Bharatvaarta

The US is currently the world's defacto global reserve currency, and is used for trading between most nations. It began with the Bretton Woods system established after World War 2, wherein a group of 44 nations agreed to peg their currencies to the USD, and the US would peg the USD to gold.However, due to spending in the vietnam war, the USD lost a lot of it's value in the early 1960s and was seen as overvalued. This led to a run on its gold reserves, which then prompted President Nixon to declare a suspension of the Bretton Woods system and then replace it with a freely floating fiat currency system. In this episode we have guests Mohal Joshi and Nirav Kanodra.  Mohal Joshi is a columnist and podcaster with the India Rising Podcast. He is interested in geopolitics, defense, politics, and macroeconomics. Nirav Kanodra is an investment banker based out of Singapore with extensive experience in sales and trading. Nirav is a regular on the Weekly and on many Economy related podcasts.

The Bharatvaarta Weekly is our reaction to the news headlines of the  week that was. If you liked this episode, then don’t forget to subscribe to our channel and share this content. You can stay updated with everything at Bharatvaarta by following us on social media: we're @bharatvaarta on Twitter, facebook.com/bharatvaarta.in on Facebook, and @bharatvaarta on Instagram).

With Europe's changing security landscape, several parties in the continent are favoring NATO membership. Both Finland and Sweden stayed out of NATO during the Cold War, maintaining a neutral stance throughout the period. However, Russia's annexation of Crimea, its ongoing invasion of Ukraine and routine violations of airspace by Russian forces has prompted the non-aligned nations to rethink their security policies and consider a NATO membership. Cai-Göran Alexander Stubb is a Finnish politician who served as the Prime Minister of Finland from 2014 to 2015. He rose to politics as a researcher specialized in the affairs of the European Union and was elected to the European Parliament in 2004 as a member of the National Coalition Party. In 2008, Stubb was appointed as Minister for Foreign Affairs following a scandal surrounding his predecessor, Ilkka Kanerva. In 2011 Stubb stood for election to the Finnish Parliament for the first time and was elected MP with the second highest vote count in the election, which led to Stubb becoming the Minister for Europe and Foreign Trade in Jyrki Katainen's cabinet.

The Zafarnāma was a spiritual victory letter sent by Guru Gobind Singh in 1705 to the Mughal Emperor of India, Aurangzeb, after the Battle of Chamkaur. The letter is written in Persian and verse. The version currently in circulation found in the Dasam Granth, the compilation of Guru Gobind Singh’s poetry, is in Gurmukhi script and Persian verse. Guru Gobind Singh sent 5 Singhs including Daya Singh, Dharam Singh and Sambhal Singh with the help of Naib Subedar Haji Sardar Shah to deliver the Zafarnama to Emperor Aurangzeb in Ahmednagar in 1707. In this letter, Guru Gobind Singh reminds Aurangzeb how he and his soldiers had broken their oaths sworn upon the Qur'an when they promised safe passage to the Guru but launched a hidden attack of an army described as much larger, on forty famished Sikh soldiers. He tells Aurangzeb this was not a battle, it was a slaughter. As such, in spite of losing most of his Sikhs in this attack, he had won a moral victory over the Emperor who had broken his vows to Allah. He also states that despite sending a huge army to capture or kill the Guru, the Mughal forces did not succeed in their mission. This historic poem was translated in Hindi verse for the first time in 300+ years by Veteran Wing Commander Vijay Chattur. To speak more about this piece of Indian culture, Ami Ganatra explores his view on the text and more. 

The Bharatvaarta Weekly is our reaction to the news headlines of the   week that was. If you liked this episode, then don’t forget to subscribe  to our channel and share this content. You can stay updated with  everything at Bharatvaarta by following us on social media: we're  @bharatvaarta on Twitter, facebook.com/bharatvaarta.in on Facebook, and  @bharatvaarta on Instagram).

The ISRO human space program began as the Indian Human spaceflight  programme in 2007. This began the development of technology needed to  launch crewed orbital spacecraft into low earth orbit. In 2018, the  government approved a further $1.5bn for a 7 day crewed flight. Now  known as the Gaganyaan programme, the programme aims to send two  unmanned missions and one manned flight mission into low earth orbit by  2023.   PM Modi launched the Indian Space Association (ISpA) in late 2021 as a  way to contribute towards the accelerated development of India's space  industry. Speaking on the occasion, the PM said that this undertaking  will give the India space sector "new wings". It removes the  restrictions on space access, previously only given to ISRO and a select  few institutions. ISpA aspires to be the collective voice of the Indian  Space industry.   In the light of these advancements and India's new found enthusiasm for  the space race, we decided to dive deep into Indian space exploration.  To shed some light on this exhaustive subject, we invited guests Aloke  Kumar and Koushik Vishwanathan.   Aloke Kumar is the Associate Professor at the Indian Institute of  Science Bangalore. He has also worked in many teams exploring  applications of science to make space exploration easier. Koushik Vishwanathan is also an assistant professor at IISc, with an  interest in advanced manufacturing and finishing processes. He has  worked with Aloke on many of his projects regarding space exploration.

Poverty has been ever-present in India since Independence, but recent  policy stands to change the status quo. Multiple undertakings and  initiatives have raised the standard of living for those below the  poverty line, but narratives continue to emerge that India's poor are  getting poorer.   A paper, written by Arvind Virmani, Surjit Bhalla, and Karan Bhasin,  aims to find the poverty and distributional consequences of the  government's pandemic support measures. The main argument of the paper  is that extreme poverty was kept low in India despite the pandemic. It  presents estimates of poverty and consumption inequality in India from  2004-05 to 2020-21.   Surjit Bhalla is an Indian economist, author and columnist, who is  currently the Executive Director for India at the International Monetary  Fund. He was also the part-time Member of the Economic Advisory Council  to the Prime Minister. Karan Bhasin is a New York-based researcher with  interests in Macroeconomics, Indian Economy, Institutional Economics  and Political Economy. He has also appeared on multiple Bharatvaarta  episodes speaking about his papers and findings in the economic field.  In this episode, they speak about their paper, findings, methodologies  and of the state of poverty in India.

The Bharatvaarta Weekly is our reaction to the news headlines of the   week that was. If you liked this episode, then don’t forget to subscribe  to our channel and share this content. You can stay updated with  everything at Bharatvaarta by following us on social media: we're  @bharatvaarta on Twitter, facebook.com/bharatvaarta.in on Facebook, and  @bharatvaarta on Instagram).

India-UK relations have a history from the times of the Mughal empire. Now, the heads of state of these historical countries have taken another step into solidifying the relationship with an upcoming free trade agreement. In this special episode covering Indo-UK relations, we have Nirav Kanodra, who is an investment banker based out of Singapore with extensive experience in sales and trading and Sunil Sharma, the Chief Operating Officer at the Conservative Friends of the Commonwealth, an organization supporting an outward-looking Britain. Together with Roshan Cariappa, follow along as our guests break down significant parts of the Indo-UK relationship such as its long and storied history, the various possible synergies between the two nations, the significance of British PM Boris Johnson's visit, key features of the 2030 roadmap, and more.

The Bharatvaarta Weekly is our reaction to the news headlines of the   week that was. If you liked this episode, then don’t forget to subscribe  to our channel and share this content. You can stay updated with  everything at Bharatvaarta by following us on social media: we're  @bharatvaarta on Twitter, facebook.com/bharatvaarta.in on Facebook, and  @bharatvaarta on Instagram).