Podcast
Vaad
Hosted by Arihant · HI
A platform for dialogue, debate and discussion.
29episodes
Episodes
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संवाद # 316: India's legendary nuclear scientist tells the truth about Pokhran, US-India N-deal
Yesterday02:15:04Tap to summarizeDr Anil Kakodkar is one of the senior-most living architects of India's atomic energy programme and a Padma Vibhushan awardee. He joined the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in 1964. He served as Director of BARC from 1996 to 2000 and as Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission and Secretary, Department of Atomic Energy, from 2000 to 2009.He was among the small group of scientists at Pokhran for India's first nuclear test — Smiling Buddha — on 18 May 1974, and played a central role a quarter-century later in the five Pokhran-II nuclear tests in May 1998 that established India as a declared nuclear weapons state.As a working engineer through the long sanctions era, he designed and built the Dhruva research reactor entirely indigenously, led the development of pressurised heavy water reactor (PHWR) systems that today form the backbone of India's civilian fleet, and rehabilitated Units 1 and 2 of the Madras Atomic Power Station after the 1989 failure of their moderator inlet manifolds — both reactors had been on the verge of being written off. He conceptualised the Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR), a 300 MW thorium-fuelled design that remains central to India's three-stage nuclear power programme.His team at BARC designed the miniaturised 83 MW pressurised light water reactor that powers INS Arihant, completing India's nuclear triad. Between 2005 and 2008, he was the technical anchor of the Indian negotiating team — alongside Manmohan Singh, Pranab Mukherjee, Shivshankar Menon and Shyam Saran — that delivered the 123 Agreement with the United States, the India-IAEA safeguards agreement, and the September 2008 Nuclear Suppliers Group waiver that ended three decades of India's nuclear isolation.A lifelong champion of thorium as the foundation of India's long-term energy sovereignty — India holds roughly a quarter of the world's known thorium reserves — he has continued to argue, well into his eighties, that abandoning the thorium path would be a serious strategic error. Beyond nuclear, he has chaired the Board of Governors of IIT Bombay, led high-level committees on Indian Railways safety and Maharashtra higher education, helped establish NISER and the Homi Bhabha National Institute, and currently chairs Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited.
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संवाद # 315: India’s National security is now compromised | Dr Chaitanya Giri
4w ago01:15:08Tap to summarizeDr. Chaitanya Giri is a distinguished space scientist, astrochemist, and technology strategy analyst whose expertise bridges planetary science, space policy, and astropolitics. He serves as a Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation's (ORF) Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology and is an Associate Professor at FLAME University.Dr. Giri holds a Ph.D. in Astrochemistry from the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis and the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research. His scientific career includes significant tenures at the Earth-Life Science Institute at Tokyo Institute of Technology, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and the Carnegie Institution for Science. Notably, he was a co-investigator for the COSAC payload on the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission, which made groundbreaking discoveries on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Beyond his scientific research, Dr. Giri is deeply involved in science diplomacy and policy, having consulted for India's National Security Council Secretariat and served on various government review committees. He is also the author of the book India in the Second Space Age of Interplanetary Connectivity, which explores the geopolitical and economic implications of future space exploration.His latest book is ‘The Long Siege: 500 Years of India’s Struggle for Technopolitical Freedom’.
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संवाद # 314: Muslim scholar explains Islam's biggest weakness | Zahack Tanvir
Apr 1701:20:40Tap to summarizeZahack Tanvir is a Hyderabad-born independent journalist, counter-extremism expert, and the founder and editor of the UK-based media outlet Milli Chronicle. He specializes in international affairs and counter-terrorism, having completed academic programs in these fields at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands and the London School of Journalism.His educational background is diverse, also comprising an engineering degree in Computer Science from Osmania University, a post-graduate diploma in AI and Machine Learning from IIIT India, and a Master’s in AI-ML from Liverpool John Moores University.Tanvir identifies as a traditional Muslim who is vocally "anti-Islamist," often criticizing extremist ideologies and the political misuse of religion. He lived in Saudi Arabia for 13 years until a significant legal ordeal in late 2023, when he was detained by Saudi authorities following a complaint filed by Pakistan regarding his social media content, which was alleged to be anti-Pakistan. He was released in December 2024.
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संवाद # 313: Why Pakistan is desperate to END Iran war | Vaibhav Singh
Apr 601:02:02Tap to summarizeVaibhav Singh is founder of Defensive Offense and DO News.
Transcribe →संवाद # 312: US-Israel forgot these IMPORTANT lessons from Op Sindoor | Vishnu Som
Apr 401:01:43Tap to summarizeVishnu Som is a prominent, award-winning Indian journalist and news anchor who currently serves as the Executive Editor and Principal Anchor for New Delhi Television (NDTV). Som has built a distinguished career spanning over 28 years in broadcast journalism. He is widely recognized for anchoring prime-time national news broadcasts, including the flagship show "Left, Right and Centre."Som is particularly noted for his extensive frontline reporting on global conflicts, aviation, the environment, and natural disasters. He has reported directly from war zones in Kargil, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Ukraine, and provided on-the-ground coverage of catastrophic events like the 2004 Asian tsunami and the 2011 Japan earthquake.His comprehensive reporting and documentary work have earned him numerous accolades, including the prestigious Ramnath Goenka Award in Journalism, the Commonwealth Broadcasting Award, and several Indian Telly Awards.
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संवाद # 311: One billion Hindus do this everyday but don't know why | Ami Ganatra
Mar 2801:10:59Tap to summarizeAmi Ganatra is a bestselling Indian author and management professional who has built a rare bridge between the corporate world and India's classical knowledge tradition. An alumna of IIM Ahmedabad, she spent over fifteen years in consulting and business management across sectors and geographies before turning her deeper intellectual energies toward the texts that shaped the civilisation she grew up in.Her work is defined not by imaginative retellings but by a strict commitment to the original Sanskrit sources, presenting their insights with a focus on contemporary relevance — a rare discipline in a space crowded with popular mythology. She first made her mark with the Unravelled series — Mahabharata Unravelled and Ramayana Unravelled — which have since been translated into several Indian languages.Her latest book, Why Are We This Way: A Guide to Hindu Shastras is now out (Order your copy here: https://amzn.in/d/07TzUnpz).Beyond her work for adults, she has also authored several children's books including Avadhut and His Teachers, My Friend Arjun, and My Sister Devi Amazon, driven by the belief that value-based learning must begin young. What sets Ami apart is the particular vantage point she writes from — that of an ordinary, practising Hindu who followed rituals before she understood them, and who decided, with an engineer's rigour and a devotee's sincerity, to go back to the source.
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संवाद # 310: How West & Iran have been fighting for 2,527 years
Mar 2101:24:45Tap to summarizeJay Vardhan Singh is currently doing his PhD in Ancient Indian History at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. His area of interest includes the Ancient and early medieval history of the Indian subcontinent.
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संवाद # 309: Iran's BOLD STRATEGY to defeat US-Israel | Col Rajesh Pawar (retd)
Mar 1701:10:57Tap to summarizeColonel Rajesh Pawar (retd) is a former officer of the Indian Army and is now a seasoned war correspondent and defense journalist for India Today. He is best known for his fearless ground reporting from some of the most volatile conflict zones in recent history.His expertise lies in global geopolitics, modern warfare tactics, and defense strategy. Most notably, he provided extensive on-ground coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war, reporting live from Kyiv even as the city was under siege.More recently, he has covered the Israel-Hamas war, reporting from locations like Tel Aviv and the Dead Sea to analyze the conflict's military and human impact. His work often focuses on the intersection of military action and its geopolitical ripple effects, making him a critical voice for understanding how global conflicts impact India's strategic interests.
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संवाद # 308: India's SECRET army unit 99% Indians don't know about | Colonel Rajesh Pawar (retd)
Mar 1301:11:18Tap to summarizeColonel Rajesh Pawar (retd) is a former officer of the Indian Army and is now a seasoned war correspondent and defense journalist for India Today. He is best known for his fearless ground reporting from some of the most volatile conflict zones in recent history.His expertise lies in global geopolitics, modern warfare tactics, and defense strategy. Most notably, he provided extensive on-ground coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war, reporting live from Kyiv even as the city was under siege.More recently, he has covered the Israel-Hamas war, reporting from locations like Tel Aviv and the Dead Sea to analyze the conflict's military and human impact. His work often focuses on the intersection of military action and its geopolitical ripple effects, making him a critical voice for understanding how global conflicts impact India's strategic interests.
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संवाद # 307: It's not just Nuclear - real reason behind Israel-Iran war | Jaideep Prabhu
Mar 1101:21:53Tap to summarizeJaideep A. Prabhu is a scholar of diplomatic history and nuclear policy though he has a wide range of scholarly interests from the Classics, ethics, history, law, literature, political philosophy, religion, and security. His regional interests, however, are limited to Western Europe and the Greater Levant. Prabhu has three Masters’ degrees in the humanities despite an engineering background, and has written for several periodicals as well as appeared on national television as an expert commentator.Presently, Prabhu is based in Israel and conducting research at Ben Gurion Research Institute (BGRI) on religion, secularism, and nationalism, making Israel’s early state-building and foreign policy a case study. The research also touches upon a brief comparative analysis of Zionism and the idea of a Jewish state on the one hand with Hindutva and India on the other.Prabhu spends his spare time engaged in martial arts, cooking, flamenco, travelling, and scuba diving; he is also an avid fan of football and tennis.
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