Indicast Podcast Network - Mother Feed

Kapil Sibal is not the first Indian politician to trend on Twitter, but perhaps the first one to trend with a dubious adjective (or noun, whatever), idiot. His lack of knowledge about how the internet works was evident when he asked companies like Facebook and Google to prescreen content which is posted by Indian users after he found a few morphed pictures of Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh which showed them in bad light. This year has seen quite a rew RIPs and Dev Anand and Indira Goswami get added to the list. In cricket, Sehwag scores a double century and if you are in Maharashtra, beware of those 500 rupee notes - they could just be fake!

Right from the days when trade was in barter format, the retail world has always been exciting. In the west, it has graduated from mom and pop stores to big box. The Indian government believed that India too should ape the movement, and has rejigged the Foreign Direct Investment rules in the retail sector. The opposition was not amused. In other corporate news, Cyrus Mistry will take over from Ratan Tata in December 2013. In the science field, the world's lightest material caught Adityas fancy and he gives us an overview.

Mayawati has follows a strict routine for ensuring to make it to the front pages of Indian newspapers at least once a week. This time she succeeds in convincing her party to pass a resolution demanding four different states. In Himachal Pradesh, more than 800 women have been reported missing in the past few years. The Unhate Benetton advertising campaign was the most talked about news story in business and in science, a startling discovery that one can travel faster than the speed of light just came to light.

Kingfisher is all over the place. Thats the news that everyone is feeding on especially in the business newspapers. Vijay Mallyas airline company has declared its 16 straight quarterly loss and things are not about to improve in the short term. In politics, Rahul Gandhi is now been slated to be the next man in charge as he contests elections in Uttar Pradesh. Government will soon be launching a Right to Education Act which promises education to every kid upto 14 years of age. In world news, floods in Thailand have set the country back. In cricket, South Africa and Australia slug it out in test matches and India is on a roll. At the time of the recording, Dravid, Laxman and Dhoni had scored centuries in the second test.

We start off this episode by talking a bit about the noise surrounding the Armed Forces Special Power Act which was established back in 1958. It turns out that Omar Abdullah wants it revoked in Jammu and Kashmir for it gives the army right to arrest and sometimes kill without the need of a warrant or necessary paperwork. In other news, Bhupen Hazarika and Joe Fraiser passed away this week and the mystery surrounding Michael Jackson's death was finally out when his personal physician was convicted of involuntary manslaughter.

Finally, after all these years, Formula One comes to India. Thankfully, the event went off without a glitch. Sebastian Vettel won it by a huge margin and saw Mayawati on the podium hand him the trophy. In other news, Metallica performed in Bangalore after its show was cancelled in Delhi due to a lapse in security. Meanwhile, the seventh billion baby was born. In cricket, three Pakistan players were convicted for spot fixing on a day when the Indian captain was given the title of Honorary Lt Colonel by the Indian army.

The 150th episode of Indicast is finally here but this time with a new voice. Abhishek is out on his bike in the Himachal Pradesh and so Akhilesh, who has been on Bizination a few times, joined me on for the 150th. God seems to be feeling lonely and has called in for company of 3 greats in quick succession. We talk about Tiger Pataudi, Steve Jobs and Jagjit Singh passing away, Murthys comment on quality of IIT students and the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize winners.

This is an attempt to bring to our listeners a happier and less politically inclined episode of Indicast. We will make a conscious effort to have topics from a wider interest areas. This episode covers the Sikkim earthquake, Modi ending his fast, the DMIC mega project, Indias loss in Tennis Davis Cup, BCCI banning the Kochi franchise from IPL and our regular digressions.

Media turned social on the internet only a few years ago, yet it did not take social media a lot of time to seep into our daily lives. Social networks like Facebook and Twitter only gave it an icing. Phone apps and other location based services have enabled people to interact amongst themselves and companies now have jumped in to not just market their products, but also to provide better customer service. In this podcast, Senior Asst Editor, Rohin Dharmakumar and Special Correspondent, N S Ramnath join us to talk about their cover story on social media.

Barely a month had past since the Mumbai Serial blasts when the terrorist struck again. This time it was Delhi. Delhi is the latest entrant into the list of unresolved (yet) terror strike. Afghanistan and Pakistan also witnessed much large terror strike. The other topics that Abhishek & I discuss include Supreme Courts ruling in the Gulberg Society case, Amar Singh arrest, Ra.One marketing campaigns, Gautam Rajadhyksha death, and India winning the Hockey Asian Cup.

Jon Fasman knows what it takes to be a New York Times best selling author. His book, Geographer's Library published in 2005 has been released into more than a dozen languages and his more recent novel, The Unpossessed City is a major hit. At The Economist, he covers a diverse range of subjects like food, music, chopsticks, politics, Tiger Woods, Dominique Strauss Kahn, global warming and a lot more. In this podcast, talks about American politics, drugs and Atlanta. Incidentally, Jon was working in a building close to the twin towers on September 11, 2001 and he shares his thoughts about where USA stands today, in the midst of very high unemployment rates and terror strikes. For the ones interested to know more about drugs, skip to the 12th minute to hear this father of two young kids having a refreshingly liberal attitude towards solving the problem of drug abuse which plagues not just America, but many other nations.

Ten years ago, on this day, two planes scorched the twin towers. More than 3000 people were killed and the world economy was impaired. In this podcast, we talk about where we stand today in the wake of bigger crises that the bankers have brought upon us. Continuing on the subject, Indian business and tourism has suffered gravely due to the series of bomb blasts. In other news, Yahoo CEO, Carol Bartz has been sacked rather unceremoniously. Closer home, Archies, a company known for selling gifts and greeting cards has tied up with UNICEF and plans to expand to Rs. 400 crores in the next few years. And in the last few minutes, Ritika gives us a snapshot of her sojourn in Bali.

In this episode - Manan & I talk about the topic that may well turn out to be the biggest tech story of 2011 - Steve Jobs announcing his retirement. While there cant be a replacement, the succession plan has been well planned. The other stories discussed include Google's Motorola purchase, Samsung Annoucing ChatON, Reliance's 3G Tab, MapMyIndia's Carpad and we had almost forgotten HP's big announcement.

After being missing in action for over a month, we are glad to be back. The recent has had some big ticket happenings in India including Lokpal bill and India losing its #1 test ranking spot. Given the significance of the event, we spent most of the time talking about Anna Hazare's movement against corruption and discussed the key points only. Even that took about 20 minutes to cover. The other topics include India's test drubbing by England and 2011 sports awards.

Warren Brennan, the man behind the Hot Spot technology used in the India England series joins us to talk about his invention, challenges and the controversies surrounding Dravids dismissal in the last test and of course, VVS Laxmans Vaseline non incident.

Brendan Greeley joins us after a long time to talk about his feature story in BusinessWeek on Spotify entering the United States. In this podcast, he talks about how Spotify cracked the long standing question. How do we make something so much more convenient than piracy that we get people to pay for it. He also talks about his recent article on the US debt crisis and explains the standoff between the Democrats and the Republicans through the concept of game theory.

Combating its menace will be one of the biggest challenges of this decade. And for most part nations like India have failed to stifle the growth of terrorism. Perhaps we still havent developed a robust understanding of its root causes and also an effective toolkit to deal with it. Thats why we requested Sundeep Waslekar, president of Strategic Foresight Group, a leading think tank which advises governments around the world, to focus on that question. He and his team have studied every major terrorist group across the world and their practices over several decades.India is at the crossroads in its war on terror. Waslekars essay is a wake-up call for those who believe success lies in simply fighting terror with terror. And that doesnt necessarily make us a soft state.

Mumbai went through another series of blasts leading to another pointless discussion on Indicast about it. Frankly, we are tired of talking about terrorism in India, especially Mumbai. We try to bring up several points about the blasts and not talk about the usual things. Minal, who is part of Indicast Sport podcast, joined us int his episode to tell her about us experience of being at Lords Cricket Stadium on Day 1 of India vs England Test. needless to say, we dragged her into things she wasnt prepared for but handled herself quiet well.

E-commerce in India has risen from the dead. The moneymen are back and entrepreneurs are thinking big once more. So whats changed? There are some fundamental reasons why ecommerce is set to take off in India.

We decided to start this episode by running through the top stories during our absence and then come to this weeks newsmakers. The talking points this week include the treasure found at Sri Padmanbhaswamy Temple and its interesting legal aspects. We then moved on to talk about Ghulam Nabi Azad and his panache for getting into verbal trouble, Rahul Gandhis PR Padyatra and Indicasts Mobile apps.