Indicast #217: Salute, Shinzo Abe and RIP Pranab Mukherjee

Shinzo Abe, Japans longest serving prime minister called it a day and Pranab Mukherjee, Indias former president passed away. We talk about their illustrious careers. India and Russia were announced as joint winners at the first online Chess Olympiad when a global Internet outage caused Indian players to get disconnected. We digress to talk about doping in chess and segue into why Thar desert is turning green and why it may not be a good thing. Meanwhile, amid the covid-19 pandemic, the Indian economy has shrunk by 23.9% in the April to June quarter. Grim times.