Parley by The Hindu

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.

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.

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, JNUHost: Sobhana K. Nair

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 JNUHost: Priscilla Jebaraj

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.

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.

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 GroupHost: Jacob Koshy

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 BarbaraHost: Sobhana K. Nair

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 FoundationHost: Prashanth Perumal

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 HimalayasHost: Suhasini Haidar