In Focus by The Hindu

Earlier this week, on Thursday, Japan’s new Prime Minister Fumio Kishida dissolved the lower house of Parliament, paving the way for general elections, which are scheduled for October 31.Japanese politics has been dominated by the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) for much of its post-war history. Under Shinzo Abe, Japan’s longest serving Prime Minister who stepped down in September 2020, the LDP has moved further to the right. Abe’s successor, Yoshihide Suga, lasted just a year. His growing unpopularity meant that the party did not want to go to elections under his leadership. So he stepped down last month, making way for former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida to take over.Under Kishida, the LDP has built a sizeable lead in approval ratings, and the party is expected to win. But Kishida has some tough challenges facing him – while COVID-19 has still not gone away, the economy has been battered by the pandemic, and the rich-poor divide has grown sharper.Is it going to be an easy win for Kishida? And even if the LDP wins, will he enjoy a stable tenure? How will the new regime navigate the growing hostility between the US and China, given that China is one of Japan’s largest trading partners and a powerful neighbour as well?As the world’s third largest economy heads to the polling booth, we explore these questions in this episode.Guest: Stanly Johny, International Affairs Editor at The Hindu.Host: G. Sampath, Social Affairs Editor, The Hindu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With about 29% of India’s population fully vaccinated, the government’s Subject Expert Committee (SEC) has now recommended Bharat Biotech’s COVID-19 vaccine, Covaxin, for Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA) for children aged 2-18 years. This is the second vaccine in India to be cleared for children. Earlier, Zydus Cadilla’s vaccine got authorization for kids above 12.While the timeline for the supply of Covaxin for children is still unclear, its availability as an option has raised some critical questions: Is it really necessary to expose children to a vaccine authorised for emergency use, when it is evident that they only contract a mild infection and don’t face the threat of mortality? Secondly, is WHO clearance for Covaxin a mere formality or should it be a matter of concern that a vaccine that is yet to get WHO clearance for adults has already got approval for children in India?We explore these issues in this episode.Guest: Jacob Koshy, Deputy Science Editor at The HinduHost: G. Sampath, Social Affairs Editor, The Hindu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Virat Kohli has announced that he will step down from T20 captaincy of the Indian team after the T20 World Cup in November. He is also stepping down as captain of Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) after IPL 2021. Both the nature and the timing of these decisions have raised a lot of questions.For instance, wouldn’t it have been better to make these announcements after the T20 World Cup, or after the 2021 IPL was over? Were these decisions Kohli’s own or was he under pressure? Is this the beginning of the end of the fairly successful Kohli-Ravi Shastri partnership? What is the ‘road map’ for the future that the BCCI has been talking about in the context of Kohli’s decision?We look for answers to these and other questions in this episode.Guest: Rakesh Rao, Deputy Editor (Sports) at The HinduHost: G. Sampath, Social Affairs Editor, The Hindu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A Kashmiri Pandit chemist Mohan Lal Bindroo, a Sikh school principal Supinder Kaur and her Hindu colleague from Jammu have been killed in targeted attacks in Srinagar recently. A large number of Muslims too have been killed in such attacks, laid at the door of The Resistance Front, widely believed to be a front of the Lashkar-e-Taiba.Many Hindus who stayed back after the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits in the 1990s are scared and have been advised by the authorities to stay inside their houses. An estimated 300 Pandits have left.This is possibly the most serious crisis in the Valley after the BJP Government at the Centre abrogated Article 370 and sliced the state of Jammu & Kashmir into two Union Territories in 2019.In this podcast, we explore the current situation and the possible reasons behind it.Guest: Mohammed Sayeed Malik, veteran journalistHost: Amit Baruah, Senior Associate Editor, The Hindu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As early as this month, India may see the rollout of ZyCoV-D, the world's first DNA vaccine against COVID-19. Pharmaceutical company Zydus Cadila has received Emergency Use Authorisation for this vaccine, which is also the first in the country to be approved for children above the age of 12. How do DNA vaccines work, and how are they different from the vaccines we have now -- Covishield and Covaxin? What sort of immunity will the DNA vaccine provide? Will the three-dose regimen pose a problem, logistically, in administering ZyCoV-D? Sero-surveys across the country have shown us that in the most populated of regions 70% of the population may have COVID-19 antibodies already -- what does this mean for children, and do they need to be necessarily vaccinated at this stage?Guest: Dr Gagandeep Kang, Professor of Microbiology at Christian Medical College, Vellore.Host: Zubeda Hamid Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With four farmers being run over by SUVs that were part of a convoy of vehicles involving Minister of State for Home Ajay Mishra on October 3 in Lakhimpur Kheri, and four others dying in the violence that followed, western Uttar Pradesh is waiting and watching to see what’s happening next.The matter has reached the Supreme Court. Farmer leader Rakesh Tikait brokered a deal that allowed for the cremation of the bodies and compensation to be paid. After detaining Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi, the Adityanath government finally allowed her and brother Rahul Gandhi to visit the families of the dead.In this podcast, we did into what exactly happened in Lakhimpur Kheri on that fateful day.Guests: Omar Rashid, The Hindu’s correspondent in Lucknow; Priscilla Jebaraj covers agriculture or The Hindu and has extensively reported on the farmers’ agitation from Delhi.Host: Amit Baruah, Senior Associate Editor, The Hindu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On September 15th, the Union Cabinet approved a series of reforms and relief measures for the telecom sector. The most significant of these is a four-year moratorium on payments stemming from the Supreme Court’s September 2020 judgement on Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR). Another one is the decision to remove all non-telecom revenue from AGR. The telecom sector is also now allowed to receive 100% FDI through the automatic route – up from the 49% that was permitted earlier. Taken together, these policy changes are expected to help the telecom majors overcome short-term liquidity issues, and raise capital, enabling them to keep their debts under control and invest in capacity-building.However, questions remain. What is the actual quantum of relief on offer? Will it be adequate for those players who are under a mountain of debt? And can the reforms package sustain a three-player market? We explore these questions in this episode.Guest: Ankit Jain, Assistant Vice President and Sector Head, Corporate Ratings, at ICRA LimitedHost: G. Sampath, Social Affairs Editor, The Hindu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In February this year, over 200 persons were killed and the 13.2 MW Rishiganga project was washed away. The 512 MW Tapovan-Vishnugadh hydro project was damaged. Even as Uttarakhand deals with the impact of climate change, the Environment Ministry has permitted the construction of seven hyro projects in Uttarakhand. What does this mean for the vulnerable Himalayan State? We answer these and other questions on the sustainability of hydro projects in this episode.Guest: Ravi Chopra, founder Director of the People’s Science Institute in Dehradun. A well-known environmentalist, Ravi is a graduate of IIT Bombay.Host: Amit Baruah, Senior Associate Editor, The Hindu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan set the cat among the pigeons on September 25 when he said people living along the tribal belt in his country had affinity with the Taliban not because of their religious identity but because of Pashtun nationalism. He claimed that Pakistani Pashtuns had affinities and sympathy with the Afghan Taliban.Mohsin Dawar, a member of Pakistan’s National Assembly from North Waziristan, responded in a tweet. Quote: “Just shocked at how the PM of Pakistan can describe Taliban as Pashtun nationalists. The Taliban is a project of Pakistan’s generals for decimating Pashtun nationalism”. Unquote.So what’s the reality? How true are Prime Minister Imran Khan’s claims made in his recent at the United Nations General Assembly?Guest: Dr. Ayesha Siddiqa, Research Associate at the SOAS South Asia Institute in London. A former member of Pakistan’s civil service, she is the author of “Military Inc. Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy.Host: Amit Baruah, Senior Associate Editor, The Hindu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Indian women’s cricket team will be playing a pink-ball Test match starting Thursday against Australia in Queensland. This is a special occasion for the Indian women’s team as it will be their first ever Test under lights, and this is also only the second pink-ball Test in the history of women’s cricket.However, India’s women players have rarely gotten opportunities to play the long format of the game, unlike the men, who are in demand everywhere. This isn’t peculiar to India alone. Majority of cricket playing countries rarely or never organize women’s Tests. In this podcast, we explore why this is so.Guest: Karunya Keshav, independent journalist and co-author of "The Fire Burns Blue", a comprehensive history of women’s cricket in IndiaHost: Kanishkaa Balachandiran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices