Vartaa Podcast Vartaa

Our 5th podcast covers the historic GST bill and its significance, PM Modi's remarks on Balochistan in his Independence Day Speech
and India's possible shift in dipolmatic stance with Pakistan.
We conclude with India's performance in Rio and what we can do to improve sports administration in India.

Useful links relevant to this podcast:
http://www.sportskeeda.com/rio-olympics-2016/indian-players
http://www.livemint.com/Sports/sQIptlFaFV1PtirWxBWTzL/Rio-Olympics-Why-India-was-not-a-rank-disaster.html
http://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2006254/65-2-what-rio-olympics-medal-tally-says-about-china-india

Our 4th podcast covers the cabinet reshuffle at the Center, India's bid to NSG and Raghuram Rajan's exit and his performance with our weekly charts.

Useful links relevant to this podcast:
IMF - https://www.imf.org/external/about.htm
RBI - https://www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/AboutusDisplay.aspx
RBI data - http://dbie.rbi.org.in/DBIE/dbie.rbi?site=publications

In this podcast episode we look at the BJP government 2 year report card, take a look at the recently concluded state elections and their results and we discuss what would it mean for India if Donald Trump was the next US president. We also bring you 3 interesting stories that caught our eye from India.

A: The BJP government recently finished 2 years in power. We decided to take a deeper dive into the accomplishments and deficiencies of this government in the 2 years. Firstly we take a look at the number of bills passed and compare it the the previous UPA regimes. Data we quote is from below a page from Lok Sabha webpage http://loksabha.nic.in/ :
http://164.100.47.192/Loksabha/Legislation/billspassed.aspx
We studied the BJP and Congress manifesto for 2014 found below:
BJP manifesto 2014:
http://www.bjp.org/images/pdf_2014/full_manifesto_english_07.04.2014.pdf

UPA manifesto 2014:
http://allindiacongress.com/document.php
http://allindiacongress.com/admin/upload/pdf/Manifesto%202004.pdf
http://allindiacongress.com/admin/upload/pdf/Highlights%20of%20Manifesto-2009.pdf

These websites also have manifesto’s from previous election years 2004 and 2009.
These along with various news articles which you can also find on or website (http://www.vartaa.in) make up the analysis for this segment.

B: The state elections in India for West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Kerala and Puducherry resulted in small win for BJP but woes for the Congress.
Find the results here:
http://www.vartaa.in/static_pages/last_week?digest=20160522
and here:
http://www.vartaa.in/static_pages/last_week?digest=20160605

C: Now that we have Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton as the presidential candidates from Republican and Democratic party in US respectively, we decided to to take a look at what would a Donald Trump presidency would mean for India. Mr Trump has been widely criticized in the US media for making controversial statements/promises. You can find their official stance on immigration and other issues here:
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/immigration-reform
https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/immigration-reform/

Don’t miss the the 3 interesting stories about AI startups, ‘Global Entry’ for quick immigration checks in US for Indians and funny campaign incident between Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump.

This podcast takes a look a handful of issues fresh in the news cycle in India.

The Assembly elections in West Bengal, Assam, TN, Puducherry and Kerala.
What is at stake? Who seems ahead? What are potential outcomes at the national level?

The government's economic index JAM (Jan Dhan, Aadhar and Mobile), how these trifecta of metrics are important
in Indian economy. How much 'JAM has been spread' already? How is it helping?

The saga of Vijay Mallya. Did he swindle the banks? Was it a bad business model? Or should the banks have been more diligent themselves?

Is Delhi's odd-even formula even-odds? Can such a scheme work in an Indian context? What was the outcome?

Along with some interesting news stories that caught our eye.