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8 episodes · 4 hr 46 min of conversations

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  1. NOV02Mon

    Next up

    Andrew Oswald

    Professor of Economics and Behavioural Science, University of Warwick

  2. NOV10Tue

    Ashok Kantha

    Former Ambassador of India to the People's Republic of China

  3. NOV25Wed

    Eduard Talamàs

    Professor, IESE Business School · Ph.D., Harvard University

Date to be confirmed

  • Ram Sewak Sharma

    CEO, National Health Authority · one of the minds behind Aadhaar

  • Dr. Ajay Shah

    Professor, National Law School of India University · Ph.D., USC · B.Tech., IIT Bombay

  • Peter Hegemann

    Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 2026

All episodes

  1. 19 Oct 202652 minMahendra Kumar Singh, Akshat Bhaskar and Amaira Akbar on Indian Politics, Geopolitics, Aadhaar, and PropagandaIn this episode of Decoded, Akshat Bhaskar and Amaira Akbar sit down with Dr. Mahendra Kumar Singh, Professor of Political Science at Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gorakhpur University and former journalist at The Times of India, where he spent over 13 years covering Parliament, national political parties, government policy, and the institutions shaping Indian public life. Mahendra reflects on his transition from journalism to academia and how the two professions offer different ways of understanding politics. He explains why democratic political parties can still be controlled by a small group of decision-makers, drawing on the iron law of oligarchy and his experience reporting on both the BJP and the Indian National Congress. The conversation then moves to India's place in an increasingly divided world. Mahendra discusses how India maintains relationships with Russia, Ukraine, the United States, and other competing powers, why BRICS is pushing for a more equitable international economic order, and how India's economic dependence on China complicates its strategic rivalry. We also explore India's relationship with Nepal, the consequences of the 2015 economic blockade, and why historical and cultural connections alone cannot guarantee diplomatic influence. We then turn to Aadhaar and the transformation of India's welfare system. Having reported on the project since its early development, Mahendra shares his experiences interviewing Nandan Nilekani and following the decisions that shaped India's digital identity infrastructure. He discusses how Aadhaar changed welfare delivery, the strategy behind its gradual introduction, and the questions it raises about privacy, government power, and accountability. The conversation ends with a question that feels increasingly difficult to answer: how do we distinguish genuine political analysis from propaganda? Mahendra reflects on the influence of ideology, the explosion of information on social media, and why understanding political history, reading beyond headlines, and listening to voices on the ground remain essential. From the corridors of Indian Parliament to the changing dynamics of global politics, this episode explores how political institutions work, why governments make the decisions they do, and what it takes to understand the world beyond competing narratives. Thank you to Deepanshu, Agrima, Anubhav, Aly Muhhamad, and Aarav for their help with research, outreach, and questions for this episode, and Nischay for help with Audio Production. clarity before consensus.
  2. 10 Oct 202636 minSundar Sarukkai and Akshat Bhaskar on Philosophy for Children, Technology, and What It Means to Be HumanIn this episode of Decoded, Akshat Bhaskar sits down with Professor Sundar Sarukkai, philosopher and author of Homo Philosophicus, Philosophy for Children, and The Cracked Mirror, who studied physics at St. Joseph’s College Bangalore and IIT Madras before completing a Ph.D. in particle physics at Purdue University. Sundar explains why his move from physics to philosophy was never a change of discipline. It was the same curiosity about how humans think and produce knowledge, pursued with different tools. He tells us about the barefoot philosophers project, which brings philosophy to children in rural India in Kannada and Tamil, including a Tamil Nadu classroom where a student compared atoms to God, and a classmate answered with a local possession ritual. We then get into technology. Sundar argues that AI and personalized digital media push hyper-individualism, wear down what Ambedkar called fraternity, and are built around control, speed, and efficiency because of who designed them. We also talk about why lived experience belongs in social theory, how traditions like the Bhakti movement and protest songs carried philosophy into everyday life, and why paying attention to language is one of the most practical ways to reduce misunderstanding. The conversation moves from particle physics labs at Purdue to village schools in Tamil Nadu, and ends on what he sees as the defining challenge of the next two decades: keeping human sociality intact. Thank you to Deepanshu, Agrima, Anubhav, Aly Muhhamad and Aarav for their help with research, outreach, and questions for this episode, and Nischay for help with Audio Production. clarity before consensus.
  3. 29 Sept 202634 minCary Krosinsky on Whether the Financial System Can Fix Itself | Decoded x HERizonThis is part two of our Decoded x HERizon event: a conversation and live student Q&A with Professor Cary Krosinsky, hosted by Akshat Bhaskar and Amaira Akbar. Cary teaches at Yale, Brown, and NYU Stern, co-founded the Carbon Tracker Initiative, and has written eight books on sustainable finance. He opens with his framework of the seven tribes of sustainable finance to tackle the core question of the conversation: can the financial system actually correct itself. He argues that moral divestment has largely failed while strategies pairing real returns with real impact have worked, and points to asset owners like the New York State Common Retirement Fund and Temasek as models for how billions actually get moved. The conversation ranges from rethinking GDP to account for human and environmental costs, to why western cooperation with China on climate is unavoidable, to India's own distinct path forward. He and Amaira also dig into the energy footprint of AI and what it might take to offset the jobs it displaces. He closes with his five levers of change, corporations, investment, innovation, policy, and people, and practical career advice for students headed into climate, tech, and finance. Recorded live in partnership with HERizon. Part one, our associate team's session on ESG and decarbonisation, is up as a separate episode.
  4. 29 Sept 202620 minDecoded x HERizon: Sustainable Finance, ESG & DecarbonisationThis episode opens our Decoded x HERizon event, recorded live with our associate team teaching before we sat down with Cary Krosinsky. Vidyanshi breaks down ESG as a risk-assessment lens rather than a strategy, using Apple as a case study and digging into why ratings from agencies like MSCI and Sustainalytics rarely agree. She also covers the late 2025 backlash against sustainable funds and the rise of green hushing, where companies keep doing climate work while dropping the ESG language around it. Aly Muhammad Dadwani follows with a look at global climate finance. Roughly two trillion dollars flowed into clean energy last year, almost double oil, gas, and coal combined, driven mainly by falling costs rather than policy. He also gets into the regulatory retreat happening on both sides of the Atlantic, from American banks walking away from climate pledges to the EU exempting most companies from detailed reporting. Akshara closes it out with decarbonisation in practice, electrification, the shift to solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear, and why financial capital ultimately decides which technologies scale. She ties it back to Cary Krosinsky's book Transition Momentum, setting up the conversation in part two. Recorded live at our event in partnership with HERizon.
  5. 11 Sept 202626 minProf. Sandeep Juneja: IIT, Stanford, COVID Modeling, and AI in MathIn this episode of Decoded, Akshat Bhaskar and Amaira Akbar sit down with Professor Sandeep Juneja, Professor of Computer Science at Ashoka University and Director of the Safexpress Centre for Data, Learning and Decision Sciences, previously Senior Professor and Dean at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai. Sandeep walks us through his journey from a B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering at IIT Delhi to a Ph.D. in Operations Research at Stanford, and how that early grounding in applied probability shaped a career spent modeling uncertainty across finance, epidemiology, and climate. We go deep on his time at TIFR Mumbai during COVID, when his epidemiological models were used to track and predict the spread of the virus through one of the world's most densely populated cities. The conversation then turns to the present: what the recent wave of AI progress actually changes, where the hype outruns the substance, and the specific case of AI being used to attack the Navier-Stokes equations, one of the longest-standing unsolved problems in mathematics. A conversation that moves from IIT lecture halls to Stanford seminar rooms to the streets of Mumbai during a pandemic, and lands on the open question of what AI can and cannot yet do. Thank you to Anubhav Bhattacharjee, Vidyanshi Mittal, Akshara Durugkar, Soujanya Banik, and Mohammad Arif Abdullah for their help with research, outreach, and questions for this episode. clarity before consensus.
  6. 01 Sept 202645 minThe Mathematics of Everything: M. Ram Murty on Numbers, Mind, and MeaningIn this episode of Decoded, Akshat Bhaskar and Amaira Akbar sit down with Professor M. Ram Murty, holder of the Queen's Research Chair in Mathematics at Queen's University and one of the most respected names in number theory. Ram Murty walks us through a career spent studying the distribution of prime numbers, the deep and unexplained connection between mathematics and physical reality, and why he believes numbers might be the closest thing we have to a universal language. He talks about growing up on Star Trek, the lecture at MIT that pulled him toward philosophy, and why he still sets aside three hours a day just to think. We also get into artificial intelligence. Ram Murty has used it to help disprove conjectures, but he is direct about its limits and concerned about what constant digital distraction is doing to how students learn. The conversation moves between primes and the Gita, MIT lecture halls and Vedanta, without ever losing the thread. clarity before consensus.
  7. 10 Jun 202550 minFrom Wall Street to Startups: The Journey of Shiv Mohan DuttIn this special episode of Decoded, Akshat Bhaskar and Amaira Akbar explores the startup space with the incredibly accomplished Shiv Mohan Dutt : Princeton Math '11, Wall Street veteran, serial tech entrepreneur, and former Head Boy of Vasant Valley School (2007). They dive deep into Shiv's journey from the trading floors of Goldman Sachs to launching startups across the U.S. and India. From burning out in finance to building platforms like MeaVana and Yap Media, Shiv shares the real highs and lows of entrepreneurship. The conversation explores his journey from studying at Princeton and working on Wall Street to leaving high finance in pursuit of building something more meaningful. It dives into the realities of launching a startup, including the challenges that founders rarely talk about, and examines how the technology landscape is evolving across India and the West. The discussion also covers practical investing advice for Gen Z, a bold prediction for the future, and reflections on career, money, and making thoughtful life decisions. If you’ve ever wondered what it takes to leave a high-paying job to chase a dream, or just want a no-BS view into India’s booming tech world, this episode is for you.
  8. 26 Feb 202525 minGlobal Strategies & Financial Frontiers with Soumitra MookherjeeIn this episode of Decoded, Amaira Akbar and Akshat Bhaskar explore international marketing, financial planning, and global trade with Soumitra Mookherjee (Cambridge, UCL, and Professor @ ISBF), an industry veteran with deep expertise in strategy and economics. We discuss pivotal moments where marketing strategies had to be restructured due to cultural and regulatory challenges, the balance between global brand consistency and local adaptation, and the role of digital platforms in reshaping traditional marketing. On the financial front, we dive into critical investment decisions, market forecasting, and ESG integration, uncovering how mutual funds, sector analysis, and debt evaluations influence financial strategies. We also tackle export-import complexities, the impact of free trade agreements, and how AI and blockchain are transforming global trade efficiency. Through personal reflections, Soumitra shares insights into career-defining decisions, global economic trends, and lessons learned from decades in business. Join us for a conversation packed with real-world experiences, strategic insights, and financial wisdom, offering valuable takeaways for professionals navigating international markets.