osy Joseph is an award winning journalist based in New Delhi and was the National Security Editor of The Hindu newspaper until 2018. Josy’s stories have fostered greater public debate and have contributed to significant policy and systemic changes. His reporting has resulted in several high-profile officials being forced out of office, triggering the arrest of many others as well as federal criminal and military investigations. Particularly high-profile investigations have included, for example, the Mumbai Adarsh Housing scam and the many misdeeds in the run-up to the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, both of which contributed significantly to the anti-corruption movement of recent times. The Prem Bhatia Trust elected him India’s best political reporter of 2010 “for his scoops and revelations, which include a list of scams that have become familiar names in the political lexicon.” He shared the award with Jyotirmoy Dey, a Mumbai crime reporter who had been shot dead a few weeks earlier. In July 2013, the Ramnath Goenka Foundation run by the Indian Express newspaper group awarded him the “Journalist of the Year” in print media. In this episode of BIC Talks, Josy addresses a wide range of questions in a public forum that was a part of the Bangalore Literature Festival 2021. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favourite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast and Stitcher.  

This talk by lawyer Gautam Bhatia considers the Indian Constitution as a terrain of contestation between different visions of power. It will ask how the Constitution creates power, who wields power – and upon whom – and how power is constrained. Using the example of federalism, it argues that even as the Constitution is contested terrain, its history has been marked by a centralising drift: an incremental shift towards a homogenous and centralised vision of power, at the expense of other, more plural visions. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favourite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast and Stitcher.

Over the last decade the world has seen the politicisation of interstate relations, a rekindling of great power rivalries, pushback against globalisation, and an increasingly ineffective global order in terms of dealing with major challenges such as pandemics, economic slowdowns, and wars. The world seems adrift, between orders, and faces a real prospect of economic recession and a debt crisis in the global south. The discussion with former diplomats Shivshankar Menon and Latha Reddy along with Nitin Pai, co-founder of Takshashila Institution, will focus not on a diagnosis of the issues and problems, which are many, but on prescriptions for how countries, nations, and firms might cope with rising uncertainty and higher geopolitical risk in the international system. It will also cover where the multiple revolutions in technology, energy and military affairs may be taking us. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favourite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast and Stitcher.

From being the preserve of a handful of American and British authors in the late-20th century, science fiction (SF) today is a global phenomenon. From Afrofuturism to the popular Chinese Science Fiction of Cixxin Liu, Hao Jingfeng and others, writers, editors, and readers around the world are turning to the genre to make sense of our world and our futures. The global character of contemporary SF is matched by the profusion of sub-genres that have come to inhabit it: climate fiction (or “cli-fi”) and “hopepunk” are just two of the many approaches to science fiction that respond to our present-day conditions. Where and how does English-language Indian SF fit into this world? A look at some of recent works suggests that climate change, political extremism, the legacies of colonialism, and the overwhelming role of technology are some of the themes that have exercised the imagination of Indian SF writers. Do these themes run together to create something that is identifiably Indian SF? Should there be? And how are Indian SF writers and readers engaging with contemporary global SF? These are some of the questions this panel of authors and science fiction enthusiasts, Gautam Bhatia, Lavanya Lakshminarayan, TG Shenoy and Shrabonti Bagchi discusses. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favourite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast and Stitcher.

India, the world’s largest democracy, the land of yoga, spirituality and a rich civilizational past, has one of the youngest demographics and is without a doubt an exciting place to be in the twenty-first century. Our nation, at the same time, struggles with the rising gap between the rich and the poor, ignorance, social unrest and strained communal harmony. One is always overwhelmed and bewildered by its contradictions, wondering at the many Indias that coexist as an effervescent mix despite such unique diversity. As the country navigates its way into the new millennium, a question often asked is, ‘Are we moving in the right direction?’ Even more important is the question of who is qualified to comment? In Our India, the eclectic range of Captain Gopinath’s views on business, politics, governance, aviation and society portrays a comprehensive picture of an India which is reshaping every minute. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favourite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast and Stitcher.

Rebels Against the Raj tells the little-known story of seven people who chose to struggle for a country other than their own: foreigners to India who, from the late nineteenth century, arrived to join the freedom movement fighting for independence. Of the seven, four were British, two American and one Irish: four men, three women. Before and after being jailed or deported, they did remarkable and pioneering work in a variety of fields, from journalism and social reform to education, organic agriculture and environmentalism. In this episode of BIC Talks Ramachanchandra Guha and Alex Ellis discuss the stories of these remarkable people - each rebel motivated by idealism and genuine sacrifice; each connected to Gandhi, though some as acolytes while others were endlessly infuriated by his views; each understanding they would likely face prison sentences for their resistance, and likely live and die in India; each one leaving a profound impact on the region in which they worked, their legacies continuing through the institutions they founded and the generations and individuals they inspired. Through these entwined lives, we receive deep insights into the relationship between India and the West, and India’s story as a country searching for its identity and liberty beyond British colonial rule. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favourite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast and Stitcher.

Our diverse culture has something for everyone. Our young population is thirsty for education and achievement. And a strong private sector is our engine of growth. We can lead the world in the future yet, we struggle to create a business-friendly environment. We lag in innovation. Education, public health and quality of jobs demand attention. Our governments control some things too much and neglect others. How can the government, citizens and firms turn our struggle into promise and enable India to lead? How can we fix things by learning from best practices elsewhere? How can we ensure openness, inclusivity and innovation? How can independent institutions make up for low state capacity? How can our culture deliver leadership? In this episode of BIC Talks which is an extract from an in-person conversation with Ramachandra Guha around his book, ­The Struggle and the Promise, Naushad Forbes answers these and other critical questions concerning India’s progress. He provides a logical, actionable blueprint for getting the balance right between industry, institutions and policy. Backed by rigorous research and copious data, here’s a book that shows how to fulfill India’s potential. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favourite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast and Stitcher.

Climate change and the Anthropocene: both terms are commonplace, but their consequences are contested as their origins continue to be studied. Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen’s idea that humans came to exert a force for change in the earth’s ecology from the late 18th century neatly conflated the onset of the Industrial Revolution in England with the start of the Anthropocene. Other dates have been proposed. The latter is about much more than the increased emission of Green House Gases but these remain a key feature of these changes that may be altering the material flows that sustain human civilizations. To a student of history, the issue of origins cannot be separated from when, where and how the pace, scope and nature of environmental transformation underwent epochal shift. A peace among nations and between people requires a peace with the fabric of life. History has no silver bullet solutions but is vital to know how we came to this cross roads. This episode of BIC Talks was adapted from the in-person lecture by Prof. Mahesh Rangarajan in collaboration with Azim Premji University as part of their Let’s Talk Climate Change talk series. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favourite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast and Stitcher.  

Democracy does not begin or end at the polling booth. It takes a committed government and an alert society to make it work. Our passive belief that we are helpless is a self-imposed delusion, for there are ways in which we can engage positively with what we see happening around us. Protests and dissent, if carried out in the right manner, will nourish and strengthen our democracy which has been fraying insidiously. Aakar Patel, writer, activist and chairperson of Amnesty International speaks about the methods that are open to us. This episode of BIC Talks is an extract from the The Annual Vijay Nambisan Lecture 2022 that took place in October 2022. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favourite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast and Stitcher.  

Anuk Arudpragasam’s first novel, The Story of a Brief Marriage was called an unflinching debut - a feat of extraordinary sensitivity and imagination, a meditation on the fundamental elements of human existence His writing has been variously described as 'absolutely devastating, unbearable reading, incredibly introspective and a portrait of the universe that zooms out from planet Earth and then back in to a quark'. Anuk’s second novel, The Passage North, which was on the 2021 booker prize shortlist is said to be written with precision and grace, and a masterful piece that is an attempt to come to terms with life in the wake of devastation, and a poignant memorial for those lost and those still alive. In this episode of BIC Talks, scientist, author and editor of Out of Print magazine Indira Chandrashekar speaks to Anuk about the evolution of his writing. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favourite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast and Stitcher.