In 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 mark ... Read more
In 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 not have much time to enjoy a return to normalcy, as government officials are already warning of a third wave of the virus. To discuss where things stand in India today, Milan is joined Niha Masih, a Delhi-based correspondent for the Washington Post. Niha reflects on her family’s struggle with the COVID-19 pandemic, the mental toll the pandemic has taken, and the under-reported challenges rural India faces. Plus, the two discuss the Indian government’s new vaccine policy and the political implications of the crisis for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Read more
This week, Sumitra Badrinathan, Devesh Kapur, and Jonathan Kay join Milan to discuss discrimination Indian Americans face in the United States, based on a new study of which the fo ... Read more
This week, Sumitra Badrinathan, Devesh Kapur, and Jonathan Kay join Milan to discuss discrimination Indian Americans face in the United States, based on a new study of which the four are all coauthors. Read more
This week on the show, Milan is joined by Grand Tamasha news round-up regulars Sadanand Dhume of the American Enterprise Institute and the Wall Street Journal and Tanvi Madan of th ... Read more
This week on the show, Milan is joined by Grand Tamasha news round-up regulars Sadanand Dhume of the American Enterprise Institute and the Wall Street Journal and Tanvi Madan of the Brookings Institution. This week, Milan, Sadanand, and Tanvi discuss the political state of affairs in India in the wake of recent state elections, the foreign policy ramifications of the COVID-19 second wave, and the government’s ongoing tussle with social media companies. Plus, the three speculate about who will lead the opposition in India’s 2024 general elections. Read more
In the early 1990s, India legislated sweeping new gender quotas in local government in the hopes that women’s political empowerment would help to rectify centuries-old social and e ... Read more
In the early 1990s, India legislated sweeping new gender quotas in local government in the hopes that women’s political empowerment would help to rectify centuries-old social and economic inequalities. But, despite these moves, we know surprisingly little about whether and how quotas have undone entrenched social, political, and economic hierarchies around the world. A new book by the political scientist Rachel Brulé—Women, Power and Property: The Paradox of Gender Inequality Laws in India—tackles precisely this question through a broad-ranging study of quotas in India and their impacts not just on women’s lives, but on the broader system of status hierarchy and dominance that permeates Indian society. Rachel, an assistant professor of global development policy at the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, joins Milan on the show this week to talk about her new book, the entrenched nature of gender inequality in India and around the world, and the complex effects of quotas on development outcomes in India. Plus, the two discuss the prospects of the Women’s Reservation Bill, a long-pending bill that would reserve one-third of parliamentary and state assembly seats in India for women. Read more
One of the enduring puzzles about the tragic second wave of COVID is how India, the world’s largest vaccine producer, faces an alarming shortage of vaccines. A new essay by the j ... Read more
One of the enduring puzzles about the tragic second wave of COVID is how India, the world’s largest vaccine producer, faces an alarming shortage of vaccines. A new essay by the journalist Samanth Subramanian for the online news organization Quartz argues that there’s no single answer, but rather a “timeline of dysfunction” marked by what he calls “government negligence, corporate profiteering, opaque contracting, and the inequities of the global pharmaceutical market." Samanth is a senior reporter at Quartz covering the future of capitalism. He has previously written for the Guardian Long Read, the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, and WIRED. He's also the author of three books, including A Dominant Character: The Radical Science and Restless Politics of JBS Haldane, one of the New York Times' 100 Notable Books of 2020. Samanth is Milan’s guest on the show this week and the two discuss how the Indian government has managed the deadly second wave of the COVID pandemic, the role the Serum Institute of India and its enigmatic CEO have played in India’s vaccine production, and the patchy rollout of the government’s vaccine delivery. Plus, the two discuss what the United States and the international community must do to help vaccinate the developing world. Read more
More than fifteen years ago, India’s parliament passed a sweeping piece of legislation known as the Right to Information Act—a law that transforms the way ordinary citizens access ... Read more
More than fifteen years ago, India’s parliament passed a sweeping piece of legislation known as the Right to Information Act—a law that transforms the way ordinary citizens access the inner workings of government, offering them an unprecedented glimpse into how policy is made, how funds are allocated, and how interests are served. A new book by the political scientist Himanshu Jha, Capturing Institutional Change: The Case of the Right to Information Act, asks a seemingly simple question: why would a state that is so deeply penetrated by vested interests, initiate a far-reaching process of reform that would expose the very special interests who have benefited from opacity in the first place? This week on the podcast, Milan sits down with Himanshu, who is a lecturer and research fellow in the Department of Political Science at the South Asia Institute at Heidelberg University. The two talk about the domestic and foreign origins of law, the implementation challenges it has faced, the ways in which it has challenged vested interests, and how the government has tried to undermine transparency. Read more
Aditi Phadnis and Milan discuss the reasons behind Mamata Banerjee’s decisive victory in West Bengal, the Left’s historic showing in Kerala, the BJP’s win in Assam, and the DMK’s c ... Read more
Aditi Phadnis and Milan discuss the reasons behind Mamata Banerjee’s decisive victory in West Bengal, the Left’s historic showing in Kerala, the BJP’s win in Assam, and the DMK’s comeback in Tamil Nadu. Read more
This month, voters are going to the polls in five Indian states to select the members of their respective state assemblies. These polls are being seen as a test of Prime Minister N ... Read more
This month, voters are going to the polls in five Indian states to select the members of their respective state assemblies. These polls are being seen as a test of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity and the ability of the Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to grow or further consolidate its popularity in the eastern and southern parts of the country. Election results will be announced on May 2 but, before then, we will hear from a litany of exit polls that will try to predict the outcomes of these five contests. The exit polls conducted by Axis My India will among the most eagerly anticipated. The firm has garnered a reputation for accurately predicting a spate of recent elections across India. Milan’s guest on the show this week is Pradeep Gupta, the Chairman and Managing Director of Axis My India and author of the brand-new book, How India Votes: And What It Means. Milan and Pradeep discuss why it is so hard to conduct election surveys in India, why Indian voters are delivering more decisive mandates of late, and how Narendra Modi has established a unique connection with Indian voters. Plus, the two discuss the state of the political opposition and how Modi was able to turn demonetization, a questionable economic policy measure, into a big political winner. Read more
This week on Grand Tamasha, Christophe Jaffrelot joined Milan to discuss Emergency Rule in 1970s India and the parallels between the political structures then and now. Most peopl ... Read more
This week on Grand Tamasha, Christophe Jaffrelot joined Milan to discuss Emergency Rule in 1970s India and the parallels between the political structures then and now. Most people who work on India regularly refer to India as the world’s largest democracy and the most enduring democracy in the developing world. However, they often have to footnote such statements with the caveat that India experienced a twenty-one-month period of Emergency Rule in the late 1970s during which democracy was placed in cold storage. A new book, India’s First Dictatorship--The Emergency 1975-1977, by Christophe Jaffrelot and Pratinav Anil breaks new ground in providing us with a comprehensive history and political analysis of this exceptional period. Christophe joins Milan on the show this week to discuss why the Emergency was imposed, how it was imposed, and why—in the end—it was undone. Plus, the two talk about talk about parallels between the political power structure in India circa the late 1970s and today. Read more
