India Speak: The CPR Podcast

This month on CPR Perspectives — our flagship interview series commemorating the Centre for Policy Research's 50th anniversary — we bring you a conversation with Rahul Verma, a Fellow at CPR, where he leads the Politics Initiative. Verma is a political scientist who earned his PhD from the University of California – Berkeley, with a focus on the role of political parties, ideology and dynastic families in Indian politics. His book, Ideology and Identity: The Changing Party Systems of India, questions the assumption that ideology does not play an important role in the Indian voter's decision-making. At CPR, Verma's work with the Politics Initiative focused on building up a core body of political research, collaborating with scholars to put out reports like Dalits in the New Millennium, and studying voter behaviour through efforts like the YouGov-CPR-Mint Millennial Survey, as well as bringing his political science lens to the State Capacity Initiative. In our conversation with Verma, we spoke about his political science background, the thinking behind his research and the motivations to enter the policy world. We also spoke about the Politics Initiative and its various projects, his work with the State Capacity Initiative and Verma's advice for young scholars entering this world.

This month on CPR Perspectives — our flagship interview series commemorating the Centre for Policy Research's 50th anniversary — we bring you a conversation with Mekhala Krishnamurthy, a Senior Fellow at CPR where she built the State Capacity Initiative. Krishnamurthy has spent the last 15 years engaging with questions of how the state interacts with markets and the broader economy, and what the actual lived experiences of those on the frontlines of these intersections can tell policymakers – particularly in the fields of health and agriculture. An alumna of Harvard, Cambridge and University College London, she is also Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at Ashoka University, and taught at Shiv Nadar University prior to that. At CPR, Krishnamurthy set up the State Capacity Initiative, an interdisciplinary research and practice programme that has carried out pioneering research studies on the Indian administrative state, and worked directly with a number of governments on questions of institutional design and capacity. In the first part of the conversation with Krishnamurthy, we spoke about what it means to be an anthropologist in the development world, how she has managed to bridge academic and policy practitioner positions, and her reading of major shifts in India's policy discourse over the last few decades. In the second part of the conversation, we spoke about her research and writing on mandis and Indian agriculture, the idea behind the State Capacity Initiative, and her advice for younger scholars entering the policy world.

This month on CPR Perspectives — our flagship interview series commemorating the Centre for Policy Research's 50th anniversary — we bring you a conversation with Arkaja Singh, a Fellow at CPR, who has worked across a whole range of topics broadly converging around the idea of ‘administrative coherence. Having studied at the National Law School and SOAS, Singh spent a decade in development sector consulting and research before joining CPR. She has conducted research across a wide span of topics – from sanitation and manual scavenging to informal settlements and land titling to the framework of the Indian administrative state. The throughline across these different areas is a focus on understanding why government operates in the way it does, and what it would take to alter and reform it, not just in operations but in its international rationale. In the first part of the conversation with Singh, we spoke about her years as a ‘governance consultant' and how that differs from her time at CPR, what she means by ‘administrative coherence' and her research into the municipal state. In the second part of the conversation, which you will receive in a fortnight, we spoke Singh's research on how we cannot understand about access to water without first tackling the state's approach to land, whether there is sufficient thinking about rationalities and histories within government and what advice she has for young scholars entering the policy space.

We have a particularly special edition of CPR Perspectives – our flagship interview series commemorating the Centre for Policy Research's 50th anniversary. This month officially marks 50 years since the Centre was founded, back in 1973, as an institution that would work to produce field-defining research and vital policy insights relevant for both the country's decision-makers as well as an informed public.  To mark the occasion, this edition of CPR Perspectives features a conversation with Yamini Aiyar, President and Chief Executive of the Centre for Policy Research.  As with previous episodes in the series, we touch upon Aiyar's path to CPR – including how she entered the Indian policy ecosystem with stints at Udyogini, a grassroots NGO, the Ford Foundation and the World Bank. But the bulk of the conversation takes a broader look at the history of CPR, the vital role it has played in key Indian policy debates – from industrial policy and economic liberalisation to foreign policy and climate change – and the challenges it is currently confronting.  Aiyar joined CPR in 2008, when she founded the Accountability Initiative, a research project that oversaw one of India's largest expenditure tracking surveys for elementary education and brought a deeper, evidence-based understanding of public service delivery to the policy conversation in India. In 2017, Aiyar took charge as President and Chief Executive of the Centre for Policy Research, overseeing the deepening and expansion of the institution's research efforts and a broadening of its engagement with governments, grassroots organisations and the global policy community. She also continued her own research on public welfare, federalism and state capacity, while serving on a number of government and international policy committees. 

This month on CPR Perspectives — our flagship interview series commemorating the Centre for Policy Research's 50th anniversary — we bring you a conversation with Neelanjan Sircar, a Senior Fellow at CPR, who has brought a combination of data analysis and qualitative research to a wide range of subjects including India's political economy, urbanisation and climate change. Following degrees in Applied Mathematics and Economics, Sircar received a PhD in political science from Columbia University and then carried out research at the University of Pennsylvania's Centre for the Advanced Study of India before making his way to CPR. At CPR, Sircar was instrumental in setting up the Politics Initiative, which provides high-quality research of India's political economy from a non-partisan lens, helping us build nuanced models of why voters make their choices and how political parties operate within the broader system. He is also co-editor of Colossus; The Anatomy of Delhi, a volume that seeks to unpack the complexity of India's national capital region, building on a survey of the city that could serve as a model for other sampling efforts across the country. Sircar has also led CPR's project to evaluate the welfare delivery systems of the Andhra Pradesh government. In the first part of the conversation with Sircar, we spoke about making the move from applied mathematics to the policy world, what convinced him to come work in India and why the approach that undergirds CPR's Politics Initiative is important. In the second part of the conversation, which you will receive in a fortnight, we spoke about building frameworks and tools that other researchers can replicate, why scholars can benefit from working with governments and why it is important to look beyond India when considering complex research questions.

This month on CPR Perspectives — our flagship interview series commemorating the Centre for Policy Research's 50th anniversary — we bring you a conversation with D Shyam Babu, a Senior Fellow at CPR, who has over the years worked on subjects as varied as nuclear non-proliferation and national security as well as socio-economic mobility among Dalits and the societal impacts of liberalisation.  Shyam Babu was first associated with CPR in 1989, after which he spent time as a journalist and then as a fellow at the Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies, before returning to the Centre in 2011. After working on questions of national security in his initial years in policy, Shyam Babu shifted focus to look at social change, helping conduct a number of key socio-economic surveys that examined the impacts of liberalisation on the Dalit community.  He is the co-author of Defying the Odds, a critically acclaimed book that profiled the rise of Dalit entrepreneurs, as well as co-editor of a number of other books, including The Dalit Question: Reforms and Social Justice and The India Mosaic: Searching for an Identity… More recently, Shyam Babu has been working with CPR to conduct research workshops for scholars from Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities.  In the first part of the conversation with Shyam Babu, we spoke about what it was like to work across two very different policy disciplines, why he thinks an understanding of society is vital for IR scholars and the ideas that led to his research and book on Dalit entrepreneurs.  In the second part of the conversation, which you will receive in a fortnight, we spoke about the need to challenge conventional wisdom on social justice in India, why he has looked more closely at the question of ‘social cognition' in recent years and what role think tanks like CPR have to play in making the research world more inclusive. 

This month on CPR Perspectives — our flagship interview series commemorating the Centre for Policy Research's 50th anniversary — we bring you a conversation with Mukta Naik, a Fellow at CPR, whose work focuses on informal housing, internal migration and what these subjects can tell us about India's urban transformation. Naik is an architect and urban planner, who works with the Initiative on Cities, Economy & Society at CPR. Prior to joining CPR, she worked with a social enterprise – Micro Home Solutions – on community-based interventions aimed at improving housing in informal settlements. Naik is a graduate of the School of Planning and Architecture, and has a Master's Degree in urban and regional planning from Texas A&M University. In the first part of the conversation with Naik, we spoke about her pathway into the policy space, the importance of 'boundary-crossing' when tackling subjects like migration and urbanisation and her work on the Small City Dreaming project, looking at the aspirations and lives of young Indians beyond the big cities. In the second part of the conversation, which you will receive in two weeks, we spoke about how Covid changed the conversation on migrants in India, whether the learnings from that time are taking root, what it means to look at cities and urbanisation from a Global South perspective and why she advises young scholars not to over-define their career pathways.

This month on CPR Perspectives — our flagship interview series commemorating the Centre for Policy Research's 50th anniversary — we bring you a conversation with KP Krishnan, an Honorary Research Professor at CPR. Krishnan spent three and a half decades in the IAS, retiring in 2019 as Secretary, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. Over his years in the civil services, he served at positions in the government of Karnataka and the Union Government, as well as a stint at the World Bank, giving him a unique vantage point to observe the changes taking place in Indian economic and development policy following the 1991 liberalization. He has previously held the BoK Visiting Professorship in Regulation in the University of Pennsylvania Law School and served as the IEPF Chair Professor at the National Council of Applied Economic Research, in addition to stints as Visiting Professor of Economics, Public Policy and Regulation at the LBSNAA Mussorie, ISB Hyderabad and Mohali, Ashoka University and IIM Bangalore. In the first part of our conversation, I spoke to Krishnan about choosing a career in the civil services, how policy feedback operated within the IAS especially as the economy opened up and the question of being research-minded vs operational within the Indian bureaucracy. In the second part of the conversation, which you will receive later this month, we spoke about how external research was integrated into government systems, Krishnan's work at CPR looking at how well we understand Indian regulators and what advice he has for young scholars.

This month on CPR Perspectives – our flagship interview series commemorating the Centre for Policy Research's 50th anniversary – we bring you a conversation with Avani Kapur, a senior fellow at CPR, where she also leads the Accountability Initiative. The Accountability Initiative focuses on conducting cutting-edge research on India's public service delivery systems and leveraging this information by ensuring it reaches government officials, academics and citizens with the aim of promoting administrative reforms at the frontlines of service delivery. Kapur has been at CPR since 2008, beginning as a Research Associate at the Accountability Initiative and working her way up to leading the research group today. Along the way, she has led process- and fund-tracking surveys on vital social sector schemes as well as anchored an annual budget brief series analysing the performance of the Indian government's major welfare programmes – including, this year, a major lookback at the past 15 years of welfare spending and outcomes to mark AI's 15th anniversary. In addition to leading AI, Kapur also set up the PULSE for Development platform in 2020, which brings together more than 90 organisations within the development community dedicated to citizen-centric policies and implementation. Kapur is a Tech4Good Fellow and part of the WICCI Council of Ethic, and is on the editorial board of the Journal of Development Policy and Practice. In the first part of our conversation, I spoke to Kapur about starting at CPR just as the Accountability Initiative was taking shape, the stunning examples of inefficiency she discovered while looking for bottlenecks in public spending in the field and getting positive feedback from the state – including how one government official described AI's work as being that of ‘physician' tracking the flow of blood through the body, searching for blockages. In the second part of the conversation, which you will receive later this month, we spoke about why the initiative has moved from talking about accountability to ‘Responsive Governance', how AI does much more grassroots capacity building work beyond its flagship PAISA public expenditure tracking, and what advice she has for young scholars entering this field. If you prefer audio, this conversation is also available as a podcast here. And if you missed our previous interviews, read our conversations with Partha Mukhopadhyay (Part 1 & 2) and with Navroz Dubash (Part 1 & 2).

This month on CPR Perspectives – our flagship interview series commemorating the Centre for Policy Research's 50th anniversary – we bring you a conversation with Partha Mukhopadhyay, a senior fellow at CPR, where he also leads the Initiative on Cities, Economy and Society. Mukhopadhyay is one of the foremost experts on urbanisation, although his expertise extends well beyond the subject. He has been at CPR since 2006, after having been on the founding team at the Infrastructure Development Finance Company, and following stints at the Export Import Bank of India and the World Bank in Washington. Over his wide-ranging career, Mukhopadhyay has introduced important concepts like ‘Subaltern Urbanisation', referring to vibrant smaller settlements that provide a very different picture of urbanisation than the one we get from India's mega-cities; brought careful scrutiny to India's Special Economic Zones; studied the all-important question of informal work; and played key roles on a number of important government panels. He was chair of the Working Group on Migration, Government of India and member of the High Level Railway Restructuring Committee, Ministry of Railways and of the Technical Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation. Previously, he has been associated with the Committee on Allocation of Natural Resources and with the Prime Minister's Task Force on Infrastructure. In the first part of our conversation, Rohan Venkat spoke to Mukhopadhyay about choosing to work on policy in India, how being at CPR has allowed him to work across a wide range of subjects and why it is important to think about government policies as a combination of safety nets and spring boards. In the second part, which you will receive later this month, we spoke about how India could be an exemplar when it comes to urban policy, why governments ought to stay away from ‘magic bullet solutions' and why younger scholars should always balance quantitative analysis with a more thoughtful approach to processes and outcomes. If you prefer audio, this conversation is also available as a podcast.

To mark CPR's 50th anniversary, we are delighted to present a brand new interview series called CPR Perspectives. Every month we plan to bring you a flagship conversation, with Rohan Venkat interviewing a faculty member on their research, policy practice and engagement with the most critical questions of our age. Over the past five decades, the Centre for Policy Research has played a unique role in India's policy landscape, tackling concerns as varied and vital as climate change and federalism, urbanisation and national security and bringing a genuinely multi-disciplinary approach to the field. Today, with India facing a complex geopolitical landscape and even greater development and climate challenges, the Centre's faculty continue to produce field-defining research while also working directly with policymakers and stakeholders in government and beyond. In the first interview, Rohan speaks to Navroz Dubash, a professor at CPR where he also runs the Initiative on Climate, Energy and Environment. Dubash is one of the world's most renowned experts on climate change, having worked on the subject since the 1990s – well before it became a household term. Dubash's wide-ranging career has featured landmark research papers, agenda-setting edited volumes, two authored books and key roles on a number of official and advisory committees in India and at the global level. He was a Coordinating Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations' panel which publishes landmark reports on the state of climate change research. Dubash's work led to CPR being the overall anchor institution and technical knowledge partner for the Indian government's Long Term-Low Emissions and Development Strategy. He has received the TN Khoshoo Memorial Award for his work on Indian and global climate change governance, the Emerging Regions Award by Environmental Research Letters, and the SR Sen Award for Best Book in Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, for his book Tubewell Capitalism. In this conversation, Dubash talks about about working on climate change back in 1990 - well before it was in vogue, whether it is frustrating to still be going over questions of climate change vs development that have been around since then, why the Climate Initiative at CPR turned into the Initiative on Climate, Energy and the Environment, and why it's important to make academic work accessible for wider audiences. Navroz talks about what it was like to help the Indian government draft its strategy for low-emissions development, why it's important to not just follow the Western narrative on climate change and what advice Dubash has for younger scholars entering this important field.

In the third episode of Road to COP27, a special series as part of India Speak: The CPR Podcast, Navroz K. Dubash speaks to Rachel Kyte, Dean of The Fletcher School at Tufts University on the geopolitical context for COP27 and its implications. This series will bring leading experts in the lead up to Conference of the Parties (COP) 27, being held from 6-18 November 2022 at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. They discuss the Inflation Reduction Act, the new climate legislation passed by the United States, and what it could mean for climate diplomacy. The episode also explores questions on climate finance, whether there is a landing zone for negotiations on loss and damage and what that looks like, and delves into questions around carbon markets. About the speakers: Rachel Kyte is the 14th dean of The Fletcher School at Tufts University. Kyte is the first woman to lead the United States' oldest graduate-only school of international affairs, which attracts students from all corners of the world and at all stages of their careers. Prior to joining Fletcher, Kyte served as special representative of the UN secretary-general and chief executive officer of Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL). She previously was the World Bank Group vice president and special envoy for climate change, leading the run-up to the Paris Agreement. She was also vice president at the International Finance Corporation responsible for ESG risk and business advisory services. In her UN role and as CEO of SEforAll, a public-private platform created by the UN and World Bank, Kyte led efforts to promote and finance clean, reliable and affordable energy as part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. She served as co-chair of UN Energy. In the 2020 UK New Year Honours, Rachel was appointed as CMG for her services to sustainable energy and combating climate change. Kyte is a member of the UN secretary-general's high-level advisory group on climate action and an advisor to the UK presidency of the UN climate talks. Kyte is co-chair of the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative (VCMI), and chair of the FONERWA, the Rwanda Green Fund. She serves on the boards of the Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG), the Climate Policy Institute and CDP. She advises investors, governments, and not-for-profits on climate, energy, and finance for sustainable development. Navroz K Dubash is a Professor at the Centre for Policy Research, a New Delhi based think-tank and an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, NUS. He has been actively engaged in debates on climate change, air quality, energy and water as a researcher, policy advisor and activist for over 25 years. Navroz has been a Coordinating Lead Author for the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and has advised Indian government policy-making on climate change, energy, and air and water policy over the last decade. In the early 1990s, he helped establish the global Climate Action Network as its first international coordinator.

In the second episode of Road to COP27, a special series as part of India Speak: The CPR Podcast, Navroz K. Dubash speaks to Saleemul Huq, Director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) in Bangladesh, on the loss and damage debate that is expected to play a substantial role on the agenda. This series will bring leading experts in the lead up to Conference of the Parties (COP) 27, taking place from 6-18 November 2022 at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. They discuss the growing calls from developing countries for financial support to deal with the impacts of extreme climate events, such as the recent floods in Pakistan, and the possible obstacles that could emerge at the negotiations. The episode also explores the politics of this COP and the symbolism of an African COP. Saleemul Huq is the director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) in Bangladesh, and is an expert on the links between climate change and sustainable development, particularly from the perspective of developing countries. He was the lead author of the chapter on Adaptation and Sustainable Development in the third assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and was the lead author of the chapter on Adaptation and Mitigation in the IPCC's fourth assessment report. His current focus is on supporting the engagement of the Least Developed Countries in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. He is researching the least developed countries' vulnerability to climate change and the impact of adaptation measures. Prior to becoming a senior associate, Saleem was a senior fellow with IIED, and was also previously director of the Climate Change research group. Navroz K Dubash is a Professor at the Centre for Policy Research, a New Delhi based think-tank and an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, NUS. He has been actively engaged in debates on climate change, air quality, energy and water as a researcher, policy advisor and activist for over 25 years. Navroz has been a Coordinating Lead Author for the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and has advised Indian government policy-making on climate change, energy, and air and water policy over the last decade. In the early 1990s, he helped establish the global Climate Action Network as its first international coordinator.

CPR is delighted to launch a new series titled, Road to COP27 as part of India Speak: The CPR Podcast. Hosted by Navroz Dubash (Professor, Initiative on Climate, Energy and Environment, CPR), this series will bring leading experts in the lead up to Conference of the Parties (COP) 27, taking place from 6-18 November 2022 at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. In the first episode of the series, Dubash speaks to Harald Winkler (Professor in PRISM, School of Economics at the University of Cape Town) on global stocktake of the Paris Agreement (GST) and its importance for climate mitigation and adaptation. They reflect on the conversations at the recently concluded Technical Dialogue, a core activity of the GST process that facilitates meaningful conversations between experts and country representatives, and how gaps in implementation of the Paris Agreement can be bridged. The episode also explores the key focus areas of this year's COP including the debate on loss and damage. About the speakers: Harald Winkler is a Professor in PRISM, School of Economics at the University of Cape Town (UCT). His research interests are at the intersection of sustainable development and climate change mitigation. His academic publications can be accessed on Scopus. Specific focus areas for future research include equity and inequality between and within countries; just transitions; the global stock-take; and low emission development strategies. Harald is joint Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Climate Policy, a member of the South African and African Academies of Science, a coordinating lead author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and a member of the SA delegation to the negotiations under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and one of two co-facilitators of the technical dialogue of the Global Stocktake under the Paris Agreement. Navroz K Dubash is a Professor at the Centre for Policy Research, a New Delhi based think-tank and an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, NUS. He has been actively engaged in debates on climate change, air quality, energy and water as a researcher, policy advisor and activist for over 25 years. Navroz has been a Coordinating Lead Author for the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and has advised Indian government policy-making on climate change, energy, and air and water policy over the last decade. In the early 1990s, he helped establish the global Climate Action Network as its first international coordinator.

In the sixth episode of CPR's series titled, Spotlight South Asia, we analyse the developments in Bangladesh. Hosted by Senior Fellow, Sushant Singh, this series features leading experts from India's neighborhood to make sense of the political, economic and social developments in these countries and what they mean for India. Our guest for this episode is Syed Akhtar Mahmood, an economist and former lead Private Sector Specialist in the World Bank Group where he worked on private sector development for three decades. His interests include trade, competitiveness, investment climate, mechanics of policy reforms and political economy. In the 1990s, he worked extensively in the transitional economies of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe on state-owned enterprise reforms and privatization. Akhtar Mahmood and Sushant discuss the economic situation in Bangladesh and the dependence of the country's economy on textile manufacturing. Akhtar Mahmood speaks about the measures that Bangladesh adopted to cope up with the social indicators like public health and education in the pandemic as well as to mitigate the risks of climate change. What are the big challenges to democracy in the country? What has been the impact of modern technology on Bangladesh society? How are Bangladesh's economic ties with China and do these ties dominate the overall relationship between the two countries? Akhtar Mahmood and Sushant explore these questions. Finally, they discuss how today's India looks from Bangladesh.

In the fifth episode of CPR's new series titled, Spotlight South Asia, we analyse the developments in Afghanistan. Hosted by Senior Fellow, Sushant Singh, this series features leading experts from India's neighborhood to make sense of the political, economic and social developments in these countries and what they mean for India. Our guest for this episode is Mirwais Balkhi, a visiting scholar at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Services. From 2018 to 2020, he served as the minister of education of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Earlier, Balkhi served as Afghanistan's Deputy Ambassador to India. Balkhi holds a PhD in international relations with a specialisation in West Asia from Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India. He has published numerous academic articles both in English and Persian. Mirwais and Sushant discuss the changes in Afghanistan in the past one year, and whether the collapse in the country is economic, social or political. They discuss if the country is facing a humanitarian crisis and the nature of government and politics in Afghanistan. Do Afghans feel let down by the international community? Have the Taliban changed from what they were earlier? What is the big change in Afghan society in the past 10 years? What role can India play in Afghanistan? Mirwais and Sushant explore these questions.

In the fourth episode of CPR's new series titled, Spotlight South Asia, we analyze the developments in Bhutan. Hosted by Senior Fellow, Sushant Singh, this series features leading experts from India's neighborhood to make sense of the political, economic and social developments in these countries and what they mean for India. Our guest for this episode is Tenzing Lamsang, the Editor of The Bhutanese, a private newspaper in Thimphu, Bhutan. He is also the President of the Media Association of Bhutan. Tenzing and Sushant draw a comparison between pre-pandemic and post-pandemic Bhutan. They discuss the economic situation in the country, particularly keeping tourism and hydropower, the two big economic earners for the country, as their focus. Tenzing also shares about the culture in Bhutan, what the customs and traditions are like. How are the social indicators holding up? Has democracy gotten embedded in the country? Has the influx of social media impacted journalism? How does today's India look from Bhutan? Sushant and Tenzing also explore these questions. Finally, Tenzing comments on whether Bhutan sees China with a sense of fear or opportunity.

In the third episode of CPR's new series titled, Spotlight South Asia, we analyse the developments in Nepal. Hosted by Senior Fellow, Sushant Singh, this series features leading experts from India's neighborhood to make sense of the political, economic and social developments in these countries and what they mean for India. Our guest for this episode is Amish Raj Mulmi, an editor and writer based out of Kathmandu in Nepal. He is the author of the book, “All Roads Lead North: Nepal's Turn to China”. Amish and Sushant discuss the economic situation in Nepal after two years of pandemic and if it is comparable to other South Asian countries like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan. They talk about the condition of tourism and remittances in the country. Amish explains the two agreements with the US that have become controversial in Nepal and the reasons behind this controversy. He also comments on the Nepal-China relationship in the light of the recent visit of the Nepalese foreign minister to meet his Chinese counterpart. The discussion revolves around various important questions about Nepal and its relationship with other South Asian countries. What is the political situation in Nepal, how are the social indicators in the country holding up? Has the increase in the Nepal army's strength and its role in the democratic setup changed the political landscape in some manner? Finally, they discuss how today's India looks from Nepal.

In the second episode of CPR's new series titled, Spotlight South Asia, we analyse the developments in Pakistan. Hosted by Senior Fellow, Sushant Singh, this series features leading experts from India's neighborhood to make sense of the political, economic and social developments in these countries and what they mean for India. Our guest for this episode is Mosharraf Zaidi, a Pakistani public policy professional and the Founder and CEO of Tabadlab, an Islamabad-based policy think-tank. Moshraff and Sushant discuss Pakistani politics and how it has transpired in 2022, including the role of the army and the judiciary. They discuss the troubling economic situation in the country and how the Pakistani economy can be put on a high growth path. They also talk about the social indicators like health and education in the country after the pandemic. Talking about the internal security situation in Pakistan, Moshraff and Sushant focus on the negotiation with Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in the erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Area. Finally, they discuss the possibility of a better India-Pakistan relationship and if China will play a major role in it.

CPR is delighted to launch a new series titled Spotlight South Asia as part of its podcast, India Speak. Hosted by Senior Fellow, Sushant Singh, this series features leading experts from India's neighborhood to make sense of the political, economic and social developments in these countries and what they mean for India. In the first episode of this series, we analyse the developments in Sri Lanka. Our guest is Dilrukshi Handunnetti, an international award winning investigative journalist and a lawyer. She has worked extensively across South Asia and her work has appeared in leading platforms like the Guardian, New York Times, Al Jazeera and Mongabay. She works closely with media rights and human rights organizations with a particular focus on gender. She is the Co-Convener of the South Asian Women in Media, Sri Lanka Chapter and functions as the Executive Director of the Colombo-based Center for Investigative Reporting. Dilrukshi and Sushant talk about the current economic situation in Sri Lanka- how and when things went wrong. They discuss the failure of institutional checks and balances and the reasons behind this. Dilrukshi also shares takeaways from the protests and talks about the widespread participation of the people of Sri Lanka. She also shares a Sri Lankan perspective on the India of today. Finally, they discuss how the decline of Sri Lanka is a tragedy for the whole of South Asia and how the country is keeping its hope alive in such a critical and challenging time.

In the final episode of CPR's special series as part of Azaadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav on the Indian Civil Services (ICS), our host, Yamini Aiyar (President and Chief Executive, CPR) speaks with Dr KP Krishnan (Honorary Research Professor, CPR and Former Civil Servant) about the relationship between Indian democracy and the civil services and the changing dynamics between the politician and the civil servant. Aiyar and Krishnan discuss the politicisation of the bureaucracy and how it can be made more accountable. They explore the deepening of democracy and the federal contestation between the Centre and the states. Finally, they discuss how the Centre engages and communicates with the states and districts, and what this means for the fundamental structure of the civil services.

In the third episode of CPR's special series as part of Azaadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav on the Indian Civil Services (ICS), our host, Yamini Aiyar (President and Chief Executive, CPR) is joined by Dr KP Krishnan (Honorary Research Professor, CPR and Former Civil Servant) to discuss the ailing framework of India's steel frame and the implications of economic transitions on the direction of ICS reforms. Aiyar and Krishnan discuss the frame of reference within which the discourse of reform has taken place and the direction that reforms ought to take, the changing role of the state and the nature of the skills required to address this. They also reflect on domain expertise in the civil services, the differences between general administrative governance skills and more substantial subject expertise and the public interest element of the civil services.

In the second episode of CPR's special series as part of Azaadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav on the Indian Civil Services (ICS), our host, Yamini Aiyar (President and Chief Executive, CPR) is joined by Dr KP Krishnan (Honorary Research Professor, CPR and Former Civil Servant) to discuss the shifts in the design of the ICS, whether explicitly through policy changes or implicitly, in adapting to the complex social and political challenges of the country. Aiyar and Krishnan discuss the impact and significance of the changes to the ICS. They discuss the policy of age limits, reservation, promotions, recruitment sizes, cadre allocation and the structural changes that were brought about by the 73rd and 74th Amendments. They also discuss the growing trend to break the IAS monopoly by introducing other parts of the All India Services in response to the growing vacancies in the central cadre.

In a special episode of India Speak: The CPR Podcast, Patha Mukhopadhyay (Senior Fellow, CPR) is joined by Rohan Samarajiva (Chair, LIRNEasia) to discuss the ongoing Sri Lankan economic crisis. Samarajiva sheds light on the current situation and the factors that led to it, shedding light on whether the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict became the last straws in contributing to this crisis. They also discuss the inherent strengths of the Sri Lankan economy and polity and whether these strengths can potentially be leveraged to address the situation. Finally, they discuss the role India has played thus far and what it can potentially do to help resolve the economic crisis.

In a special series of India Speak: The CPR Podcast as part of Azadi ka Amrit Mohtasav, Yamini Aiyar (President and Chief Executive, CPR) is joined by Dr KP Krishnan (Honorary Research Professor, CPR and Former Civil Servant) to discuss the structure of Indian Civil Services (ICS) and its evolution since its inception as a replacement of the Imperial Civil Service, founded by the British empire in the period between 1858-1947. In this episode, Aiyar and Krishnan discuss the structure of the ICS as articulated in the Indian Constitution, the inheritance of the colonial structure from the British and the evolution of its design to support a modern nation. They unpack key design features of the ICS including its all India character, dual control, distinction from the state cadres, political neutrality and more. They also address the federal dynamics of India, the balancing act between accountability and allocation of the state and central governments and the frustrations of the generalist civil servants as they respond to the complexities of 21st-century policymaking.

The evidence from the recently released report by the Working Group III of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a clear wake-up call for humanity. In this episode of India Speak: The CPR Podcast, Dr Navroz Dubash, Professor, CPR and Coordinating Lead Author for Chapter 13 ('National and sub-national policies and institutions') & Co-author of the Summary of Policymakers speaks to Dr Shonali Pachauri, Senior Research Scholar, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and Lead Author for Chapter 2 ('Emissions trends and drivers') to understand this report and what it means for the world. Dubash and Pachauri unpack the drafting and approval process of the IPCC Working Group III and delve into the chapters to help us understand what the report signifies. They shed light on the concept of equity and differentiated responsibility of countries, particularly those that are starting at a lower level of development. They also discuss the scope of the recommendations, their hopes from the report and the need to take urgent action to address the climate crisis.

In this episode of India Speak:The CPR Podcast, our host Sushant Singh, Senior Fellow, CPR is joined by Hu Shisheng, Senior Research Fellow and Director, Institute for South Asian Studies, China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR) to understand the Chinese view of India and the Indo-China border crisis. Sharing takeaways from his paper, Shisheng unpacks the drivers behind India's 'tough' policy on China and the perceived shifts in Indian foreign policy. With the border crisis going on for over 23 months, Singh and Shisheng discuss the way forward to resolve this crisis and how China seeks to balance India's concerns in order to begin post-COVID economic relations. Following Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi's visit to South Asia, they also discuss the reasons for this visit, whether it was successful for the Chinese and the regional issues that limit Sino-India ties. Finally, Singh and Shisheng analyse the US factor in these ties and its future if India continues to be a part of the QUAD. Link to the paper, The Behavioural Logic Behind India's Tough Foreign Policy Toward China by Hu Shisheng: http://www.cicir.ac.cn/UpFiles/file/20201103/6373999766705249491072987.pdf

In the latest episode as part of the special series on India-China relations for India Speak: The CPR Podcast, our host, Sushant Singh (Senior Fellow, CPR) is joined by Kanak Mani Dixit (Nepali Publisher, Editor and Writer) to understand India-China ties through China's relationship with Nepal. In this episode, Singh and Dixit discuss Nepal's current relations with China after the recent visit by Chinese Foreign Minister and State Councillor, Wang Yi. They uncover the main drivers of this relationship, how it contrasts with Nepal-India ties and the Nepalese view of the China-India border crisis. Dixit sheds light on the Chinese contentions over the Nepal-US Millennium Challenge Corporation project, his critique of the Nepalese political and bureaucratic class and their 'courting' of the Chinese as a counterweight to India. Finally, they compare the foreign policies of South Asian countries and discuss why the region has failed to take off, particularly with the failure of experiments like SAARC. Find Kanan Mani Dixit's article in the Nepal Times as mentioned in the episode here, https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/fixing-the-broken-parts-in-nepal-china-ties/

In the sixth episode of the special series on India-China ties as part of India Speak: The CPR podcast, our host, Sushant Singh (Senior Fellow, CPR) is joined by Arne Westad, a renowned scholar of Modern, International & Global History and Elihu Professor of History, Yale University to discuss the historical and political aspects of the relationship between the two neighbours. Westad unpacks whether the relationship between the United States (US) and China can be called the new Cold War and whether such a comparison is accurate. Singh and Westad also discuss China's development since the 1970s, the trajectory of economic reforms and the shifts in its foreign policy. They also discuss the evolution and leadership of the People's Liberation Army, the reasons driving the India-China border crisis and the best way for India to deal with it.

In the fifth episode of the our special series on India-China relations as part of India Speak: The CPR Podcast, our host, Sushant Singh (Senior Fellow, CPR) is joined by Cindy Yu (Broadcast Editor, The Spectator) to discuss the socio-cultural and political aspects of India-China ties. Born in Nanjing, China, Yu helps us to understand modern contemporary China from a personal and professional perspective. Together Yu and Singh discuss India's relevance in Chinese households, Chinese education and propaganda and the popularity of Bollywood in the country. They discuss why, despite being physical neighbours, the people of India and China have been distant, the issue of Tibet and the Dalai Lama, Hong Kong and the atrocities in Xinjiang. Finally, Yu sheds light on the shifts in China's foreign policy, President Xi's personality, Han Nationalism and the Great Firewall of China.

In the fourth episode of a special series on China, our host Sushant Singh (Senior Fellow, CPR) is in conversation with Rana Mitter (Author and Professor, History and Politics of Modern China & Director of the University China Centre, University of Oxford) to breakdown the historical and political aspects of China-India relations. Mitter helps us understand China's contemporary policy by looking at its ancient and modern history. They explore China's lingering insecurities of Japan's invasion in 1930-40's, its projection of never having invaded a country and the geopolitical realities of having over 14 international borders and significant maritime exposure. Singh and Mitter discuss China's view of the 1962 border conflict, the driver behind the shift in Chinese foreign policy and how specific factors of this policy would be applied differently for the West. Finally, they debate the significance of the Quad, increased militarisation of the Indian ocean, India's trade restrictions in comparison to China's economic success, and the evolution of India's soft power.

In a fast changing situation in Europe, with Russian aggression into Ukraine, India finds itself walking a tightrope with its values and principles on one hand and interests on the other. India's vote in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has particularly attracted global attention. To decode the complexity of the Russian-Ukraine crisis and its implications for India, Sushant Singh, Senior Fellow, CPR is joined by Shyam Saran, Senior Fellow, CPR and Former Indian Foreign Secretary on this episode of India Speak: The CPR Podcast. Together they unpack India's interests at stake, including the safe evacuation of Indian students, India's relations with Russia, Ukraine, the US and most importantly, the need to keep all the communications channels open. Singh and Saran discuss the new shift in the international balance of the post Cold War/World War II order with NATO and the European Union (EU) undergoing significant changes in response to the current crisis. They also discuss the potential threat of a Pakistan-China-Russia alliance, implications of the UNSC vote on India-US ties, the QUAD and the Indo-Pacific, Russia's place in the international order and the best outcome from this crisis.

In the third episode of our series, hosted by Sushant Singh (Senior Fellow, CPR), featuring leading experts on the various facets of Sino-India relations, we are joined by Taylor Fravel (Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science & Director, Security Studies Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology) to discuss the strategic aspects of Sino-India relations. Singh and Fravel unpack the relevance of the Chinese strategic guidelines for India and the significance of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) ground forces in a challenge against India. They also discuss the concept of active defence and the current PLA deployment at the Indian border, what could prompt Chinese aggression and its definition of a red line. Fravel also sheds light on China's domestic affairs, the Galwan incident and increase of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sponsored nationalism. Finally, Singh and Fravel unpack the breakdown of the India-China SOPs that had been held for over three decades, the events in Doklam, China's intentions for the border crisis and what we can expect in the future.

TranscriptSushant: Hello, and welcome to India Speak, a podcast by the Center for Policy Research. I am Sushant Singh, senior fellow at CPR. This is the second episode of our series featuring leading experts and academics, on the many facets of Sino-India relations. Some of them will be looking at the historical side of things, while others will focus on the strategic facets. Today, we will be discussing the military aspects, looking at the China's People Liberation Army, and what it means for India and to do that our guest today is Dennis Blasko, an independent analyst, and former senior Military fellow at the National Defense University in Washington DC, a retired Lieutenant Colonel of the US Army with 23 years of service as a Military Intelligence Officer, and foreign area officer specializing in China. He has served at the Defense Intelligence Agency and office of Special Operations. From 1992 to 1996 he was an Army Attache in Beijing and Hong Kong. Dennis has written numerous articles, and book chapters on the Chinese Military, including his book “The Chinese Army Today, Tradition and Transformation for the 21st century”, which remains an essential reading even after more than 15 years. Dennis, welcome to India Speak.Dennis: Thank you very much for the invitation.Sushant: Let me begin with your book Dennis where you explained who forms the PLA, what it is, what it is not, where exactly is the People's Liberation Army, how will it fight, what its doctrine is, what equipment it uses, how it trains, and how it interacts with the larger society. Essentially your book argues that the PLA is an Army of the revolution, it owes its loyalty to the party, and political guidance plays an important part in the professional character of the Chinese Military. What is the best way to explain the uniqueness of the PLA and the differences that it has vis-a- a-vis militaries from other democratic states, like the United States, United Kingdom, France, and even India for that matter?Dennis: Well, Thank you. The PLA is definitely a political Army. However, I would say for the past 30-40 years it's been less and less of a revolutionary Army, and becoming much more professional as it has modernised since its last war, last major conflict in 1979. But the main point is that it remains an arm of the Chinese Communist Party, and they have huge infrastructure and personnel to maintain that party control over the Army. However, over the past four decades of modernisation, it has become much more professional and modernised in terms of its equipment and doctrine.Sushant: So, would it be fair to say that PLA is an untested army? Having fought the last war against Vietnam in 1979, four decades ago. I ask this because many people consider this as the weakness of the PLA, especially after the recent theaterisation under the tenure of President Xi, about 7-8 years ago, pointing out that this military has not been tested at all.Dennis:Right. It hasn't been tested in actual combat, since the 1979 war, but it is important to understand the situation in Ladakh, in Aksai Chin, that for most of the 80s, there was a low-level border conflict simmering on the Sino-Vietnamese border. During that time, they rotated its troops in and out for many years from all over the country to get some experience getting shot at. What is happening today at Aksai Chin, South China Sea, East China Sea is similar to that, but without as much gunfire and actual conflict. The whole point of these deployments and activities is to pursue national objectives, given to the PLA from the Chinese Communist Party and the government. While it hasn't been a part of a major conflict, it is trying its best to remain relevant through various deployments and training. It continues to constantly improve training over the last couple decades with the type training it undertakes. It's not tested in actual conflict, but some of the things that we often think may be a problem such as the relationship of the commander to the political commissars or instructors might have been worked out as the situation seems to be in place for decades. I think they look at the political relationship between the Army to the party and between commanders and the political system, as a strength.Sushant:With this theaterisation model and this restructuring that has taken place, can training or various exercises replicate something that you may face in real combat? Because theaterisation is a very different kind of structure of the PLA. Dennis: Yeah actually, this is what we can see today in Aksai Chin. Their actual deployments look a lot different when they are training, down on the border & near the Line of Actual Control; they are deployed much differently than what we see them doing on television and in photographs. They look like they are taking this seriously – digging in, spacing themselves out and they are deployed in much wider areas than they would be normally. I think they have learnt some lessons on what happens if someone starts shooting at you. It is quite different, even the training they do, even the force on force, the red versus blue with the laser identifiers, the pop-up smoke when people get hit, we do the same thing at our national training center. It looks very similar but a lot of what I see with respect to their training away from the border training looks quite different from what I see them deployed on the ground in the very difficult terrain in the Himalayas.Sushant: Before I get to Aksai Chin I wanted to go back to something which you said about the strength and weaknesses of the PLA, you spoke about the training, the deployment, the logistics. How would you compare the modern PLA of the 21st century or of 2022 with the US military or with the Indian armed forces? I hear a lot from my former colleagues in the Indian Military about the quality of Chinese infrastructure, the pace of structure construction, the pace at which they construct roads, tracks, bridges, habitat is something to be seen. The induction of modern equipment into the PLA, their mobilisation time, the pace of their mobilisation, their logistic support. While they are not quite sure about the quality of the PLA soldiers who are roughing it out in the winters, they are also not sure about their relationship with the political commissars or the military commanders. How will you characterise these strengths and weaknesses of the PLA as they exist today?Dennis: One of the things that I try to emphasise is not to mirror image. I know, I hope I know, I may not know the United States military as well as I did when I retired a long time ago. But, it's a mistake to look at what the PLA is doing and say “well, if we do something like that therefore it must be just as good as us” and can operate on the battlefield in the same way that we would or would even want to operate in the same way as we would. The PLA is actually constructed much differently than the United States military. Even though reforms have come up with some aspects that are sort of like the United States, the more I look at the PLA and the entire Chinese Armed Forces, the more differences I see. Perhaps one of the biggest differences obviously is the funding. The PLA budget, no matter how you calculate it, is a fraction, maybe a third of the United States defense budget now. Yet the PLA, the people's armed police and the militia are many many times larger than the United States military. One of the things that they are constantly talking about is trying to conserve money and spend their money wisely. This leads to another element that is consistent even today when its reform started years ago, in that PLA modernisation is subordinate to but coordinated with economic development. One of the things they learned from the Soviet Union during the late '80s and '90s when the Soviets spent themselves to death & they didn't have an economy that could support their population. The Chinese have learnt from that, the defense spending in China does not interfere with the civilian economy. They also look to the civilian economy to support PLA modernisation and we can see that happening everywhere. So, despite everything that is going on they are trying to do it on a shoestring budget.Sushant: Dennis, if you are comparing it with the US Military and that's why you're talking about a shoestring budget but when compared to a country like India which is economically much weaker the PLA man to man spends far greater than what India spends. So, in that sense India would be in bigger trouble.Dennis: Yes and as I said, I haven't studied Indian Military so I am not this familiar with it, but from your perspective, it is much different.Sushant: Yes, because from our perspective the Chinese economy is five times Indian economy, their defense budget is four to five times our defence budget, they are spending man to man more than we are spending, they are producing many more military platforms within that country while we are not producing that much equipment within our country, we are the biggest importer of military platforms globally. The advantage that the United States Military has over PLA, perhaps the PLA has over the Indian Military to some extent.Dennis: Yes perhaps that's a good reason why we should all be happy that the Himalayas are between the two countries. Because it is such difficult terrain. But, I am not quite sure what the Indian reserves are like. If you have got a system of the reserve units.Sushant: We do have a system for reserve Units but we don't need to use reserves, reserves are not called into service. I don't remember in the last many decades reserves being called into service at any point of time. Dennis: Right. For example, here in the United States, especially over the last two wars, in Afghanistan and Iraq, we used our reserves almost interchangeably with our active-duty forces. The PLA reserves are much less advanced and really would not contribute in the same way as the United States reserves. The PLA reserves may be a little more advanced in development than the Indian but they are quite different from the United States.Sushant: Dennis, getting back to what everybody is talking about, the Sino-India border crises in Aksai Chin or Ladakh in the high Himalayas. Based on your extensive reading of the Chinese Military media and studying publicly available satellite imagery. Do you now have some understanding of what happened on the disputed border starting in the summer of 2020 and more importantly, why did it happen? Firstly, what happened & why did it happen?Dennis: The why is much more difficult but first it's important to start with, the PLA army is broken down for this purposes into two major elements, one is the border defense forces which are deployed along China's border and Coastal Defense forces and I estimate there are at least a hundred thousand, maybe up to two hundred thousand border defense troops whose main job is to monitor the border, do some initial reporting, fighting delay any invasion that comes on, but the bulk of the PLA army is in the mobile operational forces- the divisions, and the brigades, the group armies that are stationed further back from the border. In the Aksai chin, I see two permanently deployed border defense regiments through that area. One regiment in the Hotanprefecture in the military sub-district and another regiment in the Nagari or Ali military sub-district prefecture, Tibet. And, an interesting anomaly is that the Nagari sector of Tibet is actually under the command of the Nanjiang Southern Xinjiangmilitary district, and there is a big dip into Tibet, it's a big bite chunk that's cut out that is under command of the Xinjiangmilitary district and Nanjiang military district. I believe that what initially happened is that the border defense forces, especially up in theGalwan valley, were involved in the June 15th conflict. It was specifically one regiment and I think one battalion that was patrolling in theGalwan valley. Honestly, I credit both sides for the discipline that they showed because both sides were carrying weapons. They got into a major scuffle, but no shots were fired, which I think says something about the discipline on both sides. At the time, there was talk that there was change over between the units, between the battalions with that regiment. But, for some reason, I don't believe, based on no evidence, but I don't believe that there was an order from Beijing or Xinjiang or Nanjiangto go out and kill people. I believe it was units, a lot of people in very close proximity that started pushing and shoving each other that got out of hand, but eventually both sides were disciplined enough to pull back and withdraw. At the same time or just before that happened, there had been exercises in the area but not in the Galwan valley, because that's a terrible place to do military exercises, but to the north up in the Dapsong plains and beyond and perhaps to the south east in Nagari, there were out of area units coming in and doing exercises. At the same time, there were some of these out of area units, and I believe they were the initial forces that came from Xinjian, Nanjiang, the Sixth (what is now combined armed division) started moving forces into the sector south of Galwan. Eventually, they went into Galwan, but they started going into Kongka (the hotspring region), then the north of Pangong Lake. I am not sure when they went south of Pangong lake but they eventually showed up at the south of the Pangong lake. Anyway, they started moving in these divisional elements from Xinjiang and over the next six months poured in what I would consider probably an entire division. Some 10,000 people spread through these four/ five sectors from Galwan to hot spring to Pangong Lake to Spanggur Lake & set up these encampments. The most important thing is and one of the things that is very useful for identification is that the encampments are generally far apart, the sectors often are 35 miles apart. So that you can't move troops back and forth between the sectors but they have come in with artillery, and artillery can often support each other from the sectors and it is by seeing the artillery that I can make an estimate of what size units are there. But after looking at the available Google Earth images from October to January and early February of last year, I estimated that a full division had been deployed there, but it was deployed to stay, not to go south or East or West. It was deployed to hold territory and as they say create facts on the ground. The important thing is that they were dug in by engineers and probably reinforced by engineers to do the digging. Perhaps, some civilian engineers came in to dig out these camps, that were all in defensive positions spread out for miles and miles in the Galwan valley. There is a regiment, I estimate that is 23 miles from the Line of Actual Control and in Pangong Lake, they have two regiments, combined arms regiment supported by firepower or artillery regiment. It's spread for almost 15 miles along the Pangong lake. So, those are defensive positions meant to hold territory.Sushant: You know Dennis couple of questions you said this is a defensive formation, you spoke about the border defense forces, so what is the significance of the border defense forces? Are they as well trained as the regular operational troops? Are they poorly trained, poorly equipped, less equipped, are they paramilitary, gendarmerie, what are they? And the second question is, were there any offensive formations there which could have gone and taken some territory on the Indian side, if the need arose.Dennis: The border defense forces are generally much lighter than the mobile operational units. They are mostly infantry, they may have some heavy machine guns, they might have some mortars. Few regiments have older armed personnel carriers. In some places, coastal defense will have artillery but generally, they are spread out in company-size positions miles and miles apart. Their mission is to patrol the border and man outposts and observe things. So they would be observing what the Indian side is doing and they might be reacting to that, and as you know you, have over the past decades established protocols for how to patrol, where to patrol, how to identify yourselves, how to carry your weapons and things like that. But these people, the border defense units, I would estimate probably throughout that entire region the two prefectures probably are two regiments amounting to some four thousand forty-five hundred troops. That would include the patrol bulks on thePangong lake. So you have got about forty-five hundred of those troops to spread out over the border of two hundred and fifty miles, a very long border, and then superimposed upon that are these outside units from Nanjiang (the division). So, what has happened is in many places, the out of area units came in, reinforced and built camps around existing border defense units. Now, could any of those forces cross the LAC, attempt an offensive to take land well into what is established Indian territory – yes certainly, they could have tried, but as you know, this is a terrible terrain for mechanised movements. It will be very difficult to make those kinds of movements. If there were any sort of opposition with modern artillery or anti-tank weapons or air support – any sort of thrust into the other side's territory would be very vulnerable.Sushant: Dennis, based on your study of the Chinese military media, could you ascertain the reasons for the PLA doing what it did? Have you been able to see any analysis of that, any reasoning is given out anywhere?Dennis: I have not seen exactly why they have done that, and that would be a much higher-level party decision. You are familiar with the concept of the chicken and egg, which came first. The Indian side says the Chinese have been building their infrastructure along the border. The Chinese side says the Indians have been building their infrastructure along the border. So, who did it first? Both sides are improving their infrastructure and we are seeing now with this bridge that's been built across the Pangong lake.Sushant: Based on your assessment so what are the number of PLA troops including the border guarding forces, and the combined operational division. What is the approximate number of troops you would assess based on the encampments etc that the PLA has deployed in Aksai chin?Dennis:I look back to maybe 20 miles, 25 miles from the LAC back into Chinese territory and I see five sectors that I have mentioned before. I don't see the very the northern sectors of Depsang and I don't see the very southern sector of Demchok, but the five sectors that I see which is about 200 miles and then 20 -25 miles back when you include border defense, the division which I would estimate to be about ten thousand personnel, and then there are certainly non-divisional forces, engineers coming in. I have seen further back in Rutog, what I think is a long-range multiple rocket launcher battalion. I think there is artillery and there are probably some special operation forces. There are definitely some communications forces. There are a lot of transportation and support forces both from the region and then from the army and from the joint logistic support force. So, I would say there are probably about twenty thousand in total when you include the border defense, the division combined arms division, and the supporting forces.Sushant: But, Denis based on the military formations, areas, districts which are involved in the PLA side of the crisis. Do we have any knowledge of the commanders and their personalities who are involved. And has the recent restructuring made a difference to the way these things operate now and also how these commanders now operate?Dennis: At the operational level, you know the regimental commanders, the division commanders, we may know the names but, I don't know if we may know much about them. The Major General who is in charge of the Nanjiang military districts is the one who meets with your... Sushant: Core commander...Dennis: Yes. I would imagine you know him very well and I don't follow personalities that close. But, I believe that if I remember correctly he has been there for some sometime. Therefore, he has got a lot of experience in Xinjiang. There has been a lot of talk about the western theater, change of commands, having four commanders in a couple of years, and all that kind of stuff. The first change of command, a new guy came in without much experience in the region and he replaced somebody who had been in the region for a long time, and I think medical problems led to him leaving which brought in a third person who also didn't stay but a couple of months, and now finally, a fourth commander who has come in, who also has extensive experience. One of the problems with PLA changes of commands is that you never really know if the medical reasons are the real reasons for their departure, and there could be other reasons too. Right now, I believe that they do have in the chain of command people with extensive experience operating in Xinjiang because it is an anomaly, it's much different. Xinjiang forces did not undergo some kind of reforms that the vast majority of the rest of the PLA undertook. In Xinjiang, there are no group armies. The rest of the PLA is pretty much group armies, except for the Tibet Military district. So, there has been change and modernisation in Xinjiang but they still have both the border defense chain of command and the chain of command for the divisions and other supporting units, as they did before reform. I believe they have done that because of the unique situation, the huge expanses of land, and the harsh terrain throughout that area.Sushant: Dennis, just stepping back a bit, what is the political direction to the PLA now, particularly on Taiwan and on the South China Sea. I ask this because there is definitely a connection between what the PLA does on Taiwan or what the political direction in Taiwan is to what PLA does vis-a-vis India, because you know, if nothing happens to Taiwan then doing something to India allows the communist party to showcase itself as doing something for PLA. So, do we know something about the political direction the PLA has now on Taiwan and on the South China Sea?Dennis: I would say what we have seen in Aksai Chin is the army equivalent of what we have seen in the South China Sea, and opposite Taiwan. In the South China Sea, we primarily see a naval operation, a single service naval operation with the building of structures on the reefs and all that. Then against Taiwan, we see a more joint operation, both naval and airforce, heavy air force presence with all the flights mostly south of the island. But, both of these or all three of these different sectors or fronts as you might want to call them are being undertaken at the direction of the central military commission and the Chinese communist party. The PLA, in that regard is obeying the orders of the party, in their mind with Taiwan, it is to prevent further steps towards independence by Taiwan – in other words deterrence of Taiwan's independence. In the South China Sea, in many ways, it's similar to what's going on in Aksai chin. It's establishing realities on the surface and establishing military patrols in that region to reinforce their claims to the disputed areas. I don't see any of them building up an offensive deployment that would be necessary for a real war. For example, if you were to look at what's going on opposite Ukraine, you see concentrations of forces that are much different than what you see the PLA doing.Sushant: Dennis, one final question and then let me put you on the spot. Are there any signs of China and India going to war? Based on whatever you see, whatever you hear, whatever you analyse, or are we going to see something on the India border,as you just said earlier, what we saw of China from the Vietnam border, but with lesser kinetics may be less artillery shelling and fewer casualties than what we saw in 1979 and 1987 on the Vietnam border. My final question to you is, do you see a war or not?Dennis: No, I don't see a decision to go to war. The problem is the more all sides increase the tension, hype their soldiers up, and then send them out to do small unit patrols, I see the potential for escalation – something like what happened in June of 2020, where perhaps a platoon or a complete battalion size element clashes with the other side. There may not be immediate command and control withhigher headquarters, and things could spiral out of control and that's what worries me in all of these places – that a miscalculation, a mistake or misidentification could cause something much bigger. But if that does not happen, what I do see is the PLA digging in to stay in these encampments, in the sectors that I have described – they look like they are to stay for quite some time. Now, it's not infrastructure, it's not as expensive doing all of that as it is building facilities. So the good thing that I see between the Indian and Chinese sides is that at least they are having meetings. They may not amount to much, but at least you are talking. Talking is better than not talking. And, it is possible, the Generals who meet aren't going to make these decisions but if they are told by Delhi or Beijing to come to some sort of agreement, there could be a political way out of this. In all of these, both sides are going to have to make some concessions in some ways. I do see the Chinese, if there is no political resolution through negotiations, they are prepared to stay for a long time and rotate units in. To the best of my knowledge, I have only seen units coming from Xinjiangbut if they stay there for years on end, they may bring units from other places if it goes on that long. This to me is a very important test, not so much tactically about how they can fight, but about how they can actually live in such austere conditions, and support them with such  large deployments of forces for such extended periods of time. This is a very difficult logistics operation to keep that many people in the field, healthy and prepared to fight if necessary.Sushant: Dennis, that's something we look forward to about how the PLA behaves. I am happy to end on a very hopeful note, that things would probably look up and there would be a political solution to this crisis between two of Asia's biggest countries, two of Asia's biggest powers. Thank you so much Dennis for coming onto the podcast. Thank you once again.Thank You for Listening. For more information on our work, follow us on Twitter and log on to our website at https://cprindia.org/

Transcript:Sushant Singh00:09Hello and welcome to India Speak: the podcast by the Centre for Policy Research. I'm Sushant Singh, Senior Fellow at CPR. This is the first episode of our series featuring leading experts and academics on the many facets of Sino India relations. Some of them will be looking at the military side of things, while others will focus on the political facets. But today, we will be discussing the historical aspects, looking at China and its relationship with India through a historical lens. To do that, our guest today is a historian of modern China with research and teaching interest in social and economic history, history of science and statecraft, transnational history, and China- India history. Professor Arunabh Ghosh is the Associate Professor of Modern Chinese History at Harvard University. His first book, Making it Count: Statistics and Statecraft in the early People's Republic of China came out in 2020. It investigates how the early People's Republic of China state built a statistical capacity to know the nation through numbers. He has conducted research for the book in Beijing, Guangzhou, New Delhi and Kolkata Arunabh, welcome to India Speak.Arunabh Ghosh01:26Thank you Sushant for having me. And it's a real honor to be the first in this new series that CPR is organising. So thank you so much.Sushant Singh01:33Thank you. I'd like to begin with your book first, because you mentioned a collaboration between India and China on the statistical front that is hard to imagine today. It involves PC Mahalanobis of the ISI. Can you tell our listeners as to what this collaboration was about? And how do you discover that interesting nugget? And were there other collaborations also at around the same time that we don't know?Arunabh Ghosh01:56Great, thank you. Yeah, this is, this is always an intriguing sort of thing, because it was very surprising for me too actually because as you just mentioned, in your very generous introduction, the book that I've written is primarily about statistics in 1950s China. I didn't really expect to encounter such a strong India connection and an India connection that would help me understand crucial aspects of statistics and statistical work in 1950s China. So maybe first, I'll give you a sense of how I chanced upon this, and it really was quite a serendipitous kind of discovery. I think it was, while I was browsing issues of the People's Daily, that I encountered a photograph that showed Mahalanobis with the Chinese Premier, Zhou Enlai, and a bunch of other people. And then the small caption read, "Zhou Enlai host Mahalanobis for dinner". This completely blew me away, this was July of 1957, I had no expectation of something like this being possible. So then I started digging, and eventually discovered that this was actually part of a much more sustained series of exchanges that involve statistics. But why statistics? So what's interesting here is that on the Indian side, which I think a lot of our listeners will be familiar with, the Indian Statistical Institute and PC Mahalanobis, as its director, are central to this early phase of Indian history in terms of planning, in terms of placing statistics at the heart of planning. What Mahalanobis was famous for, not just in India, but globally, was the adoption and expansion of large scale randomised sample survey, this was a relatively new technology at that time. On the Chinese side, what's interesting is that after 1949, the Chinese had explicitly rejected any kind of statistical activity that relied on probabilistic methods, including large scale random sampling. So what happened was, over the first, say, five to eight years of the People's Republic of China from 1949, to about 1956-57, they relied on other means. And by this, I mean, primarily on exhaustive enumeration on attempts to essentially count everything to the final instance of its existence- the census method, if you will. And this as you can imagine, led to tremendous problems, especially in the agricultural sector. So, it was this chance meeting in 1956, when Zhou Enlai actually visits India, and he comes to the Indian Statistical Institute, and is kind of blown away by the work that he sees being done, and then invites Mahalanobis to come to China. This is a short episode where there is a real desire on the part of the Chinese statisticians to learn more about large scale random sampling, because they feel this might allow them to overcome the kinds of problems that they are encountering, because of this overt reliance on essentially the census method of counting everything exhaustively. So that's sort of in a nutshell, what happened and I traced this exchange from about, it's really intensive about 1956 to 59. With a lot of people going back and forth, and things like that. But, for the other part of your question, this is not the only instance of these kinds of exchanges. I think they were happening in other domains. I have recently published an article about who I think is the first Chinese scientist to get a PhD from an Indian University, from Lucknow University. He was a student of Birbal Sahni. But I'm collaborating with a range of other scholars, in particular by mining archival materials that were thus far not easily available, including actually, the recently declassified Nehru papers at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. And our hope is really to, to rediscover the actual breadth of exchanges that were going on in the 50s, beyond the sort of narrative of Indi Chini bhai bhai and sort of the cultural, diplomatic kind of exchanges, but much more substantive exchanges that are going on. So I think there is actually a lot more to discover. And what I found are essentially crumbs that should lead us to explore more.Sushant Singh05:41So were these exchanges Arunabh, were they facilitated by the state, were they driven by the state, both the Chinese state and the Indian state over these exchanges, like the Science one, you refer to that was happening primarily through Cambridge and Europe? Because Birbal Sahini was such a major prominent scientist in Asia at that point in time, and the Chinese wanted to collaborate with them. So were they driven by individuals or what they're driven by state, or were they driven by some other mechanics or processes?Arunabh Ghosh06:09Right, I think you find instances of both. There is certainly a very strong state element in many of these exchanges. Some of these, because of the sort of larger geopolitics of the moment, sort of the emergence of a certain kind of third world politics, or, you know, global south solidarity. I'm using these terms slightly, ahistorically, Global South wasn't used in the 1950s, but you know, this postcolonial moment, if you will. So there is a lot of state interest and an attempt to bring people from both China and India as part of, you know, bringing people from different parts of the post colonial world together. But, I think you have a lot of instances where there are other mechanisms at play. So the one that I just mentioned, and that you also brought up about the scientists, the Paleobotanist - that is about scientific networks, pre existing scientific networks, that then carry on into post 1945, 49, 47, into the 1950s. But you also have interesting transnational political movements that are emerging that have to do with emerging Cold War politics, but also have to do with an attempt at an institutional level to engage. So the ways in which people are thinking of establishing transnational institutions, like the UN, but for Asia, for instance. And here, there is some state support, but not necessarily it's driven by the state. So this might be individual's conceiving some kind of Asian Association, say, for the advancement of a particular area of knowledge. Then maybe someone like Nehru will get on board or Zhou Enlai will get on board and so on. But the impetus is coming from elsewhere. So I think part of the goal has to be to recognise the multiplicities of possibilities. With a small footnote or asterisk to this, of course, this is more true on the Chinese side than on the Indian side where, given the strong nature of the state in China, by this time already, at some point, it was necessary to get state approval, and that could be a harder process.That may have led to greater state involvement as part of getting that approval. On the Indian side, I think you see even more diversity.Sushant Singh06:15Any examples of these associations which you refer to which were pan-Asian associations?Arunabh Ghosh07:33So there were these very interesting discussions right after the establishment of the UN, to set up, under UNESCO and other organisations, sort of scientific networks in Asia. So people like Joseph Needham, and I'm blanking on a few of the other names who are involved, were in conversation with people on the Indian side, for instance, with people like Homi Bhabha at TIFR, DD Kosambi, and also with mathematicians at Tsinghua University and also later on after 1949 in Taiwan, about say, establish the Institute of Mathematical Research. Again, the idea was not just mathematics in terms of pure mathematics, but also in terms of how it applies to physics and research in the physical sciences, and so on. So things like that, which were sprouts if you will, did not lead anywhere. Mahalanobis himself wanted to set up a statistics association for Asia and the Pacific, I think I forgot the exact acronym. So there are two that come to mind immediately.Sushant Singh09:14Arunabh, when does this kind of collaboration and cooperation end? Is it the 1962 war? Is it 1959 when the border tensions started increasing? Or is it well before that, something else happened before that?Arunabh Ghosh09:28No, those are two hugely important moments. 1959 March, when the Dalai Lama escaped, I think is a huge moment, at least from a state to state perspective in terms of a cooling of enthusiasm. 1962, of course, then becomes like a major wedge. But it's important to also recognise the internal dynamics of these things. The 1950s is a very interesting period in Chinese history, with a lot of interesting upheavals that impact the intellectual world, the world of academia in very specific ways. So, intellectuals are targeted, for instance, in 1957 in the anti-writers movement. So those things also have an impact on the possibilities for these kinds of exchanges. So one has to be mindful of the international sort of bilateral kinds of relations, but also then the domestic developments that might impact this sort of engagement.Sushant Singh10:17Arunabh, there is something else you have written a lot about in the public domain - the inadequate scholarship on China and India? Can you give our listeners an overview of the kind of scholarship on China in modern times, you know, leading to the contemporary era? And also, what are the reasons for this inadequacy in studying China and India? Why have we not done better?Arunabh Ghosh10:36Right, this is a great question. It's a very big question. Before I get into the China studies, in India case, I should actually preface any response by saying there is a larger malaise in the Indian academia in terms of how we study and understand the rest of the world. So the China case is a very important case within a larger malaise, where I think we lack expertise on pretty much anything, including our neighbours, including the immediate neighbours in the South Asian context, where we haven't devoted adequate resources over the past several decades. But in the Chinese case, what's interesting is that you see a period of intense actual interest in the first half of the 20th century, a really important moment is the establishment of China Bhavan at Shanti Niketan, Tagore's University, that becomes the first research centre dedicated to studying China, primarily at that time studying ancient Chinese history – so, looking at the expansion of Buddhism in China and  looking at questions of linguistic and cultural exchange, things like that. But what's important about that moment from a research perspective, is that you have the establishment of the first dedicated China Studies library in India. And I think for any good research to take place, the necessary, but insufficient, of course, but necessary condition is a good research library. So that kernel was established in the 1930s. And during this time, I think the other thing to remember about sort of Indian engagement with China is that there is actually a tremendous amount of interest at the popular level where people are travelling back and forth, and there are stories of people travelling to China writing travelogues, often not in English, but in different vernacular languages that you can find. And some of these have begun to be translated now. So there are several in Bengali that have not been translated. But there are there are others,  there's essentially a memoir called Chīn Me Terah Mās (13 months in China), which was essentially a memoir of a British Indian Army soldier who spent time in China serving, if I remember correctly, during the Boxer Rebellion, and then he writes about it. So there was that kind of, I think, at a popular level, a certain kind of engagement. In terms of scholarship, I think you would expect that after 1947, after 1949, there would be a real investment. And there certainly was an attempt to bring about serious exchanges at a bilateral level. But you don't really see the kind of investment that you would expect. Given that, you know, this is India's largest neighbour. And similarly for China, this is China's largest neighbour, you see the establishment at China Bhavan and a few other places, an attempt to establish language programs. In the 1950s, they attempted to begin bilateral exchanges of students and things like that. But 1962 then becomes a huge, as I think many people recognise, sort of a huge stumbling block. But the irony in my opinion is that instead of leading, therefore, to a greater sort of investment in studying and understanding China, even if it is from a narrow perspective, why did we get what happened in 1962 so wrong? Why did the leadership, why didn't the intelligentsia, the sort of political elite that was informing the leadership, why did they get things so wrong? Instead of seeing greater engagement, greater desire to try and understand China, you saw sort of a retreat. So 1962 becomes this moment, I think, where you see not investment, but disinvestment in China studies, and that has in some ways lingered into the present, I feel, where China studies remains a fairly niche kind of subject, discipline or domain of knowledge to pursue. But that's at the meta or macro level. There are other things at the institutional and micro level that I think are also very important to recognise. So one of the things of course, I had mentioned library, the other thing that's absolutely essential in studying China, of course, is his mastery of the Chinese language. While mastery might be an extreme case, but at least a sufficient degree of competence, to engage with scholars in China, to engage with people in China, to read materials in Chinese, and so on. And what has developed in India and I think here, it's the expansion of a model that we find in JNU, but then that seems to have spread to other institutions in India as sort of best practices, is a real separation of the School of Languages where you have excellent teachers of Chinese and students who actually learn Chinese to a high degree of competence. And then places like SSS (School of Social Sciences) and the SIS (School of International Studies) that are then working on China substantively. You see a real divide here, so the people who do language don't engage in subject domain expertise, and vice versa. And this I think, over the long run has led to a sort of it has really debilitated this kind of area studies in India. So you have a range of China scholars now who were produced by JNU, and a handful of other institutions that cannot engage at the level that you would expect with material in Chinese, with scholars in China. And therefore I think it sort of hamstrings our ability to then understand the complexity of a country as large and as diverse as China is,Sushant Singh15:46Arunabh, I understand that the shadow of 1962 looms large, but after 1962, there is 1988 when Rajiv Gandhi goes and meets Deng Xiaoping, then there is 2004 and this current century that we are in, by now things should have changed, things should have improved. Why didn't anything change in the last 30-40 years?Arunabh Ghosh16:06Yeah, I fully agree things should have changed dramatically. And why they haven't is a bit of a mystery, but also not entirely in the sense that I think a lot of this area studies impetus. Unfortunately, we have enough historical instances of this and the best example is the evolution of area studies in the US often emerges from the recognition of the state, that these are strategic areas that we need expertise in, and then the funnelling in of resources. But what's interesting in the US case, and I think this would have had a salutary sort of effect if it had been pursued in India, is that yes, you create sort of a very narrow, strategically focused kind of expertise, but in supporting area studies broadly, you also provide grounds for a much wider engagement. So in the US, you see not only this sort of foreign policy and sort of contemporary China focused academic community, but a much wider community that has expertise in China now. Something like that could have happened in India, if there was concerted state support starting after 1988, as you said, or even more recently. Now, that did not happen. I think this is a failure of leadership in many ways. Again, as I mentioned earlier, it speaks to a broader failure of higher education in India. I think the Chinese case is an example, China studies is an example of this. Another footnote to this, of course, is that there are interesting developments more recently now, with private universities trying to sort of establish some kind of presence in China studies. It's very early, it's not clear how successful they will be. But I think it represents a recognition at least from, if not the state itself, then from society, more broadly speaking, that we need to know more as a society. So you know, there are private institutions that have set up centres for China studies that are trying to set up MA programs, and things like that, but it's very early days still, in that process.Sushant Singh17:55Arunabh, you brought up western area studies model. Most Indian scholars use Western research and Western scholars to understand and study modern China and obviously, these in the field of national security and diplomacy as well. To your mind, what are the dangers of doing this for Indian scholars and for Indian policymakers? This intermediation of knowledge through a Western prism? What are the dangers of this?Arunabh Ghosh18:18Yeah, I think this is hugely important. And it speaks very much to things we were just discussing in terms of, you know, an ability to work with primary materials ourselves, inability to form our own conclusions based on our reading, as opposed to reading essentially someone else's interpretation of events or documentary evidence. At a general level, I think that the danger is that essentially, in being second hand consumers of knowledge, and then formulating our own sort of interpretations, we are giving up, in some ways, a certain kind of agency in terms of formulating the questions and frameworks themselves. Which is not to say that all of the existing work that emerges primarily in the Anglophone, but say the West, broadly speaking, on China is useless – most of it's actually very interesting and very useful. But it is in some ways, granting over our ability to ask our own questions. And I think asking those questions with, you know, particular contexts that are South Asia specific or India specific in mind. These don't have to do with bilateral relations only, these have to do with a whole range of things that are going on in India right now, whether it's urban policy, whether it's health policy, I mean, Omicron and COVID is a great example. Right? How do we think about policy in India, vis a vis other places, including China? So I think if we formulate the questions, then the frameworks, the way in which we look for evidence, all of that follows. So I think in some ways, there's a kind of path dependence that emerges from where you start. And so that is, I think, at a very broad methodological level the danger here. More specifically, I think if you take a look at specific instances, then of course it is that you are essentially relying upon other strategic goals with which a particular policy piece may have been written, and then you have to try and interpret that and make it applicable to say, the Indian case, as might be what happens a lot and that again, is in some ways a needless exercise. You're not treating it as a data point, but as essentially, largely informing your perspective altogether.Sushant Singh20:30Would it be fair to say that even though India and China have been neighbours, they have been and remain distant in that sense. They've never been neighbours? They've been physical neighbours, but they've not been neighbours in other senses. Is that true?Arunabh Ghosh20:41Yeah. So this is I think, yes, the short answer is yes. But there is a footnote or a complicated answer that would be no. The yes is in terms of contemporary nation states, I think the ways in which the Republic of India and the People's Republic of China see each other.  The Himalayas are not just a physical barrier, you know, they are a barrier in other ways. But if you think in a slightly longer historical sense, then people from both subcontinents, if you think of East Asia, China and India, as subcontinental sort of spaces, have been meeting and intermingling in other parts of the world. So Southeast Asia is a great example of this. The Caribbean is another great example of this. And of course, now much more recently, actually, the US is a good example of this, because you have roughly, I think, 5 million people of Indian descent in the US and roughly 5 million people of Chinese descent in the US. So there is actual engagement in other spheres, but from a contemporary nation state perspective, in China and in India. Yes, you're totally right, that there has been I think there is a real impasse in terms of bilateral engagement and understanding. So that's why you fixate on the specific moments like Amir Khan's amazing popularity in China, it becomes this thing to wonder at because it's so unusual, it's so exceptional.Sushant Singh21:54And you sometimes wonder that China is India's biggest trading partner, and by a long distance, and you still don't have that kind of neighbourly relations? Arunabh Ghosh22:00Absolutely, that's the other reality. And I mean, I think it's gone over $100 billion in mutual trade now, right, in spite of all the political rhetoric of not buying Chinese products, and so on. So there are ways in which the Chinese and Indian economy are actually much more deeply interlinked than people realise. But again, in terms of popular perceptions, there is a real divide.Sushant Singh22:28Arunabh, as a historian, what is the biggest myth about China in India that you constantly face and maybe even get irritated about? And similarly, when you are in China, what is the biggest misconception or misunderstanding about India that gets your goat?Arunabh Ghosh22:42I don't know if I have a good answer about this, because this, again, perhaps speaks to some of the problems you are alluding to. I think in India, the thing that I find the most galling at times is the sheer ignorance about China. There really isn't much of a sense, besides sort of a very sort of contemporary notion. And of course, more recently, that it's this amazing success story, and so on. It's not a myth, but it's the constant sort of raising China up onto a particular kind of pedestal by a certain set of Indian elite, I should say. If you go beyond that, there isn't even that much. There is no sense, no real acknowledgement of what it is. The other thing I should actually add in terms of it's an irritating myth, of course, is this complaint about the quality of Chinese products that you do hear a lot, which I think is also somewhat misplaced. But it itself would be interesting to research in terms of, you know, about how much of this is, you know, it's by design in terms of the ways in which commodities are flowing in terms of the ways in which markets are understood, and where higher quality versus low quality products are being sent. And, of course, the role of intermediaries, the people who are actually importing stuff, which might be on the Indian side. Anyway, that's an aside. So as I said, the bigger thing for me, though, is not so much a myth, but just ignorance, the sort of the very broad strokes generalisations that exist about China, that can be a bit of an irritation. On the Chinese side, it's not so much ignorance, as opposed to there is sort of a romanticisation. It's interesting, in more recent terms, mostly in the past two decades, as the Chinese economy has taken off, and there's a certain kind of confidence amongst the Chinese middle class about their own place in the world and their own sort of economic growth – that, you know, India is now it's, in some ways, an interesting kind of Orientalisation, India is the land of mystical wisdom and the power of religion and morality and things like that. This is not a dominant strain, but you do hear it's certainly distinct amongst a certain set of, again, middle class elite Chinese. And this I find very interesting in terms of it's not longer even seen in comparative terms, but it's seen as this again, you can, as I said, you can orientalise it and you can almost romanticise it. So this is the place you would need to visit if you are, you know, you're in the throes of a crisis of materialism, then India is the place that you could go. So this certainly happens amongst elite, very rich Chinese that you know, partly this is driven by sort of the tourism surrounding Buddhism. So you visit the various holy sites in South Asia, in India, in particular, that are linked to Buddhism and of course, this is not just Chinese tourists, but also Japanese tourists, tourists from Southeast Asia. But there's this kind of search for a certain kind of moral, or religious equanimity. So that's something that I find kind of both interesting and a little irritating. But it's that perception is devolved to just that.Sushant Singh25:53And yoga is well, we have done a bit by putting yoga in the mix as well.Arunabh Ghosh25:57Yes, thank you. Yoga, I feel, is a global phenomenon. It's not restricted to the Chinese themselves.Sushant Singh26:06You know, China's economic success and rise as a global power has really created a sense of China envy in India, the one you alluded to in your answer. The secret of Chinese success is seen in its character as a centralised authoritarian state, unlike India's very raucous democracy. Is that a fair understanding of contemporary China in India? And if not, why not?Arunabh Ghosh26:28I think it's a fair understanding of what the understanding in India is or a fair reflection of what the understanding in India is. But, I think it's sort of again, this is the understanding at again, at the level of sort of the elite intelligentia in India, right? I think that's not the popular perception. And so, I guess this would be my answer to your question, if I was only looking at the elite response would be this kind of envy at, or the hankering for a strong, centralised authoritarian state. So there isn't much wiggle room to say that, yes, it's relatively authoritarian compared to other parts of the world. It's relatively centralised, compared to other parts of the world. But I think in some ways, framing it in this way, begs the question, because one sort of looks at it today without acknowledging both the recent history- the history of the past 70 years since 1949, but also the longer history of the nature of the state and state society relations in China. The same thing is being done on the Indian side, right. So you're not acknowledging the longer history in India of states, a centralised state, the rule, the nature of state- society relations, and so on. But I think one important test, or a question one should ask, when we frame it this way is this, look at how successful China is. And it's because of its strong, centralised authoritarian state, you have to then acknowledge by that same token, that all the failures before the success should also be attributed to precisely the same thing – the fact that it is a strong centralised authoritarian state. And these failures are not trivial, these failures are failures that led to arguably the largest famine, in absolute terms in human history. This is the great famine of the late 1950s. It led to tremendous turmoil in the decades that followed, essentially sort of tearing society apart from the inside. So I think we have to recognise that certain things come with a strong centralised authoritarian state. It can be very effective in certain areas, but the failures can also be cataclysmic. So that's one thing to remember. Then the other is to what extent, this is where the longer your historical point becomes important, to what extent can a particular contemporary reality that has a larger sort of historical set of antecedents, how can you sort of apply that to a place like the Indian subcontinent, which is tremendously different. A simple way to think about this is the way in which we understand the centrality of the state, or the presence of a large centralised state, through the longer history of the subcontinent. In the Indian subcontinent, a large centralised state is the exception, not the rule. Whereas if you were to generalise that's the opposite case, in the Chinese case, it is a rule and the exceptions are when there is disarray and being broken apart. So, there is a very different sense altogether about how individuals think about the state. And I think until this is acknowledged and taken up seriously, this kind of very superficial envy and like, oh, all we need is a strong state that can ride roughshod over, you know, whether it's people's rights or other kinds of environmental regulations and so on, I think, will have a certain kind of appeal, but is extremely dangerous. Sushant Singh29:52I also think that it comes out of a certain ignorance of China because there is a certain amount of federalism in the Communist Party model as well. The provinces and the districts decide what they wish to do in terms of so many policies that they have at their other levels and the competition among these provinces and districts. And even if you look at  some of the public health, public education things, you know, that have also come about because of that.Arunabh Ghosh30:20Absolutely, this is hugely important and this, again, speaks to thinking of China as a sort of given unit and not recognising actually, that it's demographically, while still, but maybe not for very long larger than India, but geographically significantly larger with a tremendous amount of variation. And then, the way in which the provinces run. There's a very good example from just very recently, which is what happened in the city of Xi An. And the massive lockdown that took place in Xi An because of the cases of COVID that were discovered. And if you look at the internal chatter, and the way in which people are understanding this within China, Xi An has historically been seen as a relatively poorly run city, compared to say, Shanghai or Beijing or some of the other cities. And so there were people who were not surprised that you saw mismanagement and all those cases about people being turned away from hospitals and so on, because the lockdown is being imposed. But then that led to other kinds of hardship. These are people who are not, you know, who are seeking help, not because of COVID, but for other medical, medical reasons. So there was this kind of internal recognition of diversity, variation, different ways in which different provinces have responded. I mean, one of the things you see, for instance, is the tremendous inequality right now within China, where the coastal provinces are significantly richer than the inland provinces. So again, that needs to be explained and understood, it can't be explained, understood with this sort of unitary, centralised authoritarian state model. So yeah, that's very important.Sushant Singh31:50Arunabh, this border crisis that India and China face, which is the most contemporary issue when Indians think of China today. History plays a role in it, the colonial part, the Imperial past, how important is the role of history in the kind of crisis that we see between India and China now?Arunabh Ghosh32:07So I think history is important at two levels. One, is just as you just alluded, I think, recognising that a lot of these problems have their origins in the Imperial and colonial legacies that both the Republic of India and the People's Republic of China are dealing with, but more than just dealing with, recognising that, in some ways, enthusiastically both states, accepted these Imperial legacies – in particular, the territorial imaginaries and the realities of British India, of the Qing empire. So I think recognising this is the first step. And there is, I think, in both countries, again amongst the elite and the intelligentsia. They are very quick to blame Imperial and colonial legacies when it comes to the other country, but are very slow to recognise the fact that similar logics are operating for them too. So at a meta historical level, I think that's hugely important. But I think at a more micro level in terms of the 20th century itself, I think historical scholarship is extremely important in understanding what exactly happened. And how to complicate the easy and grand narratives that exist. So right now, for instance, in India, it's very popular to blame everything on Nehru. Earlier it used to be Krishna Menon, and now it's Nehru. But I think this does a disservice to actually understanding what were essentially a series of very complex moments, and trying to understand why decisions were made the way they were, and so on. So I think the first step would also be to step away from the blame game. This is of course for popular consumption, this is what you want to do. It's easy to play things off and have people to blame. But from a historical scholarship perspective, I think this needs to happen on both sides. And here, the big challenge is access to archival materials, getting a sense of the deliberations as they happen in those specific moments. There's been good work on the Indian side recently, as you of course, I'm sure are also aware. Nirupama Menon Rao has just published a book and there's a whole host of other books that have tried to explore the border crisis and its evolution. We have seen some work on the Chinese side also, but the archives on the Chinese side remain closed. So it's been difficult for scholars outside of the PRC to explore these questions from the PRC's side, in many ways.Sushant Singh34:37Arunabh before I let you go, can you suggest three books about modern China that you would recommend to those interested in understanding the country better?Arunabh Ghosh34:44This is there's been so many good books published in the past 2-3 years that this is an extremely difficult task. So if I can mention a few without restricting myself to three, then I can touch upon a few different areas that might be of interest to readers. So one that emerges out of the conversation we've had about the nature of the state and the nature of the Chinese state in particular, I think a really interesting book would be Great State: China and the World, Timothy Brook (2019), which tries to look at the way in which we should understand the nature of the Chinese state through a longer perspective, not just 20th century. So Brooke is primarily a historian of the Ming, but then writes expansively. So that would be a great book to get a slightly longer perspective on the history of the Chinese state itself. There's a good book on the history of the party that was just published by Tony Saich, my colleague at the Kennedy School here called From Rebel to Ruler: One Hundred Years of the Chinese Communist Party (2021). That gives you more of a sense of how the party, which is, it's a pretty dramatic story, because it's a party that was on the fringes in the early 1920s. And by 1949, came to dominate the largest country in the world. And now, the largest economy in the world is soon to be or if by PPP terms already there. So that's another book that gives you party history.There's a great book by the Chinese historian Yang Kuisong called     Eight Outcasts: Social and Political Marginalization in China Under Mao (2019). It was recently translated into English and this provides a very different perspective on post 1949 Chinese history, it's from the bottom up. As the title suggests, it's the story of eight people who had to undergo because of, you know, their individual identities made them outliers, or a certain kind of minority, you know, it could be because of their sexuality, it could be because of other kinds of things, and how they endured the first two, three decades of the PRC. I'm reading right now, after a long time. Finally, I've been meaning to write a memoir. And this might be of interest again, to an Indian audience. It's a memoir by probably China's most famous      Indologist, a man by the name of Ji Xianlin, who wrote a memoir called The Cowshed: Memories of the Chinese Cultural Revolution (2016)and it's his experience of the Cultural Revolution. He was a very prominent professor. He was at Peking University, the most prominent university in China, and endured     all kinds of hardship during the cultural revolution and he wrote about it. So that's another fascinating take. Finally, one last book I can mention, which I think is, again, speaks to sort of, the economic takeoff of China, starting in the 1980s,but     provides a sort of much more nuanced perspective on the kinds of decisions that were taken, is a book by the economic economist and economic historian Isabella Weber called, How China Escaped Shock Therapy: The Market Reform Debate (2021). And this is sort of about price controls and the ways in which price controls were imposed in the early 1980s, as China is     liberalising, so a very interesting economic history that is, in some ways, quite important today also in trying to understand the dramatic growth of the Chinese economy. So obviously mentioned more than more than more than three. I have many more dimensions, but maybe I'll stop there.Sushant Singh37:51Arunabh thank you so much for your time and for this wonderful conversation. It was it was really nice. Thank you so much.Arunabh Ghosh37:58Great. Thank you for having me.Sushant Singh38:03Thank You for Listening. For more information on our work, follow us on Twitter and log on to our website at https://cprindia.org/

With crucial assembly elections, all eyes are on the states of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur. Why are these elections important? What are the key electoral issues in these states? How will these elections shape the political narrative for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections? In episode 13 of India Speak: The CPR Podcast, Yamini Aiyar (President and Chief Executive, CPR) is joined by Rahul Verma (Fellow, CPR) to determine the current political trends and his outlook for the 2022 assembly elections. With the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Trinamool Congress (TMC) emerging as new actors in the opposition, they discuss what this means for the Congress. They also discuss where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Samajwadi Party (SP) stand in the race. Further, Aiyar and Verma focus on the role of political economic dynamics in the political outcome of any electoral campaign, the long term implications of these polls for national politics and what they signal for 2024.

In this episode of India Speak: The CPR Podcast, Shyam Saran (Senior Fellow, CPR and Former Indian Foreign Secretary) is joined by Asoke Mukerji (Former Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations). With illustrious careers in diplomacy, Saran and Mukerji unpack the future of multilateralism and its potential for cooperation amongst states, particularly as the world confronts cross-cutting global challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic, cyber security, terrorism and climate change. They discuss the potential of multilateralism to help deliver solutions through Agenda 2030, its structure through the UNSC and the 1945 Charter of the United Nations, the decline in US leadership in the UNSC and the calls for a restructuring of the UNSC. Finally, they discuss India's legacy of multilateralism, how it can play a leadership role in international relations, its limitations in resource allocation and capacity building and the importance to maintain its claim on a UNSC seat.

On 19th November 2021, Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi announced the repeal of the three contentious farm laws following one of the longest farmers' agitation that the country has witnessed. The laws and the resultant protests brought agriculture back into the public discourse and the repeal has generated much debate on the political implications and the future of reforms. In this episode of India Speak: The CPR Podcast, Yamini Aiyar (President and Chief Executive, CPR) speaks with two of India's foremost voices on agriculture- Harish Damodaran (Senior Fellow, CPR) and Mekhala Krishnamurthy (Senior Fellow and Director, State Capacity Initiative, CPR). Damodaran and Krishnamurthy dissect the important questions around the issue and what this repeal means for the Indian economy, society and for the farmer. They explain what the protests brought to the table, what pushed policymakers to repeal the laws and what direction the policy discourse ought to now take. They also shed light on the need for a new vocabulary for thinking of agricultural reforms to ensure the country can realise the full potential of Indian agriculture. 

Aiyar reflects on how CPR has remained relevant through the years with path-breaking multisectoral research. She discusses CPR's core values of strict non-partisanship and fierce independence and ways in which the institute can deepen its engagements to contribute to the development of 21st-century India. She also highlights the challenges CPR faces, the need for deep and long-term engagement with ideas and research for effective policy implementation and the importance of democratic argumentation and dialogue. 

Two weeks before the US was set to complete its troop withdrawal from the region, the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan. Major cities fell in a matter of days as the Afghan military and government collapsed rapidly. Chaos ensued as Afghan citizens thronged the airport to flee, some even clinging on to the wheels of a US military aircraft, in a desperate bid to escape the country. What does a takeover by the Taliban mean for Afghanistan, particularly its citizens who have enjoyed the freedoms of the last 20 years? How were the Taliban able to get control so quickly and efficiently? Did India see it coming? Mukhopadhaya discusses the geopolitical ramifications of this development, the impending impact on women's rights, and the state of India-US relations. He also highlights how India should best approach this crisis and what the future course of action should be, given past reluctance to talk with the Taliban.For more information on the Centre's work, follow CPR on Twitter @CPR_India or visit www.cprindia.org.

Sharma discusses what it was like to be in the thick of that control room, confronting a crisis of deep distress but also concerns of managing the health system in the midst of constant SOS messages about lack of basic supplies and most importantly, oxygen. He speaks about the role of the courts in fixing responsibility and bringing in some transparency to the process of allocation. Finally, Sharma elaborates on the logistical and technical complexities in ramping up oxygen supply and its distribution across hospitals.About the SeriesThe second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic poses serious challenges that need immediate attention. The collapse of an already strained health system, vaccine supply shortage, an unprecedented economic crisis and sharpening inequality, are factors that raise crucial concerns. How must India confront this crisis? The Centre for Policy Research (CPR) brings leading experts to discuss what the country's response should look like in a new podcast series, India and the Pandemic.Listen to other episodes in this series:Impact of the Second Wave on the Economy featuring Pranjul BhandariImpact of the Second Wave on Unemployment and Labour Force Participation featuring Mahesh VyasImpact on Jobs, Incomes, Inequality and Poverty featuring Amit BasoleResponding to the Spread of COVID-19 in Rural India featuring Abhijit ChowdhuryRealities of COVID-19 in Rural India featuring Anurag BeharUnpacking India's COVID-19 Vaccination Strategy featuring Partha MukhopadhyayDissecting India's Problem of Economic Inequality featuring Maitreesh GhatakFor more information on the Centre's work, follow CPR on Twitter @CPR_India or visit www.cprindia.org.

Dr Ghatak who has written extensively on the inequalities of the Indian economy walks us through the issue of widening inequality in the context of the pandemic, unpacks the growth versus inequality debate, and discusses the long term implications the pandemic has posed. He explains the impact on the informal sector, intergenerational mobility, and discusses the dynamics of potential recovery.About the SeriesThe second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic poses serious challenges that need immediate attention. The collapse of an already strained health system, vaccine supply shortage, an unprecedented economic crisis and sharpening inequality, are factors that raise crucial concerns. How must India confront this crisis? The Centre for Policy Research (CPR) brings leading experts to discuss what the country's response should look like in a new podcast series, India and the Pandemic.Listen to other episodes in this series:Impact of the Second Wave on the Economy featuring Pranjul BhandariImpact of the Second Wave on Unemployment and Labour Force Participation featuring Mahesh VyasImpact on Jobs, Incomes, Inequality and Poverty featuring Amit BasoleResponding to the Spread of COVID-19 in Rural India featuring Abhijit ChowdhuryRealities of COVID-19 in Rural India featuring Anurag BeharUnpacking India's COVID-19 Vaccination Strategy featuring Partha MukhopadhyayFor more information on the Centre's work, follow CPR on Twitter @CPR_India  or visit  www.cprindia.org .

Mukhopadhyay who has been closely tracking the vaccine policy walks us through the different phases of the vaccine strategy across the country. He sheds light on the many inequities of the policy, the state of private supply, the role of the Supreme Court, the Centre-State dynamic and more. He further discusses how the digital inequity was built in with the CoWIN app from an economic, linguistic, and spatial standpoint. Finally, Mukhopadhyay share's his perspective of where we are today vis-a-vis our goals on achieving universal vaccination. About the SeriesThe second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic poses serious challenges that need immediate attention. The collapse of an already strained health system, vaccine supply shortage, an unprecedented economic crisis and sharpening inequality, are factors that raise crucial concerns. How must India confront this crisis? The Centre for Policy Research (CPR) brings leading experts to discuss what the country's response should look like in a new podcast series, India and the Pandemic.Listen to other episodes in this series:Impact of the Second Wave on the Economy featuring Pranjul BhandariImpact of the Second Wave on Unemployment and Labour Force Participation featuring Mahesh VyasImpact on Jobs, Incomes, Inequality and Poverty featuring Amit BasoleResponding to the Spread of COVID-19 in Rural India featuring Abhijit ChowdhuryRealities of COVID-19 in Rural India featuring Anurag BeharFor more information on the Centre's work, follow CPR on Twitter @CPR_India or visit www.cprindia.org.

Behar walks us through his experiences over the last few months visiting different parts of the country that were ravaged by the virus. He sheds light on the stigma associated with COVID, the challenges of documenting death, and the state of India's health infrastructure. He further discusses the levels of economic deprivation, condition of hunger, the potential for schools reopening and more. Finally, Behar share's his perspective on what we need to do now, in advance of a potential third wave. About the SeriesThe second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic poses serious challenges that need immediate attention. The collapse of an already strained health system, vaccine supply shortage, an unprecedented economic crisis and sharpening inequality, are factors that raise crucial concerns. How must India confront this crisis? The Centre for Policy Research (CPR) brings leading experts to discuss what the country's response should look like in a new podcast series, India and the Pandemic.Listen to other episodes in this series:Impact of the Second Wave on the Economy featuring Pranjul BhandariImpact of the Second Wave on Unemployment and Labour Force Participation featuring Mahesh VyasImpact on Jobs, Incomes, Inequality and Poverty featuring Amit BasoleResponding to the Spread of COVID-19 in Rural India featuring Abhijit ChowdhuryFor more information on the Centre's work, follow CPR on Twitter @CPR_India or visit www.cprindia.org.

Unlike last year during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the second wave witnessed the virus making inroads into rural areas of India as well. To discuss this and more, Yamini Aiyar (President and Chief Executive, CPR) speaks to Abhijit Chowdhury (Chief Advisor, Liver Foundation, West Bengal) in this episode of India Speak. Chowdhury discusses what the on-ground realities look like in rural India. He sheds light on how the health system in these areas can be prepared to respond to this unfolding crisis. Finally, he discusses what it will take to achieve universal vaccination for all adults in these areas, advocating for a community-based approach to both treatment and vaccination. About the SeriesThe second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic poses serious challenges that need immediate attention. The collapse of an already strained health system, vaccine supply shortage, an unprecedented economic crisis and sharpening inequality, are factors that raise crucial concerns. How must India confront this crisis? The Centre for Policy Research (CPR) brings leading experts to discuss what the country's response should look like in a new podcast series, India and the Pandemic. Listen to other episodes in this series:Impact of the Second Wave on the Economy featuring Pranjul BhandariImpact of the Second Wave on Unemployment and Labour Force Participation featuring Mahesh VyasImpact on Jobs, Incomes, Inequality and Poverty featuring Amit BasoleFor more information on the Centre's work, follow CPR on Twitter @CPR_India or visit www.cprindia.org.

The State of Working India 2021 report by the Centre for Sustainable Employment (CSE) at the Azim Premji University finds that the pandemic has further increased informality and led to a severe decline in earnings for the majority of workers resulting in a sudden increase in poverty. In particular, the poor, women and younger workers have disproportionately borne the brunt of the pandemic. To discuss key findings of the report and more, Yamini Aiyar (President and Chief Executive, CPR) speaks to Amit Basole (Associate Professor of Economics and Head, CSE, Azim Premji University) in this episode of India Speak. Basole sheds light on the trends in employment patterns and the dynamics of informality in India's labour market prior to the pandemic, to make sense of the slow structural transformation in the economy. He discusses the implications of the differentiated gender dynamics, the move to informality and the loss of income for India's economy. He further highlights what the policy response should be to the immediate crisis and the lessons that can be learned from it. About the SeriesThe second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic poses serious challenges that need immediate attention. The collapse of an already strained health system, vaccine supply shortage, an unprecedented economic crisis and sharpening inequality, are factors that raise crucial concerns. How must India confront this crisis? The Centre for Policy Research (CPR) brings leading experts to discuss what the country's response should look like in a new podcast series, India and the Pandemic. Listen to other episodes in this series:Impact of the Second Wave on the Economy featuring Pranjul BhandariImpact of the Second Wave on Unemployment and Labour Force Participation featuring Mahesh VyasFor more information on the Centre's work, follow CPR on Twitter  @CPR_India or visit www.cprindia.org.

The second wave of the pandemic saw localised lockdowns across India that brought economic activities to a halt. What has been the impact of this on unemployment and labour force participation? In this episode of India Speak, Yamini Aiyar (President and Chief Executive, CPR) speaks to Mahesh Vyas [Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE)]. Through its surveys, CMIE has been closely tracking the health of the Indian economy, particularly the labour market, consumer sentiment and investment patterns. Vyas sheds light on the trends in unemployment and labour participation rates during the peak of the national lockdown, the phase of economic recovery and the second wave. He discusses the impact of increased informality and decreased female labour force participation and the lessons learned from the first wave of COVID-19. Further, he underscores the impact of the second wave on consumer sentiment and what the government must do to revive the economy. Finally, he discusses the need to monitor the economy regularly and ways to strengthen India's statistical systems. About the SeriesThe second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic poses serious challenges that need immediate attention. The collapse of an already strained health system, vaccine supply shortage, an unprecedented economic crisis and sharpening inequality, are factors that raise crucial concerns. How must India confront this crisis? The Centre for Policy Research (CPR) brings leading experts to discuss what the country's response should look like in a new podcast series, India and the Pandemic. Listen to other episodes in this series:Impact of the Second Wave on the Economy featuring Pranjul BhandariFor more information on the Centre's work, follow CPR on Twitter @CPR_India  or visit  www.cprindia.org.

The Indian economy was going through an unprecedented slowdown that was exacerbated by the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and resultant national lockdown. Just as the economy was showing signs of recovery, the country has been hit by the virulent second wave. With multiple localised lockdowns, a halt on mobility and economic activity and an unprecedented health crisis, this time, the ravages of the pandemic are being felt across the nation, even rural areas. What has been the impact of the second wave on India's economy and how does it differ from the first wave? In this episode of India Speak, Yamini Aiyar (President and Chief Executive, CPR) speaks to Pranjul Bhandari (Managing Director and Chief India Economist, HSBC). Bhandari sheds light on the state of India's economy before the second wave hit, the implications of the second wave particularly for the informal sector and why it needs a special focus and what a policy response to the economic crisis from the Centre and states should look like.About the SeriesThe second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic poses serious challenges that need immediate attention. The collapse of an already strained health system, vaccine supply shortage, an unprecedented economic crisis and sharpening inequality, are factors that raise crucial concerns. How must India confront this crisis? The Centre for Policy Research (CPR) brings leading experts to discuss what the country's response should look like in a new podcast series, India and the Pandemic. For more information on the Centre's work, follow CPR on Twitter  @CPR_India or visit  www.cprindia.org.

Listen to the 50th episode of ThoughtSpace (above) featuring Shibani Ghosh, Santosh Harish and Yamini Aiyar. While air pollution levels are unsafe across the country, all-year round, they spike to dangerously high levels during the winter months in North India. This year, as the country confronts the COVID-19 pandemic, the challenge of air pollution is even more pressing, given increasing evidence of levels and transmission of the infection being exasperated by pollution. How can India solve this public health emergency? In the 50th episode of ThoughtSpace, Yamini Aiyar, President & Chief Executive of CPR, speaks with Shibani Ghosh and Santosh Harish, Fellows at CPR's Iniitative on Climate, Energy and the Environment. Ghosh and Harish have closely studied and engaged with this crisis in various capacities. They shed light on crop burning and other sources of pollution, the challenges of governance and state capacity, the new Commission set up to manage air quality, and the need to build a larger public discourse around the environment that views this problem as a social justice issue. The recommend a shift from reactive, political quick fixes to more systematic, long-term, institutional solutions. You can follow the Centre's work on air pollution on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CPR_India or visit www.cprindia.org.

Listen to the forty-ninth episode of ThoughtSpace featuring Mekhala Krishnamurthy, Ajay Vir Jakhar and Yamini Aiyar. The Government of India passed three farm reform bills- The Farmers' Produce Trade And Commerce (Promotion And Facilitation) Bill, The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, and The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, in the Monsoon Session of the Parliament. The passage of these bills has led to widespread protests by farmers across the country. It has also raised critical concerns over the direction in which agricultural reforms should go, the nature of these three bills and the process through which they were passed in Parliament. In this episode, Yamini Aiyar, President & Chief Executive of CPR, speaks with Dr Mekhala Krishnamurthy, Senior Fellow and Director, State Capacity Initiative at CPR and Associate Professor, Ashoka University, and Ajay Vir Jakhar, Chairperson, Bharat Krishak Samaj. Krishnamurthy and Jakhar are India's most prolific commentators on agriculture and have deeply studied agricultural reforms. They shed light on what the current reforms mean for the Indian farmer and the future of agriculture in the country. In an earlier episode of ThoughtSpace, Dr Mekhala Krishnamurthy discussed how the government could strengthen the mandi system to truly double farmers' incomes. Listen here: https://bit.ly/3383lF2. For more information on the centre's work, follow CPR on Twitter @CPR_India or visit www.cprindia.org.