Parley by The Hindu

One of the defining economic trends of the year has been the rise of cryptocurrencies. After the Supreme Court’s decision last year overturning the Reserve Bank of India’s 2018 order banning financial institutions from enabling cryptocurrency transactions, there has been a huge rush of retail investors into cryptocurrencies. Yet, the risk of the government cracking down on private currencies has remained. On Wednesday, the Centre announced that it will introduce a bill in the upcoming winter session of Parliament seeking to ban private cryptocurrencies, albeit with a few exceptions. Many commentators see the rise of cryptocurrencies as a bubble, while enthusiasts of cryptocurrencies see it as unstoppable.

Here we discuss the government’s move.

Guests: Akshat Shrivastava, a serial entrepreneur and an investor in cryptocurrencies; Parag Waknis, an Associate Professor at Ambedkar University

Host: Prashanth Perumal J.

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The recent ICC Men’s Twenty20 World Cup in the United Arab Emirates once again showed us the glorious uncertainties of cricket. The sport’s twists were evident when title-favourite India got knocked out. Immediately, the knives were sharpened on social media. Worse had happened earlier following India’s loss to Pakistan. Some fans who had celebrated Pakistan’s triumph were arrested and despicable remarks were made about Indian speedster Mohammed Shami’s Muslim identity, which raised the question: can patriotism be conflated with the Indian men’s cricket team? Isn’t sport a medium that cuts across boundaries?

Here we discuss these questions.

Guest: R. Kaushik, a veteran sports writer, having reported more than 100 Tests and multiple World Cups. He also co-authored V.V.S. Laxman’s biography 281 and Beyond; W.V. Raman, a former Indian cricketer and acclaimed coach, who recently coached the Indian women’s team. He is also the author of The Winning Sixer

Host: K.C. Vijaya Kumar, Sports Editor, The Hindu

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Earlier this month, the Tata Group emerged as the winning bidder for Air India, the debt-laden national carrier. In this year’s Budget, the government unveiled a bold new disinvestment policy that envisages a bare minimum presence of government-owned businesses even in the strategic sectors. The government is also pursuing the sale of its entire stake in public sector firms such as BPCL, Shipping Corporation of India, IDBI Bank, two other public sector banks and one general insurance company this financial year. Given India’s recent disinvestment record, this is an ambitious target.

Here we discuss the implications of the sale of Air India on the future of India’s public sector.

Guests: Arvind Mehta was Secretary to the Fifteenth Finance Commission and also served in the Department of Disinvestment in two separate stints; Ashok Chawla served as Permanent Secretary to the Government of India in Ministries such as Civil Aviation and Finance and retired recently as Chairperson of the Competition Commission of India

Host: Vikas Dhoot

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Last month, the Union government set up the National Asset Reconstruction Company Limited (NARCL) under the Companies Act. It thus delivered on its promise to set up a ‘bad bank’ to clean up the balance sheets of commercial banks. Under the new set up, the NARCL will take over loans worth almost ₹2 lakh crore from the books of commercial banks at a mutually agreed price. The NARCL will pay 15% of the price of these loans upfront in cash to banks and then issue security receipts in lieu of the remaining amount. The NARCL will then try to resolve these bad loans in a time-bound manner with help from the India Debt Resolution Company Limited (IDRCL). In case the IDRCL is unable to sell these bad loans at a satisfactory price to make good on the security receipts, the Centre will step in and fund the gap, but within a budget limit of ₹30,600 crore.

Here we discusss the bad bank proposal.

Guests: C.P. Chandrasekhar, Professor at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, JNU; Ajit Ranade, chief economist at the Aditya Birla Group

Host: Prashanth Perumal J.

With the Tamil Nadu government seeking to ‘dispense’ with the requirement for candidates to qualify in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) for admission to undergraduate medical courses in the State, the controversy over NEET is alive again. T.N.’s position is rooted in the conclusions of the Justice A.K. Rajan Committee report, which claims that NEET has undermined diverse social representation in MBBS admissions. J. Amalorpavanathan and Sumanth C. Raman discuss whether NEET has adversely affected the disadvantaged groups, in a conversation moderated by Ramya Kannan. 

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has changed five Chief Ministers in four States this year. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home State, Gujarat, is the latest to see a change of guard. Are these changes a sign of anti-incumbency or are they a sign of concentration of power in the hands of the Central leadership?

Here we discuss the issue.

Guests: Sudheendra Kulkarni, political commentator; Harish Khare, senior journalist and former Editor of The Tribune

Host: Sandeep Phukan

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On January 19, precisely a month after being bowled out for its lowest Test score of 36 against Australia, India bounced back to script one of the more memorable series triumphs in cricketing hiistory.

Dealing with injuries and insult in varying degrees, the squad fought gallantly to beat the odds and a full-strength opponent to retain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. The series-clinching three-wicket win at Brisbane — the first for a visiting team since 1988 — was achieved by a team that was missing nine of the regular players who formed the playing XI in the first Test at Adelaide.

This fitting finale to India’s tale of guts and glory brought with it the admiration of not only cricket-playing nations but also sports-lovers across disciplines.

Here we discuss why India has not replicated or even remotely matched the success of cricket in other sports?

Guests: R.B. Ramesh, a British championship–winner, a Commonwealth champion, a Grandmaster-turned-coach, and former chief of the National Selection Committee; Sharath Kamal, a two-time Asian Games–medallist, a Commonwealth Games gold-medallist, and a Commonwealth champion.

Host: Rakesh Rao

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On January 12, the Supreme Court stayed the implementation of three controversial farm laws passed recently, and ordered the constitution of a committee of experts to negotiate between the farmers’ bodies and the Government of India.

Rather than deliberating on the constitutionality of the three laws, the court appears to be trying to move both the parties towards a political settlement, thereby wading into the domain of the government.

Here we discuss whether the court has abdicated its constitutional duty mandate in this case, and is this in a growing trend?

Guests: Anuj Bhuwania, Professor at the Jindal Global Law School, is the author of Courting the People: Public Interest Litigation in Post-Emergency India; Arun Thiruvengadam, a Professor of Law at the School of Policy and Governance, Azim Premji University, Bengaluru

Host: Jayant Sriram, Assistant Editor, The Hindu

Disinformation, or “fake news” in common parlance, is a malaise born amid the infodemic of the social media age. In the last few years, it has been used as an effective weapon to polarise communities and upset democratic processes.

As we begin 2021, we discuss the current state of the malady.

Guests: Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, Director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and Professor of Political Communication at the University of Oxford; Pratik Sinha, co-founder of Alt News, a fact-checking website.

Host: P.J. George, Deputy Internet Editor, The Hindu

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The Special Marriage Act (SMA), 1954 is seen as a progressive law enacted to help inter-faith couples. But with States such as Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh framing laws that target inter-faith marriage, the procedural requirements of the SMA — such as the need to give prior notice, and allowance for ‘objections’ — seem to be undermining its original intent by opening the doors to violent moral policing by vigilante groups.

Can the SMA come to the rescue of inter-faith couples, who, in addition to the old challenge of parental opposition, today also have to contend with the bogey of ‘love jihad’? Here we discuss the issue.

Guests: Veena Gowda, a women’s rights lawyer who has been practising in the High Court of Bombay, Family Court and other trial courts for more than two decades; Faizan Mustafa, Vice-Chancellor of NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad.

Host: G. Sampath

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The number of coding and programming bootcamps that are being offered by educational technology (Ed Tech) companies for children as young as four or five years has increased exponentially in recent times. Ed Tech companies argue that careers in the 21st century will be based on technology, for which children should get a head start. There have also been ringing endorsements from celebrities for this trend.

Should we at all be concerned about this? What are the repercussions of increasing screen time for young children? Here we discuss this issue

Guests: Latha Madhusudhan, an educator for over 30 years, is the founder of ‘Prakriti - A Waldorf Kindergarten’, a Waldorf-inspired school in Bengaluru; Pritika Mehta, a data scientist and entrepreneur who leads initiatives to teach coding to young children via interactive games

Host: Mandira Moddie

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Despite the years of experience and expertise that the middle management layer brings to the Indian IT services industry, it has been facing an existential crisis for a while now. Stories abound of clients preferring senior code writers over project managers, and of tech CEOs aiming  the axe at this layer first every time a sizeable lay off is planned. The pandemic has not made it any easier.

Have enough project managers made the change to agile methodologies that steer clear of the traditional, and sequential, more rigid ‘waterfall’ approach while working with clients? Here we discuss the question about their future.

Guests: Srini Srinivasan, Managing Director, PMI South Asia; R. Srikrishna, CEO and Executive Director, Hexaware Technologies.

Host: K. Bharat Kumar

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Recent visits by Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval to countries in the region appear to show new energy in India’s neighbourhood policy. Over the past few years, there have been many strains in ties with neighbours — for instance, with Nepal over its Constitution in 2015 and now over the map, and with Bangladesh over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA).

Here we discuss India’s neighbourhood policy.

Guests: Constantino Xavier, a nonresident fellow in the India Project, and is currently a fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress; Shyam Saran, a former Foreign Secretary and is currently Senior Fellow, Centre for Policy Research.

Host: Suhasini Haidar, Diplomatic Affairs Editor, The Hindu

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Following widespread criticism, the Kerala government decided early this week to put on hold an Ordinance that gives unbridled powers to the police to arrest anyone expressing or disseminating any matter that it deems defamatory.

However, the move to introduce such a law in the first place shows that State governments believe that existing laws are not adequate to deal with social media abuse. We discuss to what extent is this true.

Guests: Rishab Bailey, a lawyer working with the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, an autonomous research institute established by the Ministry of Finance; Vrinda Bhandari, a litigating lawyer in Delhi. She is Of-Counsel for the Internet Freedom Foundation, and specialises in the field of digital rights, technology, and privacy

Host: Jayant Sriram

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While the India-China stand-off continues in eastern Ladakh, the Line of Control (LoC) is yet again on the boil.  We discuss whether India faces the prospect of a two-front war.

Guests: Harsh V. Pant, Director, Studies at the Observer Research Foundation and Professor of International Relations, King’s College London; Lieutenant General D.S. Hooda (retd.), a former Northern Army Commander. 

Host: Dinakar Peri

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As economies around the world struggle to recover from the double whammy of a pandemic and a lockdown, unemployment is soaring. In India, the land of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), the promise of jobs and the politics of unemployment have a long history.

Can a citizen demand work as a right, and is it the state’s responsibility to provide employment? We discuss the possible policy approaches to the right to work.

Guests: Amit Basole, Head, Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University, Bengaluru; Reetika Khera, Associate Professor of Economics at IIT-Delhi.

Host: G. Sampath, Social Affairs Editor, The Hindu

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After India’s economy collapsed in the first quarter of 2020-21 following the nationwide lockdown imposed to curb the COVID-19 pandemic, some economic indicators from September and October, from power consumption to GST collections, suggest that things are improving.

We discuss whether there is a sustainable recovery under way, or it's just an expression of pent-up demand combined with India’s festive-season spending.

Guests: M. Govinda Rao, a former member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister and the Fourteenth Finance Commission; Naushad Forbes, a former president of the Confederation of Indian Industry and co-chairman of Forbes Marshall

Host: Vikas Dhoot

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Russian President Vladimir Putin recently said that China and Germany are soon going to be superpowers as U.S. influence wanes globally. Today, as the U.S. is on the cusp of a new presidency, after a remarkable almost four years under President Donald Trump, it is worth examining whether its superpower status endures in the realms of politics, economics, military and diplomatic power, and culture.

We discuss why the U.S. faces an ideational problem despite having an unparalleled position militarily and economically.

Guests: Richard Lachmann, a Professor of Sociology at the University at Albany of the State University of New York; Robert J. Lieber, a Professor of Government and International Affairs at Georgetown University.

Host: Narayan Lakshman, Associate Editor, The Hindu

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Since mid-September, the number of daily new COVID-19 cases recorded has been reducing from the peak of 90,000-odd cases. A few days ago, the COVID-19 India National Supermodel Committee, constituted by the Department of Science and Technology, based on mathematical modelling studies, concluded that India had passed the COVID-19 peak in September. It also found that there will be fewer than 50,000 active cases from December and if proper safety protocols continue to be followed, the pandemic can be “controlled by early next year” with “minimal” active symptomatic infections by end-February. We discuss whether India has gone past the peak.

Guests: Giridhara R. Babu, a Professor of Epidemiology at the Public Health Foundation of India, Bengaluru, and a member of the Karnataka COVID-19 Technical Advisory Committee; Gautam Menon, a Professor of Physics and Biology at Ashoka University and co-author of COVID-19 modelling studies.

Host: R. Prasad, Science Editor, The Hindu

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Last week, the Mumbai Police said that a TRP (Target Rating Points) racket involving three news channels had been busted by its Crime Detection Branch. Since then, the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), which monitors the TRPs, has suspended ratings of news channels for three months.

The alleged scam has once again highlighted the need for regulation. Television channels are driven by TRPs and it is viewership that drives their business. We discuss how TRPs are manipulated and what could be the solution.

Guests: Sashi Kumar, the founder and editor in chief of Asiaville, a digital multimedia platform. He was also the founder of Asianet television channel; S.Y. Quraishi, a former Chief Election Commissioner and former Director General of Doordarshan.

Host: Anuradha Raman

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Online payments company Paytm recently announced that it was building a ‘Mini App Store’ which would ‘empower Indian developers’. This move came days after Paytm was removed from Google’s Play Store over apparent violation of its policies. Though it was reinstated later, Paytm and several other Indian Internet startups allege that Google is using its market dominance to arbitrarily enforce policies and target competitors. The Play Store is the key app store for Google’s Android operating system, which runs over 90% of smartphones in India. Google also announced that it will start enforcing a 30% commission on all payments made for digital services in apps from its Play Store. Though the implementation of this plan has since been postponed to next year, it has caused much heartburn in the Indian startup environment. There is discontent brewing against tech giants in their home country as well, with a similar tussle going on between Apple and some game developers in the U.S., and the government readying an anti-trust lawsuit against Google. Is the Indian startup ecosystem is ready to take on the giants on whom they are dependent for crucial infrastructure?

Guests

Jayadevan P.K. is a startup founder and writes on technology. He now works on brand building for startups.

Thillai Rajan is a Professor in the Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Madras.

Host

P.J. George, Deputy Internet Editor, The Hindu

In his Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the government will soon take a decision on the age of marriage of women. Earlier, a task force had been formed to consider raising this from 18 years to 21.

Guests: Jayna Kothari, Executive Director of the Centre for Law and Policy Research and Senior Advocate at the Supreme Court.

Madhu Mehra, Executive Director of Partners for Law in Development India, and co-founder of the National Coalition for Advocating for Adolescent Concerns.

Host: Jagriti Chandra, Principal Correspondent, The Hindu

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