Beyond Nation & State with Urvashi Sarkar

World Press Freedom Day: What are the many meanings of freedom?

Mon, 02 May 2022 18:13:07 +0000

Press freedom is increasingly endangered across the world. At least 28 journalists were killed due to their work in 2021, with India and Mexico topping the list of countries with the most media worker deaths, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Journalists in many countries are feeling the pressure as they are arbitrarily imprisoned, silenced or killed in some instances, for the work they do. But journalists are continuing to push boundaries and in some cases are transcending borders to report on important causes. Notwithstanding the global climate of curbs on freedom of expression, a handful of intrepid foreign correspondents from India are travelling across the world to tell stories on human rights, culture, politics and resistance.

In a special episode on the various meanings of press freedom foreign correspondent Priyanka Borpujari talks to host Urvashi Sarkar about the various meanings of freedom as a journalist and why frontlines need not always imply war and conflict. She explores concepts of not just freedom from oppression but also freedom to practice the profession on her own terms.

Priyanka is an award-winning journalist currently based in Ireland. She has previously reported from Japan, India, El Salvador, Indonesia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Argentina. Between 2018 and 2019, she walked 1,200 kms across north and northeast India on the Out of Eden Walk with Pulitzer-winning journalist Paul Salopek, which traces the path of human migration. Her journalism has been published in a wide range of international and Indian news publications. She speaks 7 languages.

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Anger on the streets: Sri Lanka in crisis

Fri, 29 Apr 2022 17:39:31 +0000

Sri Lanka is in the midst of an acute crisis. Thousands of Sri Lankans are on the streets protesting shortages and the soaring cost of food, medicines and fuel. Long power cuts and no cooking gas are causing Sri Lankans unimaginable distress and suffering. Hospitals cannot perform routine surgeries, medicines are in short supply and school exams are being postponed due to the lack of paper. The country lacks foreign currency for the most basic imports and is in debt of over 50 billion dollars which it says it cannot repay for the time being. Sri Lankans are angry with the terrible economic mismanagement of their country and the Gotabaya Rajapaksa government. However, protests by the people are being suppressed in increasingly brutal ways and there is a sense that worse may come. What is the role of the much-debated China debt trap and should Sri Lanka accept a bailout from the International Monetary Fund?

Colombo-based Marlon Ariyasinghe, the Senior Assistant Editor for Himal Southasian magazine decodes the crisis in this episode of Beyond Nation and State.

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Ukraine in 2022: The Russia invasion that should never have been

Wed, 09 Mar 2022 07:45:00 +0000

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has inaugurated a dangerous era of world politics with a huge human cost. Overnight, more than 1 million people have already become refugees, fleeing to neighbouring countries such as Poland and Hungary. While we must hold Russia accountable, the role of the US, Europe and NATO cannot be ignored in this conflict. While the invasion invites questions which will continue to be asked for years to come, there are a few basic and pressing questions. First, why did Russia invade Ukraine? Two, what do Ukrainians want? Three, what is the role of NATO in this conflict.

To answer these questions and give us crucial context, veteran Russia studies expert Dr. Anuradha Chenoy speaks to Beyond Nation and State. Dr Anuradha Chenoy is Professor (retired) and former Dean of the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She was chairperson and director of the Centre for Russian and Central Asian Studies at JNU. She is an adjunct faculty at the OP Jindal Global University .

India too has a role to play in the conflict. Why did India refuse to outrightly condemn Russia? How do India’s concerns with regard to China and in the Indo-Pacific matter? Why did India mess up the evacuation of Indian students from Ukraine, with many saying the Indian Embassy in Ukraine didn’t help as much as it should have. Our other guest Dr. Happymon Jacob addresses some of these questions.Dr. Happymon Jacob teaches at Jawaharlal Nehru University and is the host of National Security Conversations with The Wire. He is also a columnist with The Hindu newspaper.

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Myanmar’s persecuted Chin refugees on the run, seek shelter in India’s Mizoram

Mon, 28 Feb 2022 07:36:06 +0000

Ethnic communities in Myanmar have long borne the brunt of abusive military rule since the military staged a coup against the democratically elected government in 1962. Time and again ethnic people especially in the states of Rakhine, Chin, Shan, Kachin, and Karen have been significantly abused. These abuses include extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrest and detention, torture and mistreatment, forced labor, reprisals against members of the opposition, restrictions on movement, expression, and religious freedom, abusive military conscription policies, and extortion and confiscation of property. The discrimination faced by the Rohingya community in particular is well-known and documented; this community is probably the worst discriminated against in Myanmar.

The Chin people are another group at the receiving end. After the military junta staged yet another coup in February 2021, thousands of Chin people crossed over from Chin state to India’s Mizoram with which it shares a 404 km border. Chin people have been escaping persecution earlier too since the 1980s. While they have sought refuge in countries like Thailand and Malaysia, Mizoram in India has drawn more Chin people. Besides proximity, the people of Chin State and Mizoram also share a common history and ethnic ancestry.

However, India has not signed the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees or its 1967 Protocol. The status of Chins in India is therefore undefined. There is no clear estimate of the number of Chin refugees in India.

Dr. Rini Ralte who is President of Northeast Solidarity speaks about the dire conditions of Chin refugees in Mizoram’s refugee camps. She highlights the difficult and fraught journey that Chins make to cross into India from Myanmar and discusses the ties that bind the people of Chin state and Mizoram. Dr. Ralte earned her doctorate degree from Boston’s Episcopal Divinity School and Senate of Serampore College, West Bengal. She is a retired Professor from the Department of Women’s Studies at the United Theological College, Bangalore. She currently lives in Aizawl.

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Reflecting on the state of Urdu in India and South Asia

Mon, 31 Jan 2022 05:21:00 +0000

Urdu is a major South Asian language spoken in large parts of India and Pakistan. In India, it is one of the 22 languages included in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution while in Pakistan Urdu is the national language. There are similarities between the Urdu, Persian and Arabic scripts. Hindi and Urdu too, share similarities in grammar and vocabulary. Urdu in India is currently at a place where some worry over the passing of the era of Urdu’s glory. At the same time, there is a revival of interest in its script and vocabulary, literature and poetry.

Mahtab Alam, managing editor at the National Foundation of India has been a journalist for nearly a decade and writes in English, Urdu and Hindi. He was also Executive Editor (Urdu) for The Wire.

In this episode of Beyond Nation and State, Mahtab Alam explains the nature of the crisis of Urdu in India, the state of Urdu press and journalism, Urdu-speaking diaspora and the capacity of Urdu to act as a binding agent for the people of India and Pakistan.

Show notes:

Safekeeping Urdu depends on the next generation’s zeal to embrace it
Explained: Why Urdu is an Indian language, not a foreign one
Rekhta’s Trilingual Online Dictionary Opens up New Worlds For Urdu Lovers
Census Data on Language Reveals a Surprise about Urdu
Tom Alter: The ‘Angrez’ Who Wrote His Memoir in Urdu
Can Urdu regain its place in India’s linguistic landscape? Yes, if it is treated as a mother tongue

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Caste and its absence from critiques of Indian foreign policy

Mon, 20 Dec 2021 08:05:00 +0000

The discipline of international relations and its practice, which includes foreign policy, is an esoteric field. Debates on foreign policy and international relations are abstract and rarefied as if it doesn’t affect the lives of people. But on the contrary, foreign policy decisions affect all kinds of things that matter to people - it can decide whether a country is at war or not, the prices of food, medicines and consumer goods, borders and citizenship, travel and mobility and much more. Who makes foreign policy? In India, it’s usually the External Affairs Minister, Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary who have a say in foreign policymaking. Bureaucrats, academicians and professors, think tank communities and journalists too, play a role.

But who really are these people? Do they hail from a certain socio-economic background which can be described as ‘elite’? Are they only from a particular class and or also from a certain caste? Do the socio-cultural and economic backgrounds of decision-makers affect how foreign policy is made?

The guest on the fifth episode of Beyond Nation and State is Pavan Kumar, a PhD candidate at Jawaharlal Nehru University’s Centre for International Politics, Organizations and Disarmament. Pavan’s research interests are history of India's foreign policy, theories of international relations, gender, and caste. He recently submitted his PhD thesis on Vallabhai Patel’s approach to India’s foreign policy

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The unbridled power of corporations and why we should be worried

Tue, 30 Nov 2021 10:02:00 +0000

Increasingly powerful and wealthy corporations are challenging the might of the state, though in most cases, states facilitate their rise to those powerful positions. In many cases, corporations also behave as a force multiplier for states. But what happens when a giant multinational corporation like Cairn Energy plans to take over the assets of a country- its airlines, shipping vessels and more? What causes a government to be forced into paying billions of dollars in a penalty to a gigantic telecom corporation like Vodafone? What methods did Union Carbide Corporation use, to try and escape the devastating consequences of its negligence in the 1984 Bhopal gas disater?

Prof. Rahul Varman from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur whose various research interests include the political economy of corporations, globalisation and the working classes and small firm clusters explains how the power of corporations is still largely under the radar and why this is a problem. Prof. Varman uses recent examples to illustrate the various ways in which corporations dodge taxes and escape responsibility. He tells us about the problematic framing of the public versus private sector debate and how politicians, the judiciary, Parliament and media have created an environment where corporate accountability is completely thrown out of the window.

Show notes:

The Larger Issues Underlying the Claim of Cairn Energy on Air India.
The Political Economy of Corporations: Behind the Veil of ‘Corporate Efficiency Behind the Hype of E-commerce From 2014 to 2019: How the Adani Group’s footprint expanded across India How Reliance Jio’s Entry Tied Regulatory Knots Around India’s Telecom Ecosystem

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Spotlight on the Rafale deal

Sat, 30 Oct 2021 07:44:24 +0000

Defence modernisation is a declared priority of successive Indian governments. When some years ago, the Indian Air Force sought to replace its outdated aircraft, major defence equipment manufacturing companies put in their bids. Dassault Aviation, a French company, won the bid and was selected for the purchase of 126 Rafale fighter aircraft. This was approximately in 2012 when the United Progressive Alliance, led by the Congress was in power. In 2015, the Modi government announced new terms to the agreement, which dramatically increased the cost of the aircraft. It also resulted in the sudden replacement of the state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited with Reliance Defence, a company set up by the businessman Anil Ambani, and which had no prior experience in making defence equipment. India’s Supreme Court has rejected allegations of irregularities in the matter. However, in June 2021, France announced a judicial inquiry to investigate allegations of corruption and favouritism and involvement of both governments. This development was a result of investigations by the French news publication Mediapart and Sherpa, a French NGO that fights economic crime.

Beyond Nation and State Host, Urvashi Sarkar spoke to Chanez Mensous, litigation and advocacy officer at Sherpa, about the status of the case in France and the lack of transparency worldwide in defence procurement. The Rafale case isn’t the first instance of corruption in defence deals in India. Previous prominent cases include the Bofors and AgustaWestland corruption scams.

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Its now or never: the urgency of climate action

Thu, 30 Sep 2021 08:12:00 +0000

The Sixth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change strongly concludes that human beings are almost wholly responsible for climate change and its calamitous effects. The Conference of Parties (COP), an annual multilateral summit which brings together - and frequently divides- countries on the issue of climate change, is the first summit to take place on the heels of a devastating pandemic. How have countries such as India fared on their commitments to the Paris Agreement of 2015? Should developed countries take on the greater share of responsibility for contributing to climate finance? What are the prospects of transitioning away from fossil fuels?

Harjeet Singh, a senior adviser with Climate Action Network- International (CAN) and Strategic Advisor: Global Partnerships to the Fossil Fuel Non Proliferation Treaty Initiative talks to Beyond Nation and State about what we can expect from forthcoming COPs, why we should be talking more about climate finance and the effects of global warming on migration. Harjeet Singh is a global expert on the issues of climate impacts, migration and adaptation. He has been supporting countries across the world on tackling climate change.

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A Woman Walks Kabul

Mon, 30 Aug 2021 08:32:23 +0000

Despite the presence of and intervention from foreign forces, the people of Afghanistan have always sought peace, which continues to evade them. In attempting to make sense of events in Afghanistan, what is the importance of listening and referring to Afghan voices? Do the long historical, trade and cultural connections between India and Afghanistan somewhat explain why Indians feel especially welcome in Afghanistan? Despite the deeply problematic ways in which the Indian media covers Afghanistan, do alternate viewpoints and possibilities exist?

In this episode, film-maker, journalist and writer Taran Khan ponders on the meanings of war and peace from the perspective of Kabul. She speaks about the common shared passions and differences between Indian and Afghan people. Taran shares her personal impressions of culture and life in Kabul based on her frequent travels to the city. She also discusses her book, based on Kabul.

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