Pakistan goes to the polls on the 8th of February to elect members of what will be its 16th lower House or National Assembly.
The polls come just as former Prime Minister Imran Khan has been convicted in two successive cases and stands debarred from contesting elections. His party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf, or PTI as it is known, is fighting with its back to the wall.
Pakistan Muslim League leader Nawaz Sharif fancies his chances of becoming Prime Minister for an unprecedented fourth term. Many analysts believe that he has the blessings of the Army establishment on this occasion.
The Pakistan People’s Party of Bilawal Bhutto and Asif Zardari is also in the electoral fray, with Bilawal Bhutto training his guns on Nawaz Sharif.
A far-right Islamist Party, the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, could cut votes of mainstream parties. It is a party to be watched.

What can we expect from Pakistan’s parliamentary elections 2024? | In Focus podcast

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A massive controversy has erupted in the world of spices, masalas and mixes, with products of two leading Indian players, MDH and Everest in the midst of this. The Hong Kong and Singapore governments suspended the sale and withdrew certain masalas of these two brands, stating that they contained higher than permissible limits of a pesticide, ethylene oxide. Multiple governments of other countries have now announced investigations into these products from India. After this, the Spices Board and the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India, or FSSAI announced a slew of measures for spices as well as other foods, to test for contamination and to ensure they are up to standards. 
In the meantime though, the FSSAI has been under criticism for another issue – the allowing of a ten-fold increase in maximum residue limit from 0.01 milligrams per kg to 0.1 in spices and herbs, in cases of pesticides not registered in India or in cases where the maximum limit is not defined in Indian or international regulations. 
What is going on with pesticides and masalas in India? How unsafe are the foods, especially processed foods that are sold in India? What are the regulations we have in place, and how effectively are these being implemented? Do we need a more stringent system to ensure food safety and public health in India? 

Guest: Dr Vandana Prasad, a community paediatrician and public health professional associated with the Public Health Resource Network 
Host: Zubeda Hamid 
Edited by Sharmada Venkatasubramanian.

Indian spices unsafe: Do food safety laws in Indian need an overhaul? | In Focus podcast

Political parties are in full campaign mode in India. There are three days to go for the third phase of polling as this podcast is being recorded. Campaign themes are more than evident as June 4 – the day for results – is exactly a month away. 
None other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched scathing attacks on the Congress saying that it will take away SC, ST and OBC reservation quotas and hand it over to the Muslims. No such promise has been made in the Congress manifesto. 
Again, the Prime Minister in Gujarat said that if you have two buffalos, the Congress will take away one if it comes to power. Again, he said this was in the Congress manifesto. Again, such a promise is not to be found in the manifesto document. 
Pakistan has also re-entered the BJP’s campaign themes while Opposition parties are attacking the ruling party at the Centre on a range of issues. Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay joins us to discuss some of these issues and their implications for Indian democracy.

Decoding the claims and counterclaims in India's election campaign

The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has asked health insurance companies to offer their products to everyone, regardless of their age. Until now, health insurance was readily available for anyone up to the age of 65, with companies under no obligation to cover those older. But now IRDAI has said insurance firms can extend their health coverage to everyone regardless of their pre-existing medical conditions.
Both these changes are part of a wider set of reforms under the long term goal of “Insurance for All by 2047”, and they have mostly been welcomed as a positive development. 
But there is always the fine print, and questions remain about how these measures will pan out in real life. Health coverage tends to get more expensive with age. Will senior citizens be able to afford the packages designed by private insurers? What do the norms say regarding the ‘waiting period’ for pre-existing conditions? And will these measures be enough to reduce out-of-pocket medical expenditure, which is one of the highest in the world in India?

Guest: Professor T Sundararaman, a public health expert, who has served as Executive Director of National Health Systems Resource Centre and as Dean and Professor at the School of Health Systems Studies at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai.
Host: G. Sampath, Social Affairs Editor, The Hindu.
Edited by Sharmada Venkatasubramanian.

What will be the impact of IRDAI regulation asking health insurers to cover those above 65 years of age? | In Focus podcast

In a setback to the Opposition INDIA alliance in Delhi, which is basically the alliance between the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee President Arvinder Singh Lovely has resigned from his post, and one of the reasons he has cited is his party’s tie-up with AAP.

Lovely’s resignation letter has put the spotlight on what is widely recognised as a big contradiction – an alliance between the Congress party, and a party that came into being to combat the kind of political decadence that the Congress allegedly represented. In fact, AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal has spent much of the last ten years targeting the Congress more than any other party, and in turn, the Delhi state leadership of the Congress has spent much of its energies targeting AAP. Furthermore, it is the Congress that’s the original complainant in the alleged liquor scam case that has landed Kejriwal in jail.

So, how does this alliance square with the founding credo of the Aam Aadmi Party? How can AAP explain this alliance to its supporters? Given that the two parties have suddenly found ‘anti-BJPism’ more attractive as a political plank than anti-corruption, does this alliance then indicate that the founders of AAP – several of whom are currently in jail on corruption charges – were fundamentally wrong in their understanding of political corruption?

G. Sampath is joined by Prashant Bhushan, Supreme Court advocate and a former leader with AAP.

AAP-Congress alliance: What's the impact on AAP's 'anti-political' appeal?

This March was the hottest on record globally, the 10th month in a row to hit this peak. This has led to a 1.58 degree Celsius spike in the global average temperature, compared to pre-industrial levels. This doesn’t feel surprising – most parts of India have been sweltering since last month, the India Meteorological Department or IMD hadd forecast heatwave conditions in parts of at least 10 States last week and it's only going to get worse in May. This year, the heat is even believed to have impacting voting in our crucial general election, and the Election Commission has now set up a taskforce to oversee heatwave conditions. 
We’re used to scorching summers in India – but experts say that heatwaves are now arriving earlier in the year, are more frequent and are also lasting longer – which means they have a huge impact on the health of humans and animals, on our agriculture and food, on our cities, our water resources and our energy supplies. 
How does the unrelenting heat affect our bodies and our long-term health into the future? Do our food crops become less nutritious as temperatures rise? Do India’s standards for heatwaves need updating? Where is our country placed, globally, when it comes to extreme climate events and can we expect more of these in the near future? 
 
Guest: Poornima Prabhakaran, Director, Centre for Health Analytics Research and Trends (CHART), Trivedi School of Biosciences, Ashoka University 
Host: Zubeda Hamid 
Edited by Sharmada Venkatasubramanian.

What can we expect from Pakistan’s parliamentary elections 2024? | In Focus podcast

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