Where to get your India updates and analysis

A non-comprehensive list of insightful newsletters, podcasts and video shows on India.

Welcome back to India Inside Out, which returns after a somewhat extended summer break wherein I managed to get a brief glimpse of Neeraj Chopra (and the little remote-control cars that carry the javelin lances back and forth) at the Stade de France and also got do some cycling – with two-year-old in tow – in the Loire Valley, in the hopes of living up to the name of the podcast I co-host (more on that below).

For new subscribers – there are almost 9000 of you now – who came onboard over the summer: India Inside Out is an effort to track and contextualise the key developments and vital policy debates that make up the ‘India story’, with a particular focus on politics, foreign policy and economics. On every edition I hope to bring you analysis, links and expert voices on the most pertinent issues, and also some gyaan on my pet obsessions (India’s relations with the Gulf & West Asia, federalism, tech policy, efforts to decolonise the historical archive and more).

I’m an Indian journalist, researcher and podcaster, based at the moment in Cairo, Egypt. I’m currently a Non-Resident Scholar and editor at the Center for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania, where I edit and commission for India in Transition. (If you’re a scholar studying India and would like to pitch a piece for the publication, write to me!) Previously, I was deputy editor of Scroll.in, an award-winning independent Indian news organisation, where, among other things, I ran The Political Fix.

For the moment, India Inside Out is a personal project, something I put together to continue tracking Indian developments after I moved to Egypt (following a year off from journalism as full-time dad). The newsletter is not affiliated with any media publication, and I don’t have a paywall, though both of these may change in the future. If you have ideas for what the newsletter ought to look like or what I should be covering, get in touch here or, if you received this in your inbox, you can also just reply to it.

The wheel turns

I’m also currently co-host of The Political Cycle (formerly the Election Tricycle), a weekly podcast also featuring Emily Tamkin and Tom Hamilton. The show began as a way to track elections in our three countries –India, the UK and the US – but given that two of those (general) elections have already taken place, we decided to relaunch with a new name and a broader lens.

We will continue to cover elections and our three territories, but are also bringing in guests from across the world in the hopes of learning something when we put the politics of different countries in conversation with each other.

In recent episodes we’ve discussed the surging far-right in Germany, France’s new slapdash government, Donald Trump’s cat-and-dog-whistling (and how that echoes anti-migrant rhetoric in India and elsewhere), and, this week, the success of a candidate belonging to a Marxist-leaning, Sinhala nationalist political force that once led bloody insurrections, in Sri Lanka’s presidential elections:

Listen, subscribe, share!

India watch

I’m not jumping straight into analysis this week – even though there’s been plenty going on (Bangladesh! The Quad! A ‘Modi Ukraine peace plan’! Elections in Jammu & Kashmir and Haryana! Manipur still burning!) – since the newsletter is just returning to a regular schedule. Instead, on this edition, I thought I would do a quick shout-out to a number of other sources of news, analysis and thoughtful takes on India, which have helped me keep track of developments even as I’ve been busy over the last month building out India in Transition, planning a longer writing project on India and the Gulf, – and generally contending with the ‘terrible twos’ portion of parenting.

I’m not linking to news publications themselves, since there would be too many and they’re not necessarily consistent across subjects. Instead, here are a few sources – newsletters, podcasts, YouTube shows – that I find useful:

(Side note: Back when I started The Daily Fix – a morning newsletter with analysis and links – at Scroll.in almost a decade ago, there were almost no other similar editorial products to track daily or weekly updates from India. Now there are ‘India’ newsletters all over the place, which, at the very least, is vindication for a medium that I’ve always loved).

• Scroll.in’s newsletters: Daily and weekly round-ups with analysis of key news stories, accessible if you become a Scroll.in member.

• The India Cable: A very useful daily compendium of news stories, commentary and links to OpEds on Indian politics and current affairs.

• Political Line and The View From India: Newsletters from The Hindu on politics and foreign policy that often provide you with a considered take on the week’s news.

• Anticipating the Unintended: An indispensable weekly newsletter on Indian policymaking. (For Hindi-Urdu speakers, see also पुलियाबाज़ी हिन्दी-उर्दू पॉडकास्ट).

• TV Newsance: A satirical skewering of Indian TV news, that allows you to watch the mess that is broadcast news media in India without, you know, having to actually watch it.

• Indialog: A useful round-up of stories on climate, tech, security and other topics from India, as well as interviews and other analysis, from Shreyas Shende.

• Powertrip: A political newsletter focused on South India from The Newsminute, only for premium subscribers.

• India Edition: A Bloomberg newsletter from Menaka Doshi that brings context rather than mindless cheerleading to economic and financial news from India.

• Grand Tamasha: A weekly podcast hosted by Milan Vaishnav, featuring guests on the vital stories dominating India’s news.

• Essential India: Notes from different members of the Economist’s team working on India, as well as links to their coverage.

• India Watch Briefing: A fortnightly newsletter on Indian foreign policy and domestic developments with a particular eye on issues that are of interest in Europe, from Patrizia Cogo Morales.

• Himal’s newsletters: Less India and more the subcontinent (or Southasia, as the magazine prefers), lots of useful updates on developments in the region, and a great source of recommendations for books.

• South Asia Brief: Foreign Policy’s weekly briefing on the region from Michael Kugelman, with a particular focus on Pakistan and Afghanistan, as well as links to developments from across the subcontinent.

• The India Forum update: Not a newsletter per-se, but weekly links to the India Forum’s excellent, thoughtful coverage of India.

• South Asian Studies: Podcast interviews of authors and scholars working on the region, from the New Books Network – a great way to discover new work on India.

There are surely more that I’m either forgetting to include here, or that I haven’t yet had a chance to read/listen to or watch. This list is always a work-in-progress, and I expect I’ll be following it up with more recommendations. If there are any newsletters, podcasts or shows on India that you find particularly compelling and that I’ve failed to include here, please do send those in and tell me why you’re recommending them. There are also a whole bunch of less newsy editorial products – interview podcasts, interesting news columns and intermittent newsletters – that I haven’t included here, but may collect another day.

That’s it for this edition, but I should be back to updates, analysis and links on future editions of the newsletter. Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to send feeback.