Today, I walked past waiting patients to the quadrangle at the heart of AIIMS, where striking doctors prepare to go hungry for another night. There were candles all around, remnants of a quiet vigil from an hour ago. Little groups of students huddled everywhere, some on benches, others stretched out on red carpets in the centre of the ground. Around them, strung up everywhere, are banners.

There’s a joke painted on one. It’s about Manmohan Singh telling George W Bush of a plan to send Indians to the moon next year. “How many,” asks Bush. “100,” Singh replies. “25 OBCs, 20 SCs, 15 STs, 5 handicapped, 5 sports personnel, 2 Kashmiri migrants, 8 politicians, 18 generals and, if possible, 2 astronauts.”

Another poster reads: “I am leaving for the US. I was disowned by my own country.”

This is what it has come to?

Episode Notes:

• “The last time I checked India was a democratic country,” says Aamir Khan
• Film Fraternity stands united with Aamir; but, Shatrughan Sinha thinks otherwise.
• Democracy is dead - Arjun Singh has no answers to Karan Thapar’s well researched questions
• Chetan Bhagat of Five Point Someone fame advises the youth to protest creatively!!!
• While the Government sleeps over the reservations issue, Smile India Foundation has shown the way!

Yours Internetally,
Abhishek,

P.S : Intro & concluding music provided by Alms for Shanti

Listen Online (64 kbps) :/Episode lenght : 18 mins

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The latest feather in IndiCast’s cap is its coverage on BBC Radio. Chris Vallance from BBC Radio FiveLive has a show called Up all night : Pods and Blogs that aires late in the night and talks about blogs and Podcasts from around the world. We spoke about why we podcast and a few other things about IndiCast or “IndiaCast” as Chris likes to call it!! We got a good 5 mins airtime on BBC radio which is pretty good. Boley toh, BBC is a big deal.

This month has been very kind to Indicast. We were also covered by Outlook Magazine and here is the scanned article. This is just the magazine edition and I’ll post the complete interview (online edition) when the reporter, Rana Rosen, sends me the link.

Sometimes we both wonder about all the media attention that we have received. We had never thought that IndiCast would put us on TV, radio and magazines. So for now, life is good. Thanks a lot to all our listeners.

Here is IndiCast’s interview on BBC’s site (Our part begin nearly 30 minutes into the show) but to make things easier, you can use the player below.

The iTunes problem has been cleared and all the episodes are available for download once again.

Enjoy ,
Yours internetally,

Aditya Mhatre

Most of the people who are subscribed through Itunes might be facing problems downloading our episodes. This is to officially inform you of a “connection time-out” snag and that I am trying to figure it out with the Itunes support guys. Until then please listen to our episodes using the podcast player embedded in our website.

Yours Internetally,

Aditya Mhatre

One fine morning, the 19 year old Harvard sophomore, Kaavya Vishwanathan wrote a book, got rich, got famous, and then, got caught. While she seems to have been only “inspired” by one of her favourite authors and that the similarities between her book, ‘How Opal Mehta Got kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life’ and Sophie Kinsella’s ‘Can You Keep a Secret’ were only coincidental, we at indicast discuss the fine line between inspiration and plagiarism.

The NGO that we researched about this week is by the name of Apne Aap, an NGO which has taken up the daring initiative to end sex-trafficking in India.

It is a long weekend here in India with Saturday being Buddha Pournima. So, it is my first saturday off, atleast officially!!!

Episode Notes:

• Kaavya Vishwanathan does an encore. Well, you know what we mean!
• Plagiarism is a serious academic offense.
• Indicast’s Believe it or Not - Martin Luther King Jr is guilty of plagiarism
• Anu Malik:Music::______ : Writing. No Points for guessing - Shiv Khera!!!
• Sachin scores! This time off the field, gets richer by $40Million. The world waits for him to score; on the field!
• ‘Golf is a good walk spoilt!’, quipped Mark Twain, but, Tiger Woods earns a million for each one of his walks on the golf course.
• Apne aap, takes a bold shot at the oldest profession in hisory, Prostitution.

Yours Internetally,
Abhishek,

P.S : Intro & concluding music provided by Alms for Shanti

Listen Online (64 kbps) :/Episode lenght : 18 mins

Downloading episode :64kbps (size ~9 Mb),
Note: Right-click on the above MP3 link and chose “Save target as” to download the file on your computer.

You can also subscribe to Indicast using these channels (its free) to get automatic updates: