In Focus by The Hindu

On August 5 in Dharali, a Himalayan village near the Gangotri pilgrimage route, steady rain was followed by the ballooning of a river that destroyed homes and futures. It wasn’t the first such disaster in this region. It began with regular monsoon rain tapping on roofs, creating thin streams down the hillsides. Hours later, a wall of water, rock and mud tore through Dharali. Nestled in Uttarakhand’s upper reaches near Gangotri, Dharali lies close to a sacred source of the Ganga River. But on that day, the river smashed into homes, ripped apart roads and swept away everything in its path. Families fled with nothing. Lives were lost.The Himalayas are young mountains that shift, crack and shed rock. But our choices make them more dangerous: carving roads into fragile slopes, building too close to rivers and the warming the climate. In this episode, a scientist explains the forces shaping the mountains, and an environmentalist shows how our actions magnify the risk. Together, they trace the path from an ordinary day’s rain to a disaster and reveal how to stop the next tragedy before it strikes. Host: Anupama Chandrasekaran Produced by Sharmada venkatasubramanian Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The ‘atom bomb’ that Rahul Gandhi was talking about has finally dropped. At a press conference on August 7, Mr Gandhi gave a presentation where he sought to show how, in one assembly segment of a Lok Sabha constituency in Karnataka, more than 1 lakh fake votes were cast. Mr Gandhi said a team in the Congress spent six months sifting through voter rolls data in hard copy format sourced from the Election Commission, and they identified five ways in which fake votes were cast: duplicate voters, fake and invalid voters, bulk voters in a single address, invalid photos, and misuse of Form 6 to add so-called new voters. Mr Gandhi also alleged that this was a template, and it can be, and has probably been, replicated in elections across the country. Mr Gandhi has made two demands to the Election Commission (EC): that it share voter data in electronic text readable format, and that it make available CCTV footage of polling booths. The EC has asked Mr Gandhi to formally submit his charges under oath. How credible are these charges? And how justified are Mr Gandhi’s demands? What is the road to accountability in the context of these specific charges? Guest: Poonam Agarwal, investigative journalist and author of ‘India Inked: Elections in the World’s Largest Democracy’. Host: G Sampath Produced and edited by: Jude Francis Weston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) announced its decision to lay off 12,000 employees, Nasscom (National Association of Software and Service Companies) said that the tech industry is at an “infliction point” due to the increasing integration of AI and automation into core business operations. Meanwhile, the All India Professionals’ Congress (AIPC), in conjunction with IT employee unions and forums, is pursuing strategies to address the issue of layoffs in the IT sector. It plans to raise this matter in Parliament, advocating for a policy that would cap the pay disparity between top leadership and average employees. Should there be a ceiling on salaries of top management? In this In Focus-Parley episode, we discuss the question. Guests: Praveen Chakravarty, chairperson, All India Professionals’ Congress; Sridhar Kundu, consultant economist, World Bank Host: A.M. Jigeesh Edited by: Sharmada Venkatasubramanian You can now find The Hindu’s podcasts on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Stitcher. Search for In Focus by The Hindu. Write to us with comments and feedback at socmed4@thehindu.co.in Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

U.S. President Donald Trump announced has 25% tariffs on imports from India, “plus a penalty”. While this has been on the cards, there was some expectation that a quick bilateral trade agreement could soften the blow, if not prevent it. Trump has justified his move with a number of complaints: he has spoken of India’s high tariffs, non-tariff barriers, India buying oil and defence hardware from Russia, and India’s membership of BRICS, which he considers as anti-US coalition. Exports to the US constitute 18% of India’s overall exports. If the tariffs kick in, they are expected to lower India’s GDP growth by 20-30 basis points. Are these tariffs just a pressure tactic aimed to extract concessions from India on the trade deal? What are India’s options? Would India be better off without a rushed trade deal? Guest: Jayati Ghosh, Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Host: G. Sampath Produced and edited by Jude Francis Weston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Senior advocate Indira Jaising,  in a written submission to the Supreme Court recently, saidthat consesual sex between teenagers aged 16 to 18 must not be criminalised. Why is this a hot button issue? Under the Pocso or Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, any sexual relationship under the age of 18 is a crime, as those below 18 are considered children, and therefore consent does not matter. This is not a new issue: child rights activists and court in India too, have for years now highlighted the fact that a chunk of cases filed under the Pocso Act are of consensual teenage romantic relationships and elopements and that navigating the criminal judicial system in India can wreak havoc on young lives. The government however has maintained its stand that the age of consent cannot be lowered, that doing this, would erode child protection and child marriage laws and polices. Is there a case for decriminalising consensual teenage relationships? Is it fair to punish young persons for their romances? How is consent defined and regulated? How can India protect its children from marriage, abuses and crime while also allowing them freedom to choose their partners when they want to? Guest: Swagata Raha, legal researcher on child protection  Host: Zubeda Hamid Edited by Sharmada Venkatasubramanian Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It was a final like no other — two Indian women, face to face, with a world title on the line. On one side of the board sat Koneru Humpy, one of the greats of the game. On the other, 19-year-old Divya Deshmukh, fearless and sharp. The Women’s Chess World Cup in Georgia had come down to a tense tiebreak. And in that pressure-cooked moment, it was Divya who found the winning move. The title was hers. It was a moment of triumph and a sign of change. This was the first-ever all-Indian final at the women’s chess World Cup. Once unthinkable, now very real. For years, China set the pace in women’s chess, just as the Soviets once ruled the men’s game. But the old power structures are shifting. Indian men have already broken into the elite. And now, the women are rewriting the script. Guest: PK Ajith Kumar from The Hindu’s Sports BureauHost: Anupama ChandrasekaranProduced and edited by: Jude Francis Weston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On July 30, the India-US space collaboration crossed a historic milestone with the successful launch of NISAR, or the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite, a flagship earth observation mission jointly developed by the two nations’ space programmes. It is the first satellite to use radars of two frequencies — the L-band radar by NASA and the S-band radar by ISRO — to continuously monitor the earth’s surface. NISAR is expected to provide unprecedented data on land deformation, ice-sheet dynamics, forest biomass, and natural disasters like earthquakes and floods. With its high-resolution, all-weather, day-night imaging capabilities, NISAR aims to enhance climate resilience, agricultural monitoring, and disaster response. Beyond science, NISAR also holds commercial promise to enable new data services, geospatial analytics, and early-warning systems across sectors such as insurance, infrastructure, and agriculture.  Guest: Dr. Karen  St. Germain, director of the Earth Science Division at the Science Mission Directorate at NASA  Hosts:  Mukunth V, Deputy Science Editor, The Hindu  Kunal Shankar, Deputy Business Editor, The Hindu  Video edited by Shivaraj S  Audio edited by Sharmada Venkatasubramanian  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Richter scale is used to measure the strength of an earthquake. Theoretically, the maximum reading that’s possible is 10. The most powerful quake ever recorded was 9.5, which happened in Chile in 1960. The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami for instance, was caused by a quake that measured 9.2 on the Richter scale, and it led to the death of 228,000 people. The 2011 Tohoku quake in Japan measured 9 on the Richter scale – it caused the Fukushima nuclear accident, and led to more than 19,500 deaths.  On July 30, the Kamchatka peninsula in Russia was hit by an earthquake of magnitude 8.8 – not far behind the deadly quakes of 2004 and 2011. It is the sixth most powerful quake ever recorded. It led to tsunami alerts in a dozen countries. But amazingly, and fortunately, for such a powerful quake, there were zero casualties.  Kamchatka is on the Circum-Pacific seismic belt or the so-called ‘Ring of Fire,’ and is prone to seismic activity. So how did the region escape such a major earthquake with no casualties?  Guest: Christina Malyk, special correspondent with Sputnik, based in Moscow.  Host: G. Sampath, Social Affairs Editor, The Hindu  Edited by Sharmada Venkatasubramanian  Note: The term ‘Richter scale’ used in the podcast and in the note above is meant to denote the strength of the quake on the moment magnitude scale, and not the Richter scale, which is no longer in use. The Kamchatka quake measured 8.8 on the moment magnitude scale. The term Richter scale remains a familiar one for the public and is frequently used but is technically incorrect. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a landmark ruling, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on July 23, 2025, announced countries and territories are obligated to combat climate change through efforts to the best of their capabilities. Climate change poses an “urgent and existential threat,” the court said. It held that climate action is not based on any one law but is rather a mix of international law provisions like the UN charter, and international treaties like the Kyoto Protocol, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and the Paris Agreement, among others, and that they should influence the actions that member states take to protect the environment. The Court also ruled that countries bear the responsibility of protecting the earth’s climate systems, reduce emissions and limit global warming.Several countries have hailed the Court’s decision,  saying that it adds heft to humanity's fight against climate change. The ruling hits all the right notes - it places human rights at the forefront of the fight against global warming. But, is it merely symbolic, given it is an advisory opinion and not enforceable? Guest: Dr. Vaibhav Chaturvedi, The Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) Host: Nivedita V Edited by Sharmada Venkatasubramanian Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The podcast episode features interviews with the four journalists behind Taking on the Heat, a data-driven story on heat stress in Chennai. The story follows the daily experiences of four working-class individuals with varying levels of exposure to direct sunlight. Each participant was equipped with a device that recorded temperature and humidity data throughout their workday.   The analysis sheds light not only on their exposure to heat but also on how they manage it—and what kind of support the State could offer to ease their burden.  Guests: Vasudevan Mukunth, Nitika Francis, Srinivasan Ramani, and Areena Arora  Host: Vignesh Radhakrishnan  Camera: Shivaraj S, Thamodharan B, and Kailas Krishna Editing: Shivaraj S and Sharmada Venkatasubramanian Produced by: Sharmada Venkatasubramanian  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices