Pandit Ravi Shankar passes away. The great man was a bundle of energy and had performed on stage with his daughter in the US at the ripe age of 94. Text messaging turns 20. Saudi Arabia adds SMS tracking of wives to its increasingly long list of injustice towards women. At a village in Bihar, a local committee has banned women from carrying mobile phones. The Panchayat believes that this will lead to fewer elopements.

The French government has made the classic mistake. Of interfering in business. Lakshmi Mittal is miffed as he has been asked not to shut down two of his loss making blast furnaces in Florange unless he wants to see all his French outfits getting nationalised. Greece gets another bail out package and in Australia, cigarette packaging will no longer carry any glamorous images or colours. Just plain packaging.

This week, the Lok Sabha gives a green signal for allowing FDI in retail. Bihar pulls off an amazing track record of growth by beating Maharashtra and Gujarat. In sports, Ricky Ponting retires and Freddie Flintoff takes to boxing. Sachin finally gets a fifty after his worst slump in two decades. The Kabbadi world cup is being played in Punjab. And a weed wacking robot from two Stanford trained engineers trawls lettuce fields, identifies weeds and kills them using a concentrated dose of fertilisers.

BCCI has been quite the negotiator. It got Pepsi to pay twice as what DLF had paid in the previous edition of the IPL. This comes at a time when the popularity of IPL is possibly at its lowest according to many surveys. Amidst all the talks of recession, in October, Porsche sold a record number of vehicles in India. Also, according to a recent World Bank report, India receives more money through repatriation than any other. And typewriters are called off the shelves in UK.

Four years after the grisly event, Ajmal Kasab was hanged at the Yerwada Central Jail in Pune. In international news, Israel pummels Gaza for eight straight days. More than 140 Palestinians were killed before a cease fire came into effect. Somewhere on this planet, a few people still believe that the world will come to an end this December and hope to seek refuge near a hill in France. The French authorities, fearing commotion have blocked entry to the venue. And a bunch of folks at Carnegie Mellon Robotics institute have devised a way for us to drive safely during a thunderstorm. Their smart headlights illuminate the road and not the rain drops.

The Euro Zone goes under all over again. The latest numbers suggest that all seventeen countries of the Euro have posted two consecutive quarters of negative growth. And when that happens, the economy is said to be under recession. The US, which is known to come up with fancy phrases to describe their economic plights, have done it again. This time the popular phrase is the fiscal cliff. Back home in India, Raymond, the apparel maker will soon launch its own brand of beer shampoo.

In this podcast, Jon Fasman of The Economist talks about his on ground experience of covering the US presidential elections. Over the past few months Jon travelled across the country, attended rallies, conducted interviews, met strangers, filed articles, wrote online, did live blogging, recorded podcasts and met crazy deadlines. To report the greatest political event on the planet, a little bit of insomnia came in handy too. Given a chance, would he do it again. In a heartbeat, he says.

The man had a mafia like control over the city so much that he had it change its name because he did not like it. In this podcast we talk a bit about Bal Thackerays beginnings, his quirks, agendas and of course his legendary oratorical skills. In other political news, Rahul Gandhi has been asked to lead the Congress poll campaign in the upcoming 2014 general elections. In some happy news, a bunch of doctors from University of Michigan claim to have devised a pacemaker which can be powered by the motion of heart beats.

The greatest spectacle on the American soil comes to an end and Barack Obama wins it for the second time. But we are more interested in George Bush Jr accidentally voting for Obama. Back home, Arvind Kejriwal tops the popularity charts on all news channels and newspapers. Vijay Mallya sells off a majority stake in his spirit business in the hope to rescue his airline company. And Happy Diwali to everyone.

In this episode we talk about the alleged sweetheart deal bewtween haryana government, DLF and Shri Robert Vadra. Many knew about it but only Arvind Kejriwal decided to talk about it. The other topcis include the NSE crash, Nobel prize winners and a couple of listener emails.