023-24, the country grew at 8.2%, the fastest among major economies. However, most of the economic gains in the last few years have mostly come from big businesses.

Is India’s growth story benefiting only big capital? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Himanshu, Professor of Economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University; Ritesh Kumar Singh, Business economist and founder of Indonomics Consulting

Host: Prashanth Perumal

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Should children be barred from social media?

Thu, 19 Sep 2024 15:41:04 -0000

The Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese recently announced a plan to set a minimum age to use social media platforms.

Should children be barred from social media? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Amanda Third, Professorial Research Fellow in Digital Social and Cultural Research in the Institute for Culture and Society and Co-Director of the Young and Resilient Research Centre at Western Sydney University; Aparajita Bharti, Founding Partner of TQH, a Delhi-based public policy research firm, and co-founder of Young Leaders for Active Citizenship

Host: Mandira Moddie

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Is it time for India to introduce a Universal Basic Income?

Thu, 12 Sep 2024 16:09:00 -0000

Due to the phenomenon of jobless growth, i.e., the rise in output and labour productivity without the commensurate growth in employment generation, several countries have mooted the idea of a universal basic income (UBI). This idea has gained traction, especially since the International Labour Organization (ILO)’s most recent World Employment and Social Outlook links the decrease in jobs growth and the increase in inequality to a surge in automation and the use of artificial intelligence (AI). Among the several suggestions on the ways to address this is a UBI.

Is it time for India to introduce a UBI? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Arun Kumar, Retired professor of economics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. He was Malcolm Adiseshiah Chair Professor at the Institute of Social Sciences; N.R. Bhanumurthy, Director, Madras School of Economics, Chennai. Views are personal

Host: Kunal Shankar

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Should digital platform owners be held liable for user-generated content?

Thu, 05 Sep 2024 17:57:49 -0000

Russia-born tech tycoon Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, was arrested in Paris on August 24. French authorities announced that Mr. Durov is under investigation for a litany of serious crimes, including enabling the distribution of child sexual abuse material on the app, facilitating drug trafficking, and refusing to cooperate with law enforcement.

Should digital platform owners be held liable for user-generated content? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Pranesh Prakash, Co-founder and former policy director at the Centre for Internet and Society; Rohit Kumar, Founding partner of the Quantum Hub

Host: Aaratrika Bhaumik

Edited by Jude Francis Weston

Should lateral entry in civil services be encouraged?

Thu, 29 Aug 2024 17:29:30 -0000

Following the brutal rape and murder of a trainee doctor in Kolkata, the issue of violence against healthcare workers has come to the forefront, with medical professionals across India demanding the enactment of a Central law to protect healthcare workers. In 2019, a Bill on this issue was drafted by the Central government, but it never saw the light of day.

Can a Central law ensure security for healthcare professionals at work? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Ashok Vardhan Shetty, retired IAS officer from Tamil Nadu cadre and former vice-chancellor of the Indian Maritime University; Harsh Shrivastava, a former CEO of the Microfinance Institutions Network, deputy speechwriter to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and a consultant in the Planning Commission

Host: Priscilla Jebaraj

Edited by Jude Francis Weston

Do we need a Central law for protection of healthcare professionals?

Thu, 22 Aug 2024 17:45:03 -0000

Can a Central law ensure security for healthcare professionals at work? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: R.V. Asokan, national president of the Indian Medical Association; Shanthi Ravindranath, doctor-activist, is Secretary, Doctors’ Association for Social Equality

Host: C. Maya

Edited by Jude Francis Weston

Does India lack a sporting culture outside cricket?

Thu, 15 Aug 2024 15:16:47 -0000

The Paris Olympics just ended with India securing six medals — one silver and five bronze — to place 71st in the medals tally. The country’s performance led to many questions about the need for a sporting culture.

Was India’s performance in the Olympics an outcome of its lack of sporting culture outside cricket? What more can be done? Here we discuss the question in a conversation.

Is the Centre being iniquitous in State transfers?

Thu, 01 Aug 2024 16:38:58 -0000

Opposition leaders have termed the 2024-25 Budget as the “Kursi Bachao Budget.” Chief Ministers have boycotted and walked out the NITI Aayog meeting chaired by the Prime Minister.There are allegations that Centre is discriminating against non-NDA States. This has renewed the interest in the debate about how resources are distributed amongst States.

Here we discuss whether the Centre is being iniquitous in State transfers.

Guests: Pinaki Chakraborty is visiting distinguished professor, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, New Delhi; R Ramakumar teaches at the School of Development Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.

Host: Jasmin Nihalani.

Is the Maharashtra Special Public Security Bill draconian? | The Hindu parley podcast

Thu, 25 Jul 2024 15:32:00 -0000

On July 11, the BJP-led Maha Yuti government tabled the Maharashtra Special Public Security Bill, 2024, in the Assembly. While presenting the Bill, Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said that it is aimed at curbing the menace of Naxalism in urban areas. He said that Naxalism is not limited to rural areas and is increasing in urban areas through frontal organisations. The unlawful activities of such organisations need to be controlled through effective legal means, he added. The provisions of the proposed Bill, which allows the State to declare any organisation as ‘unlawful’ with offences categorised as cognisable and non-bailable, has raised concerns.

Is the Maharashtra Special Public Security Bill draconian? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Yashovardhan Azad, retired Indian Police Service officer who has served in the Intelligence; Brinda Adige, human rights activist and founder of Global Concerns India

Host: Vijaita Singh

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Does India have enough laws to combat superstition?

Thu, 18 Jul 2024 15:47:21 -0000

The recent stampede at a religious congregation in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh, resulting in more than 120 deaths, has reignited the debate on whether India has adequate legislation to address exploitative religious and superstitious practices. Experts have advocated for a national law akin to existing legislation in Maharashtra and Karnataka to effectively address superstition, black magic, witch-hunting, and other inhuman practices.

Does India have enough laws to combat superstitious practices? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Avinash Patil, president, Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmulan Samiti (MANS); Alok Prasanna Kumar, co-founder and lead of Vidhi Karnataka.

Host: Aaratrika Bhaumik

Edited by Jude Francis Weston

Should States get special packages outside Finance Commission allocations? | The Hindu parley podcast

Thu, 11 Jul 2024 16:34:00 -0000

In the run-up to the Union Budget, Nitish Kumar and Chandrababu Naidu, the Chief Ministers of Bihar and Andhra Pradesh, respectively, who are in a position to decide the political fate of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Centre, have demanded special financial packages for their respective States. These packages could potentially increase the fiscal burden on the Centre and also on other States.

Should States get special packages outside Finance Commission allocations? Here we discuss the question

Guests: Arun Kumar, former professor of economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi; Pinaki Chakraborty, fellow at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy

Host: Prashanth Perumal

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Should India review its Myanmar policy in view of the humanitarian crisis?

Thu, 04 Jul 2024 17:21:39 -0000

The conflict between ethnic armed organisations (EAOs) and the military junta in Myanmar has created a serious humanitarian crisis, which the United Nations Security Council took up for discussion on July 3. Some experts on Myanmar have called for India to review its policy and establish channels with the EAOs to help the affected civilians.

Should India review its Myanmar policy in view of the humanitarian crisis? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Rajiv Bhatia, a Distinguished Fellow, Gateway House and a former Ambassador; Nandita Haksar, a human rights lawyer

Host: Kallol Bhattacherjee

Did a constitutional conscience drive much of the Dalit and OBC vote? | The Hindu parley podcast

Thu, 27 Jun 2024 15:54:00 -0000

The Constitution is seemingly at the centre of political rhetoric and symbolism in India right now. Opposition leaders have held up copies of the Constitution while walking into Parliament. They have waved these in the Prime Minister’s face. They have also held these copies while taking oath. Some argue that this is the Opposition’s tip to the mandate that it believes it has received from the country’s marginalised and oppressed communities to “Save the Constitution”.

So, did a constitutional conscience drive much of the Dalit and OBC (Other Backward Classes) vote this Lok Sabha elections? And to what extent? Here we discuss these questions.

Guests: Harish S. Wankhede, assistant professor at the Centre for Political Studies, JNU, New Delhi; Ravikant Kisana, Assistant Dean (Academic Affairs) and Associate Professor at Woxsen University, Hyderabad.

Host: Abhinay Lakshman

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Should EVs and Hybrids be treated equally for government subsidies?

Thu, 20 Jun 2024 17:03:32 -0000

India’s road transport sector contributes about 12% to the country’s CO2 emissions, according to the International Energy Agency, making it the third most greenhouse gas emitting sector after energy and agriculture. The Union government has been attempting to fast track decarbonising transport for almost a decade with the introduction of the Faster Adoption and Manufacture of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles, or FAME in 2015. The third iteration of this policy is likely to be announced in this year’s Union Budget. FAME attempts to generate demand for electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrids by subsidising retail sales, encouraging the manufacture of components and creating and nurturing an EV ecosystem nationwide. But the policy has changed from when it was introduced, with a steady removal of subsidies for hybrids. Some have welcomed this move, while others point to the lack of charging infrastructure, import dependence on advanced battery components and technology, and a grid still dominated by coal-based power, leading to an increase in EVs overall carbon footprint from mining rare earth elements to charging.

Here we discuss the the question.

Guests: Avinash Kumar Agarwal, Director, IIT Jodhpur and the lead author of a study comparing greenhouse gas emissions of battery, hybrid and ICE vehicles; Sharvari Patki, Program Head, Electric Mobility at the World Resources Institute, India

Host: Kunal Shankar

Recorded and edited by Jude Francis Weston

Do coalition governments slow down the economic reforms agenda? | The Hindu parley podcast

Thu, 13 Jun 2024 16:02:56 -0000

Until the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 282 seats and Prime Minister Narendra Modi rode to power, India had had coalition governments for 21 years. Ten years later, the BJP has 240 seats in the Lok Sabha and India once again has a coalition government in power. Fitch had stated that coalition politics and a weakened mandate for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) could make it challenging to pass legislation on the more ambitious parts of the reform agenda.

Do coalition governments slow down the economic reforms agenda? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: K.K. Kailash, Department of Political Science of the Hyderabad University; Sanjay Ruparelia, Associate Professor in the Department of Politics and Public administration at Toronto Metropolitan University and also the Author of Divided We Govern: Coalition Politics in Modern India

Host: Sobhana K. Nair

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Does the Model Code of Conduct need legal teeth? | The Hindu parley podcast

Thu, 30 May 2024 15:18:00 -0000

On May 22, the Election Commission of India (ECI) asked the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress to desist from raising divisive issues in the campaign. In recent years, and particularly during the campaign to the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, critics of the ECI have accused the body of being late or ineffective or partial in responding to alleged violations of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC).

Does the MCC need legal teeth for better implementation? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: T.S. Krishnamurthy, former Chief Election Commissioner; P.D.T. Achary, former Secretary General of the Lok Sabha

Host: Sreeparna Chakrabarty

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Should doctors be kept out of the Consumer Protection Act? | The Hindu parley podcast

Thu, 23 May 2024 15:24:00 -0000

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court ruled that advocates cannot be held liable under the Consumer Protection Act, 1986, for deficiency in service. The Court also indicated that its 1995 decision that held medical professionals accountable under the Act may need to be revisited. It suggested that the definition of the term ‘services’ under the Act, which includes the medical sector, be re-examined. The issue will be placed before a larger Bench.

Should doctors, like lawyers, be kept out of the Consumer Protection Act? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Rajeshwari Sekar, a medico-legal expert in Chennai with over 18 years of experience handling consumer court cases and medical cases; Saroja Sundaram, executive director of the Chennai-based Citizen Consumer and Civic Action Group

Host: Aroon Deep

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Should reservation in jobs only be in proportion to the population?

Thu, 16 May 2024 17:09:51 -0000

During his election campaign, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has often used the slogan ‘Jitni abadi, utna haq’ (the rights of a group are proportionate to the group’s share in the total population). The Prime Minister has lashed out at him for the slogan and others have argued that it is against the spirit of the Constitution.

Should reservation in jobs only be in proportion to the population? Here we discuss the issue.

Guests: Sukhadeo Thorat, the former chairman of the University Grants Commission and Professor Emeritus at JNU; Sudheendra Kulkarni served as an aide to Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the Prime Minister’s Office

Host: Abhinay Lakshman

Are independent journalists on YouTube replacing TV journalists?

Thu, 09 May 2024 16:17:57 -0000

In 2022, a Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS)-Lokniti survey in partnership with the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung showed that TV channels dominate as the news source in India, despite poor trust levels in them. In 2023, a Global Fact 10 research report showed that more and more Indians are now placing their trust in YouTube and WhatsApp for news.

Are independent journalists on YouTube slowly replacing TV journalists in India? Here we discuss the issue.

Edited by Jude Francis Weston

Does PMJAY need a design change? | The Hindu parley podcast

Thu, 02 May 2024 15:47:00 -0000

Ayushman Bharat, the government’s flagship programme to achieve universal health coverage (UHC), was launched in 2018. The scheme has two inter-related components: health and wellness centres and the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) that aims to provide a health cover of ₹5 lakh per family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospitalisation to over 12 crore families that form the bottom 40% of the population. PM-JAY has issued 34.27 crore cards. About 6.5 crore have received treatment and there are over 30,000 empanelled hospitals. However, over the past year, hospitals in some States have reported they are owed hundreds of crores in dues, and some are reportedly turning away or taking in fewer PMJAY patients.

Does PMJAY need a design change? Here we discuss the issue.

Guests: Nachiket Mor is Visiting Scientist, Banyan Academy of Leadership in Mental Health; Avani Kapur is Senior Visiting Fellow, Centre for Policy Research and Founder-Director, Foundation for Responsive Governance

Host: Zubeda Hamid

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Can green credits benefit India’s forests?

Thu, 25 Apr 2024 15:51:03 -0000

The Green Credit Programme, announced by the Environment Ministry in October 2023, is a market-based mechanism where individuals and companies can claim incentives called ‘green credits’ for contributions to environmental and ecological restoration. However, there is criticism that these initiatives may be used to circumvent existing laws, particularly those that deal with forest conservation.

Jacob Koshy is joined by Vaibhav Chaturvedi, Fellow at the Council on Energy, Environment and Water and Debadityo Sinha, Senior Resident Fellow, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.

Is the government justified in targeting terrorists outside the border? | The Hindu parley podcast

Thu, 18 Apr 2024 14:49:05 -0000

Earlier this month, following a report in The Guardian stating that the Indian government had killed about 20 people in Pakistan since 2020 as part of a broader plan to eliminate terrorists on foreign soil, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh responded that India will enter Pakistan to kill terrorists. A few days later, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, too, said that under a strong government, “atankwadiyon ko ghar mein ghus ke mare jata hai (terrorists are being killed in their homes)”.

Is the Indian government justified in targeting terrorists outside the border? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Rakesh Sood, a former diplomat who served as Ambassador to Afghanistan, France, and Nepal. He was also Special Envoy of the Prime Minister on Disarmament and Nonproliferation until 2014; Tara Kartha, the director for research at the Centre for Land Warfare Studies. She spent 17 years at the National Security Council Secretariat, which sits at the apex of India’s national security architecture

Host: Suhasini Haidar.

Is the urban water system breaking? | The Hindu parley podcast

Thu, 04 Apr 2024 14:36:00 -0000

Bengaluru, often celebrated for being a ‘garden city’, the ‘IT capital’ of the country, and its pleasant weather, has been making headlines this year for facing a severe water crisis following the drought of 2023. The water crisis is also likely to hit other urban centres and rural areas. According to a recent weekly bulletin by the Central Water Commission, even as peak summer is around the corner, most of the major reservoirs in the southern States of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana are filled to only 25% of their capacity or less.

Is the urban water system breaking? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: T.V. Ramachandra, Coordinator of the Energy and Wetlands Research Group, Centre for Ecological Science, Indian Institute of Science; S. Vishwanath, a water conservationist

Host: K.C. Deepika

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Did the electoral bonds scheme enable extortion? | The Hindu parley podcast

Thu, 28 Mar 2024 14:52:04 -0000

Many companies that faced regulatory action from the Enforcement Directorate (ED) or Income Tax (IT) Department donated electoral bonds worth crores of rupees to ruling parties via the electoral bonds route, show data submitted by the State Bank of India (SBI) to the Election Commission of India (ECI). Some companies which got huge government contracts purchased bonds for large amounts. Some new companies, which were incorporated during the COVID-19 pandemic, purchased bonds worth crores of rupees just months after starting out.

Was the electoral bonds scheme used as an extortion tool? Here we discuss this question.

Guests: Subhash Chandra Garg, former Finance and Economic Affairs Secretary, Government of India; Anjali Bhardwaj, a Right To Information activist and founder of Satark Nagrik Sangathan, a citizens’ group working to promote transparency and accountability in government functioning

Host: Vignesh Radhakrishnan

Read the parley article here.

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Should judges accept official posts after retirement? | The Hindu parley podcast

Thu, 21 Mar 2024 16:05:52 -0000

Recently, hours after resigning as a judge of the Calcutta High Court, Abhijit Gangopadhyay announced that he was joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The judge’s decision to join politics and the manner in which it was taken has raised questions of judicial impropriety. Some people disapprove of the practice of judges holding official posts after retirement; they believe that this may impinge upon the independence of the judiciary. Others, including those in the government, have pointed out that such posts often require judicial personnel of the highest integrity and there is no Constitution bar to this effect.

Should judges accept official posts after retirement? Here we discuss the question

Guests: Justice Deepak Gupta, a former judge of the Supreme Court; Sanjay Hedge, a senior advocate based in Delhi

Host: Aaratrika Bhaumik

Read the parley article here.

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Has poverty really dropped to 5% in India? | The Hindu parley podcast

Thu, 14 Mar 2024 16:15:00 -0000

NITI Aayog B.V.R. Subrahmanyam recently claimed that less than 5% of Indians now live below the poverty line. He made the claim based on the findings of the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES), 2022-23. Mr. Subrahmanyam argued that the average consumption expenditure in the bottom 5% of India’s population, as estimated by the survey, is about the same as the poverty line in India, suggesting that the poverty rate in India is somewhere in the range of 0 to 5%.

Has poverty really dropped to 5% in India? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Surjit Bhalla is a former member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council; Jayati Ghosh is a development economist and author of ‘The Making of a Catastrophe: The Disastrous Economic Fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic in India’

Host: Prashanth Perumal

Should Minimum Support Price be legalised? | The Hindu parley podcast

Thu, 29 Feb 2024 13:30:00 -0000

On February 13, groups of farmers began a march to New Delhi, to press for fulfilment of their demands, which include a legal guarantee for purchasing crops at Minimum Support Price (MSP) and India’s withdrawal from the World Trade Organization (WTO) which, they allege, places pressure on the Centre for drafting policies for procurement and MSP. While the Centre has fixed MSP for 23 farm commodities, it is implemented mostly for rice and wheat mainly because India has vast storage facilities for these grains and uses the produce for its public distribution system (PDS). The Union government has repeatedly asserted that a legal guarantee for MSP will not be possible.

Should MSP be legalised? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Lakhwinder Singh, Professor at the Department of Economics, Punjabi University, Patiala; Siraj Hussain, former Union Agriculture Secretary and adviser of FICCI

Host: A.M. Jigeesh

Is it ethical to use AI to clone voices for creative purposes?

Thu, 15 Feb 2024 17:13:02 -0000

Recently, music composer A.R. Rahman tweeted that the song Thimiri Yezhuda from the Tamil film Lal Salaam uses an Artificial Intelligence (AI) software to recreate the voices of singers Bamba Bakya and Shahul Hameed. Bakya died in September 2022 at the age of 42 and has sung songs in films including 2.0 and Bigil. Hameed, who died in 1998, worked extensively on movies such as Gentleman and Kadhalan. Though their voices were used with the permission of their families, who were also compensated, the move has raised a debate among artists about the use of AI.

Is it ethical to use AI to clone voices for creative purposes? Here we discuss the question.

Should coaching be restricted to those above 16 years?

Fri, 09 Feb 2024 04:07:00 -0000

India’s growing private coaching industry has long been plagued by student suicides, fire incidents, complaints of poor infrastructure and teaching, exorbitant fees, and false promises. The spate of student suicides in Kota, Rajasthan, has spurred the Ministry of Education to issue new guidelines, which state that coaching centres cannot enrol students below 16 years of age, make misleading promises, and guarantee rank or good marks.

Should coaching be restricted to those above 16 years? Here we discuss the question

Has the economy improved in the NDA’s second term?

Thu, 25 Jan 2024 15:05:02 -0000

On February 1, the BJP-led government will place its Interim Budget in Parliament, seeking a vote on account.

Has the NDA government’s economic performance in its second term fared better than its first? Here we discuss the question.

Should AI models be allowed to use copyrighted material for training? | The Hindu parley podcast

Thu, 18 Jan 2024 13:41:36 -0000

On December 27, 2023, the New York Times filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and its backer Microsoft, accusing them of copyright infringement. The NYT has alleged that OpenAI used thousands of its articles to train ChatGPT, a large language model, without permission or compensation. The lawsuit says that this has positioned ChatGPT as a competing source of information to the NYT, which has implications for the newspaper’s business model.

Should AI models be allowed to use copyrighted material for training? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Cecilia Ziniti, a San Fransisco-based lawyer specialising in technology and start-up companies; Arul George Scaria, an Associate Professor at the National Law School of India University

Host: P.J. George

Are antibiotics over-prescribed in India?

Thu, 11 Jan 2024 17:00:51 -0000

The National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) recently found that over half of the nearly 10,000 hospital patients surveyed for a study were given antibiotics to prevent, rather than treat, infection. The survey mapped patients treated on one to five days each at 20 tertiary care institutes across 15 States and two Union Territories between November 2021 and April 2022. It found that 55% of the patients surveyed were prescribed antibiotics as prophylaxis, or as a preventive; only 45% were prescribed antibiotics to actually treat infections; and of them, only 6% were prescribed the drugs after identifying the specific bacteria. This is worrying as India carries one of the largest burdens of drug-resistant pathogens worldwide.

Are antibiotics being over-prescribed in India? Here we discuss the question.

Is higher education out of touch with the skill requirements in the job market? | The Hindu parley podcast

Fri, 05 Jan 2024 06:20:24 -0000

According to the Periodic Labour Force Survey, the unemployment rate among graduates is higher than in many other developing countries. Students who enrolled in college during the pandemic have now graduated and there are concerns over their employability and the quality of online education.

Is higher education in India out of touch with the skill requirements in the job markets? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Furqan Qamar, Professor, Department Of Management Studies, at Jamia Millia Islamia; Santosh Mehrotra, Professor in Jawaharlal Nehru University

Host: A.M. Jigeesh

Is right-wing populism seeing a resurgence across the world?

Thu, 28 Dec 2023 16:55:48 -0000

Recently, Geert Wilders, an anti-Islam, far-right populist, won the general elections in the Netherlands. In Argentina, the far-right politician, Javier Milei, won the presidential elections. In 2022, Marine Le Pen finished a close second in the French presidential elections; and a party with roots in the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement won the general elections in Italy. In the U.S., early polls suggest that Donald Trump has a chance of returning to power again. In India, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is widely expected to win a third term.

Is right-wing populism seeing a resurgence across the world? Irfan Nooruddin and Rahul Mukherji discuss the question in a conversation moderated by Radhika Santhanam.

Should an All-India Judicial Service be created?

Thu, 21 Dec 2023 20:14:45 -0000

Recently, President Droupadi Murmu suggested that an All-India Judicial Service (AIJS) will help diversify the judiciary. In the same way that the Union Public Service Commission conducts a central recruitment exam and assigns successful candidates to cadres, the recruitment of judges of the district judiciary is being proposed to be made central, following which they will be assigned to the States. This idea has been discussed in the past and has also been a part of the Union government’s official policy for years. However, there has been no consensus on the proposal either from the High Courts or the State governments.

Should an AIJS be created? Here we discuss the question.

Guests:Alok Prasanna Kumar, co-founder and lead, Vidhi Karnataka; Bharat Chugh, a lawyer based in Delhi and a former civil judge

Host: Aaratrika Bhaumik

Should India set a higher bar to address climate change?

Thu, 14 Dec 2023 14:40:04 -0000

In a historic first, all 198 signatories to the 28th United Nations’ Conference of the Parties (COP28) adopted to “transition away” from “all fossil fuels” as opposed to only coal, as was agreed upon at COP26, in Glasgow. India had played a pivotal role in Glasgow in modifying the language from “phasing out” coal to “phasing it down”. Unsurprisingly, it supported the incumbent COP President Sultan Ahmed Al-Jaber of the UAE when he proposed to “transition away” from oil and gas, as opposed to “phasing out”, as demanded by several developed countries and small island nations.

As the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, albeit with a drastically smaller per capita emission rate, should India set a higher bar to mitigate and adapt to climate change? Here we discuss the question.

Is the emerging global order bipolar?

Thu, 30 Nov 2023 13:56:04 -0000

The world has witnessed several disruptions in recent years. China’s phenomenal rise has unleashed a superpower competition between Washington and Beijing. Russia is challenging the post-World War security architecture in Europe through military means. In West Asia, Israel is engaged in a brutal war with Hamas. The world is also witnessing the rise of several middle powers such as India.

Is the emerging global order bipolar? Here we discuss the question

Should online movie reviews be curtailed?

Thu, 23 Nov 2023 23:13:33 -0000

Kerala, a State known for its vibrant public sphere, is now in the news for what film producers have termed as the phenomenon of “review bombing”. Makers of a couple of films have approached the Kerala High Court, seeking a gag on social media and YouTube reviews for at least seven days following a film‘s release; the claim being that these reviews can make or break films, and by extension the sustainability of the Malayalam film industry. The Kerala police have also booked some online reviewers and social media platforms, following complaints from producers. The State is now witnessing a heated debate with a groundswell of support for the reviewers, raising pertinent questions on freedom of expression.

Here we discuss the issue.

Guests: B.Unnikrishnan, a filmmaker and general secretary of the Film Employees Federation of Kerala (FEFKA); C.S. Venkiteswaran is a national award winning film critic

Host: S. R. Praveen

Should elections be state funded?

Thu, 16 Nov 2023 13:29:21 -0000

A Constitution Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India, D.Y. Chandrachud, recently reserved its judgment on petitions challenging the validity of the electoral bonds scheme. The proceedings focused on arguments pertaining to the voters’ right to information vis-a-vis the right to confidentiality of donors. Transparency in election funding has become the central issue here.

Should elections be state funded instead? Here we discuss the question.

Is the United Nations toothless to stop wars?

Thu, 02 Nov 2023 16:17:18 -0000

Starting with the immediate aftermath of the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israeli targets, , the Israeli Defense Forces have carried out a relentless campaign bombing civilian locations across Gaza. The Israeli argument has been that it is focused on eradicating Hamas but the casualties are mostly women, children and infants which has drawn worldwide condemnation for Israel. Last Friday, the UN saw the adoption of a non binding Jordanian resolution in New York by large majority of member states. 120 members votes in favor, 14 voted against and 45 countries abstained. India was among those who abstained.

The General Assembly adopted a major resolution and call for an immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce, leading to a cessation of hostilities. It was proposed by Jordan and backed over 45 countries India of course abstain and was criticized for that domestically. But the conflict has continued as there is no call for bringing in a ceasefire.

Is this failure going to end the UN and end the present global order?

Is India ready to host the 2036 Olympics?

Thu, 26 Oct 2023 17:32:06 -0000

The Prime Minister recently said that India aspires to host the 2036 Olympics Games. This has been a dream for successive governments and sports officials. Hosting the Olympics would not only underscore India’s importance as a sporting nation, but also enable it to assert its geopolitical power and showcase development.

Here, we discuss whether India is ready to host the Olympics?

Guests: Manisha Malhotra, Head of Sports Excellence and Scouting with JSW Sports; Norris Pritam, journalist with over three decades of experience in covering multi-discipline events including six Olympics

Host: Uthra Ganesan

Are southern States being punished for their success?

Thu, 19 Oct 2023 19:19:20 -0000

A week ago, Tamil Nadu Finance Minister Thangam Thennarasu accused the Union government of showing a “step-motherly attitude” towards the State over devolution of funds. Around at the same time, at a media conclave, Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor spoke about the potential danger of political disenfranchisement in the south when the delimitation freeze ends in 2026. These statements have brought the tussle over the distribution of Central taxes as well as the delimitation of constituencies to the fore.

Here we discuss whether the south is being punished for its success.

Should the 50% legal ceiling on reservation be reconsidered?

Thu, 12 Oct 2023 19:46:12 -0000

On October 2, the Bihar government released the data of its caste survey. The data showed that the Other Backward Classes (OBCs), Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) together account for about 84% of the population. This has reopened the debate on whether the 50% legal ceiling on caste-based reservation should be removed.

Here we discuss this question.

Guests: Kalaiyarasan A., Assistant Professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies and Research Affiliate at the South Asia Institute, Harvard University; Alok Prasanna Kumar, Co-Founder and Lead, Vidhi Karnataka

Host: Pon Vasanth B

Does cash take away the cachet of science awards?

Thu, 05 Oct 2023 16:57:06 -0000

Nearly a year after the Union government decided to cut the number of prizes annually awarded by its science-affiliated Ministries, it has instituted the Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar (RVP) — 56 prizes to felicitate scientists, technologists and innovators. However, like the Padma awards, these awards will no longer have a cash component.

Here we discuss whether removing money reduce the prestige of awards.

Guests: Shekhar Mande, former Director General, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research; Dinesh Sharma, a science journalist and author

Host: Jacob Koshy

Should generative Artificial Intelligence be regulated?

Thu, 28 Sep 2023 20:26:35 -0000

Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) is like the proverbial genie out of the bottle. In less than a year, chatbots like ChatGPT, Bard, Claude, and Pi have shown what gen AI-powered applications can do. These tools have also revealed their vulnerabilities, which has pushed policymakers and scientists to think deeply about these new systems.

Should generative AI be regulated? We discuss the question here.

Guests: Arul George Scaria, an Associate Professor of Law at the National Law School of India; Trisha Ray, a resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s GeoTech Centre

Host: John Xavier

Is the Opposition’s decision to boycott certain news anchors justified?

Thu, 21 Sep 2023 14:35:39 -0000

The INDIA bloc recently announced that it would boycott 14 television news anchors as it did not did not want to legitimise a “hate-filled narrative.” It said that no representatives from the parties of the alliance will appear on the shows helmed by these anchors. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said that the move showed an “Emergency-era mindset,” while news broadcasters associations accused the Opposition of intolerance, undermining democracy, and setting a dangerous precedent.

Is the Opposition’s stand justified? Here we discuss the question.

Are corruption cases driven by political rivalries?

Thu, 14 Sep 2023 17:42:00 -0000

Last week, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) national president N. Chandrababu Naidu was arrested by the Crime Investigation Department for his alleged complicity in the ₹371-crore A.P. Skill Development Corporation ‘scam’, which reportedly took place during his term as Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister between 2014 and 2019. The TDP termed the arrest a “political vendetta” against Mr. Naidu by the Jagan Mohan Reddy-led YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) government. The ruling party argued that there is “clinching evidence” in the case.

Here we discuss whether corruption cases against politicians are driven by political rivalries.

Guests: Trilochan Sastry is chairman of the Association for Democratic Reforms and former Dean at the Indian Institute of Management, Bengaluru; Sanjay Hegde is a senior advocate in the Supreme Court of India

Host: Sumit Bhattacharjee

Do subsidies and safety nets take focus away from generating jobs?

Thu, 07 Sep 2023 13:40:36 -0000

Despite India posting impressive economic growth numbers, employment has not seen a commensurate increase. With five States going to the polls at the end of the year, political parties have been announcing several promises, largely to address concerns of price rise of essentials.

Are these promises a distraction from providing solutions to what appears to be a systemic concern – jobless growth? Here we discuss the question.

Are natural disasters man-made?

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 15:34:21 -0000

Torrential rains in several parts of north India, particularly Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, damaged highways and buildings, and took hundreds of lives. While a warming Arctic is said to be a cause for the unusually heavy rains, years of haphazard planning and construction have multiplied the tragedy. Are natural disasters man-made? Vimal Mishra and Lubaina Rangwalla discuss the question in a conversation moderated by Jacob Koshy. Edited excerpts:

Every year, particularly in the monsoon, we witness extreme natural calamities. However, this is also the result of poor planning. To what extent are natural disasters man-made?

Should the CJI be part of the committee nominating the CEC?

Thu, 24 Aug 2023 14:39:51 -0000

On August 10, the Union government introduced a Bill in the Rajya Sabha that proposed that the selection panel for appointing the Election Commission, comprising the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and other Election Commissioners (ECs), will consist of the Prime Minister as the chairperson, the Leader of the Opposition as a member, and a Union Cabinet Minister nominated by the Prime Minister as another member. In March, the Supreme Court had ruled that the selection panel should comprise the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, and the Chief Justice of India (CJI). The Opposition has been arguing that the replacement of the CJI with a Cabinet Minister in the Bill indicates that the government is trying to make the poll body a puppet.

Should the CJI be part of the committee nominating the CEC? We discuss this issue here.

Is there a need to replace the IPC, CrPC and IEA?

Thu, 17 Aug 2023 15:32:29 -0000

On August 11, 2023, Union Home Minister Amit Shah introduced three Bills in the Lok Sabha; the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita Bill to replace the Indian Penal Code, 1860, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita Bill to replace the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 and the Bharatiya Sakshya Bill to replace the Indian Evidence Act, 1872. The proposal raises questions on whether the existing laws were being misused for them to be changed, and what are the amendments made in the new Bills.

Here we discuss whether the existing laws need to go.

Guests: Prakash Singh, a former IPS officer; Shahrukh Alam, an advocate at the Supreme Court

Host: Sonam Saigal

Should there be a blanket ban on smartphones in schools?

Thu, 10 Aug 2023 17:25:05 -0000

India has 1.2 billion mobile phone users and over 600 million smartphone users. That figure is expected to cross a billion by 2026, according to a Deloitte study, indicating that a future world will be dependent on these small devices. However, one place where smartphone usage has become controversial is the classroom.

Last month, UNESCO recommended a universal ban on the usage of smartphones in schools, saying that it was needed to tackle classroom disruption, improve learning, and help protect children from cyberbullying. In an advisory dated August 10, titled “Restrictions on the use of mobile phones in school premises under rule 43 of DSER 1973”, the Directorate of Education, Private School Branch, Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi, has highligted the need for all stakeholders connected with school education such as students, parents, teachers and heads of schools “to arrive at a consensus on the minimum use of mobile phones in the school environment so that a more meaningful learning atmosphere could be maintained in the classroom”.

Here we discuss whether a complete ban on smartphones in schools is necessary.

Should the age of consent be revised in India?

Thu, 03 Aug 2023 17:54:58 -0000

Recently, while hearing an appeal by a man who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for maintaining a consensual relationship with a minor girl, the Bombay High Court said that it is high time India considered reducing the age of consent for sex. The court pointed out that after the enactment of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, many adolescents are being prosecuted for consensual relationships with minor girls.

Should the age of consent be revised in India? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Shraddha Chaudhary, a PhD Researcher, Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge and Lecturer, Jindal Global Law School; Bharti Ali, Co-founder and Executive Director of the HAQ Centre for Child Rights

Host: Abhinay Lakshman

Is seat adjustment enough for Opposition unity?

Thu, 27 Jul 2023 19:56:45 -0000

On July 18, the top leaders of 26 Opposition parties joined hands to form INDIA (Indian National Developmental, Inclusive Alliance), a coalition to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance in the 2024 general elections. The coalition plans to set up an 11-member coordination committee, prepare an action plan, and eventually work out a seat-sharing arrangement.

But is seat adjustment enough for Opposition unity? Here we discuss this question.

Guests: Suhas Palshikar taught political science at Savitribai Phule University, Pune, and is chief editor of Studies in Indian Politics; E. Sridharan, the Academic Director and Chief Executive of the University of Pennsylvania Institute for the Advanced Study of India

Host: Sandeep Phukan

Should delimitation be delayed further?

Thu, 20 Jul 2023 15:39:03 -0000

Delimitation is the process of redrawing boundaries of Lok Sabha and State Assembly constituencies based on a recent Census to ensure that each seat has an almost equal number of voters. The last delimitation exercise took place in 1976. While the current boundaries were drawn on the basis of the 2001 Census, the number of Lok Sabha and State Assembly seats remained frozen on the basis of the 1971 Census. In 2002, the Constitution was amended to place a freeze on the exercise until the first Census conducted after the year 2026.

Should delimitation be delayed any further? Here we discuss the question.

Are regional parties in India facing a succession problem? | The Hindu Parley podcast

Fri, 14 Jul 2023 02:24:15 -0000

Twenty-four years after its formation, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) split on July 2 over the question of succession. In 2022, the Shiv Sena went through a similar churn. This malady is not unique to Maharashtra; many regional parties in India, such as the Samajwadi Party (SP), have gone through this. Others, such as the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), seem poised to go undergo this churn.

Are regional parties facing a succession problem? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Sugata Srinivasaraju, senior journalist and author of Furrows in a Field — The Unexplored Life of H.D. Deve Gowda; Neelanjan Sircar, Senior Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research

Host: Sobhana K. Nair

Should Internet shutdowns be used to maintain public order?

Fri, 07 Jul 2023 06:29:00 -0000

Over the past few years, the Indian government has increasingly been trying to control law and order by shutting access to the Internet, whether in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), Manipur or Punjab. Between 2016 and 2022, 60% of Internet shutdowns across the world took place in India.

Should shutdowns be used to maintain public order? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Radhika Jhalani, Counsel with the Software Freedom Law Center in New Delhi; Karnika Seth, Founding Partner of Seth Associates and a cyberlawyer practising at the Supreme Court

Host: Aroon Deep

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Has the Bhadralok intellectual culture in Bengal faded? | The Hindu Parley podcast

Thu, 29 Jun 2023 16:12:00 -0000

The intellectual class of West Bengal, euphemistically termed the Bhadralok, has long held a pivotal role in shaping culture, politics and policy in the State. From producing timeless cinema to dominating political power to setting policies on welfare, reforms and state interventions, this segment of Bengali society performed an outsized role. But all indications are that its influence is fading quickly in the State and beyond. Surajit Chandra Mukhopadhyay and Sandip Roy ponder the relevance of the Bhadralok in a discussion moderated by Shiv Sahay Singh

Guests: Surajit Chandra Mukhopadhay, Dean, School of Social Sciences and Humanities, The Assam Royal Global University; Sandip Roy, author and journalist.

Host: Shiv Sahay Singh

Will a shorter medical course solve rural doctor shortages?

Thu, 22 Jun 2023 20:06:00 -0000

Last month, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee asked the Health Department to consider starting a three-year diploma course for medical practitioners, who would then serve in primary health centres (PHCs). This is not the first time that such a proposal has been considered in the country. India has nearly 1 lakh MBBS seats, but there continues to be a massive shortage of doctors in rural areas.

Will a shorter course help bring in more medical professionals to serve where they are needed or will it erode the structure of medical education? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Dr. Sudha Seshayyan, former Vice Chancellor, The Tamil Nadu Dr MGR Medical University; Dr. Soham D. Bhaduri, Health Policy and Leadership Specialist; Editor-in-Chief, The Indian Practitioner

Host: Zubeda Hamid

Is the Indian Railways stretched beyond its capacity? | The Hindu Parley Podcast

Thu, 15 Jun 2023 15:19:44 -0000

On June 2, 2023, an accident involving three trains took place in Balasore district of Odisha. It claimed 288 lives and left more 1,200 people injured. The tragedy has left several questions in its wake about safety, signalling, and overcrowding.

Here we discuss whether the Indian Railways is stretched beyond its capacity.

Guests: Mahesh Mangal, former additional member of the Railway Board. He led the team which developed Kavach; Sudhanshu Mani, retired General Manager of the Integrated Coach Factory of the Indian Railways in Chennai, creator of the Vande Bharat Express.

Do production-linked incentives for manufacturing work? | The Hindu Parley Podcast

Thu, 08 Jun 2023 14:29:04 -0000

In a recent note, former Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan questioned the success of the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme in boosting India’s domestic manufacturing and exports. The PLI scheme was introduced by the Centre in 2020. Lakhs of crores of rupees have been allocated towards subsidising companies that manufacture in India. The Centre believes that the PLI scheme has boosted the domestic manufacturing sector, but critics have questioned its success.

Do PLI schemes for manufacturing work? Here we discuss the question.

Is there a clear north-south divide in Indian politics?

Thu, 01 Jun 2023 19:01:00 -0000

After its loss in the recent Assembly elections in Karnataka, the Bharatiya Janata Party is left with no State government in south India. It is part of an alliance in the Union Territory of Puducherry. The governments of the five States of the south are led by different parties — the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in Kerala, the YSR Congress Party in Andhra Pradesh, the Bharat Rashtra Samithi in Telangana, and the Congress in Karnataka. This is not a new trend; the south has rarely followed the electoral trend set by the north. In the 1977 Lok Sabha elections, while the Congress was wiped out in the Hindi heartland, it continued to hold onto its seats in the south. Similarly, in the last nine years, even at the peak of its popularity the BJP has been unable to breach the southern fortress as convincingly as it would like to.

Is there a north-south divide in politics? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: K.K. Kailash teaches at the Department of Political Science, Hyderabad University; Sudha Pai is a political scientist and former Professor, JNU

Host: Sobhana K. Nair

Should States revert to the Old Pension Scheme?

Thu, 25 May 2023 17:08:34 -0000

The National Pension Scheme (NPS) was launched in 2004. While the older pension scheme offered defined benefits to all government employees without any contribution on their part, the NPS requires employees to contribute a sum throughout their working years. Almost two decades after the NPS came into effect, several States are switching back to the Old Pension Scheme (OPS). Earlier this year, the Central government set up a committee under the leadership of the Finance Secretary to review the working of the NPS and evolve an approach that addresses the needs of government employees while maintaining fiscal prudence.

Here we discuss whether States should return to the OPS.

Guests: Praveen Chakravarty, a political economist and chair of the Data Analytics Group of the Congress party; Rohit Azad, an economist teaching at JNU

Host: Priscilla Jebaraj

Can an integrated system of medicine work? | The Hindu Parley Podcast

Thu, 18 May 2023 15:37:37 -0000

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) under the Union Health Ministry and the Union Ministry of Ayush have agreed to enhance cooperation in health research in the field of integrated medicine. This move will help Ayush departments at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) evolve into departments of integrated medicine.

Will such an integrated system of medicine work? Here we discuss the question.

Is the monarchy still relevant in the 21st century?

Thu, 11 May 2023 20:34:02 -0000

The coronation of King Charles III of the U.K. has led to critical questions on the relevance of the monarchy in the 21st century, in the context of tectonic shifts in society, politics and culture in the U.K. and across the Commonwealth realms. In a conversation moderated by Narayan Lakshman, Priyamvada Gopal and Philip Murphy discuss what these changes imply for the future of monarchies in the U.K. and across the world.

Should India consider phasing out nuclear power?

Thu, 27 Apr 2023 15:48:41 -0000

Germany has shut down the last of its nuclear power plants; France, the nuclear powerhouse of the world, is struggling to replenish its stock of ageing reactors. With solar and wind power becoming more popular globally, there are questions on whether nuclear power, with its attendant concerns on cost and safety, remains a relevant option for a future that is fossil-free, particularly in India.

Here we we discuss whether nuclear energy should be phased out.

Guests: R. Srikanth, Professor and Dean, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru and head of the Energy, Environment and Climate Change Programme; Rahul Tongia, Senior Fellow, Center for Social and Economic Progress, New Delhi, where he leads the Energy, Natural Resources and Sustainability Group

Host: Jacob Koshy

Is Mandal politics electorally salient again?

Thu, 20 Apr 2023 17:44:01 -0000

With the second phase of the caste survey beginning in Bihar, other political parties such as the Congress are also raising a pitch on the issue. Last month, there was a heated political war over sections of the Ramcharitmanas in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, with some leaders arguing that the text “abuses” Dalits, Adivasis and backward castes.

Here we discuss how these developments compare to the high noon of Mandal mobilisation in the late 1980s and 1990s.

Guests: Mona G. Mehta, Associate Professor in the School of Arts and Sciences at Ahmedabad University; Amit Ahuja, fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., and Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara

Host: Sobhana K. Nair

Is the current regulatory system equipped to deal with AI?

Thu, 13 Apr 2023 15:47:20 -0000

The growth of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies and their deployment has raised questions about privacy, monopolisation and job losses.

Here we discuss concerns about the economic and privacy implications of AI as countries try to design regulations to prevent the possible misuse of AI by individuals and governments.

Guests: Ajay Shah, Research Professor of Business at O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat; Apar Gupta, executive director of the Internet Freedom Foundation

Host: Prashanth Perumal

Is the India Bhutan relationship intact?

Thu, 06 Apr 2023 17:11:02 -0000

During Bhutan King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck’s visit to New Delhi this month, India announced a number of measures to support its neighbour’s development plans. However, the unspoken part of the visit was Bhutan’s boundary talks with China. Before the King’s visit to India, Bhutanese Prime Minister Lotay Tshering had said in an interview that Bhutan and China have made considerable progress on demarcating border lines.

Here we take stock of the India-Bhutan relationship.

Guests: Pavan K. Varma, a writer, former diplomat and MP. He served as India’s Ambassador to Bhutan from 2009 to 2012; Phunchok Stobdan, an academic and a former diplomat, is the author of The Great Game in the Buddhist Himalayas

Host: Suhasini Haidar

Is there a revival in the Khalistan movement?

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 15:33:55 -0000

After the Punjab police launched a coordinated crackdown against the Dubai-returned radical preacher, Amritpal Singh, and his associates on March 18, there is rising concern- about a revival of the Khalistan movement in Punjab. Here we discuss the developments.

Guest: Shashi Kant, a former Director-General of Punjab Police; Manish Tewari, Congress MP from Anandpur Sahib in Punjab and former I&B Minister.

Host: Vijaita Singh

Is India in the grip of a ‘stray dog’ crisis?

Thu, 23 Mar 2023 16:24:39 -0000

In recent weeks, there have been many attacks by stray dogs on people, especially children. With an estimated 1.5-6 crore stray canines roaming around the streets in India, questions are being raised about the implementation of municipality laws and cultural attitudes of tolerance towards stray dogs.

Here we discuss the scale of the public safety issue and provide a legal and administrative context.

Guests: Meghna Uniyal, Director and Co-founder, Humane Foundation for People and Animals; Shailaja Chandra, former Chief Secretary of Delhi

Host: Jacob Koshy

Can the cheetahs help India’s grasslands?

Thu, 09 Mar 2023 17:15:44 -0000

Since September 2022, India has translocated eight African cheetahs from Namibia and 12 from South Africa. This is part of a long-term conservation plan to re-introduce the wild cat into the country after it became extinct in the 1950s, primarily due to hunting. The aim is to be able to build a self-sustaining population, centred at Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park, which will also contribute to the global survival of the cheetah as a species.

Can the cheetahs thrive in India and help India’s grasslands? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Rajesh Gopal, a former forest officer closely involved with Project Tiger, now heads the Global Tiger Forum; Ravi Chellam, former member of an expert committee to guide the translocation of the Asiatic Lion, and CEO, Metastring Foundation

Host: Jacob Koshy

Does the anti-defection law need changes?

Thu, 23 Feb 2023 17:12:01 -0000

On February 17, the Election Commission of India (ECI) allotted the name ‘Shiv Sena’ and the party’s Bow and Arrow symbol to Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s faction, in effect recognising it as the original party founded by Balasaheb Thackeray. The political crisis in Maharashtra began last year after a group of 40 of the 55 Sena MLAs walked out of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance under the leadership of Mr. Shinde, which caused a division in the party. Both the Uddhav Thackeray and Shinde sides staked claim to the party name and symbol, each claiming to represent the ‘real’ Shiv Sena. The ECI said that it had based its decision on a “test of majority.” It said the group of MLAs supporting the Shinde faction got nearly 76% of the votes polled for the 55 winning Shiv Sena candidates in the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly elections, while the Uddhav Thackeray faction got 23.5% of votes.

The crisis has thrown the spotlight once again on the anti-defection law, whose purpose is to prevent political defections. Here we discuss whether the law needs changes.

Guests: P.D.T. Achary, former Secretary-General of the Lok Sabha; Ruchi Gupta, Executive Director of the Future of India Foundation

Host: Sonam Saigal

Can investments be free of risk?

Thu, 16 Feb 2023 15:45:54 -0000

Recently, a three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court put forth the idea of setting up an expert committee that could recommend ways to protect common investors from market events. The court’s recommendation came soon after the stocks of the companies of the Adani Group crashed following a report by Hindenburg Research, a U.S.-based investment research firm. It is estimated that the fall in the Adani Group’s stocks has cost investors over $100 billion.

Can investments be free of risk? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Jayati Ghosh, a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; Anand Srinivasan, an investor and a personal finance advisor

Host: Prashanth Perumal J.

Should there be elections to the Congress Working Committee?

Thu, 09 Feb 2023 18:04:00 -0000

Last October, Mallikarjun Kharge was elected as the national president of the Congress party. The election was historic as the party’s top post was, from 1978, occupied by a member of the Nehru-Gandhi family (except for brief spells between 1992 and 1998). Officially, the party says it is now ready to hold a similar election to the Congress Working Committee (CWC), its highest decision-making body, but there are still internal debates going on. The last time the CWC had an election was in 1997, under the presidency of Sitaram Kesri.

Should there be an election now to the CWC? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Praveen Chakravarthy, chairman of the Congress Data Analytics Department; Mridula Mukherjee, a former Professor of History at JNU and former Director at Nehru Memorial Museum and Library

Host: Sandeep Phukan

Should the government put out a white paper on Ladakh?

Thu, 02 Feb 2023 17:07:40 -0000

A report prepared for a security conference in Delhi set off a controversy by stating that India has lost access to 26 of 65 patrolling points along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) since the Galwan Valley clash in April 2020. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar emphasised again that no territory has been ceded to China, while the Opposition has called for the government to clarify matters on the LAC.

Here we discuss whether the government should put out a white paper on Ladakh.

Guests: Satish Dua, former Corps Commander of the Kashmir based Chinar Corps, retired as Chief of Integrated Defence Staff; Manoj Joshi, Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation and author of Understanding the India-China Border: The Enduring Threat of War in the High Himalayas

Host: Suhasini Haidar

Will the Budget be populist or fiscally responsible?

Thu, 12 Jan 2023 14:55:30 -0000

The Union Budget set to be presented in Parliament on February 1 will be the last full-year Budget of the Narendra Modi government before the Lok Sabha elections are held next year. Given the electoral timetable, there is an expectation that the Budget could be populist in nature; but with high inflation, there are questions about the government’s ability to spend freely at the moment.

Here we discuss the fiscal situation.

Guests: Lekha Chakraborty, a professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy; Madan Sabnavis, chief economist at the Bank of Baroda

Host: Prashanth Perumal

Should India be alarmed by China’s COVID surge?

Thu, 05 Jan 2023 16:27:33 -0000

With the surge in COVID-19 cases in China, after the easing of its stringent zero-COVID policy in December, there is apprehension that the pandemic could be entering a new, uncertain phase.

Here we discuss the situation in China and the potential impact in India.

Guests: Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, former chief scientist of the World Health Organization; Dr. Giridhara R. Babu, professor and head of Life Course Epidemiology, Indian Institute of Public Health, PHFI, Bengaluru

Host: Zubeda Hamid

Should India review its position on the Taliban?

Thu, 29 Dec 2022 17:12:26 -0000

By issuing decrees banning girls/women from school, gyms and public parks, and from working at NGOs, the Taliban regime controlling Afghanistan seems to have made it clear that it does not intend to keep the promises it made of protecting women’s rights. It also seems to be reneging on its other assurances, such as ensuring an inclusive government, the safety of minorities, and disallowing terror groups to operate from Afghanistan. Should India, which changed its traditional stand against the Taliban by holding talks with the group and setting up a mission in Kabul this year, review its position?

Guests: Amar Sinha and Tara Kartha

Host: Suhasini Haidar

Should courts go on vacation?

Thu, 22 Dec 2022 16:41:23 -0000

The Supreme Court of India goes on vacation for a week during Holi, 45 days during summer and for around two weeks during Deepavali and winter. This practice came into the news recently when Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud said that no vacation Benches in the apex court would be available this winter break. He said this a day after Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju spoke of “long vacations” of the court and the inconvenience it caused to litigants.

Here we discuss whether courts should close for vacations amid the overall burden of cases on them.

Guests: Indu Malhotra, a retired judge of the Supreme Court; Devadatt Kamat, a senior advocate of the Supreme Court

Host: Sonam Saigal

Can poor countries afford to go green?

Thu, 24 Nov 2022 17:27:07 -0000

The 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) concluded on November 20 in Sharm el-Sheikh Egypt. Nearly 200 countries pledged to set up a ‘loss and damage fund’ to help vulnerable countries affected by climate change. Developing countries have welcomed this development, which has been a long-time demand. Developed nations, however, are not satisfied with the level of commitment that poor countries have shown towards cutting down greenhouse gas emissions and phasing out fossil fuels.

Here we discuss issues surrounding the cost of going green.

Guests: Navroz K. Dubash, a professor at the Center for Policy Research, New Delhi; Tejal Kanitkar, an associate professor at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore

Host: Prashanth Perumal

Isn’t reservation for the poor a good thing?

Thu, 17 Nov 2022 16:24:30 -0000

On November 7, 2022, the Supreme Court upheld the validity of the 103rd Constitution Amendment which provides 10% reservation to the economically weaker sections (EWS), but excludes from this quota the ‘poorest of poor’ among the Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), Socially and Educationally Backward Classes and Other Backward Classes (OBCs).

Here we discuss whether reservation should be used as a means to alleviate economic backwardness.

Guests: Satish Deshpande, Professor of Sociology, Delhi University; Arghya Sengupta, Founder and Research Director at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, Delhi

Host: Abhinay Lakshman

Should Chief Ministers have a say in the appointment of Governors?

Fri, 11 Nov 2022 02:28:29 -0000

With the rise in instances of tension, and even stand-offs, between State governments and Governors, there is once again a debate on the role of the Raj Bhavan. In a discussion moderated by Sonam Saigal, Margaret Alva and M.R. Madhavan discuss the role and conduct of Governors, the relation of Governors with the Centre and State government, and whether Chief Ministers should have a say in the appointment of Governors in their respective States.

Guests: Margaret Alva is a former Minister and belonged to the Congress party. She also served as Governor of Rajasthan, Goa, Uttarakhand and Gujarat. She was the Opposition’s candidate for the 2022 election for the post of Vice-President of India; M.R. Madhavan is the president and co-founder of PRS Legislative Research, an independent public policy research institution

Should governments sell liquor and run lotteries?

Thu, 27 Oct 2022 17:01:27 -0000

Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan recently criticised the State government for relying heavily on liquor and lottery to generate revenue. He said the State government was making poor people spend their earnings on lottery tickets and getting them addicted to alcohol.

Should governments sell liquor and run lotteries? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Nimai Mehta, an economist and statistician at the American University, Washington, D.C.; Jayan Jose Thomas, a professor of economics at the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi

Host: Prashanth Perumal

Should Dalit Muslims and Dalit Christians be given SC status?

Thu, 20 Oct 2022 16:41:58 -0000

Recently, the Union government formed a three-member Commission of Inquiry headed by former Chief Justice of India, Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, to examine whether Scheduled Caste (SC) status can be accorded to Dalits who have over the years converted to religions other than Sikhism and Buddhism.

Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Sukhadeo Thorat, former chairman of the University Grants Commission and Professor Emeritus at JNU; Subhajit Naskar, Assistant Professor at Jadavpur University

Host: Abhinay Lakshman

Does India need a population policy?

Thu, 13 Oct 2022 17:07:59 -0000

Earlier this year, the United Nations published data to show that India would surpass China as the world’s most populous country by 2023. According to the 2018-19 Economic Survey, India’s demographic dividend will peak around 2041, when the share of the working age population is expected to hit 59%.

Here we discuss whether India needs a population policy.

Guests: Poonam Muttreja, Executive Director, Population Foundation of India; Sonalde Desai, Professor at the National Council of Applied Economic Research

Host: Sreeparna Chakrabarty

Is India in a bind over its relations with Russia?

Thu, 06 Oct 2022 16:19:00 -0000

On October 1, when India abstained from voting at the United Nations Security Council on a draft resolution against Russia for conducting referendums and annexing four regions of Ukraine, it was a reminder of New Delhi’s precarious tightrope walk on ties with Moscow. In the backdrop of the war in Ukraine and in the face of Western sanctions against Russia, India has continued to carry on oil and defence trade with Russia, even as it remains committed to deepening its relations with the West, including the U.S.

Here we discuss India’s choices and actions in a changing geopolitical landscape, especially with regard to China

Guests: Anuradha Chenoy, Adjunct Professor at the Jindal Global University and former Dean, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University; Ashok Kantha, former Ambassador of India to China and Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Chinese Studies and Distinguished Fellow with Vivekananda International Foundation, New Delhi

Host: Kallol Bhattacherjee

How much should India prop up the rupee?

Thu, 29 Sep 2022 15:28:19 -0000

Last week, the rupee weakened against the dollar past the 81-mark to a record low. In recent months, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has been intervening in the forex market to smoothen the decline. With the RBI dipping into its kitty for this purpose, Indian foreign exchange reserves have fallen by about $94 billion in 12 months to about $545 billion until mid-September.

How much more forex can the RBI afford to use in reducing currency volatility? Does the benchmark interest rate, as a policy tool, have a role to play? Here we we discuss these questions.

Guests: Dharmakirti Joshi, Chief Economist, CRISIL Ltd; Lekha Chakraborty, Professor, NIPFP; and Member, Governing Board of Management of International Institute of Public Finance, Munich

Host: K. Bharat Kumar

Should the ECI insist on inner-party elections?

Thu, 22 Sep 2022 17:15:18 -0000

The Congress is set for elections for the post of party president. Since 1998, barring her son Rahul Gandhi’s two-year term in the interim, Sonia Gandhi has been party president. This has revived the debate on whether internal elections should be mandated for all political parties.

Here we discuss the current situation and what can be done.

Host: Sobhana K Nair

Guest: S.Y. Quraishi, former Chief Election Commissioner of India; Rahul Verma, fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi

Should India choose manufacturing over services?

Thu, 15 Sep 2022 17:45:59 -0000

Earlier this week, the former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, Raghuram Rajan, questioned the Central government’s production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme, arguing that it works against the interests of Indian consumers. In doing so, he revived the larger debate on the government’s efforts to promote the country’s manufacturing sector through subsidies, and on its relative importance vis-a-vis the services sector.

Here we discuss this issue and talk about creating enabling conditions.

Guests: Nagesh Kumar, Director at the Institute of Studies in Industrial Development; Ajay Shah, Research Professor of Business at Jindal Global University

Host: Prashanth Perumal J

Should the mother tongue or English be the medium of instruction?

Thu, 08 Sep 2022 17:44:06 -0000

Over the years, there has been a raging debate over the need for children to have their mother tongue as the medium of instruction in schools. While educationists have emphasised the importance of learning in the mother tongue to enhance a child’s learning and overcome glaring inequities, there has been an equally steady demand for English-medium schools in several States.

Here we discuss why and how the language policy can be reoriented.

Guests: V. Vasanthi Devi, an educationist and former Vice Chancellor of the Manonmaniam Sundaranar University in Tamil Nadu; Anita Rampal, Professor and former Dean, Faculty of Education, Delhi University

Host: S. Poorvaja

Should India change its policy on the Rohingya?

Thu, 25 Aug 2022 16:21:55 -0000

The Central government reasserted last week that its policy on the Rohingya refugees in India, who it calls “illegal foreigners”, will not change. It did so while denying a tweet by Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri which said the government will move the Rohingya refugees living in Delhi to flats meant for economically weaker sections. Denying this, the Home Ministry said the government would continue efforts for their “deportation” to Myanmar, from where more than a million Rohingya have fled in the past decade after targeted attacks by the Myanmar military that the United Nations has termed a “genocide”. This week marks five years since the last big migration of the Rohingya, who have sought shelter in a number of countries around the world.

Here we discuss India’s policy on the Rohingya and the need for a refugee law.

Guests: Meenakshi Ganguly, Human Rights Watch’s South Asia Director; Vivek Katju, a former diplomat, and has served as India’s envoy to Myanmar

Host: Suhasini Haidar

Should there be limits on ‘freebies’?

Thu, 18 Aug 2022 15:49:29 -0000

While hearing a petition demanding the de-recognition of political parties that promise “irrational freebies” to voters, the Supreme Court recently drew attention to the substantial fiscal cost of freebies. The court noted that a legislation banning freebies is not advisable, but at the same time called for a balance between welfare measures and loss to the public exchequer. The Supreme Court’s observation comes in the backdrop of the clash between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Aam Aadmi Party on the issue of wasteful spending on freebies. It also takes in the larger public debate on how to differentiate welfare spending from freebies.

Here we discuss various aspects of the subject.

Guest: Reetika Khera, Professor of Economics at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi; N.R. Bhanumurthy, Vice-Chancellor of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar School of Economics

Host: Prashanth Perumal

Should medicine be taught in the local languages?

Thu, 11 Aug 2022 16:42:20 -0000

The demand for medicine to be taught in languages besides English has been made repeatedly over the years, and was reiterated most recently by Union Home Minister Amit Shah when he said instruction in medicine, engineering and law should be made available in Indian languages. Over the years, academicians have considered the advantages, demerits and challenges of such a move.

Here we explore the various aspects of the issue.

Guests: M. Janakiram, Assistant Professor, Department of Community Medicine, Government Vellore Medical College; Sudha Seshayyan, vice-chancellor of the Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University

Is the declining rupee a crisis or an opportunity?

Thu, 04 Aug 2022 16:55:01 -0000

The rupee’s steep slide to the 79-to-a-dollar range is bound to impact importers, widen the current account deficit (CAD) and spur the value of India’s external debt. But how much of a problem is this going to be for the Indian economy, given that the rest of the world is facing economic challenges as well?

Here we discuss whether the declining rupee presents a crisis or an opportunity.

What can the world do to help Sri Lanka?

Thu, 21 Jul 2022 14:23:18 -0000

On July 20, acting President Ranil Wickremesinghe was elected the President of Sri Lanka. The Indian government, which held an all-party meeting on the crisis in the island nation, said that “fiscal prudence and responsible governance” are the lessons to be learnt from the crisis in Sri Lanka and that there should not be a “culture of freebies”. India promised to be supportive of Sri Lanka, which is struggling to deal with the devastation caused by the economic crisis. In such a scenario, what must the world, and India in particular, do to help Sri Lanka?

Guests: Nirupama Rao, D. Subba Rao

Host: Suhasini Haider

Is protectionism compatible with liberalisation?

Thu, 14 Jul 2022 16:41:15 -0000

At a time when the Central government says it is liberalising India’s economy, its economic policymaking on the external front has been marked by rising protectionism. With policies such as Atmanirbhar Bharat, there seems to be a conscious effort to protect the domestic economy from foreign competition. This raises questions on whether the government’s external protectionism is compatible with its promise of liberalising India’s economy.

Here we discuss the model of industrial policy that should be the way forward.

Guests: Ajay Shah, Research Professor of Business at Jindal Global University; Biswajit Dhar, Professor at the Center for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University

Host: Prashanth Perumal

Should the ATP and the WTA merge?

Thu, 07 Jul 2022 15:15:38 -0000

In April 2020, just after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Roger Federer floated the idea of merging the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA), the governing bodies of men’s and women’s tennis, respectively. Billie Jean King founded the WTA in 1973 after failing to persuade the men to create a joint venture. Nearly five decades on, the idea to project tennis’s progressive face, of men and women competing together and as equals, and thereby creating a big enough product that is financially self-sufficient, is taking shape again. It doesn’t necessarily mean a merger of the two competitions, but of the calendar, governance structures, decision-making, sponsorships, etc. A year ago, investment group CVC Capital Partners, a private equity company which has bought stakes in Spanish football’s LaLiga and has a presence in the IPL with the Gujarat Titans, had floated a potential $600m agreement at turning the tours into a single commercial entity. As if on cue, on Tuesday, The Times (London) reported that CVC had struck a deal with the WTA for a 20% stake (about $150 million). There are expectations of a similar agreement with the ATP.

Here we discuss various facets of the potential merger.

Guests: Ankita Bhambri, a former tennis player and most recently the coach of the Indian Fed Cup (now Billie Jean King Cup) team; Sunder Iyer, secretary of the Maharashtra Lawn Tennis Association, which has hosted both ATP and WTA tournaments

Host: N. Sudarshan

Should brand ambassadors be held responsible for claims in advertising?

Thu, 30 Jun 2022 15:11:28 -0000

On June 9, 2022, the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) notified guidelines for ‘Prevention of Misleading Advertisements and Endorsements for Misleading Advertisements, 2022’. The guidelines, brought in with immediate effect, are applicable to all forms of advertisements. While the Consumer Protection Act of 2019 does have a provision on misleading advertisements, the CCPA can impose a penalty of up to ₹10 lakh on manufacturers, advertisers and endorsers for misleading advertisements and a penalty of up to ₹50 lakh for subsequent contraventions. It can also prohibit the endorser of a misleading advertisement from making any endorsement for up to one year; for subsequent contravention, prohibition can extend up to three years.

Here we discuss the need for the new guidelines and how they overlap with the ‘Code for Self-Regulation in Advertising’, which was adopted by the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI).

Guests: Akashneel Dasgupta, chief creative officer at Network Advertising; Anushree Rauta, an advocate and partner heading the Media and Entertainment at the ANM Global

Host: Sonam Saigal

Will Agnipath energise or demoralise the military?

Thu, 23 Jun 2022 15:53:19 -0000

On June 14, the government announced the Agnipath scheme which fundamentally transforms the process of recruitment of soldiers, sailors and airmen into the three services. Agniveers, the recruits, will be employed for four years, after which up to 25% of them will be selected for enrolment in the regular cadre, while the rest will be given a certain amount of money and be shown avenues to get back to civilian life. The scheme has generated a lot of debate, and protests against it have been violent in several parts of the country.

Here we discuss the nuances of the issue.

Guests: Lieutenant General (Retd) D. S. Hooda, a former Northern Army Commander; Air Vice Marshal Manmohan Bahadur (Retd.), former additional director-general of Centre for Air Power Studies

Host: Dinakar Peri

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Is COVID-19 becoming endemic?

Thu, 16 Jun 2022 17:03:21 -0000

Is COVID-19 now approaching an endemic stage? While the common interpretation of endemicity is ‘this is a disease we no longer have to be worried about’, what does it actually mean in epidemiological terms and what are the concerns for public health for the future? Will the infection spread at more predictable rates and will it perhaps become more manageable?

Here we discuss the science behind these questions.

Guests: K. Kolaindaisamy, a former director of public health in Tamil Nadu; Tarun Bhatnagar, an epidemiologist and senior scientist at the Indian Council of Medical Research-National Institute of Epidemiology in Chennai

Host: Ramya Kannan

Is the ban on wheat exports good policy?

Fri, 10 Jun 2022 04:52:13 -0000

Over the last month, the government has banned the export of wheat and imposed quantitative restrictions on outbound sugar shipments. The wheat export ban came within days of a push to enhance India’s wheat supplies to the rest of the world after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The move came in the midst of persistently high inflation, spurred by rising food and fuel prices, and concerns about a lower yield this year due to excessive heat waves. The government has argued that farmers have not lost out due to the ban as most had already sold their produce this season.

Here we discuss the efficacy of these curbs.

Guests: S. Mahendra Dev, director and vice-chancellor, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research; Himanshu, associate professor at the JNU’s Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, School of Social Sciences

Host: Vikas Dhoot

Read the parley article here

Do we need a law to compensate those implicated in false cases?

Fri, 03 Jun 2022 18:00:00 -0000

In October 2021, Aryan Khan, son of actor Shah Rukh Khan, was arrested in Mumbai by the Narcotics Control Bureau in a drug racket case. Now, after many twists and turns in the case, on May 28, he and five others were given a clean chit by a special investigation team from Delhi. Besides highlighting the torment suffered by him and his family, Aryan Khan’s case also threw the focus on the countless victims of malicious prosecution, many of whom are resourceless.

Here we discuss whether those who have been implicated in false cases should be compensated.

Guests: Meeran Chadha Borwankar, a retired Indian Police Service officer of the Maharashtra cadre; Madan B. Lokur, a retired Supreme Court judge

Host: Sonam Saigal

Read the parley article here

Who wields the power to pardon?

Fri, 20 May 2022 18:00:00 -0000

The Governor’s powers of pardon or remission under Article 161 of the Constitution have been in the spotlight with the Supreme Court judgment ordering the release of A.G. Perarivalan, one of the seven convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. In 2018, the then Tamil Nadu cabinet had recommended to the Governor that all the seven convicts be released. The Raj Bhavan sat on the recommendation before forwarding it the President for advice. This month, the Supreme Court ruled that a Governor is bound by the State government’s advice in matters relating to commutation/remission of sentences under Article 161. The Court invoked its extraordinary power under Article 142 in ordering the release of Perarivalan, who had already spent over 30 years in prison. This has raised questions about the limits, if any, to a State government’s recommendation to the Governor to pardon or remit.

Here we discuss questions arising from the case, including those relating to the Office of the Governor, judicial delays and the Perarivalan judgment’s value as a precedent.

Guests: Kaleeswaram Raj, a Supreme Court advocate, author and legal columnist; P. Wilson, a senior advocate and a DMK MP in the Rajya Sabha

Host: Krishnadas Rajagopal

Read the parley article here

Can India re-imagine South Asia?

Fri, 13 May 2022 18:00:00 -0000

After weeks of protests, Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa stepped down this month, but that is not the only big political non-electoral change in the neighbourhood in 2021-22. Just a month ago, it was Pakistan; a year ago, it was Nepal. Power changed hands through more coercive means in Myanmar and Afghanistan. Their polities have yet to settle down. How should India react to these changes? Is there a common strain running across the region in these developments?

Here we discuss these questions.

Guests: Srinath Raghavan, a historian and teaches at Ashoka University, Sonepat; Shyam Saran, a former Foreign Secretary. His new book ‘How China Sees India’ will be published later this month

Host: Suhasini Haidar

Read the parley article here

Is it possible to separate sports and politics?

Fri, 06 May 2022 18:00:00 -0000

A fortnight ago, Wimbledon decided to deny entries to players from Russia and Belarus for the 2022 edition of the tournament. Coming as it did against the backdrop of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Wimbledon said it was to thwart any attempt from the Russian regime to “derive any benefits from the involvement of Russian or Belarusian players with The Championships”. Many other sports, such as football, track and field, and Formula One, have also imposed sanctions of varying degrees.

This has resurrected the debate on the influence of politics on sport. Here we discuss the various facets of the same.

Guests: Zeeshan Ali, a former tennis player and Olympian, is currently India’s Davis Cup coach and also the head of the National Tennis Centre in New Delhi; Sharda Ugra, a sports journalist with more than three decades’ experience across newsrooms at The Hindu, Mid-Day, India Today and ESPNcricinfo

Host: N. Sudarshan

Read the parley article here

Are freebies affecting the economic growth of India?

Fri, 29 Apr 2022 18:00:00 -0000

In an address delivered at the Delhi School of Economics last week, N.K. Singh, the chairperson of the 15th Finance Commission, warned about how the race to provide freebies to voters could be a “quick path to fiscal disaster.” He also noted that freebies could be harmful for the long-term economic growth of the country and emphasised the need to distinguish between productive and unproductive forms of welfare spending.

Here we discuss whether there is a case for doing away with freebie culture.

Guests: Himanshu, Associate Professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi; Renu Kohli, an independent economist who has worked at the International Monetary Fund and the Reserve Bank of India

Host: Prashanth Perumal

Read the parley article here

Is India heading towards a possible fourth COVID-19 wave?

Fri, 22 Apr 2022 18:00:00 -0000

The number of fresh cases of COVID-19 in the country has been going up steadily in Delhi and Maharashtra, considered bellwether States in the country, as far as the pandemic goes. Is this an indication of a further COVID-19 wave in India, and what are the precautions that people and health systems have to take in order to avoid devastation on a scale as was seen during the second wave.

Here we discuss the possible scenarios.

Guests: Prabhdeep Kaur, deputy director, National Institute of Epidemiology of ICMR; J. Radhakrishnan, Health Secretary, Tamil Nadu government

Host: Ramya Kannan

Read the parley article here

Is the Reserve Bank doing enough to rein in inflation?

Fri, 15 Apr 2022 13:05:58 -0000

India’s inflation, which is measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), has stayed above the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)’s upper tolerance limit of 6% for three months running. The central bank’s monetary policy committee decided to hold benchmark interest rates earlier this month, choosing to remain accommodative “while focussing on withdrawal of accommodation to ensure that inflation remains within the target going forward, while supporting growth”. Western economies such as the U.S. have begun raising interest rates.

Here we discuss whether the RBI is doing enough to arrest inflation? and

Guests: Ananth Narayan, Associate Professor and Head of Public Policy, SPJIMR; Lekha S. Chakraborty, Professor at NIPFP and Member, Governing Board of Management, International Institute of Public Finance, Munich

Host: K. Bharat Kumar

Read the parley article here

Is India’s position on Russia affecting its relationship with the U.S.?

Fri, 08 Apr 2022 18:00:00 -0000

Last week, India’s strategic partner, the United States, warned of consequences for any country, including India, which conducts local currency transactions through Russia’s central bank or constructs a payment mechanism that subverts or circumvents the U.S.’s sanctions against Russia. India’s consistent neutral position on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, informed by its choices, has antagonised many countries, including the U.S.

Here we discuss whether the U.S.-India relationship has come under strain?

Guests: Syed Akbaruddin, Dean of the Kautilya School of Public Policy and was India’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations; Lisa Curtis, Senior Fellow and Director of the Indo-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security and was with the U.S. White House as Senior Director at the National Security Council.

Host: Suhasini Haidar

Read the parley article here

Is the fuel pricing policy problematic?

Fri, 01 Apr 2022 18:00:00 -0000

After a long pause, retail fuel prices have been inching up over the past week and have crossed the ₹100 per litre-mark again in several parts of the country, while LPG cylinder prices have been hiked by ₹50. India officially has a deregulated pricing regime, but in recent years, this practice has been put on hold during election campaigns.

Here we discuss whether the fuel pricing policy is problematic.

Guests: D.K. Srivastava, chief policy advisor at EY India, former director of the Madras School of Economics, and member of the 12th Finance Commission; S.C. Sharma, former adviser (petroleum) at the erstwhile Planning Commission and has worked extensively on India’s energy challenges

Host: Vikas Dhoot

Read the parley article here

Is caste identity politics an answer to religious identity politics?

Fri, 18 Mar 2022 18:00:00 -0000

In the recent Assembly elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party won four States (Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) won one (Punjab). There was a premise that this time, particularly in U.P., there was a strong resistance to the BJP’s Kamandal or religious nationalist politics from the Samajwadi Party’s social justice politics or Mandal politics.

What actually won the day for the BJP and what, therefore, happens to the idea that Hindu religious politics can be or should be countered by caste identity politics?

Guests: Indrajit Roy teaches at the University of York in the U.K. and is the author of ‘Passionate Politics’; Radhika Ramaseshan is a senior journalist

Host: Varghese K. George

Read the parley article here

Why isn’t global interconnectedness halting war?

Sat, 05 Mar 2022 07:19:43 -0000

In a bid to isolate Russia, the world has imposed some of the most wide-raging sanctions seen in recent times, as the war in Ukraine enters the eighth day. But why has the international world order failed to prevent the war?

Here we discuss the implications of Russia’s war on its neighbouring country and the human cost of the war.

Guests: Mohan Kumar, Professor and Dean, Office of International Affairs and Global Initiatives at the O.P. Jindal Global University and former diplomat; Asoke Mukerji, Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations from 2013 to 2015 and served in capitals like London and Moscow

Host: Suhasini Haidar, The Hindu's National and Diplomatic Affairs Editor

Read the parley article here.

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Is the new economy creating new jobs?

Fri, 25 Feb 2022 18:00:00 -0000

India has added over 10 unicorns (privately held startup companies valued at over a billion dollars) so far this year, which is a rate of nearly one every five days. This comes after a record year of new unicorns (44 in 2021), which pushed India up to the third place globally, after the U.S. and China, in the Hurun Global Unicorn Index 2021. But what exactly does a unicorn valuation mean for the larger economy, and how do these technology-driven startups influence the employment scenario in the country?

Here we discuss this question.

Guests: P.K. Jayadevan, author and former startup founder; Thillai Rajan, Professor, Department of Management Studies, IIT-M, and co-founder, YNOS Venture Engine

Host: P.J. George

Read the parley article here.

Is the post-Cold War security order changing?

Fri, 18 Feb 2022 18:00:00 -0000

After a weeks-long standoff, Russia announced on February 15 that it is pulling back some of its troops from areas close to Ukraine, signalling a possible de-escalation. But at the same time, it has said that its core security concerns, particularly on NATO’s expansionary open-door policy, remain unaddressed. The crisis, has brought the post-Cold War European security architecture into sharp focus, and triggered debates on whether the great power rivalry is back in the continent.

Here we discuss the Russia-Ukraine crisis and what it means to the post-Cold War world order.

Guests: Nandan Unnikrishnan, Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi; P.S. Raghavan, former Chairman of the National Security Advisory Board

Host: Stanly Johny

Read the Parley article here.

Is the institution of Governor subverting federal structure?

Fri, 11 Feb 2022 08:07:00 -0000

Governor R.N. Ravi returning the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) Bill passed by the Tamil Nadu Assembly and the running battle between West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee underline again the problematic role that governors play in Indian politics.

Here we discuss this issue.

Guests: Gopalkrishna Gandhi, distinguished professor of history and politics, Ashoka University; Shadan Farasat, advocate practising law at the Supreme Court of India

Host: Amit Baruah, Senior Associate Editor, The Hindu

Read the Parley article here .

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What approach should we adopt to treat Omicron?

Fri, 28 Jan 2022 18:00:00 -0000

With Omicron becoming the dominant COVID-19 variant in the country, and with its reputation of being a ‘milder’ form of the disease, there is a debate raging on what treatment methodologies are appropriate. Should we adopt a conservative line or an aggressive line to treat Omicron? The responses to SARS-CoV-2 have been changing constantly, whether in the form of treatment or social restrictions.

Here we discuss the question and the challenges of responding to an evolving pandemic.

Guests: Subramanian Swaminathan , Director, Infectious Diseases and Infection Control, Gleneagles Global Hospitals, Chennai; V . Ramasubramanian , Senior Infectious Diseases Consultant, Apollo Hospitals, Chennai

Host: Ramya Kannan

Read the Parley article here .

Should the government loosen its purse strings?

Fri, 21 Jan 2022 18:00:00 -0000

With the Union Budget 10 days away, many economic observers are now focused on what support the Centre can offer the economy, which is still struggling to recover from the pandemic. Some analysts believe that the government must keep its spending in check to prevent price rise from getting out of control. Retail inflation is hovering close to 6%, while the wholesale inflation rate is in double digits. Other analysts, however, believe that the current rise in prices is a temporary phenomenon, and that the government must ignore the fiscal deficit and ramp up spending to support the ailing economy.

Here we discuss the way forward.

Guests: Himanshu , Associate Professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University; N.R. Bhanumurthy , Vice-Chancellor of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar School of Economics University

Host: Prashanth Perumal

Read the Parley article here .

How will the five State elections influence national politics?

Fri, 14 Jan 2022 17:00:00 -0000

Assembly elections are due in five States: Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Manipur and Goa. Here we discuss the national implications of these Assembly elections.

Guests: Manish Tiwari , Director, Institute for Governance, Policies and Politics, New Delhi; Yamini Aiyar , Chief Executive, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi

Host: Varghese K. George

Read the Parley article here .

Is it right to increase the age of marriage of women to 21?

Fri, 07 Jan 2022 18:00:00 -0000

In the recent session of Parliament, the government introduced the Prohibition of Child Marriage (Amendment) Bill, 2021, to raise the age of marriage for women from 18 years to 21 years. After Opposition MPs demanded greater scrutiny of the Bill, it was referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports. The government says the proposed law will ensure equal chance for women in higher education and access to jobs and help improve maternal mortality rate and nutrition levels.

Here we discuss whether the Bill is welcome.

Guests: Safia Niaz , co-founder of Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan; Mary E. John , former Professor and Acting Director at the Centre for Women’s Development Studies

Host: Jagriti Chandra

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Should vaccination be made mandatory?

Fri, 31 Dec 2021 18:00:00 -0000

It is going to be almost a year since vaccination against COVID-19 was rolled out in India for the adult population. In the midst of this massive drive, there have been numerous challenges including vaccine hesitancy and shortage in supplies. The latest issue is that some States have come up with their own strategies to ensure wider vaccination coverage — such as by making vaccination mandatory for entry into public places and workplaces — even though the Central Government has maintained that vaccination is voluntary.

Here we discuss whether vaccination should be made mandatory.

Guests: G.R. Ravindranath , the General Secretary of Doctors Association for Social Equality; K. Kolandaswamy , a public health expert and formerly director of the Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Government of Tamil Nadu

Host: Serena Jospehine

Read the Parley article here .

Do we need insurance for bank deposits?

Fri, 24 Dec 2021 18:00:00 -0000

At an event last week to mark the payment of over ₹1,300 crore to depositors in troubled cooperative banks, Prime Minister Narendra Modi flaunted his government’s revamped deposit insurance scheme. The scheme, which was upgraded through the Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation (DICGC) Amendment Bill, 2021, guarantees to compensate depositors up to a limit of ₹5 lakh within a period of 90 days from when a bank fails. At the same event, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das warned depositors to be careful and avoid investing in risky banks just because they offer higher returns.

Here we discuss whether we need insurance for bank deposits.

Guests: Amol Agrawal is Assistant Professor of Economics at Ahmedabad University; Amiyatosh Purnanandam is Professor of Finance at the University of Michigan

Host: Prashanth Perumal J.

Read the Parley article here .

Is the Armed Forces Special Powers Act past its expiry date?

Fri, 17 Dec 2021 18:00:00 -0000

The recent killing of 14 civilians in Nagaland’s Mon district by the Indian armed forces has put the spotlight back on the efficacy of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) of 1958. If its raison d’etre was to quell militancy and make way for the peaceful integration of insurgency-hit regions, has it served its purpose?

Here we discuss the moral, legal and political questions pertaining to the controversial piece of legislation, and its impact.

Guests: Major General (retd.) Gajinder Singh , commanded a Mountain Division in the Northeast; Patricia Mukhim , Editor of The Shillong Times

Host: S. Anandan

Read the Parley article here .

Does the Omicron variant make a case for booster doses?

Fri, 10 Dec 2021 18:23:00 -0000

If conversations around booster shots to tackle COVID-19 were loud earlier, the emergence of the new variant, Omicron, has ensured that the clamour for booster shots has reached a fever pitch. The Health Minister stressed that India’s priority is to fully vaccinate all adults and not administer booster shots even though adequate vaccines are available. He also said that any decision on booster doses will be based solely on scientific recommendations. At a recent meeting, the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation maintained that it was not recommending a booster dose for any section of the population, priority groups included, in the absence of evidence. In a conversation moderated by R. Prasad, Chandrakant Lahariya and Satyajit Rath discuss whether booster doses are required, and when and to whom they should first be given when there is enough evidence recommending their use.

Here we discuss whether there is scarce evidence that boosters add value to the main purpose.

Guests: Immunologist Dr. Satyajit Rath, formerly with the National Institute of Immunology and Dr. Chandrakant Lahariya, physician epidemiologist and vaccine expert.

Host: R. Prasad

Read the parley article here

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Is the crypto asset boom sustainable?

Sat, 27 Nov 2021 10:30:00 -0000

One of the defining economic trends of the year has been the rise of cryptocurrencies. After the Supreme Court’s decision last year overturning the Reserve Bank of India’s 2018 order banning financial institutions from enabling cryptocurrency transactions, there has been a huge rush of retail investors into cryptocurrencies. Yet, the risk of the government cracking down on private currencies has remained. On Wednesday, the Centre announced that it will introduce a bill in the upcoming winter session of Parliament seeking to ban private cryptocurrencies, albeit with a few exceptions. Many commentators see the rise of cryptocurrencies as a bubble, while enthusiasts of cryptocurrencies see it as unstoppable.

Here we discuss the government’s move.

Guests: Akshat Shrivastava, a serial entrepreneur and an investor in cryptocurrencies; Parag Waknis, an Associate Professor at Ambedkar University

Host: Prashanth Perumal J.

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Can cricket fandom be conflated with patriotism?

Sat, 20 Nov 2021 10:00:00 -0000

The recent ICC Men’s Twenty20 World Cup in the United Arab Emirates once again showed us the glorious uncertainties of cricket. The sport’s twists were evident when title-favourite India got knocked out. Immediately, the knives were sharpened on social media. Worse had happened earlier following India’s loss to Pakistan. Some fans who had celebrated Pakistan’s triumph were arrested and despicable remarks were made about Indian speedster Mohammed Shami’s Muslim identity, which raised the question: can patriotism be conflated with the Indian men’s cricket team? Isn’t sport a medium that cuts across boundaries?

Here we discuss these questions.

Guest: R. Kaushik, a veteran sports writer, having reported more than 100 Tests and multiple World Cups. He also co-authored V.V.S. Laxman’s biography 281 and Beyond; W.V. Raman, a former Indian cricketer and acclaimed coach, who recently coached the Indian women’s team. He is also the author of The Winning Sixer

Host: K.C. Vijaya Kumar, Sports Editor, The Hindu

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Is the economy still reeling from demonetisation?

Fri, 12 Nov 2021 14:15:00 -0000

On November 8, 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that from midnight, ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes would no longer be considered legal tender in India. The government’s stated aim was to curb corruption and the pervasion of black money in the economy, as well as the proliferation of fake currency which was also being used in terror funding. Pronab Sen discusses with Vikas Dhoot the after-effects of the demonetisation gamble and whether the intended outcomes have been achieved.

Here we discuss about the economy after the demonetisation:

Guest: Pronab Sen, is the country Director for the India Programme of the International Growth Centre and was previously India's chief statistician.

Host: Vikas Dhoot

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Will Air India’s sale smoothen the privatisation runway?

Sat, 23 Oct 2021 00:30:00 -0000

Earlier this month, the Tata Group emerged as the winning bidder for Air India, the debt-laden national carrier. In this year’s Budget, the government unveiled a bold new disinvestment policy that envisages a bare minimum presence of government-owned businesses even in the strategic sectors. The government is also pursuing the sale of its entire stake in public sector firms such as BPCL, Shipping Corporation of India, IDBI Bank, two other public sector banks and one general insurance company this financial year. Given India’s recent disinvestment record, this is an ambitious target.

Here we discuss the implications of the sale of Air India on the future of India’s public sector.

Guests: Arvind Mehta was Secretary to the Fifteenth Finance Commission and also served in the Department of Disinvestment in two separate stints; Ashok Chawla served as Permanent Secretary to the Government of India in Ministries such as Civil Aviation and Finance and retired recently as Chairperson of the Competition Commission of India

Host: Vikas Dhoot

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Are bad banks good?

Fri, 08 Oct 2021 06:00:00 -0000

Last month, the Union government set up the National Asset Reconstruction Company Limited (NARCL) under the Companies Act. It thus delivered on its promise to set up a ‘bad bank’ to clean up the balance sheets of commercial banks. Under the new set up, the NARCL will take over loans worth almost ₹2 lakh crore from the books of commercial banks at a mutually agreed price. The NARCL will pay 15% of the price of these loans upfront in cash to banks and then issue security receipts in lieu of the remaining amount. The NARCL will then try to resolve these bad loans in a time-bound manner with help from the India Debt Resolution Company Limited (IDRCL). In case the IDRCL is unable to sell these bad loans at a satisfactory price to make good on the security receipts, the Centre will step in and fund the gap, but within a budget limit of ₹30,600 crore.

Here we discusss the bad bank proposal.

Guests: C.P. Chandrasekhar, Professor at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, JNU; Ajit Ranade, chief economist at the Aditya Birla Group

Host: Prashanth Perumal J.

Should universities avoid teaching controversial texts?

Fri, 01 Oct 2021 09:29:00 -0000

Kannur University has decided to retain lessons on the works of V.D. Savarkar and M.S. Golwalkar — Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? by Savarkar and A Bunch of Thoughts by Golwalkar — in the post-graduate course, Governance and Politics, after a controversy erupted over an earlier decision to ban the texts from the syllabus.

Here we discuss the larger implications of such bans.

The Parley discussion was conducted when the Kannur University’s ban on the texts of Savarkar and Gowalkar was still in force.

Guests: Yogendra Yadav member, and former president of Swaraj India; Kuldeep Kumar, a bilingual journalist, and a Hindi poet who writes on politics and culture

Host: Anuradha Raman

Read the Parley article here.

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Does NEET privilege the privileged?

Fri, 24 Sep 2021 06:00:00 -0000

With the Tamil Nadu government seeking to ‘dispense’ with the requirement for candidates to qualify in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) for admission to undergraduate medical courses in the State, the controversy over NEET is alive again. T.N.’s position is rooted in the conclusions of the Justice A.K. Rajan Committee report, which claims that NEET has undermined diverse social representation in MBBS admissions. J. Amalorpavanathan and Sumanth C. Raman discuss whether NEET has adversely affected the disadvantaged groups, in a conversation moderated by Ramya Kannan.

Is the BJP high command calling the shots in States?

Fri, 17 Sep 2021 08:00:00 -0000

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has changed five Chief Ministers in four States this year. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home State, Gujarat, is the latest to see a change of guard. Are these changes a sign of anti-incumbency or are they a sign of concentration of power in the hands of the Central leadership?

Here we discuss the issue.

Guests: Sudheendra Kulkarni, political commentator; Harish Khare, senior journalist and former Editor of The Tribune

Host: Sandeep Phukan

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Why hasn’t marital rape been criminalised in India yet?

Fri, 10 Sep 2021 08:00:00 -0000

In 2017, the Supreme Court, in Independent Thought v. Union of India, refused to delve into the question of marital rape of adult women while examining an exception to Section 375 (rape) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) which allows a man to force sex on his wife. Recent rulings by High Courts have been contradictory — one backed marital rape as a valid ground for divorce, while another granted anticipatory bail to a man while concluding that forcible sex is not an “illegal thing”.

Why do differences persist despite the Justice J.S. Verma Committee recommendation to criminalise marital rape? Here we discuss why marital rape has not been criminalised in India yet.

Guests: Manuraj Shunmugasundaram, advocate, Madras High Court, and spokesperson of the DMK; Shraddha Chaudhary, lecturer, Jindal Global Law School, Sonepat, and Ph.D candidate (law), University of Cambridge

Host: Sudipta Datta

Read the Parley article here.

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Is monetising public assets a good idea?

Fri, 03 Sep 2021 07:00:00 -0000

Last week, the Centre released the ‘National Monetisation Pipeline’, a document listing the various public assets that will be leased out to private companies over the next four years. The government believes that monetising underutilised public assets will bring in almost ₹6 lakh crore to the government and help build new infrastructure to boost the economy. The Opposition has accused the government of selling off valuable national assets to “crony capitalists”.

Here we discuss this move.

Guests: Montek Singh Ahluwalia, former Deputy Chairman of the erstwhile Planning Commission; Ajay Shah, Professor at the National Institute for Public Finance and Policy

Host: Prashanth Perumal J.

Read the Parley article here.

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Has the first-past-the-post system polarised Indian politics?

Fri, 27 Aug 2021 13:00:00 -0000

India’s parliamentary democracy is going through a phase of intense confrontation between the dominant ruling party and a weakened but belligerent Opposition. Is this situation a consequence of the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system, where a party with the the highest votes gets the seat even if it doesn't win a majority?

Here we address this question.

Guests: E. Sridharan, Academic Director and Chief Executive at the University of Pennsylvania Institute for the Advanced Study of India, and Editor-in-Chief of India Review; Suhas Palshikar taught political science at Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune, and chief editor of Studies in Indian Politics

Host: Srinivasan Ramani

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Why are government schools not the first choice?

Sat, 07 Aug 2021 12:00:00 -0000

The public education system is the primary option for millions of students in India. These institutions have become more important as the pandemic takes a toll on the economy, putting fee-charging schools beyond the reach of many and forcing thousands to move to government schools. The Patna High Court recently asked for data on how many IAS and IPS officers have enrolled their wards in government schools.

Here we discuss the quality of public education.

Guests: Uma Mahadevan, Principal Secretary, Panchayati Raj, Government of Karnataka; Anita Rampal, Professor and former Dean, Faculty of Education, Delhi University.

Host: G. Ananthakrishnan

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Are the Taliban returning to Kabul?

Fri, 30 Jul 2021 20:12:00 -0000

After 20 years of fighting, the U.S. is set to end its military operations in Afghanistan by August 31. Since May 1, when U.S. troops started withdrawing from Afghanistan, the Taliban have made rapid territorial gains in the country. They have taken control of dozens of northern districts and several of the country’s key border crossings, mounting pressure on the Ashraf Ghani government.

Here we discuss the Afghan situation, India’s options, and the prospects for a peaceful settlement.

Guests: Avinash Paliwal, Deputy Director of the SOAS South Asia Institute, London; Jayant Prasad, a former Indian civil servant, who had served as India’s envoy in Kabul.

Host: Stanly Johny

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Will the new e-commerce rules really favour consumers?

Fri, 23 Jul 2021 21:00:00 -0000

In June, the Union Consumer Affairs Ministry came out with a list of proposed amendments to the Consumer Protection Act of 2019. These include appointment of a Chief Compliance Officer and a Resident Grievance Officer, provisions of fall back liability, registration of e-commerce entities and seeking an end to flash sales. The Centre claims that these amendments try to rein in unfair trade practices adopted by e-commerce companies and intend to take care of the interests of consumers. But not everyone agrees.

Here we discuss the proposed amendments in a conversation moderated by:

Guests: Prithwiraj Mukherjee, an Assistant Professor at IIM, Bangalore; Anupam Manur, an Assistant Professor at the Takshashila Institution.

Host: Prashanth Perumal J

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Is the Indian stock market in a bubble?

Mon, 19 Jul 2021 11:23:00 -0000

Since the nationwide lockdown announced by the Prime Minister in March 2020, the Indian economy has faced its worst contraction in history. Yet, the country’s stock indices, the Sensex and the Nifty, have almost doubled in price from the low that they hit in April 2020. Many analysts and even the Reserve Bank of India now believe that stocks are in a bubble.

Here we discuss the current state of Indian markets.

Guests: Alok Jain, a SEBI-registered investment adviser and a momentum investor; Anand Srinivasan, a value investor and the author of Ordinary Stocks, Extraordinary Profits

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Should only elected legislators be eligible for chief ministership?

Mon, 12 Jul 2021 16:16:00 -0000

The option provided in the Constitution should be used with honesty, not just to tinker with politics.

The sudden exit of Tirath Singh Rawat as Chief Minister of Uttarakhand, a development the Bharatiya Janata Party sought to explain in terms of a constitutional roadblock to being elected as a legislator with in six months, has led to thickening speculation about the fate of West Bengal’s Mamata Banerjee, another unelected Chief Minister.

Here we discuss the road ahead.

Guests: M.R. Madhavan, is President and co-founder of PRS Legislative Research, a public policy research institution; S.Y. Quraishi, served as 17th Chief Election Commissioner of India from July 2010 to June 2012.

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Can the CBSE’s plan objectively assess students of Class 12?

Wed, 30 Jun 2021 17:46:00 -0000

The CBSE has prepared a tabulation scheme to determine the marks that students of Class 12 will be awarded in this pandemic year, upon completion of schooling. How reliable is such a scheme against the backdrop of the digital divide, and can it be improved?

Here we discuss the road ahead for assessing students.

Guests: Uday Gaonkar, a teacher in a rural school in Karnataka’s public system who has worked in science teaching and learning; Anita Rampal, Professor and former Dean, Faculty of Education, Delhi University.

Host: G. Ananthakrishnan

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Should India accept Islamic State returnees?

Fri, 18 Jun 2021 22:00:00 -0000

In 2016-18, four women from Kerala accompanied their husbands to join the Islamic State (IS) in Afghanistan's Khorasan Province. Their husbands were killed in different attacks and the women are now lodged in an Afghanistan prison. Authorities in Afghanistan want to return the women to India, but the Indian government has not indicated what it proposes to do in this matter.

Sources say security agencies have advised against taking them back. What do international laws say about foreign fighters returning to their countries? Here we discuss the question.

Guests: Kabir Taneja, a Fellow with the Strategic Studies Programme at the Observer Research Foundation and author of The ISIS Peril; K.P. Fabian, a former diplomat author and Professor at the Indian Society of International Law.

Host: Suhasini Haidar

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Should retired officials be barred from disclosing information?

Fri, 11 Jun 2021 21:30:00 -0000

Last week, the Government of India prohibited retired officials of security and intelligence organisations from publishing anything about their work or organisation without prior clearance from the head of the organisation. Serving civil servants are barred from expressing their personal opinion on policy matters and criticising the government. But once they retire, many of them take part in public debates and enrich our conversations.

Here we discuss whether there should be any restrictions on the freedom of expression of a specific category of retired government officials. And if yes, what the limits of such restrictions should be.

Guests: Syed Akbaruddin, India’s former Permanent Representative to the United Nations, and Dean, Kautilya School of Public Policy; G.K. Pillai, a former Home Secretary of India.

Host: Varghese K. George

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IT Rules: a case of overreach?

Sun, 06 Jun 2021 18:56:00 -0000

Last week, WhatsApp decided to legally challenge one of India’s new Information Technology rules which requires messaging platforms to help investigative agencies in identifying the originator of problematic messages. WhatsApp reckons this would break end-to-end encryption and undermine people’s right to privacy. The government responded saying it is committed to ensuring the right of privacy for all its citizens, and that it also has to ensure national security.

Have these new rules been framed to adequately address the privacy versus security balance, especially in the context of social media intermediaries such as WhatsApp? Here we discuss this question.

Guests: Parminder Jeet Singh, Executive Director, IT for Change; Rishab Bailey, Technology Policy researcher at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy

Host: Sriram Srinivasan

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Is the two-state solution to Israel-Palestine conflict still alive?

Fri, 28 May 2021 13:09:00 -0000

The 11-day fighting between Hamas and Israel, coupled with protests across the Palestinian territories and Israeli cities, have turned the spotlight once again on the Palestine question. The internationally accepted solution to this crisis is the so-called two-state solution. This would mean that an independent, sovereign Palestine state and an independent, sovereign Israeli state would coexist in peace. But on the ground, since the Oslo Accords were signed, there has been little progress on the two-state solution and Israel has only tightened its occupation of Palestine over the years.

Here we discuss the past, present and future of the Palestine question.

Guests: A.K. Ramakrishnan, a professor of international relations at the Centre for West Asian Studies, JNU, New Delhi; Nathan Thrall, the author of The Only Language They Understand and a contributor to The New York Times Magazine and the London Review of Books.

Host: Stanly Johny

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Can the economy survive the second COVID-19 wave?

Fri, 21 May 2021 14:00:00 -0000

As the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and the State-level lockdowns batter the economy, Reserve Bank of India governor Shaktikanta Das this week noted that the impact of the second wave is likely to be less severe than the first one. He said that businesses and people have started to adapt to lockdowns and that the hit to demand would be much lower this time.

Here we discuss the two COVID-19 waves, and how they have impacted the economy.

Guests: Radhika Pandey, an economist and consultant at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy; Vivek Kaul, a business journalist and author of India’s Big Government: The Intrusive State & How It’s Hurting Us

Host: Prashanth Perumal J.

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Should political prisoners be released during the pandemic?

Fri, 14 May 2021 14:00:00 -0000

As the second wave of the pandemic rages across India, the country’s overcrowded prisons are in danger of becoming major hotspots for the spread of the disease. Dozens of political prisoners, mainly civil rights activists, continue to languish in prison indefinitely with no possibility of their trials commencing any time soon.

Here we discuss the issue of overcrowded prisons during the pandemic.

Guests: Sanjay Hegde, is a Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India; V. Suresh, is a National General Secretary for the People’ Union for Civil Liberties.

Host: Jayant Sriram

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Is the government committed to vaccine equity?

Mon, 03 May 2021 10:03:00 -0000

The Central government has transferred the responsibility of vaccinating people in the 18-44 age group to the States, and opened up vaccine pricing to market forces, at a time when discussions around the world are about an intellectual property (IP) waiver for COVID-19 vaccines and providing free vaccines. Here we discuss India’s vaccination policy and its challenges. Guests: K.M. Gopakumar, a is Legal Adviser, Third World Network. He works on the global intellectual property regime and its impact on developing countries; K. Sujatha Rao, a former Union Health Secretary, is the author of the book, Do We Care? India’s Health System. Host: G. Ananthakrishnan Read the Parley article here. You can now find The Hindu’s podcasts on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Stitcher. Search for Parley by The Hindu. Write to us with comments and feedback at socmed4@thehindu.co.in

Should election campaigns be made virtual?

Fri, 23 Apr 2021 16:00:00 -0000

India is witnessing a second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, with record numbers of new cases and deaths every day. At the same time, States holding Assembly elections have seen mass rallies by political parties. In most such rallies, especially in West Bengal, which still has two phases to go and where campaigning is still on, COVID-19 protocols such as masking and physical distancing are blatantly flouted.

In view of the COVID-19 surge, and the fact that public rallies are super-spreader events, should campaigning be restricted to virtual mode — at least until the pandemic is behind us? Here we explore this question.

Guests: Neelanjan Sircar, an Assistant Professor of political science at Ashoka University, and Senior Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi; Sanjay Kumar, a political analyst, psephologist, and co-director of the Lokniti Research Project at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi.

Host: G. Sampath, Social Affairs Editor, The Hindu

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How can India contain the second wave?

Thu, 15 Apr 2021 16:00:00 -0000

After daily new COVID-19 cases peaked on September 16, 2020, during the first wave, new cases and deaths in India began to increase from the third week of February 2021, marking the beginning of the second wave. The rise in daily cases and deaths has been steep since April 1. On April 14, India reported nearly 2 lakh cases. The seven-day average test positivity rate has also been climbing.

Here we discuss what will it take to contain the second wave?

Guests: Giridhara Babu, an epidemiologist at the Public Health Foundation of India and a member of the Karnataka COVID-19 Technical Advisory Committee; Gautam Menon, a Professor of Physics and Biology at Ashoka University.

Host: R. Prasad, Science Editor, The Hindu

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Should governments regulate online platforms?

Fri, 26 Feb 2021 15:16:00 -0000

Australia’s new News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code will force platforms like Facebook and Google to pay local media outlets and publishers to link their content in news feeds or search results. The Australian law is being seen as one of the early shots fired in the coming battle by countries to regulate tech giants to take back some of the control they have on global communications.

But is it an ideal regulatory model? Won’t regulating the platforms affect free speech? Is regulating platforms the way to save the news media business that is in the doldrums? Here we discuss the issue.

Guests: Dwayne Winseck, Professor, School of Journalism and Communication, Carleton University, Canada; Jeff Jarvis, Director, Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at City University of New York’s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism.

Host: P.J. George

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Is India criminalising comedy and entertainment?

Sat, 20 Feb 2021 19:17:00 -0000

Producers of entertainment content, especially stand-up comedians, are increasingly becoming the target of legal action. To take just two examples, while Kunal Kamra is facing contempt proceedings for remarks about the Supreme Court, fellow comedian Munawar Faruqui had to spend more than a month in jail on vague charges before getting bail.

Are Indians so lacking in humour that their first response to a joke is to take offence and then file a case? Here we explore this question.

Guests: Arti Raghavan, an advocate practicing at the Bombay High Court and also the counsel for Kunal Kamra in the criminal contempt proceedings before the Supreme Court; Agrima Joshua, a Mumbai-based stand-up comedian.

Host: G. Sampath

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Is India’s Digital Services Tax discriminatory?

Fri, 12 Feb 2021 21:08:00 -0000

Last month, a United States Trade Representative investigation report found India’s Digital Services Tax to be discriminatory. It said the tax is “inconsistent with prevailing principles of international taxation”, and burdens or restricts U.S. commerce. India has denied these charges. The bone of contention is a 2% tax that India has charged since April 2020 on revenues from digital services, applicable only to non-resident companies.

Here we discuss this issue.

Guests: Nikhil Kapoor, a Research Fellow at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy; Suranjali Tandon, an Assistant Professor, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy

Host: Sriram Srinivasan

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Board exams in the midst of a pandemic

Tue, 09 Feb 2021 13:11:00 -0000

With the COVID-19 pandemic disrupting the academic year 2020-21, for the first-time, students of class X and XII are set to face board examinations based on knowledge gained almost entirely from virtual teaching.

Here we discuss the challenges in conducting board examinations now.

Guests: K. Devarajan, a former Director of Government Examinations, Tamil Nadu; Chandra Bhushan Sharma, Professor, School of Education, Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi

Host: D. Suresh Kumar

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Why haven’t other sports reached the heights of cricket?

Wed, 03 Feb 2021 12:56:00 -0000

On January 19, precisely a month after being bowled out for its lowest Test score of 36 against Australia, India bounced back to script one of the more memorable series triumphs in cricketing hiistory.

Dealing with injuries and insult in varying degrees, the squad fought gallantly to beat the odds and a full-strength opponent to retain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. The series-clinching three-wicket win at Brisbane — the first for a visiting team since 1988 — was achieved by a team that was missing nine of the regular players who formed the playing XI in the first Test at Adelaide.

This fitting finale to India’s tale of guts and glory brought with it the admiration of not only cricket-playing nations but also sports-lovers across disciplines.

Here we discuss why India has not replicated or even remotely matched the success of cricket in other sports?

Guests: R.B. Ramesh, a British championship–winner, a Commonwealth champion, a Grandmaster-turned-coach, and former chief of the National Selection Committee; Sharath Kamal, a two-time Asian Games–medallist, a Commonwealth Games gold-medallist, and a Commonwealth champion.

Host: Rakesh Rao

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Are courts encroaching on the powers of the executive?

Mon, 25 Jan 2021 23:52:00 -0000

On January 12, the Supreme Court stayed the implementation of three controversial farm laws passed recently, and ordered the constitution of a committee of experts to negotiate between the farmers’ bodies and the Government of India.

Rather than deliberating on the constitutionality of the three laws, the court appears to be trying to move both the parties towards a political settlement, thereby wading into the domain of the government.

Here we discuss whether the court has abdicated its constitutional duty mandate in this case, and is this in a growing trend?

Guests: Anuj Bhuwania, Professor at the Jindal Global Law School, is the author of Courting the People: Public Interest Litigation in Post-Emergency India; Arun Thiruvengadam, a Professor of Law at the School of Policy and Governance, Azim Premji University, Bengaluru

Host: Jayant Sriram, Assistant Editor, The Hindu

Do we have a grip on disinformation in 2021?

Fri, 08 Jan 2021 11:21:00 -0000

Disinformation, or “fake news” in common parlance, is a malaise born amid the infodemic of the social media age. In the last few years, it has been used as an effective weapon to polarise communities and upset democratic processes.

As we begin 2021, we discuss the current state of the malady.

Guests: Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, Director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and Professor of Political Communication at the University of Oxford; Pratik Sinha, co-founder of Alt News, a fact-checking website.

Host: P.J. George, Deputy Internet Editor, The Hindu

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Is the Special Marriage Act losing out to the bogey of ‘love jihad’?

Sat, 02 Jan 2021 15:36:00 -0000

The Special Marriage Act (SMA), 1954 is seen as a progressive law enacted to help inter-faith couples. But with States such as Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh framing laws that target inter-faith marriage, the procedural requirements of the SMA — such as the need to give prior notice, and allowance for ‘objections’ — seem to be undermining its original intent by opening the doors to violent moral policing by vigilante groups.

Can the SMA come to the rescue of inter-faith couples, who, in addition to the old challenge of parental opposition, today also have to contend with the bogey of ‘love jihad’? Here we discuss the issue.

Guests: Veena Gowda, a women’s rights lawyer who has been practising in the High Court of Bombay, Family Court and other trial courts for more than two decades; Faizan Mustafa, Vice-Chancellor of NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad.

Host: G. Sampath

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Are children being introduced to coding too early in life?

Fri, 25 Dec 2020 18:32:00 -0000

The number of coding and programming bootcamps that are being offered by educational technology (Ed Tech) companies for children as young as four or five years has increased exponentially in recent times. Ed Tech companies argue that careers in the 21st century will be based on technology, for which children should get a head start. There have also been ringing endorsements from celebrities for this trend.

Should we at all be concerned about this? What are the repercussions of increasing screen time for young children? Here we discuss this issue

Guests: Latha Madhusudhan, an educator for over 30 years, is the founder of ‘Prakriti - A Waldorf Kindergarten’, a Waldorf-inspired school in Bengaluru; Pritika Mehta, a data scientist and entrepreneur who leads initiatives to teach coding to young children via interactive games

Host: Mandira Moddie

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Are IT project managers facing an existential crisis?

Sat, 12 Dec 2020 02:46:00 -0000

Despite the years of experience and expertise that the middle management layer brings to the Indian IT services industry, it has been facing an existential crisis for a while now. Stories abound of clients preferring senior code writers over project managers, and of tech CEOs aiming the axe at this layer first every time a sizeable layoff is planned. The pandemic has not made it any easier.

Have enough project managers made the change to agile methodologies that steer clear of the traditional, and sequential, more rigid ‘waterfall’ approach while working with clients? Here we discuss the question about their future.

Guests: Srini Srinivasan, Managing Director, PMI South Asia; R. Srikrishna, CEO and Executive Director, Hexaware Technologies.

Host: K. Bharat Kumar

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Does India’s neighbourhood policy need reworking?

Fri, 04 Dec 2020 13:53:00 -0000

Recent visits by Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval to countries in the region appear to show new energy in India’s neighbourhood policy. Over the past few years, there have been many strains in ties with neighbours — for instance, with Nepal over its Constitution in 2015 and now over the map, and with Bangladesh over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA).

Here we discuss India’s neighbourhood policy.

Guests: Constantino Xavier, a nonresident fellow in the India Project, and is currently a fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress; Shyam Saran, a former Foreign Secretary and is currently Senior Fellow, Centre for Policy Research.

Host: Suhasini Haidar, Diplomatic Affairs Editor, The Hindu

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Are tougher laws the answer to check online abuse?

Fri, 27 Nov 2020 09:37:00 -0000

Following widespread criticism, the Kerala government decided early this week to put on hold an Ordinance that gives unbridled powers to the police to arrest anyone expressing or disseminating any matter that it deems defamatory.

However, the move to introduce such a law in the first place shows that State governments believe that existing laws are not adequate to deal with social media abuse. We discuss to what extent is this true.

Guests: Rishab Bailey, a lawyer working with the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, an autonomous research institute established by the Ministry of Finance; Vrinda Bhandari, a litigating lawyer in Delhi. She is Of-Counsel for the Internet Freedom Foundation, and specialises in the field of digital rights, technology, and privacy

Host: Jayant Sriram

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Is India facing a two-front war?

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 17:34:00 -0000

While the India-China stand-off continues in eastern Ladakh, the Line of Control (LoC) is yet again on the boil. We discuss whether India faces the prospect of a two-front war.

Guests: Harsh V. Pant, Director, Studies at the Observer Research Foundation and Professor of International Relations, King’s College London; Lieutenant General D.S. Hooda (retd.), a former Northern Army Commander.

Host: Dinakar Peri

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Can the right to work be made real in India?

Fri, 13 Nov 2020 16:50:00 -0000

As economies around the world struggle to recover from the double whammy of a pandemic and a lockdown, unemployment is soaring. In India, the land of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), the promise of jobs and the politics of unemployment have a long history.

Can a citizen demand work as a right, and is it the state’s responsibility to provide employment? We discuss the possible policy approaches to the right to work.

Guests: Amit Basole, Head, Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University, Bengaluru; Reetika Khera, Associate Professor of Economics at IIT-Delhi.

Host: G. Sampath, Social Affairs Editor, The Hindu

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Are there indications of an economic revival in India?

Fri, 06 Nov 2020 10:30:00 -0000

After India’s economy collapsed in the first quarter of 2020-21 following the nationwide lockdown imposed to curb the COVID-19 pandemic, some economic indicators from September and October, from power consumption to GST collections, suggest that things are improving.

We discuss whether there is a sustainable recovery under way, or it's just an expression of pent-up demand combined with India’s festive-season spending.

Guests: M. Govinda Rao, a former member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister and the Fourteenth Finance Commission; Naushad Forbes, a former president of the Confederation of Indian Industry and co-chairman of Forbes Marshall

Host: Vikas Dhoot

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Is the U.S. on the wane as a superpower?

Fri, 30 Oct 2020 05:02:00 -0000

Russian President Vladimir Putin recently said that China and Germany are soon going to be superpowers as U.S. influence wanes globally. Today, as the U.S. is on the cusp of a new presidency, after a remarkable almost four years under President Donald Trump, it is worth examining whether its superpower status endures in the realms of politics, economics, military and diplomatic power, and culture.

We discuss why the U.S. faces an ideational problem despite having an unparalleled position militarily and economically.

Guests: Richard Lachmann, a Professor of Sociology at the University at Albany of the State University of New York; Robert J. Lieber, a Professor of Government and International Affairs at Georgetown University.

Host: Narayan Lakshman, Associate Editor, The Hindu

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Has India passed the COVID-19 peak?

Fri, 23 Oct 2020 06:43:00 -0000

Since mid-September, the number of daily new COVID-19 cases recorded has been reducing from the peak of 90,000-odd cases. A few days ago, the COVID-19 India National Supermodel Committee, constituted by the Department of Science and Technology, based on mathematical modelling studies, concluded that India had passed the COVID-19 peak in September. It also found that there will be fewer than 50,000 active cases from December and if proper safety protocols continue to be followed, the pandemic can be “controlled by early next year” with “minimal” active symptomatic infections by end-February. We discuss whether India has gone past the peak.

Guests: Giridhara R. Babu, a Professor of Epidemiology at the Public Health Foundation of India, Bengaluru, and a member of the Karnataka COVID-19 Technical Advisory Committee; Gautam Menon, a Professor of Physics and Biology at Ashoka University and co-author of COVID-19 modelling studies.

Host: R. Prasad, Science Editor, The Hindu

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Should the government regulate TRPs?

Fri, 16 Oct 2020 08:50:00 -0000

Last week, the Mumbai Police said that a TRP (Target Rating Points) racket involving three news channels had been busted by its Crime Detection Branch. Since then, the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), which monitors the TRPs, has suspended ratings of news channels for three months.

The alleged scam has once again highlighted the need for regulation. Television channels are driven by TRPs and it is viewership that drives their business. We discuss how TRPs are manipulated and what could be the solution.

Guests: Sashi Kumar, the founder and editor in chief of Asiaville, a digital multimedia platform. He was also the founder of Asianet television channel; S.Y. Quraishi, a former Chief Election Commissioner and former Director General of Doordarshan.

Host: Anuradha Raman

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Should Indian startups take on global Internet giants?

Fri, 09 Oct 2020 08:56:00 -0000

Online payments company Paytm recently announced that it was building a ‘Mini App Store’ which would ‘empower Indian developers’. This move came days after Paytm was removed from Google’s Play Store over apparent violation of its policies. Though it was reinstated later, Paytm and several other Indian Internet startups allege that Google is using its market dominance to arbitrarily enforce policies and target competitors. The Play Store is the key app store for Google’s Android operating system, which runs over 90% of smartphones in India. Google also announced that it will start enforcing a 30% commission on all payments made for digital services in apps from its Play Store. Though the implementation of this plan has since been postponed to next year, it has caused much heartburn in the Indian startup environment. There is discontent brewing against tech giants in their home country as well, with a similar tussle going on between Apple and some game developers in the U.S., and the government readying an anti-trust lawsuit against Google. Is the Indian startup ecosystem is ready to take on the giants on whom they are dependent for crucial infrastructure?

Guests

Jayadevan P.K. is a startup founder and writes on technology. He now works on brand building for startups.

Thillai Rajan is a Professor in the Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Madras.

Host

P.J. George, Deputy Internet Editor, The Hindu

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Should online gambling in India be regulated?

Fri, 02 Oct 2020 05:52:00 -0000

The growing popularity of gaming platforms like Dream11 and Paytm First Games raise questions about whether they are proxies for online gambling as they can involve financial transactions though are currently classified as ‘games of skill’. We discuss the current legal position in India on games of skill versus games of chance, the size of the gambling industry, and issues of regulation.

Guests: Vidushpat Singhania, Managing Partner of Krida Legal and specialises in sports and gaming laws; Jay Sayta who has has extensively tracked issues pertaining to the gaming industry and gaming laws over the last decade and now advises several gaming companies on policy, regulatory, tax and legal issues.

Host: Jayant Sriram

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Will the farm bills give farmers a choice?

Fri, 25 Sep 2020 11:07:00 -0000

Three farm Bills — the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill (commonly referred to as the APMC Bypass Bill), and the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill — were cleared by Parliament amid protests from the Opposition. We discuss the implications of the controversial Bills.

Guests: Arindam Banerjee, Associate Professor at the School of Liberal Studies at Ambedkar University; Sudha Narayanan, Associate Professor at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research.

Host: Vikas Dhoot

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Is the Quad rising after China’s challenge at the LAC?

Fri, 18 Sep 2020 05:58:00 -0000

As India faces China’s challenge over the ground situation at the Line of Actual Control (LAC), we discuss whether a maritime coalition in the Indo-Pacific, the Quadrilateral, comprising India, the U.S., Japan and Australia, an effective counter?

Guests: Tanvi Madan, director of The India Project at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., and author of Fateful Triangle: How China Shaped U.S.-India Relations during the Cold War; Ashok Kantha, director of the Institute of Chinese Studies, and former Ambassador to China.

Host: Suhasini Haidar, Diplomatic Affairs Editor, The Hindu

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How much is too much when collecting data for planning?

Fri, 11 Sep 2020 07:31:00 -0000

On Independence Day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the launch of the National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) under which “every Indian will get a Health ID card.” He said: “Every time you visit a doctor or a pharmacy, everything will be logged in this card.” The NDMH seeks to create an ecosystem under which health records will be digitised. The government has clarified that this would be voluntary, data will be stored locally, and only anonymised data will be shared upwards. We discuss whether real-time capturing of demographic data and broad health indicators will lead to benefits that outweigh the perceived and real risks of erosion of privacy.

Guests: A.R. Nanda, a demographer who served as Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India as well as Health Secretary. Venkat Srinivasan, a Boston-based technology entrepreneur, deploys AI in finance, accounting, health and education.

Host: Varghese K. George, Associate Editor, The Hindu

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Should the age of marriage for women be raised to 21?

Fri, 04 Sep 2020 07:34:00 -0000

In his Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the government will soon take a decision on the age of marriage of women. Earlier, a task force had been formed to consider raising this from 18 years to 21.

Guests: Jayna Kothari, Executive Director of the Centre for Law and Policy Research and Senior Advocate at the Supreme Court.

Madhu Mehra, Executive Director of Partners for Law in Development India, and co-founder of the National Coalition for Advocating for Adolescent Concerns.

Host: Jagriti Chandra, Principal Correspondent, The Hindu

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Should women be entitled to menstrual leave?

Fri, 21 Aug 2020 06:43:00 -0000

Zomato, one of India's largest food delivery firms, has announced a new paid menstrual leave policy for its employees, 35% of whom are women. While this is not the first time that a company is announcing such a policy, it has triggered a sharp debate among women themselves on whether this is a progressive move, mere tokenism, or a regressive move.

Guests

Barkha Dutt, senior journalist and Editor of Mojo.

Kavita Krishnan, CPI (ML) Politburo member and All India Progressive Women’s Association secretary

Host

Radhika Santhanam, Assistant Editor, The Hindu

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Should early child care centres be opened sooner?

Fri, 14 Aug 2020 15:36:00 -0000

The world is still struggling to come to terms with the unprecedented impact that COVID-19 has had on every aspect of human life. The pandemic has forced cities and towns to go into lockdowns. The attendant side effects — including the rather sudden withdrawal of certain social support services — have affected large groups of people. For a good proportion of the working population, working from home is not an option and they have been summoned to their workplaces. And, the usual structures that would keep their young children safe while their parents are at work — schools, anganwadis and balwadis — are not operational. In this context, parents have made the fervent appeal to open up early child care centres. Two experts discuss key issues concerning the area of early child care.

Guests: Maya Gaitonde, honorary general secretary of the Chennai-based Bala Mandir Kamaraj Trust.

K. Shanmugavelayutham, convenor of Tamil Nadu Forum for Creche and Child care Services and a senior consultant in the Kasturirangan Committee.

Host: Ramya Kannan, Chief of Bureau, The Hindu

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Can the NEP aid access to universal education?

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 05:32:00 -0000

The new National Education Policy (NEP), approved by the Union Cabinet last week, seeks to align itself with the Sustainable Development Goal of ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education for all in the next 20 years. The policy has brought into its ambit children in the age group of 3 to 18 years. There are concerns that the policy abandons the state’s commitments under the RTE Act.

Additional Reading: The Hindu Explains | What has the National Education Policy 2020 proposed?

Guests: Leena Chandran Wadia, senior consultant in the Kasturirangan Committee.

Anita Rampal, former Dean, Faculty of Education, at Delhi University.

Host: D. Suresh Kumar, Deputy Resident Editor, The Hindu

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Should the government go easy on the telecom sector?

Fri, 31 Jul 2020 05:29:00 -0000

Following years of breathtaking subscriber growth, tele-density is showing signs of strain. Some telecom players are facing an existential crisis due to brutal competition and the government demanding unpaid dues. At the same time, investors of different hues are lining up to invest in the space, signalling a belief that the industry still holds prospects of juicy returns.

In a conversation moderated by K. Bharat Kumar, former Chairman and Managing Director of VSNL B.K. Syngal and International Institute of Information Technology-Bangalore professor V. Sridhar discuss what lies in store for the industry.

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Can open book examinations offer an alternative?

Fri, 24 Jul 2020 05:17:00 -0000

The Ministry of Human Resources Development’s insistence, based on new University Grants Commission (UGC) guidelines, that final year examination in all universities and institutions be held in spite of the risk posed by COVID-19, has also led to a debate on open-book examinations. Do open book examinations offer a way out of the student evaluation crisis thrown up by the pandemic?

Guests: Yoginder K. Alagh, former Vice-Chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University

Ramakrishna Ramaswamy, Visiting Professor at the Department of Chemistry, IIT - Delhi

Host: G. Ananthakrishnan,

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Should the Gandhis disengage from the Congress?

Fri, 17 Jul 2020 06:40:00 -0000

Two Congress leaders discuss the role of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty and the future of the Party. These two guests have been part of the Congress Party, yet are not party insiders.

Host: Varghese K George

Guests: Kumar Ketkar, Rajya Sabha legislator

Rajeev Gowda, who recently completed his first term as an MP in the Rajya Sabha

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With app bans, is Internet freedom being sacrificed for national security?

Fri, 10 Jul 2020 02:55:00 -0000

A discussion on the vulnerability of Internet freedom at a time of national security risks. This comes in the backdrop of the government’s decision to block 59 Chinese apps, something that followed the escalation of tensions at the border between the two countries. Host: Sriram Srinivasan, Strategy & Digital Editor, The Hindu Guests: Arghya Sengupta, Research Director at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy. Raman Chima, Asia Policy Director and Senior International Counsel at Access Now.

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Should Ayurveda and other traditional medicine be subjected to scientific rigour?

Thu, 02 Jul 2020 16:46:00 -0000

Patanjali Ayurveda’s claimed cure for COVID-19 has been criticised for making unsubstantiated claims of efficacy. However, can Ayurveda, or alternative medicine in general, be evaluated in the same way as modern medicine?

Host: Jacob Koshy Guests: Dr. Bhavana Prasher, senior scientist at the CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology. Dr. S.P. Kalantri is a Professor at Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences, Wardha

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Can online learning replace the school classroom?

Thu, 25 Jun 2020 16:42:00 -0000

The COVID-19 outbreak has disrupted the academic year, cancelled classes and examinations across the country. To ensure that students do not miss out on their studies, schools moved classes online, forcing students to attend lectures via their gadgets. However, this has also sparked a debate on whether the increased amount of screen time helps students learn or if it impedes their progress. While Maharashtra has banned online classes from pre-primary to Class II, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh have extended the ban till Class V. Here's a look at the pros and cons of online learning. Host: Puja Pednekar Guests: Kiran Bhatty is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research. Reeta Sonawat is an Executive Director at the Early Childhood Association

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Can India decouple itself from Chinese manufacturing?

Fri, 19 Jun 2020 16:58:00 -0000

The border clashes with China and the COVID-19 pandemic have reignited questions about India’s dependence on Chinese manufacturing. India’s imports from China in 2019-2020 reached $65 billion, out of $81 billion two-way trade. Is the pandemic, as Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said last month, a “blessing in disguise” for Indian manufacturing? Will companies be able to move deeply integrated supply chains out of China? And if so, will they choose India? In a discussion moderated by Ananth Krishnan, Biswajit Dhar, and Amitendu Palit, discuss India’s options and the challenges ahead in India’s efforts to boost manufacturing at home.

Host: Ananth Krishnan, China Correspondent, The Hindu

Guests: Amitendu Palit, Professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore; Biswajit Dhar, Professor at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University.

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Is work from home here to stay?

Wed, 17 Jun 2020 18:21:00 -0000

The Covid-19 pandemic and the resultant lockdowns have made work from home an imperative for several industries. Clearly, some job profiles lend themselves to work from outside the office. Others, where human interaction is necessary, obviously do not.

For those industries and job profiles for which work from home is possible, has the concept come to stay, is the question before us now…

Running up to 2025, a large IT services firm in India has said it would have about 75% of its 4.5 lakh employees globally to work from home, up from the industry average of 20% today. It has gone out on a limb and said it did not believe it needed more than 25% of its workforce at its facilities in order to be 100% productive.

Will this trend catch on and become permanent? What does it mean for fissures that are already evident in today’s workplace? The digital divide? The gender divide? Transnational sensibilities? How do you build trust in a world where turning up for work is perceived as a mark of commitment?

Host: Bharat Kumar K, Senior Deputy Editor - Business of The Hindu

Guests:

Ashwini Deshpande, whose PhD and early publications have been on the international debt crisis of the 1980s. Subsequently, she has been working on the economics of discrimination and affirmative action, with a focus on caste and gender in India.

Ramkumar Ramamoorthy, who is the President of the 184-year old Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) and also the Chairman and Managing Director of Cognizant India, one of the largest employers in India, with over 200,000 full-time employees of which over 75,000 are women.

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Are social media platforms arbiters of truth?

Wed, 17 Jun 2020 05:25:00 -0000

In the midst of the massive protests that have erupted in the U.S., social media platform Twitter decided to do something it had avoided for several years: call out some of President Donald Trump's tweets as being incorrect information and as being against its policies.

This prompted Mr. Trump to warn social media platforms of stricter controls via an Executive Order. It also prompted another social media giant, Facebook, to state that they did not want to take similar action since they did not want to be 'arbiters of truth'.

These developments bring into focus the level of involvement the social media giants have in the dissemination of the public discourse and raises questions on how these platforms should behave.

Guests: Mishi Choudhary, Legal Director of the Software Freedom Law Centre in New York; and Rishab Bailey, Legal Consultant for Technology Policy at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, New Delhi.

Host: P.J. George, Deputy Internet Editor, The Hindu

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Pushing for healthcare as a fundamental right in India

Fri, 08 May 2020 14:31:00 -0000

India has never spent more than 2% of its GDP on healthcare. And healthcare facilities across the country straddle several levels of efficiency and sufficiency. The infrastructure facilities and services are at best patchy. While States such as Kerala and Tamil Nadu fare better, the impact of a virulent COVID-19 has shaken even the States that traditionally have done well.

With COVID-19 having put the country’s heathcare system to the test, Dr. Abhay Shukla, national convener of the Jan Swasthya Abhiyan and Senior Program Coordinator of Sathi; and Prof. T. Sundararaman, former executive director, National Health Systems Resource Center, and global co-ordinator of the People’s Health Movement discuss whether the time is ripe to push the agenda of healthcare as a fundamental right for all citizens.

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Should government intervene in platform-publisher relationships?

Fri, 01 May 2020 10:16:00 -0000

In the last few weeks, France and Australia have taken significant steps to make news aggregators such as Google pay for the re-use of news. The beneficiaries will be news publishers, who for years have been struggling to make the digital transition. While the competition regulator in France has effectively pushed Google into negotiating a remuneration deal with publishers, Australia has proposed to make platforms pay for the use of news.

Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, Director, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism; and Parminder Jeet Singh, Executive Director, IT for Change, weigh in on whether governments should intervene in correcting lopsided relationships between platforms and publishers.

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Will India be able to manage the economic impact of COVID-19?

Fri, 27 Mar 2020 07:53:00 -0000

This week, we discuss the global Coronavirus pandemic that has effectively brought normal life to a full stop in India through a Centre-enforced lockdown. The importance of social distancing cannot be stressed enough. But this also has huge repercussions on our livelihoods and the economy, which has already been suffering a slowdown over the last year.

To discuss this, are Dr. Naushad Forbes (former president, Confederation of Indian Industry; co-chair, Forbes Marshall) and M. Govinda Rao (economist, former member of 14th Finance Commission).

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Is it time to drop the sedition law?

Fri, 06 Mar 2020 17:54:00 -0000

On March 2, a 43-year-old Muslim man was charged with sedition after he allegedly chanted pro-Pakistan slogans in front of the mini Vidhan Soudha at Kundapur in Karnataka’s Udupi district. Last month, the police arrested a teacher and a parent in Bidar for an allegedly seditious play against the Citizenship Amendment Act. Over the last few months, many people protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act have been charged with sedition all across the country.

Senior Supreme Court advocate Sanjay Hegde and Delhi government’s addition standing counsel (criminal) Nandita Rao discuss why Section 124A (sedition) still exists in the statute books, its misuse, and whether it should be done away with.

Also Read: Should the sedition law be scrapped?

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What should India’s restructured military command look like?

Thu, 05 Mar 2020 15:49:00 -0000

The massive restructuring of the military command structure has dismantled the old civil-military relationship, with far greater powers in decision-making now being bestowed on the armed forces. In a conversation moderated by Atul Aneja, Madanjit Singh and Anit Mukherjee weigh in on this highly complex transformation which is likely to lead to a complete overhaul of the military command structure.

(Madanjit Singh is Vice Admiral (retd.), former head of the Western Naval Command and member of the task force for the review of the management of defence, set up after the 1999 Kargil War. Anit Mukherjee is a former Navy oﬃcer and assistant professor at the Rajaratnam School of International Studies at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.)

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Shouldn’t women officers get the chance to rise through the ranks?

Mon, 17 Feb 2020 09:40:00 -0000

After the Central government cited physical and physiological reasons for why women could not be given commanding positions in the Indian Army, the Supreme Court had last week observed that there was a need for a “change of mindset” and display of “administrative will”.

In this episode of Parley, moderated by Dinakar Peri, Lieutenant Generals Syed Ata Hasnain (Chancellor, Kashmir University) and Deependra Singh Hooda (former Northern Army Commander) discussed the issue of granting permanent commission and commanding posts for women in the armed forces.

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Will Budget 2020’s proposals boost the investment cycle in India?

Fri, 07 Feb 2020 15:13:00 -0000

Presenting the Union Budget for 2020-21 in Parliament, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said it would boost common people’s income and enhance their purchasing power. Ananth Narayan (Professor of Finance, S.P. Jain Institute for Management Research) and veteran banker V. Srinivasan discuss whether the proposed changes in direct taxes and other measures are likely to spur consumption and investment in the economy.

Hosted by Suresh Seshadri, Business Editor, The Hindu

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Do free speech laws need to be reworked in today’s context?

Sat, 01 Feb 2020 14:12:00 -0000

The past few weeks have been the most polarising in recent memory with regard to freedom of expression norms. FIRs were registered against students for stating their political opinions even as political leaders actively indulged in hate speech.

This brings into focus the tug-of-war between morality and state security, freedom and responsibility. Should statements by civil society and politicians be made chargeable offences or should our idea of free speech expand to accommodate the full range of our society’s political opinion? Freedom of expression is enshrined under Article 19 (1) of the Constitution with safeguards outlined in 19 (2). Do these safeguards need to be brought under review today?

In a conversation moderated by Jayant Sriram, Abhinav Chandrachud (Author and Bombay High Court advocate) and Mihira Sood (Supreme Court lawyer) discuss the various facets of this question.

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Should celebrities avoid political activism?

Fri, 17 Jan 2020 02:45:00 -0000

Over the past few weeks, several actors have spoken out against the Citizenship Amendment Act-National Population Register-National Register of Citizens (CAA-NPR-NRC) as well as the attack on students and faculty in Jawaharlal Nehru University. In a conversation moderated by Radhika Santhanam, Malayalam actor Parvathy Thiruvothu and communications consultant Dilip Cherian discuss why so many celebrities are suddenly speaking up and whether their voices make a difference.

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What is the state of ‘open source’ in India today?

Tue, 14 Jan 2020 07:47:00 -0000

Open Source has been part and parcel of software programming in India for a while now. Free sharing has been an ideal for a long time. But have Big Tech proprietary firms co-opted the open-source platforms along the way?

Venkatesh Hariharan (Senior Fellow, IDFC Institute) and Sangeeta Gupta (VP, National Association of Software and Services Companies) discuss the history of the Open Source movement in India.

Host: Jacob Koshy

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