BIC TALKS

Columnist and Emerging Markets investor Narayan Ramachandran returns to BIC Talks to talk to host Pavan Srinath about the Government of India budget, from a larger perspective rarely seen in print or TV. Jyotsna Jha from the Centre for Budget and Policy Studies also shares her views on how the social sector has fared in this year's budget. Listen in as the speakers explore the storytelling, the inferred ideology and the details of the 2021-22 Union Budget. They examine what has changed and what has stayed the same, and how the Union Government has chosen to react to the biggest social and economic crisis India has seen in decades. Narayan Ramachandran is a columnist, emerging markets investor and polymath. Narayan writes a fortnightly column in Mint called A Visible Hand. Jyotsna Jha is the Director of the Centre for Budget and Policy Studies, a Bangalore-based think tank focused on policy research and advocacy. Jyotsna has a PhD in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), and her research primarily focuses on education and gender. Here are the previous episodes with Narayan and Jyotsna on BIC Talks: #72. Girls Out of School: Pandemic Worsens the Gender Gap (with Jyotsna Jha) #5. Double Trouble: A Pandemic Meets India's Banking Crisis (with Narayan Ramachandran) #46: The US Fed's Great Shift: From Inflation to Employment #47: Can the Indian Economy Bounce Back? A Breather from the US Fed BIC Talks is brought to you by the Bangalore International Centre. Visit the BIC website for show notes, links and more information about the guests.

Ambassador Nirupama Menon Rao speaks to artists and scholars Ahmad Naser Sarmast, Neil Nongkynrih and Ravibandhu Vidyapathi about how a South Asian identity can be expressed through music. This is a follow-up to Episode 86 of BIC Talks, and an edited version a live online event hosted by the South Asian Symphony Foundation. The foundation's co-founder Ambassador Menon Rao spoke to five artistes from across South Asia, and three of them are featured on this episode. The full event can be accessed on the SASF YouTube channel. Ahmad Naser Sarmast is an Afghan-Australian ethnomusicologist. He is the founder and director of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music. Neil Nongkynrih is a concert pianist and founder, mentor, and conductor of Shillong Chamber Choir. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 2015. Ravibandhu Vidyapathy is a dancer, veteran choreographer and musician from Sri Lanka. An acclaimed classical Kandyan dancer, Kathakali actor-dancer, trained in Hindustani music, his work today spans through a wide range of styles such as traditional choreographies, full-length ballets of linear narrative style, contemporary dance pieces and short ballets of thematic & abstract styles. BIC Talks is brought to you by the Bangalore International Centre. Visit the BIC website for show notes, links and more information about the guests.

India is yet to get over its giddy excitement with the recently completed cricket Test series that was truly one for the ages. After being written off by all experts post the Adelaide Test (where India recorded its lowest ever score of 36), India bounced back to win at Melbourne, draw at Sydney and pull off a miracle at the Gabba in Brisbane (where the last time a visiting team won was in 1988). To help us unpack what happened we have an Australian and Indian perspective from Gideon Haigh, senior cricket writer and Sharda Ugra, sports journalist. Gideon Haigh is one of the great cricket observers and writers of our times. He is an independent journalist, in the trade for nearly four decades. He was born in London, went to school in Geelong, and now lives in Melbourne. Sharda Ugra has spent more than three decades in sports journalism, working with Mumbai tabloid Mid-Day, national daily The Hindu, India Today magazine and ESPNcricinfo and ESPN India. During this time, she has written and spoken about issues around Indian sport at home and abroad in popular and academic publications. Visit BIC website for more details about the Bangalore International Centre.

Sudhir Krishnaswamy and Shruti Viswanathan unpack the enduring impact of the Indian Constitution's Basic Structure doctrine on India's socio-political and judicial landscape. India's Basic Structure doctrine arose from Supreme Court's Kesavananda Bharati judgment from 1973. It came about by a wafer-thin judgment with a margin of 7-6, and placed restrictions on the power of the Parliament to amend the Indian Constitution. In effect, this affirmed that the Constitution, not Parliament, was supreme in India. Sudhir and Shruti explore how this case came before the Supreme Court, the broad principles of the doctrine, and its evolution since 1973. The discussion will focus not just on the legal interpretation of the doctrine but also its impact on India's political history. Professor Sudhir Krishnaswamy is the Vice-Chancellor of National Law School of India University, Bangalore. His research focus is on constitutional law and politics and the empirical analysis of the legal system. He is also a Founder and Trustee of the Centre for Law and Policy Research, Bangalore. Shruti Viswanathan is a graduate of the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. She has a Masters in Law and Diplomacy from The Fletcher School, Tufts University. Over the past ten years she has been working in law and policy; promoting effective design and delivery of social protection programmes. BIC Talks is brought to you by the Bangalore International Centre. Visit the BIC website for show notes, links and more information about the guests.

Ambassador Nirupama Menon Rao speaks to musicians TM Krishna and Ali Sethi about how a South Asian identity can be expressed through music. This episode of BIC Talks is an edited version of the first half of a live online event hosted by the South Asian Symphony Foundation. The foundation's co-founder Ambassador Menon Rao spoke to five artistes from across South Asia. The full event can be accessed on the SASF YouTube channel. As a brief aside, South Asian Symphony Orchestra's Nivanthi Karunaratne, will be representing SASO in the Hope & Harmony Ensemble, formed by Washington-based Classical Movements, for the U.S. Presidential inauguration on the 20th of January, 2021. From the majestic Himalayan peaks to the waters of the Indian Ocean, South Asia boasts of diverse landscapes. So too are the inhabitants of this region with their rich cultural heritage, distinct musical traditions and exceptional linguistic diversity. Permeating all aspects of life, music acts as a conduit that communicates a plethora of emotions, traditions, values and narratives of the lives of the people. From farmers of Sri Lanka who sing on their night watch to keep their crops safe from wild animals to boatmen in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh whose singing pierces placid rivers, to exuberant rhythms that infuse family gatherings with unparalleled energy, and the songs of the Afghan people, music in South Asia takes many forms and tells many stories as it accompanies the ebb and flow of more than a billion lives. Although diverse in form and style, South Asian music is the creative expression of a people living in close proximity to each other. Music evolves with people and there are similarities as there are differences as genres influence each other. Collectively, South Asian music stands out on the global stage with its unique timbre, tempo and dynamics. BIC Talks is brought to you by the Bangalore International Centre. Visit the BIC website for show notes, links and more information about the guests.

Historian Omar H Ali talks about African origin leaders and shapers of medieval India on Episode 85 of BIC Talks. Africa and India have a rich history of interaction ranging several millennia, with African origin sailors, merchants, soldiers, scholars, musicians, and explorers finding home in India or contributing significantly to Indian history. Perhaps the greatest among them was Malik Ambar, born in Abyssinia, arriving in India as a slave, and rising to power as the Prime Minister and de-facto ruler of the Ahmednagar Sultanate early in the 17th century. Omar H. Ali is Dean of Lloyd International Honors College and Professor at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. He is an award-winning historian of the global African Diaspora and the author of several books, including on Malik Ambar and This BIC Talks episode is an edited excerpt of Omar's talk that was originally livecast on BIC Streams on December 11, 2020. BIC Talks is brought to you by the Bangalore International Centre. Visit the BIC website for show notes, links and more information about the guests.

Strategic affairs analyst, journalist, and former Indian Army officer Sushant Singh talks to host Pavan Srinath about the India-China conflict in Ladakh, eight months in. Sushant shares what it takes for the Indian Army to deploy between 50 and 60,000 troops on the Line of Actual Control in Eastern Ladakh and maintaining a winter deployment. He also discusses the challenges faced by soldiers living through the winter in altitudes going up to 18,000 feet, with blistering winds and little to no prior infrastructure. The conversation also includes an eye on the future, on how the India-China conflict could pan out in 2021 and what kind of strategic implications it could have for India. Sushant Singh is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. Previously, he was the Deputy Editor of The Indian Express, reporting on strategic affairs, national security and international affairs. He won the Ramnath Goenka Prize for Excellence in Journalism for 2017 and 2018. Prior to becoming a journalist, he served in the Indian Army for two decades, including multiple stints in Jammu and Kashmir. He is the author of Mission Overseas: Daring Operations by the Indian Military (Juggernaut Books, 2017). BIC Talks is brought to you by the Bangalore International Centre. Visit the BIC website for show notes, links and more information about the guests.

Durba Mitra and Sreeparna Chattopadhyay discuss Durba's book, "Indian Sex Life: Sexuality and the Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought." They explore how British authorities and Indian intellectuals develop ideas about deviant female sexuality to control and organise society in colonial India. They also discuss the legal and societal implications of these ideas that continue to shape Indian society to this day. Dr. Durba Mitra is Assistant Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality and Carol K. Pforzheimer Assistant Professor at the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University. Mitra works at the intersection of feminist and queer studies. Her research and teaching focus on the history of sexuality, the history of science and epistemology, and gender and feminist thought in South Asia and the colonial and postcolonial world. Dr. Sreeparna Chattopadhyay is an independent researcher currently based in Bangalore. She has an A.M. and Ph.D. from the Department of Anthropology and the Population Studies Training Centre at Brown University and a B.A. in Economics (Honours) from St. Xavier's College, Bombay. Her research in the last twelve years has focused on the ways in which gender disadvantages interact with socioeconomic inequities, shaping women's life trajectories including impacts on health, education and exposure to violence. BIC Talks is brought to you by the Bangalore International Centre. Visit the BIC website for show notes, links and more information about the guests.

In this episode, Architect Bijoy Ramachandran speaks to Prof. Rabindra Vasavada, a celebrated practitioner, conservationist, teacher and historian about his time at the IIM Ahmedabad site office (where he started his career) from 1969 to 1972 working with Louis Kahn the American architect, who was commissioned to design the campus, and Prof. Anant Raje, the local architect in-charge. This time working on the School (the Library, Faculty blocks and classrooms) had a profound impact on him. From Prof. Vasavada's description of Kahn, three things are immediately striking about the way Kahn and his site office operated. First, the work seems to have been fundamentally informed by the feedback provided by the clients. Kahn seems to have been a careful and observant collaborator. This flies in the face of the romantic ideas of the architect as the sole author of the sublime idea and instead tells us of a much more open and shared way in which architecture could be produced. Second, the environment in the office too was collaborative, each of you seem to have had both a sense of profound ownership and responsibility towards the work. Third, we often separate the notion of the big idea from what Kenneth Frampton calls the adoration of the joint, the details, the techtonics and the precise, accurate representation of structure and construction. Prof. Vasavada's description of Kahn's process make it clear that there was no such distinction. The profound, big idea and this careful attention to detail and precision went hand in hand. Each informed the other.

In this episode author Shoba Narayan discusses her new book- Food and Faith - A Pilgrim's Journey Through India with poet and scholar Mani Rao. What is the role of religion in your life today? Do you commune with the divine through rituals? Or is it a comforting routine, going to church or temple once a week or month? Are these questions making you uncomfortable? Do you think religion is a private act to be done in the confines of one's home, with family, and not something to declare publicly? These are the questions this book seeks to answer. Shoba Narayan travels across some of the most prominent places of worship in India and presents to her readers the mythologies, histories and contemporary relevance of these sites. This podcast is an edited extract from the session that was part of the Bangalore Literature Festival 2020.