From The Marginlands

Episodes

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  The State Sees Pipes; Our Rivers Have Other Ideas -- Parineeta Dandekar on People, Poetry, Politics, & Paisa 26.10.2026 1h 58m

  Parineeta Dandekar of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP) joins us to talk about what makes a river a river, and what happens when we treat it as plumbing. From Himalayan dams and river-linking schemes to the Godavari’s pollution crisis, we explore what our plans for rivers leave out: fish, floodplains, livelihoods, culture, tradition, songs and stories. Through it all runs Parineeta’s infectious passion for rivers, not just as ecosystems to protect, but as living relat...
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  When The Fever Map Changes & Cures Stop Working: Talking Health & Climate with Ramanan Laxminarayan 12.10.2026 1h 19m

  In this episode we talk to epidemiologist Ramanan Laxminarayan about what ails India's health. He makes the case that the biggest threat is the silent spread of noncommunicable disease, and that India is good at health events, but weak at the unglamorous, sustained work of public health. The conversation moves through eradication and elimination, dengue, climate extremes and heat, Nipah and bats, and antimicrobial resistance (AMR). It closes with his new book, Bacteria to Buddha, and an argum...
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  Oceans Are Absorbing Heat Equal To 12 Hiroshimas Every Second: Implications are HUGE 09.09.2026 2h 12m

  In this wide-ranging conversation with Arati (Prem was out sick, sadly), Dr. Roxy Koll explains why climate change is no longer a distant, gradual phenomenon but an accelerating cascade of interconnected risks. They discuss El Niño and monsoon dynamics to extreme rainfall, Himalayan hazards, sea-level rise, urban heat, forest-driven rainfall recycling, climate-sensitive disease, agriculture, and the communication gap between science, policy, and the public. SHOWNOTES: Dengue, rainfall and a c...
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  Assam's Floods (once a boon) Are So Destructive Now - Why? Arupjyoti Saikia Explains 18.08.2026 1h 48m

  Assam’s July floods were explained as a consequence of heavy rainfall. That is true, but incomplete. Historian Arupjyoti Saikia joins us to uncover the much longer history behind the catastrophe: the earthquakes that transformed the Brahmaputra, the failed embankment experiment, changing sediment, dams and extraction in the highlands, erased wetlands, and a political economy built around flood control and relief. We discuss why a single river basin is governed in fragments; whether climate ch...
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  When The World Is Connected But Our Planning Is Not 05.08.2026 1h 3m

  Contact us: Email the Podcast Arati Kumar-Rao on Instagram Prem Panicker on X (Twitter) Prem on Substack From The Marginlands on Instagram
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  We Know What Rom Whitaker Did That Summer (and now you will too!) 20.07.2026 2h 19m

  Romulus Whitaker has spent close to seven decades following snakes into the larger worlds around them: forests and rivers, laboratories and hospitals, and the deep ecological knowledge of the Irulas. In this conversation, he tells us how the Snake Park and Croc Bank became informal universities, why India’s “Big Four” antivenom model no longer fits the science, and what is lost when traditional knowledge disappears. At 83, his unfinished work remains urgent: preventing snakebite deaths among ...
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  When Rains Fail, What Should The City Do? Vishwanath Suggests ... 06.07.2026 1h 32m

  The 2026 monsoon is failing, the Cauvery catchment is running dry, and the reservoirs feeding Bengaluru are alarmingly low. So Arati Kumar-Rao and Prem Panicker call back the one person who can tell us what it means: S. Vishwanath, who first argued on Season 1 of this show that the city's water crisis was one of management, not scarcity -- a statement now tested against a year when the rain genuinely didn't come. We've long wanted to bring guests back to finish conversations the clock cut sho...
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  What Are The Real Risks To Our Health? We Ask Dr. Soumya Swaminathan 22.06.2026 1h 27m

  Most people in health pick a lane — clinician, researcher, or policymaker. Dr. Soumya Swaminathan has been all three for forty years: a paediatrician who became a leading TB and HIV researcher, then the WHO's first-ever Chief Scientist, steering global science through COVID. She now chairs the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, and was just elected to the Royal Society — making her and her father the first Indian father-daughter pair to earn that honour. She joins Arati Kumar-Rao (https:/...
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  Why Care About the Environment? (When People Are Being Killed) -- Mahesh Rangarajan 08.06.2026 2h 8m

  A young person once asked: why care about nature when people are dying in Gaza? Environmental historian Mahesh Rangarajan gives the long answer — why the choice between people and the planet was always false. In previous episodes of this podcast, our guests have talked to us about particular rivers, forests, seasons, environmental fissures. This time, we take the whole arc. Environmental historian Mahesh Rangarajan joins Arati Kumar-Rao and Prem Panicker for a conversation that runs from for...
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  If A City Forgets Itself, What Lies Ahead? We Ask Harini Nagendra 25.05.2026 1h 43m

  n this episode of From The Marginlands, Arati Kumar-Rao and Prem Panicker speak with ecologist and writer Harini Nagendra about the lost ecological memory of Bengaluru — a city once shaped by lakes, wetlands, trees and commons that sustained both biodiversity and community life. Drawing on decades of research into urban ecology, Harini traces how cities slowly sever themselves from local water, food and ecological systems, and what disappears when nature is treated as expendable real estate....
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  What is life like in the Sundarbans? Annu Jalais Weighs In 25.05.2026 1h 54m

  In the second episode of Season 2 of From the Marginlands, Arati Kumar-Rao and Prem Panicker speak with environmental social anthropologist Annu Jalais, whose 27+ years of research in the Sundarbans reveals a world far more complex than standard conservation narratives. We explore human–tiger coexistence, forest labour systems, migration, gender shifts, and the hidden hierarchies reshaping life in one of the most fragile ecosystems on Earth. In this episode: Why Sundarbans tigers behave diffe...
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  Air, Water, Food, Health: Our Future In Whose Hands? 22.04.2026 1h 54m

  Dia Mirza needs no introduction. And yet, the person who shows up in this conversation is not quite the one her public life has made familiar to us. Yes, she is the longest-serving UNEP Goodwill Ambassador India has had, and yes, she carries the full weight of that role: the access, the diplomatic constraints, the careful calibration of when to speak and how. But what drives her goes back much further — to a childhood in Hyderabad spent watching cobras without fear and absorbing, through a mo...
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  Cheetahs, Tigers, People, & Forests: Raza Kazmi Walks Us Into India's History 22.12.2025 2h 15m

  In this season-ending episode of From The Marginlands, Arati and I dive deep into Indian forests, not just as ecosystems but as archives of memory, power, and change. Our guide into this layered terrain is Raza Kazmi, who helps us explore how history helps explain present-day conservation realities, from the shifting fortunes of tiger populations to the erasure of forest places from both maps and memory. What stories do forests tell when we stop treating them as static backdrops and st...
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  WHAT IS IT LIKE FOR HUMANS & LEOPARDS TO SHARE LANDSCAPES? WE ASK VIDYA ATHREYA 01.12.2025 1h 31m

  Leopards live far closer to us than most of us realise — not just in forests, but across farms, villages, and city edges. In this episode, Arati and Prem speak with Dr. Vidya Athreya, one of India’s leading carnivore ecologists, about why leopards are so remarkably adaptable, why encounters in human-dominated landscapes are increasing, and what the science actually says about conflict and safety. We unpack common misconceptions, the gaps in policy, and what real coexistence looks like in a co...
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  Do We Still Need Wildlife Films? Kalyan Varma Weighs In 17.11.2025 1h 26m

  Award-winning filmmaker and photographer Kalyan Varma joins Arati and Prem on From the Marginlands to explore what it means to document the natural world today. From the ethics of filming a vanishing wilderness to the uneasy rise of AI-generated imagery, this conversation asks where the line lies between seeing and showing, between witness and spectacle. How do stories of the wild stay true in an age when the camera, the storyteller, and even the viewer are all changing? Contact us: Email the...
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  What Are We Doing To The Mountains? Ft. Manshi Asher 03.11.2025 1h 51m

  Each monsoon, the Himalayas make headlines for floods, landslides, and loss. But what if these aren’t “natural” disasters at all, but the result of choices we keep making? In this episode, Arati and Prem speak with environmental researcher Manshi Asher of Himdhara Collective about disaster justice, flawed development models, and the fight for fair futures in the mountains. Here, a deep dive into how we can — and must — rethink “progress” in fragile landscapes. Show Notes: Himdhara Collectiv...
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  ICYMI! 24.10.2025 1h 14m

  Prem & Arati look back at episodes, pulling out key issues from each. 10:14: Pranay Lal: • From The Marginlands Ep4 Ft PranayLal 16:46: S Vishwanath : • From The Marginlands E5 Ft Vishwanath (Zen... 24:02: Yuvan Aves : • From The Marginlands Ep 6: Ft. Yuvan Aves 31:14: Dr Roxy Koll: • From The Marginlands Episode 9: Dr Roxy Koll 38:04: Pradip Krishen: • Busting The Afforestation Myth...
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  How Are The Ganga River Dolphins Doing? 29.09.2025 2h 29m

  Nachiket Kelkar, Head of Riverine Ecosystems and Livelihoods at the Wildlife Conservation Trust, shares his experiences and insights on the Ganges River, particularly focusing on the ecological changes observed in Bihar over the years. Kelkar takes us into the multifaceted challenges and cultural dynamics surrounding the Ganges River dolphin and the fisher folk communities in India. It explores the socio-economic transitions of fisher folk, the unique characteristics of the Ganges Rive...
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  So What Is Going On In Great Nicobar? 15.09.2025 1h 38m

  This conversation delves into the Great Nicobar Project, a massive infrastructure initiative at the southern end of the Nicobar Islands, focusing on its economic viability, ecological impact, and the implications for indigenous communities. Pankaj Sekhsaria and M Rajshekhar break down and analyze the project, which includes a transshipment terminal, airport, and township, raises significant concerns regarding ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rA0teTB0msU for detailed Show notes Pankaj Sekh...
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  Ed Kashi & Julie Winokur: The Long Frame -- Stories That Outlast Time 01.09.2025 2h 3m

  Photojournalist Ed Kashi and documentary filmmaker Julie Winokur have spent decades telling urgent, human stories — from climate injustice to ageing, migration, and forgotten coastlines. In this episode of From the Marginlands, Arati and Prem talk to them about the art of long-form storytelling, the patience it demands, and why bearing witness matters now more than ever. Show Notes: Ed Kashi's website: https://www.edkashi.com/ Julie Winokur's Talking Eyes website: https://talkingeyesmedia.or...