Let's Talk About

As the 2026 FIFA World Cup wraps up, this episode turns the lens on the domestic game – and finds it in crisis. In the latest episode of Let’s Talk About Indian Football, Abhinandan Sekhri speaks to Johnson K, founder of Sportfolio Productions and creator of an independently produced documentary series on India’s regional football cultures, about why the beautiful game here can’t get out of its own way.

Most Indian players are staring at contract uncertainty as clubs baulk at committing long-term to a league whose future is anyone’s guess. Abhinandan lays out a familiar chargesheet too – federation mismanagement, overpaid “prima donna” players, and a shortage of grassroots coaching – as reasons Indian football struggles to hold its own against the international game fans watch on television.

The conversation turns to why some cities sustain fierce football loyalty while others can’t fill stadiums despite thriving grassroots leagues. Fans in Kolkata, Kerala and Bengaluru show up in large numbers compared to Mumbai and Delhi because, according to Johnson, you’re not just going there for the football, you’re going there for the story. Ultimately, it’s identity, not just footballing quality, that draws crowds.

The two also take aim at scheduling negligence, particularly for youth and women’s football, which is played in blistering afternoon heat, and compare the ISL’s threadbare shoulder programming with Doordarshan’s more thoughtful coverage of the second-division IFL.

Watch this interview. 

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As the FIFA World Cup 2026 wraps up, we ask the question India keeps avoiding: what’s stopping us from competing on that stage, and why do we forget football the moment the tournament ends?

In this episode, Abhinandan Sekhri sits down with Pragati Banka – India’s first and only FIFA-licensed football agent, founder of the Equal Play Collective, and an active player in Karnataka’s State Division League – to unpack why Indian women footballers may reach a World Cup before the men, and why almost nobody is talking about it.

Pragati breaks down the brutal reality behind the promise: footballers with day jobs who need approval just to play for the national team, leagues with no official data or scouting systems, matches that aren’t even recorded, and a competition calendar so unpredictable that clubs, players, and sponsors can’t plan a season. She talks about age fraud that masks the gap between junior promise and senior performance, a system that punishes players for speaking up about basic dignity – mattresses, nutrition, pay – and the bias that kept a standout player out of the national team.

But more than a story of neglect, it’s a conversation about grit – about mothers, students, and working professionals playing for the love of the game, about grassroots change starting at home, and about what real investment in women’s football could unlock for the country.

Watch to find out what needs to change before the next big tournament.

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This episode of Let's Talk About: Indian Football cuts through the lazy excuse that India is strictly a cricket nation. The domestic game has massive pockets of fierce fan devotion, yet remains trapped by its own failings. Abhinandan Sekhri sits down with Dr Shaji Prabhakaran, former AIFF Secretary General and current AFC Executive Committee member, alongside Anuj Gupta, president of the Delhi Soccer Association, to diagnose why the sport isn’t capitalising on its potential in India.

Prabhakaran argues India’s failure stems from a narrow approach to youth development that prioritises short-term talent scouting over building a lasting sporting culture. He notes that up to age 11, Indian children match their global counterparts in technical terms, but there is an immediate structural drop-off thereafter. Making matters worse, standalone academies function like “kirana shops” that are isolated from any real competitive calendar, he argues. 

Gupta sharpens the point with the age window that matters most: “After 12, there’s only a few percent improvement you can do. We have lost the ability to develop talent after the age of 12.” For him, India’s academies simply haven’t focused hard enough on the 6-12 age bracket, and the ones that exist rarely have the best coaches training there.

On the economics of the sport in India, Prabhakaran rejects the idea that the country lacks demand. With roughly 300 million fans, he remarks, “Football has a bigger story to tell, and we are failing to communicate that.” 

Ultimately, both agree the money and passion already exist, but what’s missing is a federation-led push to organise and amplify it.

Listen this interview.

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Politicians drafting laws, commentators discussing “culture wars”, and the media framing transgender identities as “controversies”. There’s a tendency for conversations today to be about trans people rather than with them. And in this pursuit of debating hypotheticals, these conversations overlook very real issues like social stigma, discrimination, and everyday negotiations for dignity.

So, in this special episode of Let’s Talk About, we break down multiple aspects of trans existence – vocabulary and law, sports and representation, struggles and joys. Hosted by Abhinandan Sekhri and Jayashree Arunachalam, the panel comprises advocate Kanmani R, mental health professional and educator KP, activist Anindya Hajira, and filmmaker and Godrej DEI Lab executive Prithvi. 

Prithvi explains that trans discourse has “polarised even the most progressive of people – woke folks, left-leaning, liberal junta”. “There are people accepting trans people wholeheartedly and others doubling down on anti-trans rhetoric. It’s fearmongering at worst,” he says. 

On the burden placed on trans people to constantly explain themselves, Anindya says, “The spotlight’s on you. You start talking, you explain your body, your most intimate experiences, whether you want to or not…The trans space is not monolithic. We’ve learned and derived from each other.”

KP says, “To say that we don’t know the existence of genders outside men and women is ridiculous…The whole region has known otherwise for hundreds of years.” Kanmani talks about the struggles of being recognised, explaining that the “best possible scenario from a conversation like this is humanity”.

Towards the end of the podcast, Prithvi closes the loop: “I didn’t know if a future was possible…But now, I’m almost 30, in a loving relationship, speaking to all of you. And if there’s a young trans person listening, I hope they leave with hope in their heart.”

Tune in.

Panellists

• Kanmani R is an advocate who practises in the courts of Chennai, including the Madras High Court
• KP is an associate professor at the Centre for Health and Mental Health at the School of Social Work in TISS, Mumbai
• Anindya Hajira is a transgender rights and social justice activist based in Kolkata 
• Prithvi works as a research and media catalyst at Godrej DEi Lab in Mumbai

Credits:

Hosts: Abhinandan Sekhri and Jayashree Arunachalam

Producer: Priyali Dhingra

Editor: Satish Kumar 

Artwork: Prachi Dureja

Special thanks to NL subscribers Prithvi and Debashree who helped us put this podcast together.

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On June 5, 1984, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered Operation Blue Star, sending the Indian army to storm the Golden Temple in Amritsar and kill Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, the hardline Sikh priest leading the Khalistan movement. The heavy shelling killed over 550 people and destroyed the Akal Takht, one of Sikhism’s five seats of power. Five months later, Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards, triggering riots that killed thousands of Sikhs.

Decades later, the echoes of Khalistan resonate to this day – particularly in the tensions brewing between India, Canada and the US over the assassination plots of pro-Khalistan activists. But how did it come to this? Where did it begin?

This is Let’s Talk About: Punjab.

In episode one, host Abhinandan Sekhri dissects the history of Punjab and Sikhism: the pre-independence demand of an autonomous Sikh state, the wounds inflicted during the Partition, the Akali Dal’s call for Punjabi Suba in the 1960s, feud over the Beas and Sutlej rivers, and how Punjab grew more resentful. He explains how one man took the idea of Khalistan from India to the rest of the world via a curious ad in The New York Times.

And, crucially, the episode unfolds the rise of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, moving from an ordinary Sikh family to widespread fame, spearheading a movement as the state crumbled in blood and death.  

Through conversations with journalists, writers and key personnel from the Punjab story,  the episode pieces together the complexities of Bhindranwale and the turbulent years of a state’s history.

Listen, and stay tuned for episode two.

References

Tragedy of Punjab: Operation Bluestar & After by Kuldip Singh and Kushwant Singh

Bhindranwale: Myth and Reality by Chand Joshi

Amritsar: Mrs Gandhi’s Last Battle by Mark Tully and Satish Jacob

Punjab: The Enemies Within by KPS Gill

The Sikh Separatist Insurgency in India by Jugdep S Chima

A History of the Sikhs: Volume 2: 1839-2004 by Khushwant Singh

Archives of India Today, Indian Express and The New York Times

Credits

Host: Abhinandan Sekhri 

Script and podcast supervisor: Jayashree Arunachalam

Producer: Aryan Mahtta

Editor: Parikshit Sanyal

Research: Aryan Mahtta, Jayashree Arunachalam, Shardool Katyayan

Design: Prachi Dureja

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NL Team

Four months after Chandrayaan-3 successfully landed on the moon, Newslaundry dives into the tricky questions that lie behind it. What are the benefits of a moon mission? Do we need a space programme at all? What does it take to run the Indian Space Research Organisation?

Welcome to Let’s Talk About: ISRO and Chandrayaan, where host Abhinandan Sekhri sits down with EK Kutty, former director (project planning program management) at ISRO, and Jayaram Kolangara, former deputy director at ISRO. They’re joined by subscribers too who got to ask questions during a live Zoom session.

Tune in for a free-wheeling chat on ISRO’s role in development communication, the future of space travel, the efforts of people behind the scenes at ISRO, and a lot more.

Produced by Chanchal Gupta, edited by Chanchal Gupta and Samarendra K Dash.

References

India in Space: Between Utility and Geopolitics by Marco Aliberti

Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar

Robert Zemeckis’s Contact

Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity

Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up

Why Civil Rights Activists Protested the Moon Landing

The Moon Landing was Opposed by Majority of US 

List of 6 manned moon missions: People who stepped on the moon after Neil Armstrong 

How Many Times Has the US Landed on the Moon?

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शराफत की दुनिया का किस्सा ही खत्म, अब जैसी दुनिया वैसे हम… फिल्म जज्बा के इस आमफहम डायलॉग को इरफान ने जिस कविताई के साथ अदा किया वह करोड़ों हिंदुस्तानियों के दिलों में उतर गया. लगभग इसी बहते हुए अविकल झरने की तरह अपनी अदायगी से इरफान हम हिंदुस्तानियों की दुनिया का हिस्सा बने थे. फिर  29 अप्रैल 2020 को अचानक वो हमारी इस दुनिया से अलग हो गए. 

यह सिर्फ इरफान के परिजनों, दोस्तों, रिश्तेदारों या उनके प्रशंसकों के लिए दिल तोड़ने वाली खबर नहीं थी बल्कि फिल्मों से जुड़े, फिल्मों में दिलचस्पी रखने वाले हर शख्स के लिए एक बड़ा झटका थी. इरफान तिरपन की कच्ची उम्र में हमारे बीच से चले गए. 

इरफान न्यूरोएंडोक्राइन नाम की एक असाध्य बीमारी से घिर गए थे. यह बीमारी दुर्लभ किस्म का कैंसर है, जिस पर दुनिया में बहुत कम खोजें और रीसर्च उपलब्ध हैं. लेकिन इस कच्ची उम्र में इरफान ने बहुत ही पकी उम्र वाले मुकाम हासिल किए. इरफान ने लगभग हर तरह का किरदार निभाया. न सिर्फ निभाया बल्कि उसे जीया भी. मार्च 2020 में आई फिल्म 'अंग्रेजी मीडियम' इरफान की आखिरी फिल्म थी.  

न्यूरोएंडोक्राइन ट्यूमर की बीमारी के बारे में खुद इरफान खान ने साल 2018 में ट्विटर के जरिए  जानकारी दी थी. उनका ट्वीट कुछ इस प्रकार था- "जीवन में अनपेक्षित बदलाव आपको आगे बढ़ना सिखाते हैं. पता चला है कि मुझे न्यूरोएंडोक्राइन ट्यूमर है. इसे स्वीकार कर पाना मुश्किल है. लेकिन मेरे आसपास जो लोग हैं, उनका प्यार और उनकी दुआओं ने मुझे ताकत दी है. कुछ उम्मीद भी बंधी है. फिलहाल बीमारी के इलाज के लिए मुझे देश से दूर जाना पड़ रहा है. लेकिन मैं चाहूंगा कि आप अपने संदेश भेजते रहें.”

इरफान की मौत के बाद उनके बेटे बाबिल ने उनकी आखिरी याद को कुछ इन शब्दों में साझा किया था- 'उनकी मौत से दो तीन दिन पहले मैं अस्पताल में था. वो होश खोते जा रहे थे. अंतिम पलों में उन्होंने मेरी ओर देखा, मुस्कुराए और कहा- मैं मरने वाला हूं, मैंने उन्हें कहा ऐसा नहीं होगा, वो फिर मुस्कुराए और सो गए.' इरफान ने मौत को भी हंसते हंसते ही गले लगाया. 

लेट्स टॉक अबाउट में न्यूज़लॉन्ड्री के कार्यकारी संपादक अतुल चौरसिया ने फिल्म समीक्षक शुभ्रा गुप्ता और अजय ब्रह्मात्मज के साथ इरफान के सफर, शख्सियत, अदायगी, कला, फन और जीवन के अन्य पहलुओं पर लंबी बातचीत की है. तो आनंद लीजिए.. 

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With Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s retirement and LK Advani’s poll rout, the 2014 Lok Sabha election paved the way for a new power duo to take over the BJP. It was after the RSS greenlighted Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi as a prime ministerial candidate.

Welcome to the final episode of Let’s Talk About: BJP, which focuses on the ascendance of Modi, and his journey from a Sangh pracharak to Raisina Hill. With subsequent image makeovers, he managed to recast himself as a “saviour” of the Indian security state and win a landmark mandate for his party in the 2019 polls.

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In the 90s and 00s, the BJP emerged as a pole in the coalition era as Atal Bihari Vajpayee forged new partnerships in power. However, as prime minister, his own jugalbandi with LK Advani saw fault lines. These were years of a series of minority governments – a trend only reversed by Narendra Modi’s decisive victory in 2014.

Welcome to the third episode of Let’s Talk About: BJP, which takes us through NDA governments, disagreements within the BJP in the wake of the Gujarat riots, the UPA’s scam taint, the Anna Hazare-led anti-corruption protests, and the emergence of Modi.

To listen to the full podcast, subscribe to Newslaundry.

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In the sociopolitical landscape of the ’80s and ’90s, the BJP found itself at a crossroads, trying hard to consolidate its support base while navigating between Gandhian socialism and Hindu nationalism under the leadership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani.

Welcome to the second episode of Let’s Talk About: BJP, which looks at events that helped the party recast itself within the Indian polity, from Indira Gandhi’s assassination, to the Mandal Commission, the Shah Bano case, Advani’s Rath Yatra and the Babri demolition.

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