Hindustan Times Podcast

President Xi Jinping marked the 70th founding anniversary of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in Urumqi with all the familiar symbols of Chinese state power: red banners, thunderous applause, grandiose speeches. But beyond the stage lights and orchestrated clapping lies a darker story, one that the United Nations put into words that same year. In August 2022, the UN Human Rights Office releas...

Why do older leaders keep winning in a world obsessed with Gen Z? 🤔As PM Narendra Modi turns 75, even his rivals are wishing him well—without calling for retirement. From Rahul Gandhi’s slow rise, to Nepal’s Gen Z choosing a 73-year-old leader, to global examples like Joe Biden and Keir Starmer, this episode explores why experience beats age in politics.👉 Is youth really overrated in leadership?...

Is Antifa really behind Charlie Kirk’s death, or is this just the latest chapter in Trump’s war on the left? After the fatal shooting of the conservative influencer, Donald Trump signed an executive order labeling Antifa a domestic terror organization. But the movement has no central leadership, no membership list, and, crucially, no connection to Kirk’s death. So why is the president cracking dow...

This weekend, four Western powers, the UK, France, Australia, and Canada formally recognised Palestine, issuing grand speeches about statehood. But while the world celebrated a symbolic breakthrough, Benjamin Netanyahu was busy charting a different course, one that could reshape the Middle East forever. In the same breath that he rejected Palestinian sovereignty, Netanyahu praised “progress” in ta...

China’s rising influence in South Asia, including in strategically vital countries like Nepal and Bangladesh, has worried India. Constantino Xavier joins the HT podcast with Shashank Mattoo to explain China’s rising power in India’s neighbourhood and the competition between the two Asian heavyweights. Watch the full interview here.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi turns 75, marking over a decade of transformative leadership that has reshaped India’s political, economic, and global trajectory. In this episode of Point Blank, journalist Shishir Gupta decodes PM Modi’s legacy, from his unmatched work ethic and bold national security decisions to flagship initiatives like Atmanirbhar Bharat, Make in India, and Digital India. Discove...

Israel’s attack on Qatar has sent shockwaves across the Middle East. While Tel Aviv insists it was targeting Hamas leaders, Doha says its trust has been broken and the fear of betrayal has sent Turkey in a spiral. It is now warning that it could be next. For years, Ankara has sheltered Hamas leadership while balancing its NATO obligations. If Israel were to attack Turkey, the fallout would be seis...

Charlie Kirk’s death has sent shockwaves across America, not just because of who he was, but because of the cruel irony of how it happened. The 31-year-old conservative activist was shot dead on stage in Utah, right as he began answering a question about gun violence in America. Hours later, a video from April 2023 resurfaced, where Kirk said it was “worth” losing lives every year to preserve the...

Nepal has been thrown into turmoil. The Prime Minister has resigned after days of violent youth-led protests that began with a social media ban but quickly spiraled into the country’s worst democratic crisis in decades. Streets are burning, parliament has been breached, and police have opened live fire on demonstrators. But this story is much bigger than Nepal. Across South Asia, from Sri Lanka to...

Two years into the Gaza war, the battlefield isn’t the only place under pressure. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has launched a fresh offensive while his domestic challenges mount. Protesters are back on the streets demanding answers on hostages, Israel’s Supreme Court has delivered a rare ruling with direct political consequences, and foreign mediators are running out of options. Mean...

A young IPS officer from Solapur, Anjali Krishna, stood her ground against Deputy CM Ajit Pawar — and the viral video has sparked outrage. But this isn’t just about one clash. In this episode of Tell Me Why, Sunetra Choudhury breaks down India’s VIP culture, outdated 1968 conduct rules, and why officers often end up powerless before netas. #ajitpawar #anjalikrishna #vipculture #tellmewwhy

Prime Minister Modi’s recent China visit and evolving India-US relations spark global debate as President Trump imposes steep tariffs on Indian imports in response to India’s Russian oil purchases, citing these penalties as action against Russia. In this episode of Hindustan Times Point Blank, Executive Editor Shishir Gupta dissects the transactional nature of the current Indo-US ties, India’s app...

Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, who is currently in India on a bilateral visit, sat for an exclusive interview with Hindustan Times. In the interview, Wong talked about possible outcomes of upcoming India-Singapore bilateral meeting and his country's future investment plans. Wong also asserted confidence in India's economic future amid the tariff war by US President Donald Trump. W...

In this exclusive conversation, economist and policy analyst, Professor Jeffrey Sach, joins Abhishek Singh of Hindustan Times to decode some burning geopolitical questions. From the fallout of Donald Trump's meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska, to the deeper roots of the Russia-Ukraine war, Sachs pulls no punches in laying out the complex realities behind global conflicts and shifting allian...

In this week’s episode of Tell Me Why, we dive into the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) — the 100-year-old ideological fountainhead of the BJP and India’s ruling establishment. With RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat delivering a rare 3-day lecture series, we break down the biggest takeaways: Why the Sangh doesn’t want PM Narendra Modi to retire at 75, what it really thinks about Ayodhya, Kashi, and Mathur...

Japan is facing a storm it didn’t anticipate. A government program linked to the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) quietly branded the “Hometown Plan”, has triggered a wave of anger on social media. The fear? That Japan is about to be flooded by African migrants, granted quick permanent residency, and even incentivized to marry into Japanese society. Thousands of posts online are calli...

Donald Trump says he wants to meet Kim Jong Un again. The announcement instantly revives memories of that dramatic 2019 handshake at the DMZ. But the world Trump is walking back into has changed. North Korea today is not just the isolated state he once tried to charm, it now stands firmly backed by two powerful patrons: Russia and China. Just last year, Vladimir Putin visited Pyongyang, the first...

Donald Trump is playing up his role as a global peacemaker, but is that the whole story? While Washington talks of ending wars, U.S. warships are circling Venezuela, signaling something far bigger than just cracking down on “drug cartels”. Could this be the start of another regime change war? And where America goes, rivals aren’t far behind. China and Russia are already deeply invested in Venezuel...

With Indian students flocking to Australia for higher education, Australia's High Commissioner to India Philip Green decodes the hurdles and practical advice they must consider to ensure their plans remain on track. This as the Australian government plans to increase the cap for international students to 295,000 by 2026. In this special episode, Green offers a rare glimpse into his personal ob...

In an interview with HT, former Trump national security adviser John Bolton criticized Washington for its “confused” policy on India. Ambassador Bolton questioned Washington’s 25% penalty on India for purchasing Russian energy and acknowledged that the India-US relationship is in “a very bad place”. Bolton believes Trump is an “aberrational president” and that the objective should be to keep the d...

Qatar is tiny, but its diplomatic reach is towering. While Donald Trump is loudly campaigning for a Nobel Peace Prize, tiny Doha has been quietly racking up real peace deals - from ending America’s longest war with the Taliban, to brokering prisoner swaps between the U.S. and Iran, to negotiating delicate truces between Israel and Hamas. The irony? This conservative Gulf monarchy, often dismissed...

India has witnessed heightened tensions along the Pakistan border and major counter-terror operations in Kashmir. General VP Malik, former chief of the Indian Army, joins us to share his insights on operational challenges, strategic shifts and the lessons learned from recent events, including the elimination of perpetrators of the Pahalgam massacre. Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu...

What does the world map of power look like today? Not in terms of borders, but in terms of influence, alignments, and shifting loyalties. In the wake of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin’s Alaska summit, the global chessboard is being redrawn. Look at the map: BRICS countries like India, Brazil, South Africa, and China are standing out. Central Asian republics, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, an...

From prosecuting 26/11 terrorist to high-profile cases like the 1993 Bombay blasts and the Pramod Mahajan murder, India’s top terror prosecutor has seen it all. The man behind India’s toughest convictions, Ujjwal Nikam, discusses his most infamous trials in this compelling interview with Kumkum Chadha. He also shares the hidden links between Bollywood and the mafia that shocked India’s justice sys...

In the first full-scale war in Europe since WWII, the Ukraine crisis has reshaped global geopolitics. Amid escalating tensions, Donald Trump rolled out the red carpet for Vladimir Putin in Alaska, raising questions about U.S. strategy, European involvement, and the future of the Ukraine war. Andrew C. Kuchins, Senior Fellow from Center for the National Interest analyses the summit’s high-stakes dy...