PuliyaBaazi

This is Episode 51 of PuliyaBaazi, a fortnightly podcast hosted by Pranay Kotasthane and Saurabh Chandra. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria finally met its demise with the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on October 26th. So in this episode of Puliyabaazi we take a look at ISIS, its recruitment methods, its use of technology, and its bureaucracy. We also discuss cases in the Indian sub-continent...

This is Episode 50 of PuliyaBaazi, a fortnightly podcast hosted by Pranay Kotasthane and Saurabh Chandra. Puliyabaazi is fifty episodes old now! To mark this occasion, we return to discussing a foundational text. In this episode, we discuss insights from Nobel Prize laureate Daniel Kahneman’s classic Thinking, Fast and Slow. The work in this book was instrumental in creating a new discipline of...

This is Episode 49 of PuliyaBaazi, a fortnightly podcast hosted by Pranay Kotasthane and Saurabh Chandra. In episodes 11 and 12, we discussed contemporary China from a political and economic angle. So this episode is about China’s society. We discuss the lived experience of an Indian in smaller cities of China and try to understand the similarities and differences in the two societies. Joining us...

This is Episode 48 of PuliyaBaazi, a fortnightly podcast hosted by Pranay Kotasthane and Saurabh Chandra. The future of mobility is autonomous. But it’s hard to imagine that future in Indian conditions where roads occupy spots between potholes, the traffic pattern is Brownian, and non-verbal communication is a lead indicator of vehicular movement. So in this episode, we speak about Indian...

This is Episode 47 of PuliyaBaazi, a fortnightly podcast hosted by Pranay Kotasthane and Saurabh Chandra. Fake news, disinformation, misinformation, and social media manipulation — these are elements of perhaps the most significant global story of these times. And yet, this phenomenon remains underexplored. We do not fully understand what causes people to generate, share, and believe in fake...

This is Episode 46 of PuliyaBaazi, a fortnightly podcast hosted by Pranay Kotasthane and Saurabh Chandra. The events surrounding Chandrayaan-2’s landing attempt captured India’s imagination earlier this month. This also gave us a reason to talk about Space on Puliyabaazi again. In our previous episode on space, we discussed the story of ISRO. In this episode, we explore the world of rocketry —...

This is Episode 45 of PuliyaBaazi, a fortnightly podcast hosted by Pranay Kotasthane and Saurabh Chandra. The National Registry of Citizens (NRC) has been in the national news recently. So in this episode, we take a step back to understand the causes and dynamics of insider-outsider tensions in North-East India. Joining us is author and journalist Samrat, who has co-edited a book with Preeti Gill...

One of the issues in the ongoing US-China trade conflict is rampant intellectual property theft by China. This term — intellectual property rights — is one of those which we often hear about but know very little about. Why are such rights important? How do citizens benefit from a sound intellectual property regime? Are anti-trust laws and patent regulations antagonistic to each other? We discuss...

This is Episode 42 of PuliyaBaazi, a fortnightly podcast hosted by Pranay Kotasthane and Saurabh Chandra. The debate on governmental reform often takes one of these three turns: privatisation, nationalisation, or devolution. But none of the three narratives provides a comprehensive framework for reforming government organisations. For example, privatisation might not always be possible nor...

This is Episode 41 of PuliyaBaazi, a fortnightly podcast hosted by Pranay Kotasthane and Saurabh Chandra. The semiconductor microchip is perhaps the greatest modern-day innovation breakthrough. It made radios, TVs, computers, and phones happen. Today, a processor microchip has billions of components and is created using a complex supply chain involving thousands of specialised companies cutting...

This is Episode 40 of PuliyaBaazi, a fortnightly podcast hosted by Pranay Kotasthane and Saurabh Chandra. The tussle between the Reserve Bank of India and the Union government has only intensified over the last two years. Governor Urjit Patel resigned in December 2018 and Deputy Governor Viral Acharya resigned earlier this week. Though both of them cited personal reasons there are speculations...

This is Episode 39 of PuliyaBaazi, a fortnightly podcast hosted by Pranay Kotasthane and Saurabh Chandra. भारतीय राष्ट्रवाद की ख़ासियत यह है कि वह शुरुआत से ही उदारवादी रहा है | लेकिन आज के ध्रुवीकृत वातावरण में इन दोनों शब्दों को विरोधाभासी समझा जाने लगा है | कुछ राष्ट्र के स्वनियुक्त रक्षक लिबरल विचारधारा को ज़हरीला मानते है तो खुद को लिबरल मानने वाले राष्ट्रवाद नाम से ही कतरा जाते है | तो हमने...