Grand Tamasha

• The Quiet Resilience of U.S.–India Defense Cooperation

  Despite a year marked by tariff battles, confusion over Washington’s China policy, and the shock of the 2025 India–Pakistan war, one part of the U.S.–India relationship has held firm: bilateral defense cooperation. The two sides recently announced a new defense framework, are deepening links between their private sectors, and are boosting military-to-military ties. To review the state of the U.S.-India defense relationship and to help unpack the secrets of its success, Milan is joined on the show this week by Sameer Lalwani. Sameer is a senior advisor with the Special Competitive Studies Project and a non-resident senior fellow with the German Marshall Fund.Sameer and Milan discuss how the U.S.-India defense partnership has survived the general tumult in the relationship, the significance of a recently signed defense framework agreement, and the future of defense co-production and co-development. Plus, the two discuss Inda’s lessons learned from Operation Sindoor and whether China still serves as the glue that keep these two powers together.Watch this episode on YouTube.Episode notes:1. Sameer Lalwani, “Don’t Call it a Comeback: Why US-India Relations are Due for a Rebound,” Special Competitive Studies Project, November 20, 2025.2. Sameer Lalwani and Vikram J. Singh, “How to Get the Most Out of the U.S.-Indian Defense Partnership,” War on the Rocks, February 11, 2025.3. “Why Washington Is Wooing Pakistan (with Uzair Younus),” Grand Tamasha, October 1, 2025.4. “From Convergence to Confrontation: Trump’s India Gambit (with Ashley J. Tellis),” Grand Tamasha, September 24, 2025.5. “Can Europe be India's Plan B? (with James Crabtree),” Grand Tamasha, September 17, 2025.6. “How This India-Pakistan Conflict Will Shape the Next One (with Joshua White),” Grand Tamasha, May 21, 2025.7. “Operation Sindoor and South Asia’s Uncertain Future (with Christopher Clary),” Grand Tamasha, May 14, 2025.

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• Rewriting India’s Education Story, One Girl at a Time

  This year, the non-profit Educate Girls became the first Indian organization ever to receive the Ramon Magsaysay Award—often called Asia’s Nobel Prize. The foundation recognized the group for its groundbreaking work enrolling out-of-school girls, improving learning outcomes, and shifting social norms in some of India’s most underserved communities. It’s a remarkable milestone for an NGO that began in rural Rajasthan and now reaches millions of households across the country.To discuss the challenges—and the opportunities—surrounding girls’ education in India, Milan is joined on the show this week by Gayatri Nair Lobo, the CEO of Educate Girls. Gayatri has more than 25 years of experience across the consulting and development sectors. Before joining Educate Girls, she led the ATE Chandra Foundation and the India School Leadership Institute. She has also held senior roles at Dalberg Advisors and Teach For India.Milan and Gayatri discuss the origins of Educate Girls, the supply and demand-side barriers to girls’ education, and the launch of the world’s first Development Impact Bond. Plus, the two talk about the use of tools like randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and machine learning in delivering education and how to forge lasting partnerships with state governments.Episode notes:1. “A Blueprint for India’s State Capacity Revolution (with Karthik Muralidharan),” Grand Tamasha, May 23, 2024.2. “Understanding the Delhi Education Experiment (with Yamini Aiyar),” Grand Tamasha, January 22, 2025.3. “How India’s Women Are Redefining Politics (with Ruhi Tewari),” Grand Tamasha, November 5, 2025.4. “Rohini Nilekani on the Secret to Successful Governance,” Grand Tamasha, October 5, 2022.

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• Beyond the Raj: Recasting the India–UK Partnership

  India and the United Kingdom have spent decades trying to define their post-colonial relationship—part partnership, part rivalry, and often, part courtship. Today, that relationship is being recast amid trade talks, tech cooperation, and geopolitical shifts. The two sides recently signed a landmark trade agreement and officials in London and New Delhi are sounding a new tone of optimism about what the two countries might do together— especially in a post-American world. To talk more about the new era in ties between the UK and India, Milan is joined on the podcast this week by Avinash Paliwal. Avinash is a Reader in International Relations at SOAS University of London. He is the author of two books, My Enemy’s Enemy – India in Afghanistan from the Soviet Invasion to the US Withdrawal and India’s Near East – A New History. In 2024-25, he was seconded to the UK Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office where he covered ‘India and South Asia’.  Milan and Avinash discuss the troubled history between the two powers, the transformation of the relationship in recent years, and their emerging trade and technology links. Plus, the two discuss the Indian diaspora in the United Kingdom, frictions around Russia and Pakistan, and the impact of rising nativism in the UK.Listen on YouTube here.Episode notes:1.  Avinash Paliwal, “India’s bilateral diplomacy: A quiet rehaul of India-UK relations,” Grand Tamasha, November 5, 2025.2. “The Past, Present, and Future of India’s Near East (with Avinash Paliwal),” Grand Tamasha, November 20, 2024.3. “What the Taliban Takeover Means for India (with Avinash Paliwal),” Grand Tamasha, September 15, 2021.4. “Can Europe be India's Plan B? (with James Crabtree),” Grand Tamasha, September 17, 2025.5. “India and the Reordering of Transatlantic Relations (with Tara Varma),” Grand Tamasha, March 11, 2025.

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• Interpreting the 2025 Bihar Verdict

  Bihar has once again delivered a political drama worthy of its reputation—record turnout, sharp debates over the voter rolls, a decisive victory for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), and a fresh round of questions about whether the opposition has what it takes to displace Modi and the BJP. The NDA—anchored by Nitish Kumar and his Janata Dal (United), together with the BJP and other allies—secured a landslide victory by winning 202 out of 243 seats in the state assembly. The opposition, for its part, saw little change in its vote share from 2020, but could only muster 35 seats. To work through the elections—and their larger meaning for India’s political economy—Milan is joined on the show today by the Hindustan Times data and political economy editor Roshan Kishore. Over the past several months, Roshan and his team have consistently put out the most thoughtful data and analysis on the trends in Bihar. Milan and Roshan discuss the resilience of the JD(U)–BJP alliance, the polarization in the electorate, and the dissonance within the opposition alliance’s campaign. Plus, the two discuss the Election Commission of India (ECI)’s controversial review of electoral rolls, the impact of upstart Prashant Kishor and his Jan Suraaj Party, and what the elections portend for India’s political economy beyond November.Watch this episode here.Episode notes:1. Roshan Kishore and Abhishek Jha, “Not conspiracy, political economy explains Bihar results,” Hindustan Times, November 18, 2025.2. Nishant Ranjan and Roshan Kishore, “The resurrection of ‘coalition of extremes’ in Bihar,” Hindustan Times, November 15, 2025.3. Abhishek Jha and Roshan Kishore, “How did Bihar go from a 2020 cliff-hanger to a 2025 landslide?” Hindustan Times, November 15, 2025.4. Roshan Kishore, Abhishek Jha, and Nishant Ranjan, “Three key takeaways from Bihar results,” Hindustan Times, November 15, 2025.5. Roshan Kishore, “Bihar election results: Twelve Ds that explain the Bihar results,” Hindustan Times, November 14, 2025.6.  “A Sixth of Humanity and the Dreams of a Nation (with Devesh Kapur and Arvind Subramanian),” Grand Tamasha, October 22, 2025. 7. Neelanjan Sircar, “The Welfarist Prime Minister: Explaining the National-State Election Gap,” Economic and Political Weekly 56, no. 10 (March 2021).

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• Understanding South Asia’s “Ordinary Rebels”

  How do non-state armed groups act when the state seeks not to crush them—but to tolerate their activities? This is the central question of a new book by the political scientist Kolby Hanson titled, Ordinary Rebels: Rank-and-File Militants between War and Peace.Kolby is an assistant professor of government at Wesleyan University, and his new book looks at how state toleration fundamentally transforms armed groups by shaping who takes up arms—and which leaders they follow. The book draws on a range of innovative surveys and in-depth interviews tracing four armed movements over time in Northeast India and Sri Lanka. The book looks not so much at what armed groups do when they fight—but what they do when they don’t. To talk more about his new book, Kolby joins Milan on the show this week. They discuss what it means to be a “likely” recruit of an armed group, the complex political economy of India’s northeast, and the way in which state toleration operates on a spectrum. Plus, the two discuss the prospects for long-term peacebuilding in South Asia and how Kolby’s new book sheds light on the troubling January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.Episode notes:1. Paul Staniland, Ordering Violence: Explaining Armed Group-State Relations from Conflict to Cooperation (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2021).2. “The Past, Present, and Future of India’s Near East (with Avinash Paliwal),” Grand Tamasha, November 20, 2024.3. “Paul Staniland on the Surprising Decline in Political Violence in South Asia,” Grand Tamasha, October 7, 2020.4. “Binalakshmi Nepram on the Realities of India’s Oft-Forgotten Northeast,” Grand Tamasha, June 3, 2020.

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