All Things Policy

Days before SpaceX's record-breaking IPO, India froze Starlink's launch in the country.  In this episode, hosted by Adya Madhavan, Ashwin Prasad Rao, co-author of the Takshashila Institution's April paper "Starlink and Risks for India", explains what satellite internet actually is, and why the world's most impressive constellation comes with a problem no regulation can fi...

India has 3.7 million dog bites a year. It accounts for 36% of global rabies deaths. In May 2026, the Supreme Court ruled that civic authorities may euthanise rabid or demonstrably aggressive stray dogs, calling the right to walk public spaces without fear a fundamental right under Article 21. Is this a landmark ruling or a shortcut that papers over 65 years of governance failure? Malathi Renati (...

In this episode, host Devyani Rao interviews Dr Y. Nithyanandam, professor and head of the Geospatial Research Program at the Takshashila Institution, about one of India's most underestimated policy challenges: extreme heat. They explore why heat is a spatial problem, the gaps in India's heat action plans, and how geospatial intelligence can better protect vulnerable communities, making th...

When the US and Israel launched coordinated strikes on Iran in late February 2026, India's abstract strategic interests in West Asia transformed into an immediate, high-stakes emergency. With nine million nationals in the Gulf, forty billion dollars in annual remittances on the line, and oil prices surging past a hundred and twenty dollars a barrel, New Delhi found itself walking a razor-thin...

Can India and China cooperate on climate change despite ongoing geopolitical tensions? In this episode of All Things Policy, Bhumika Sevkani, Research Analyst at the Takshashila Institution, is joined by Pooja Ramamurthi and Shruti Jargad from the Centre for Social and Economic Progress, to explore the prospects for climate and clean energy cooperation between the world’s two largest developing ec...

The Strait of Hormuz has become central to global conversations with the War in West Asia and Iran’s closure of the Strait. Global supplies of oil and other commodities such as Urea and petrochemicals hang in the balance. Iran continues to control the flow of tankers and ships despite an American counter-blockade. Why is the Strait so hard to navigate and control? In this episode of All Things Pol...

In this episode of All Things Policy, Anwesha Sen and Anisree Suresh examine the draft sugarcane (control) order 2026 released by the Department of Food and Public Distribution against India’s US$ 300 billion bioeconomy aspirations. They discuss the definitional changes in the draft and the impact of price controls and spatial monopolies on the bioeconomy sector. To read more about this, subscribe...

In this episode, Brigadier Anil Raman (Retd), Lokendra Sharma and Ashwin Prasad Rao sit down to make sense of the Quad partnership that's sending confusing signals. The Quad foreign ministers met in New Delhi on 26 May, but the optics were hard to read: no leaders' summit, Trump fresh off calling Xi a "great leader" in Beijing, and a year of tariffs on America's own partners....

Should the US sell advanced AI chips to China? This is a question that has animated US technological and political circles for years now. But looking beyond the US-China tango, what is the Indian interest in all of this? Given India’s strengths in the applications layer, which shape and form of the global AI landscape would maximise New Delhi’s options? To unpack answers to these questions, tech g...

Chinese AI labs stand accused of distilling frontier models from American AI companies. The concern has escalated fast, with a new executive order calling for action against adversarial distillation. Anwesha and Bharath are joined by Anthropic's Claude to make the case for and against the crackdown. If questions around AI geopolitics and governance interest you as well, join our 5-week Politic...

In this episode of the All Things Policy podcast, Vanshika Saraf and Abhishek Kadiyala examine the outcomes of the Quad Foreign Ministers Meeting held in New Delhi on 26 May 2025. The conversation highlights a structural shift in the Quad's orientation, away from the security-forward posture of the Biden era and toward an economic security and supply chain framework shaped by the second Trump...

Amidst the escalating conflict in West Asia and the resulting constriction of oil and gas supply, the urgency to deploy renewable energy for enhanced energy security has grown. However, emerging economies like India must adopt a pragmatic approach to reconcile their increasing energy demands with their decarbonisation commitments. Join Bhumika Sevkani, Research Analyst with the Geostrategy Program...

In this episode, we unpack the evolving contours of U.S.–China strategic competition through first-hand insights from Yusuf Unjhawala, after a recent visit to the United States. Drawing on engagements across the country, the conversation explores how different arms of the American system are interpreting the China challenge. It also interrogates how the United States understands China’s domestic p...

Drawing on the evolving trajectory of the US–Iran war and the wider regional transformations it has triggered, this episode of All Things Policy features Brigadier Anil Raman in conversation with Will Todman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The discussion examines how the Middle East changed between Trump’s return to office and the eventual US–Israeli decision to strike Iran,...

How should we understand the growing rivalry between two 'tigers', Japan and China? The tension between both countries reached a critical point following Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae’s November 2025 declaration that a Chinese attack on Taiwan constitutes a "survival-threatening situation".  Such developments, inter alia, demonstrate how Japan's military and diplomatic engagement with China is sig...

Despite exclusion errors and privacy concerns, the JAM trinity has fundamentally transformed public service delivery in India. Now, with AI becoming increasingly embedded in everyday life, a new idea is emerging: Agentic AI for governance and citizen services. How might AI agents reshape citizens’ interactions with the state? What problems could they solve? And what new risks and challenges might...

Seaweed is not just a coastal livelihood activity. It sits at the intersection of industrial biotechnology, climate strategy, coastal development, and import resilience, and countries around the world are investing in seaweed-based value chains. In this episode, Sarthak Pradhan speaks with Shambhavi Naik and Devleena Bhattacharjee about India’s emerging seaweed economy, the sector’s major policy g...

After a gap of nearly 9 years, and a recent postponement due to the Iran war, a US president finally visited China. Trump traveled with a large contingent including his cabinet members and business and tech leaders. But what did the trip achieve, beyond the optics of Trump praising the Chinese leader? Join Lokendra Sharma and Amit Kumar from the Takshashila Institution as they discuss the key high...

In this episode of All Things Policy, Shobhankita Reddy sits down with Ashwin Prasad Rao to discuss his latest book chapter published in The Hindu's book on the Indian Space Program. Ashwin unpacks the stubborn tag of "frugal engineering" associated with ISRO and frames it as a trap for India's current circumstances and outer space ambitions. What, then, is the way forward? Tune...

In this episode of All Things Policy, Sowmya Prabhakar is in conversation with Y Nithiyanandam to unpack the self-enumeration exercise. What happens when a policy assumes participation without communication? Can digital governance succeed with weak execution? And when data collection becomes a tech exercise, where does trust fit in? From poor public awareness and awkwardly framed questions to data...

In this episode of All Things Policy, Malathi Renati speaks with Dr. (Maj) Ameya Kagali, Chief Team Physician for the Indian Paralympic contingent, about what it really takes to support para-athletes — on the field, in medical systems, and through policy design. From classification to women para-athletes’ health needs, career pathways, and the future of India’s para-sport ecosystem, this conversat...

DeepSeek recently released a preview version of V4, a 1.6-trillion-parameter AI model trained and capable of being deployed entirely on Chinese homegrown Huawei Ascend 950 and Cambricon chips, without any NVIDIA hardware. In this episode of All Things Policy, Satya Sahu, Associate at The Asia Group's South Asia practice, joins Amit Kumar, Staff Research Analyst with Takshashila's Geostrate...

Wars are expensive. And there's a seductive idea going around — that maybe they don't have to be anymore. That drones, loitering munitions, and precision missiles have changed the game so fundamentally that you don't need the big, costly, traditional military machine to project power or win conflicts. Ukraine, Azerbaijan, even Iran — people are pointing to these wars and saying, look,...

How much do we really understand about one of the world's most scrutinised, and possibly the most misread political systems? In this episode, Aishwaria Sonavane, Research Analyst, Geostrategy Programme, sits down with Raja Karthikeya, former Political Affairs Officer at the UN Secretariat and drafter of the Security Council's official historical record on the nuclear programme debates, to...

Today, drones have become front and centre in modern warfare. Despite having lost much of its military infrastructure to the war in West Asia, Iran has managed to utilise missiles and cost-effective drones such as the Shahed to carry out its own air campaign in retaliation for American and Israeli strikes. Anushka Saxena explains how Iran managed to produce and utilise low-cost drones such as the...