The Interview With Karan Thapar

In an interview to discuss the election results that were announced yesterday (the 4th of May) as well as what they mean for India as a whole and what they suggest about the BJP’s hold over the country, Yogendra Yadav, the National Convenor of the Bharat Jodo Abhiyan, has said he is deeply concerned, adding he doesn’t believe the Indian Republic has reasons to celebrate the outcome. “As a democrat, as someone who thinks about the future of the Indian Republic, I am deeply concerned. I don’t resent the winners. They have every reason to celebrate. But does the country, does the Republic, have reasons to celebrate? I am not sure.” Yogendra Yadav argues that the window that seemed to open with the Parliamentary election results of 2024, but was steadily narrowing thereafter, is now firmly shut. “The window of opportunity that opened in 2024 with the Parliamentary elections, suddenly a whiff of fresh air, suddenly the country looked more democratic than it appeared for a few years, and suddenly it seemed as if things could happen, could change, that window became narrower after Maharashtra and Haryana elections and particularly after the Bihar elections. I think it’s safe to say that the window is firmly shut today.”

In an interview to discuss the impact of rising oil prices – which yesterday touched $126 per barrel – on both the world economy and India’s economy, economist and former Chief Statistician of India Pronab Sen said that rising oil prices could reduce India’s expected GDP growth by up to 2.5%. He agreed that this was a fairly substantial fall. Sen said he was particularly worried about India’s exports to the Gulf region which have presently been blocked by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. He said he was not confident that India could find alternate markets for what it sells to the Gulf countries and if it can’t this will have a direct impact on the concerned exporters leading, he agreed, to losses in jobs. This, he believes, will be a major component of the decline in GDP growth that he talked about.

Sir Keir Starmer the British Prime Minister’s real problem is that he has failed to transition from being a lawyer into a prime minister and senior politician and, as a result, lacks strategy and keeps going back on what he has said and done or acting inadvisably, such as with the appointment of Peter Mandelson as Ambassador to the United States. This is the verdict of former British Secretary of State for International Development and former Deputy Foreign Secretary Andrew Mitchell. Sir Andrew says that Starmer is now a Prime Minister with serious question marks about his longevity and his capabilities, many of which are recognized by the Labour Party, but who may not be easily removable from office because there is no clear contender to take his place. This means that the prime ministership of Britain, the future of the Labour Party government and of the country itself is surrounded by uncertainty and doubt.

Abhishek Manu Singhvi, one of the foremost legal minds in the country, a Rajya Sabha MP and Congress spokesperson, has said that Vice President Radhakrishnan has “clearly, patently erred” in accepting the merger of seven Aam Aadmi Party Rajya Sabha MPs with the BJP. Singhvi says that this decision by the Vice President can be challenged in Court and it’s quite possible that it will be overturned. Singhvi points out that in accepting the merger the Vice President has ignored what Singhvi calls “the preponderance of judgements” and instead allowed himself to be guided by “an awry judgement” in the Chodankar case.

The Editor-in-Chief of The Economist, Zanny Minton Beddoes, says the Iran war is a “strategic disaster” for President Donald Trump and the USA. She said: “I think this is along the line of Suez for the Brits. A very big geo-strategic misstep where the US has, I think, unambiguously lost from this. And it’s in a weaker position in the Gulf and it’s in a weaker position internationally.” Minton Beddoes said Trump should be thought of not as a conventional American President with a cabinet and advisors who speak their mind, debate and then come to agreed conclusions but as a King surrounded by courtiers who vie to tell him what he wants to hear. Minton Beddoes believes that there is a good chance the war could resume because, at the moment, both sides believe they have the upper hand and they are waiting for the other to give in.

After the extension of the ceasefire we ask critical questions about the new situation in the Middle East. Is this an open ended and indefinite extension of the ceasefire? Who does it benefit more? Does Iran’s refusal to come to Islamabad indicate its feeling stronger? Or is the regime internally divided, as Trump has claimed? Now, whenever talks happen, how can the key differences be bridged? And is either side willing to make the compromises necessary? Those are the key issues Karan Thapar raises with the Co-founder and Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, Trita Parsi.

As uncertainty about the talks that were supposed to happen between America and Iran continues, we ask can the Pakistan-brokered talks still happen? If they do how significant will that be? In these circumstances what can they deliver? What does the confusion of the last two days suggest about America and Iran? And where does the advantage lie? Those are the key issues Karan Thapar raises with the well-known and highly regarded Iran Project Director of the International Crisis Group, Ali Vaez.

In an interview to discuss the Prime Minister’s address to the nation on Saturday and his own video response later the same night, former Law and Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal has said “Prime Minister knowing the facts of history deliberately made statements that are inconsistent with those facts … people know what I mean … I have stated what I have stated (which is) based on the facts of history.” Speaking about the Chief Election Commissioner, Sibal said if the CEC had been truly independent and impartial “he should have issued him (the PM) a notice. (In fact), he would not have allowed the speech to go on. He should have made a statement. And he knew, he would have known, the Prime Minister was going to give a speech. He should have stopped it. He should have got the text of the speech. But he didn’t do (any of) it … that’s the problem in this country. If institutions, integrity, collapses, there’s nothing left.”

There is confusion, concern and lack of clarity about the basis on which the government proposes to increase the number of seats in the Lok Sabha and the state assemblies. Will it be on the basis of the 2011 census, which is what the bills themselves suggest, or will it be a 50% proportionate increase in the Lok Sabha and all the state assemblies, which is what unnamed spokespersons have assured yesterday’s newspapers? And does a 50% proportionate increase make the bills more acceptable to the opposition? Or do they still have serious reservations? Those are the issues Karan Thapar raises with the Minister for Information Technology and Digital Services of the Tamil Nadu government, P. Thiaga Rajan.

In sharp criticism of the government’s proposed delimitation on the basis of the 2011 census, which was circulated yesterday (Tuesday), former Information and Broadcasting Minister, Manish Tewari has called it “motivated gerrymandering” and says the “preponderance of possibility” is that it would threaten India’s political integrity. He says the proposed seat changes in the Lok Sabha are designed to ensure that the BJP’s political hold over the Hindi heartland brings it as close as possible to retaining power for the foreseeable future. Tewari has done a back of the envelope calculation which shows that if the government’s amendments are passed the number of seats UP has in the Lok Sabha will increase from 80 to around 140 whilst, in comparison, the number of seats Kerala has will only increase from 20 to around 23/24. This means that the present 60 seat difference in the size of their respective representation in the Lok Sabha will jump to somewhere around 123-125.

In an interview to analyse and help the audience understand the two week ceasefire announced by the US and Iran in the Middle East war and the prospects for talks, which are said to start in Islamabad on Friday, India’s former Ambassador to the USA, Navtej Sarna, says Trump has backed off and the truth is this is a military defeat for the USA. Sarna said: “I don’t think Trump has pulled of anything, as I see it. I think he’s backed off. He’s backed off not only from his hugely exaggerated and bombastic comments of yesterday but he’s actually backed off from this entire conflict that was a war of aggression, a war of choice, launched by the US and Israel.”

Former Chief Election Commissioners S.Y. Quraishi has said that if eligible adults in Bengal are denied the right to vote in the forthcoming elections later this month it would be unconstitutional and deplorable, it would vitiate the elections and be a black mark on our democracy. Dr. Quraishi was referring to newspaper reports that the fate of 23.4 lakh Bengali voters, who have reportedly been deleted from the electoral rolls but have the right to appeal to tribunals, hangs in the balance because the tribunals are yet to start work whilst the last date for inclusion in the electoral rolls for the 152 constituencies voting in the first phase on the 23rd is 3:00 p.m. today. As he put it, this clearly suggests that many – we don’t have the precise number but it could be thousands, tens of thousands or even a few lakh – people won’t be able to vote even though they may be eligible.

The President of the All India Christian Council and Primate of the Good Shepherd Church of India, Archbishop Joseph Dsouza, has called the government’s proposed amendments to the FCRA Act, which was yesterday, at the last moment, deferred to the next session of parliament, “loot and theft of Christian institutions and their property”. He says this is “a Sangh Parivar agenda”. If passed in the next session of parliament, he says it will create an international storm with serious international repercussions for India. Archbishop Dsouza said: “This is a straight forward loot and theft of the Christian institutions and their properties through a legal amendment of a bill. Just as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said years ago demonetization was organized loot and plunder, I say if this law is passed this will be the legalized loot of the Indian Christian community and the global Christian community.”

In a comprehensive interview which covers many aspects of the Middle East war, India’s former Foreign Secretary, Shyam Saran, says that the present Middle East war will be remembered as Trump’s big mistake. He called it “a grave grave miscalculation”. He called it “a grievous blow to the United States and it will take a long time for the United States to recover from this.”

n an interview to explain the deep and serious concerns India’s transgender community has with the recently introduced Transgender Persons Amendment Bill, Prof. Aqsa Shaikh, Professor of Community Medicine at Jamia Hamdard University, points out that the key error the government has made in the amendment bill is to assume that gender lies between the legs of an individual whereas, in fact, it lies in the hearts and minds of individuals. As Prof. Shaikh puts it: “Gender cannot be reduced to anatomy or verified through physical examination: it is a deeply felt sense of self.” Prof. Shaikh points out that the amendment bill, which was introduced in the Lok Sabha on the 13th of March, is “a fundamental shift that undermines the core of what it means to be a transgender person in law. Under this formulation, tens of thousands of individuals who currently identify, and are legally recognized, as transgender may find themselves excluded. Their identities would not merely be ignored; they would be erased.”

In an interview to The Wire, Prof. Foad Izadi, Associate Professor of American Studies at Tehran University, who spoke from Tehran, says that Iran’s new supreme leader is injured and he cited reports to that effect from within Iran. Prof. Izadi also said it could be the case that BBC reports that the new supreme leader has survived a second attempt by Israel to kill him whilst he was in hospital could be correct. However, Prof. Izadi confirms that the new supreme leader is alive.

In strong and outspoken criticism of Indian foreign policy, a former National Security Advisor, M. K. Narayanan, has said that Indian foreign policy is confused and argues that we are not as influential as we once were. India may be internally and economically a more powerful country than it has ever been but our capacity to influence events around the world and win respect for our views is not as great as it was 20-30 or 40 years ago. Mr. Narayanan said: “I think we are confused. I think India’s foreign policy has been confused for a very long time. I think this is one more instance of that kind. Somewhere down the line India still believes we are, or we have the ability, the capacity, to sort out the problems of other nations … I think this is part of the Indian belief that we are leaders of the global south, we are in a position to mediate, we have the authority or even the influence or the ability to sort out other people’s problems, etc. I think there is this misplaced understanding of where we stand in the world today … I certainly think that we are poorer in the eyes of the world today than we were when we were economically weaker … I think this is the quandary that we are in. We still stick to the idea that the world looks upon us as an important power broker. I think we need to get out of that comfortable area that we are in and realize that we are probably just one of the other countries in the world and no longer one that other countries look up to … if you really look at it you are not even a power to reckon with even in the region in which you are located. How then can you speak for the rest of the world? So we have problems ... That’s what I am trying to say: what India does does not seem to matter today to the same extent that it did when we were much weaker economically and militarily … At one stage India was the leader of the non-alignment movement. We are now talking of multipolarity, of this and that. Nobody is quite clear where India stands. Nobody is quite clear how India reacts to situations … I think that (once) people saw there was an intrinsic strength that India possessed and they were willing to listen. We still possess that intrinsic strength and probably have much more of it but you are not able to make people see how we stand and where we have the weight to pull … Internally perhaps today we are stronger than we have ever been, economically we are stronger than we have ever been. The question is we have not been able to transmit that to the world at large that we are now in a position to do things elsewhere.”

Israeli professor of history and international relations Avi Shlaim says that Donald Trump is “Netanyahu’s poodle”, adding that Netanyahu “plays him like a fiddle”. Prof. Shlaim says that Donald Trump is the only American President who is gullible enough to become part of Netanyahu’s plan for regime change in Iran. However, Prof. Shlaim believes that regime change is almost impossible to achieve from the air and what is far more likely is that the regime will survive and if Mojtaba Khamenei remains the supreme leader he is likely to be more ruthless and a hardliner. Prof. Shlaim also believes that the regime only needs to survive to, in effect, win, whereas America if it doesn’t win has, in effect, lost.

Kanwal Sibal, a former Foreign Secretary and former Ambassador to Russia and France and now Chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University, and Manoj Joshi, a Senior Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation and a highly regarded Strategic Affairs Analyst, discuss whether Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu have underestimated Iran’s resilience and its capacity to retaliate and fight on. In particular, they analyze President Trump and his behaviour, the things he has said as well as the things he claims have taken him by surprise. For instance, Trump has claimed he didn’t realize Iran would retaliate by hitting American bases in the Gulf nor did he realize Iran would seek to block the Strait of Hormuz. But Iran had made it clear that if attacked it would retaliate on American bases in the Gulf and had been saying so for weeks before the war began. This is also what the Gulf countries feared. Trump’s own former Advisor, Nate Swanson, had written in February that if attacked Iran would block the Strait of Hormuz. So how come Trump didn’t know this? What does it tell us about him? His planning? The advice he gets? And his understanding of the Middle East?

The well-known historian, author and strategic affairs analyst Srinath Raghavan says “India is objectively on the side of the aggressors in this war”. He says what matters is not what India says but what it does and how its actions are perceived by others and, in this instance, India is perceived to be on the side of the aggressors. Speaking of the Prime Minister’s visit to Israel, 36 hours before the war began, Mr. Raghavan says: “The timing … was extraordinary … there was no substantive reason to go to Israel on the eve of the war … and it’s inconceivable that the Indian government was unaware of the impending attack.” This was the first clear sign that India was aligning itself with Israel and against Iran.

Whilst as yet it’s too early to say how good or how inadequate is the new methodology for calculating GDP, which came into operation last month, India’s former Chief Economic Advisor, Arvind Subramanian, has pointed out that the old methodology, which came into operation in 2015, overstated GDP growth between 2011-12 and 2023-24 by 1.5-2 percentage points and between 2004-05 and 2011-12 it underestimated growth by 1-1.5 percentage points. He has identified two principal reasons for this. The first is errors and inadequacies in the way growth in the informal sector, which in this period was pretty close to 45% of the economy, was estimated. The second is the deflator. The old methodology used the wholesale price index which understated inflation and didn’t really capture prices in the services sector. So when economists would try to find answers to puzzles such as if growth is strong why is private investment so weak, why is FDI declining, why is capacity utilization, wage growth and employment growth so tepid, the real answer is that growth was not as strong as we thought. This also means that for most of the UPA years growth was underestimated whilst for the NDA years, starting 2014, it was overestimated.

India’s former Ambassador to Nepal Ranjit Rae has called the performance of Balendra Shah and his Rashtriya Swatantra Party in Nepal’s recently held elections “an astounding victory”, the scale of which has taken everyone by surprise. He says Balendra Shah in his person bridged the traditional divide in Nepal between the hills and the plains. He presented himself in the Terai as the son of the soil, often speaking in Maithili, and, of course, was very familiar to the hills because he has served as a remarkably successful Mayor of Kathmandu. However, with his huge majority expectations are sky-high. The RSP has committed itself to creating 1.2 million jobs, doubling national income and starting a health insurance for all. Ambassador Rae says the RSP has “very competent leaders” which he called the best talent available in the country. They will need this to deliver on their commitments.

In strong and outspoken criticism of the government’s refusal and failure to criticize the US-Israel strikes on Iran and the assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei, India’s former National Security Advisor and former Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon has said it is “inexplicable” and “sad”. He says this will not impress India’s BRICS partners and it “diminishes” the country’s reputation. Menon, who has also served as a former Ambassador to Israel and China and former High Commissioner to Pakistan and Sri Lanka, said: “I find our silences and our action quite inexplicable. Frankly. I mean not to have anything to say when a Head of State of a state you recognize and in your neighbourhood is assassinated by another country. By not signing the condolence book for five days and then sending the Foreign Secretary, not the Foreign Minister, not the Prime Minister. And to stay absolutely silent on the issues. Not to condemn the attack. And this is unfortunately part of a pattern. Not willing to call the Russian invasion of Ukraine an invasion. You are not willing to vote when Palestinians are being slaughtered in Gaza and on the West Bank. You abstain on voting at the UN. I find this very strange. And rather sad that a country like India with its traditions should end up absolutely mum.”

One of Nepal’s most highly regarded journalists, the Founder Editor of Himal Southasian, Kanak Mani Dixit, says he is “flummoxed” by the Nepal election results which he said are “not just a landslide but up upheaval”. The BBC’s assessment of the result suggests that Balendra Shah and his Rashtriya Swatantra Party could have won 182 out of 275 seats, which is a two-thirds majority.

India’s former Foreign Minister, Salman Khurshid, says that Prime Minister Modi’s refusal to criticize the US-Israeli strikes on Iran and the killing of Ayatollah Khamenei have let India down. The strikes are a clear breach of the United Nations Charter and India’s silence is a break with its well-established tradition of speaking out and take clear positions in the interests of its strategic autonomy. Mr. Khurshid has also sharply criticized the timing of Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Israel, which happened roughly 36 hours before the US-Israeli strikes happened on Saturday. After explaining his view point, which is critical of the Modi government’s handling of this matter, Mr. Khurshid also answers questions about reasons why the government may have chosen silence rather than criticize and express concern about the strikes, which has been done by other leading BRICS members like Russia, China, Brazil and South Africa.

With the US-Israel-Iran war becoming a regional crisis how much worse could the situation become? Can decapitation really lead to regime change in Iran? How long can Iran fight on? Will UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia retaliate? And what more does President Trump have in mind? Those are the key issues Karan Thapar discusses with the Defence Editor of The Economist, Shashank Joshi.

The Editor of Desh Sanchar.com Yubaraj Ghimire says that the new Nepal government that will be elected by the polls to be held on the 5th of March is likely to be unstable and won’t last long. He also says that the interim administration under former Chief Justice Sushila Karki has been a failure and did not live up to the high expectation people had of it when it took over in September 2025. Ghimire says the final result of the elections to be held on the 5th may not be known for a month because Nepal has a hybrid system where 165 seats are chosen directly and the remaining 110 by proportional representation. It’s the proportional representation part that could take time to be finalised. Therefore, the new government may not take over till the end of March or even early April.

In strong and stinging criticism of the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the hate speech against Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, Dushyant Dave, a former President of the Supreme Court Bar Association, has said the top Court has made “a Himalayan blunder” and “let down 1.4 billion Indians”. Dave said the Supreme Court “insulted each one of us” by refusing to take up the matter and, additionally, it’s done a disservice to the institution and to the judges themselves. 

In an interview to discuss the implications and consequences of the United States Supreme Court striking down President Trump’s reciprocal tariffs and his decision to impose 15% global tariffs on all goods from all counties, the Founder of the Global Trade Research Initiative Ajay Srivastava says that India should now walk out of the India-US interim trade agreement. He said India should now invoke the clause of the joint statement that permits it to modify its commitments if the other country changes its tariffs. 

In an interview to discuss the arrest of former Prince Andrew on suspicion of misconduct in public office and its implications and consequences for the British monarchy, the former Editor of the Financial Times, Lionel Barber, has said this is a blow for the monarchy and it will become a very serious blow if Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is charged and convicted. However, Lionel Barber says that King Charles has done enough to distance the monarchy as an institution from the former Prince and there is no danger of Britain becoming a Republic. “Look, it’s taken a blow and if he’s charged and found guilty it will be a very serious blow but I think King Charles has done enough to distance the monarchy from Andrew and if they carry on in the way that they do there is no question of us turning into a republic or anything like that.”

Relying entirely on official data made available by the Election Commission of India and the Andhra Pradesh Chief Election Officer i.e. entirely official data, the well-known economist and current affairs commentator Parakala Prabhakar has revealed there is reason to believe serious mischief took place in the Andhra Pradesh polls of 2024, both at the Assembly and the Lok Sabha level. He points out that between 11.45 at night and 2 in the morning on 13th/14th May 2024 just over 17 lakh people cast their vote in 3,500 booths. This means that on an average 491 people would have voted in each of the 3,500 booths in just 135 minutes. That comes to 3.6 voters per minute or roughly 20 seconds per voter. If you deduct from this the time taken by VVPAT machines to reveal a vote (and remember there were two VVPATs because this was both an Assembly and Lok Sabha election) you come to the amazing conclusion that each voter got just 6 seconds to vote.

The well-known and popular Trinamool Congress MP, Mahua Moitra, has publicly called for Petroleum Minister, Hardeep Puri’s resignation and apology to the nation over his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. “He owes it to the nation to apologize and resign”, she says. Mahua Moitra has also claimed that “Puri has lied repeatedly and brazenly about his relationship with Epstein.” Furthermore, his emails suggest a friendship and intimacy that he has not admitted to.

In an interview to discuss the recent Home Ministry order directing all six stanzas of Vande Mataram to be played at official functions and that schools start the day with community singing of the song, Supreme Court lawyer Sanjay Hegde has called this “constitutional vandalism dressed up in national pride”. Hegde points out that there is no law that requires any Indian citizen to compulsorily sing any song and that the order regarding Vande Mataram is “executive overreach”. 

In a wide ranging interview to discuss the outcome of the recent elections in Bangladesh and the new government that will be formed by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party with Tarique Rahman as the new Prime Minister, Zafar Sobhan, the Editor of Counterpoint and former Editor of the Dhaka Tribune, has said that Bangladesh is now a democracy, even if credible questions can be raised about an election that excluded the Awami League, a major party. Sobhan says that the Tarique Rahman government will seek “cooperative” relations with Delhi and ensuring the safety and security of Bangladesh’s 13 million Hindus will be the “foremost” duty of the new government.

With the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) picking up immigrants  especially brown looking people, and even deporting them, a climate of fear has built up among the Indian community, says Sravya Tadepalli.    “Indians are the third most undocumented community in America,” says Tadepalli, deputy executive director of Hindus for Human Rights (HfHR). “Among Indians there is a perception that we are all here legally, as tech workers, doctors, but many Indians are not in a position of privilege,” she says in a podcast conversation with Sidharth Bhatia.   Many organisations are working on educating Indians of their rights vis a vis ICE, she says. HfHR runs a Know Your Rights programme. “We’ve operated at Hindu mandir’s in New York City, coordinating with 10 of them and distributed Know Your Rights cards, conducted training.”  HforHR claims it is the ‘only Hindu organisation working to protect our community from the viciousness of ICE violence.’ Pointing out that organisations like Hindu Swayamsewak Sangh, which is linked to the RSS, “cares more about hating on Muslims rather than supporting Hindus. I’ve never seen a statement from the HSS about ICE. I've never seen any actions from the HSS about ICE. So that should tell us something.”  She emphasises that HfHR spreads “progressive Hindu ideas. We have monthly discussions, called Baithaks for Liberation, where people talk about Hindu liberal ideas, which promote inclusivity, equality, diversity.” This emphasis on the “social justice principles of Hinduism can weaken the stronghold that Hindu nationalists have.”

We present two separate interviews, packaged as one, with Ashok Gulati, Distinguished Professor at ICRIER, and Avik Saha, National President of the Jai Kisan Andolan, on the question has India been successful in ensuring that genetically modified produce or its derivatives are not given access to the Indian market? The government insists that is the case but could there be room for doubt? We explore the extent to which there is credible room for doubt. Both guests believe that traces of GM material will enter India. Mr. Gulati believes this will almost certainly be the case when we import Dried Distillers Grains from America and could be the case (we are not sure) when soya oil is imported from America. Mr. Saha is fairly sure that it will be the case both when DDGs and soya oil are imported. This means that when the Commerce and Industry Minister, Piyush Goyal, told a press conference on Saturday that “no genetically modified items will enter India” he was not correct. Mr. Saha inclines towards the belief that Mr. Goyal lied or was misled. Mr. Gulati believes that Piyush Goyal probably didn’t know that DDGs contain traces of GM and was perhaps only talking about the direct import of American soya and corn rather than their derivatives.

Historian, author and political commentator Ramachandra Guha, believes that India is becoming a Hindu Pakistan and that the treatment of Muslims is a form of “medieval barbarism”. He says: “India in 2026 is as close to being a Hindu Pakistan as it has ever been … in politics and in the law, in symbol and in substance, in word and in deed, India is … becoming ever more like Pakistan, except that here it is Hindus, and not Muslims, who rule over fellow citizens who are of other faiths.”

In exactly a week, on the 12th of February, Bangladesh will hold what The Economist calls its first proper elections since 2008. Foreign policy expert Shafqat Munir, a Senior Fellow at the Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies, says that if the Bangladesh Nationalist Party wins, as is widely expected, it’s 60-year old leader, Tarique Rahman, will seek to reset and improve the relations with India.

In an interview to discuss and analyse Sunday’s budget, economist, former Chief Statistician and former Country Head of the International Growth Centre Pronab Sen says the prime minister’s description of the budget as historic is not correct. Instead, Sen described this as “a business-as-usual” budget which he called “unremarkable”. Asked how well the budget has tackled the problems the economy faces, Sen made clear that it has not done so effectively. He said he couldn’t see “the bada boost” to job creation, which the prime minister identified in his post-budget statement. And Sen thought it was “irresponsible” for the finance minister to have almost forgotten about agriculture in her budget.

In an interview to discuss the politics, personality and legacy of the former Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Ajit Pawar, who died yesterday in an air crash, political analyst Suhas Palshikar says he was secular and did not indulge in the Hindu-Muslim “bashing” associated with the Pawar’s ally the BJP. However, Prof. Palshikar says that Pawar’s style of politics was akin to “running with the hare and hunting with the hounds”. Palshikar says that history will remember Ajit Pawar for the work he did for the development of Maharashtra. In time the scams that were associated with his name or the alliance with the BJP will be forgotten or diminish in importance and what will be remembered is Pawar’s commitment to development.

Sharda Ugra, who is widely considered India’s foremost sports journalist, says the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s ego is responsible for the potential crisis facing the T20 World Cup due to start on the 7th of February. As she put it: “The ICC is basically just the Dubai office of the BCCI”. The crisis facing the T20 World Cup emerges out of Pakistan’s threat to boycott this event. Mohsin Naqvi, the head of the Pakistan Cricket Board and the country’s interior minister, has indicated that Pakistan will decide about its participation on Friday or, even, as late as Monday. Ugra says the ICC has mishandled the present crisis, which began with Bangladesh’s demand that its matches be held in Colombo rather than Kolkata and Mumbai but, actually, goes all the way back to BCCI’s instructions to Kolkata Knight Riders to drop Mustafizur Rahman from their team. She says without Pakistani participation (if that happens) the T20 World Cup would be damaged and its credibility is “out of the window”. 

Former judge of the Delhi high court Justice Rekha Sharma has said that the police treatment of journalists in the Kashmir Valley is “a direct attack on our freedom, an attack on our personal liberty … and an attack on democracy itself.” She says its “extremely extremely distressing”, adding “it’s totally without jurisdiction” and is in “disregard of the law”. Justice Sharma was referring to the treatment of the Assistant Editor of the Express who is also the paper’s correspondent in Kashmir, Bashaarat Masood, who was summoned for four days between January 15 and 19 by the cyber police station in Srinagar and asked to sign a bond that he would not do anything to disturb the peace. He was also not the only journalist to be summoned in this manner.

The Science Editor of The Hindu says that Monday’s failure of ISRO’s PSLV rocket is a major setback and a very big blow to the organization. He agrees that it raises worrying questions about the reliability of the PSLV rocket which is ISRO’s workhorse. In an interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, Vasudevan Mukunth raised questions about the functioning of ISRO Chairman V. Narayanan and ISRO’s lack of transparency during his tenure. He made this point in connection with the fact that this is the second successive back-to-back PSLV rocket failure. The earlier one was in May 2025. On both occasions the problem occurred during the third stage of the flight when the rocket was attempting to get into orbit around the earth. However, the Failure Analysis Committee investigation report into the May 2025 failure has not been made public. It was submitted to the Prime Minister’s Office but has not been released from there. This means that independent experts have not been able to review and analyse the findings. In turn, that has led to questions being asked whether there is something in the failure analysis report that is being hidden from the Indian public.

In an interview where he seeks to explain the many reasons why Bangladeshis have reservations about India as well as the historical character of Hindu-Muslim relations within Bangladesh, the former CEO of Prasar Bharati and former Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP, Jawhar Sircar, has called for India to moderate the anti-Bangladeshi fury sweeping through the country and to “refrain from reacting to every provocation” from Bangladesh. Sircar argues that the anti-Bangladeshi fury in India is playing into the hands of extremists and fundamentalists in Bangladesh. In this context, he points out that the decision to force Kolkata Knight Riders to drop Mustafizur Rahman was completely mistaken and wrong. It overlooked the fact that Rahman is an icon and hero for Bangladeshis and in no way responsible for the mistreatment of Hindus in that country. Now, he says, this will encourage ordinary Bangladeshis to turn against India.

India’s former Ambassador to Venezuela, who has also served as High Commissioner to Sri Lanka and the United Kingdom and, subsequently, as Chief Information Commissioner, says that Trump’s action in Venezuela to kidnap and spirit away the country’s President and his wife was “a brilliantly executed military operation”. Yashvardhan Sinha adds that “the Venezuelan military was caught flat-footed”. However, Sinha declined to say that the US has become a rogue superpower under Trump, even though in recent weeks it has carried out air strikes over Iran, Syria and Nigeria, repeatedly threatened to takeover Greenland, cast covetous eyes on Panama and is now threatening Colombia, Cuba and Mexico.

In sharp criticism of the Supreme Court’s decision to deny bail to Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam, lawyer and former President of the Supreme Court Bar Association Dushyant Dave has called the decision “completely wrong”. Dave says its “really flawed both in facts and law”. He says the two judges have done a disservice to themselves as well as to the Supreme Court. He says increasingly in India, judges are afraid to give bail.

In sharp and focused criticism of the government’s new rural employment scheme, which he says is mistaken and misleadingly called a guarantee, Nikhil Dey, a founder member of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, says it has “completely demolished the idea of a rural employment guarantee scheme”.

It's time for our end-of-year tradition, an interview where Karan Thapar is the interviewee and is toughly or teasingly questioned by an interviewer we have invited on the show. On this occasion the guest interviewer is the highly popular YouTuber, journalist, radio jockey and political satirist Akash Banerjee, in the avatar of Bhakt Banerjee. 

Chairman of Cerg Advisory and economist Omkar Goswami has said that IndiGo, which controls nearly 66% of domestic air travel and on many routes is the only airline flying, has become too big to regulate. As Goswami put it: “When one player accounts for almost two-thirds of the passenger market and when it’s often the only carrier to many airports, the shoe is firmly on IndiGo’s foot. Not the governments, irrespective of what the DGCA may claim …IndiGo has become too big to regulate. It effectively calls the shots.”