BIC TALKS

Jyotsna Jha talks to host Pavan Srinath about how Indian girl children have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Jyotsna and her colleagues have published a new study on how children's education is faring amidst deep economic uncertainty faced by millions of Indian families, by surveying over 3,100 households across 4 states – Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Assam and Telangana. In this episode, Jyotsna shares the state of the gender gap in education and society before the pandemic, and how girls are faring now, with schools shut down and families in economic crisis. Things look dire, with girls losing their freedom of movement, with limited phone access and uncertainty over ever going back to school. She also shares how boys are also adversely affected and goes beyond the study to discuss what is likely to happen in the future. Jyotsna and Pavan also discuss what should be immediate and medium-term priorities for India's schooling system and getting children back to school. 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). Her research primarily focuses on education and gender. She has actively worked with educational policy planners, administrators, teachers, and professionals at various levels both nationally and internationally. BIC Talks is brought to you by the Bangalore International Centre. Visit the BIC website to learn more about the guest and for links to the full study. The full study is titled: Neha Ghatak, Achala S Yareseeme and Jyotsna Jha, (2020). "Life in the time of Covid-19: Mapping the impact of Covid-19 on the lives of school-going children especially girls in India". Centre for Budget and Policy Studies and India Champions for Girls' Education.

India's police forces have long been under the direct control of state politicians, but the challenge of police politicisation is coming the fore increasingly in recent years. Instances of harm caused by the politicisation are apparent in the police handling of the Delhi Riots of 1984, the Gujarat riots of 2002 and the recent riots in N.E. Delhi. The police is trained to enforce the law impartially but that rarely happens in some states with powerful chief ministers. The recent case relating to the suicide of Sushant Singh Rajput and the arrest of anchor Arnab Goswami of the TV channel 'Republic' are prime examples. In this podcast, Retired IPS Officer and Padma Bhushan awardee Julio Ribeiro in conversation with journalist and co-founder of The News Minute, Dhanya Rajendran, trace the course of this politicisation from Independence to the present day. This episode is an edited version of a live conversation on BIC Streams. BIC Talks is brought to you by the Bangalore International Centre. Visit the BIC website to learn more about the guest and for links, references and related readings.

Joshua Mathew talks to Sheila Kumar about the life and story of Donald Anderson (1934-2014), one of the last colonial hunters or shikharis, who was a resident of Bangalore and lived a life quite removed from 21st century experiences and norms. They discuss Joshua's 2018 book, The Last White Hunter: Reminiscences of a Colonial Shikhari and the themes explored in the book. They talk about the changing perspectives on how hunting was once a sport, how life in central Bangalore has evolved in the last century, and the larger-than-life character that was Don Anderson. Joshua Mathew is the author of The Last White Hunter. He wrote the book over 7 years, having known Don Anderson in the last years of his life. He moonlights as a marketer and lives under the illusion that he is an amateur photographer, wildlife enthusiast, gamer, history buff, B&W film aficionado, and gastronome. He lives in Bangalore, and the book is being translated into Kannada and Malayalam. Sheila Kumar is an ad copywriter turned journalist and manuscript editor, as well as author of four books. She worked for the Times of India Group in Bangalore and Delhi, and then at Femina, for over a dozen years before turning freelance. BIC Talks is brought to you by the Bangalore International Centre. Visit the BIC website to learn more about the guest and for links, references and related readings.

The COVID-19 pandemic has always spread faster than we can test for, and it's all the more true in India. We have known for a while now that for every single person who has tested positive for the infection, there are several who have been infected – either with or without symptoms. Serosurveys therefore become an important tool in helping us figure out how far the infection has spread within a population. A new study on Karnataka shows that even as early as mid-August, close to half the state, about 31 million individuals, may have been infected by COVID-19. They also find that the rural spread of COVID has been almost as high as the urban spread. Researchers Manoj Mohanan, Anu Acharya and Anup Malani help us understand and interpret their new study. Manoj Mohanan is with the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University, Anup Malani is with the University of Chicago, and Anu Acharya is the CEO of Mapmygenome. They are also affiliated with the IDFC Institute, and are 3 of the 4 authors of this serosurvey of the state of Karnataka.This episode is an edited version of a live conversation on BIC Streams. BIC Talks is brought to you by the Bangalore International Centre. Visit the BIC website to learn more about the guest and for links, references and related readings.

Mayur Suresh talks to host Pavan Srinath about the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), and how thousands of Indians are in prison or in custody, without recourse to bail, and awaiting a trial that may never take place. Mayur discusses how the UAPA came about, how it absorbed some of the worst features of the Prevention of Terrorism Act, and how it can be used without much judicial oversight, by governments and police forces in power. Dr Mayur Suresh is a faculty member of the School of Law at the School of Oriental and African Studies, SOAS, London. He used to practice law in New Delhi at various courts, and has worked and written extensively on India's anti-terror laws, legal theory, sexuality and gender identity. BIC Talks is brought to you by the Bangalore International Centre. Visit the BIC website to learn more about the guest and for links, references and related readings.

Caleb Simmons and Manu S Pillai talk about how sovereignty was conceived in India in the 18th and 19th centuries. They explore how two very different rules of Mysore: Tipu Sultan and Krishnaraja Wodeyar III laid their claims to sovereign rule over their kingdom. They discuss Caleb's recent book, Devotional Sovereignty: Kingship and Religion in India. Dr. Caleb Simmons is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Arizona. He specialises in religion in South Asia, especially Hinduism. His research spans religion and state-formation in medieval and colonial India to contemporary transnational aspects of Hinduism. Manu S. Pillai is a historian and author of several books, most recently The Courtesan, the Mahatma & the Italian Brahmin: Tales from Indian History. He is currently pursuing his PhD from King's College London. BIC Talks is brought to you by the Bangalore International Centre. Visit the BIC website to learn more about the guest and for links, references and related readings.

Simran Mangharam and Dipti Ramesh talk about how modern relationships and marriages are evolving in urban India. They explore how gender and personal dynamics are evolving within each relationship, and Simran shares examples from the thousands of people she has coached. Simran Mangharam is a Dating and Relationship Coach. She is the founder of Floh, a dating community that connects singles in real-life at events. Before Floh, she co-founded an executive search firm and is an MBTI Certified Counsellor. She writes a regular column called "With Love" on modern relationships in India for the Sunday edition of The Hindustan Times. Dipti Ramesh worked closely with Simran as the COO at Floh. Prior to Floh, she worked with Amnesty International India in the field of women's rights. She continues to work with nonprofits in the areas of gender and equality and the prevention of abuse. BIC Talks is brought to you by the Bangalore International Centre. Visit the BIC website to learn more about the guest and for links, references and related readings.

Scholar and translator Arshia Sattar speaks to editor and critic Somak Ghoshal about her new book Maryada: Searching for Dharma in the Ramayana. This episode is an edited audio discussion first aired as a BIC Streams livecast. 'Maryada' is the Sanskrit word for 'boundary' and also means 'propriety of conduct'. In the Ramayana, the word carries special weight because it comes to be used as the defining virtue of Rama, the 'maryada purushottama' or 'ideal man'. But even though Rama is regarded as the epitome of dharma in his thoughts and deeds, the Ramayana does not provide us with one single template for what is right. Nor does it tell us that dharma is beyond the reach of human understanding and action. On the contrary, it holds out the promise that everyone can search for a dharma they believe in, one that is all the more precious because it has been sought and found rather than given and received. In this thought-provoking book, Arshia Sattar writes with compassion, tenderness and understanding about dharma as a multiplicity of appropriate choices, showing us that when we choose one way of being and doing over another, we will be as often wrong as we are right. 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.

Researcher Karthick Bala talks to host Pavan Srinath about the microscopic world of diatoms, and discusses the life and work of HP Gandhi, a pioneer in the study of diatoms in India. Diatoms are microscopic algae which are present in all water bodies, and occur in fascinating shapes and structures. Apart from producing almost 25 per cent of the world's oxygen, diatoms find myriad invisible uses across human society and economy. Hemendrakumar Prithviraj Gandhi (1920-2008) was a pioneer in studying diatoms across India, and discovered and catalogued about 300 different species as well as studied their distribution and behaviour. He conducted his entire life's worth of research without any financial or institutional support, while teaching as a college lecturer and eventually a college Principal. Against great adversity, he published seminal work on Indian diatoms in top international journals. His work received new attention in the 2000s, thanks to the effort of Karthick Bala and others, and diatoms are better studied by a larger set of scientists in India in 2020. Listen to Karthick take listeners through the world of diatoms, and share the work of HP Gandhi, and his own personal journey in rediscovering Gandhi's corpus of work. Karthick Balasubramanian leads the diatom diversity and distribution lab at the Biodiversity and Palaeobiology Group of the Agharkar Research Institute, Pune, India. His group works on the ecological and evolutionary processes responsible for the current diversity and distribution of diatoms in the Indian subcontinent. He is also interested in communicating science in English and Tamil to common people, especially the school children using diatoms for sensitising river conservation. BIC Talks is brought to you by the Bangalore International Centre. Visit the BIC website to learn more about the guest and for links, references and related readings.

Authors Devi Yesodharan and Samhita Arni talk about how sex is depicted in literature and epics and how they can inform healthier conversations in the 21st century. They explore how Indian epics like Kalidasa's Kumārasambhava, to Andal's poetry, to the Arabian Nights and Dante's Divine Comedy, approach various aspects on sex, courtship, and relationships. They also talk about how distorted modern sex education and understanding can be, and what role literature can play in dispelling taboos. Devi Yesodharan is the author of Empire, a historical fiction novel on the Tamil king Rajendra Chola. Her book was nominated for the Tata Lit Live First Book Prize and the JCB Literature Prize. She is a Chevening Gurukul fellow and the co-founder of trendlyne.com. She lives in Bangalore. Samhita Arni is the author of four books, and retells mythological stories. Her most recent book is The Prince. She was previously on Episode 10 of BIC Talks to talk about pandemics in prose. BIC Talks is brought to you by the Bangalore International Centre. For the full list of books and epics discussed in the episode along with links, please visit the episode page on the Bangalore International Centre website.