Grand Tamasha
Episodes
Viral Acharya on India’s Quest for Financial Stability
11 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Thanks to the COVID-19 crisis, India’s economy is expected to shrink by at least 9 percent this fiscal year—a gut punch that comes on the heels of...
Rukmini on What Data Tells Us About India's COVID-19 Fight
04 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Since the onset of the novel Coronavirus, award-winning data journalist Rukmini has investigated the virus’ spread in India like very few people hav...
Pankaj Mishra on the Crisis of Liberalism in India and the World
28 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Pankaj Mishra is the acclaimed author of numerous books of fiction and non-fiction. He is a frequent contributor to some of the world’s top publicat...
Ananth Krishnan on What China’s Rise Means for India
21 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In the summer of 2008, the journalist Ananth Krishnan moved to Beijing to pick up some Mandarin. Little did he know that this fateful decision would k...
Sumitra Badrinathan and Devesh Kapur Decode the 2020 Indian American Vote
14 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Although Indians in America account for less than one percent of registered voters, this election season they have been actively wooed by both Democra...
Paul Staniland on the Surprising Decline in Political Violence in South Asia
07 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The political landscape of South Asia has changed dramatically in the last two decades. Insurgencies that were raging across the subcontinent in the 1...
Nidhi Razdan on the State of the Indian Media
30 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
If you’ve watched prime time television in India at any point in the last two decades, there is zero chance that you are not acquainted with Milan’...
Ashley J. Tellis on India’s China Conundrum
23 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
For the first time in decades, shots have been fired between China and India along the Line of Actual Control. As India grapples with the twin domesti...
Sadanand Dhume and Tanvi Madan on India’s Triple Whammy: COVID, China, and the Economy
16 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This week on Grand Tamasha, Milan is joined by podcast regulars Sadanand Dhume of the American Enterprise Institute and the Wall Street Journal and Ta...
Scaachi Koul on the Collision of Indian Politics and Culture
09 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Scaachi Koul is an Indo-Canadian culture writer at Buzzfeed and the author of the 2017 book of essays, “One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This...
The Life and Times of Amit Varma
02 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
If you’re listening to this podcast, chances are you are a fan of the podcast, “The Seen and the Unseen.” For 186 episodes and counting, the jou...
Pratap Bhanu Mehta on Indian Democracy at 73
26 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
On August 15, 2020, India celebrated its 73rd birthday. To reflect on the state of Indian democracy and to kick off the podcast’s fourth season, Pra...
Vipul Mudgal on India’s Policing Challenge
10 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The police in India, as in America, face a reckoning. From the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protests to the Delhi riots and the COVID pandemic, rece...
Binalakshmi Nepram on the Realities of India’s Oft-Forgotten Northeast
03 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Here’s a hard truth about policy conversations on India: we rarely hear about India’s northeast. In fact, in doing more than 50 episodes of this p...
Roshan Kishore on India’s flagging economy, the impacts of the lockdown, and the government’s policy response
27 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Two weeks ago, the Modi government announced a series of economic measures intended to get the Indian economy back on track after the country’s prol...
COVID-19 Fallout: Migrants, the Economy, and Foreign Policy (Live from Zoom!)
20 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This week, Milan sits down with podcast regulars Sadanand Dhume of the American Enterprise Institute and the Wall Street Journal and Tanvi Madan of th...
Special Event: #GrandaTamashaLive
18 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
YOU'RE INVITED: Join Milan, Tanvi, and Sadanand for a special LIVE episode of Grand Tamasha on Tuesday, May 19, at 11am EST / 8:30pm IST. Tune in as t...
Journalist Sopan Deb on Meeting the Immigrant Parents Who Raised Him
13 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This week on the show, Milan is joined by New York Times journalist Sopan Deb--author of the brand-new memoir, Missed Translations: Meeting the Immigr...
Former Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian on India’s Economic Response to the COVID-19 crisis
06 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
YOU'RE INVITED: Join Milan, Tanvi, and Sadanand for a special LIVE episode of Grand Tamasha on Tuesday, May 19, at 11am EST / 8:30pm IST. Tune in as t...
Shankkar Aiyar on the Proliferation of India’s “Gated Republics”
29 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In a much cited 2009 essay, economist Lant Pritchett argued that India is not a failed or a failing state, but a flailing one. In Pritchett’s words,...
India’s Coronavirus Response, Anti-China Sentiment, and the Communalization of COVID-19
22 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This week, Milan sits down with podcast regulars Sadanand Dhume of the American Enterprise Institute and the Wall Street Journal and Tanvi Madan of th...
Amitabh Behar on How Coronavirus Aggravates Inequality in India
15 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
India is in the middle of an unprecedented 21-day countrywide lockdown as it tries to contain the growing threat of Coronavirus. This virus has wrough...
Pallavi Raghavan on an Alternative History of India-Pakistan Relations
08 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When it comes to the matter of relations between India and Pakistan, you’ve heard all of the familiar tropes. Two nuclear-armed rivals with hundreds...
Aarti Shahani on Her Indian-American Immigrant Story
01 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
If you listen to National Public Radio, chances are you’ve heard the journalist Aarti Shahani report on some of the biggest technology stories in th...
Author Madhuri Vijay on Her Award-Winning Book, “The Far Field”
25 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In the wake of her mother's untimely death, a young woman from Bangalore--born into a life of privilege--drops everything and travels to the opposite ...
Tanvi Madan on the U.S.-India-China “Fateful Triangle”
18 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Since the end of the Cold War, it has become commonplace to view America’s relationship with India through the prism of China. But a new book by the...
Jessica Seddon on India’s Air Pollution Crisis
11 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In 2018, the World Health Organization (WHO) published a list of the 15 most polluted cities in the world. 14 of the 15 were in India. This is a troub...
Trump’s India Trip, Delhi Riots, and India in American Domestic Politics
04 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This week, Milan sits down with podcast regulars Sadanand Dhume of the American Enterprise Institute and the Wall Street Journal and Tanvi Madan of th...
Adam Auerbach and Gabi Kruks-Wisner on How the Poor Navigate the Indian State
26 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
If the poor represent a majority of voters in India, why doesn’t this electoral power translate into better quality government services? Why are som...
Amit Ahuja on the Roots of Dalit Politics
19 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
India is home to over 200 million Dalits, formerly known as “untouchables,” who have historically occupied the bottom rung of the Hindu caste hier...
Pramit Bhattacharya on the Crisis in India’s Economic Data
12 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
“The credibility of India’s official statistics has hit rock-bottom in recent years.” This is the conclusion reached by Milan’s guest on the s...
Jerry Rao on The Past, Present, and Future of Conservatism in India
05 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In 2015, the historian Ramachandra Guha wrote an essay in the Indian magazine Caravan that ruffled a lot of feathers. Guha remarked that while India h...
Republic Day Episode: Madhav Khosla on India’s Founding Moment
29 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
On January 26, 2020—Republic Day—India celebrated the 70th anniversary of its landmark Constitution. This milestone comes at a time when India is ...
Supriya Sharma on Citizenship, Protests, and the Indian Media
22 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
On January 10, the newly passed Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) officially came into force. The act provides for an expedited pathway to citizenship f...
Citizenship Travails, Maharashtra Elections, and Election Meddling
18 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
On the season two finale of Grand Tamasha, Milan sits down with podcast regulars Sadanand Dhume of the American Enterprise Institute and the Wall Stre...
Sushant Singh on India’s Defense Budget
11 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
One of the most reliable laments about Indian defense policy is that the Government of India spends far too little on defense. Experts say this is a p...
Katherine Eban on Fraud in India’s Generic Drugs Industry
04 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
90 percent of the world’s pharmaceutical market is comprised of generic drugs. Generics have been hailed as low-cost alternatives to their more expe...
Anit Mukherjee on the ‘Absent Dialogue’ Between Civilians and the Military in India
27 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Over the years, one could fill a small library with books that have been written about how Indian democracy survived against all of the odds—inequal...
Aatish Taseer on India, Indian Politics, and Citizenship
20 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
This week on Grand Tamasha, Milan sits down with the writer Aatish Taseer, an award-winning author who writes extensively about India and South Asia i...
Vivan Marwaha on the Hopes and Hype of Indian Millennials
13 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
There is arguably no more consequential generation to the future of India than today’s millennials. The median age of India’s population is just 2...
The Rise of the "Scams Raj"
06 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Milan talks with Snigdha Poonam, national affairs reporter for the Hindustan Times, on the startling rise of truly outrageous scams across India. Thro...
State Elections, the U.S. Congress on Kashmir, and a Nobel Prize for India
30 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Milan sits down with podcast regulars Tanvi Madan (Brookings Institution) and Sadanand Dhume (American Enterprise Institute and the Wall Street Journa...
Yamini Aiyar on the Hits and Misses of Modi’s Welfare Agenda
23 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
When Narendra Modi campaigned for India’s top job in 2014, he contrasted the incumbent Congress Party’s “politics of welfare” with the BJP’s...
Shoaib Daniyal on How the BJP Conquered West Bengal
16 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
When India went to the polls in the Spring of 2019, there were few states that election observers were watching more closely than the state of West Be...
Ashley J. Tellis on America’s “India Dividend”
09 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
For nearly twenty years, relations between the United States and India have been on the upswing. Once a nuclear pariah and a country tagged as an impo...
Deep in the Heart of Texas: Inside “Howdy, Modi!”
03 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
This week on the podcast, Milan and executive producer Lauren Dueck take listeners deep in the heart of Texas and inside the gargantuan “Howdy, Modi...
EAM Jaishankar on India's Pluralism, Jammu and Kashmir, and Globalization
01 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
EAM Subrahmanyam Jaishankar stopped at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on the first day of his whirlwind trip through Washington, DC. W...
“Howdy, Modi,” the Kashmir Clampdown, and the Indian Economy
25 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
On this week’s podcast, Milan sits down with Grand Tamasha regulars Sadanand Dhume of the American Enterprise Institute and Wall Street Journal and ...
Prashant Jha on Why We Missed the Modi Wave
18 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Milan speaks with Prashant Jha, opinion editor at the Hindustan Times and author of the book, How the BJP Wins: Inside India’s Greatest Election Mac...
Niha Masih on the History and Political Implications of the NRC in Assam
11 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Milan speaks with Niha Masih of the Washington Post about the ongoing political drama surrounding the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam. Ne...
Salman Soz on what the abrogation of Article 370 means for Jammu and Kashmir—and for India
04 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Last week on the podcast, Milan talked with journalist Rahul Pandita about the Indian government’s decision to abrogate Article 370 of the Constitut...
Rahul Pandita on Kashmir: “You can leave Kashmir but Kashmir never leaves you”
28 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Milan sits down with journalist Rahul Pandita to talk about the situation in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. Rahul has an intense personal conn...
Christophe Jaffrelot on the Modi Moment in Indian Politics
21 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
This week on the Grand Tamasha podcast, we bring you some special bonus content--a conversation Milan recorded with political scientist Christophe Ja...
Kashmir, the Indian Economy, and the PM’s Independence Day Speech
21 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In the season premiere, Milan hosts an end-of-summer news round-up with Sadanand Dhume of the American Enterprise Institute and Wall Street Journal an...
U.S.-India Trade Woes and Shereen Bhan on Modi’s Economic Agenda
19 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
First, Milan sits down with Richard (Rick) Rossow who holds the Wadhwani Chair in U.S.-India Policy Studies at the Center for Strategic and Internatio...
The BJP in Power and Ashley J. Tellis on India’s Foreign Policy Future
12 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
First, Milan sits down with Uttam Kumar of the Hindustan Times to discuss the state of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on the heels of its second con...
Modi’s Cabinet and Sajjid Chinoy on the Economic Choices Facing the New Government
05 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
First, Milan sits down with Sadanand Dhume of the American Enterprise Institute and the Wall Street Journal to discuss the Modi government’s Cabinet...
The Election Aftermath and Devesh Kapur on the Indian State
29 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
First, Grand Tamasha's Executive Producer Lauren Dueck takes the helm to interview Milan on the election aftermath. Milan and Lauren discuss whether t...
Election Postmortem With Tanvi Madan
24 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Milan talks to Tanvi Madan of the Brookings Institution about the BJP's victory in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. We'll be back in your feed at our reg...
The End of the Never-Ending Campaign and Gilles Verniers on Data and Elections
22 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
First, the new national political editor of the Hindustan Times Sunetra Choudhury joins Milan to round up this week’s news. Sunetra reflects on some...
Notes from the Campaign Trail and Rukmini S. on Journalism and the 2019 Elections
15 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
First, James Crabtree of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and author of the best-selling book, The Billionaire Raj: A Journey Through India’...
The Economist on Modi and Rahul Verma on Ideology in Indian Politics
08 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
First, Max Rodenbeck and Alex Travelli of the Economist South Asia bureau join Milan to discuss the newspaper’s recent editorial arguing that while ...
The Hindi Heartland Votes and Niranjan Rajadhyaksha on the Modi Economy
01 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
This week on the Grand Tamasha podcast, Neelanjan Sircar of Ashoka University and the Centre for Policy Research joins Milan for our weekly news round...
The Mudslinging Campaign and Barkha Dutt on the “Fear” Election of 2019
24 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
This week on the Grand Tamasha podcast, Sadanand Dhume of the American Enterprise Institute and Tanvi Madan of the Brookings Institution join Milan to...
A Conversation with India’s New CEA Krishnamurthy Subramanian
17 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
This week we are doing something a little different. Milan Vaishnav sits down with the new Chief Economic Adviser (CEA) to the Government of India, Dr...
Modi’s Enduring Popularity, Majoritarian Rhetoric, and Snigdha Poonam on Young Voters
10 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
First, Milan sits down with Sadanand Dhume of the American Enterprise Institute and Wall Street Journal. In a recent column, Sadanand writes that “a...
Congress Manifesto, Left Politics, and Shashi Tharoor on the Congress Vision in 2019
03 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
First, Milan sits down with Roshan Kishore, data and political economy editor at the Hindustan Times. They discuss the Congress Party’s newly unveil...
First Week of Campaigning and Hasan Minhaj on the Battle for the Soul of India
27 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
First, Milan sits down with Irfan Nooruddin, the Hamad bin Khalifa Professor of Indian Politics in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Ge...
Corruption, Southern Politics, and Ruchir Sharma Reflects on 25 Years on the Campaign Trail
20 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
First, Milan sits down with Reuben Abraham, CEO and senior fellow at the IDFC Institute in Mumbai. A Kerala native who has lived and worked in Hyderab...
India’s Economic Woes and the Patchy History of Election Polling
13 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
First, Milan Vaishnav sits down with Roshan Kishore (Data and Political Economy Editor, Hindustan Times) to discuss the latest economic figures from I...
India-Pakistan Tensions and When Foreign Policy Matters for Domestic Politics
06 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Milan Vaishnav talks about the aftermath of the recent conflict between India and Pakistan and its ramifications for India's domestic politics and for...
India's Strike on Jaish Camp Across the LoC, and Arvind Subramanian on Universal Basic Income
27 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
This week on Grand Tamasha, Milan Vaishnav sits down with Sadanand Dhume (Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute and Wall Street Journal colu...
Trailer
25 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Grand Tamasha debuts February 27! Here's a taste of what's coming up. Every week Milan will break down the biggest news with fellow experts in Indian ...