Game Play Sport with Rahul, Arvind, and Kailash

Is India chasing the right dream when it comes to sports — or have we lost our way? In this explosive finale of Game Play Sport on Radio Azim Premji University, our 3 sports hosts Rahul De, Arvind Bharathi B N & Kailash Kaushik take on ten outspoken students in a high-stakes, Jubilee-style Surrounded debate. From malls replacing playgrounds to Esports players being called athletes, this episod...

India competes across the world — at the Olympics, Asian Games, Commonwealth Games, and countless individual tournaments — with delegations far smaller than its population and talent pool suggest. The real issue isn’t performance. It’s the harsh, uneven journey that pushes most young athletes out long before they enter any official system. In this episode of Game Play Sport , we follow the story o...

India is home to over half a billion gamers — from PUBG to Valorant, from mobile cricket to FIFA — yet still struggles to find its footing in the global esports arena. In this episode of Game Play Sport , Aravind, Kailash, and Rahul sit down with Ram Seshadri, producer and avid gamer, and Sudhen Wahengbam,esports commentator, to explore why India’s massive gaming population hasn’t translated into...

Dream11’s fall has reignited a major debate in India’s gaming world — is it skill or gambling? With the new Online Gaming Act 2025 being passed, the government is redrawing boundaries around real money gaming, raising crucial questions for players, companies, and policymakers alike. In this episode of Game Play Sport by Radio Azim Premji University, we explore: What the Online Gaming Act 2025 real...

Are We Killing the Joy of Play? Are we pushing kids too hard, too soon? In this episode of Game Play Sport, Arvind, Kailash and Rahul talk with Chelston Pinto about why India’s sports education system needs more unstructured play and age-appropriate training and how Indian kids are burning out and what needs to be done to fix it. Discover how the National Education Policy puts sports at the heart...

From Brute Force to AI Models: How Chess Learned to Play Smarter In 1997, the chess world shook when Garry Kasparov lost to IBM’s Deep Blue — a brute-force machine built to calculate millions of moves per second. Fast forward to today, and AI has moved beyond raw calculation to self-learning models like AlphaZero that teach themselves strategy. In this episode of Game Play Sport, guest Kedar Kulka...

Where Will Children Play? The Future of Indian Sport Across Indian cities, children are running out of places to play. Grounds are being built over, parks restrict ball games, and schools often skip playgrounds altogether. At the same time, private academies are flourishing—raising performance levels but also putting access behind a fee. In this episode of Game Play Sport, hosts Rahul, Arvind and...

In this episode of Game Play Sport, we dive into the evolving story of India’s sports pay gap—how the difference in salaries and prize money between male and female athletes is finally starting to close. From the BCCI’s landmark equal pay announcements for women cricketers to the growing visibility of female athletes in badminton, wrestling, and football, we break down why this shift matters for g...

In this episode of Game Play Sport, we dive into how OTT platforms have changed the way Indians experience sports — shifting the focus from just scores and stats to drama, storylines, and spectacle. Sports Are the New Reality TV — And OTT Made It Happen. From behind-the-scenes docuseries to slow-motion replays and cinematic narratives, sport today feels more like a show than ever before. We explor...

In this episode of Game Play Sport, Rahul De, Kailash Kaushik, and Arvind Bharathi BN dive into fan anger in sports and the emotional core of Indian sports fandom. From Angry Rant Man’s YouTube meltdowns to the infamous 1996 Eden Gardens riot, our relationship with sport often crosses the line from passion to rage. In order to unpack this, we speak with Ryan Thomas Philips, a computational neurosc...

In this bonus episode of Game Play Sport , we take a closer look at gym culture—who it was built for, and how it has changed. Our conversation with Shwetambari Shetty , founder of My Third Space , traces how fitness spaces that once felt intimidating and exclusionary—especially for women—have slowly evolved into more welcoming environments. She reflects on how strength training was long seen as “n...

In this episode of Game Play Sport, we explore how India’s gym culture has shifted—from basement weight rooms and bodybuilding ideals to wellness-focused routines and group classes. Shwetambari Shetty, founder of Third Space, joins the conversation to reflect on why gyms have felt intimidating for many, and how fitness trends are shaping access, comfort, and community today. They also talk about:...

Why did we stop playing? Somewhere between growing up, sitting for exams, and cheering from the sidelines, most of us swapped the playground for the couch. In this opening episode of Game Play Sport , hosts Rahul De, Associate Professor, School of Arts and Sciences, Azim Premji University; Kailash Koushik, Assistant Professor, Department of Media Studies, Christ University; and Arvind Bharathi BN,...