Podcast
All Things Policy
Hosted by Takshashila Institution · EN
Ever wondered how automation will change the world? Maybe you puzzle over what India could do to ease traffic congestion, or how China's aircraft carriers will transform Indian Ocean geopolitics? All Things Policy, a daily podcast brought to you by the Takshashila Institution, brings you all the answers. Every weekday, our researchers break down complex economic and geopolitical ideas through the lens of current events. For everyone from the busy executive to the curious student, All Things Policy is all you'll need to understand the world (and appreciate your breakfast) better.
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Episodes
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The Iran Brief: Regional Order Unravelling
May 2501:01:14Tap to summarizeDrawing on the evolving trajectory of the US–Iran war and the wider regional transformations it has triggered, this episode of All Things Policy features Brigadier Anil Raman in conversation with Will Todman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The discussion examines how the Middle East changed between Trump’s return to office and the eventual US–Israeli decision to strike Iran, tracing the shifting positions of Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Syria, and the Houthis within an increasingly fragmented regional order. The episode argues that the war did not emerge suddenly, but from accumulating structural pressures—Gaza, maritime insecurity, proxy escalation, nuclear tensions, and the weakening of older assumptions about American regional management. As the conflict has settled into an uneasy ceasefire, the conversation explores whether the Middle East is transitioning from episodic crises into a permanently contested geopolitical system. The episode analyses the emerging Saudi–UAE divergence, the rapid deepening of UAE–Israel strategic cooperation, and the growing importance of systemic disruption—energy flows, maritime trade, and supply chains—as instruments of war. At its core, the discussion asks whether the old US-managed order in the Middle East is breaking down and giving way to a more multipolar and unstable regional structure shaped by overlapping rivalries, flexible alignments, and continuous strategic competition.Are you passionate about shaping India's future? Keen to find solutions for India's most pressing challenges? Look no further than Takshashila's Post Graduate Programme in Public Policy. This 48-weekend programme will equip you with the knowledge, skills, and network needed to pivot to a meaningful career in public policy. Apply at school.takshashila.org.in/pgp by June 1st. The programme begins by June 20th. Hope to see you there!All Things Policy is a daily podcast on public policy brought to you by the Takshashila Institution, Bengaluru.Find out more on our research and other work here: https://takshashila.org.in/research-areasCheck out our public policy courses here: https://school.takshashila.org.in
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Deciphering China and Japan's Rivalry
May 2200:22:25Tap to summarizeHow should we understand the growing rivalry between two 'tigers', Japan and China? The tension between both countries reached a critical point following Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae’s November 2025 declaration that a Chinese attack on Taiwan constitutes a "survival-threatening situation". Such developments, inter alia, demonstrate how Japan's military and diplomatic engagement with China is significantly being altered. Join Kripa Koshy (Staff Programme Manager) and Vanshika Saraf (Geostrategy Programme Research Analyst) as they break down how this newfound assertiveness is playing out in the Indo-Pacific and what it means for the future of Indian foreign policy.Are you passionate about shaping India's future? Keen to find solutions for India's most pressing challenges? Look no further than Takshashila's Post Graduate Programme in Public Policy. This 48-weekend programme will equip you with the knowledge, skills, and network needed to pivot to a meaningful career in public policy. Apply at school.takshashila.org.in/pgp by June 1st. The programme begins by June 20th. Hope to see you there!All Things Policy is a daily podcast on public policy brought to you by the Takshashila Institution, Bengaluru.Find out more on our research and other work here: https://takshashila.org.in/research-areasCheck out our public policy courses here: https://school.takshashila.org.in
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Agentic AI and the Future of Governance
May 2100:33:10Tap to summarizeDespite exclusion errors and privacy concerns, the JAM trinity has fundamentally transformed public service delivery in India. Now, with AI becoming increasingly embedded in everyday life, a new idea is emerging: Agentic AI for governance and citizen services. How might AI agents reshape citizens’ interactions with the state? What problems could they solve? And what new risks and challenges might they create?In this episode of All Things Policy, Bharath Reddy and Suman Joshi explore the promises, trade-offs, and policy questions surrounding AI-powered public infrastructure in India.Additional Reading: https://digidoot.in/Doot_WhitePaper.pdfAre you passionate about shaping India's future? Keen to find solutions for India's most pressing challenges? Look no further than Takshashila's Post Graduate Programme in Public Policy. This 48-weekend programme will equip you with the knowledge, skills, and network needed to pivot to a meaningful career in public policy. Apply at school.takshashila.org.in/pgp by June 1st. The programme begins by June 20th. Hope to see you there!All Things Policy is a daily podcast on public policy brought to you by the Takshashila Institution, Bengaluru.Find out more on our research and other work here: https://takshashila.org.in/research-areasCheck out our public policy courses here: https://school.takshashila.org.in
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Unlocking India’s Seaweed Economy
May 2000:33:35Tap to summarizeSeaweed is not just a coastal livelihood activity. It sits at the intersection of industrial biotechnology, climate strategy, coastal development, and import resilience, and countries around the world are investing in seaweed-based value chains. In this episode, Sarthak Pradhan speaks with Shambhavi Naik and Devleena Bhattacharjee about India’s emerging seaweed economy, the sector’s major policy gaps, and how a lease-based tenure framework for seaweed cultivation sites can help India leverage the opportunities in this space.This is the paper discussed in the episode - https://takshashila.org.in/content/publications/20260401-India-seaweed-opportunity.htmlAre you passionate about shaping India's future? Keen to find solutions for India's most pressing challenges? Look no further than Takshashila's Post Graduate Programme in Public Policy. This 48-weekend programme will equip you with the knowledge, skills, and network needed to pivot to a meaningful career in public policy. Apply at school.takshashila.org.in/pgp by June 1st. The programme begins by June 20th. Hope to see you there!All Things Policy is a daily podcast on public policy brought to you by the Takshashila Institution, Bengaluru.Find out more on our research and other work here: https://takshashila.org.in/research-areasCheck out our public policy courses here: https://school.takshashila.org.in
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What did Trump's China trip achieve?
May 1900:45:01Tap to summarizeAfter a gap of nearly 9 years, and a recent postponement due to the Iran war, a US president finally visited China. Trump traveled with a large contingent including his cabinet members and business and tech leaders. But what did the trip achieve, beyond the optics of Trump praising the Chinese leader? Join Lokendra Sharma and Amit Kumar from the Takshashila Institution as they discuss the key highlights and takeaways of the trip and disentangle the Taiwan, Iran and technology aspects of US-China relationship.Are you passionate about shaping India's future? Keen to find solutions for India's most pressing challenges? Look no further than Takshashila's Post Graduate Programme in Public Policy. This 48-weekend programme will equip you with the knowledge, skills, and network needed to pivot to a meaningful career in public policy. Apply at school.takshashila.org.in/pgp by June 1st. The programme begins by June 20th. Hope to see you there!All Things Policy is a daily podcast on public policy brought to you by the Takshashila Institution, Bengaluru.Find out more on our research and other work here: https://takshashila.org.in/research-areasCheck out our public policy courses here: https://school.takshashila.org.in
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The Myth Of ISRO's Frugal Engineering Model
May 1800:34:26Tap to summarizeIn this episode of All Things Policy, Shobhankita Reddy sits down with Ashwin Prasad Rao to discuss his latest book chapter published in The Hindu's book on the Indian Space Program. Ashwin unpacks the stubborn tag of "frugal engineering" associated with ISRO and frames it as a trap for India's current circumstances and outer space ambitions. What, then, is the way forward? Tune in to find out. Are you passionate about shaping India's future? Keen to find solutions for India's most pressing challenges? Look no further than Takshashila's Post Graduate Programme in Public Policy. This 48-weekend programme will equip you with the knowledge, skills, and network needed to pivot to a meaningful career in public policy. Apply at school.takshashila.org.in/pgp by June 1st. The programme begins by June 20th. Hope to see you there!All Things Policy is a daily podcast on public policy brought to you by the Takshashila Institution, Bengaluru.Find out more on our research and other work here: https://takshashila.org.in/research-areasCheck out our public policy courses here: https://school.takshashila.org.in
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Digitising the Count: A Governance Experiment
May 1500:34:41Tap to summarizeIn this episode of All Things Policy, Sowmya Prabhakar is in conversation with Y Nithiyanandam to unpack the self-enumeration exercise. What happens when a policy assumes participation without communication? Can digital governance succeed with weak execution? And when data collection becomes a tech exercise, where does trust fit in?From poor public awareness and awkwardly framed questions to data collection glitches during peak summer travel season, this episode explores the fascinating gap between policy design and lived reality.Are you passionate about shaping India's future? Keen to find solutions for India's most pressing challenges? Look no further than Takshashila's Post Graduate Programme in Public Policy. This 48-weekend programme will equip you with the knowledge, skills, and network needed to pivot to a meaningful career in public policy. Apply at school.takshashila.org.in/pgp by June 1st. The programme begins by June 20th. Hope to see you there!All Things Policy is a daily podcast on public policy brought to you by the Takshashila Institution, Bengaluru.Find out more on our research and other work here: https://takshashila.org.in/research-areasCheck out our public policy courses here: https://school.takshashila.org.in
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Parasport, Medicine and Policy
May 1400:39:32Tap to summarizeIn this episode of All Things Policy, Malathi Renati speaks with Dr. (Maj) Ameya Kagali, Chief Team Physician for the Indian Paralympic contingent, about what it really takes to support para-athletes — on the field, in medical systems, and through policy design. From classification to women para-athletes’ health needs, career pathways, and the future of India’s para-sport ecosystem, this conversation asks a simple but urgent question: is India treating para-sport as a welfare add-on or as a serious national priority? At a time when India’s sports policy and governance reforms are evolving, this episode is a reminder that access and performance depend on systems — not just individual talent. Listen to the episode and join the conversation on what it will take to build a truly inclusive and high-performance para-sport ecosystem in India.Are you passionate about shaping India's future? Keen to find solutions for India's most pressing challenges? Look no further than Takshashila's Post Graduate Programme in Public Policy. This 48-weekend programme will equip you with the knowledge, skills, and network needed to pivot to a meaningful career in public policy. Apply at school.takshashila.org.in/pgp by June 1st. The programme begins by June 20th. Hope to see you there!All Things Policy is a daily podcast on public policy brought to you by the Takshashila Institution, Bengaluru.Find out more on our research and other work here: https://takshashila.org.in/research-areasCheck out our public policy courses here: https://school.takshashila.org.in
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From Chips to LLMs: How Fast Is China Catching Up?
May 1300:37:28Tap to summarizeDeepSeek recently released a preview version of V4, a 1.6-trillion-parameter AI model trained and capable of being deployed entirely on Chinese homegrown Huawei Ascend 950 and Cambricon chips, without any NVIDIA hardware.In this episode of All Things Policy, Satya Sahu, Associate at The Asia Group's South Asia practice, joins Amit Kumar, Staff Research Analyst with Takshashila's Geostrategy Programme, to discuss what these developments mean for the larger US-China competition. Are you passionate about shaping India's future? Keen to find solutions for India's most pressing challenges? Look no further than Takshashila's Post Graduate Programme in Public Policy. This 48-weekend programme will equip you with the knowledge, skills, and network needed to pivot to a meaningful career in public policy. Apply at school.takshashila.org.in/pgp by June 1st. The programme begins by June 20th. Hope to see you there!All Things Policy is a daily podcast on public policy brought to you by the Takshashila Institution, Bengaluru.Find out more on our research and other work here: https://takshashila.org.in/research-areasCheck out our public policy courses here: https://school.takshashila.org.in
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No Shortcut to Military Power
May 1200:43:20Tap to summarizeWars are expensive. And there's a seductive idea going around — that maybe they don't have to be anymore. That drones, loitering munitions, and precision missiles have changed the game so fundamentally that you don't need the big, costly, traditional military machine to project power or win conflicts. Ukraine, Azerbaijan, even Iran — people are pointing to these wars and saying, look, the future is cheap, autonomous, and expendable.Join Arindam Goswami and Yusuf Unjhawala in this episode of All Things Policy, as we push back hard on that idea. Yusuf Unjhawala has spent years tracking India's defence ecosystem and thinking seriously about where Indian military power is headed.And our argument, simply put, is this — there are no shortcuts to credible military power. Cheap systems can impose costs. They cannot deliver outcomes. And for a country with India's geography, its two-front threat environment, and its ambitions as a rising power, getting this wrong isn't just an academic mistake. It's a strategic risk.We're going to get into what the wars in Ukraine, Iran, and our own Operation Sindoor actually tell us — and what people are getting wrong when they read them.Are you passionate about shaping India's future? Keen to find solutions for India's most pressing challenges? Look no further than Takshashila's Post Graduate Programme in Public Policy. This 48-weekend programme will equip you with the knowledge, skills, and network needed to pivot to a meaningful career in public policy. Apply at school.takshashila.org.in/pgp by June 1st. The programme begins by June 20th. Hope to see you there!All Things Policy is a daily podcast on public policy brought to you by the Takshashila Institution, Bengaluru.Find out more on our research and other work here: https://takshashila.org.in/research-areasCheck out our public policy courses here: https://school.takshashila.org.in
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