Latest Narendra Podcast Episodes
Russia, China, and Pivotal State Elections
Grand Tamasha - March 30, 2022 01:00 - 46 minutes ★★★★★ - 75 ratingsThe last few weeks have seen a flurry of activity on the Indian politics and policy front. India has found itself front and center in the Ukraine crisis as it has repeatedly abstained from condemning the Russian invasion. Last week, in a visit that had tongues wagging, the Indian and Chinese for...
How to Fix India’s Water Crisis
Grand Tamasha - March 23, 2022 01:00 - 37 minutes ★★★★★ - 75 ratings“Water is everywhere—in the highest mountains, in the deepest ocean, in the Ganga, in sewers, within you, and in the air. But the glass of water in front of you is precious because it requires India’s volatile, varied water to be harnessed and brought to your home.” This is one of the main ins...
The Road to the 2024 Election Starts Now
Grand Tamasha - March 16, 2022 01:00 - 35 minutes ★★★★★ - 75 ratingsLast week, the results of five assembly elections were announced and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi claimed impressive victories in four out of five contests—notching wins in Goa, Manipur, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh. In the state of Punjab, the upst...
How Will the Ukraine Crisis Impact India’s Economy?
Grand Tamasha - March 09, 2022 02:00 - 33 minutes ★★★★★ - 75 ratingsThis week, the Indian government revealed that India’s economy expanded by 5.4 percent in the third quarter of the current fiscal year, which was well below market expectations. The latest GDP print raises fresh questions about the health of the Indian economy at a time when global headwinds are...
India's High-Wire Act on Russia-Ukraine
Grand Tamasha - March 02, 2022 02:00 - 33 minutes ★★★★★ - 75 ratingsLate last week, Russia launched a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine, deploying the might of the Russian military to conduct a hostile takeover of its sovereign neighbor. Over the past few days, India’s role has received significant attention as it has neither condoned Russia’s behavior nor...
Nehru's Long Shadow Over India
Grand Tamasha - February 23, 2022 02:00 - 39 minutes ★★★★★ - 75 ratingsIndia’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, died nearly six decades ago, but it is remarkable how much his legacy continues to color modern Indian life. From the border dispute with China to debates over fundamental rights and Hindu-Muslim relations, the current policy discourse in India c...
Breaking Down India’s Budget
Grand Tamasha - February 16, 2022 02:00 - 32 minutes ★★★★★ - 75 ratingsOn February 1, the Union government presented its budget for the upcoming fiscal year—setting the tone for its midterm pivot as the government turns toward 2024 and the end of its second term in office. What are the biggest takeaways from this year’s budget? How did the markets receive it? And ...
Encore: How Shah Rukh Khan Inspires Female Empowerment
Grand Tamasha - February 09, 2022 02:00 - 43 minutes ★★★★★ - 75 ratingsDue to scheduling conflicts, there is no new episode of Grand Tamasha this week. A new episode of Grand Tamasha will air next Tuesday at 9:00 PM EST/Wednesday 7:30 AM IST. Most of our listeners do not need an introduction to the Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan. You’ve watched his movies. You...
India’s Future in a Changing Global Order
Grand Tamasha - February 02, 2022 02:00 - 33 minutes ★★★★★ - 75 ratingsIndia’s Path to Power: Strategy in a World Adrift is a manifesto written by eight of India’s leading public intellectuals that seeks to chart a future course for Indian’s foreign policy. But, unlike most foreign policy reports, it delves into thorny issues of economics, climate change, global go...
Can India Beat COVID in 2022?
Grand Tamasha - January 26, 2022 02:00 - 36 minutes ★★★★★ - 75 ratingsOn Sunday, January 23, India reported more than 333,000 active COVID cases while the official number of fatalities surpassed 500 deaths. What is the state of COVID in India today? What lessons has this pandemic imparted? And what, if anything, does COVID mean for the future of economics and poli...
The State, the Economy, and the Art of Podcasting
Grand Tamasha - December 22, 2021 02:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 75 ratingsThis week, we conclude Season Six of Grand Tamasha with a bang. Before Milan was a podcast host, he was a podcast consumer. And two of his favorite India podcasts are “The Seen and the Unseen” with Amit Varma and “Ideas of India” with Shruti Rajagopalan. So, what better way to end our season tha...
How Shah Rukh Khan Inspires Female Empowerment
Grand Tamasha - December 15, 2021 02:00 - 42 minutes ★★★★★ - 75 ratingsMost of our listeners do not need an introduction to the Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan. You’ve watched his movies. You’ve sung the songs his films have popularized. You might even have had his poster on your wall growing up. A new book by the economist Shrayana Bhattacharya, Desperately S...
Tibet: India and China's 'Three-Body Problem' in the Himalayas
Grand Tamasha - December 08, 2021 02:00 - 39 minutes ★★★★★ - 75 ratingsAmbassador Nirupama Rao has had the kind of career that every Indian Foreign Service aspirant dreams of. In 2011, she retired as foreign secretary to the Government of India, the most senior position in the foreign service. She has served as spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs, amb...
Unpacking the Modi Government's Farm Law Reversal
Grand Tamasha - December 01, 2021 02:00 - 41 minutes ★★★★★ - 75 ratingsIn September 2020, India’s Parliament passed three farm reform bills that the government claimed would radically change the way in which agriculture was practiced in the country. Yet, just over twelve months later, the same government announced its intention to repeal those laws—a major concessi...
Modi's Farm Law Reversal, India-China, and Trade Policy
Grand Tamasha - November 24, 2021 02:00 - 44 minutes ★★★★★ - 75 ratingsWe are nearly done with our sixth season of Grand Tamasha and we have been shamefully overdue in scheduling a news round-up for the Fall. To set things straight and to discuss the latest news coming out of India, Milan is joined on the podcast this week by Grand Tamasha regulars Sadanand Dhume ...
What COP26 Means for India—and the World
Grand Tamasha - November 17, 2021 02:00 - 41 minutes ★★★★★ - 75 ratingsAfter two, torturous weeks of around-the-clock negotiations at the COP26 Summit in Glasgow, Scotland, diplomats from nearly 200 countries agreed to accelerate their commitments to reduce carbon emissions, phase out fossil fuels, and ramp up aid to poor countries, many of whom are the biggest vic...
The Rural Roots of Citizenship and Democracy in India
Grand Tamasha - November 10, 2021 02:00 - 38 minutes ★★★★★ - 75 ratingsFor more than fifteen years, the scholar Mukulika Banerjee has been deeply embedded in the social and political life of two villages in the state of West Bengal—studying developments there, both during elections and between them. Her new book, “Cultivating Democracy: Politics and Citizenship in ...
How the Pulwama Case was Cracked
Grand Tamasha - November 03, 2021 01:00 - 43 minutes ★★★★★ - 75 ratingsOn February 14, 2019, a suicide bomber crashed into an Indian paramilitary convoy in Pulwama, Kashmir, killing forty Indian soldiers. The attack was the deadliest assault on Indian security personnel in Kashmir in three decades and captured the attention of domestic and international headlines. ...
Inside the Secret World of South Asia's Spies
Grand Tamasha - October 27, 2021 01:00 - 38 minutes ★★★★★ - 75 ratingsSpy Stories: Inside the Secret World of the RAW and the ISI is the brand new book by investigative journalists Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark. Spy Stories relies on unprecedented access to top military and intelligence officials in both India and Pakistan to shed light on some of the most co...
Joanna Slater on the Pivotal Stories She Covered in India for the Washington Post
Grand Tamasha - October 20, 2021 01:00 - 41 minutes ★★★★★ - 75 ratingsJoanna Slater is a veteran journalist who served as the Washington Post India bureau chief based in New Delhi from 2018-2021. She was posted there during one of the most consequential periods in recent Indian history—covering the 2019 general elections, the abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir, ...
How India Can Get to Net Zero Emissions
Grand Tamasha - October 13, 2021 01:00 - 31 minutes ★★★★★ - 75 ratingsIn a few weeks, climate negotiators from around the world will descend on Glasgow, Scotland, for the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP 26. Amid dire warnings from climate scientists about our warming planet and desperate calls for stepped-up action, India finds i...
Narendra Modi and India's New Political System
Grand Tamasha - October 06, 2021 01:00 - 42 minutes ★★★★★ - 75 ratingsFrench political scientist Christophe Jaffrelot’s new book, Modi’s India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy, is a comprehensive exploration of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi—its origins, policies, philosophy, and relationship to democ...
The Looming Cloud of Sanctions Over U.S.-India Relations
Grand Tamasha - September 29, 2021 01:00 - 37 minutes ★★★★★ - 75 ratingsLast week, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made his maiden visit to Washington under the new Biden administration. It was all sunlight and good vibes and—for a week—American and Indian policymakers ignored the fact that a darkening cloud is gathering over U.S.-India relations in the form of ...
The Biden-Modi Summit and the Future of U.S.-India Relations
Grand Tamasha - September 22, 2021 01:00 - 29 minutes ★★★★★ - 75 ratingsThis week, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives in Washington for his first in-person meeting in the American capital with U.S. President Joe Biden. Modi, Biden, and the leaders of Australia and Japan will also be gathering for an in-person edition of the Quad Leader’s summit. To unders...
What the Taliban Takeover Means for India
Grand Tamasha - September 15, 2021 01:00 - 35 minutes ★★★★★ - 75 ratingsIt’s been a month since the fall of Kabul and the sudden Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. In the intervening weeks, policymakers the world over have been scrambling to understand the reasons for the sudden collapse of the Afghan government, the real aims of the new Taliban regime, and the geopol...
Kanti Bajpai on Why China and India Are Not Friends
Grand Tamasha - July 07, 2021 01:00 - 46 minutes ★★★★★ - 75 ratingsOne year ago, Chinese and Indian forces traded blows in the remote Galwan Valley—resulting in the first deaths along the Line of Actual Control since 1975. Months later, India would be hit by the coronavirus, whose precise origin story in China we still do not fully understand. Indian public opi...
Neha Sahgal on Religion and Identity in Contemporary India
Grand Tamasha - June 30, 2021 01:00 - 40 minutes ★★★★★ - 75 ratingsOver the last two-and-a-half years, Milan and his guests have spent a lot of time on the podcast talking about some of the biggest questions facing Indian society. What is driving an increase in religious nationalism? To what extent is religious intolerance on the rise? Is caste morphing from a ...
Arora Akanksha on Her Unlikely Quest to Run the United Nations
Grand Tamasha - June 23, 2021 01:00 - 40 minutes ★★★★★ - 75 ratingsNote: Milan’s interview with Arora Akanksha took place on June 18. On June 19, the United Nations General Assembly formally approved a second term for the incumbent António Guterres—officially bringing the selection process to a close. Earlier this month, the United Nations Security Council re...
Niha Masih on Reporting on India's COVID-19 Crisis
Grand Tamasha - June 16, 2021 01:00 - 32 minutes ★★★★★ - 75 ratingsIn India, there are growing signs that the country is slowly exiting the second wave of the COVID crisis as people get back to work, localities lift lockdown restrictions, and markets reopen. But the second wave leaves behind a trail of devastation, loss, and widespread anger. And Indians may no...
Sumitra Badrinathan, Devesh Kapur, and Jonathan Kay on How Indian Americans Live
Grand Tamasha - June 09, 2021 01:00 - 37 minutes ★★★★★ - 75 ratingsA troubling surge in hate crimes and discrimination targeting Asian Americans has hit the headlines in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The violence has cast a newfound spotlight on the bigotry many Asian immigrant populations experience in the United States. While Indian Americans have not b...
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