The Seen and the Unseen - hosted by Amit Varma

Amit Varma

All Episodes

Feb 26, 2018

India's Maldives Dilemma

There is turmoil in the Maldives, as a tyrant unfriendly to India cozies up to China. Do we need to intervene? Foreign policy expert Pranay Kotasthane joins Amit Varma to give his point of view in episode 57 of...

28 mins

Feb 19, 2018

Easy Money

The turbulence in the world economy today is enabled by the same phenomenon that caused the 2008 financial crisis, and was perversely also a response to that crisis: Easy Money. Vivek Kaul, author of the Easy M...

67 mins

Feb 12, 2018

Defending the Indefensible

It is important to always question received wisdom. In episode 55 of The Seen and the Unseen, libertarian thinker Yazad Jal joins Amit Varma to challenge the commonly held view on five subjects. Listen in and s...

49 mins

Feb 05, 2018

Budget 2018 Quick Takes

The Budget presented by the government of India is an annual ritual that millions of people tune in to. What was the 2018 budget like? Pavan Srinath and Pranay Kotasthane, staff writers of Pragati, join Amit Va...

32 mins

Jan 29, 2018

Pakodanomics

Narendra Modi famously invoked a pakoda seller last week when he spoke about job creation in India. How apt is that invocation? Columnist Vivek Kaul, who coined the term ‘Pakodanomics’, and economist Shruti Raj...

47 mins

Jan 22, 2018

Caste in Modern India

Modern India's greatest shame is that even after 70 years of Independence, we still haven't solved the problem of caste. Shruti Rajagopalan joins Amit Varma in episode 52 of the Seen and the Unseen to shed ligh...

71 mins

Jan 15, 2018

Alpha Zero

The chess program Alpha Zero made waves recently when it taught itself chess in four hours -- and then thrashed the strongest chess engine in the world, Stockfish. This illustrated a dramatic advance in Artific...

43 mins

Jan 08, 2018

Ep. 50: The State of Indian Politics

Indian politics is complex to the point of being almost unfathomable. JP Narayan, that rare public intellectual who also embraced electoral politics, joins Amit Varma in episode 50 of The Seen and the Unseen to...

47 mins

Jan 01, 2018

Ep. 49: Political Discourse

Social media has enabled everyone to have a voice -- but no one listens any more. In episode 49 of The Seen and the Unseen, Amit Varma examines why our political discourse is so polarised. One particular bugbea...

16 mins

Dec 25, 2017

Ep. 48: Reforming Urban Governance

For almost two decades, V Ravichandar has been "a civic evangelist and a patron saint of lost causes" fighting to reform local government in our cities. He joins Amit Varma in episode 48 of The Seen and the Uns...

51 mins