Grand Tamasha

It’s been a typically busy few months in the world of Indian politics and policy. To roundup all the latest developments from India, Milan is joined on the show this week by Grand Tamasha regulars Sadanand Dhume of the American Enterprise Institute and the Wall Street Journal and Tanvi Madan of the Brookings Institution. The trio discuss the recent terrorist attack which killed 26 civilians in Jam...

In India today, so many political debates are focused on welfare and welfarism. It seems that state after state is competing to offer the most electorally attractive benefits to its voters. The central government, for its part, has pioneered a new model of social welfare built around digital ID and direct cash transfers to needy households. Making India Work: The Development of Welfare in a Multi-...

On April 2nd, the U.S. government announced a host of sweeping tariff hikes with every single one of America's trading partners. The aim of the so-called “Liberation Day” tariffs was ostensibly to “rebalance” the global trading system, as some Trump advisors have put it. However, the drastic measure roiled markets and eventually resulted in the President imposing a 90-day pause on most tariffs, wi...

Over the last decade, election campaigns in India have undergone a dramatic shift. Political parties increasingly rely on political consulting firms, tech-savvy volunteers, pollsters, data-driven insights, and online battles to mobilize voters. But what exactly is driving these changes in the landscape of electioneering? The Backstage of Democracy: India's Election Campaigns and the People Who Man...

A reactionary antidemocratic ethos born and bred in America has come to infect democracies around the world. This is the central thesis of a timely new book by the journalist Zack Beauchamp , The Reactionary Spirit: How America's Most Insidious Political Tradition Swept the World . Through a mix of political history and reportage, The Reactionary Spirit reveals how the United States serves the bir...

Kishore Mahbubani is widely regarded as one of Asia’s most well-known diplomats, commentators, and strategic analysts. Having grown up in poverty in Singapore in the 1950s, however, there was nothing preordained about Mahbubani’s success. But over the course of the second half of the twentieth century, he would go on to become one of the most recognizable and revered diplomats of his generation. M...

The Indus Valley Annual Report , published by Blume Ventures, is an annual deep-dive into the Indian macroeconomy, the Indian consumer, and the innovation ecosystem in India. The report has become one of the most highly anticipated reports on the economy—pored over by policy wonks, economic analysts, and India watchers. The lead author of the report is Sajith Pai . Sajith is a partner at Blume Ven...

Europe is not typically the focus of the Grand Tamasha podcast but recent developments involving Europe, the United States, and India raise fresh questions about the future shape of the international order. Last week, a high-level European Commission delegation embarked on a historic trip to New Delhi, where the two sides spoke optimistically of a promising new chapter in their relationship. Acros...

Vishwa Shastra: India and the World is the new book by the scholar and foreign affairs analyst Dhruva Jaishankar . The book provides a comprehensive overview of India’s interactions with the world—from ancient times to the present day. The book also serves as a comprehensive resource for those seeking to understand how India might define the emerging world order. In so doing, it rebuts the convent...

There are two narratives doing the rounds about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Washington to break bread with U.S. President Donald Trump. The first narrative, touted by the government and its backers, is that Modi skillfully threaded the needle with Trump, standing up for Indian interests but also giving the president some important early wins that can position India well f...

The news from India has been coming fast and furious. On February 1, the finance minister revealed the latest Indian budget amidst a backdrop of slowing economic growth. On February 8, a new government in the state of Delhi was elected and, for the first time in a quarter-century, it’s headed by the BJP.  And on February 13, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had his first face-to-face sit-down with U.S...

On September 5, 2017, the journalist Gauri Lankesh was shot and killed outside of her house in Bangalore by armed assailants traveling on a motorbike. Lankesh, a journalist and social activist, was known for being a fierce critic of right-wing Hindutva politics and her murder has widely been seen as retribution for her outspoken views. A new book by the journalist Rollo Romig , I Am on the Hit Lis...

On February 1st, India’s finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented her eighth Budget of the Modi era. This year’s budget was tabled at a precarious economic juncture, for India and for the world. India has been challenged by slowing growth, persistent inflation, and global uncertainties motivated in part by the return of Donald Trump to the White House just a few weeks ago. So, how has the fin...

2024 was widely hailed as the year of elections with 73 countries holding elections in and more than 1.5 billion voters exercising their franchise. On Grand Tamasha, we’ve discussed the 2024 Indian general election as well as the recent U.S. presidential election at some length. But there was another important election in South Asia which has important ramifications both for India and the wider In...

One of the most talked about policy experiments in India in recent memory is the reform of government schools in the city-state of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. Under the leadership of the Aam Aadmi Party, the Delhi government has implemented an innovative program to equip students with foundational literacy and numeracy. But while these reforms are much discussed, they have been surpri...

Grand Tamasha is Carnegie’s weekly podcast on Indian politics and policy co-produced with the Hindustan Times , a leading Indian media house . For five years (and counting), Milan has interviewed authors, journalists, policymakers, and practitioners working on contemporary India to give listeners across the globe a glimpse into life in the world’s most populous country. For the past two years, in...

If there is one thing political scientists can agree on, it is that we live in an era of populism. With the recent election of Donald Trump, populism has returned to the United States, raising questions about what changes we might see in upcoming elections in 2025. South Asia has been no stranger to populism and a new book, Righteous Demagogues: Populist Politics in South Asia and Beyond , provide...

Where and when ethnic violence breaks out is a question of longstanding concern to the India policy community. Previous work in political science has pointed to a diverse array of factors—ranging from civil society bonds to elite networks and coalition politics as potential explanations. A new book by the scholar Aditi Malik highlights political parties, specifically party instability, as the prin...

The discourse in India today on the issue of the Muslim community seems to swing between two contrary positions. According to the Hindu nationalist narrative, Muslims are a monolithic religious category whose presence justifies the need for greater Hindu solidarity. On the other hand, there is the narrative offered by liberals, who claim to protect Muslims as a religious minority to defend Indian...

Over the past twelve months, tales of spies and spycraft have complicated India’s relationships with key Western partners. In recent months, both Canada and the United States have alleged that India’s foreign intelligence agency was involved in a complex plot to identify and target Khalistani separatists who were citizens of those countries. In India, these allegations have, in turn, revealed deep...

India’s Near East: A New History is an important new book by the scholar Avinash Paliwal . The book traces the history of how New Delhi has grappled with the twin challenges of forging productive ties with its eastern neighbors—namely, Bangladesh and Myanmar—while building a robust administrative state in India’s Northeastern states. It is the story of a state’s struggle to overcome war, displacem...

The never-ending U.S. election has finally ended and Republican nominee Donald Trump has clinched a decisive victory. Trump is on track to win 312 electoral college votes and, for the first time, a majority of the popular vote. Kamala Harris, a surprise entrant in the race, lost a closely contested election, marking the second time in three elections that a female Democratic presidential nominee f...

As American voters go to the polls, all indications point to a statistical dead-heat between vice president and Democratic Party nominee Kamala Harris and former Republican president Donald Trump. The outcome will likely turn on tens of thousands of voters in a handful of key swing states. According to leading pollsters and polling aggregators, the race in these states is too close to call. In thi...

The United States is fast approaching the end of a lengthy presidential campaign in which the issue of immigration has taken center stage. Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for failing to protect America’s borders, with Trump’s misleading claims that immigrants in Ohio are eating people’s pets emerging as one of the defining...

One of the most remarkable developments in Indian politics in recent years is the surge in female voter turnout. For the first several decades after Independence, women’s participation on Election Day lagged men’s by between 8 to 12 percentage points. In recent years, however, that gender gap has completely disappeared. In most state elections today, women turn out to vote with greater frequency t...