BIC TALKS

In this podcast William Dalrymple and Moin Mir discuss The East India Company through their books  The Anarchy  and  Surat: Fall of a Port. Rise of a Prince. William Dalrymple's The Anarchy has been called 'his most ambitious and riveting book to date'. It tells the story of the East India Company as it transitioned from being a 'conventional international trading corporation dealing in silks and...

Medical Scientist Dr Gagandeep Kang returns to BIC Talks and speaks to host Pavan Srinath about the latest news on COVID-19 vaccines, and the road ahead for public vaccination for all Indians.  It is extraordinary to see not one, but three COVID-19 vaccine candidates announce successful interim results in November. This happened within 10 months of isolating the virus, SARS-CoV-2. Dr Kang shares h...

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...

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 impartiall...

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 changi...

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 p...

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...

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...

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 rea...

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 def...

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 a...

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...

Musician and Museum Director Manasi Prasad joins host Pavan Srinath to talk about the life and work of Mysore T Chowdiah (1885 – 1967), violin maestro, innovator, composer and teacher of Carnatic music. Manasi also discusses the larger role of Mysore in music and performing arts over the last two centuries, and locates Chowdiah within it. She also shares Chowdiah's compositions, which have not rec...

Milan Vaishnav joins host Pavan Srinath to talk about the rise of Indian Americans in US politics. They discuss how Indian Americans might vote in the upcoming 2020 US Presidential Elections, political views across the community, and what issues matter most to them.  Milan Vaishnav is Director and Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C. Milan is one of t...

In this talk as part of 'The Satish Chandra Memorial Lecture', Romila Thapar discusses two categories of migrants, the pastoralists and the traders and will be confined to the early period of Indian history, namely up to about the fourteenth century. A fundamental difference between the two categories is that pastoral migrants tend to come to a new area, set up scattered settlements and tend to no...

Economist Ajit Ranade talks to host Pavan Srinath about the recent national legislations on farming and agricultural markets, and the reason for widespread farmer protests across the country.  Ajit discusses the three amendments that were first passed as ordinances by the Government of India and explains the history and impact of Agricultural mandis (APMCs) and the Minimum Support Price (MSP). He...

Musician and scholar Dr Sumathi Krishnan talks to host Pavan Srinath about what makes a great musician and performer. She discusses how the Carnatic classical music tradition approaches training and moulding a musician, and shares snippets from ancient texts as well as stories from the lives of many musicians.  Dr Sumathi Krishnan is a musician, trained both in Carnatic classical music as well as...

This podcast presents the fourth and final segment of our four-part series 'Beethoven Variations: A Poet's Journey through the Music and Life of Beethoven' with renowned British poet  Ruth Padel  and eminent pianist  Karl Lutchmayer . This series has been put together by  Prateeti Punja Ballal . In Part IV of the series, Ruth and Karl take us through Beethoven's last years. His last great love aff...

This podcast presents the third segment of our four-part series 'Beethoven Variations: A Poet's Journey through the Music and Life of Beethoven' with renowned British poet  Ruth Padel  and eminent pianist  Karl Lutchmayer . This series has been put together by  Prateeti Punja Ballal . In Part III of the series, titled 'The Essence of Romanticism', poet Ruth Padel and pianist Karl Lutchmayer take u...

This podcast presents the second segment of our four-part series 'Beethoven Variations: A Poet's Journey through the Music and Life of Beethoven' with renowned British poet  Ruth Padel  and eminent pianist  Karl Lutchmayer . This series has been put together by  Prateeti Punja Ballal . In Part II of the series, Ruth and Karl take us through the years when Beethoven contemplates suicide, then decid...

This is the first segment of our four-part series 'Beethoven Variations: A Poet's Journey through the Music and Life of Beethoven' with renowned British poet Ruth Padel and eminent pianist Karl Lutchmayer . This series has been put together by Prateeti Punja Ballal . In Part I of the series, Ruth and Karl take us through Beethoven's early years, his childhood in Bonn, his arrival in Vienna first a...

Architects, educators and curators Rahul Mehrotra and Kaiwan Mehta talk to host Pavan Srinath about the ideas behind the ongoing State of Housing – Aspirations, Imaginaries and Realities in India exhibition at the Bangalore International Centre.  Rahul, Kaiwan and Ranjith Hoskote curated the State of Housing exhibition in 2018 as a traveling exhibition, which is now at BIC in Bangalore for the mon...

Historian and Infosys Prize Winner Manu V. Devadevan talks about the life and work of MM Kalburgi. This episode is an edited audio discussion first aired as a BIC Streams livecast on August 30, 2020, on the anniversary of his untimely death in 2015.   Born in a peasant family in 1938, Professor M.M. Kalburgi went on to become one of the most influential historians of Karnataka in the post-independ...

Heritage practitioner-scholar Krupa Rajangam talks to host Pavan Srinath about how a noble effort like heritage conservation can end up displacing and inflicting everyday violence on people living in heritage zones. Krupa talks about how the World Heritage Site of Hampi has existed before, during and after the Vijayanagara period – and the region is home to over 60,000 residents today. Can modern-...

Why are Indian city governments so weak and toothless? Is it because Indian has failed to implement the 74th Constitutional Amendment, or are there fundamental flaws with the amendment itself?  Mathew Idiculla talks to host Pavan Srinath about how Indian cities need a new deal in the 2020s, with fresh imagination. Mathew explores the place of city governments in constitutional and legal regimes ac...