Parley by The Hindu

With the rise in instances of tension, and even stand-offs, between State governments and Governors, there is once again a debate on the role of the Raj Bhavan. In a discussion moderated by Sonam Saigal, Margaret Alva and M.R. Madhavan discuss the role and conduct of Governors, the relation of Governors with the Centre and State government, and whether Chief Ministers should have a say in the appointment of Governors in their respective States.Guests: Margaret Alva is a former Minister and belonged to the Congress party. She also served as Governor of Rajasthan, Goa, Uttarakhand and Gujarat. She was the Opposition’s candidate for the 2022 election for the post of Vice-President of India; M.R. Madhavan is the president and co-founder of PRS Legislative Research, an independent public policy research institution

Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan recently criticised the State government for relying heavily on liquor and lottery to generate revenue. He said the State government was making poor people spend their earnings on lottery tickets and getting them addicted to alcohol. Should governments sell liquor and run lotteries? Here we discuss the question. Guests: Nimai Mehta, an economist and statistician at the American University, Washington, D.C.; Jayan Jose Thomas, a professor of economics at the Indian Institute of Technology-DelhiHost: Prashanth Perumal

Recently, the Union government formed a three-member Commission of Inquiry headed by former Chief Justice of India, Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, to examine whether Scheduled Caste (SC) status can be accorded to Dalits who have over the years converted to religions other than Sikhism and Buddhism. Here we discuss the question. Guests: Sukhadeo Thorat, former chairman of the University Grants Commission and Professor Emeritus at JNU; Subhajit Naskar, Assistant Professor at Jadavpur UniversityHost: Abhinay Lakshman

Earlier this year, the United Nations published data to show that India would surpass China as the world’s most populous country by 2023. According to the 2018-19 Economic Survey, India’s demographic dividend will peak around 2041, when the share of the working age population is expected to hit 59%. Here we discuss whether India needs a population policy. Guests: Poonam Muttreja, Executive Director, Population Foundation of India; Sonalde Desai, Professor at the National Council of Applied Economic ResearchHost: Sreeparna Chakrabarty

On October 1, when India abstained from voting at the United Nations Security Council on a draft resolution against Russia for conducting referendums and annexing four regions of Ukraine, it was a reminder of New Delhi’s precarious tightrope walk on ties with Moscow. In the backdrop of the war in Ukraine and in the face of Western sanctions against Russia, India has continued to carry on oil and defence trade with Russia, even as it remains committed to deepening its relations with the West, including the U.S. Here we discuss India’s choices and actions in a changing geopolitical landscape, especially with regard to ChinaGuests: Anuradha Chenoy, Adjunct Professor at the Jindal Global University and former Dean, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University; Ashok Kantha, former Ambassador of India to China and Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Chinese Studies and Distinguished Fellow with Vivekananda International Foundation, New DelhiHost: Kallol Bhattacherjee

Last week, the rupee weakened against the dollar past the 81-mark to a record low. In recent months, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has been intervening in the forex market to smoothen the decline. With the RBI dipping into its kitty for this purpose, Indian foreign exchange reserves have fallen by about $94 billion in 12 months to about $545 billion until mid-September. How much more forex can the RBI afford to use in reducing currency volatility? Does the benchmark interest rate, as a policy tool, have a role to play? Here we we discuss these questions.  Guests: Dharmakirti Joshi, Chief Economist, CRISIL Ltd; Lekha Chakraborty, Professor, NIPFP; and Member, Governing Board of Management of International Institute of Public Finance, MunichHost: K. Bharat Kumar

The Congress is set for elections for the post of party president. Since 1998, barring her son Rahul Gandhi’s two-year term in the interim, Sonia Gandhi has been party president. This has revived the debate on whether internal elections should be mandated for all political parties. Here we discuss the current situation and what can be done.Host: Sobhana K NairGuest: S.Y. Quraishi, former Chief Election Commissioner of India; Rahul Verma, fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi

Earlier this week, the former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, Raghuram Rajan, questioned the Central government’s production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme, arguing that it works against the interests of Indian consumers. In doing so, he revived the larger debate on the government’s efforts to promote the country’s manufacturing sector through subsidies, and on its relative importance vis-a-vis the services sector. Here we discuss this issue and talk about creating enabling conditions.Guests: Nagesh Kumar, Director at the Institute of Studies in Industrial Development; Ajay Shah, Research Professor of Business at Jindal Global UniversityHost: Prashanth Perumal J

Over the years, there has been a raging debate over the need for children to have their mother tongue as the medium of instruction in schools. While educationists have emphasised the importance of learning in the mother tongue to enhance a child’s learning and overcome glaring inequities, there has been an equally steady demand for English-medium schools in several States. Here we discuss why and how the language policy can be reoriented.Guests: V. Vasanthi Devi, an educationist and former Vice Chancellor of the Manonmaniam Sundaranar University in Tamil Nadu; Anita Rampal, Professor and former Dean, Faculty of Education, Delhi UniversityHost: S. Poorvaja

The Central government reasserted last week that its policy on the Rohingya refugees in India, who it calls “illegal foreigners”, will not change. It did so while denying a tweet by Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri which said the government will move the Rohingya refugees living in Delhi to flats meant for economically weaker sections. Denying this, the Home Ministry said the government would continue efforts for their “deportation” to Myanmar, from where more than a million Rohingya have fled in the past decade after targeted attacks by the Myanmar military that the United Nations has termed a “genocide”. This week marks five years since the last big migration of the Rohingya, who have sought shelter in a number of countries around the world. Here we discuss India’s policy on the Rohingya and the need for a refugee law.Guests: Meenakshi Ganguly, Human Rights Watch’s South Asia Director; Vivek Katju, a former diplomat, and has served as India’s envoy to MyanmarHost: Suhasini Haidar