Indicast - Indians On India

Right from the days when trade was in barter format, the retail world has always been exciting. In the west, it has graduated from mom and pop stores to big box. The Indian government believed that India too should ape the movement, and has rejigged the Foreign Direct Investment rules in the retail sector. The opposition was not amused. In other corporate news, Cyrus Mistry will take over from Ratan Tata in December 2013. In the science field, the world's lightest material caught Adityas fancy and he gives us an overview.

Mayawati has follows a strict routine for ensuring to make it to the front pages of Indian newspapers at least once a week. This time she succeeds in convincing her party to pass a resolution demanding four different states. In Himachal Pradesh, more than 800 women have been reported missing in the past few years. The Unhate Benetton advertising campaign was the most talked about news story in business and in science, a startling discovery that one can travel faster than the speed of light just came to light.

Kingfisher is all over the place. Thats the news that everyone is feeding on especially in the business newspapers. Vijay Mallyas airline company has declared its 16 straight quarterly loss and things are not about to improve in the short term. In politics, Rahul Gandhi is now been slated to be the next man in charge as he contests elections in Uttar Pradesh. Government will soon be launching a Right to Education Act which promises education to every kid upto 14 years of age. In world news, floods in Thailand have set the country back. In cricket, South Africa and Australia slug it out in test matches and India is on a roll. At the time of the recording, Dravid, Laxman and Dhoni had scored centuries in the second test.

We start off this episode by talking a bit about the noise surrounding the Armed Forces Special Power Act which was established back in 1958. It turns out that Omar Abdullah wants it revoked in Jammu and Kashmir for it gives the army right to arrest and sometimes kill without the need of a warrant or necessary paperwork. In other news, Bhupen Hazarika and Joe Fraiser passed away this week and the mystery surrounding Michael Jackson's death was finally out when his personal physician was convicted of involuntary manslaughter.

The 150th episode of Indicast is finally here but this time with a new voice. Abhishek is out on his bike in the Himachal Pradesh and so Akhilesh, who has been on Bizination a few times, joined me on for the 150th. God seems to be feeling lonely and has called in for company of 3 greats in quick succession. We talk about Tiger Pataudi, Steve Jobs and Jagjit Singh passing away, Murthys comment on quality of IIT students and the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize winners.

Finally, after all these years, Formula One comes to India. Thankfully, the event went off without a glitch. Sebastian Vettel won it by a huge margin and saw Mayawati on the podium hand him the trophy. In other news, Metallica performed in Bangalore after its show was cancelled in Delhi due to a lapse in security. Meanwhile, the seventh billion baby was born. In cricket, three Pakistan players were convicted for spot fixing on a day when the Indian captain was given the title of Honorary Lt Colonel by the Indian army.

This is an attempt to bring to our listeners a happier and less politically inclined episode of Indicast. We will make a conscious effort to have topics from a wider interest areas. This episode covers the Sikkim earthquake, Modi ending his fast, the DMIC mega project, Indias loss in Tennis Davis Cup, BCCI banning the Kochi franchise from IPL and our regular digressions.

Barely a month had past since the Mumbai Serial blasts when the terrorist struck again. This time it was Delhi. Delhi is the latest entrant into the list of unresolved (yet) terror strike. Afghanistan and Pakistan also witnessed much large terror strike. The other topics that Abhishek & I discuss include Supreme Courts ruling in the Gulberg Society case, Amar Singh arrest, Ra.One marketing campaigns, Gautam Rajadhyksha death, and India winning the Hockey Asian Cup.

After being missing in action for over a month, we are glad to be back. The recent has had some big ticket happenings in India including Lokpal bill and India losing its #1 test ranking spot. Given the significance of the event, we spent most of the time talking about Anna Hazare's movement against corruption and discussed the key points only. Even that took about 20 minutes to cover. The other topics include India's test drubbing by England and 2011 sports awards.

Mumbai went through another series of blasts leading to another pointless discussion on Indicast about it. Frankly, we are tired of talking about terrorism in India, especially Mumbai. We try to bring up several points about the blasts and not talk about the usual things. Minal, who is part of Indicast Sport podcast, joined us int his episode to tell her about us experience of being at Lords Cricket Stadium on Day 1 of India vs England Test. needless to say, we dragged her into things she wasnt prepared for but handled herself quiet well.

We decided to start this episode by running through the top stories during our absence and then come to this weeks newsmakers. The talking points this week include the treasure found at Sri Padmanbhaswamy Temple and its interesting legal aspects. We then moved on to talk about Ghulam Nabi Azad and his panache for getting into verbal trouble, Rahul Gandhi's PR Padyatra and Indicast's Mobile apps.

Acclaimed Pakistani journalist, Saleem Shahzad was brutally murdered in Islamabad a few days after he wrote an opinionated article about the talks between Al Quida and the Pakistani Naval officials breaking down. Back home in India, Baba Ramdev chose to go on a fast unto death to fight against corruption. Angela Merkel visited India for a day and in sports, Afridi announced his retirement from all forms of international cricket. India, on the other hand leaves for the West Indies tour with Suresh Raina taking charge from Dhoni.

Mamata Banerjee and Jayalalitha shine in their respective states to win landslide victories. In this podcast, Aditya gives us a run down of state elections that is currently on in India. The biggest coup came from Mamata didi who ended the 34 year long Marxist regime in West Bengal where as Jayalalitha continued the cyclical phenomenon by toppling DMK in Tamil Nadu. In other news, we also talk a bit about the recently released diaries of Osama Bin Laden.

The weekend Royal wedding festivities continued in some parts of the world when a confident, and emotionless Barack Obama declared that US had killed Osama in Pakistan. The incident has left Pakistan red faced since it always maintained that Osama was not in Pakistan. Some see this military operation as a blatant disregrad to Pakistan' sovereignty. As soon as the news hit India, Chidabaram was on it asking Pakistan to now hand over Dawood and Saeed Hafiz (26/11 strategist). But this seems far from happening. We cover a few more deaths that happened in India in this episode.

Anna Hazare waited for a few days before he broke his fast. The Congress relented. In this podcast, we try and bring you what the Lokmat Bill means and why did Hazare press for it. In Sports, Sachin Tendulkar has been declared the Wisdens Leading Cricketer of the year. Pakistan plans to bring their own version of IPL amidst their captain Afridi making some interesting comments on India.

Sanjeev Agarwal, the Joint CEO of Big Bazaar joins us to talk about his experience of watching India play at Mohali, Ahmedabad and finally at Mumbai where India lifted the World Cup trophy after 28 years. Anna Hazares fast unto death has finally succeeded in moving people in the parliament to come up with the Lokpal bill after a longer wait of 42 years. Aditya brings up a puberty related topic where our adolescents are getting bolder by the era.

India takes on Pakistan in the second semi final later today at Mohali. In the universal set of India and Pakistan, if set A were cricket and Set B were politics, then A intersection B is confusion, tension and a false sense of security. But we do rely on hope. In this podcast, we talk about this and more. Warren Buffet is in India. The DGCA spanking continues on pilots who have forged their way into the service. And Adityas better half makes her debut in a film titled Bal Gandharva which is going to the Cannes Film Festival.

Wiki Leaks has found a new market. It is India. After tying up with The Hindu, it has released a few cables which accuse some of our politicians of selling votes for cash. Japan is still recovering from one of its worst nightmares after suffering from one of the biggest earthquakes of the century. Back home in India, Jairam Ramesh, our Environment Minister is gearing up to carry out a security check across all of Indias 20 nuclear plants. In other news, Vidharbha is the new Tiger capital of India and right at the end of this episode, Aditya is genuinely fascinated by a pair of silicon implants killing a snake!

Did you know that there were 18,000 Indians holed up in Libya about a week back. The Indian government is going all out to evacuate all Indians in the region as Col Gaddafi refuses to let go of his assumed control over Libya. Back home, Aruna Shanbaug lies in a vegetative state for 37 years running but sees a glimmer of hope as the court allows passive euthanasia in her case. We would love to know your views on euthanasia. Have you heard of a state stocking up on blood in anticipation of state elections. We just did. It is West Bengal. In other news, our beloved Uncle Pai, the creator of Amar Chitra Katha and Tinkle series passed away. RIP.

Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh woke up to the din surrounding him and ordered a Joint Parliamentary Committee to probe the corruption scandals that have rocked the government in the past few months. The High Court has upheld its death penalty sentence on Ajmal Kasab, the terrorist who was involved in the 26th November attacks. The Cricket World Cup 2011 is here and the the official website entrusted with selling tickets to fans was overwhelmed when 10 million hits landed on the website in a matter of minutes before the servers saturated. In this rather light podcast, we talk about a little bit of everything.