Parley by The Hindu

Two Congress leaders discuss the role of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty and the future of the Party. These two guests have been part of the Congress Party, yet are not party insiders.Host: Varghese K GeorgeGuests: Kumar Ketkar, Rajya Sabha legislatorRajeev Gowda, who recently completed his first term as an MP in the Rajya SabhaSearch for Parley by The Hindu. Write to us with comments and feedback at socmed4@thehindu.co.in

A discussion on the vulnerability of Internet freedom at a time of national security risks. This comes in the backdrop of the government’s decision to block 59 Chinese apps, something that followed the escalation of tensions at the border between the two countries. Host: Sriram Srinivasan, Strategy & Digital Editor, The Hindu Guests: Arghya Sengupta, Research Director at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy. Raman Chima, Asia Policy Director and Senior International Counsel at Access Now.Search for Parley by The Hindu. Write to us with comments and feedback at socmed4@thehindu.co.in

Patanjali Ayurveda’s claimed cure for COVID-19 has been criticised for making unsubstantiated claims of efficacy. However, can Ayurveda, or alternative medicine in general, be evaluated in the same way as modern medicine?Host: Jacob Koshy Guests: Dr. Bhavana Prasher, senior scientist at the CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology. Dr. S.P. Kalantri is a Professor at Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences, WardhaSearch for Parley by The Hindu. Write to us with comments and feedback at socmed4@thehindu.co.in

The COVID-19 outbreak has disrupted the academic year, cancelled classes and examinations across the country. To ensure that students do not miss out on their studies, schools moved classes online, forcing students to attend lectures via their gadgets. However, this has also sparked a debate on whether the increased amount of screen time helps students learn or if it impedes their progress. While Maharashtra has banned online classes from pre-primary to Class II, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh have extended the ban till Class V. Here's a look at the pros and cons of online learning. Host: Puja Pednekar Guests: Kiran Bhatty is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research. Reeta Sonawat is an Executive Director at the Early Childhood AssociationSearch for Parley by The Hindu. Write to us with comments and feedback at socmed4@thehindu.co.in

The border clashes with China and the COVID-19 pandemic have reignited questions about India’s dependence on Chinese manufacturing. India’s imports from China in 2019-2020 reached $65 billion, out of $81 billion two-way trade. Is the pandemic, as Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said last month, a “blessing in disguise” for Indian manufacturing? Will companies be able to move deeply integrated supply chains out of China? And if so, will they choose India? In a discussion moderated by Ananth Krishnan, Biswajit Dhar, and Amitendu Palit, discuss India’s options and the challenges ahead in India’s efforts to boost manufacturing at home. Host: Ananth Krishnan, China Correspondent, The HinduGuests: Amitendu Palit, Professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore; Biswajit Dhar, Professor at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University.Search for Parley by The Hindu. Write to us with comments and feedback at socmed4@thehindu.co.in

The Covid-19 pandemic and the resultant lockdowns have made work from home an imperative for several industries. Clearly, some job profiles lend themselves to work from outside the office. Others, where human interaction is necessary, obviously do not.For those industries and job profiles for which work from home is possible, has the concept come to stay, is the question before us now…Running up to 2025, a large IT services firm in India has said it would have about 75% of its 4.5 lakh employees globally to work from home, up from the industry average of 20% today. It has gone out on a limb and said it did not believe it needed more than 25% of its workforce at its facilities in order to be 100% productive.Will this trend catch on and become permanent? What does it mean for fissures that are already evident in today’s workplace? The digital divide? The gender divide? Transnational sensibilities? How do you build trust in a world where turning up for work is perceived as a mark of commitment?Host: Bharat Kumar K, Senior Deputy Editor - Business of The HinduGuests:Ashwini Deshpande, whose PhD and early publications have been on the international debt crisis of the 1980s. Subsequently, she has been working on the economics of discrimination and affirmative action, with a focus on caste and gender in India.Ramkumar Ramamoorthy, who is the President of the 184-year old Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) and also the Chairman and Managing Director of Cognizant India, one of the largest employers in India, with over 200,000 full-time employees of which over 75,000 are women.Search for Parley by The Hindu. Write to us with comments and feedback at socmed4@thehindu.co.in

In the midst of the massive protests that have erupted in the U.S., social media platform Twitter decided to do something it had avoided for several years: call out some of President Donald Trump's tweets as being incorrect information and as being against its policies.This prompted Mr. Trump to warn social media platforms of stricter controls via an Executive Order. It also prompted another social media giant, Facebook, to state that they did not want to take similar action since they did not want to be 'arbiters of truth'.These developments bring into focus the level of involvement the social media giants have in the dissemination of the public discourse and raises questions on how these platforms should behave.Guests: Mishi Choudhary, Legal Director of the Software Freedom Law Centre in New York; and Rishab Bailey, Legal Consultant for Technology Policy at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, New Delhi.Host: P.J. George, Deputy Internet Editor, The HinduSearch for Parley by The Hindu. Write to us with comments and feedback at socmed4@thehindu.co.in

India has never spent more than 2% of its GDP on healthcare. And healthcare facilities across the country straddle several levels of efficiency and sufficiency. The infrastructure facilities and services are at best patchy. While States such as Kerala and Tamil Nadu fare better, the impact of a virulent COVID-19 has shaken even the States that traditionally have done well.With COVID-19 having put the country’s heathcare system to the test, Dr. Abhay Shukla, national convener of the Jan Swasthya Abhiyan and Senior Program Coordinator of Sathi; and Prof. T. Sundararaman, former executive director, National Health Systems Resource Center, and global co-ordinator of the People’s Health Movement discuss whether the time is ripe to push the agenda of healthcare as a fundamental right for all citizens.You can now find The Hindu’s podcasts on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Stitcher. Search for Parley by The Hindu.Write to us with comments and feedback at socmed4@thehindu.co.in

In the last few weeks, France and Australia have taken significant steps to make news aggregators such as Google pay for the re-use of news. The beneficiaries will be news publishers, who for years have been struggling to make the digital transition. While the competition regulator in France has effectively pushed Google into negotiating a remuneration deal with publishers, Australia has proposed to make platforms pay for the use of news.Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, Director, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism; and Parminder Jeet Singh, Executive Director, IT for Change, weigh in on whether governments should intervene in correcting lopsided relationships between platforms and publishers.Search for Parley by The Hindu. Write to us with comments and feedback at socmed4@thehindu.co.in

This week, we discuss the global Coronavirus pandemic that has effectively brought normal life to a full stop in India through a Centre-enforced lockdown. The importance of social distancing cannot be stressed enough. But this also has huge repercussions on our livelihoods and the economy, which has already been suffering a slowdown over the last year.To discuss this, are Dr. Naushad Forbes (former president, Confederation of Indian Industry; co-chair, Forbes Marshall) and M. Govinda Rao (economist, former member of 14th Finance Commission).Search for Parley by The Hindu. Write to us with comments and feedback at socmed4@thehindu.co.in