3 Things

Earlier this week, senior Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde revolted against his party, and took some 30 MLAs (out of 55) with him to camp outside the state. Since then his camp has grown bigger, and which has led to both Shiv Sena and the Maha Vikas Aghadi government to face an existential crisis.

In this episode, host Shashank Bhargava talks to Indian Express’ Shubhangi Khapre about how this crisis started, what it says about the Shiv Sena leadership, and the lessons it needs to learn going forward.

The headlines this evening from the Indian Express.

First, Indian Express’s Udit Misra talks to host Utsa Sarmin about central banks raising interest rates to tackle rising prices of food and fuel.

Second, Deeptiman Tiwari joins us to talk about the bribery case in which the Central Bureau of Investigation arrested the joint drug controller S Eswara Reddy and executives of Bionic Biologics.

And in the end, Indian Express’s Pranavl Mukul talks about the bird strikes that grounded two aircraft on Sunday, and why such incidents can be dangerous.

The headlines this evening from the Indian Express.

An investigation by the Indian Express has revealed that the NCERT has recently made sweeping changes in social science school textbooks for Classes 6 to 12. These have been the most exhaustive changes since the NDA government came to power in 2014. They include deleting references to the 2002 Gujarat riots, dropping passages that dealt with Emergency’s draconian impact on people and institutions, and removing chapters on protests and social movements.

In this episode, Indian Express’ National Education Editor Ritika Chopra, who undertook the investigation, joins host Shashank Bhargava to discuss her findings. And then later, we hear from political commentator Suhas Palshikar, and sociologist Yogendra Yadav about the implications of these changes, and why the BJP feels the need to do them, including removing references to the Emergency.

The headlines this evening from the Indian Express.

The Rohingya crisis, which started in 2017, is still continuing. Rohingyas, faced with persecution from the Myanmar army, fled their homeland en masse. Bangladesh, then, opened their borders to the Rohingyas. This led to the creation of the world’s largest refugee camp in Cox’s Bazaar. The Kutupalong camp houses over a million refugees.

Over the years, the shifting attention from Rohingyas to new world crises, Myanmar’s disinterest in taking back the Rohingyas, and security concerns led to growing frustration on Bangladesh’s part.

To shed a light on the ongoing crisis, Indian Express’s Monojit Majumdar, who recently visited the camp, joins us today to talk about the historical background of the crisis, Bangladesh’s response and their discontentment with failed repatriation talks.

The headlines this evening from the Indian Express.

First, Indian Express’s Man Aman Singh talks to host Shashank Bhargava about the reaction of defence aspirants and veterans to India’s recently unveiled defence recruitment scheme, Agnipath.

Next, with the increase in torrential rainfall in the Northeast resulting in floods and mudslides, Indian Express’s Tora Agarwal sheds light on the increasing number of big floods.

And at the end, Esha Roy joins us to explain India’s bottom rank on the recently released Environment Performance Index.

The headlines this evening from the Indian Express.