There are similarities between the UN’s efforts to pursue a disarmament strategy for nuclear weapons and the regulation of the military applications of AI. Given the multiple parallel initiatives on this issue, inputs would also have to be gathered from a range of stakeholders already working on the issue, such as the REAIM participants, the United States, and other countries, in order to regulate AI in the military domain. The private sector has a role here to drive governance on this topic as ...
Dec 01, 2023•27 min
With the onset of winter, severe levels of air pollution have reemerged as a concern in North India. Various factors have been put forth to explain this malaise: stubble burning in farms, vehicular pollution, and pollution due to the construction sector. But even outside of the winter months, the National Capital Region maintains poor air quality, with an AQI of over 200. Can clean transportation help? To speak of clean transportation, which is key to addressing the issue of vehicular pollution,...
Nov 09, 2023•39 min
The last publicly available nation-wide caste census in India was conducted in 1931. Now, a state-wide caste census has become available from the government of Bihar. Even though we know the Indian state collects data on a variety of markers and indicators, whether socioeconomic or health-related, there seems to be a reluctance when it comes to collecting data on caste. What is the reason for this? What are the complexities involved in capturing caste in India? How should we think about the cate...
Oct 26, 2023•1 hr 1 min
One of the most visible signs of India’s economic development in the past seventy-five years has been the growth of its cities. Some of them are now among the largest on the planet, both in terms of area and population. However, Indian cities are far from perfect. They’re often not well planned, coping with problems of rapid growth and inefficient use of land and other resources. Indian cities are also plagued by a lack of basic amenities, such as clean drinking water, sanitation, and solid wast...
Oct 12, 2023•1 hr 4 min
The U.S.-India initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET) was launched during the Quad Summit in Tokyo in May 2022. The purpose of the iCET was to expand partnerships in critical and emerging technologies, including semiconductors. As part of the iCET, the Semiconductor Industry Association and India Electronics and Semiconductor Association agreed to undertake a “readiness assessment” to identify near-term industry opportunities and facilitate the longer-term strategic development of...
Sep 28, 2023•37 min
Even though India and France have had a strategic partnership for twenty-five years now, the bilateral relationship between these countries has received substantial impetus recently. The relationship spans common interests in the Indian Ocean Region and the Indo-Pacific, a robust military and defense partnership, cooperation in high-tech areas such as space and nuclear, and, of course, a growing economic and trade relationship. What lessons can both countries offer each other? And what are some ...
Sep 14, 2023•1 hr 4 min
In the last decade, there has been a growing convergence of global powers in the Indo-Pacific, evident from the proliferation of multilateral initiatives in the region. It has also emerged as an arena for geopolitical competition between China and the United States. As the competition intensifies, how does China see the Indo-Pacific? How has Beijing's understanding of this region changed over time? What can India learn from the way China sees the Indo-Pacific? In this episode of Interpreting Ind...
Sep 07, 2023•45 min
The past week has been momentous for those awaiting the enactment of a legal framework for data protection in India. India’s parliament passed the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, and the law has now also received the assent of the President of India. This law has been enacted after multiple rounds of deliberations and consultations. Multiple committees have submitted reports on the proposed legislation, and three previous drafts of the legislation have been circulated for public cons...
Aug 17, 2023•53 min
The role of the private sector in facilitating the climate transition journey of our world has been much talked about recently. While many corporations, including those in the fossil fuel sectors, have started drafting out their own journeys to “net zero,” Ajay Banga, the newly appointed president of the World Bank, has also emphasized the need for active private sector finance in the climate transition. There is a growing realization that governments alone cannot do all that is needed to preven...
Aug 10, 2023•50 min
Defense cooperation is central to the India-U.S. partnership, and it has served as a key enabler for stronger collaboration at the multilateral level. While defense ties between the two countries have gone from strength to strength over the last two decades, defense-industrial cooperation has notably failed to take off thus far. However, of late, the two countries have made a renewed push toward furthering defense-industrial cooperation. They released a roadmap in June 2023, and Prime Minister N...
Jul 27, 2023•41 min
In recent years, international indices and rankings such as the Democracy Index and the V-Dem Index have downgraded India’s democracy. Although there are significant differences in the degrees of downgrading, most major indices suggest that Indian democracy is backsliding. Meanwhile, India is witnessing an increase in voter turnout, and people continue to participate actively and vociferously in politics. What is the reason for this disconnect between scholarly understandings of Indian democracy...
Jul 13, 2023•1 hr 13 min
The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act was introduced in 2016 to protect consumers who had invested in residential real estate projects from malpractices by real estate developers. After the law was passed, most states established real estate regulatory authorities to register and oversee the conduct of real estate developers. What changes did this act try to bring in, and how has this regulatory change benefited consumers? Is the increased information about property litigation that th...
Jun 29, 2023•49 min
The iCET was launched on the sidelines of the Quad Summit in Tokyo in May 2022. Both U.S. President Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi welcomed the launch of this initiative, which was to be spearheaded by the National Security Councils of the two countries to expand partnership in critical and emerging technologies. Is the iCET more than just a deal? What is the case for comparisons between the iCET and the landmark India-U.S. Civilian Nuclear Deal? What makes the iCET different from...
Jun 13, 2023•34 min
The 17th Lok Sabha has seventy-eight women MPs, the highest since independence. Has the increase in women’s participation been meaningful? What narratives of equality and citizenship have framed the issue of electoral representation? Do women MPs carry the burden of shifting welfare policy in a gender-sensitive direction? In this episode of Interpreting India, Shirin Rai joins Shibani Mehta to discuss these questions on gender parity and disparity in the Indian Parliament. Episode Contributors S...
Jun 01, 2023•52 min
Climate finance and technology is one of India’s priorities as part of its ongoing G20 presidency. Financing the climate transition of developing countries and the Global South is a complex but critical issue, as is the development, transfer, and sharing of critical climate technologies. What should India’s climate finance and technology strategy be? What role will the various pools of capital—private, public, philanthropic, impact, and multilateral development banks—play in mobilizing the neces...
May 18, 2023•56 min
India’s development has not been uniform and has leapfrogged from agriculture to services, skipping over a manufacturing phase. However, the agriculture and services sectors typically do not create enough productive jobs for those at the bottom of the education and skills ladder. Thus, there is a need for labor-intensive manufacturing to absorb those with low levels of education and skills, but only around 11–12 percent of the total employment is in manufacturing, and this share has been essenti...
May 11, 2023•1 hr 4 min
Recently, there have been certain key developments in India's space sector. There are questions that need to be probed for a better understanding of the country's space sector. What does it take to set up a successful space company? What should be made of the space sector reforms unveiled three years ago? How does the recent iCET framework play out when it comes to space cooperation between India and the United States? In this episode of Interpreting India, Susmita Mohanty joins Konark Bhandari ...
Apr 20, 2023•45 min
The relationship between India and Germany doesn’t receive as much attention as it deserves. In recent years, however, the bilateral partnership has received a big impetus, both economically and geopolitically. India and Germany have had a strategic partnership since 2001, but have recently also embarked on a Green Strategic Partnership for green and sustainable development. What is that about? Where does this relationship stand currently? What are the challenges in taking this relationship to t...
Apr 13, 2023•48 min
A major puzzle for the Indian economy in the last one decade has been the weak performance in the textiles and apparel sectors. In real terms, the apparels sector has grown marginally and the textiles sector has witnessed a decline. India’s share in world trade in textiles and apparels has also declined considerably. Between the late-1990s and early 2010s, India’s share in the textiles trade has doubled, as the Indian economy revealed its comparative advantage in a variety of products in this ca...
Mar 23, 2023•1 hr 11 min
In accordance with the G20 presidency conversations, one of the key conversations that has been missing from the main discourse has been the relationship between Brazil and India. Brazil will be taking over the G20 presidency from India. Therefore, it is imperative that these two countries think about some of the issues around climate finance, energy, technological innovation, global governance, and the SDGs. In this episode of Interpreting India, André Aranha Corrêa do Lago joins Anirudh Suri t...
Mar 16, 2023•54 min
Since their independence from the Soviet Union, the Central Asian countries, namely Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, have maintained close ties with Moscow. However, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has complicated the relationship. None of the Central Asian countries have expressed support for Russia’s war and are all abiding by the western sanctions imposed on Moscow. While economic ties between the region and Russia remain strong as of now, Central Asian countries...
Mar 09, 2023•42 min
Over the last three decades, cross-border violence between India and Pakistan has been interspersed with periods of relative peace. Until 2003, ceasefires along the Line of Control and International Border in Jammu and Kashmir (in 1949, 1965, and 1971) were preceded by war between India and Pakistan. On the night of November 23, 2003, an announcement of a unilateral ceasefire, starting on Eid-ul-Fitr, was made by then prime minister of Pakistan Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali. Following this, during ...
Feb 23, 2023•33 min
India’s patterns of urban growth came under sharp focus during the Covid-19 pandemic. Many highlighted the poor quality of urban services as contributors to the spread of the same. The pandemic laid bare many pre-existing deficiencies in urban governance that have continued to plague India’s urban areas. As India continues to grow and urbanize, the municipal bodies that govern our cities are increasing in relevance. There is a huge diversity of municipal bodies in India—from nagar panchayats or ...
Jan 26, 2023•48 min
Welcome to a new season of Interpreting India! Last year, amid the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic, precarious geopolitical relations, and a rapidly evolving technological landscape, the second season of Interpreting India explored the many challenges and opportunities that India will confront in the coming decade. This year as well, we at Carnegie India will continue to bring voices from India and around the world to examine the role of technology, the economy, and international security in ...
Jan 23, 2023•2 min
2022 has been a year of geopolitical conflict and tensions. If we were expecting a quieter end to the year, then we were apparently mistaken. On December 9, Chinese and Indian troops had a face-off along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Tawang sector of Arunachal Pradesh. While we don’t have many details yet, it appears that a few hundred soldiers were involved in a physical scuffle, and some thirty to forty, on both sides, sustained injuries. The Indian defence minister, Rajnath Singh, t...
Dec 15, 2022•46 min
How far has India come since independence, and where is it going? What are the opportunities and challenges it has witnessed in the past, and what all awaits it in the near future? In this episode, Suyash Rai invites his colleagues who have previously hosted episodes of Interpreting India to share insights from their work. Anirudh Burman talks about land markets and policy framework for India’s new technology sectors. Konark Bhandari explicates India’s role in semiconductor supply chains and com...
Dec 09, 2022•2 hr 5 min
Collaborative technologies like blockchain promise the ability to improve business processes between entities in any domain, radically lowering the "cost of trust." Sarang Bhoyar joins Priyadarshini D. to discuss the adoption and limitations of blockchain in the Indian context. -- Episode Contributors Sarang Bhoyar is currently the head of blockchain (Centre of Excellence) at the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). He has more than two decades of rich IT experience across technologies...
Oct 07, 2022•53 min
The Indo-Pacific has emerged as a region of great significance. China is cementing its strategic presence in the region with a push toward financing infrastructure, announcements of alternative security and development mechanisms, and security pacts, most recently, with the Solomon Islands. Meanwhile, the United States remains preoccupied with its various priorities including the war in Ukraine and a broader engagement with European security. As regional dynamics continue to evolve, actors like ...
Sep 22, 2022•39 min
Ever since its adoption in October 2000, the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda has emerged as the landmark global framework promoting women’s participation in conflict resolution and achieving sustainable peace. Through its four pillars, participation, conflict prevention, protection, and relief and recovery, the WPS agenda aims to provide a holistic approach to international security. Since the adoption of the agenda, 103 countries have adopted National Action Plans (NAPs) to enhance women...
Sep 08, 2022•43 min
Lately, Turkey’s actions have come into the limelight. It notably delayed Sweden's and Finland’s memberships in NATO in exchange for fulfilling its own security demands. Meanwhile, it continues to supply drones and other weapons to Ukraine to resist Russian aggression while maintaining its relationship with Moscow at the same time. Turkey has further been involved in the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia as well as in civil wars in Syria and Libya. It has also sought to expand its influenc...
Aug 26, 2022•42 min
