Each week, Milan Vaishnav and his guests from around the world break down the latest developments in Indian politics, economics, foreign policy, society, and culture for a global audience. Grand Tamasha is a co-production of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Hindustan Times.
Subscribe:.rss.atom.json.md.m3u.pls
Live Last read · last published · next check
Saves to your Listen queue, to pick up on another day or another device.
Most conventional accounts of the origins of liberalism in India typically begin and end with the British. Indian thinkers are often depicted as encountering liberal ideas through colonial institutions, adapting them to local conditions, and eventually turning them against the British Raj. But a new book by Rahul Sagar , The Birth of Indian Liberalism: Mama Parmanand’s Letters to an Indian Raja ,…
The making of India’s Constitution is usually told as the story of the few hundred prominent lawyers, politicians, and intellectuals who comprised the Constituent Assembly—the body tasked with drafting this historic document between 1946 and 1949. But a new book by the scholars Rohit De and Ornit Shani , Assembling India’s Constitution: A New Democratic History , argues this familiar account…
For decades, the H-1B visa program has been the centerpiece of America’s high-skilled immigration system. To its defenders, it is a vital pipeline that brings talented workers from around the world to power the U.S. economy. But, to its critics, it is a system rife with abuse—one that can undermine American workers while also trapping foreign workers in exploitative arrangements. A new book, Wild…
In democracies, we typically assume that public opinion on issues like jobs, the economy, and inflation matter for shaping policy and politics. But opinions on foreign policy are often treated as the preserve of elites, especially in a country like India. Yet, it turns out that we know surprisingly little about what ordinary Indians think about foreign policy, how stable those views are, and…
India’s relations with Europe are often viewed through the lens of Brussels, Paris, Berlin, or London. But in recent years, India has also been deepening its ties with another important set of partners: the Nordic countries. Recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi traveled to Oslo for the third India-Nordic Summit, bringing together India and the five Nordic countries—Norway, Sweden, Finland,…
After the latest round of state elections, India’s political landscape looks more lopsided than at any time in the post-2014 era. The BJP claimed big wins in West Bengal and Assam—continuing its march across eastern India and solidifying its status as a hegemonic party. But politics at home is only part of the story. Overseas, India is facing a turbulent moment—from the Iran war and Pakistan’s…
India’s growth numbers shape how we understand everything from jobs to investment to global standing. But what if those numbers don’t tell the full story? New research suggests India may have both underestimated and overestimated growth at different moments over the past two decades. That insight opens the door to a broader conversation about India’s macroeconomic choices, from exchange rate…
For more than a decade, India has steadily deepened its ties with the Gulf while trying to balance competing interests across the region. But today, that strategy is under strain—thanks to the Iran conflict, shifting regional alignments, a reemerging Pakistan. How is India being impacted by the Iran crisis? And what do these geopolitical shifts mean for India’s West Asia policy? To discuss these…
** NOTE TO LISTENERS: This week, we are releasing a special “flash episode” of Grand Tamasha to recap India’s recently concluded 2026 state assembly elections. As usual, we will still be publishing a new Grand Tamasha episode next Tuesday, May 12 at 9 pm ET, Wednesday 6:30 am IST. It’s safe to say that India’s 2026 state assembly elections have scrambled many of the assumptions that have long…
India hasn’t updated how political power is distributed across its states in five decades—and the consequences are mounting. At the heart of delimitation lies a fundamental tension: should representation follow population, or preserve a delicate federal balance? Successive governments chose to defer the question, freezing India’s electoral map even as demographic divides deepened. The Modi…
