All Things Policy

In this episode of the All Things Policy podcast, Vanshika Saraf and Abhishek Kadiyala examine the outcomes of the Quad Foreign Ministers Meeting held in New Delhi on 26 May 2025. The conversation highlights a structural shift in the Quad's orientation, away from the security-forward posture of the Biden era and toward an economic security and supply chain framework shaped by the second Trump...

Amidst the escalating conflict in West Asia and the resulting constriction of oil and gas supply, the urgency to deploy renewable energy for enhanced energy security has grown. However, emerging economies like India must adopt a pragmatic approach to reconcile their increasing energy demands with their decarbonisation commitments. Join Bhumika Sevkani, Research Analyst with the Geostrategy Program...

In this episode, we unpack the evolving contours of U.S.–China strategic competition through first-hand insights from Yusuf Unjhawala, after a recent visit to the United States. Drawing on engagements across the country, the conversation explores how different arms of the American system are interpreting the China challenge. It also interrogates how the United States understands China’s domestic p...

Drawing on the evolving trajectory of the US–Iran war and the wider regional transformations it has triggered, this episode of All Things Policy features Brigadier Anil Raman in conversation with Will Todman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The discussion examines how the Middle East changed between Trump’s return to office and the eventual US–Israeli decision to strike Iran,...

How should we understand the growing rivalry between two 'tigers', Japan and China? The tension between both countries reached a critical point following Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae’s November 2025 declaration that a Chinese attack on Taiwan constitutes a "survival-threatening situation".  Such developments, inter alia, demonstrate how Japan's military and diplomatic engagement with China is sig...

Despite exclusion errors and privacy concerns, the JAM trinity has fundamentally transformed public service delivery in India. Now, with AI becoming increasingly embedded in everyday life, a new idea is emerging: Agentic AI for governance and citizen services. How might AI agents reshape citizens’ interactions with the state? What problems could they solve? And what new risks and challenges might...

Seaweed is not just a coastal livelihood activity. It sits at the intersection of industrial biotechnology, climate strategy, coastal development, and import resilience, and countries around the world are investing in seaweed-based value chains. In this episode, Sarthak Pradhan speaks with Shambhavi Naik and Devleena Bhattacharjee about India’s emerging seaweed economy, the sector’s major policy g...

After a gap of nearly 9 years, and a recent postponement due to the Iran war, a US president finally visited China. Trump traveled with a large contingent including his cabinet members and business and tech leaders. But what did the trip achieve, beyond the optics of Trump praising the Chinese leader? Join Lokendra Sharma and Amit Kumar from the Takshashila Institution as they discuss the key high...

In this episode of All Things Policy, Shobhankita Reddy sits down with Ashwin Prasad Rao to discuss his latest book chapter published in The Hindu's book on the Indian Space Program. Ashwin unpacks the stubborn tag of "frugal engineering" associated with ISRO and frames it as a trap for India's current circumstances and outer space ambitions. What, then, is the way forward? Tune...

In this episode of All Things Policy, Sowmya Prabhakar is in conversation with Y Nithiyanandam to unpack the self-enumeration exercise. What happens when a policy assumes participation without communication? Can digital governance succeed with weak execution? And when data collection becomes a tech exercise, where does trust fit in? From poor public awareness and awkwardly framed questions to data...

In this episode of All Things Policy, Malathi Renati speaks with Dr. (Maj) Ameya Kagali, Chief Team Physician for the Indian Paralympic contingent, about what it really takes to support para-athletes — on the field, in medical systems, and through policy design. From classification to women para-athletes’ health needs, career pathways, and the future of India’s para-sport ecosystem, this conversat...

DeepSeek recently released a preview version of V4, a 1.6-trillion-parameter AI model trained and capable of being deployed entirely on Chinese homegrown Huawei Ascend 950 and Cambricon chips, without any NVIDIA hardware. In this episode of All Things Policy, Satya Sahu, Associate at The Asia Group's South Asia practice, joins Amit Kumar, Staff Research Analyst with Takshashila's Geostrate...

Wars are expensive. And there's a seductive idea going around — that maybe they don't have to be anymore. That drones, loitering munitions, and precision missiles have changed the game so fundamentally that you don't need the big, costly, traditional military machine to project power or win conflicts. Ukraine, Azerbaijan, even Iran — people are pointing to these wars and saying, look,...

How much do we really understand about one of the world's most scrutinised, and possibly the most misread political systems? In this episode, Aishwaria Sonavane, Research Analyst, Geostrategy Programme, sits down with Raja Karthikeya, former Political Affairs Officer at the UN Secretariat and drafter of the Security Council's official historical record on the nuclear programme debates, to...

Today, drones have become front and centre in modern warfare. Despite having lost much of its military infrastructure to the war in West Asia, Iran has managed to utilise missiles and cost-effective drones such as the Shahed to carry out its own air campaign in retaliation for American and Israeli strikes. Anushka Saxena explains how Iran managed to produce and utilise low-cost drones such as the...

Power cuts have become so routine that we've stopped noticing them. But this normalisation of unreliability has a cost — and it's a cost that shows up not on your electricity bill, but in your diesel expenses, your inverter battery, and your lost productive hours. But why is our electricity so unreliable? In this episode of All Things Policy, Anwesha Sen speaks to Sarthak Pradhan, Assistan...

Six weeks of US-Israel strikes on Iran destroyed infrastructure, eliminated leadership, and degraded Iran's missile arsenal. Yet when peace talks in Islamabad collapsed in April, the US still lacked the leverage to bring Iran to the table on its terms. Enter the naval blockade of Iranian ports. In this episode, host Kavya Rai speaks with Abhishek Kadiyala, Research Analyst at the Takshashila I...

The recent meeting between Taiwanese Kuomintang party Chairwoman Cheng Li-Wun and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing marked a new effort between the two sides to renew ties and talk about the future of Taiwan. But what were the signals from the meeting speaking to China’s view of KMT’s role? How is KMT placed politically within Taiwan to be able to effect change? Finally, how does the Taiwane...

In this episode of All Things Policy, Bhumika Sevkani and Anisree Suresh examine the impact of the war in Iran on the Indian economy, tracing how the conflict is transmitting through India's energy, currency, fiscal, and labour markets, and what the cost of a prolonged conflict in the region would be. Are you passionate about shaping India's future? Keen to find solutions for India's m...

In this episode of All Things Policy, Brigadier Anil Raman and Air Marshal T.D. Joseph are joined by Dr. Kelly Grieco, Senior Fellow at the Stimson Center in Washington D.C., to assess whether U.S. air operations in the Iran conflict constitute a coherent theory of limited war. Drawing on Thomas Schelling's coercion framework, the episode asks whether air power alone can compel a regime fighti...

In this episode of the All Things Policy podcast, Abhishek Kadiyala and Brigadier Anil Raman speak with Soren Dayton about why the U.S. Congress has repeatedly failed to restrain President Donald Trump's military operations against Iran, even as the 60-day clock under the War Powers Resolution of 1973 continues to tick. The conversation examines the structural weaknesses of the War Powers Reso...

The global conversation on power is evolving, from energy security to supply chain resilience, and now to the minerals that underpin modern technology. Despite significant geological potential, India remains a marginal player in global rare earth production. The gap between what exists and what is extracted raises deeper questions. In this episode, Shobhankita Reddy and Shreya Ramakrishnan of the...

China's 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030), formalised, inter alia, its "dual-track" energy strategy investing in coal and renewable energy in tandem. How does this approach sit within the country's current energy security landscape? How has the diversification of supply played into China's energy needs and how prepared is China to manage the energy implications of the war in We...

Pakistan finds itself in a critical mediatory position as the US and Iran navigate a fragile ceasefire, and add to that, decades of mistrust. Pakistan's Field Marshal Asim Munir is engaging across Washington, Tehran, Riyadh, and Beijing, even as Islamabad manages complex dynamics with neighbours like Afghanistan and India. In this episode of The Iran Brief, Aishwaria Sonavane speaks with Anand...

In a society marked by a trust deficit, even the best solutions run into limits. This episode explores how intentional, hyper-local communities can lower transaction costs, unlock participation, and improve public outcomes. Malathi Renati and Sowmya Prabhakar unpack the role of culture, community, and grassroots action in building social capital and why, without it, policy alone rarely delivers. A...