In Focus by The Hindu The Hindu

It's a debate that refuses to go away. After Prime Minister Narendra Modi lit into the culture of government "freebies" or Revdi as he called it in Hindi, the matter has now gone to the Supreme Court.
What is the difference between freebies and welfare? In a poor country like India, isn't State intervention for, say, scholarships for students not in the public interest? Who decides what is a freebie and what is welfare? Can a court of law do it or should it be in the domain of individual governments and local bodies?

As the title, Violent Fraternity: Indian Political Thought in the Global Age, suggests, Shruti Kapila’s latest book deals with fraternity, violence and sovereignty. Her core argument is that violence has not been as distant from India’s politics as we have been told. In this episode, Kapila talks about the role of violence in the making of the Indian republic. Zeroing in on the ‘power of ideas’ in instituting the political foundations of modern India, Kapila also looks at the role of Buddhism.

A possible berthing call by a Chinese surveillance vessel, the Yuan Wang 5, at Sri Lanka’s Hambantota port, has led to Beijing protesting loudly about New Delhi’s suggestion to Colombo that the tracking ship be denied entry.
Colombo has said that it had asked Beijing to defer the call by the Yuan Wang 5 at a time when the country faces a dire economic crisis. After Indian concerns, the Chinese in a harsh statement asked New Delhi not to disrupt “normal exchanges” between Colombo and Beijing. The Chinese ambassador to Sri Lanka also had a meeting with President Ranil Wickremesinghe about the issue.
Can India ensure that the Yuan Wang 5 does not come calling to Hambantota? Haven’t Chinese submarines and a warship come to Sri Lankan ports earlier? Don’t American ships come to Trincomalee? 

Earlier this month, the RBI’s Monetary Policy Committee raised the benchmark interest rate by another 50 basis points in its ongoing efforts to rein in inflation that has persistently stayed above the central bank’s upper tolerance band of 6% for six months running. The interest rate increase takes the policy repo rate to 5.4%, and, more significantly, to a level last seen in the pre-pandemic second quarter of fiscal 2019-20. 
Guest: Abheek Barua, Chief Economist at HDFC Bank 
Host: K. Bharat Kumar
Edited by Reenu Cyriac

Nitish Kumar has done it again. He probably holds a record for the number of times he has ditched his allies, only to ally with them again, in India’s politics. There is, clearly, nothing ideological about his choice of partners – Nitish Kumar’s decisions seem governed by one goal alone – how to keep his seat of power warm.
As he becomes chief minister for the eighth time in 22 years, Nitish Kumar has clearly dominated the politics of Bihar – with or without the BJP – and with or without the Rashtriya Janata Dal.
Will the new alliance with the RJD and Congress hold? Does this new bonding hold anything for India’s politics beyond Bihar? Can Nitish Kumar become the face of the Opposition in Lok Sabha 2024? 

The last day of the 2022 Commonwealth Games proved to be a good one for India, as a flurry of medals pushed India’s tally to 22 golds medals and a fourth place in the medals table, behind Australia, England and Canada. The difference between Canada and India was four gold medals. In 2018, when India finished third, it had seven golds from shooting alone, and it’s clear that if shooting hadn’t been dropped this time, India would again have finished third. But that was not to be, and despite that, the Indian contingent did produce enough moments of joy and brilliance for its millions of supporters back home.
In this podcast, we take a closer look at India’s performance at CWG 2022 in different disciplines and what it bodes for the future.