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President Putin has arrived in India for talks expected to focus on trade and expanding defence ties. India, like China, has been a big purchaser of Russian oil and has been accused by the West of financing the war. We hear from Russia and oil industry experts.

Also, why scam centres in Myanmar have attracted the attention of both government forces and insurgent groups.

And what next for Eurovision? Netherlands, Spain, Ireland and Slovenia boycott the song contest after Israel is allowed to compete. We find out this means for the future of the competition.

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Picture: Russian President Vladimir Putin visits India, New Delhi - 04 Dec 2025

Spain, Ireland, Slovenia and the Netherlands have all said they won’t send acts to the Eurovision Song Contest next May in protest at Israel’s participation. There have been calls for Israel to be excluded because of the war in Gaza, but members of the European Broadcasting Union, which organises the contest, rejected a push for a vote on the issue.

Also on the programme: an Inquiry finds the Russian President Vladimir Putin "morally responsible" for the death by poisoning of Dawn Sturgess in Salisbury; and we remember Steve Cropper, the legendary guitarist who's died at the age of 84.

Broadcasters in Ireland, The Netherlands, Slovenia and in Spain announced that they would neither show nor take part in next year’s competition, due to be held in Vienna. Members of the European Broadcasting Union, which organises the contest, had earlier decided not to hold a vote on barring Israel from competing.

Also on the programme: Vladimir Putin is feted by Narendra Modi on his visit to India; and we hear what the late Steve Cropper, legendary session guitarist, taught Otis Reading.

(Picture: Israeli entrant Yuval Raphael ahead of the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest, in Basel, Switzerland, May 14, 2025 Credit: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse)

Ed faces a heartbreaking situation, and there's rivalry building for Hannah.

Russia's leader visits India for the first time since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. India's prime minister is under pressure to stop buying Russian oil over accusations the trade is financing the war. Also: The New York Times is suing the Pentagon over its attempt to make journalists sign a pledge to only report authorised information. A study by the Gates Foundation has found that the number of preventable child deaths is due to rise this year for the first time this century. We go to New Orleans to examine the controversy surrounding an operation to arrest undocumented immigrants. A US senator gives us his view on President Trump's comments in which he describes America's Somali community as "garbage". The organisers of the Eurovision Song Contest debate whether Israel should be allowed to continue in the competition.

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Russia's president Vladimir Putin is visiting India. Economic cooperation is high on the agenda and, for India, its relationship with Russia is even more important with high US tariffs hurting the country's export market.

The maker of the diabetes drug, Ozempic, could be facing a major headache after a court in India told a generic drugs company that they could export Novo Nordisk's key ingredient without patent protection

And the EU is looking into the way Meta uses AI in WhatsApp.

Presenter: Leanna Byrne

Producer: Ahmed Adan

Editor: Justin Bones

Zambian-American influencer Ethel Chisono Edwards, also known as 'One Boss Lady', has been a vocal critic of Zambia's President Hakainde Hichilema. She was convicted under the Cyber Security Act and the Cyber Crimes Act, two controversial laws that were recently amended to stipulate harsher penalties. The case has raised concerns about freedom of speech in Zambia.

Also, did you know that the trafficking and sale of ants is on the rise? We look at the impact of this illegal phenomenon on the environment.

Presenter: Nkechi Ogbonna

Producers:  Bella Twine, Ly Truong and Makuochi Okafor

Technical Producers: Jonathan Mwangi and Philip Bull

Senior Producer: Charles Gitonga

Editors: Samuel Murunga and Maryam Abdalla

As President Putin arrives for talks with Prime Minister Modi, will India's imports of cheap Russian crude oil scupper its relationship with the US, which says they are fuelling the war in Ukraine?

Also in the programme: what will the publication of tens of thousands of new photos and files mean for the Syrian families still looking for answers about their missing relatives? And we remember the American guitarist Steve Cropper, the man behind countless '60s soul classics.

(IMAGE: Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (R) sit in a car after Putin's arrival at the Palam Air Base in New Delhi, India, 04 December 2025. CREDIT: GRIGORY SYSOEV/SPUTNIK/KREMLIN/POOL/EPA/Shutterstock (16009955i))

Half a million spend on Stormont canteen refurbishment - is that money well spent?

After 27 years, Melvyn Bragg has decided to step down from the In Our Time presenter’s chair. With over a thousand episodes to choose from, he has selected just six that capture the huge range and depth of the subjects he and his experts have tackled. In this fifth of his choices, we hear Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss a key figure from quantum mechanics. Their topic is the life and ideas of Wolfgang Pauli (1900-1958), whose Exclusion Principle is one of the key ideas in quantum mechanics. A brilliant physicist, at 21 Pauli wrote a review of Einstein's theory of general relativity and that review is still a standard work of reference today. The Pauli Exclusion Principle proposes that no two electrons in an atom can be at the same time in the same state or configuration, and it helps explain a wide range of phenomena such as the electron shell structure of atoms. Pauli went on to postulate the existence of the neutrino, which was confirmed in his lifetime. Following further development of his exclusion principle, Pauli was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1945 for his 'decisive contribution through his discovery of a new law of Nature'. He also had a long correspondence with Jung, and a reputation for accidentally breaking experimental equipment which was dubbed The Pauli Effect. With Frank Close Fellow Emeritus at Exeter College, University of Oxford Michela Massimi Professor of Philosophy of Science at the University of Edinburgh and Graham Farmelo Bye-Fellow of Churchill College, University of Cambridge Producer: Simon Tillotson Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Melvyn Bragg and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world