The Seen and the Unseen - hosted by Amit Varma

When we pick up medicine from our nearby chemist, we assume that we are getting what we pay for. That trust may be misplaced. Dinesh Thakur joins Amit Varma in episode 245 of The Seen and the Unseen to share the story of the Ranbaxy fraud, and the shoddy state of Indian pharma today. Also check out: 1. Dinesh Thakur's foundation, blog and Twitter. 2. Bottle of Lies : Ranbaxy and the Dark Side of Indian Pharma -- Katherine Eban. 3. The Impact of Regulatory Structure on Quality of Medicines in India -- Talk by Dinesh Thakur. 4. Dinesh Thakur interviewed by News Laundry, Lallantop and The Accad and Koka Report. 5. The Indian pharmaceutical industry is in denial over drug-quality charges -- Dinesh Thakur. 6. Pharma industry's playbook on low-quality drugs -- Dinesh Thakur and Prashant Reddy Thikkavarapu. 7. India's drug regulator has failed the pandemic stress test -- Dinesh Thakur. 8. In generic drug plants in China and India, data falsification is still a problem -- Katherine Eban and Sony Salzman. 9. Healing the Pharmacy of the World -- KL Sharma. 10. The Gita Press and Hindu Nationalism -- Episode 139 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Akshaya Mukul). 11. Science and Covid-19 -- Episode 221 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Anirban Mahapatra). 12. Slow Ideas -- Atul Gawande. 13. Understanding Indian Healthcare -- Episode 225 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Karthik Muralidharan). 14. The Economics and Politics of Vaccines -- Episode 223 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ajay Shah). 15. We Must Save Our Farmers -- Amit Varma. 16. 'Killer cough syrup' maker failed quality tests several times -- Times of India report on the Jammu deaths. 17. Why lethal cough syrup slipped past the law -- Prabha Raghavan and Arun Sharma. 18. COVID-19: Hundreds Of Clinical Trials Under Way In India, Many Lack Rigour, Say Experts -- Anoo Bhuyan. 19. Clinical trial database hole -- GS Mudur. 20. CDSCO faces CIC ire over 'misplaced' 2013 report on 'irregular' approval to drugs -- Prabha Raghavan. 21. A Report on Drug Regulator CDSCO's 'Irregular' Approvals Has Gone 'Missing' -- The Wire staff. 22. New CDSCO Disclosure Reveals Quality of Medicines Sold in India -- Samir Malhotra. 23. On US blacklist, in India they are in the grey zone -- Ritu Sarin, Kaunain Sheriff M and Jaz Mazoomdar. 24. Poor quality drugs caused Niloufer maternal deaths: Doctors' panel -- Syed Akbar. 25. 2014 Bilaspur tubectomy deaths: Absconding pharma firm director held -- PTI news report. 26. Clinical Trials in India Need Better Regulations -- Shah Alam Khan. 27. Mozambique raises quality concerns on Indian drug exports -- Deepak Patel. 28. Drug regulation: 27 medicines sold by top firms 'fail' quality tests in seven states -- Deepak Patel. 29. 39 Indian drug companies blacklisted by Vietnam -- Pranshu Rathi. 30. Drugs with carcinogenic toxins: banned elsewhere, sold in India -- Priyanka Pulla. This episode is sponsored by CTQ Compounds. Check out The Daily Reader, FutureStack and The Social Capital Compound. Use the code UNSEEN for Rs 2500 off. Please subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! And check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

India's Maharajahs get a bad rap. Both the British empire and our freedom fighters pushed wrong stereotypes about them. Manu Pillai joins Amit Varma in episode 244 of The Seen and the Unseen to chat about the multitudes of our maharajahs -- and much else that matters. Also check out: 1. Manu Pillai's Website, Twitter and Instagram. 2. False Allies: India's Maharajahs in the Age of Ravi Varma -- Manu Pillai. 3. Ivory Throne: Chronicles of the House of Travancore -- Manu Pillai. 4. Rebel Sultans: The Deccan from Khilji to Shivaji -- Manu Pillai. 5. The Courtesan, the Mahatma and the Italian Brahmin -- Manu Pillai. 6. Kerala and the Ivory Throne -- Episode 156 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Manu Pillai). 7. Our Colorful Past -- Episode 127 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Manu Pillai). 8. The Deccan Before Shivaji -- Episode 98 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Manu Pillai). 9. Sudhir Sarnobat's epic tweet summing up the first 200 episodes of The Seen and the Unseen. 10. The Hunter Becomes the Hunted -- Episode 200 of The Seen and the Unseen. 11. A Matter of Rats -- Amitava Kumar. 12. Piercing -- Ryu Murakami. 13. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil -- Hannah Arendt. 14. SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome -- Mary Beard. 15. The Mapilla Rebellion of Malabar -- Manu Pillai. 16. The many shades of the Mappila insurrection -- Manu Pillai. 17. Malevolent Republic — Kapil Komireddi. 18. Who Broke Our Republic? -- Episode 163 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Kapil Komireddi). 19. Religion in India: Tolerance and Segregation -- The Pew Center Research survey of religion in India. (Also: 1, 2.) 20. A Meditation on Form -- Amit Varma. 21. Naoroji: Pioneer of Indian Nationalism — Dinyar Patel. 22. Dadabhai Naoroji and the Fight for India -- Episode 187 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Dinyar Patel). 23. Understanding India Through Its Languages -- Peggy Mohan. 24. Young India -- Episode 83 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Snigdha Poonam). 25. Royals and Rebels: The Rise and Fall of the Sikh Empire -- Priya Atwal. 26. VP Menon: The Unsung Architect of Modern India — Narayani Basu. 27. India's Greatest Civil Servant -- Episode 167 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Narayani Basu). 28. India's Security State -- Episode 242 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Josy Joseph). 29. Lessons from 1975 -- Amit Varma (2015 piece). 30. There Comes Papa. Please subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! And check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

In the last 25 years, India has changed, journalism has changed and Barkha Dutt has been at the frontlines. She joins Amit Varma in episode 243 of The Seen and the Unseen to speak about how we got here, and the lessons of these years. Also check out: 1. Barkha Dutt on Twitter, Instagram and the Washington Post. 2. Mojo Story on YouTube. 3. This Unquiet Land: Stories from India's Fault Lines -- Barkha Dutt. 4. The Nurture Assumption -- Judith Rich Harris. 5. Barkha Dutt's conversation with Deep Sidhu. 6. What They Did Yesterday Afternoon -- Warsan Shire. 7. We The Women on Facebook. 8. Memories and Things -- Episode 195 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Aanchal Malhotra). 9. Little Crazy Love Song -- Mary Oliver. This episode is sponsored by CTQ Compounds. Check out The Daily Reader, FutureStack and The Social Capital Compound. Use the code UNSEEN for Rs 2500 off. Please subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! And check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

We are subjects, not citizens -- and India's state is designed to keep us that way. Josy Joseph joins Amit Varma in episode 242 of The Seen and the Unseen to discuss the astonishing ways in which India's security state misuses its powers. Also check out: 1. The Silent Coup: A History of India's Deep State -- Josy Joseph. 2. A Feast of Vultures: The Hidden Business of Democracy in India -- Josy Joseph. 3. Investigative Journalism: Silence is an Expensive Commodity -- Josy Joseph's TedX talk. 4. Vultures of Modern India -- Josy Joseph at Manthan Samvaad 2016. 5. The Geography of Genius -- Eric Weiner. 6. Where Have All The Leaders Gone? -- Amit Varma. 7. Franz Kafka, George Orwell and Gabriel Garcia Marquez on Amazon. 8. Poland -- James A Michener. 9. Curfewed Night -- Basharat Peer. 10. Our Moon Has Blood Clots -- Rahul Pandita. 11. The Prem Panicker Files -- Episode 217 of The Seen and the Unseen. 12. Afghanistan: The Bear Trap -- Mohammad Yousaf and Mark Adkin. 13. The Looming Tower -- Lawrence Wright. 14. Jhumpa Lahiri on Writing, Translation, and Crossing Between Cultures — Episode 17 of Conversations With Tyler. 15. The Notebook Trilogy — Agota Kristof. 16. Prem Panicker on writing -- Episode 3 of The Windowpane Sessions. 17. Sixteen Stormy Days — Tripurdaman Singh. 18. The First Assault on Our Constitution -- Episode 194 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Tripurdaman Singh). 19. Emergency Chronicles -- Gyan Prakash. 20. Gyan Prakash on the Emergency -- Episode 103 of The Seen and the Unseen. 21. Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India — Akshaya Mukul. 22. The Gita Press and Hindu Nationalism — Episode 139 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Akshaya Mukul). 23. India, Pakistan, Kashmir: We Won't Need To Fight A War If We Can Win The Peace -- Amit Varma. 24. Counterinsurgency Warfare — David Galula. 25. The Insurgents — Fred Kaplan. 26. Seven Pillars of Wisdom -- TE Lawrence. 27. The Generation of Rage in Kashmir — David Devadas. 28. Kashmir and Article 370 -- Episode 130 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Srinath Raghavan). 29. The Cobra Effect. 30. KP Raghuvanshi interrogated by Arnab Goswami. 31. The Streetlight Effect. Please subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! And check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

The gangster film and the city film are two genres that took a while to evolve in Bollywood. Uday Bhatia joins Amit Varma in episode 241 of The Seen and the Unseen to explain why Ram Gopal Varma's Satya was a seminal moment, shaped by what came before it, and changing the course of Hindi cinema. Also check out: 1. Satya -- Ram Gopal Varma. 2. Bullets Over Bombay -- Uday Bhatia. 3. Uday Bhatia's Twitter, Blog and author page at Mint Lounge. 4. Jai Arjun Singh Lost It at the Movies -- Episode 230 of The Seen and the Unseen. 5. Greil Marcus, Lester Bangs, David Fricke and Peter Guralnick. 6. Lester Bangs on The Stooges. 7. Pauline Kael on Bonnie and Clyde. 8. Pauline Kael, Lester Bangs and the Twitter Age -- Uday Bhatia. 9. Have You Seen?: A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films -- David Thomson. 10. Risen From the Depths -- Uday Bhatia on Neecha Nagar. 11. The First Picture Show -- Uday Bhatia. 12. So Many Cinemas -- BD Garga. 13. Jawaharlal Nehru : Rebel and Statesman -- BR Nanda. (More easily available in this omnibus volume.) 14. My Friend Sancho -- Amit Varma. 15. Haal-Chaal Theek Thaak Hai -- Podcast co-hosted by Subrat Mohanty. 16. O Leke Pehla Pehla Pyar -- Song from CID. 17. The vlogs of Devdutt Dani, Mohammad Salim Khan and Satya Saggar. Films mentioned in this episode: 1. Early Indian crime films: Kismet, Pocket Maar, Awaara. 2. Early Indian noir by Navketan films and others: Baazi, CID, Aar Paar, Kala Bazaar. 3. Some post-noir Bollywood: Teesri Manzil, Johny Mera Naam, Blackmail, Zanjeer, Deewar. 4. Ardh Satya. 5. A selection from the 1980s: Vidhaata, Karz, Arjun, Tezaab, Parinda, Hathyaar. 6. Films showcasing Bombay or Bambaiyya: Taxi Driver, Aar Paar, Aakhri Khat, Bombay to Goa, Gharaonda, Guddi, Salaam Bombay and much of the work of Basu Chatterjee and Hrishikesh Mukherjee. 7. Two key precursers: Is Raat Ki Subaah Nahin, Bandit Queen. 8. Ram Gopal Varma's key past films: Rangeela, Shiva, Daud, Company. 9. Miscellaneous mentions: Raakh, Haasil, Munna Bhai MBBS, Gangs of Wasseypur, Aankhon Dekhi. 9. Uday Bhatia's recommendations: China Town, 27 Down, Arvind Desai Ki Ajeeb Dastaan, Sehar. This episode is sponsored by CTQ Compounds. Check out The Daily Reader, FutureStack and The Social Capital Compound. Use the code UNSEEN for Rs 2500 off. Please subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! And check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

You can learn life lessons by actually living life -- or you can take a short cut and learn them from those who have done the living for you. Prakash Iyer joins Amit Varma in episode 240 of The Seen and the Unseen to discuss his journey rising to the top of the corporate world, and then sharing the lessons he learnt. Also check out: 1. Prakash Iyer on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Amazon and his own website. 2. How Come No One Told Me That? -- Prakash Iyer. 3. Some talks on YouTube by Prakash Iyer: 1, 2, 3, 4. 4. Luck is All Around -- Amit Varma. 5. The Answer is 42 -- Amit Varma. 6. The Numbers Game -- Amit Varma. 7. Poker at Lake Wobegon -- Amit Varma. 8. Range Rover -- The Archives of Amit Varma's poker column for Economic Times. 9. Air India Express ousts 'Sir' from cockpit, brings in 'Captain.' 10. Defending the Indefensible -- Episode 55 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Yazad Jal). 11. Where Are the Jobs? -- Episode 87 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Yazad Jal). 12. Metrics of Empowerment -- Episode 88 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Devika Kher, Nidhi Gupta and Hamsini Hariharan). 13. The #MeToo Movement -- Episode 90 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Supriya Nair and Nikita Saxena). 14. Men Must Step Up Now -- Amit Varma. 15. Ranveer Brar's YouTube channel. 16. Brian Tracy on Amazon, YouTube and his own website. 17. Roshan Abbas and the Creator Economy -- Episode 239 of The Seen and the Unseen. 18. How I Gained 1 MILLION Subscribers — Ali Abdaal. 19. My Top 10 Tips for Aspiring YouTubers — Ali Abdaal. 20. Art & Fear -- David Bayles and Ted Orland. 21. Georges Simenon on Amazon. 22. Malcolm Gladwell on Amazon. 23. Dan Ariely on Amazon. 24. Fraudulent data raise questions about superstar honesty researcher. 25. Behram Contractor (aka Busybee) on Amazon. Please subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! And check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

If you're a creative person, there is no better time to be alive. Roshan Abbas joins Amit Varma in episode 239 of The Seen and the Unseen to describe his remarkable journey as a creator -- and to explain why the best is yet to come. Also check out: 1. Roshan Abbas on Twitter, Instagram and his own homepage. 2. Kommune on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. 3. Speechless: What would you say if your life depended on it? A Pocket-Guide to Public Speaking -- Roshan Abbas and Siddharth Banerjee. 4. Always Kabhi Kabhi, directed by Roshan Abbas, on ErosNow, JioCinema, Amazon (DVD) and Amazon Prime (outside India). 5. A Road Less Travelled -- Roshan Abbas's TedX talk. 6. Roshan Abbas interviewed by Vishal Gondal, Varun Duggirala and Cyrus Broacha. 7. Tom Peters on Amazon -- and VUCA in Wikipedia. 8. A Creator of the Floating World -- Episode 218 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Varun Duggirala). 9. Dreamy Dutch Coffee -- Prahniika Borkar | The Storytellers 10. Storytelling and Conversation -- Episode 197 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Neelesh Misra). 11. 1000 True Fans — Kevin Kelly. 12. 1000 True Fans? Try 100 — Li Jin. 13. How I Gained 1 MILLION Subscribers -- Ali Abdaal. 14. My Top 10 Tips for Aspiring YouTubers -- Ali Abdaal. 15. Amit Varma's session on podcasting for Chalchitra Talks with Varun Duggirala & others. 16. Select episodes of The Seen and the Unseen on Indian agriculture: 1, 2, 3, 4. 17. Osho Jain on Instagram, and Prateek Kuhad and Ankur Tiwari on YouTube. 18. A Scientist in the Kitchen -- Episode 204 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Krish Ashok). 19. Twitter and Tear Gas — Zeynep Tufekci. 20. Radically Networked Societies -- Episode 158 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Pranay Kotasthane). 21. Kavitha Rao and Our Lady Doctors -- Episode 235 of The Seen and the Unseen. 22. A Meditation on Form -- Amit Varma. 23. Biology - A Functional Approach -- MBV Roberts. 24. Confluence of Cultures -- Saiyed Anwer Abbas. 25. Amit Varma on the Getting Meta podcast, hosted by Deepak Gopalakrishnan. 26. An Adman Reflects on Society & the Self -- Episode 199 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ambi Parameswaran). 27. Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search for Everything -- Elizabeth Gilbert. 28. The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity -- Julia Cameron. 29. All You Who Sleep Tonight -- Vikram Seth. 30. Everybody Hurts -- REM. 31. The Hunter Becomes the Hunted -- Episode 200 of The Seen and the Unseen, in which Amit Varma talks about his own creator journey. This episode is sponsored by CTQ Compounds. Check out The Daily Reader, FutureStack and The Social Capital Compound. Use the code UNSEEN for Rs 2500 off. Please subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! And check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

Indian sport has never been healthier. Joy Bhattacharjya and Nandan Kamath join Amit Varma in episode 238 of The Seen and the Unseen to share their inside view on what has happened behind the scenes to bring us here. Also check out:1. GoSports Foundation. 2. Building Sports Ecosystems -- Episode 126 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Joy Bhattacharjya). 3. Go!: India's Sporting Transformation -- Edited by Nandan Kamath & Aparna Ravichandran. 4. Great sporting nations are built on collaborative efforts -- Nandan Kamath. 5. Some print interviews of Nandan Kamath, in reverse chronological order: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 6. Nandan Kamath on sports governance (YouTube talk). 7. 87.58 for 1.3 bn: Will Neeraj Chopra's javelin hurl spearhead a turn in India's Olympic medal-hauling capabilities? -- Joy Bhattacharjya. 8. Winning medals wasn't always so serious, whisky-swilling shooters and café-stopping runners were once Olympians too -- Joy Bhattacharjya. 9. The Importance of the 1991 Reforms -- Episode 237 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan & Ajay Shah). 10. A Shot At History: My Obsessive Journey to Olympic Gold -- Abhinav Bindra and Rohit Brijnath. 11. A Cricket Tragic Celebrates the Game -- Episode 201 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ramachandra Guha). 12. The Tamilian gentleman who took on the world -- Amit Varma. 13. The Girl From Haryana -- Amit Varma. 14. Relative Age Effect (Wikipedia). 15. Outliers: The Story of Success -- Malcolm Gladwell. 16. The Psychological Impact of the Partition of India -- Edited by Sanjeev Jain and Alok Sarin. Do follow Joy Bhattacharjya and Nandan Kamath on Twitter. Please subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! And check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

The liberalisation of 1991 lifted more than a quarter of a billion people in India out of poverty. And yet, we often don't recognise their importance, and have gone backwards in the last decade. Shruti Rajagopalan and Ajay Shah join Amit Varma in episode 237 of The Seen and the Unseen to discuss what life was like before 1991, where we had gone wrong, what we put right and what remains to be done. Also check out: 1. The 1991 Project. 2. The quest for economic freedom in India -- Shruti Rajagopalan. 3. Ideas and Origins of the Planning Commission in India -- Shruti Rajagopalan. 4. The Art and Science of Economic Policy -- Episode 154 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vijay Kelkar and Ajay Shah). 5. The Economics and Politics of Vaccines -- Episode 223 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ajay Shah). 6. The Tragedy of Our Farm Bills -- Episode 211 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ajay Shah). 7. Other episodes of The Seen and the Unseen with Ajay Shah: 1, 2, 3. 8. In Service of the Republic — Vijay Kelkar & Ajay Shah 9. Episodes of The Seen and the Unseen w Shruti Rajagopalan, in reverse chronological order: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. 10. Population Is Not a Problem, but Our Greatest Strength -- Amit Varma. 11. Raghu Sanjaylal Jaitley's Father's Scooter -- Episode 214 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Raghu Sanjaylal Jaitley). 12. Anticipating the Unintended — Pranay Kotasthane and Raghu Sanjaylal Jaitley's newsletter. 13. The Dark Side of the Moon -- Pink Floyd. 14. Wish You Were Here -- Pink Floyd. 15. Free to Choose -- Milton Friedman and Rose Friedman. 16. The Road to Serfdom -- Friedrich Hayek. 17. The Fatal Conceit -- Friedrich Hayek. 18. The Clash of Economic Ideas -- Lawrence H White. 19. Pandit's Mind -- The 1951 Time magazine cover story on Jawaharlal Nehru. 20. Lessons from an Ankhon Dekhi Prime Minister -- Amit Varma. 21. An Autobiography -- Jawaharlal Nehru. 22. The Discovery of India -- Jawaharlal Nehru. 23. The First Assault on Our Constitution -- Episode 194 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Tripurdaman Singh). 24. Profit = Philanthropy -- Amit Varma. 25. India Unbound -- Gurcharan Das. 26. India Transformed: 25 Years of Economic Reforms -- Edited by Rakesh Mohan. 27. Fixing Indian Education -- Episode 185 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Karthik Muralidharan). 28. Understanding Indian Healthcare -- Episode 225 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Karthik Muralidharan). 29. Modi's Lost Opportunity -- Episode 119 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Salman Soz). 30. Bootleggers and Baptists-The Education of a Regulatory Economist — Bruce Yandle. 31. Pigs Don't Fly: The Economic Way of Thinking about Politics — Russell Roberts. 32. Raees: An Empty Shell of a Gangster Film — Amit Varma. 33. The White Man's Burden -- William Easterly. 34. The Tyranny of Experts -- William Easterly. 35. Planners vs. Searchers in Foreign Aid -- William Easterly. 36. We, the People -- Nani Palikhiwala. 37. India's Agriculture Crisis — Episode 140 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Barun Mitra & Kumar Anand). 38. DeMon, Morality and the Predatory Indian State -- Episode 85 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan). 39. Most of Amit Varma's writing on DeMon, collected in one Twitter thread. 40. Narendra Modi Takes a Great Leap Backwards — Amit Varma 41. Beware of the Useful Idiots -- Amit Varma. 42. Restaurant Regulations in India -- Episode 18 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Madhu Menon). 43. India's Problem is Poverty, Not Inequality -- Amit Varma. 44. On Inequality -- Harry Frankfurt. 45. Breaking the Caste Barrier: Intergenerational Mobility in India -- Viktoria Hnatkovska, Amartya Lahiri and Sourabh B Paul. 46. Intergenerational Mobility in India: New Methods and Estimates Across Time, Space, and Communities -- Sam Asher, Paul Novosad and Charlie Rafkin. 47. Defying the Odds: The Rise of Dalit Entrepreneurs -- Devesh Kapur, D Shyam Babu and Chandra Bhan Prasad. 48. Taking Stock of Our Economy -- Episode 227 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ila Patnaik). 49. India's Lost Decade -- Episode 116 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Puja Mehra). 50. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's books on Amazon. This episode is sponsored by CTQ Compounds. Check out The Daily Reader, FutureStack and The Social Capital Compound. Use the code UNSEEN for Rs 2500 off. Please subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! And check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

The task of a journalist is to document the present moment. And there have been plenty of crazy present moments in India in the last 40 years. Vir Sanghvi joins Amit Varma in episode 236 of The Seen and the Unseen to share his insights on how our society, politics and media have been transformed over the course of his career. He also looks inwards. Also check out: 1. A Rude Life -- Vir Sanghvi. 2. Vir Sanghvi's books on Amazon. 3. Vir Sanghvi's homepage, Twitter and Instagram. 4. Travelling in the Time of Covid -- Vir Sanghvi. 5. Biryani Was Always Meant for the Masses and Not the Kings -- Vir Sanghvi. 6. Don't Think Too Much of Yourself. You're an Accident -- Amit Varma. 7. The Great Gatsby -- F Scott Fitzgerald. 8. Kanti Bajpai on India vs China -- Episode 234 of The Seen and the Unseen. 9. A Cricket Tragic Celebrates the Game — Episode 201 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ramachandra Guha). 10. The Indianness of Indian Food — Episode 95 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vikram Doctor). 11. Early Indians — Episode 112 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Tony Joseph). 12. Understanding India Through Its Languages -- Episode 232 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Peggy Mohan). 13. Private Truths, Public Lies -- Timur Kuran. 14. The Gita Press and Hindu Nationalism -- Episode 139 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Akshaya Mukul). 15. The BJP Before Modi -- Episode 202 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vinay Sitapati). 16. The Business of Books -- Episode 150 of The Seen and the Unseen (w VK Karthika). 17. Newsman's English -- Harold Evans. 18. Pictures on a Page -- Harold Evans. 19. Steven Van Zandt: Springsteen, the death of rock and Van Morrison on Covid -- Richard Purden. 20. Persuasion -- The newsletter founded by Yascha Mounk. 21. Conversation and Society -- Episode 182 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Russ Roberts). 22. Econ Talk — Russ Roberts's podcast. 23. Conversations With Tyler -- Tyler Cowen's podcast. 24. Making Sense -- Sam Harris's podcast. 25. Politics and the Sociopath -- Amit Varma. 26. Public Opinion -- Walter Lippmann. 27. On Bullshit -- Harry Frankfurt. 28. The Facts Do Not Matter -- Amit Varma. 29. Religion, Food, Indian Society -- Episode 207 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shoba Narayan). 30. The Saffron Trail -- Episode 222 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Nandita Iyer). 31. Imaginary Number -- Vijay Seshadri. 32. Sacred Games -- Vikram Chandra. 33. The Powers That Be -- David Halberstam. 34. Ramachandra Guha's books on Amazon. 35. Imagining India -- Nandan Nilekani. 36. Rebooting India -- Nandan Nilekani. 37. An Era of Darkness -- Shashi Tharoor (also published outside India as Inglorious Empire). This episode is sponsored by MapMyGenome. Use the code UNSEEN to get 50% off on their groundbreaking product, Genomepatri. Please subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! And check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

Back in the 19th century, women were supposed to stay home and learn cooking and needlework -- but some dared to fight the odds and get an education. Some even became doctors. Kavitha Rao joins Amit Varma in episode 235 of The Seen and the Unseen to discuss her new book on six pioneering lady doctors. Also discussed: the craft of writing and storytelling, and the endless possibility for late bloomers. Also check out: 1. Lady Doctors: The Untold Stories of India's First Women in Medicine -- Kavitha Rao. 2. Kavitha Rao's other books on Amazon. 3. I grew up as an Indian expat in Iran, before the revolution -- Kavitha Rao. 4. The Memoirs of Dr Haimabati Sen -- Haimabati Sen (translated by Tapan Raychoudhuri). 5. Crossing Thresholds -- Meera Kosambi. 6. A Fragmented Feminism -- Meera Kosambi. 7. The Art of Narrative Nonfiction -- Episode 183 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Samanth Subramanian). 8. Following Fish -- Samanth Subramanian. 9. A Dominant Character -- Samanth Subramanian. 10. Killers of the Flower Moon -- David Grann. 11. The Squid Hunter -- David Grann. 12. David Grann in the New Yorker. 13. Our Colorful Past -- Episode 127 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Manu Pillai). 14. Kerala and the Ivory Throne -- Episode 156 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Manu Pillai). 15. The Deccan Before Shivaji -- Episode 98 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Manu Pillai). 16. Manu Pillai's books on Amazon. 17. Women in Indian History -- Episode 144 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ira Mukhoty). 18. Ira Mukhoty's books on Amazon. 19. Young India -- Episode 83 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Snigdha Poonam). 20. Dreamers: How Young Indians Are Changing Their World -- Snigdha Poonam. 21. Bad Blood -- John Carreyrou. 22. 52.. 23. Collision -- Bhavya Dore. 24. The #MeToo Movement -- Episode 90 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Supriya Nair and Nikita Saxena). 25. Yentl -- Directed by Barbra Streisand (Wikipedia link). 26. The Gate of Angels -- Penelope Fitzgerald. 27. The Blue Flower -- Penelope Fitzgerald. 28. The Bookshop -- Penelope Fitzgerald. 29. How Social Media Threatens Society -- Episode 8 of Brave New World, hosted by Vasant Dhar, featuring Jonathan Haidt. 30. The BJP Before Modi -- Episode 202 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vinay Sitapati). 31. Superior -- Angela Saini. 32. Modeling Covid-19 -- Episode 224 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Gautam Menon). Please subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! And check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

What exactly is going on between India and China? When cooperation would lead to a win-win game, why is there conflict? Kanti Bajpai joins Amit Varma in episode 234 of The Seen and the Unseen to share his Four Ps framework for understanding this conflict. Also discussed: academia, public intellectuals, how one learns, and why writing and teaching make you a better thinker Also check out: 1. India Versus China : Why They Are Not Friends -- Kanti Bajpai. 2. Roots of Terrorism -- Kanti Bajpai. 3. Kanti Bajpai on Amazon. 4. The China Dude Is in the House -- Episode 231 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Manoj Kewalramani). 5. The Dragon and the Elephant — Episode 181 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Hamsini Hariharan & Shibani Mehta). 6. What Does China Want? — Episode 143 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Manoj Kewalramani). 7. Understanding Terrorism -- Amit Varma's 2007 review of Alan Krueger's What Makes a Terorrist.8. Soft Power: The Means To Success In World Politics -- Joseph Nye. 9. The Future of Power -- Joseph Nye. 10. Roam Research. 11. Why India and China Are Not Friends -- Kanti Bajpai on The Grand Tamasha podcast, hosted by Milan Vaishnav. 12. A Cricket Tragic Celebrates the Game -- Episode 201 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ramachandra Guha). 13. The Hedgehog And The Fox -- Isaiah Berlin. 14. Kishore Mahbubani on Amazon. 15. Imagined Communities -- Benedict Anderson. 16. Memories and Things -- Episode 195 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Aanchal Malhotra). 17. The Mahatma and the Poet — The Tagore-Gandhi debates. 18. From Heaven Lake -- Vikram Seth. 19. Finding India in China -- Anurag Viswanath. 20. Strangers across the Border -- Reshma Patil. Please subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! And check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

Public policy may seem like a dull subject fit only for wonks, but it matters: our lives are deeply affected by what our governments do. Pranay Kotasthane joins Amit Varma in episode 233 of The Seen and the Unseen to chat about his intellectual journey, his private beach and why public policy can be so stimulating. He also answers racy questions from the Twitterverse. If you share Pranay's interest in public policy, you should check out Takshashila's Graduate Certificate in Public Policy (GCPP). Also check out: 1. Anticipating the Unintended -- Pranay Kotasthane's newsletter (with RSJ). 2. Puliyabaazi -- Pranay Kotasthane's podcast (with Saurabh Chandra). 3. Foreign Policy is a Big Deal -- Episode 170 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Pranay Kotasthane & Manoj Kewalramani). 4. Radically Networked Societies -- Episode 158 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Pranay Kotasthane). 5. Older episodes of The Seen and the Unseen w Pranay Kotasthane: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 6. Raghu Sanjaylal Jaitley's Father's Scooter -- Episode 214 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Raghu Sanjaylal Jaitley). 7. ये लिबरल आख़िर है कौन? -- Episode 37 of Puliyabaazi (w Amit Varma). 8. Amit Varma's tweet thread soliciting questions for this episode. 9. Examples of Pranay Kotasthane's Mind Maps of books: 1, 2, 3. 10. Coggle. 11. The Lessons of History -- Will Durant. 12. Raj Comics. 13. The China Dude Is in the House -- Episode 231 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Manoj Kewalramani). 14. A Case For Societism -- Pranay Kotasthane. 15. Pranay Kotasthane's Manthan talk on societism. 16. The Indian Dream Podcast episode with Amit Varma. 17. 8 things to unlearn before learning public policy -- Pranay Kotasthane. 18. The Double 'Thank-You' Moment -- John Stossel. 19. Opportunity Cost Neglect in Public Policy -- Emil Persson and Gustav Tinghög. 20. Whose Money is it Anyway? -- Amit Varma. 21. The 4 Ways to Spend Money -- Milton Friedman. 22. Discover Your Inner Economist -- Tyler Cowen. 23. In Service of the Republic — Vijay Kelkar & Ajay Shah. 24. The Art and Science of Economic Policy -- Episode 154 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vijay Kelkar and Ajay Shah). 25. Amit Varma's prescient 2017 tweet on the price caps on stents. 26. Episodes of the Seen and the Unseen on GST with Devangshu Datta, Vivek Kaul and Shruti Rajagopalan. 26. Most of Amit Varma's writing on DeMon, collected in one Twitter thread. 27. Narendra Modi Takes a Great Leap Backwards — Amit Varma 28. Episodes of The Seen and the Unseen on Demonetisation with Suyash Rai and Shruti Rajagopalan. 29. The Delhi Smog -- Episode 44 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vivek Kaul). 30. Bootleggers and Baptists-The Education of a Regulatory Economist -- Bruce Yandle. 31. Pigs Don't Fly: The Economic Way of Thinking about Politics -- Russell Roberts. 32. Raees: An Empty Shell of a Gangster Film -- Amit Varma. 33. Shubhra Gupta's review about which Tapsee Pannu kicked up such a fuss. 34. The Tragedy of Our Farm Bills -- Episode 211 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ajay Shah). 35. Wilson's Interest Group Matrix -- Charles Cameron from The Political Analyst's Toolkit. 36. Government's End: Why Washington Stopped Working -- Jonathan Rauch. 37. The Great Redistribution -- Amit Varma. 38. Behave -- Robert Sapolsky. 39. Robert Sapolsky's lectures on YouTube. 40. Elite Imitation in Public Policy -- Episode 180 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan & Alex Tabarrok). 41. Taxes Should Be Used for Governance, Not Politics -- Amit Varma. 42. Every Act of Government Is an Act of Violence -- Amit Varma. 43. The First Assault on Our Constitution -- Episode 194 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Tripurdaman Singh). 44. The Emergency -- Episode 103 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Gyan Prakash). 45. How the BJP Wins -- Prashant Jha. 46. The BJP's Magic Formula -- Episode 45 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Prashant Jha). 47. Participatory Democracy — Episode 160 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ashwin Mahesh). 48. Other episodes of The Seen and the Unseen with Ashwin Mahesh: 1, 2. 49. Understanding India Through Its Languages -- Episode 232 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Peggy Mohan). 50. The Indianness of Indian Food — Episode 95 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vikram Doctor). 51. Governing the Commons -- Elinor Ostrom. 52. Public Choice Theory -- Episode 121 of The Seen and the Unseen. 53. Fixing Indian Education -- Episode 185 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Karthik Muralidharan). 54. Education in India -- Episode 77 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Amit Chandra). 55. The Economics and Politics of Vaccines -- Episode 223 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ajay Shah). 56. The Indian Conservative -- Episode 145 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Jaithirth Rao). 57. How to Build an Economic Model in Your Spare Time -- Hal Varian. 58. A Scientist in the Kitchen -- Episode 204 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Krish Ashok). 59. Modeling Covid-19 -- Episode 224 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Gautam Menon). 60. Narratives on Exchange Rates in India -- Pranay Kotasthane.

The problem with the past is that it's over. How can we enter distant history and understand what happened? Language is one way. Peggy Mohan joins Amit Varma in episode 232 of The Seen and the Unseen to share her insights on what the evolution of our languages reveals about how we got here. Also check out: 1. Wanderers, Kings, Merchants: The Story of India through Its Languages -- Peggy Mohan. 2. Peggy Mohan's books on Amazon. 3. Amit Varma's Twitter thread on episodes of The Seen and the Unseen about India. 4. Early Indians -- Episode 112 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Tony Joseph). 5. India = Migration -- Episode 128 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Chinmay Tumbe). 6. The Art of Translation -- Episode 168 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Arunava Sinha). 7. The Indianness of Indian Food -- Episode 95 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vikram Doctor). 8. One Hundred Years of Solitude (Spanish) (English) -- Gabriel García Márquez. 9. Songs of Kabir -- Translated by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra. 10. Essential Kabir -- Translated by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra. 11. I, Lalla: The Poems of Lal Dĕd -- Translated by Ranjit Hoskote. 12. On Language -- Noam Chomsky. 13. The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language -- Steven Pinker. 14. The Baburnama: Memoirs of Babur, Prince and Emperor -- Translated by WM Thackston Jr. 15. Guns, Germs and Steel: Jared Diamond. 16. Punctuated equilibria: an alternative to phyletic gradualism -- Niles Eldredge & Steven Jay Gould. (Also, criticism of it.) 17. Genesis of Ṛgvedic Retroflexion -- Madhav Deshpande. 18. Linguistics, Style and Writing in the 21st Century -- A talk by Steven Pinker. 19. Hindi Nationalism -- Alok Rai. 20. A House Divided: Origin and Development of Hindi/Hindavi -- Amrit Rai. 21. Hindustani Musalmaan - Hussain Haidry. 22. Hum Kagaz Nahin Dikhayenge -- Varun Grover. 23. The Emperor of All Maladies -- Siddhartha Mukherjee. 24. The Song of the Dodo -- David Quammen. 25. The Tangled Tree -- David Quammen. 26. Spillover -- David Quammen. 27. Romila Thapar and Irfan Habib on Amazon. This episode is sponsored by Wondrium. Check out their series, The Story of Human Language. For free unlimited access for 14 days, click here. Please subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! And check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

Bollywood lost him, journalism wasted him, and thank goodness for that. Manoj Kewalramani, the foreign policy analyst also known as The China Dude, joins Amit Varma in episode 231 of The Seen and the Unseen to discuss his brilliant new book on post-Covid China, Smokeless War. Also discussed: Lokhandwala Cafes and the art of building narratives. Also check out: 1. Smokeless War: China's Quest for Geopolitical Dominance -- Manoj Kewalramani. 2. Eye on China -- Manoj Kewalramani's newsletter. (+ older archives at Pragati.) 3. The Takshashila Institution. 4. What Does China Want? -- Episode 143 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Manoj Kewalramani). 5. Chinese Foreign Policy -- Episode 81 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Manoj Kewalramani). 6. Foreign Policy is a Big Deal -- Episode 170 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Pranay Kotasthane & Manoj Kewalramani). 7. The Dragon and the Elephant -- Episode 181 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Hamsini Hariharan & Shibani Mehta). 8. Keeping India Safe -- Episode 219 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Sushant Singh). 9. Population Is Not a Problem, but Our Greatest Strength -- Amit Varma. 10. Profit = Philanthropy -- Amit Varma. 11. Under the Dome -- Documentary by Chai Jing. 12. The Invention of China -- Bill Hayton. 13. China's Civilian Army: The Making of Wolf Warrior Diplomacy -- Peter Martin. 14. The Prem Panicker Files -- Episode 217 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Prem Panicker). 15. We Are Fighting Two Disasters: Covid-19 and the Indian State -- Amit Varma. 16. Narendra Modi takes a Great Leap Backwards -- Amit Varma (on Mao, sparrows, great leaps etc). 17. Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice — David Galula. 18. We Won't Need To Fight A War If We Can Win The Peace — Amit Varma. 19. Policy Paradox – The Art of Political Decision Making -- Deborah Stone. 20. Homeopathic Faith (2010) -- Amit Varma. 21. Demystifying GDP -- Episode 130 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rajeswari Sengupta). 22. Where Anna Hazare Gets It Wrong -- Amit Varma. 23. Sample SSR consipracy theory: He's alive! 24. NCovMemory repository in English. 25. Terminus 2049. 26. Wuhan Diary: Dispatches from a Quarantined City -- Fang Fang. 27. COVID-19, China and Anatomy of Fang Fang Phenomenon -- Hemant Adlakha. 28. Wealth and Power: China's Long March to the Twenty-first Century -- Orville Schell & John Delury. 29. Media Politics in China: Improvising Power under Authoritarianism -- Maria Repnikova. 30. The China Questions – Critical Insights into a Rising Power -- Edited by Jennifer Rudolph & Michael Szonyi. This episode is sponsored by CTQ Compounds. Check out The Daily Reader, FutureStack and The Social Capital Compound. Use the code UNSEEN for Rs 2500 off. Please subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! And check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

His writing is self-reflective, his humour is self-deprecatory, and he's one of our finest writers on cinema. Jai Arjun Singh joins Amit Varma in episode 230 of The Seen and the Unseen to describe how he to came to love cinema -- and how that love changed shape as he did. Also check out: 1. Jabberwock -- Jai Arjun Singh's blog. 2. Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron: Seriously Funny Since 1983 -- Jai Arjun Singh. 3. The World of Hrishikesh Mukherjee -- Jai Arjun Singh. 4. Popcorn Essayists -- Edited by Jai Arjun Singh. 5. Seeing is believing? An essay about encounters with religious cinema -- Jai Arjun Singh. 6. Meandering thoughts on the consumer-art relationship, glorification vs depiction, etc -- Jai Arjun Singh. 7. In praise of "commercial" acting -- Jai Arjun Singh. 8. One Moment Please -- Jai Arjun Singh's column for the Hindu. 9. Jai Arjun Singh at Mint Lounge, Scroll and First Post. 10. The First Assault on Our Constitution -- Episode 194 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Tripurdaman Singh). 11. Lessons in Investing (and Life) -- Episode 208 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Deepak Shenoy). 12. Two Girls Hanging From a Tree -- Episode 209 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Sonia Faleiro). 13. A Writer Learns to See -- Episode 215 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Annie Zaidi). 14. Leonard Maltin's TV Movies and Video Guide 1991. 15. Amit Varma's Twitter threads on the MAMI festival from 2018 and 2019. 16. A Meditation on Form -- Amit Varma. 17. The House of the Dead -- Fyodor Dostoevsky. 18. Psycho -- Alfred Hitchcock. 19. The 1980s films mentioned in this episode: Meri Jung, Mr India, Parinda, Tezaab, Eeshwar, Awaargi, Karma, Chameli Ki Shaadi, Saaheb, Teri Meherbaniya, Ghulami, Hathyar, Arjun. 20. Dogme 95 (on Wikipedia). 21. Sholay -- Ramesh Sippy.22. Jai Arjun Singh's many writings on Sholay. 23. We all live in a Cannibal Holocaust -- Amit Varma. 24. Ghost Stories -- Zoya Akhtar, Anurag Kashyap, Dibakar Banerjee & Karan Johar. 25. Eyes Without a Face -- Georges Franju. 26. Amarcord & I Vitelloni -- Federico Fellini. 27. Moonlight -- Barry Jenkins. 28. David Dhawan and Krzysztof Kieślowski on Wikipedia. 29. Piku -- Shoojit Sirkar. 30. Jai Arjun Singh's writings on Piku. 31. Jai Arjun Singh's talk at TEDxNSIT. 32. Dead Poet's Society -- Peter Weir. 33. Louie -- Louis CK. 34. Kabir Singh, Leni Riefenstahl & The Birth of a Nation. 35. Films, Feminism, Paromita -- Episode 155 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Paromita Vohra). 36. The Kavita Krishnan Files -- Episode 228 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Kavita Krishnan). 37. How Social Media Threatens Society -- Episode 8 of Brave New World, hosted by Vasant Dhar, featuring Jonathan Haidt. 38. The Philadelphia Story -- George Cukor. 39. The Wire -- created by David Simon. 40. Dekalog -- Krzysztof Kieślowski. 41. Casey Neistat on YouTube. 42. Alan Moore's books on Amazon. 43. Biwi aur Makan -- Hrishikesh Mukherjee. 44. Ace in the Hole -- Billy Wilder. 45. The Magic Faraway Tree Collecton -- Enid Blyton. 46. Mrutyunjay -- Shivaji Sawant. 47. The Unconsoled -- Kazuo Ishiguro. 48. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, The Phantom of Liberty, That Obscure Object of Desire -- Luis Buñuel. 49. Cinefan diary: Jean-Claude Carriere -- Jai Arjun Singh. 50. Pauline Kael on Amazon. This episode is sponsored by Wondrium. Check out their series, How to Look at and Understand Great Art. For free unlimited access for 14 days, click here. Please subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! And check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

In these difficult times, no one's had a harder time than our medical professionals. They see death every day, and they fight it. What is it like to be a doctor in India? Lancelot Pinto joins Amit Varma in episode 229 of The Seen and the Unseen to talk about the practice of medicine in general, and the battle against Covid-19 in particular. Also discussed: the incentives of doctors, the importance of sleep, how to quit smoking, and the Epidemic of Sighing. Also check out: 1. Past episodes of The Seen and the Unseen on Covid-19, featuring (in reverse chronological order) Ashwin Mahesh, Gautam Menon, Ajay Shah, Anirban Mahapatra, Ruben Mascarenhas, Chinmay Tumbe, Rukmini S, Vaidehi Tandel, Vivek Kaul, Anup Malani and Shruti Rajagopalan. 2. Robin Cook on Amazon. 3. The Case Against Sugar — Gary Taubes. 4. The Big Fat Surprise: why butter, meat, and cheese belong in a healthy diet — Nina Teicholz. 5. UpToDate. 6. Understanding Indian Healthcare -- Episode 225 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Karthik Muralidharan). 7. Money for nothing: The dire straits of medical practice in Delhi, India (2007) — Jishnu Das and Jeffrey Hammer. 8. Dunning-Kruger Effect (Wikipedia). 9. Poker at Lake Wobegon -- Amit Varma. 10. Bad Science -- Ben Goldacre. 11. Homeopathic Faith (2010) -- Amit Varma. 12. Beware of Quacks. Alternative Medicine is Injurious to Health -- Amit Varma. 13. Is it risky to push alternative medicine in Covid pandemic? -- Lancelot Pinto. 14. The Kavita Krishnan Files -- Episode 228 of The Seen and the Unseen. 15. Amit Varma's episode of The Book Club on Mary Wollstonecraft. 16. Being Mortal -- Atul Gawande. 17. How Doctors Die -- Ken Murray. 18. Do not go gentle into that good night -- Dylan Thomas. 19. 24 & Ready to Die -- Economist documentary on euthanasia. 20. Complications -- Atul Gawande. 21. My Own Country -- Abraham Verghese. 22. Deep Medicine -- Eric Topol. 23. Other books by Gawande and Verghese. 24. The Looming Tower -- Lawrence Wright. 25. Do No Harm -- Henry Marsh. 26. The Rules of Contagion -- Adam Kucharski. 27. What Cricket Can Learn From Poker -- Amit Varma's essay on probabilistic thinking. 28. The Cochrane Collaboration. Links on Sleep 29. Lancelot Pinto's talk on sleep. 30. Lancelot Pinto on Sleep Apnea 31. What's keeping you up at night? -- Lancelot Pinto. 32. Are you terrified of falling asleep? -- Lancelot Pinto. 33. Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams -- Matthew Walker. 34. Tetris Dreams. Links on Tobacco Cessation 35. Lancelot Pinto's Twitter thread on stopping smoking. 36. Global Adult Tobacco Survey. 37. The Odds of Ceasing to Smoke Tobacco -- A visual aid Links on Tuberculosis 38. Tuberculosis Management by Private Practitioners in Mumbai, India: Has Anything Changed in Two Decades? -- Zarir Udwadia, Lancelot Pinto & Mukund Uplekar. 39. Private patient perceptions about a public programme -- Lancelot Pinto & Zareer Udwadia. 40. Mismanagement of tuberculosis in India: Causes, consequences, and the way forward -- Anurag Bhargava, Lancelot Pinto & Madhukar Pai. 41. A study on telemedicine during Covid-19 co-written by Lancelot Pinto. Links on Covid-19 42. An interview of Lancelot Pinto & Rajani Bhat by Govindraj Ethiraj. 43. India Covid SOS 44. Lancelot Pinto and others interviewed by Barkha Dutt on changed Covid protocols.. 45. Lancelot Pinto and others interviewed by Barkha Dutt on the use of steroids for Covid treatment. 46. Lancelot Pinto & Sumit Ray interviewed by Govindraj Ethirah on the need to update guidelines. 47. A CT scan for COVID merits a word of caution -- Lancelot Pinto. 48. Lancelot Pinto interviewed by Smitha Nair. 49. Comprehensive Guidelines for Management of COVID-19 patients. This episode is sponsored by CTQ Compounds. Check out The Daily Reader, FutureStack and The Social Capital Compound. Use the code UNSEEN for Rs 2500 off. Please subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! And check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

We're well into the 21st century, but Indian society seems stuck in ages past -- especially when it comes to the state of our women. Kavita Krishnan joins Amit Varma in episode 228 of The Seen and the Unseen to discuss her evolution as a feminist, and what she has learned from her activism. Also check out: 1. Fearless Freedom -- Kavita Krishnan. 2. Kavita Krishnan's speech in the anti-rape protests of 2012. 3. Kavita Krishnan on the Tarun Tejpal verdict. 4. Kavita Krishnan's Facebook posts on stalking and marital rape. 5. Gendered Discipline in Globalising India -- Kavita Krishnan. 6. Kavita Krishnan's Twitter thread on the Mahmood Farooqui case. 7. Films, Feminism, Paromita -- Episode 155 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Paromita Vohra). 8. Women at Work -- Episode 132 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Namita Bhandare). 9. Metrics of Empowerment -- Episode 88 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Devika Kher, Nidhi Gupta and Hamsini Hariharan). 10. The #MeToo Movement -- Episode 90 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Supriya Nair & Nikita Saxena). 11. An Economist Looks at #MeToo -- Episode 92 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan). 12. Misogyny is the Oldest Indian Tradition -- Amit Varma. 13. Men Must Step Up Now -- Amit Varma. 14. Over 1600 Teachers Died of COVID-19 After Poll Duty for Panchayat Elections -- Manoj Singh. 15. Enid Blyton on Amazon. 16. Little Women -- Louisa May Alcott. 17. To Kill a Mockingbird -- Harper Lee. 18. The Awakening, and Selected Short Stories -- Kate Chopin. 19. Max Beerbohm and James Thurber on Amazon. 20. Crime and Punishment -- Fyodor Dostoevsky. 21. House of the Dead -- Fyodor Dostoevsky. 22. Leaves From the Jungle -- Verrier Elwin. 23. Private Truths, Public Lies -- Timur Kuran. 24. Ram Ke Naam -- Documentary by Anand Patwardhan. 25. The City & the City -- China Miéville. 26. Remembering Chandu, Friend and Comrade -- Kavita Krishnan. 27. Revolutionary Desires: Women, Communism, and Feminism in India -- Ania Loomba. 28. Song of Myself -- Walt Whitman. 29. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman -- Mary Wollstonecraft. 30. Amit Varma's episode of The Book Club on Wollstonecraft's book. 31. Who Stole Feminism? -- Chistina Hoff Sommers. 32. The Blank Slate -- Steven Pinker. 33. Feminism for the 99% -- Cinzia Arruzza, Tithi Bhattacharya & Nancy Fraser. 34. Resisting State Injustice -- Episode 120 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Jason Brennan). 35. Marxvaad Aur Ram Rajya -- Karpatri Maharaj. 36. Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India -- Akshaya Mukul. 37. The Gita Press and Hindu Nationalism -- Episode 139 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Akshaya Mukul). 38. A People's Constitution -- Rohit De. 39. Does India take its national symbols too seriously? -- Jan 2008 episode of We the People. 40. The Ideas of Our Constitution -- Episode 164 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Madhav Khosla). 41. Early Indians -- Episode 112 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Tony Joseph). 42. The History of Desire in India -- Episode 161 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Madhavi Menon). 43. Young India -- Episode 83 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Snigdha Poonam). 44. The First Assault on Our Constitution -- Episode 194 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Tripurdaman Singh). 45. Love jihad laws are a backlash to India's own progress -- Shruti Rajagopalan. 46. The Jackson Katz quote on passive sentence constructions. This episode is sponsored by CTQ Compounds. Check out The Daily Reader, FutureStack and The Social Capital Compound. Use the code UNSEEN for Rs 2500 off. Please subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! And check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

The Indian economy has been going downhill for a decade now. How has Covid-19 affected it? Ila Patnaik joins Amit Varma in episode 227 of The Seen and the Unseen to take stock of where we are today, and where we go from here. Also check out: 1. Ila Patnaik at NIPFP, The Print, YouTube, Indian Express & Business Standard. 2. Asia Confronts the Impossible Trinity -- Ila Patnaik & Ajay Shah. 3. The Economics and Politics of Vaccines -- Episode 223 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ajay Shah). 4. The Tragedy of Our Farm Bills -- Episode 211 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ajay Shah). 5. The Art and Science of Economic Policy -- Episode 154 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vijay Kelkar & Ajay Shah). 6. In Service of the Republic -- Vijay Kelkar and Ajay Shah. 7. India's Lost Decade -- Episode 116 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Puja Mehra). 8. The Lost Decade -- Puja Mehra. 9. What a Long Strange Trip It's Been -- Episode 188 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Arvind Subramanian). 10. The Fight of the Central Banker -- Episode 193 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Viral Acharya). 11. Pandemonium in India's Banks -- Episode 212 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Tamal Bandyopadhyay.) 12. Demystifying GDP -- Episode 130 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rajeswari Sengupta). 13. The Indian Economy in 2019 -- Episode 153 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vivek Kaul). 14. Two Economic Crises (2008 & 2019) -- Episode 135 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Mohit Satyanand). 15. Twelve Dream Reforms -- Episode 138 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan, Rajeswari Sengupta and Vivek Kaul.) 16. The Seen and the Unseen episodes on Demonetisation and GST. 17. Most of Amit Varma's writing on DeMon, collected in one Twitter thread. 18. Understanding Indian Healthcare -- Episode 225 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Karthik Muralidharan). 19. Women at Work -- Episode 132 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Namita Bhandare). 20. Past episodes of The Seen and the Unseen on Covid-19, featuring (in reverse chronological order) Ashwin Mahesh, Gautam Menon, Ajay Shah, Anirban Mahapatra, Ruben Mascarenhas, Chinmay Tumbe, Rukmini S, Vaidehi Tandel, Vivek Kaul, Anup Malani and Shruti Rajagopalan. 21. India's Problem is Poverty, Not Inequality -- Amit Varma. 22. Anup Malani on India's COVID Second Wave — Episode 13 of Season 5 of Grand Tamasha, hosted by Milan Vaishnav. 23. Seeing Like a State -- James C Scott. 24. Milton Friedman and PJ O'Rourke on Amazon. Please subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! And check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

Does shared suffering lead to greater empathy? There has been an outpouring of relief work during this pandemic, with citizens rushing to help other citizens where the state has failed. But there are complexities and moral dilemmas involved. Ashwin Mahesh joins Amit Varma in episode 226 of The Seen and the Unseen to describe his experiences of organising relief at scale, and the importance of working with the state. Also check out: 1. Participatory Democracy -- Episode 160 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ashwin Mahesh). 2. Cities and Citizens -- Episode 198 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ashwin Mahesh). 3. Understanding Indian Healthcare -- Episode 225 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Karthik Muralidharan). 4. Past episodes of The Seen and the Unseen on Covid-19, featuring (in reverse chronological order) Gautam Menon, Ajay Shah, Anirban Mahapatra, Ruben Mascarenhas, Chinmay Tumbe, Rukmini S, Vaidehi Tandel, Vivek Kaul, Anup Malani and Shruti Rajagopalan. 5. Despatches 36: The broader, continuing disaster -- Amit Varma. 6. We Are Fighting Two Disasters: Covid-19 and the Indian State -- Amit Varma. 7. Community: The Structure of Belonging -- Peter Block. 8. History of European Morals -- WEH Lecky. 9. The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress -- Peter Singer. 10. Tolstoy's Chicken and the Expanding Circle -- Amit Varma. 11. The Astonishing Hypothesis -- Francis Crick. 12. Resisting State Injustice -- Episode 120 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Jason Brennan). 13. The Lake Wobegon Effect. 14. Poker at Lake Wobegon -- Amit Varma. 15. The Second Coming -- William Butler Yeats. This episode is sponsored by The Great Courses Plus. Check out their course, The Great Revolutions of Modern History, taught by Lynne Ann Hartnett. For free unlimited access for a month, click here. Please subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! And check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

We may have been in denial earlier, but no more. Covid-19 has laid bare how badly India's healthcare system is broken. Before we can fix it, we must understand it. Karthik Muralidharan joins Amit Varma in episode 225 of The Seen and the Unseen to shed light on his many years of studying this field. The discussion also contains thoughts on whether GDP is edible, and a bout of antakshiri right at the end. Also check out: 1. Fixing Indian Education -- Episode 185 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Karthik Muralidharan). 2. Past episodes of The Seen and the Unseen on Covid-19, featuring (in reverse chronological order) Gautam Menon, Ajay Shah, Anirban Mahapatra, Ruben Mascarenhas, Chinmay Tumbe, Rukmini S, Vaidehi Tandel, Vivek Kaul, Anup Malani and Shruti Rajagopalan. 3. We Are Fighting Two Disasters: Covid-19 and the Indian State -- Amit Varma. 4. Participatory Democracy -- Episode 160 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ashwin Mahesh). 5. Cities and Citizens -- Episode 198 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ashwin Mahesh). 6. Urban Governance in India -- Episode 31 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan). 7. A Scientist in the Kitchen -- Episode 204 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Krish Ashok). 8. In Service of the Republic -- Vijay Kelkar and Ajay Shah. 9. The Art and Science of Economic Policy -- Episode 154 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vijay Kelkar and Ajay Shah). 10. The Ultimate Resource -- Julian L Simon. 11. Population Is Not a Problem, but Our Greatest Strength -- Amit Varma. 12. Do Firms Underinvest in Long-term Research? -- Eric Budish, Benjamin N Roin & Heidi Williams. 13. Fortress and Frontier in American Health Care -- Robert F Graboyes. 14. Patents are Not the Problem! -- Alex Tabarrok. 15. The Tabarrok Curve. 16. The O-Ring Theory of Economic Development -- Michael Kremer. 17. Why Abhijit Banerjee Had to Go Abroad to Achieve Glory -- Amit Varma. 18. That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen -- Frédéric Bastiat. 19. Lancelot Pinto's reply (about Asthma patients) to Amit Varma's tweet. 20. Demystifying GDP -- Episode 130 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rajeswari Sengupta). And now, for some foundational papers: 21. Which doctor? Combining vignettes and item response to measure clinical competence (2005)-- Jishnu Das & Jeffrey Hammer. 22. Money for nothing: The dire straits of medical practice in Delhi, India (2007) -- Jishnu Das and Jeffrey Hammer. 23. Is There a Doctor in the House?: Medical Worker Absence in India (2011) -- Karthik Muralidharanan, Nazmul Chaudhury, Jeffrey Hammer, Michael Kremer & F Halsey Rogers. 24. Quality and Accountability in Health Care Delivery: Audit-Study Evidence from Primary Care in India (2016) -- Jishnu Das, Alaka Holla, Aakash Mohpal & Karthik Muralidharan. 25. The impact of training informal health care providers in India: A randomized controlled trial (2016)-- Jishnu Das, Abhijit Chowdhury, Reshmaan Hussam & Abhihit Banerjee. 26. Two Indias: The structure of primary health care markets in rural Indian villages with implications for policy (2020)-- Jishnu Das, Benjamin Daniels, Monisha Ashok, Eun-Young Shim & Karthik Muralidharan. 27. Augmenting State Capacity for Child Development: Experimental Evidence from India -- Alejandro J. Ganimian, Karthik Muralidharan & Christopher R Walters. Back to regular links to stuff discussed in the episode! 28. The Girl From Haryana -- Amit Varma (on Sakshi Malik and women wrestlers in Haryana). 29. The IndiaSpend interview of Rajani Bhat & Lancelot Pinto by Govindraj Ethiraj, (Also in Hindi.) 30. Beware of Quacks. Alternative Medicine is Injurious to Health -- Amit Varma. 31. Homeopathic Faith -- Amit Varma. 32. Deep Medicine -- Eric Topol. 33. The Market for Lemons -- George Akerloff. 34. The Medical Council of India -- Episode 8 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Pavan Srinath). 35. The Life and Times of Amit Varma -- Amit Varma's appearance on The Grand Tamasha, hosted by Milan Vaishnav. 36. Over 1000 teachers on UP panchayat poll duty died of Covid-19 -- Deccan Herald. 37. India's Power Elite: Class, Caste and Cultural Revolution -- Sanjaya Baru. 38. What Have We Done With Our Independence? -- Episode 186 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Pratap Bhanu Mehta). 39. The BJP Before Modi -- Episode 202 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vinay Sitapati). 40. Muhafiz -- Ismail Merchant's adaptation of Anita Desai's In Custody. 41. Aaj Ek Harf Ko Phir Dhundhta Phirta Hain Khayal -- from Muhafiz. 42. Kabhi Khud Pe Kabhi Haalaat Pe Rona Aaya -- from Hum Dono. This episode is sponsored by CTQ Compounds. Check out The Daily Reader, FutureStack and The Social Capital Compound. Use the code UNSEEN for Rs 2500 off. Please subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! And check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

How do we make sense of the madness around us? Well, there's the rational, scientific approach: gather data, build models, keep refining and iterating, get closer and closer to the truth. Gautam Menon joins Amit Varma in episode 224 of The Seen and the Unseen to describe the exciting field of biophysics and his work in building mathematical models of infectious diseases -- especially Covid-19. Also discussed: the joys of science, and how Indian music is the best embodiment of the idea of India. Kumar Gandharva FTW! Also check out: 1. Gautam Menon on Twitter, Ashoka, IMSc and Google Scholar. 2. The Novel Coronavirus Variants and India's Uncertain Future -- Gautam Menon. 3. How Do Scientists Model the Spread of an Infectious Disease? -- Gautam Menon. 4. Control, Consensus, Chaos: The Global Response to the Pandemic -- A talk on YouTube by Sheila Jasanoff. 5. The Big Question: Can India Find a Way Out of Its Covid Nightmare? -- Shahid Jameel interviewed by Bobby Ghosh. 6. Past episodes of The Seen and the Unseen on Covid-19, featuring (in reverse chronological order) Ajay Shah, Anirban Mahapatra, Ruben Mascarenhas, Chinmay Tumbe, Rukmini S, Vaidehi Tandel, Vivek Kaul, Anup Malani and Shruti Rajagopalan. 7. My Family and Other Animals -- Gerald Durrell. 8. A Cricket Tragic Celebrates the Game -- Episode 201 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ramachandra Guha). 9. Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction -- Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner. 10. We Are All Gamblers -- Amit Varma. 11. Range Rover -- Amit Varma's column on poker for the Economic Times. 12. Demystifying GDP -- Episode 130 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rajeswari Sengupta). 13. The New World Upon Us -- Amit Varma (on Alpha Zero). 14. Why Does the Pandemic Seem to Be Hitting Some Countries Harder Than Others? -- Siddhartha Mukherjee. 15. Episode Zero: The preview episode of The Seen and the Unseen. 16. Indian Scientists' Response to CoViD-19. 17. A state-level epidemiological model for India: INDSCI-SIM. 18. Anup Malani on India's COVID Second Wave -- Episode 13 of Season 5 of Grand Tamasha, hosted by Milan Vaishnav. Books recommended by Gautam Menon 1. Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic -- David Quammen. 2. The Rules of Contagion: Why Things Spread - and Why They Stop -- Adam Kucharski. 3, Early Indians: The Story of Our Ancestors and Where We Came From -- Tony Joseph, who also appeared on Seen/Unseen. 4. Lilavati's Daughters -- Edited by Rohini Godbole and Ram Ramaswamy, 5. The Man Who Knew Infinity -- Robert Kanigel. 6. Never Let Me Go -- Kazuo Ishiguro. 7. Half of a Yellow Sun -- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. This episode is sponsored by The Great Courses Plus. Check out their course, Mysteries of the Microscopic World, taught by Bruce E Fleury. For free unlimited access for a month, click here. Please subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! And check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

The second wave in India could have been avoided. We should not have been suffering like this. Vaccines were the answer. Ajay Shah joins Amit Varma in episode 223 of The Seen and the Unseen to discuss how our thinking about vaccines was fundamentally flawed -- and what we should do now. Also discussed: why Indian healthcare is in such a mess. Also check out: 1. Indian Health Policy in Light of COVID-19 -- Ajay Shah's paper from July 14, 2020. 2. How the Vaccine Story Will Play Out -- Ajay Shah (Nov 30, 2020). 3. SARS-Cov-2 Vaccines for India -- Ajay Shah's presentation from December 29, 2020. 4. Price Controls for Vaccines? -- Ajay Shah (March 8, 2021). 5. Responding to the Second Wave -- Ajay Shah (April 5, 2021). 6. An Important Change of Course by Policy in Indian Covid-19 Vaccination -- Amrita Agarwal & Ajay Shah. 7. Vaccination in India: How Will Demand Change When Persons Above Age 18 Are Eligible? -- Renuka Sane & Ajay Shah. 8. The Best Way to Vaccinate Most Indians in the Least Time -- Shruti Rajagopalan (Sep 14, 2020). 9. Vaccinating India: What Next? -- Naushad Forbes (March 16, 2021). 10. India's Covid Crisis Has a Familiar Culprit -- Mihir Sharma (April 13, 2021). 11. Biden Admin Remakes Vaccine Strategy -- Erin Banco (March 29, 2021). 12. NYT Covid Vaccinations Tracker. 13. Previous episodes of The Seen and the Unseen on Covid-19: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. 14. In Service of the Republic -- Vijay Kelkar and Ajay Shah. 15. The Art and Science of Economic Policy — Episode 154 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vijay Kelkar and Ajay Shah) 16. The Tragedy of Our Farm Bills -- Episode 211 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ajay Shah). 17. Other episodes of The Seen and the Unseen with Ajay Shah: 1, 2, 3. 18. We Are Fighting Two Disasters: Covid-19 and the Indian State -- Amit Varma. 19. Capital -- Rana Dasgupta. 20. Fixing Indian Education -- Episode 185 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Karthik Muralidharan). 21. Other episodes of The Seen and the Unseen on Education: 1, 2, 3. 22. Episodes of The Seen and the Unseen on Agriculture: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. 23. The Geopolitics of the Bangladesh War -- Episode 113 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Srinath Raghavan). 24. Building State Capability -- Matt Andrews, Lant Pritchett and Michael Woolcock. 25. Taxes Should Be Used for Governance, Not Politics -- Amit Varma. 26. The Man of System -- From Adam Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments. 27. The Fatal Conceit -- Friedrich Hayek. 28: How the BJP Wins -- Prashant Jha. 29. The BJP's Magic Formula -- Episode 45 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Prashant Jha). 30. The First Assault on Our Constitution -- Episode 194 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Tripurdaman Singh). 31. Price Controls Lead to Shortages and Harm the Poor -- Amit Varma. Please subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! And check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

Trained as a medical doctor, Nandita Iyer has blazed a trail in the last 15 years creating content about food in media as diverse as blogs, Instagram, YouTube and even good old-fashioned columns and books. She joins Amit Varma in episode 222 of The Seen and the Unseen to discuss her journey in food, what we can learn from our grandparents and the fine art of dissecting cadavers. Also check out: 1. Everyday Superfoods -- Nandita Iyer. 2. The Everyday Healthy Vegetarian -- Nandita Iyer. 3. Nandita Iyer's website, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube channel and Substack newsletter. 4. Memories and Things -- Episode 195 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Aanchal Malhotra). 5. The Sharda Ugra Files -- Episode 220 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Sharda Ugra). 6. Luis Buñuel on IMDB and Wikipedia. 7. The last scene of Hostel 2. (Trigger warning: extreme violence.) 8. The Case Against Sugar -- Gary Taubes. 9. The Big Fat Surprise: why butter, meat, and cheese belong in a healthy diet -- Nina Teicholz. 10. The Obesity Code -- Jason Fung. 11. Nina Teicholz on The Joe Rogan Experience. 12. Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body's Most Under-Rated Organ -- Giulia Enders. 13. The Way We Eat Now -- Bee Wilson. 14. Steve Jobs and his Black Turtleneck -- Amit Varma. 15. Atomic Habits -- James Clear. 16. Behave -- Robert Sapolsky. 16. Nandita Iyer's Covid Nutrition Tips on Twitter and Instagram. This episode is sponsored by The Great Courses Plus. Check out their course, Biology and Human Behavior, taught by Robert Sapolsky. For free unlimited access for a month, click here. Please subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! And hey, registration is now open for Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

These are difficult times. How do we make sense of what is happening around us? Well, there is science. Anirban Mahapatra joins Amit Varma in episode 221 of The Seen and the Unseen to share his insights on the science of Covid-19 -- and on the state of science and scientific writing in general. Also check out: 1. Covid-19: Separating Fact from Fiction -- Anirban Mahapatra. 2. Anirban Mahapatra on Twitter and Google Scholar. 3. The Age of Pandemics -- Chinmay Tumbe. 4. India's Tryst With Pandemics -- Episode 205 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Chinmay Tumbe). 5. Other episodes of The Seen and the Unseen on the pandemic: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 6. Publish and Perish -- Agnes Callard. 7. The Tragedy of Our Farm Bills -- Episode 211 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ajay Shah). 8. A Scientist in the Kitchen -- Episode 204 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Krish Ashok). 9. Gell-Mann Amnesia. 10. The Prem Panicker Files -- Episode 217 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Prem Panicker). 11. How Zeynep Tufekci Keeps Getting the Big Things Right -- Ben Smith. 12. Zeynep Tufekci's newsletter, Twitter and column archive. 13. Mendelay. 14. Marginal Revolution. 15. Human and Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare -- Episode 4 of Brave New World (Vasant Dhar in conversation with Eric Topol.) 16. Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again -- Eric Topol. 17. Calling Bullshit: The Art of Scepticism in a Data-Driven World -- Jevin West and Carl Bergstrom. 18. The Rules of Contagion: Why Things Spread - and Why They Stop -- Adam Kucharski. 19. Eric Topol, Dr Angela Rasmussen, Natalie Dean, Carl Bergstrom, Adam Kucharski, Ed Yong, Carl Zimmer, Helen Branswell, News From Science and Nature News & Comment on Twitter. 20. The Nature Newsletter. 21. The Scientist. 22. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark -- Carl Sagan. 23. The World According to Physics -- Jim Al-Khalili. 24. Brian Greene, Michio Kaku and Michael Benton on Amazon. 25. Feeding the Hungry in the Pandemic -- Episode 210 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ruben Mascarenhas). 26. We Are Fighting Two Disasters: Covid-19 and the Indian State -- Amit Varma. 27. A Meditation on Form -- Amit Varma. 28. The Selfish Gene -- Richard Dawkins. 29. Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett on Amazon. 30. Early Indians -- Episode 112 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Tony Joseph). 31 Early Indians: The Story of Our Ancestors and Where We Came From -- Tony Joseph. 32. Beware of Quacks. Alternative Medicine is Injurious to Health -- Amit Varma. 33. Self-Esteem (and a Puddle) -- Amit Varma. 34. Unlikely is Inevitable -- Amit Varma. Please subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! And check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

India has changed so much in the last 30 years -- and so has Indian sport. One of our finest chroniclers, Sharda Ugra, joins Amit Varma in episode 220 of The Seen and the Unseen to talk about sports journalism, cricket, other Indian sports, and how she has embraced both the sublime and the shady. Also discussed: the eternal charm of Sion, Atul Bedade, gorillas and paagal kuttas. Also check out: 1. Sharda Ugra at ESPN Cricinfo (1, 2) and India Today. 2. Sharda Ugra's books for John Wright and Yuvraj Singh. 3. A Cricket Tragic Celebrates the Game -- Episode 201 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ramachandra Guha). 4. Building Sports Ecosystems -- Episode 126 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Joy Bhattacharjya). 5. The Evolution of Cricket -- Episode 97 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Harsha Bhogle). 6. Money in Cricket -- Episode 41 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Gideon Haigh and Prem Panicker). 7. Summertime -- The Miles Davis version. (Other iconic versions here.) 8. Ghachar Ghochar -- Vivek Shanbhag, translated by Srinath Perur. 9. Amit Varma talks about Ghachar Ghochar in episode 13 of The Book Club on Storytel. 10. Anil Kumble delivers the second Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi Memorial lecture. 11. Rahul Dravid's guide for haters to enjoy the IPL -- Sharda Ugra. 12. The Prem Panicker Files -- Episode 217 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Prem Panicker). 13. A Meditation on Form -- Amit Varma. 14. The Tamilian Gentleman Who Took on the World -- Amit Varma. 15. The Girl From Haryana -- Amit Varma. 16. The Connell Guide to How to Write Well -- Tim de Lisle. This episode is sponsored by The Great Courses Plus. Check out their course, The Psychology of Performance. For free unlimited access for a month, click here. Please subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! And check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

There are many things that threaten our nation, both internal and external, both seen and unseen. Our armed forces protect us from some of them. Sushant Singh joins Amit Varma in episode 219 of The Seen and the Unseen to discuss the state of our military, his experiences in Kashmir, the threats from Pakistan and China, and the danger of politics to national security. Also check out: 1. Sushant Singh at CPR and Indian Express. 2. Kashmir and Article 370 -- Episode 134 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Srinath Raghavan). 3. The India-Pakistan Conflict -- Episode 111 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Srinath Raghavan). 4. The Citizenship Battles -- Episode 152 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Srinath Raghavan). 5. The Indian Armed Forces -- Episode 175 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Lt Gen Prakash Menon). 6. India in the Nuclear Age -- Episode 80 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Lt Gen Prakash Menon). 7. The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew and Enid Blyton on Amazon. 8. The Gita Press and Hindu Nationalism -- Episode 139 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Akshaya Mukul). 9. Political Ideology in India -- Episode 131 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rahul Verma). 10. Being Muslim in India -- Episode 216 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ghazala Wahab) 11. Memories and Things -- Episode 195 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Aanchal Malhotra). 12. The Burden of Democracy -- Pratap Bhanu Mehta. 13. What Have We Done With Our Independence? -- Episode 186 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Pratap Bhanu Mehta). 14. The BJP Before Modi -- Episode 202 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vinay Sitapati). 15. A Call to Honour -- Jaswant Singh. 16. We Won't Need To Fight A War If We Can Win The Peace -- Amit Varma. 17. Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice -- David Galula. 18. Seven Pillars of Wisdom -- TE Lawrence. 19. The Insurgents -- Fred Kaplan. 20. The Generation of Rage in Kashmir -- David Devadas. 21. The Lost Rebellion: Kashmir in the Nineties -- Manoj Joshi. 22. First They Came... -- Martin Niemöller. 23. Army and Nation: The Military and Indian Democracy -- Steven I Wilkinson. 24. The Strategy Trap: India and Pakistan Under the Nuclear Shadow -- Lt Gen Prakash Menon. 25. Thoughts on Pakistan -- BR Ambedkar. 26. The Promise of Power -- Maya Tudor. 27. War and Peace in Modern India -- Srinath Raghavan. 28. The Battle for Money -- Sushant Singh. 29. The World of Yesterday -- Stefan Zweig. 30. The End of History? -- Francis Fukuyama. 31. Why China Is Winning Against India -- Sushant Singh. 32. Guns Fall Silent on the LoC -- Sushant Singh. 33. Line of Narrative Control -- Sushant Sngh. 34. Looking Ahead After the Ladakh Walk Back -- Sushant Singh. 35. Why China Is Winning Against India -- Sushant Singh. 36. India Can't Say It Wants U.S. Help Against China -- Sushant Singh. 37. India's China Challenge -- Ananth Krishnan. 38. The Dragon and the Elephant -- Episode 181 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Hamsini Hariharam & Shibani Mehta). 39. What Does China Want? -- Episode 143 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Manoj Kewalramani). 40. Foreign Policy is a Big Deal -- Episode 170 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Pranay Kotasthane & Manoj Kewalramani). 41. Understanding Foreign Policy -- Episode 63 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Nitin Pai). 42. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- Douglas Adams. 43. China's Influence in South Asia -- Episode 22 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Pranay Kotasthane). Check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing. And subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free!

The world of creators has changed in the last few years -- and maybe advertising is dead? Varun Duggirala joins Amit Varma in episode 218 of The Seen and the Unseen to describe his journey as a creator in the world of advertising -- and the time he kidnapped people for reality television. Also check out: 1. Varun Duggirala's website, Linktree, Instagram and Twitter. 2. Advertising is Dead -- Varun Duggirala. 3. The Varun Duggi Show. 4. Unschooled by Varun Duggirala. 5. Amit Varma on Podcasting on The Varun Duggi Show. 6. Flipped Script -- Episode 112 of Advertising is Dead (w Pooja Jauhari). 7. The Jungle Book (1967 film). 8. This Be The Verse -- Philip Larkin. 9. Small Town Mindset -- TEDx talk by Varun Duggirala. 10. How Social Media Threatens Society -- Episode 8 of Brave New World (Jonathan Haidt speaking to host Vasant Dhar). 11. The Prem Panicker Files -- Episode 217 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Prem Panicker). 12. An Adman Reflects on Society & the Self -- Episode 199 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ambi Paramaeswaran). 13. Success, Legacy, Our Moral Compass & Taking the Plunge -- Varun Duggirala. 14. Frameworks, Tough Decisions and the Force -- Varun Duggirala. 15. Conversation and Society -- Episode 182 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Russ Roberts). 16. The Seen and the Unseen with Ghazala Wahab and Tamal Bandyopadhyay. 17. How it Feels to Reach 1 MILLION Subscribers -- Ali Abdaal. 18. Staying Ahead of the Content Curve -- Episode 85 of Advertising is Dead (w Tanmay Bhatt). 19. Future Focus: The Intimate Content Ecosystem -- Varun Duggirala. 20. Pivot -- Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway. 21. 1000 True Fans — Kevin Kelly. 22. 1000 True Fans? Try 100 — Li Jin. 23. The Balanced Information Diet -- Varun Duggirala. 24. Stillness is the Key -- Ryan Holiday. 25. The Ride of a Lifetime -- Robert Iger. 26. Inside Voices. 27. Blockbuster. 28. The Defiant Ones on Netflix. 29. The Minimalists. Check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing. And subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free!

Prem Panicker has been raising hell in Indian journalism for over 30 years: A muckraker and a pioneer, a maverick and an elder statesman, he is loved by fans and feared by the establishment. Prem joins Amit Varma in episode 217 of The Seen and the Unseen for a raw and intimate account of the wounds he got from living, and the lessons he learnt while healing. Also check out: 1. Smoke Signals -- Prem Panicker's blog. 2. The Peepli Project -- Edited by Prem Panicker 3. The State of the Media -- Episode 46 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Prem Panicker). 4. Money in Cricket -- Episode 41 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Gideon Haigh and Prem Panicker). 5. The New World Upon Us -- Amit Varma. 6. The Glimpse -- Trilok Gurtu. 7. The Out of Eden Walk -- Paul Salopek. 8. A Picture of Hell, and No Kerosene -- Amit Varma. 9. A World of Stopped Watches -- Amit Varma. 10. Being Muslim in India -- Episode 216 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ghazala Wahab). 11. One Way Ticket -- Neil Sedaka. 12. The House of the Dead -- Fyodor Dostoyevsky. 13. Kettyolaanu Ente Malakha -- Directed by Nissam Basheer. 14. The Hunter Becomes the Hunted -- Episode 200 of The Seen and the Unseen. 15. The Seen and the Unseen episodes with Deepak Shenoy and Sonia Faleiro. 16. Bhimsen -- Prem Panicker (adapted from Randaamoozham by MT Vasudevan Nair). 17. How Social Media Threatens Society -- Episode 8 of Brave New World (Vasant Dhar chatting with Jonathan Haidt). 18. The Windowpane channel and newsletter. 19. A Meditation on Form -- Amit Varma. 20. Gell-Mann Amnesia. 21. It's Hard to Build and Easy to Destroy -- Amit Varma. This episode is sponsored by The Great Courses Plus. Check out their course, Life Lessons from the Great Books. For free unlimited access for a month, click here. Please subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! And check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

What is it like to be Muslim in India? Ghazala Wahab joins Amit Varma in episode 216 of The Seen and the Unseen to discuss.the history of Islam in the subcontinent -- and how, at this present moment, we may be trapped in a vicious circle. Also check out: 1. Born a Muslim: Some Truths About Islam in India -- Ghazala Wahab. 2. Dragon On Our Doorstep -- Pravin Sawhney and Ghazala Wahab. 3. Force -- The magazine edited by Ghazala Wahab. 4. Ghubar-e-Khatir -- Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. 5. The Gita Press and Hindu Nationalism -- Episode 139 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Akshaya Mukul). 6. Political Ideology in India -- Episode 131 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rahul Verma). 7. The Notebook Trilogy -- Agota Kristof. 8. Jhumpa Lahiri on Writing, Translation, and Crossing Between Cultures -- Episode 17 of Conversations With Tyler. 9. A Writer Learns to See -- Episode 215 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Annie Zaidi). 10. Private Truths, Public Lies -- Timur Kuran. 11. Memories and Things -- Episode 195 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Aanchal Malhotra). 12. Influence of Islam on Indian Culture -- Tara Chand. 13. Our Colorful Past -- Episode 127 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Manu Pillai). 14. Nanak Was Here -- Episode 166 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Amardeep Singh). 15. The Two Faces of Islam -- Stephen Schwartz. 16. India Wins Freedom -- Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. 17. A Life in Indian Politics -- Episode 149 of The Seen and the Unseen (w JP Narayan). 18. Hum Dekhenge -- Written by Faiz Ahmad Faiz and sung by Iqbal Bano. 19. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty -- James Thurber. 20. The Citizenship Battles -- Episode 152 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Srinath Raghavan). 21. Radically Networked Societies -- Episode 158 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Pranay Kotasthane). 22. The BJP Before Modi -- Episode 202 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vinay Sitapati). This episode is sponsored by The Great Courses Plus. Check out their course, The Joy of Mathematics. For free unlimited access for a month, click here. Please subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! And check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

There is so much about India that is unseen to us, hidden behind layers of blindness. If only we could peel them off. Annie Zaidi joins Amit Varma in episode 215 of The Seen and the Unseen to describe how her many years as a writer, blogger, journalist, playwright and filmmaker deepened her vision of our world. Also check out: 1. Bread, Cement, Cactus -- Annie Zaidi. 2. Unbound: 2,000 Years of Indian Women's Writing -- Annie Zaidi (editor). 3. Prelude to a Riot -- Annie Zaidi. 4. Annie Zaidi's author page on Amazon.in. 5. Known Turf -- Annie Zaidi's blog. 6. History, Fear and the Role of the Writer -- A talk by Annie Zaidi for Mumbai Local. 7. Ek Red Color Ki Love Story -- A short film by Annie Zaidi. 8. Annie Zaidi's films. 9. The Art of Translation -- Episode 168 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Arunava Sinha). 10. राधा सौंदर्य -- Beni Prasad Beni. 11. Thandi Hawayein Lehrake Aaye. 12. Aakar Patel at The Windowpane Sessions. 13. A Scientist in the Kitchen -- Episode 204 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Krish Ashok). 14. A Meditation on Form -- Amit Varma. 15. Jackson Katz's TedX talk about violence against women and the passive voice. (Also, this quote.) 16. Demystifying GDP -- Episode 130 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rajeswari Sengupta). 17. DeMon, Morality and the Predatory Indian State -- Episode 85 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan). 18. Most of Amit Varma's writing on DeMon, collected in one Twitter thread. 19. Our Colourful Past -- Episode 127 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Manu Pillai). 20. Early Indians -- Tony Joseph. (And the Seen/Unseen episode with him.) 21. The Right to Property -- Episode 26 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan). 22. The Baptist, the Bootlegger and the Dead Man Walking -- Amit Varma's column on the Uttar Pradesh Mritak Sangh. 23. India Awakes. 24. Who Broke Our Republic? -- Episode 163 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Kapil Komireddi). 25. The Gita Press and Hindu Nationalism -- Episode 139 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Akshaya Mukul). 26. Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India -- Akshaya Mukul. 27. The Citizenship Battles -- Episode 152 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Srinath Raghavan). 28. 'Understand the Chronology' -- Rohan Venkataramakrishnan's piece on how Amit Shah linked CAA to NRC. 29. The Intellectual Foundations of Hindutva -- Episode 115 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Aakar Patel). 30. Our Hindu Rashtra -- Aakar Patel. 31. Raghu Sanjaylal Jaitley's Father's Scooter -- Episode 214 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Raghu Sanjaylal Jaitley). 32. Misogyny and our Legal System -- Episode 58 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Madhav Chandavarkar and Hamsini Hariharan). 33. The History of Desire in India -- Episode 161 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Madhavi Menon). 34. Women in Indian History -- Episode 144 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ira Mukhoty). 35. Sultana's Dream -- Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain. 36. The Mothers of Maya Diip -- Suniti Namjoshi. 37. The Prisons We Broke -- Baby Kamble. 38. The High Caste Hindu Woman -- Pandita Ramabai. 39. Speeches and Writings of Sarojini Naidu. 40. The Story of My Experiments With Truth -- Mahatma Gandhi. 41. I, Lalla: The Poems of Lal Dĕd -- Lal Dĕd (translated by Ranjit Hoskote). This episode is sponsored by CTQ Compounds. Check out The Daily Reader and FutureStack. Use the code UNSEEN for Rs 2500 off. The India Uncut Newsletter has resumed. So do subscribe, it's free! And check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

India is a complex country. The last few decades have been full of tumult. How does one make sense of it all? Raghu Sanjaylal Jaitley joins Amit Varma in episode 214 of The Seen and the Unseen to talk about the many frames he uses to look at our politics, economics, culture and Dilip Kumar. Also check out: 1. Anticipating the Unintended -- Pranay Kotasthane and Raghu Sanjaylal Jaitley's newsletter. 2. Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahin, featuring Raghu Jaitley. 3. Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar, featuring Sanjay Lal. 4. It Happened One Night. 5. Persuasion -- Yascha Mounk's newsletter. 6. The Coddling of the American Mind -- Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. 7. A Meditation on Form -- Amit Varma. 8. Public Opinion -- Walter Lippman. 9. The World Outside and the Pictures in our Heads -- Walter Lippman. 10. A Venture Capitalist Looks at the World -- Episode 213 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Sajith Pai). 11. Puliyabaazi -- Saurabh Chandra and Pranay Kotasthane's podcast. 12. ये लिबरल आख़िर है कौन? -- Episode 37 of Puliyabaazi (w Amit Varma). 13. Remembering Frédéric Bastiat (2007) -- Amit Varma. 14. The Candemakers' Petition -- Frédéric Bastiat. 15. Frédéric Bastiat's writings at Bastiat.org and Amazon. 16. Also on Amazon, the books of Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises. 17. Imagined Communities -- Benedict Anderson. 18. The First Assault on Our Constitution -- Episode 194 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Tripurdaman Singh). 19. Who Broke Our Republic? -- Episode 163 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Kapil Komireddi). 20. The Emotional Dog and its Rational Tail -- Jonathan Haidt. 21. Political Ideology in India -- Episode 131 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rahul Verma). 22. The Three Languages of Politics -- Arnold Kling. 23. Naya Daur, the anti-Nehruvian film from 1957. 24. Nehru's Hero: Dilip Kumar In The Life Of India -- Meghnad Desai. 25. The Twitter threads on Mahmood Farooqui by Kavita Krishnan and Audrey Truschke. 26. Misogyny and our Legal System -- Episode 58 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Madhav Chandavarkar and Hamsini Hariharan). 27. The Harshacharita of Banabhatta. 28. Murty Classical Library of India. 29. The End of History and the Last Man -- Francis Fukuyama. 30. The Light that Failed -- Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes. 31. Elite Imitation in Public Policy -- Episode 180 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan and Alex Tabarrok). 32. What Really Happened? — Lawrence H White on the 2008 Financial Crisis. 33. Range Rover -- Archives of Amit Varma's poker column for the Times of India. 34. The BJP's Magic Formula -- Episode 45 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Prashant Jha). 35. How the BJP Wins -- Prashant Jha. 36. The Concept of the Political -- Carl Schmitt. 37. Most of Amit Varma's writing on Demonetisation, collected in one Twitter thread. 38. Lessons from an Ankhon Dekhi Prime Minister -- Amit Varma. 39. Beware of the Useful Idiots -- Amit Varma. 40. The Tragedy of Our Farm Bills -- Episode 211 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ajay Shah). 41. Fun Home -- Alison Bechdel. 42. Restaurant Regulations in India -- Episode 18 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Madhu Menon). 43. Kalyug -- Shyam Benegal's 1981 film. 44. India After Gandhi -- Ramachandra Guha. 45. Ramachandra Guha on The Seen and the Unseen: 1, 2, 3, 4. 46. The Ideas of Our Constitution -- Episode 164 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Madhav Khosla). 47. India's Founding Moment — Madhav Khosla. 48. Jadunath Sarkar, Jagdish Bhagwati and Amartya Sen on Amazon. 49. The Idea of India -- Sunil Khilnani. 50. The Indian Trilogy -- VS Naipaul. This episode is sponsored by CTQ Compunds. Check out The Daily Reader and FutureStack. Use the code UNSEEN for Rs 2500 off. Amit has promised to resume The India Uncut Newsletter. So do subscribe, it's free! And check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

VCs have a crazy job description. They need to understand society, figure out what people will want tomorrow and bet on the future. Sajith Pai joins Amit Varma in episode 213 of The Seen and the Unseen to talk about his frames of looking at the world -- and what he has learnt about media, entrepreneurship and this country of ours. Also check out: 1. The Indus Valley Playbook -- Sajith Pai. 2. Understand Startups, Metrics and Valuations -- Twitter thread by Sajith Pai. 3. India2, English Tax and Building for the Next Billion Users -- Sajith Pai. 4. India1, Avocado Startups & Product-Market Fit -- Sajith Pai. 5. Indo-Anglians: The newest and fastest-growing caste in India -- Sajith Pai. 6. MERIT colleges, national track India, & privilege blindness -- Sajith Pai. 7. Deconstructing Indian Startups & VCs -- YouTube talk by Sajith Pai. 8. India's Start-Up Ecosystem -- Episode 171 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Mohit Satyanand). 9. Indian Society: The Last 30 Years — Episode 137 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Santosh Desai). 10. An Adman Reflects on Society & the Self -- Episode 199 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ambi Parameswaran). 11. Essays -- Paul Graham. 12. Ali Abdaal on reaching one million subscribers and staying patient for the long haul. 13. The First Assault on Our Constitution -- Episode 194 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Tripurdaman Singh). 14. The Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect. 15. Finite and Infinite Games -- James Carse. 16. It Happened in India -- Kishore Biyani. 17. TikTok and the Sorting Hat -- Eugene Wei. 18. The Art of Narrative Nonfiction (+ JBS Haldane) -- Episode 183 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Samanth Subramanian). 19. Lessons in Investing (and Life) -- Episode 208 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Deepak Shenoy). 20. The tweets by Benedict Evans and Pomp. 21. VCs should play bridge -- Alex Danco. 22. The only thing that matters -- Marc Andreessen. 23. Fixing Indian Education -- Episode 185 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Karthik Muralidharan). This episode is sponsored by The Great Courses Plus. Check out their course, Introduction to Machine Learning. For free unlimited access for a month, click here. You can now buy Seen/Unseen swag. And do check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

India's financial system has been in crisis for more than a decade -- and it affects all of us. Tamal Bandyopadhyay joins Amit Varma in episode 212 of The Seen and the Unseen to make sense of all the turbulence. Also check out: 1. Pandemonium: The Great Indian Banking Tragedy -- Tamal Bandyopadhyay. 2. Tamal Bandyopadhyay's books on Amazon. 3. Tamal Bandyopadhyay's website. 4. Tamal Bandyopadhyay's columns in Mint and Business Standard.5. India's Lost Decade -- Episode 116 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Puja Mehra). 6. The Fight of the Central Banker -- Episode 193 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Viral Acharya). 7. The Importance of Finance -- Episode 125 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ajay Shah). 8. Zombie Firms and Creative Destruction -- 118 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ajay Shah). 9. Easy Money -- Episode 56 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vivek Kaul). 10. IL&FS and the Indian Financial System -- Episode 91 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vivek Kaul and Ashutosh Datar). 11. Episodes of The Seen and the Unseen on public sector banks and NPAs.. 12. What Really Happened? — Lawrence H White on the 2008 Financial Crisis. 13. Politics and the English Language -- George Orwell. 14. Lady Chatterley's Lover -- DH Lawrence. 15. Firefighting: The Financial Crisis and its Lessons -- Ben S Bernanke, Timothy F Geithner and Henry M Paulson Jr. 16. Code Name God: The Spiritual Odyssey of a Man of Science -- Mani Bhaumik. 17. Ispat Bhi Hum Banate Hain -- The Tata Steel commercial. (Also this.) 18. Complan Boy and Girl (w Shahid Kapoor and Ayesha Takia). 19. Maltova Mum. You can now buy Seen/Unseen swag. And do check out Amit's online courses, The Art of Clear Writing and The Art of Podcasting.

Our agriculture needs reform -- but we should be wary that our attempt to get there is not at the cost of our democracy. Ajay Shah joins Amit Varma in episode 211 of The Seen and the Unseen to share his insights on the process, content and implication of the farm bills. Also discussed: knowledge assimilation, public health, how we tackled the pandemic and what we can do going forward. Also check out: 1. Ajay Shah's homepage. 2. The Art and Science of Economic Policy -- Episode 154 of The Seen and the Unseen. 3. In Service of the Republic — Vijay Kelkar & Ajay Shah. 4. Other episodes of The Seen and the Unseen with Ajay Shah: 1, 2, 3. 5. The State of Our Farmers — Ep 86 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Gunvant Patil, in Hindi). 6. India's Agriculture Crisis -- Episode 140 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Barun Mitra & Kumar Anand). 7. Other episodes of The Seen and the Unseen on Agricultire: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 8. We Must Save Our Farmers — Amit Varma. 9. The Indian State is the Greatest Enemy of the Indian Farmer — Amit Varma. 10. A Tale of Two Satyagrahas — Amit Varma. 11. Economic Freedom in Agriculture -- Ajay Shah. 12. India: An Agricultural Trade Powerhouse -- Ajay Shah. 13. Enabling a National Market for Food -- Anirudh Burman, Ila Patnaik, Shubho Roy & Ajay Shah. 14. Feeding the Hungry in the Pandemic -- Episode 210 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ruben Mascarenhas). 15. Previous episodes of The Seen and the Unseen on the pandemic: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 16. We Are Fighting Two Disasters: Covid-19 and the Indian State — Amit Varma. 17. Public Choice Theory -- Episode 121 of The Seen and the Unseen. 18. Analysing the 2021 budget -- Ajay Shah. 19. The Theatre of the Budget (2020) -- Episode 159 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ajay Shah and Vivek Kaul). 20. DeMon, Morality and the Predatory Indian State -- Episode 85 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan). 21. Most of Amit Varma's writing on DeMon, collected in one Twitter thread. 22. India's Water Crisis -- Episode 60 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vishwanath S aka Zenrainman). 23. The Delhi Smog -- Episode 44 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vivek Kaul). 24. Episode of The Seen and the Unseen on GST: 1, 2, 3. 25. Pratap Bhanu Mehta on the farm bills & what followed: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. You can now buy Seen/Unseen swag. And do check out Amit's online courses, The Art of Clear Writing and The Art of Podcasting.

A virus can kill you -- and so can hunger. The lockdown last year led to an explosion of hunger around the country. Where the state failed, civil society stepped in. Ruben Mascarenhas joins Amit Varma in episode 210 of The Seen and the Unseen to discuss his initiative, Khaana Chahiye, that fed lakhs of people in Mumbai. Also discussed: activism, local politics and the clash between principles and the will to power. Also check out: 1. Khaana Chahiya. (also on Twitter.) 2. Litmus Test Project. 3. A Life in Indian Politics -- Episode 149 of The Seen and the Unseen (w JP Narayan). 4. Participatory Democracy -- Episode 160 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ashwin Mahesh). 5. Cities and Citizens -- Episode 198 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ashwin Mahesh.) 6. Previous episodes of The Seen and the Unseen on the pandemic: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 7. We Are Fighting Two Disasters: Covid-19 and the Indian State -- Amit Varma. 8. Reforming Urban Governance -- Episode 48 of The Seen and the Unseen (w V Ravichandar). 9. Urban Governance in India -- Episode 31 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan). 10. Where Have All The Leaders Gone? -- Amit Varma. 11. AAP and Down -- Mayank Gandhi and Shrey Shah. 12. Politics and the Sociopath (2014) -- Amit Varma. 13. Fixing Indian Education -- Episode 185 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Karthik Muralidharan) 14. Education in India -- Episode 77 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Amit Chandra). 15. Our Unlucky Children (2008) -- Amit Varma. 16. Fund Schooling, Not Schools (2007) -- Amit Varma. 17. Where Anna Hazare Gets It Wrong (2011) -- Amit Varma. Also, registration is now open for Amit's online courses, The Art of Clear Writing and The Art of Podcasting.

In 2014, a photograph of two girls hanging from a tree in an Indian village went viral. Sonia Faleiro joins Amit Varma in episode 209 of The Seen and the Unseen to discuss the years she spent researching their story, and the complex layers of truth she uncovered. And also, how the larger crime is the one our society commits on itself. Also check out: 1. The Good Girls -- Sonia Faleiro. 2. Beautiful Thing -- Sonia Faleiro. 3. 13 Men -- Sonia Faleiro. 4. Sonia Faleiro's website. 5. Lessons in Investing (and Life) -- Episode 208 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Deepak Shenoy). 6. The Art of Narrative Nonfiction (+ JBS Haldane) -- Episode 183 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Samanth Subramanian). 7. Random Family -- Adrian Nicole LeBlanc. 8. Yuganta -- Irawati Karve. This episode is sponsored by The Great Courses Plus. Check out their course, How Digital Technology Shapes Us. For free unlimited access for a month, click here. You can now buy Seen/Unseen swag. And do check out Amit's online courses, The Art of Clear Writing and The Art of Podcasting.

Is the stock market an engine of our economy or a casino disconnected from reality? Does it require deep thinking or mad gambling? Deepak Shenoy joins Amit Varma in episode 208 of The Seen and the Unseen to talk about the lessons he has learnt about the markets -- and about life. Also check out: 1. Capitalmind, Deepak Shenoy's investment research and wealth management company, 2. The Capitalmind Podcast. 3. Cats in the Cradle -- Ugly Kid Joe (Also, the Harry Chapin original.) 4. Midnight in Chernobyl -- Adam Higginbotham. 5. Nuclear Power Can Save the World -- Joshua S Goldstein, Staffan A Qvist and Steven Pinker. 6. Poker and Stock Markets -- Episode 47 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Mohit Satyanand). 7. Luck is All Around -- Amit Varma. 8. Range Rover -- Archives of Amit Varma's poker column for the Economic Times. 9. Variants of chess on chess.com. 10. The Dichotomy of Markets -- Deepak Shenoy. 11. Brave New World -- Episode 203 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vasant Dhar). 12. Alpha Zero -- Episode 51 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Devangshu Datta). 13. The New World Upon Us -- Amit Varma. 14. Trading Places on Wikipedia. 15. Our Unlucky Children -- Amit Varma. 16. The State of Financial Advice in India -- Episode 4 of the Capitalmind Podcast. 17. Demystifying GDP -- Episode 130 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rajeswari Sengupta). 18. Indian Society: The Last 30 Years -- Episode 137 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Santosh Desai). 19. An Adman Reflects on Society & the Self -- Episode 199 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ambi Parameswaran). 20. Doris 'Tanta' Dungey at Calculated Risk. 21. Invest Like the Best -- Patrick O'Shaughnessy's podcast. 22. Market Wizards & The New Market Wizards by Jack D Schwager. 23. What Goes Up -- Eric J Weiner. 24. The Scam: From Harshad Mehta To Ketan Parekh -- Debashish Basu & Sucheta Dalal. 25. The Intelligent Investor -- Benjamin Graham. 26. Rich Dad Poor Dad -- Robert Kiyosaki. 27. The books of Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Steven Pinker, Philip Tetlock, Nate Silver and Per Bylund. 28. Buffet and When Genius Failed by Roger Lowenstein. 29. Books we Like: On Investing, Trading & More -- The Capitalmind team. This episode is sponsored by The Great Courses Plus. Check out their course, The Art of Investing. For free unlimited access for a month, click here. You can now buy Seen/Unseen swag. And do check out Amit's online courses, The Art of Clear Writing and The Art of Podcasting.

God is a controversial subject, but we can all agree that food exists, and is often divine. Shoba Narayan joins Amit Varma in episode 207 of The Seen and the Unseen to describe her explorations of religion and food in India. Also check out: 1. Food and Faith: A Pilgrim's Journey through India -- Shoba Narayan. 2. Shoba Narayan's books on Amazon. 3. Shoba Narayan's website and columns. 4. The Indianness of Indian Food — Episode 95 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vikram Doctor). 5. A Scientist in the Kitchen -- Episode 204 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Krish Ashok). 6. The God of Small Feasts -- Shoba Narayan. 7. Meenakshi Ammal's Cook and See: Volumes one, two and three. 8. Vikram Doctor's columns and KT Achaya's books. 9. Harold McGee's books. 10. Fuchsia Dunlop's books. 11. Michael Pollan's books. 12. The Man Who Ate Everything -- Jeffrey Steingarten. 13. Feast: Food of the Islamic World -- Anissa Helou. 14. Feast and Fasts: A History of Food in India -- Colleen Taylor Sen. 15. The Suriani Kitchen -- Lathika George. 16. A Godless Congregation -- Amit Varma. 17. The Big Questions -- Steven E Landsburg. 18. Diana Eck's books. 19. Writers at Work in the Paris Review & and Amazon (1, 2, 3). 20. The Paris Review interview of Ernest Hemingway. 21. Yuganta -- Irawati Karve. 22. Caste, Gender, Karnatik Music -- Episode 162 of The Seen and the Unseen (w TM Krishna). 23. The Making Sense Podcast by Sam Harris. 24. Waking Up: Searching for Spirituality Without Religion -- Sam Harris. 25. Early Indians -- Episode 112 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Tony Joseph). 26. Kerala and the Ivory Throne -- Episode 156 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Manu Pillai). 27. A Meditation on Form -- Amit Varma. 28. A Life in Indian Politics -- Episode 149 of The Seen and the Unseen (w JP Narayan). You can now buy Seen/Unseen swag. And do check out Amit's online courses, The Art of Clear Writing and The Art of Podcasting.

Finally, 2020 is behind us. It changed our world, the way we live our lives, and how we relate to each other and to ourselves. Shruti Rajagopalan and Alex Tabarrok join Amit Varma in episode 206 of The Seen and the Unseen to take stock of the year gone by, with each of them picking five lessons they feel 2020 holds for us. Because they can't count, though, they end up with more than 15 -- here they are, below. (Listen to the episode for the elaborations and arguments.) The Lessons: 0. Don't take anything for granted. (Amit) 1. Don't make the mistake of Omission, Commission, Distinction. (Alex) 2. We should pay more attention to tail risks. (Shruti) 3. Art and Entertainment can be intimate and personal. (Amit) 4. People care more about narratives to explain the world than the world itself. (Amit) 5. We should think more about inter-generational tradeoffs, and consider lowering the voting age. (Shruti) 6. Software is eating the biological world. (Alex) 7. Science is not the problem. The problem is economic illiteracy. (Shruti) 7.5. We should move from collectivized decision-making to respecting individual choice. (Alex) 8. We need to rethink education. Not just the delivery of it, but how we think of education itself. (Amit) 9. A bigger problem than state capacity is state will. (Alex) 10. Politicians don't always behave in a rational, self-interested way. (Shruti) 11. Politics is driven only by tribalism. (Amit) 12. The internet is even better than we thought. (Alex) 13. Markets don't solve everything. (Shruti) 14. We should worry more about computer viruses. (Alex) 15. We should take a closer look at how we relate to other people. (Amit) 15.5 Be like dogs. Live in the moment. (Shruti) Also check out: 1. Elite Imitation in Public Policy -- Episode 180 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan and Alex Tabarrok). 2. Previous episodes with Shruti and Alex. 3. Previous episodes on Covid-19: 1, 2, 3, 4. 4. The Omission-Commission Error is Deadly -- Alex Tabarrok. 5. Asteroid Deflection as a Public Good -- Alex Tabarrok. (And some other Marginal Revolution posts on asteroids.) 6. The Day the Dinosaurs Died -- Douglas Preston. 7. Unlikely is Inevitable -- Amit Varma. 8. The Hunter Becomes the Hunted -- Episode 200 of The Seen and the Unseen. 9. The YouTube channels of Samay Raina and ChessBase India. 10. Only Fans. 11. 1000 True Fans -- Kevin Kelly. 12. 1000 True Fans? Try 100 -- Li Jin. 13. Marginal Revolution University. 14. ParentData -- Emily Oster's newsletter on Substack. 15. Profit = Philanthropy -- Amit Varma. 16. Modern Principles of Microeconomics -- Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok. (And Macroeconomics.) 17. Collective Action Kills Innovation -- Alex Tabarrok.18. Fixing Indian Education -- Episode 185 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Karthik Muralidharan). 19. The Case Against Education -- Bryan Caplan. 20. Beware of the Useful Idiots -- Amit Varma. 21. Khaana Chahiya. 22. The BJP Before Modi -- Episode 202 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vinay Sitapati). This episode is sponsored by the podcast, Think Like an Economist, hosted by Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers. You can now buy Seen/Unseen swag. And do check out Amit's online courses, The Art of Clear Writing and The Art of Podcasting.

Pandemic, lockdown, masks, vaccine, state failure, state overreach: India's been here before, and it's been worse. Chinmay Tumbe joins Amit Varma in episode 205 of The Seen and the Unseen to discuss how 40 million lives were lost in the subcontinent between 1817 and 1920 in the cholera, plague and influenza pandemics -- and the lessons we need to learn from them. Also check out: 1. Age of Pandemics -- Chinmay Tumbe. 2. India Moving -- Chinmay Tumbe. 3. India = Migration -- Episode 128 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Chinmay Tumbe). 4. Everyday Technology: Machines and the Making of India's Modernity -- David Arnold. 5. Cholera and Colonialism in British India -- David Arnold. 6. Smritichitre: The Memoirs of a Spirited Wife -- Lakshmibai Tilak (translated by Shanta Gokhale). 7. The British in India: A Social History of the Raj -- David Gilmour. 8. The Great Escape -- Angus Deaton. 9. The Birth of the Modern World -- CA Bayly. 10. Eric Hobsbawm's books on Amazon. 11. Harsh Mander's Near-Death Covid Experience In Delhi's Hospitals -- Natasha Badhwar. 12. Fighting Fake News -- Episode 133 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Pratik Sinha). 13. Plague Ports -- Myron Echenberg. 14. A Life Misspent -- Suryakant Tripathi aka Nirala. This episode is sponsored by The Great Courses Plus. Check out their course, An Introduction to Infectious Diseases. For free unlimited access for a month, click here. You can now buy Seen/Unseen swag. And do check out Amit's online courses, The Art of Clear Writing and The Art of Podcasting.

Indian cooking is often treated as a mystical art -- but it is the science behind it that should fill us with wonder. Krish Ashok joins Amit Varma in episode 204 of The Seen and the Unseen to speak about Masala Lab, his effort at explaining this great art from scientific first principles. Every meal of yours can now be a romantic adventure filled with the ecstasy of insight -- whether you cook it, eat or or do both while playing the violin. Also check out: 1. Masala Lab -- Krish Ashok. 2. Krish Ashok's website, blog, YouTube, Soundcloud & columns. 3. The Indianness of Indian Food -- Episode 95 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vikram Doctor). 4. Neurogastronomy -- Gordon M Shepherd. 5. Hot Ones (the spicy wings show) on Wikipedia and YouTube. 6. The Botany of Desire -- Michael Pollan. 7. Ganesh Bagler's homepage, Wikipedia, academic papers and YouTube Channel. 8. Shukto (Ekla Cholo Re). Bloody hell! 9. Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat -- Samin Nosrat. 10. Nisha Madhulika on YouTube. 11. The Ketchup Conundrum -- Malcolm Gladwell. 12. Toddy Chicken -- Vahchef. 13. The Food Lab -- J Kenji López–alt. 14. Modernist Cusine -- Nathan Myhrvold. 15. Modernist Cusine at Home -- Nathan Myhrvold. 16. Bong Eats on YouTube. 17. Saffron Trail -- Nandita Iyer's blog. 18. Salu Kitchen on YouTube. 19. Madras Samayal on YouTube. This episode is sponsored by The Great Courses Plus. Check out their course, Cooking Across the Ages. For free unlimited access for a month, click here. You can now buy Seen/Unseen swag. And do check out Amit's online courses, The Art of Clear Writing and The Art of Podcasting.

If someone from the year 1990 visited the world of 2020, it would seem magical, even fictional. Vasant Dhar joins Amit Varma in episode 203 of The Seen and the Unseen to talk about how technology will continue to change our world in ways we cannot imagine. Will the future upgrade us -- or will it make us obsolete? Also check out: 1. Vasant Dhar at NYU Stern. 2. Brave New World -- hosted by Vasant Dhar. 3. When Should We Trust Machines? -- Vasant Dhar at TEDxHamilton. 4. Vasant Dhar on machine learning and investing. 5. Vasant Dhar on the Commercialisation of Big Data. 6. The New World Upon Us -- Amit Varma. 7. The Interpreter -- Amit Varma. 8. Human -- Michael S Gazzaniga. 9. My Stroke of Insight -- Jill Bolte Taylor. 10. Why Nations Fail -- Daron Acemoglu and James A Robinson. 11. Here's Why Aadhaar is a Big Deal -- Episode 61 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Nikhil Pahwa). 12. The Future of the Internet -- Episode 65 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Nikhil Pahwa & Amit Doshi). 13. Data Factories -- Ben Thompson. 14. What Really Happened? — Lawrence H White on the 2008 Financial Crisis. 15. 3 Ways to Increase Social Media Platforms' Transparency — Vasant Dhar. 16. Who Controls Your Data? — Vasant Dhar. 17. In the AI era, privacy and democracy are in peril -- Vasant Dhar. 18. Social-media platforms are undermining our democracy -- Helena Rosenblatt & Vasant Dhar. 19. Paperclip Maximizer. 20. The Three Laws of Robotics. This episode is sponsored by CTQ Compounds. Upgrade yourself for the future -- and get your reading habit back in gear! You can now buy Seen/Unseen swag. And do check out Amit's online courses, The Art of Clear Writing and The Art of Podcasting.

The dominance of Hindu nationalism in Indian politics is so complete that it seems like it was inevitable. Was it? Vinay Sitapati joins Amit Varma in episode 202 of The Seen and the Unseen to discuss the BJP's long journey to this point, as reflected in the jugalbandi of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani. Also check out: 1. Jugalbandi: The BJP Before Modi -- Vinay Sitapati. 2. Half-Lion: How P.V. Narasimha Rao Transformed India -- Vinay Sitapati. 3. The BJP's Magic Formula -- Episode 45 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Prashant Jha). 4. The Gita Press and Hindu Nationalism -- Episode 139 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Akshaya Mukul). 5. The First Assault on Our Constitution -- Episode 194 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Tripurdaman Singh). 6. The Ideas of Our Constitution -- Episode 164 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Madhav Khosla). 7. Who Broke Our Republic? -- Episode 163 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Kapil Komireddi). 8. The Intellectual Foundations of Hindutva -- Episode 115 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Aakar Patel). 9. Religion and Ideology in Indian Society -- Episode 124 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Suyash Rai). 10. Political Ideology in India -- Episode 131 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rahul Verma). 11. Vinay Sitapati interviewed by Rohan Venkat. This episode is sponsored by The Great Courses Plus. Check out their course, Games People Play: Game Theory in Life, Business, and Beyond. For free unlimited access for a month, click here. You can now buy Seen/Unseen swag. And do check out Amit's online courses, The Art of Clear Writing and The Art of Podcasting.

Cricket has a unique place in Indian society, and has touched and shaped millions of lives. Ramachandra Guha joins Amit Varma in episode 201 of The Seen and the Unseen to describe how he came to love, play and even administer the 'most subtle and sophisticated game known to humankind.' Also check out: 1. The Commonwealth of Cricket -- Ramachandra Guha. 2. A Corner of a Foreign Field -- Ramachandra Guha. 3. The Picador Book of Cricket -- Edited by Ramachandra Guha. 4. Ramachandra Guha's books on Amazon. 5. Understanding Gandhi. Part 1: Mohandas -- Episode 104 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ramachandra Guha). 6. Understanding Gandhi. Part 2: Mahatma -- Episode 105 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ramachandra Guha). 7. Taking Stock of Our Republic -- Episode 157 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ramachandra Guha). 8. Autobiography of an Unknown Cricketer -- Sujit Mukherjee. 9. Beyond a Boundary -- CLR James. 10. The Tao of Cricket -- Ashis Nandy. 11. Money in Cricket -- Episode 41 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Gideon Haigh & Prem Panicker). 12. The Evolution of Cricket -- Episode 97 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Harsha Bhogle). 13. Where Have All the Leaders Gone? -- Amit Varma. 14. Who Will Bell the Congress cat? -- Amit Varma. 15. Indian Cricket's Conflict-of-Interest Problem -- Mukul Kesavan. 16. The Sporting Spirit -- George Orwell. 17. Amit Varma on the IPL. 18. Of Gifted Voice -- Keshav Desiraju. 19. Yele Suhabashini -- TM Krishna. 20. S Gopalakrishnan (@gopalears) on Twitter. 21. The Lost World of Hindustani Music -- Kumar Prasad Mukherji. 22. Raga'n Josh -- Sheila Dhar. This episode is sponsored by The Great Courses Plus. Check out their course, Your Deceptive Mind: A Scientific Guide to Critical Thinking Skills. Click here for free unlimited access for a month. You can now buy Seen/Unseen swag. Registrations are now open for Amit's online courses, The Art of Clear Writing and The Art of Podcasting.

The tables are turned in episode 200 of The Seen and the Unseen. Host Amit Varma is in the firing line, replying to questions from 22 of his past guests and fans as Shruti Rajagopalan plays proctor. They talk about poker, podcasting, politics, policy and the personal. Show Notes 1. Select episodes of The Seen and the Unseen featuring Shruti Rajagopalan (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), Manu Pillai (98, 127, 156), VK Karthika, Rajat Ubhaykar, Chinmay Tumbe, Prem Panicker (41, 46), Joy Bhattacharjya, Akshaya Mukul, Ira Mukhoty, Parvati Sharma, Manimugdha Sharma, Supriya Gandhi, Harsha Bhogle, Karthik Muralidharan, Srinath Raghavan (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), Pranay Kotasthane (1, 2), Hamsini Hariharan (1, 2, 3, 4), Russ Roberts, Arvind Subramanian, Ram Guha (1, 2, 3), Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Narayani Basu, Amardeep Singh, Aakar Patel, Rahul Verma, Ashok Malik, Barun Mitra+Kumar Anand, Matt Ridley, Neelesh Misra, Puja Mehra, Rajeswari Sengupta (1, 2), Aanchal Malhotra, Alex Tabarrok (1, 2, 3), Madhavi Menon and Mohit Satyanand (1, 2, 3, 4) 2. A Godless Congregation -- Amit Varma. 3. Agarkar's Donkeys: A Meditation on God -- Amit Varma. 4. Luck is All Around -- Amit Varma. 5. Why I Loved and Left Poker -- Amit Varma. 6. The archives of Amit Varma's poker column for the Economic Times, Range Rover. 7. Selected works by George Orwell: Essays, 1984, Animal Farm. 8. Selected Works by Frédéric Bastiat: The Law, That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen. 9. A World of Stopped Watches — Amit Varma. 10. A Picture of Hell, and No Kerosene -- Amit Varma. 11. ये लिबरल आख़िर है कौन? -- Episode 37 of Puliyabaazi, featuring Amit Varma discussing Friedrich Hayek. 12. Facts Don't Matter. Stories Do -- Amit Varma. 13. Every Act of Government Is an Act of Violence -- Amit Varma. 14. We Are Fighting Two Disasters: Covid-19 and the Indian State -- Amit Varma. 15. The Blank Slate -- Steven Pinker. 16. Almost Invisible -- Mark Strand. 17. The Power Broker -- Robert Caro. 18. The Lord of the Rings -- JRR Tolkien. 19. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time -- Mark Haddon. 20. What Is It Like to Be a Bat? -- Thomas Nagel. 21. Economics in One Lesson -- Henry Hazlitt. 22. Haal-Chaal Theek Thaak Hai -- Subrat and Pavan. 23. The Road to Serfdom -- Friedrich Hayek. 24. The Intellectuals and Socialism -- Friedrich Hayek. Also check out Amit Varma being interviewed on libertarianism, public choice theory, the math of sports, IPL & T20 cricket, and assorted subjects. You can now buy Seen/Unseen swag. And a four-volume anthology is on the way. And ah, registrations are now open for Amit's online courses, The Art of Clear Writing and The Art of Podcasting.

Figuring out what consumers want is pretty similar to figuring out what society wants. Adman and author Ambi Parameswaran joins Amit Varma in episode 199 of The Seen and the Unseen to share his insights from his decades in advertising, and the many books he has written. Also check out: 1. Spring: Bouncing Back From Rejection -- Ambi Parameswaran. 2. Nawabs, Nudes, Noodles: India through 50 Years of Advertising -- Ambi Parameswaran. 3. Sponge: Leadership Lessons I Learnt From My Clients -- Ambi Parameswaran. 4. For God's Sake: An Adman on the Business of Religion -- Ambi Parameswaran. 5. Ambi Parameswaran's talk at Godrej India Culture Lab. 6. Indian Society: The Last 30 Years -- Episode 137 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Santosh Desai). 7. Gender Advertisements -- Erving Goffman. 8. Airtel -- The Boss TVC. 9. Fair and Lovely -- The Air Hostess TVC. 10. Santoor -- The Aerobics & Flute TVCs. 11. Titan Fastrack 'Come out of the Closet' TVC. And do check out Amit's online courses, The Art of Clear Writing and The Art of Podcasting.

As our cities are growing, our citizens are growing apathetic. Can we reassert our rights and reform our governance? Ashwin Mahesh joins Amit Varma in episode 198 of The Seen and the Unseen for a wide-ranging conversation on urban governance, citizenship, education and much more. Also check out: 1. Participatory Democracy -- Episode 160 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ashwin Mahesh). 2. Ashwin Mahesh's website. 3. A New, Urban India -- Ashwin Mahesh. 4. The Publicly Managed City -- Ashwin Mahesh. 5. The tweets by Sabyasachi Kar and Naval Ravikant. 6. Tiago Forte's Second Brain, & videos on Roam Research by Thomas Frank & Ali Abdaal. 7. Fixing Indian Education -- Episode 185 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Karthik Muralidharan). 8. Our Unlucky Children (2008) -- Amit Varma. 9. The Element -- Ken Robinson. 10. Urban Governance in India -- Episode 31 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan). 11. Reforming Urban Governance -- Episode 48 of The Seen and the Unseen (w V Ravichandar). 12. Is India a Flailing State? -- Lant Pritchett. 13. We Are Fighting Two Disasters: Covid-19 and the Indian State -- Amit Varma. 14. Prisoners of Geography -- Tim Marshall. 15. The Importance of Cities -- Episode 108 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Reuben Abraham & Pritika Hingorani.) 16. The Power Broker -- Robert Caro. 17. The Death and Life of Great American Cities -- Jane Jacobs. 18. A Life in Indian Politics -- Episode 149 of The Seen and the Unseen (w JP Narayan). 19. What a Long Strange Trip It's Been -- Episode 188 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Arvind Subramanian). And do check out Amit's online courses, The Art of Clear Writing and The Art of Podcasting.

Stories and conversations can shape the world, and ourselves, in ways that we often don't appreciate. Neelesh Misra joins Amit Varma in episode 197 of The Seen and the Unseen to chat about his journey as a storyteller and interviewer. Also check out: 1. Neelesh Misra's YouTube page. 2. Gaon Connection. 3. Slow. 4. Neelesh Misra's interviews with Pankaj Tripathi, Tigmanshu Dhulia, Sanjay Mishra, Piyush Mishra, Vishal Bhardwaj, Ayushmann Khurrana, Anurag Kashyap, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Tapsee Pannu, Manoj Bajpayee, Swanand Kirkire and Varun Grover. 5. Neelesh Misra's books on Amazon. 6. Papa Se Shart -- Neelesh Misra. 7. Sa Re Ga Ma Pa -- Neelesh Misra. 8. Maine Dil Se Kaha Dhoond Laana Khushi. 9. Conversation and Society -- Episode 182 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Russ Roberts). 10. Memories and Things -- Episode 195 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Aanchal Malhotra). 11. A World of Stopped Watches -- Amit Varma. 12. A Meditation on Form -- Amit Varma. 13. Story -- Robert McKee. 14. The Seven Basic Plots -- Christopher Booker. And do check out Amit's online courses, The Art of Clear Writing and The Art of Podcasting.

Good data journalism can reveal otherwise unseen truths about our society. Pioneering journalist Rukmini S joins Amit Varma in episode 196 of The Seen and the Unseen to talk about the insights data brought to her journalism, and her groundbreaking podcast on Covid-19, The Moving Curve. Also check out: 1. The Moving Curve -- Rukmini S's podcast, also on all podcast apps. 2. Rukmini S at HuffPost, Hindu, Scroll, Mint,Times of India (1, 2) and India Spend. 3. Canary -- Amy Brittain's podcast. 4. How the Coronavirus Could Take Over Your Body (Before You Ever Feel It) -- Jeff Wise. (This is the piece mistakenly referred to in this episode as an Atlantic article.) 5. Muslim Population Growth Slows -- Rukmini S & Vijaita Singh (2015). 6. The Art of Narrative Nonfiction -- Episode 183 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Samanth Subramanian). 7. Raag Darbari (Hindi) (English) -- Shrilal Shukla 8. Memories and Things -- Episode 195 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Aanchal Malhotra). 9. India's coronavirus lockdown takes toll on migrant workers -- Rukmini S. 10. The First 100 -- The ProPublica investigation in Chicago. 11. Ideology and Identity -- Pradeep K Chhibber and Rahul Verma. 12. Political Ideology in India -- Episode 131 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rahul Verma). 13. Somesh Jha at Business Standard.14. Covid19india.org. 15. Taking Stock of Covid-19 -- Episode 169 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan). 16. The Nuances of Lockdown -- Episode 176 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Anup Malani). 17. India's Economy in the Time of Covid-19 -- Episode 177 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vivek Kaul). 18. Our Cities After Covid-19 -- Episode 191 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vaidehi Tandel). 19. Data Journalism and Indian Politics -- Episode 136 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Roshan Kishore). 20. The State of the Media -- Episode 46 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Prem Panicker). 21. The State of the Media 2 -- Episode 89 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Sidharth Bhatia & Peter Griffin). 22. What Happened to Our Journalism? -- Episode 178 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Nidhi Razdan). And do check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing.