Most Indians know more about USA and Europe than our northern neighbour China. This two-part series on The Pragati Podcast will bust myths about China and the Chinese government.

China expert Manoj Kewalramani joins host Pavan Srinath in Episode 66 to dispel commonly held beliefs about the People's Republic of China. Manoj is an Adjunct Fellow for China Studies at the Takshashila Institution, and has spent over 11 years as a journalist in China and India. Manoj also pens a weekly newsletter Eye on China available at www.thinkpragati.com. Do you know of people who believe in any of these myths about China?

Myth #1: China is a country of One people, One language and One party. Myth #2: China has a Communist government. Myth #3: The government owns everything in China. Myth #4: China has a strong, efficient & meritocratic government that moves in unison to reach goals they set out for themselves.

Listen to Manoj bust 4 more myths about China in the next Episode of The Pragati Podcast, including: Does China have a grand strategy to take over the world?

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How do you do good journalism online? How do you keep opinion and reportage separate? How do you report live on active humanitarian disasters like the Kerala Floods of 2018?

Dhanya Rajendran, Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The News Minute, joins host Pavan Srinath in episode 65 of The Pragati Podcast to talk about how they built a great digital news platform.

If you have any questions for the guests or the hosts, write in to [email protected]. Don't forget to visit thinkpragati.com for your daily dose of brain fodder.

Do also check out this week's The Seen and the Unseen with Amit Varma, where Sidharth Bhatia of The Wire and Peter Griffin of The Hindu talk about the Crisis in the Media. 

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Rahul Matthan and Manasa Venkataraman unpack the Supreme Court's judgments on Aadhaar.

In Episode 64, The Pragati Podcast delves deep into the 1,448-page, 6.5-lakh-word set of judgments.

The episode includes discussions on the constitutionality of how the Aadhaar Act was passed in 2016, how and whether Aadhaar can be used by for government subsidies, taxes, and more -- and whether it can be used by the private sector at all. Listen in to learn more about what to expect from the government and the courts in the coming years, and what questions have been left unanswered.

If you have any questions for the guests or the hosts, write in to [email protected]. Don't forget to visit thinkpragati.com for your daily dose of brain fodder.

Follow Pragati on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thinkpragati Follow Pragati on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thinkpragati/

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There are restaurants at every corner in a city like Bangalore, but they are never easy to run. Governments make the lives of restaurateurs more difficult in a million ways. Banning 'dance bars', regulating signboards or controlling liquor licenses make dining out more expensive for customers, create uncertainty for businesses and put jobs at risk. Chef extraordinaire Manu Chandra and Pragati's own Madhu Menon join host Pavan Srinath on episode 63 of The Pragati Podcast. Manu also heads the Bangalore Chapter of the National Restaurant Association of India The episode focuses on Bangalore and its unique challenges and opportunities, but the story is not too different in other states and cities.

Visit www.thinkpragati.com for your daily dose of brain fodder, and write in to [email protected] with any questions and comments..

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The Syrian Civil War has been raging since 2011. Now the war is entering a new and perhaps final phase. How did a peaceful protest turn into a multi-sided war that has killed half a million people and displaced more than 10 million Syrians? Lawyer and policy analyst Ameya Naik returns to the Pragati Podcast to talk to hosts Pavan Srinath and Hamsini Hariharan. The show discusses how Syria got here, the price that Syrians have paid, and how such a conflict can happen anywhere in the world.

Visit thinkpragati.com for more to read on Syria, and write in to [email protected] for any comments or questions.

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It is time to talk about the many Indian Genomes, and the great genetic diversity of Indians, 28 years after the Human Genome Project was launched.

Dr Kumarasamy Thangaraj joins Pavan Srinath and guest host Dr Shambhavi Naik on Episode 61 of the Pragati Podcast to talk about all things India, genes, history and health challenges.

Dr Thangaraj is a renowned scientist working at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, CCMB, Hyderabad. He has published extensively on the origin of humans, on genetics and disease and how they affect the lives of Indians.

If you have any questions or comments on the episode, write in to [email protected]. You can also ask the hosts anything on twitter at twitter.com/zeusisdead and twitter.com/HamsiniH.

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How do actions by President Erdoğan in Turkey affect the Indian rupee? What is the emerging market crisis that business channels keep talking about? How does changing geopolitics in the Middle East affect everyone from Brazil to China to Pakistan?

Narayan Ramachandran returns to the Pragati Podcast on episode 60 to explain the great game of dominoes that is macroeconomics. Narayan is co-founder and Fellow at the Takshashila Institution, a social entrepreneur and an emerging market investor. He writes a regular column in Mint called A Visible Hand.

Have any questions for Narayan, or hosts Hamsini Hariharan and Pavan Srinath? Write in to [email protected].

You can buy a compilation of Narayan's best essays on Amazon: https://www.amazon.in/Visible-Hand-Intersection-Economics-Politics/dp/8193197607

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It's been almost two years since Donald Trump was elected the President of the United States of America. What has happened to the Washington DC ecosystem since then?

In Episode 59, Soren Dayton joins hosts Hamsini Hariharan and Pavan Srinath to discuss what the Republicans, Democrats, businesses and think tanks have been up to since Trump. Soren has spent over a decade working in Washington DC in various roles, including two years on Capitol Hill. His views expressed on the Pragati Podcast are entirely personal.

Learn more about Soren at https://sorendayton.com and his current work with Protect Democracy at https://protectdemocracy.org

You can tweet to the hosts @zeusisdead and @HamsiniH. You can also send your comments and questions to [email protected]

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If Swaraj is your birthright, do you have it? What does Swaraj even mean? Do we have different concepts of self-rule? And how do we even spell the word -- sva or swa?

Aakash Singh Rathore joins hosts Hamsini Hariharan and Pavan Srinath to discuss his conception of 'Thin Svaraj' on Episode 58 of The Pragati Podcast.

Aakash is the Director of the International Research Network for Religion and Democracy, and was formerly a Visiting Professor at the Centre for Philosophy, Jawaharlal Nehru University. He has four upcoming books on Indian political theory, Indian jurisprudence, feminism and other topics that will be released later this year. If you have found answers to the above questions, you can tweet your answers to the hosts @zeusisdead and @HamsiniH. You can also send your comments and questions to [email protected]

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What does nationalism mean? How far has India come since 1947? What about the Indian nation gives you hope and despair?

On this Independence Day Special of The Pragati Podcast, Nitin Pai and Aakash Singh Rathore join hosts Hamsini Hariharan and Pavan Srinath to talk about the state of the Indian nation. Nitin Pai(https://twitter.com/acorn) is the Director of the Takshashila Institution. Aakash Singh Rathore(https://twitter.com/Aakash_Ironman) is the Director of the International Research Network for Religion and Democracy, and was formerly a Visiting Professor at the Centre for Philosophy, Jawaharlal Nehru University.

If you have found satisfactory answers to the above questions, you can tweet your answers to the hosts @zeusisdead(https://twitter.com/zeusisdead) and @HamsiniH(https://twitter.com/HamsiniH). You can also send your comments and questions to [email protected]

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