COVID-19 is the virus that shut down the world. High vaccination rates have the potential to unlock global travel, however both India and Australia have a long way to go to vaccinate their populations. What can India and Australia learn from each other’s experiences in rolling out COVID-19 vaccines? And what role does, or could, the media play towards a successful vaccine rollout in India and Australia?Speakers: Professor Joy Mammen, Associate Director of Christian Medical College and Hospital, Head of vaccine rolloutA/Prof Margie Danchin, Consultant Paediatrician, Royal Children’s Hospital, and A/Prof at the University of Melbourne and Murdoch Children’s Research Institute Dinesh Malhotra, Editor and Founder of the Bharat Times Moderated by Professor Nathan Grills, Senior Research Advisor at the AII and Public Health Physician at the Nossal Institute for Global Health

India’s devastating second wave of COVID-19 is finally showing signs of easing after weeks of lockdowns across the country. But hospitals in India are still overflowing with COVID-19 patients. In this podcast, we hear from two frontline health workers in India who share their experiences treating COVID-19 patients in intensive care and counselling patients and their families. This podcast was a collaboration between the Australia India Institute and the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry & Health Sciences, with support from the Global Health Alliance Melbourne.SpeakersDr. JV Peter – Director of Christian Medical College, Vellore and ICU consultant Jubin Varghese – Sister Mary Glowrey Scholar and Emmanuel Health Association (EHA) clinical psychologist Professor Jane Gunn – Dean of Medicines, Dentistry & Health Sciences, University of Melbourne (Co-Chair)Professor Nathan Grills – AII Senior Research Adviser and Global Health Professor at the School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne (Co-Chair)

In this podcast, the Australia India Institute’s Professor Ashok Muthupandian, Professor Nathan Grills and Dr Haripriya (Priya) Rangan discuss the current COVID-19 crisis devastating India and how the Institute and University of Melbourne are lending support.Professor Ashok Muthupandian is the AII’s Acting Director and the Assistant Deputy Vice-Chancellor International at the University of Melbourne.Professor Nathan Grills is an AII Senior Researcher Adviser and Global Health Professor at the School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne. Dr Haripriya Rangan is an AII Academic Fellow and Principal Fellow of the School of Geography at the University of Melbourne.Frontline charitable organisations that University of Melbourne partners with:•CMC Vellore: 500 Covid19 beds. Requesting support for vaccines, COVID19 tests, oxygen concentrators. •Emmanuel Hospital Association : 20 hospitals in rural India serving the poor. Requesting support for PPE, medications, oxygen cylinders/concentrators.•The Catholic Health Association of India : responding to Covid19 across 3500 health facilities. Melbourne University is conducting training to equip their response to Covid19.

In the second episode of Ten Minutes India, we speak with Senior Research Adviser at the Australia India Institute, Jyoti Shukla.Jyoti Shukla is a Lecturer in Property at the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning at the University of Melbourne. She also works as a Senior Research Adviser at the Australia India Institute. Issues related to housing and land economics are of prime interest to Jyoti and most of her publications are in related fields.This episode will focus on compulsory land acquisition as in when the government takes over privately owned land for a public project.

In the first episode of our new podcast series for 2020, Ten Minutes India, we speak with Dr Roja Singh. Roja Singh's critical ethnography on caste and gender is rooted in interactions and lived experiences in communities of Dalit women in Tamil Nadu, India. Situated in transnational feminist discourses, Singh's perspective as a Dalit woman, provides an intersectional social analysis of power structures that sustain caste dominance in South India today.

Senator Lisa Singh was the first woman of South Asian heritage to be elected to Australia's Parliament. She spoke to Dr Priya Chacko about why Australia needs to forge stronger bonds with India and what steps can be taken to strengthen the bilateral relationship.Host: Dr Priya ChackoProducer: Simon PapagiorcopuloAudio Engineer: Chris Hatzis

Has the Modi government delivered on its election promises? What does February's interim budget tell us about the future of the world's fastest-growing economy? Dr Amitendu Palit from the National University of Singapore's Institute for South Asian Studies shares his expert insights with the Aii.Host: Simon PapagiorcopuloProducer: Simon PapagiorcopuloAudio Engineer: Chris Hatzis

Vice-Chancellor of the University of Witwatersrand Adam Habib joins Professor Haripriya Rangan to discuss how India is perceived in South Africa and how institutions in the Global South are moving to address inequality in education.Host: Haripriya RanganAudio Engineer: Chris Hatzis

There are 22 official languages in India, but more than 780 have been recognised. It can be a challenge to communicate across the country, and while the most common language is Hindi there’s a communication of all sorts in a variety of dialects and scripts.Guests: Professor Robin Jeffrey, Professor Ian WoolfordHost: Matthew Smith