Australia India Institute Podcast

As a pioneer in her field, Kishwar is contributing to the food tapestry of Australia through cultural exchange.

In this podcast, Kishwar sheds a light on roots of South Asian cooking, celebrating Australian produce and local growers.

Listen to how Kishwar shares her experience of India, her leadership as a South Asian woman making an impact on India Australia ties through shared produce.

As an advocate for food security, Kishwar sees food as a celebration but also a basic human right, a basic need. Her support for ASRC and UNWFP highlights the impact on food systems in refugee camps in Bangladesh and its empowerment for women.

Kishwar shares how Australia has come a long way embracing South Asian flavours and a growing South Asian diaspora from the 1980s to feeling comfortable taking a samosa to school, as much as a Vegemite sandwich. She shares how much more confident the current generation is through food and how Australian society has changed over time.

Her connection between Australia and India shared through food, family and cultural celebrations is a journey bringing so much life to multicultural Australia through sharing her joy of cooking and cuisine.

Investing in Renewable Energy: Collaborating through Tech 

This podcast was recorded live in New Delhi on the sixth of September, during the Australia India Leadership Dialogue.

It is conversation between Mike Cannon-Brookes, the co-CEO and co-Founder of Australian founded tech company Atlassian, and Suhasini Haidar, the Diplomatic Editor of The Hindu.

It delves into Mike's passion for investing in renewable energy, why there is an urgency to decarbonise our two economies, and how Australia and India can work together to achieve net zero emissions targets.

Tagore is one of the founding fathers of the Republic of India, alongside the likes of Nehru, Gandhi and Ambedkar.

He was a world-renowned poet, composer, playwright, painter and social reformer among many other things and was best known outside of South Asia for his collection of poems, Gitanjali, that awarded him the Nobel prize in Literature 1913, the first non-European to win such a prize.

Tagore authored around 200 books and made 3000 artworks. He founded an art school, university, and rural development institute and composed the National anthems of both India and Bangladesh.

There are a myriad of reasons to study Tagore, so today we are going to explore his work on love in terms of its norm-making and worldmaking.

To explore this, CEO Lisa Singh will be joined by two leading Tagore scholars: Dr Liane Hartnett and Professor Bindu Puri for this Chats over Chai podcast episode.

Dr. Surjeet Dhanji, Manager for Victorian Government Projects at the Australia India Institute chats to Arpita Das, founder of Yoda Press, and Editor of South Asian Series, Melbourne University Press. Arpita is also visiting faculty, lecturer at Ashoka University, where she teaches critical thinking. Amongst her many other ventures is her feminist electives, and in this podcast, Arpita shares with us her journey as a writer, publisher, advisor, and teacher.

Tamil Nadu located in the southern Part of India, is the country’s 2nd largest economy, 3rd largest exporting state and currently contributes 8.95% to India's net exports.

Over the years the state has attracted tremendous investment and emerged as the number one investment destination in the first nine months of the Financial Year of 2022.

The state is also a leader in renewables and has been contributing 16 per cent to India’s total installed grid capacity connected to renewables and is ranked 9th globally in net share of wind energy in total power generation.

The list of Tamil Nadu’s achievements goes on! There is no doubt that concerted efforts from the government, industry and the people of the state have played a significant role in bringing these outcomes for the state.

On this podcast we have Australia India Institute CEO The Hon Lisa Singh in conversation with the Finance Minister of the State The Hon. Dr Palanivel Thiaga Rajan, helping us understand Tamil Nadu’s journey in becoming India’s top investment hub.

Published in 2018, An India Economic Strategy to 2035: Navigating Potential to Delivery, created a blueprint for the future of Australia’s economic engagement with India and remains a key framework for driving the Australia-India relationship forward. This month, the India Economic Strategy Update was published and launched by Trade, Tourism and Investment Minister Dan Tehan in Melbourne.

Join Ambassador Anil Wadhwa and Australia India Institute CEO Lisa Singh in this Chats over Chai podcast as they unpack what the IES Update means for the future of economic engagement between Australia and India.

This episode will examine which sectors are identified as a priority in the IES Update; will India respond with its own Economic Update; and, as Ambassador Wadhwa points out, will the Update drive economic investment in critical minerals between Australia and India.

Frank Wesley, was a prolific and influential artist from Azamgarh who later worked in Mussoorie, India. He became known for pushing boundaries in religious art forms and he won various accolades. His art work had broad appeal, with his work featuring in a Vatican display, on the first UNICEF Christmas card and, perhaps most notably, on the urn for the ashes of Mahatma Gandhi, the father of the nation.

In this podcast Professor Nathan Grills from the Aii, who has a personal connection to Frank’s artwork through his work and research in Mussoorie, speaks to Frank’s son Michael Wesley, Deputy Vice Chancellor International at the University of Melbourne, as they explore Frank’s journey as part of the Indian diaspora in Australia.

50 years later, as part of University of Melbourne delegation to India, Michael and Nathan will visit Mussoorie in April to further develop research and educational linkages.

On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. Going beyond the contested regions in the East, the Russian troops marched on other Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv, and Putin announced that his nuclear forces were on high alert.

This war has had a significant humanitarian, economic, and geopolitical fallout. Meanwhile the UN General Assembly has voted to adopt a resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with some 141 countries demanding that Moscow immediately withdraw its forces from the soil of its sovereign neighbour. While 5 voted against the resolution, some 35 countries abstained from voting, including India.

For India, a nation one may say is isolated in an increasingly hostile region, its challenge is to continue to engage with the West while trying not to abandon ties with an old ally, Russia.

This podcast decodes India’s stance on the Ukraine crisis with Professor Ian Hall, from Griffith University, Dr Daniel Markey from United States Institute of Peace and the Australia India Institute's CEO Lisa Singh.

2021 witnessed the historic elevation of the QUAD when the leaders of the four nations met in the US and discussed the future of the QUAD and the Indo-Pacific. The members also agreed to work together on multiple issues of significance, and through their QUAD vaccine diplomacy played a crucial role in helping the region deal with the pandemic.

QUAD nations have time and again expressed concerns over the ever-changing geopolitical environment in the Indo-Pacific. So will 2022 see an increase in efforts to collectively tackle common security issues among QUAD members? What role will the QUAD play in shaping the future of the Indo-Pacific? Concerns over global supply chains have also been imperative to the QUAD’s agenda, so will the QUAD consider broadening its agenda to include economic and trade aspects?

This podcast features an interview with Dr. Rajesh Rajagopalan, a Professor of International Politics at Jawaharlal Nehru University and the Australia India Institute's CEO Hon Lisa Singh.

The Australia India Institute's Director, Lisa Singh in conversation with Professor Bindu Puri from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on the significance of satyagraha as a method of earning rights through self-suffering rather than inflicting suffering on others and the influence of such satyagraha on contemporary movements and as an inspiration to those who seek to fight oppression and injustice through truth and non-violence.