BIC TALKS

The thinking on political theory that went into the making of the Indian Constitution was not derivative, but highly original. The constitution is based on a long tradition of highly original Indian political reflection. This originality lay in the framers' forceful critique against some basic axioms of Western political theory. As illustrations, in this episode of BIC Talks Sudipta Kaviraj (Profe...

It is not often that an author and his editor strike up a relationship that survives forty years of epistolary exchanges and intellectual sparring. The strangely enduring and occasionally fractious friendship that developed between the famously outspoken historian Ramachandra Guha and his reticent editor Rukun Advani is the subject of his new literary memoir. It started in Delhi in the early 1980s...

Dr. Raghuram Rajan Economist, Educator & Former Governor, RBI speaks in context of his latest book - Breaking the Mould: Reimagining India's Economic Future , in the context of a first-time collaboration between Dr Rajan and economist Rohit Lamba. These two distinguished voices from the field of economics and public policy have put together a gripping book about the future of India's economic deve...

The ongoing crises in Ukraine and Gaza highlight the pressing need for a revamped international approach that recognizes the increasing autonomy of middle and smaller powers globally. This necessitates a rejection of attempts to revive a failed unilateral U.S. dominance or force diverse conflicts into an outdated "great power competition" model akin to the Cold War. In both Ukraine and the Middle...

Contemporary India is witness to a huge change in which, space for serious conversations on all aspects of culture, is receding. The advocacy of religious-cultural nationalism has come to replace all forms of culture. It has also come to take many forms. For instance, the murder of rationalists – Kalburgi, Pansare, and Gauri Lankesh – underlines the contested nature of secularism, and the fragile...

That the 20th century shapes our present and will influence our future is common point of debate in India. Clearly, politics and economics, culture and society clearly were deeply influenced, if not fundamentally shaped, by choices made at key points of time. Yet this applies equally, so with even greater long-term consequences, to the environment in its widest sense. In a more focussed way, this...

Kumaravyasa's  Bharata  is a crown jewel of Kannada literature, beloved by scholars and common people alike. In this 15th-century classic, Kumaravyasa reimagines Vyasa's epic, making it more compact, dramatic, closer to everyday life and language. He dispenses with most didactic material, cuts out subsidiary tales, and concludes with the end of the war. Here, Krishna, who is cool, clever, charming...

Kumaravyasa's  Bharata  is a crown jewel of Kannada literature, beloved by scholars and common people alike. In this 15th-century classic, Kumaravyasa reimagines Vyasa's epic, making it more compact, dramatic, closer to everyday life and language. He dispenses with most didactic material, cuts out subsidiary tales, and concludes with the end of the war. Here, Krishna, who is cool, clever, charming...

Kumaravyasa's  Bharata  is a crown jewel of Kannada literature, beloved by scholars and common people alike. In this 15th-century classic, Kumaravyasa reimagines Vyasa's epic, making it more compact, dramatic, closer to everyday life and language. He dispenses with most didactic material, cuts out subsidiary tales, and concludes with the end of the war. Here, Krishna, who is cool, clever, charming...

How do people, who are often at the receiving end of legal violence, engage with the law? Amidst the grinding terror trials – which are replete with stories of torture, illegal detention and fabricated charges – this presentation will discuss how the terror-accused schooled themselves in legal language and came to understand how paperwork's certificatory procedures produce legal truth. Though seem...

Pranay Kotasthane, Co-author of "Missing in Action," and Devashish Dhar, Author of "India's Blind Spot," come together for a unique duet in the realm of policy. Drawing inspiration from the classical music approach of jugalbandi that allows artists to showcase their mastery of instruments, Pranay and Devashish leverage their experiences at Takshashila Institution and NITI Aayog, respectively, to w...

Gandhiji gave expression to his dreams for Swaraj or Independent India on many occasions in many ways. "The Swaraj of my…our…dream recognizes no race or religious destinations. Nor is it to be the monopoly of the lettered persons nor yet of moneyed men. Swaraj is to be for all, including the farmer, but emphatically including the maimed, the blind, the starving toiling millions."  Young India, 26-...

This episode of BIC Talks is an excerpt from a live discussion at the BIC premises presented by DAKSH in late October 2023. The panelists in this discussion were Justice Suraj Govindraj, Judge, Karnataka High Court; Sarayu Natarajan, Founder, Aapti Institute; Prof. Nomesh Boliya, Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Delhi and moderated by Surya Prakash BS, Programme Director...

In the aftermath of ChatGPT fueled AI hype, there's an equally charged conversation on how the public and governments should respond to present (and future) harms related to these technologies. It's a crowded space – with AI industry voices and existential risk (x-risk) doomers trying to shape the narrative on regulation alongside civil society advocates and government agencies.  With many combine...

As we approach the 300 episode milestone, this special installment of BIC Talks - the last of 2023 - featuring V Ravichandar, honorary director of BIC, Raghu Tenkayala, Chief of Operations and Infrastructure and Vikram Bhat, current Joint Director, taking over as director from the first of January in conversation with Lekha Naidu, Programme Manager and Custodian of the podcast. This episode featur...

In a world where more and more people burrow deeper into the silos of their way of thinking, the separation from an understanding of another view, much less an appreciation, is shrinking. In a healthy society, the moderate middle continues to grow at the expense of fringes competing against each other in deepening the wells of hate and misunderstanding. As a consequence, the reality of each of us,...

The Indians  is a collection of essays by some of South Asia's foremost historians and scholars that maps the origins, evolution, and present-day reality of India's civilisation and people. The collection covers a period of some 12,000 years-from the last Ice Age to the twenty-first century. The book is divided into seven sections - the first part looks at the evolution of humans in South Asia thr...

The Indians  is a collection of essays by some of South Asia's foremost historians and scholars that maps the origins, evolution, and present-day reality of India's civilisation and people. The collection covers a period of some 12,000 years-from the last Ice Age to the twenty-first century. The book is divided into seven sections - the first part looks at the evolution of humans in South Asia thr...

The Indians  is a collection of essays by some of South Asia's foremost historians and scholars that maps the origins, evolution, and present-day reality of India's civilisation and people. The collection covers a period of some 12,000 years-from the last Ice Age to the twenty-first century. The book is divided into seven sections - the first part looks at the evolution of humans in South Asia thr...

The Indians  is a collection of essays by some of South Asia's foremost historians and scholars that maps the origins, evolution, and present-day reality of India's civilisation and people. The collection covers a period of some 12,000 years-from the last Ice Age to the twenty-first century. The book is divided into seven sections - the first part looks at the evolution of humans in South Asia thr...

The Indians  is a collection of essays by some of South Asia's foremost historians and scholars that maps the origins, evolution, and present-day reality of India's civilisation and people. The collection covers a period of some 12,000 years-from the last Ice Age to the twenty-first century. The book is divided into seven sections - the first part looks at the evolution of humans in South Asia thr...

The Indians  is a collection of essays by some of South Asia's foremost historians and scholars that maps the origins, evolution, and present-day reality of India's civilisation and people. The collection covers a period of some 12,000 years-from the last Ice Age to the twenty-first century. The book is divided into seven sections - the first part looks at the evolution of humans in South Asia thr...

The Indians  is a collection of essays by some of South Asia's foremost historians and scholars that maps the origins, evolution, and present-day reality of India's civilisation and people. The collection covers a period of some 12,000 years-from the last Ice Age to the twenty-first century. The book is divided into seven sections - the first part looks at the evolution of humans in South Asia thr...

This lecture by the critic, thinker, educator and activist Professor GN Devy, focuses on the year 1923 and recounts Rabindranath Tagore's visit to Gujarat in October/November of that year, Mahatma Gandhi's days in prison and Dr. Ambedkar being awarded the D.SC. and being admitted to Bar in London. The lecture featured in this episode of BIC Talks presents the thoughts of the three on the question...

Over a month into Israel's strikes on Gaza in retaliation for Hamas terror attacks, is the world on the brink of a bigger war with repercussions across West Asia? What are the likely off-ramps that could see a peaceful outcome now and how could the continuing violence impact the world? And, amidst growing global polarisation, what are India's options and is there a possible role in ending the cris...