Grand Tamasha

Bölümler

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  Episode 300: India, Then and Now 16.09.2026 51dk

  This week, Milan, Sadanand Dhume, and Tanvi Madan discuss the political fall-out of this summer’s Gen Z protests, the political future of the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), and the churn within the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Plus, the trio discuss Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the potential thaw in China-India relations, and whether ties between India and the United States can weather the current turbulence.
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  The Three Weeks That Made India 09.09.2026 47dk

  Josy Joseph joins Milan on the podcast this week to talk about his best-selling new book, The Birth of a Nation: Twenty-One Days That Changed India, which reconstructs the dramatic three weeks leading up to August 15, 1947.
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  The Truth About India’s Jobs Crisis 02.09.2026 48dk

  Vidya Mahambare joins Milan on the Season 16 premiere of Grand Tamasha to discuss the economic drivers of the Gen Z protests, the link between unemployment and education, and the futility of the manufacturing versus services debate.
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  The Forgotten Origins of Indian Liberalism 01.07.2026 1sa 7dk

  This week, Rahul Sagar join Milan to discuss his new book The Birth of Indian Liberalism: Mama Parmanand’s Letters to an Indian Raja, which uncovers an older tradition of Indian liberal thought through a remarkable work first published in 1891 and then largely forgotten for more than a century.
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  Whose Constitution Is It Anyway? 24.06.2026 50dk

  This week, Rohit De and Ornit Shani join Milan to discuss their new book Assembling India’s Constitution: A New Democratic History. Drawing on a remarkable range of archival material, the book shows that constitution-making was not confined to the halls of the Constituent Assembly alone. It also played out in provincial legislatures, princely states, government offices, civic associations, and communities across India. Ordinary citizens debated the constitution, petitioned its authors, organized around it, and creatively sought to shape its provisions.
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  The Dark Side of the H-1B Dream 17.06.2026 1sa

  Milan Vaishnav and Tanul Thakur discuss Tanul's new book "Wild Wild East: Exiled Americans, Enslaved Indians and the Systemic Abuse of the H-1B Visa Programme." The book follows the lives of Indian H-1B seekers, displaced American tech workers, and the firms that profit from a deeply broken system. It is at a story about immigration, labor exploitation, globalization, and the darker side of the U.S.-India tech corridor.
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  What Do Indians Think About the World? 10.06.2026 49dk

  Discussing their new short book, Indian Public Opinion toward the Major Powers, Paul Staniland, and Aidan Milliff join Milan Vaishnav to discuss the treasure trove of data on Indian public opinion they stumbled upon, the characteristics of India’s “foreign policy public,” and the variation in Indian attitudes toward the United States, China, and Russia/the Soviet Union. Plus, the discuss why a respondent’s region emerges as a strong predictor of one’s foreign policy views.
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  India’s Nordic Connection 03.06.2026 39dk

  Milan and Ambassador May-Elin Stener discuss the outcomes of the India-Nordic summit, the Trade and Economic Partnership Agreement (TEPA), and the green technology partnership Norway envisions with India. Plus, the two discussed linkages between the Arctic and the Indo-Pacific and the controversy over a Norwegian journalist’s questioning of Indian officials in Oslo.
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  BJP Ascendant at Home, Tested Abroad 27.05.2026 53dk

  Milan Vaishnav, Sadanand Dhume, and Tanvi Madan discuss whether India is becoming a “one-party state,” the current state of the opposition, and the headwinds facing the Indian economy. Plus, the three discuss Pakistan’s diplomatic moment, Trump’s recent China trip, and Marco Rubio’s visit to India.
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  Rethinking India’s Growth Story 20.05.2026 53dk

  Abhishek Anand and Milan Vaishnav discuss the controversy over India’s GDP estimates, important reforms within India’s statistics ministry, and the debate over the Reserve Bank of India’s policies to defend the rupee. Plus, the two discuss Abhishek’s work on power sector reform and the embrace of non-tariff barriers that stymie the spirit of India’s new bilateral trade agreements.
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  Can India Keep Its Balance in West Asia? 13.05.2026 47dk

  For more than a decade, India has steadily deepened its ties with the Gulf while trying to balance competing interests across the region. How is India being impacted by the Iran crisis? And what do these geopolitical shifts mean for India’s West Asia policy? To discuss these and other questions, Milan is joined on the show this week by Kabir Taneja, the Executive Director of the Observer Research Foundation’s Middle East office.
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  Flash Episode: India's 2026 Elections Explained 08.05.2026 59dk

  It’s safe to say that India’s 2026 state assembly elections have scrambled many of the assumptions that have long shaped our understanding of Indian politics. To make sense of these results, Milan is joined today by Neelanjan Sircar and Yamini Aiyar—two of the sharpest observers of Indian politics and political economy.
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  India’s Delimitation Dilemma 06.05.2026 1sa 12dk

  India hasn’t updated how political power is distributed across its states in five decades—and the consequences are mounting. Recently, Milan sat down with Shruti Rajagopalan of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University for a wide-ranging webinar on delimitation, representation, and the reshaping of Indian democracy.
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  India’s Youth Boom Meets a Jobs Bust 29.04.2026 53dk

  For more than three decades, India’s growth story has rested on the promise of a large and youthful workforce. But a new report published by the Centre for Sustainable Employment at Azim Premji University takes a comprehensive look at how young Indians move from education into the labor market—and asks whether India is successfully converting its demographic dividend into an economic one. This week on the show Milan speaks with the report’s lead author Rosa Abraham, who heads theCentre for Sustainable Employment at Azim Premji University.
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  The Indian Who Helped Build Silicon Valley 22.04.2026 59dk

  Kanwal Rekhi was the first Indian-American founder & CEO to take a venture-backed company public on the NASDAQ. He also co-founded and built The Indus Entrepreneurs—or TiE—into the largest global network of Indian entrepreneurs. He writes about his life in his new memoir, which traces his remarkable journey from a modest upbringing in India to becoming one of the most influential figures in the Indian diaspora in the United States. Kanwal joins Milan to discuss his lifelong passion for entrepreneurship, his modest upbringing and challenging early family life, and his role in building the modern Internet.
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  India’s Middle Class Hits a Breaking Point 15.04.2026 56dk

  For decades, India’s growth story has rested on the spectacular rise of its middle class. But a new book argues that this very group—roughly 40 million income-tax–paying households—is now under acute strain. Facing a convergence of job disruption, wage stagnation, and rising debt, the middle class may no longer be the engine of growth it once was. This is the argument made in a new book titled, Breakpoint: The Crisis of the Middle Class and the Future of Work. It is authored by Saurabh Mukherjea, along with Nandita Rajhansa and Sapana Bhavsar.
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  Inside The Complex: Family, Power, and India in Turmoil 08.04.2026 51dk

  On this week’s show, Milan sits down with the novelist Karan Mahajan, author of a much-anticipated new novel, The Complex. Karan and Milan discussed the book at our first ever live Grand Tamasha event at Carnegie headquarters in Washington, DC on March 16. Karan is an associate professor in Literary Arts at Brown University and the author of the books Family Planning and The Association of Small Bombs.
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  Can India Thrive in Trump’s World? 01.04.2026 55dk

  Donald Trump’s return to the White House has once again altered the contours of international politics. For India, this evolving context raises several important questions about the viability of its foreign policy approach. This week on the podcast, Milan sits down with three of the contributors to a new compilation published by the Carnegie Endowment—Shoumitro Chatterjee, Sameer Lalwani, and Tanvi Madan—to discuss the uncertain trajectory of Indian foreign policy. 
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  Inside Washington: Ami Bera on Shifting U.S.–India Ties 25.03.2026 35dk

  Over the past two decades, Washington and New Delhi have drawn steadily closer—driven by shared concerns about China, expanding economic ties, and a growing Indian diaspora in the United States. To help us unpack all of this, this week Milan spoke with Congressman Ami Bera in his office on Capitol Hill.
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  Bangladesh’s Political Reset 18.03.2026 48dk

  In 2024, mass protests brought an abrupt end to Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s long tenure in power, opening the door to Bangladesh’s most consequential election in more than a decade. To talk about this new political era, Milan is joined on the show this week by Global Research Professor Naomi Hossain, with the Department of Development Studies at SOAS University of London.