India A Story in the Making with Loveena Tandon

A new global study on gender attitudes by King’s College London and Ipsos, covering 29 countries and more than 23,000 people aged 18-75, raises some fascinating and worrying questions. ( REPORT: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/almost-a-third-of-gen-z-men-agree-a-wife-should-obey-her-husband ; https://www.kcl.ac.uk/assets/news/iwd-2026-global-charts-final.pdf ) The findings really got me thinking. If Ge...

A global study by King’s College London’s Global Institute for Women’s Leadership and Ipsos surveyed 23,000 people aged 16–75 across 29 countries. And some of the findings totally blew me away! Are Gen Z men becoming more traditional? Do Gen Z women actually prefer traditional roles more than we think? And why does India stand out in some of the most interesting ways? Released to mark Internationa...

By 2040, the world could be dealing with a wave of retired batteries, enough to fill London’s Wembley Stadium 23 times over, every single year… to what made a child feel he’s “not the right look.” This episode really is a rollercoaster of many themes woven into one episode of a British Indian journey: Both, Not Half. Dr Amrit Chandan- scientist, innovator, and CEO of Lorefully, a Birmingham boy wh...

If we don’t get a handle on the climate crisis, parts of our planet could become uninhabitable but is there still hope? On #IndiaAStoryInTheMaking, Dr Amrit Chandan, scientist, innovator, and entrepreneur, tells me what keeps him optimistic. Our full episode with Amrit (a British Indian story spanning three continents) is fun, honest, and full of heart: Both, Not Half, resilience, belonging, the c...

The UK is home to nearly 1.9 million people of Indian ethnicity and Indian-owned businesses now form a powerhouse footprint: 1,197 companies, £72.14bn in revenues, and126,720 jobs supported, as the Grant Thornton India–UK Tracker reports. Every number has a story to tell. One of those stories is Dr Amrit Chandan, scientist, innovator, and CEO of Lorefully.  Born and raised in the UK, with roots th...

What does it mean to be a British Indian, to grow up carrying multiple identities, with origin stories across three continents? This is a story of how failure can shape a life. Amrit, the boy who once failed, is now Dr Amrit Chandan: Forbes 30 Under 30, award-winning tech innovator, and CEO of Lorefully. But this isn’t only his story. It will resonate with millions of immigrants across the globe, ...

India’s Republic Day isn’t just a parade this year. It’s a statement — and possibly the start of a moment with consequences far beyond India. Full context and analysis on India Story Abroad Substack:  https://open.substack.com/pub/indiastoryabroad/p/why-indias-republic-day-matters-far?r=73scwn&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true Please do Subscribe and let us know if you think...

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India could lead in geriatric care, says Prof Prokar Dasgupta OBE — one of the world’s leading robotic urological surgeons and recipient of the John Wickham Lifetime Achievement Award in robotic surgery (2023). From fall-detection tech to alerts that can reach families living far away, he explains where AI could make the most real-world difference. Ahead of the India–AI Impact Summit 2026 in New D...

All complex things boil down to simple truths — what makes life worth living, and laughing about. After all, every wave of technology — including this AI revolution — only matters if it makes life better. Ahead of the India–AI Impact Summit in New Delhi this February, I speak to two of the UK’s most eminent voices in AI and healthcare — Prof Prokar Dasgupta OBE and Prof Ajay Shah (King’s College L...

Hindu thought approaches life through knowledge (vidya), choice, and personal responsibility. Western theological thinking often frames life through sin and salvation. These are not competing truths, they are alternate philosophical traditions for understanding life, consciousness, and human agency. When one worldview is filtered through the lens of another, nuance can get lost and so can understa...

Here’s a little year-ender that isn’t about what made headlines… but what people quietly went looking for. Headlines tell you what happened. Searches tell you what people felt. So while the news cycle kept spinning, I wanted to see what was actually trending in people’s minds — the shifts in perception, the sudden obsessions, the new questions. In this short, snappy episode, we follow the searches...

Who was Vinod Khanna, really? In a candid, unfiltered conversation on India: A Story in the Making, Kavita Vinod Khanna talks about their love, lifeand the legacy she now carries through the Kavita & Vinod Khanna Foundation. While Dhurandhar shows one version of the border story, there’s another waiting to be told — from Gurdaspur, where Kavita is using sport to unleash the power of youth. 🎧 Full...

Love does what logic can’t. Otherwise, how does a woman not even from Punjab end up changing the fortunes of people in a border constituency This is the story of Kavita Daftary—barrister, athlete, swimmer and squash player, LSE- and Harvard-trained—falling in love with Vinod Khanna, the superstar-turned-MP, and building a bond that went far beyond romance: a shared purpose toserve, to show up, and...

In this rare, unfiltered conversation, Kavita Vinod Khanna opens up about her life with iconic actor-turned-politician Vinod Khanna, her equation with Akshaye Khanna, and the work she now carries forward in his constituency of Gurdaspur, on the border with Pakistan – a region with a story far beyond what we see in hit films like Dhurandhar, which has taken the internet by storm. As the reel world...

Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni have both carved history with their contrasting styles — fire and calm, aggression, and ice. But what does an insider really think of the two? That’s exactly what we ask Murali Kartik, India’s classical left-arm spinner known for his skill, grit and sharp cricketing mind, in this High Five India segment from the episode “No Spin, Straight Bat with Murali Kartik – Love, Lif...

Kantara: Chapter 1 has become the highest-grossing Indian film of 2025, crossing ₹800 crore worldwide — and as it gears up for its Hindi OTT release on 27th November, the buzz only grows. On India: A Story in the Making, the airwaves brought us together for a conversation with Rishab Shetty, the film’s protagonist and director, and Rukmini Vasanth, its female lead. From facing the leeches in the j...

On India: A Story in the Making, we often talk about how stories travel — and this time, we lived it across three continents. The film “I’m Not an Actor,” directed by Aditya Kripalani and starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Chitrangada Satarupa, was shot across continents — simultaneously in India and Germany over 28 days, with both actors performing live through a screen. So, it felt fitting that on...

What happens when Hindu philosophy is viewed through a Western lens? And why did the very land where this thought was born lose the vocabulary to study it? Shaunaka Rishi Das — founder of the first Centre for Hindu Studies at Oxford — explains how generations grew up connecting to Hinduism with emotion, but not intellect. Now, as India begins to open its own centres — from Doon University to Delhi...

How did the first ever Centre for Hindu Studies open in Oxford — and not in India? Hinduism and Hindu Studies — what’s the difference? One is often approached with emotion, the other with intellect. And perhaps that’s why every time the Bhagavad Gita is proposed to be part of the syllabus, it sparks debate. I was deeply struck when Shaunaka Rishi Das, the man behind opening the world’s first Centr...

In Irish Catholic’s journey to Hinduism. Can faith be inherited or must it be discovered? Born and raised in a small Irish town, Shaunaka Rishi Das (born Timothy Kiernan) grew up with no connection to India or Hinduism. Yet his life’s path led him to Hindu philosophy, discipline, and devotion, a journey so unexpected that his mother once thought he’d joined a punk rock band when he returned home w...

“My Mom Thought I’d Joined a Punk Rock Band.” How did Timothy Kiernan, a boy from Wexford, Ireland—with no connection to India or Hinduism—become Shaunaka Rishi Das, Director of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies? Founded in 1997, the Centre was among the first institutions in the world devoted to Hindu Studies. His journey is a story of the soul — of a man from rural Ireland who discovered his s...

WHO tells us — over 1 billion people globally live with mental health conditions. But behind every number is a heart screaming to be heard, and a tear struggling to be noticed. They might be people sitting beside us on the tube, across our desks at work, or smiling through their pain. It could also be us —hiding behind that file, that screen, that deadline. Today, let’s remove the barrier. Let’s s...

How to Engage with India’s Story: 5 Key Insights India isn’t one story — it’s many. In this special High Five India segment from Episode 38 (India – The Opportunity), we unpack five key insights you need if you want to truly engage with India today. 👉 What’s working in India right now — and what could trip it up? 👉 Where are the biggest opportunities — and the biggest risks? 👉 How do democracy,...

Happy Birthday, Murali Kartik! A cricketer of rare skill and quiet resilience, Murali Kartik is our special guest on India: A Story in the Making. A left-arm spinner with a classical high-arm action, he gave India unforgettable moments—none more so than the 2004 triumph over Australia in Mumbai. In this candid conversation, Kartik opens like never before: from the heartbreak of being dropped after...