Palki Sharma RETURNS on TRS: Explosive Conversation | Elections, International Media & Geopolitics

I truly believe that you're the top of the world of Journalism in India it's very rare to see you in the guest seat I feel like I've been trapped this time a lot of the people who watch you watch you for your directness the famous speech and all that happened recently all these other the white people in the room did they come up and diss you after before and after it was not a nice feeling it was borderline hostile and The most disheartening part of it was that the people maligning India are your fellow Indians

you are negatively affecting the soft power of your own motherland when you dis India on a global stage when you block highways in India then it's supposed to be a protest For A rightous Cause but when you block highways in Canada police will come and beat you up and that should be okay because you are affecting Law and Order how do these double standards go I have To ask you about your experience in Israel my son before saying bye to me he said are you going to get bombed there are two sets of people who

enter a country journalists and soldiers what are your Israeli friends saying about the conflict now they want nanahu to go they want their people to be brought back any long-term predictions for the presidential elections the us is going to have an old white man as their president it's a horrible choice that They have why of course we spoke about geopolitics in detail during this episode but it was also an attempt of mine to bring out a very human very real side of Sharma on this podcast I believe that you'll get to know her much more

deeply than you do already even if you watch her every day on the internet sharing all that knowledge sharing all that data sharing all those extremely powerful opinions on the world of geopolitics she's the Managing editor at first post but today you're going to see a very real very human side of the icon iic paly Sharma on [Music] TRS welcome to TRS once again py Sharma thank you so much for having me here and lovely to see you I'm so happy that uh I'm seeing you again because the last time you were here I didn't

know you H personally and as I told you in that room a waiting room that I was deeply Intimidated but I had to put on a brave front to speak to the P Sharma and I feel like over this last year I've had some fun conversations with you so now I know you're a normal human intimidated is a word that you'll have to explain now you you do you not think that your Public Image is a little intimidating you know I've been told this a few times um I don't know why though and uh I

think I'm a nice person I'm not Intimidating maybe I'm shy I think that comes across as um I don't know my angle for you being intimidating was the depth of the knowledge you have in terms of as a podcast I got intimidated uh because of the possibility that I may not be able to do Justice to the depth of your knowledge that was the I will try to take it as a compliment and I hope this one's more like relaxing for you this conversation it it already is because I feel the ice Has broken over

this last one year uh but also I think people assume that you are always thinking and speaking geopolitics because you're the face of India from a geopolitical narrative perspective and you don't just become that face of India easily but that's not true right you're not always of course to borrow your term I am a normal human being I do other things what do you do for fun I read U okay I cook I try to paint it doesn't Come out so great but I like it sometimes yes are you aware of the international fan following

you have I wouldn't say fan following but our viewership is quite good and I'm always grateful you don't look at it as a fan following no I think uh when you say the things that matter to people they watch you um fans I don't know are I think we have a Discerning audience when we make sense uh they uh Appreciate it when we do not make sense to them or they disagree with with our point they question it I think that's a healthy relationship okay I'm going to say something that's going to make you a

little bit awkward but it's a very heartfelt sentence I truly believe that you're the top of the world of Journalism in India you're you're so much at the top that you're the face of it for people outside of India but I think for you you're just doing your job I'm just doing my job okay yeah but thank you so much for saying that very kind of you you don't feel that what I said is true I don't know how do you measure what is um also not not many people are doing what I'm doing I

guess um that could explain the reach yes we have uh a wider Global reach compared to some of our peers because not many people are doing international news in India fair but also the way you do it has this Emotion of bravery and um directness associated with it that's what a lot of social media users pick up on for sure because a lot of Clips get made because of your work that's what spreads out on social media and I truly believe that social media is a massive part of modern day media careers you have to

crack that algorithm to to reach that Pinnacle of relevance according to me and that may be my own social media bias because I'm a Creator myself but um No other Indian journalist comes up as much as you on algorithms or also in conversations with people like Balaji shasan that I've had on the show you know or any of The geopolitical Observers the diplomats everyone speaks about you so Kudos yes thank you but I I should say here that when we do our stories when we pick our stories when we write our stuff we are not

thinking algorithms we are thinking stories I wouldn't even say content we are Thinking only stories um yes we are trying to bring a fresh perspective and you mentioned about India but I would say that so for instance Africa Africa is a very big market for us because we get a lot of response from Africa because we're looking at Africa from a completely different point of view you know we're not seeing it as an exotic land first of all we're not seeing it as a country it's a continent there are 54 Countries we tend to Bunch

it all together and think of it as a monolith it is not every country has different ethnicities different stories different issues and you know um in international press it all sort of gets bundled as as one problem riddled land you know you only look at coups and wars and and floods and famines uh but we try to do other things we looking at how Netflix is for instance focusing on Africa because There a young population that is going to be the next big Workforce that is going to be the next big market so I think

that is what is connecting us to a lot of people because we are looking at the other side I mean every story has many many you know facets okay the thing is I'm talking to a senior journalist here and you have studied Wars geopolitical conflict geopolitical situation for decades I want to know what you feel about war borders as well As human conflict in general like how is it from your eyes I think borders give our world a structure you can't have a borderless world if you're going to if you're going to administer forget countries

I'm saying within countries you have States within states you have districts within districts you have Villages and they're all marked by borders the rules are different but for the for the ease of administration you need structures in place so that you can Assign duties to specific individuals who can take care of their uh their role um Wars happen because of uh political Ambitions of of people who are in power or when one side thinks that they've been wronged and they fight back wars happened because of many reasons um I'm not I'm not sure borders per

se trigger Wars I think um for instance in in the case of our Northern neighbor China their refusal to Accept borders their refusal to um even respect what the other side is bringing to the table is what is leading to a clash or a conflict right so I think um borders so we we've made the borders okay but we have to respect them and in life also not just in politics um maybe it's a bit of an artsy opinion that I had and I felt like reading sapiens changed my viewpoint on the world because in

truth from a very human lens we're still Hunter gatherers in our head and uh like have you you've read s r did it have any effect on you it was a good book did it change how you look at journalism at all you can say no I read very long back I'm not sure uh and I read so much I think uh everything that I read uh informs my opinion and shapes my perspective um I'm not sure I would be able to pinpoint what sapiens did for me for me it was a book that really

shifted how I looked at the world Because my job is to talk to a lot of people and they say that if you want to talk to a lot lot of people you truly only have to speak to one person on a very deep level and then that message can be broadcasted it's it's a it's a trick for public speaking as well which is why personally for me sapiens was very important the question I have for you is what are those like three or four books that you've read in your life that actually shifted the

direction of the Railway tracks in terms of how you look at the world or how you look at your own job or life it's very hard for somebody who's who's reading all the time and I've been reading for for as long as I can remember to say pick three or four books uh that's why the right person to answer um I think one of the books that has profoundly impacted my understanding of life is the Mahabharat it's a it's magical it has so many it has a very complex plot and there are stories within stories

and there are characters with many layers and there's no perfect right or wrong there's so much going on there and there's and every time you go back to and you reading a part of it or a story from it you take out a little more from from that story so that is one is there a version of it that youd recommend to people especially International viewers who've not heard of it they should read the Mahabharat we read Shakespeare by Ma the Mahabharat by who do you have a book in mind no sorry okay I'd recommend

the Amar chatra Kata comic books to get the story and then to get the essence amiga's book on the Mahabharat but any moving on next H you okay one of my I don't know one of the authors that I read so I'll tell you about my reading phases and then go for It I um in middle school I was reading a lot of classical literature you Thomas Hardy Jane Austin um and the you know Hardy Boys and stuff that you grow up reading you know then there was a time when I was reading a lot

of and Rand and I thought it was groundbreaking some of that stuff on capitalism and you know Atlas Shrugged and the Fountain Head fantastic books um then I started reading non-fiction And I was when I started I felt that the world is so big that I pick up one thread and I lose another and I'm because I'm not you know in school I did not study history or in college uh but as I delved into books I realized that I'm really enjoying what is it that is driving our world and how people are taking lessons

from history and so I I started reading say about Europe or about West Asia or you know all sorts of uh books on Geopolitics and history um there was a phase when I read a lot of murakami who remains one of my favorite writers as well um yeah Gone With the Wind I thought was I mean I read it so long so long ago so so the thing is that I'm now reading with my children and uh I'm discovering things that I may not have noticed then like we just read um The Hitchhiker's gu Guide

to the Galaxy and It was good fun you know all three of us reading together so I'm not sure I can pick one book or four books that may have changed my perspective on anything but I think uh uh everything that I've read has gone into shaping my world viiew creating the P Sharma you make it sound like it's something it is something ma'am like the thing is that's your you are making me awkward you said you're sorry sorry about that but I got to do it today oh Okay it's very rare to see you

in the guest seat right how do you feel sitting in the guest seat I feel like I've been trapped this time but well done um yeah okay I'm liking this a lot more than our last conversation already I'm glad the vibe is different yeah uh you said something interesting while you were talking about the books you said uh that you understood what really drives our world forward right say something Along those lines just now what really drives our world forward is it the human need for growth is it human ego is it um the need

for power and money or is it something else I would like to believe it's the pursuit of power and happiness that we Chase either power or happiness or what we think is going to make us happy some people think that it's money some people think that it's uh um it's land some people think that it's more power um some of us are just Happy having a two-bedroom flat and a basic car and some of us want a lot more than that and that is what drives the world ambition desire um sometimes it makes us do

things which are not right but I guess most people are law-abiding in that that is what keeps the balance in our world so I would like to have a more positive U opinion on this do you have a positive opinion on where the geopolitical situation of the world is currently so We have wars obviously we have two big Wars happening and more than 30 other conflicts that nobody talks about because uh I mean there are 8 million people displaced in Sudan it's nobody's baby so no one is bothered but there's a lot of billions of

dollars of aid for for Israel and and Ukraine I guess that's also politics so yes but uh but we are clearly in a phase where uh it is a it is a multi-polar world it is not just the US it is not just Russia it's Not just China and I think more and more countries have figured out that they can stand up for themselves and they don't necessarily have to do what the big powers are telling them to that is one thing the second thing and that's it's a very interesting concept that I read about

power that you know back in the day um two kingdoms were at war or two nation states were at War so the power rested with the state or the ruler but in this information Age what we've seen is power diffusion so power rests with non-state actors as well it could be a terrorist group they too wield power it could be an NGO it could be a civil society movement it could be a tech company a tech company absolutely so a state may be working with you but an NGO may be attacking you and your legitimacy

you know by coming up with Ratings press Freedom religious freedom so on and so forth so I think increasingly governments we spend a lot on our military but we are not looking at these other forces of power that are at play and that are also shaping how the world looks at us and how we look at ourselves versus America or China which actually focus on these factors I'm not sure China has been able to do it very successfully they've spent a lot of Money yes with you know the you could say it's soft power so

China soft power is not so great because No One Believes what they're saying they spent a lot of money on confucious institutes and you know uh it didn't sort of work out the way they thought it would the US has done way better because the world is still thinking of that as the ideal way of life you know the their value system their uh their society is still it is not ideal but but it's it's seen as such So yeah so they've been able to successfully wield soft power but if you look at their expenditure

again on Military versus all of this it's a fraction uh India has done quite okay you know we've we've promoted yoga and Aur and so on but if you look at the largest scheme of things we are way behind um and and it's very important to talk about this now because because these non-state players are basically attacking your legitimacy And I don't know if you've read Joseph NY who's written about soft power a lot he says legitimacy is a power reality in our world world you know let's break that down a little bit this the

first time hearing a geopolitical themed podcast guest saying that okay it's always conversations about hard power yeah uh and I'm yet to be convinced that soft power plays that significant role though some would argue that media is a part of soft power Absolutely go for it so okay so I'll take it from where I left about legitimacy right um when someone is questioning your legitimacy as a democracy when they're questioning whether Now you won the election but even that win is being questioned they're saying that your voters did not make an informed choice so that

is taking away from your uh for want of a better word again Legitimacy how are you going to secure it I think the word you're looking for is what what's that okay it's a Hindi word which basically means street cred oh right yeah okay I didn't know this so I've learned something too go go on so no so the the point is that that you have to build resources to secure it and it comes at a cost and we in India I think are not ready to bear that Cost and you mentioned media media is

very much a part of it you know every year they come up with press Freedom index we are 189 or somewhere what about our press presence index where are we in the global space we're not there and we are uh it's not for want of Talent OR resources we are a very talented country we have resources I think what we lack is vision and in principle everyone agrees with the idea of having a global media Presence but you know the joke is that I I'll switch to for this go for it that wow so so

yeah that's where we are at LED journalism joke but nice uh press presence index it means how um widespread are your news portals the news portals that come out of India on a global scale yes it's just faly Sharma right now I wouldn't say that but I think we are we are nowhere in the picture compared to the rest of the world could you give an Example other than Al jazer BBC BBC RT CNN um France 24 channel news Asia some big players some not so big players but they're there and and I'm only talking

about Sorry video uh Washington Post writes anything we are looking at it New York Times writes anything we looking at it why aren't those iens looking at our stuff because we are not doing it in that way you're saying that the flaw is that we don't have a vision with what we're doing in the long term yeah what's The vision you have I think we have to build a a credible and impactful Global media presence we have to build that voice um you are you you said that you think that military power is important an

and so I'll give you an example from his from recent history so in 2008 uh Russia invaded or attacked Georgia took away two provinces and declared that they they're independent states now the World did not recognize them and Russia kept saying that we've done the same that the West did with Kosovo which also did not have un backing but that was seen as a legitimate move when Russia goes into Ukraine it is called the Russian invasion when the US goes into Iraq it is called a global war on terrorism how does that work because the

American Media has worked over time to tell the world that this is for the global Good right that is what soft power that is what media presence gives a country if you don't have it your intentions will be questioned and your reach will always be limited and let me add here when we talk about wars you know in today's Information Age battlefields are not actually Fields anymore they're here in the mind right there's a battle of ideas Donald rums felt famously I think it was him or someone else who said that that and he said

this for the US which Is doing so much already that that in the global Battle of ideas we are sitting on the side lines I think that's also true for India media narratives Shape Up human viewpoints that is a conclusive statement for what you said Med media NST play a role in how we perceive the world yes but the truth is what's happening in the ground and what's happening in each individual human's Head and there's no way you'll be able to find out the second you'll never know exactly what's happening in every single human's head

in the world you don't have to know isn't that what soft power no you soft power So Soft power is is attraction hard power is might might you know so your economy even your technology uh military you can use it as a coercive Force but you don't have to force anyone to watch Hollywood movies or Bollywood Movies for that matter that is your pull that is your attraction how sexy you are soft power as a country I wouldn't use the word but yeah yeah it's basically how sexy is your country on a global scale and

your culture like Korea South Korea yeah K-pop they've spent so much money on K-POP South Korea good example of a country where soft power significantly outweighs hard power I don't know about you don't have to out it has to be so I'll tell you one more thing soft Power Plus hard power is said to be smart power and Country should aim for smart power you can't have one without the other so you have to have a mix of that that is one and second Bollywood is our soft power but are you being able to convert

that power into some favorable outcome better perception of India in an international viewer's head yeah okay so we are so Bollywood is Presenting us as a fun loving singing dancing Society but what is the conversion so Hollywood is making endless movies about the Iraq war or the Afghanistan war and showing how their troops are so courageous and how when aliens attack the world then it's the American forces that go and fight them they're building a narrative constantly building a narrative are we being able to build a narrative and I'm not saying narrative Has to be

lies it has to be rooted in some truth obviously people will not buy lies but it has to shape the world's opinion of you and your opinion of yourself both are equally important because of what like why why should it shape why should the world have a good opinion of you what does it lead to um it leads to a lot of things so if you say that India is a country which is not safe uh too much Red tapism very hard to do business how will an investor look at India because big decisions are

made by human beings at the end of the day and who have a perception and perception matters gotcha so where you are actually wrong you should fix that problem but where your perception is based in someone else's Prejudice or a a situation that is not true anymore maybe back in the day India had snake Charmers but we are not a land of snake Charmers we are we are a land Of coders now you know we yesterday we did a report on how Indian companies have the highest AI adoption rate this is the new India so

the world should see it as it is uh I sense that changing or maybe that's just an optimistic Viewpoint again this could totally be a bias and please correct me if you disagree uh I truly believe that individual content creators and account you one on many levels as well okay because you've cracked the Social media algorithms uh are going to become the New Media companies and it's not a belief that I hold alone a lot of the people I end up meeting at business conferences and all also believe this in fact that thought entered my

head through my interactions with the world now as my career moves forward as long as I stay out of trouble I think I have more influence or my voice has a larger stage so what I truly want to tell the World as a human being is coming out and I I'd argue that maybe you're also doing the same because your Fame levels on an international scale are also increasing very steadily and very quickly according to me so you're getting a larger stage you're reaching out to more International consumers you're actually leading the charge from the

front the same what all this that we spoke about you're changing the perception of India this is becoming A py Sharma celebration podcast fantastic I'm liking it so there are okay you've you've you've touched on so many things individuals obviously matter that individuals are Central to what we do in storytelling in cont creation whatever you call it it's it's about people from People to People okay um and there are I might forget so there are two parts to this um why individuals matter let me first address That someone spoke about the Paradox of Plenty there's

an explosion of content in our world today there is so much going around so when information or content is plentyful what becomes scarce is attention right people are overwhelmed with what they see so they don't know what to focus on so they will turn to queue givers people who give them a queue it could be editors it could be influencers it could be thought leaders Who are basically telling them this is important focus on this and the rest is clutter or background noise and these are people whove built credibility so if you have credibility people

will come to you to listen to your point of view and to focus on things that you say are important that is why individuals have that attraction right that is one part the Second part will they be media companies how can individuals scale it individuals with a vision and with potential should ideally create institutions that Outlast them that embi their ethos their ideas their vision and that is translated into their teams so ideally we should have 10 more of you and many more people doing what I'm doing because we are not here forever and and

that is what all of us should aim For in my content creation Journey I've known this and I've tried doing this M but it doesn't work as effectively as one face and one voice and one uh for lack of better word icon putting out uh his or her opinions I in the modern day I feel people listen a lot more to human beings because of a trust Factor then institutions and I say this while I agree with you that something should Outlast I I think I think when we have different people we we'll all find

our Tribe right I have have a lot of very very bright colleagues who are doing their own thing and uh I've spent many years doing what I'm doing so I found an audience that connects with me and I am of a very firm Bel and when you know when we look at numbers and sometimes they're not as good and sometimes they are good you have to you have to look at the big picture and you have to keep doing the thing that you believe in you know Um what you're doing today had you done it

say in 2010 I don't know if you would have found takers you know this is an idea whose time has come now and it has clicked so and and this idea will not always be relevant people evolve content evolves so I think it's important to create institutions it may not uh appear successful now but someone has to be at it for a product to be ready say 5 years down the line when do you ratings Fall I can't I can't visualize that reality when we talk about women's issues really yes and they fall all the

time and this is it's one of my pet peeves I mean it it distresses me no end because men mostly follow geopolitics is that the reason not just geopolitics and that is again the sad part and and through your very wide audience I want to ask this question to everyone who's watching us please help me understand what are women Watching um typically and this is not limited to India um somewhere in the range of 80% of the news audience is male what yes and that is unfortunate so we are trying to do stories and we

are constantly debating so we trying to do pay parity uh we are talking about abortion not because you know we started off because I feel very strongly about these things and I think they should be done uh but then I also ask myself that Wouldn't women be interested in investment and wars and politics and elections because it impacts their lives too would they only be interested in stories about domestic violence and um pay parity and and so on ideally they should be interested in so yeah that's a problem but uh so the men don't like

it and the women and I'm not sure they're watching it but we doing the stories because we think we should do the stories so yesterday after a lot of Debate again we did something on how Nepal is prioritizing mental health of new mothers nobody likes stories like these viewership drops are we can see it in the life but we do it because we do it one for the dinner table one for the soul one for the soul yeah yeah what do women watch I don't know if I wish I knew as a as a as

a female human what do you think and and why is it happening this way so I've met A lot of in my interactions but you know you should not universalize your experience uh maybe they say this to me because they're talking to me but they say that they've watched stories I I meet a lot of women including students uh in colleges uh professionals uh on the flight today you know uh who say we watch you it's very inspiring and so on and so forth and I don't usually have enough time to and I don't want

to sort of U surprise them by Asking them questions about what specifically did you watch and what did you like and why didn't you watch this but I'm very curious and I would want to know and um I think uh and it's important for the women also because if you are an active audience then the business takes you seriously and then you get your voice gets represented so actively make an effort to follow the news ideally everyone Should watch the news uh because it affects your life and it is telling you what's happening in your

world maybe we are not doing it in a convincing way so we are trying to reinvent our uh approach all the time to see where we'll find the right mix okay uh let's do the whole P Sharma celebration thing again all right yes uh in my eyes and based on what I hear around me uh a lot of the people who Watch you watch you for your directness you're very direct you're very like very upfront uh that's one of your identities in the world including the famous speech and all that happened recently my first thought

when I was watching that speech was all these other white people in the room did they come up and dissue after like what happened once the cameras went off before and after on your face so okay first of all let me say that this speech is from last year last Summer and I have been into public speaking for a very long time I have been on the stage I've been a journalist I've been an anchor I can do it but on that day at Oxford University I felt pressure and tension first time in your career

not I wouldn't say the first time because you've been in typical situations but it should not have been a tense moment it was a debate in a college Campus the vibe was bad it was borderline hostile and um it was not a nice feeling because I felt that that the audience uh had very strong preconceived notions about India and when people against the motion uh exaggerated India's problems or made completely baseless remarks you know some of them actually said that I'm speaking here you should listen to all the Speeches I'm speaking here at at a

risk uh and my family is worried that when I land in India I will be arrested for saying what I'm saying it's been a year who's been arrested and when they said these things there were claps and tears and then here I am giving data and facts on India's progress and there is pindrop silence and the most disheartening part of it was that that the people maligning India are your fellow Indians who are standing I you don't have to agree with everything that's happening in your country you know within a family you have disputes you

debate you disagree but are you going to go to a foreign University and um and some of these people are members of parliament they are associated with political parties it's quite sad you know and I I figured that day that by the way we lost the Debate uh but if you have to one if you have to win a debate there in in such a setting or if you have to find um people who will cheer you you will have to take an anti-india line you will have to say bad things about your country if

anyone is extremely Pro Modi or extremely anti-modi I always look at that situation with a bit of hm social media algorithms at play yeah and you know in settings like these you basically told that if you're Not saying something anti I wouldn't even say Modi your country then you're not a true journalist to be a true journalist you have to diss India H how does that work cuz as of now the Western block is the most powerful from a soft power perspective what we spoke about a little earlier they are they control the narrative yes

I mean I've wondered the same thing uh the Whole vas speech was controversial and for some reason I'm also a poster boy of being very very Pro BJP and pro Modi my angle on human beings and this is aftering 700 podcasts is that if you have very very strong opinions about something then are you even ready for a conversation uh and my other angle is that no matter what your opinions are no matter how anti-bjp or anti Modi you are don't diss India on a global stage it's The equivalent of scoring an own goal in

football or like a purpose misfield in cricket which shouldn't happen I think that's your National Duty that's how I look at um my role as an Indian on a world stage I mean see yeah You could argue that it was a debate at the end of the day and they had to present their side but there's a way to do it and uh I would say that every Indian outside of India is India's brand ambassador yeah right So you can't you can't make baseless claims you are negatively affecting the soft power of your own motherland

when you dis India on a global stage at least at least talk about it in a more nuanced manner than blindly saying oh I'm going to get arrested for what I'm saying this that I think it stems from something else also it stems from the fact that for whatever you do and this is Um this is the again the battlefield here and the Independence that we got in 1947 versus the Independence that some of our uh fellow citizens are still seeking mentally from col Powers you know you still need validation for your systems from the

West you still need them to say that yes this is right and this is wrong this is a perfect democracy this is not a perfect democracy um this is freedom of speech And this is not freedom of speech um I've been saying this for many days now on American campuses on European campuses there have been protests you should look at the pictures have you seen the pictures these are cops in full military riot gear cracking down on students who've set up tents um in Europe they actually had a bulldozer like a Bulldozer trying to break

up a protest had this happened in Delhi or Dhaka there would have been endless lectures on how these governments are Draconian they're not respecting poor students's freedom of speech but when it happens in Europe and I'm not supporting the protesters I mean they have to know where their limits are but that is true for all protesters everywhere you can protest only within what your law permits when you block Highways in India then it's supposed to be a a protest for a righteous cause but when you block highways in Canada police will come and beat you

up and that should be okay because you are affecting Law and Order how do these double standards work because the West is telling us what is right and what is wrong and some people here believe that that is the way it should be that is what I'm Challenging I have to ask you about your experience in Israel from a very human perspective because I remember when we were trying to schedule this particular episode we got to know that you're in Israel and my first thought was wow that's insanely Brave um can you take us through

like your human perspective from the time you got there till like time you left everything you saw uh Step by step so I'll start from when the attack happened it was a Saturday yeah right and um I remember distinctly we just had lunch and um I settled with my book and then you know what we do every time we start something we look at our phone and I saw it was trending and then I saw the videos and I thought they're fake because how is this even possible um then I called office and I was

told that yes something like this Has happened so I said let's call the team we should track it and we should do Vantage tonight and you know the thing about being in a newsroom when news is developing is that it's a very different atmosphere because information is pouring in from all sides and people are typing and saying something and you you're constantly updated no matter what you're doing and it's a very charged environment and the more we Learn the more disbelief I remember feeling that how is it possible because Israel is a country I've been

to in the past and I've seen a a much happier side of Israel and so around 4:00 I think I called the embassy um and I said that how can I get there and they said we are still figuring it out but by evening to their Credit I heard from them that we are opening in the morning Sunday morning um to to give visas to those who want to go and when we landed there at 8:00 a.m. on Sunday we saw so many people from the Indian press and the same evening we were on a

flight and I remember talking to my children and my daughter was very upset and my son before like before saying bye to me he said are you going to get Bombed so I said no so he said are you 100% sure I said yes he said then go have fun but I think that's his way of trying to not sound too serious but also tell me that but yeah anyway so we land there and uh that's the thing I noticed on the flight that while everyone else is leaving the country and I've seen it in

more than one war there are two sets of people who enter a country journalists and soldiers everyone else is leaving the difference is that Soldiers are trained and equipped and we are just chasing stories and at the airport we heard the first siren the benorian airport had come under they fac some sort of fire and we all were made to run into a shelter and that's a very very hard uh entry into a a war zone and there was there were three of us and it was uh quite shocking uh obviously um was there any

fear inside you when you were on your way There no you just sure of a little uh yeah I was very sure that I have to go and do this and um I think more than that I was very sure in Israel's ability to make sure that this will end quickly that I don't know I maybe because that's the I have a lot of friends there that's the side of Israel that I'd seen it hasn't turned out that way and it's it's become very very chaotic taken unfortunate now but I Remember uh like we having

breakfast in the morning and then you hear a thud and something has fallen and you're trying to go into the areas where uh the attacks happen and the the Hamas guys came in and and it it was not you know you're through a friend we were trying to meet somebody whose uh sister was taken hostage and they said you can come we'll talk to you and while we are on our way they call us and say no actually we're not in A position to talk because it's it's a tough you know it's just happened like

a day before so you saw a lot of raw human emotion and at that time you're not really processing um I remember one of the shows we did was from um from a part of Jerusalem which is which has more Arabs and uh you would see a lot of if you see the international frames you'll see the alaka mosque in the background and um it's a it's a very nice TV Friendly frame but that that area is a little tense um and we saw a lot of young men who were offering their prayers and then

standing and listening to what has being said by you by everyone uh and we had a much smaller crew obviously just me and two other people um and we I think it was there or somewhere we did a story on how hamash should be declared a terrorist group and so on and and it was our driver got very worked up and They said that you have to rap and leave because you don't know it was very volatile and at that point you're just thinking from one story to the next and getting your show done and

um then there was a day when you know you had this alert system where you knew when missiles are falling and it it went red and people said that uh the hisbah has entered it was it turned out to be a false alert and there was some some glitch in the alarm system but when it Happened and then the flight started getting cancelled so even the people I knew in Israel said that take the first flight out go if the hisbah enters then it's going to be a very long-drawn War we don't know what's going

to happen the last time it happened in 2006 we were all basically we spent a couple of months underground and don't stay here and it was very so you are managing your family that is also trying to be Supportive but also worried you are trying to deliver your best it's very easy for people who sit here and say what did you do Indian journalists went they just stood in one place did a PTC did a show this is not journalism look at what we have in terms of resources compared to what again the Western press

had and look at what we've been able to deliver and I've seen I will not name names but there are reporters from India who were sent there who did not have Money for a cab and they were hitchhiking with some milk delivery van and just to go to a place why is that guy doing it because he's passionate about the story so no combat training or or training for reporting in a conflict Zone not completely inappropriate gear Just For the Love of what you do so I think we should cut some slack to a lot

of and I'm not counting myself there Because I'm much better um supported by my organization but there are a lot of people who who are just out on the out on a limb trying to cover a war because they want to cover a war so that's my takea away from and and it it just you know when a week later when you're sitting in your office and typing something and somebody drops something in on the same floor it unsettles you because you forget that You are in Delhi and not in Tel Aviv what is a

ball bomb feel like when it bursts near you I've not seen an explosion but I've seen missiles um you know their systems are very strong but you've you know you're one moment you're doing a PTC and then there's a siren and you're told to run and everyone uh I forget the name of the village where we were uh but when the siren went off we tried to sit under a pomogranate tree And the people inside the house started calling saying come inside they did not know us and everyone has like a shelter so it's a

it's a different world you know where you're always telling your children that that you may have to spend the night in the shelter it's not easy um it's it's a tough existence what do you learn about human beings after being in a water own land You need a lot of grit to survive and we take our lives for granted um and uh I've always always uh and I'm not saying this for the current Israeli leadership that is making some decisions just for the purpose of staying on in power I'm speaking about the people I know

the people I've interacted with over the years they're very very strong and they have survived despite everything I mean this is a country that no one gave a chance Um 30 years back their biggest export was oranges now they are the startup capital of the world they're doing so much they are they have so much Enterprise um it's it's you can learn a lot from from what they've been able to accomplish you know just speaking about Israel is such a polarizing um thing terms of no matter what you say one side of the audiences is

is going to get pissed off people have very strong opinions on this Israel Palestine thing um do you have to calculate your words when delivering them on a podcast I just did I said I'm not speaking for the leadership I'm speaking for the people because because you cannot Overlook the fact that on the other side uh and I have by the way lived I have spent time in ramala as well I've seen that side as well people per say are not a problem it is the leaders who have certain expectations and who use people As

as Canon fodder right the people of Gaza are suffering more than 30,000 civilian deaths is a very big number there is bound to be anger and there is bound to be a push back these are human lives we're talking about and it is very unfortunate it should not have gone on like this and what the world has no strategy what are the Americans doing until recently they were giving dropping Aid packets on Gaza And giving weapons to the Israelis you fire these weapons then these guys will run and then we'll give them Aid it makes

no sense right it's geopolitical strategy along with great PR I don't think the pr is working I think it's because of the election because because in the US for for Joe Biden's party uh the Muslim American voters are very very big uh and the Liberal youth uh they are big supporters of Biden and that number is shrinking because of this support to Israel in the Gaza War so there's a lot of political calculations at play but I'm saying that it's not a it's not a black and white equation it's not possible to say that that

this side is right or that side it's it's a very long drawn conflict but that does not mean that cooler head should not Prevail And um there has to be you you can't keep fighting endlessly right you have to you have to find a way to resolve this you know you spoke about the taxi driver who got up upset with you and uh the guys who were standing around you in Jerusalem who were gauging what you were saying on the news did their opinions affect your opinion on the matter no I said what I had

to say I knew where they were coming from and it was I'm talking about the first week after the attack so The sentiment was very different from what it is right now at that point uh Israel was clearly the victim of an unprovoked attack and a very heinous one at that so I did not use any of these qualifiers now I see that it should not have gone this far there should have been what is the strategy you can't carry on Urban Warfare like that bomb and then send your soldiers on the ground and just

indiscriminately kill that's not how it Works unfortunately I don't have a solution if someone were to ask me what is going to work I don't know what are your Israeli friends saying about the conflict now they want Netanyahu to go that's the general sentiment that is the general sentiment he is not a popular leader they want their people to be brought back there are so many hostages still in Gaza and when every bomb that Israel drops there puts them at Risk and you know you cannot erase a group you cannot these are people we're talking

about you know so you have to find a way to engage and it's not going to be easy but but where do you draw the line and what is your I think in every every war in every conflict you have to figure out what is what is the goal what are you trying to achieve what Is Russia trying to achieve is it Ukrainian land or is it Ukraine's capitulation and agreement that they will not join NATO what is Israel looking to achieve eradication of Hamas seems like a very Broad and honestly unattainable goal because you

may kill the Hamas leaders but you will radicalize so many more who may call themselves something else so it's not ending all people in Palestine or the Palestinian territory should not be punished for the horror that Hamas perpetrated so there's no way to predict geopolitical scenarios when they are this tense you can't predict where they're going but I'm asking the student of history and knew this if history truly repeats itself do you have any guesses about where it's going or how a solution can be found or not at all no a solution is always going

to be found through a Conversation after the Yom kipur War there was a solution you know there was a talk right and both sides came to the talking table so a solution has to be found the only thing is that what makes it tricky okay let me come out of that that let me look at the other side of this India versus China what 20 rounds of talks since the galwan Clash we are willing to talk but the other side is not sincere In that conversation they're coming to the talking table but they're not doing

anything what do you do then that's a different kind of impass so I think there's no one-size fits-all solution you have to see what kind of a customer you're dealing with and you have to act accordingly in this case maybe um had they co-opted some of the you know the a lot of things are going good For Israel after the Abraham Accords Arab Powers giving them recognition the Saudis were very close to or were working on on you know recognizing uh Israel and establishing some sort of a diplomatic relationship and and right after the attack

there was a lot of anger against the Hamas leadership including from they may not have it publicly but but you saw that that there was pressure Uh in hindsight a more astute leader would have capitalized on that and worked with them but here there was there was this urge to show that that we can use brute force there was an intelligence failure and to overcompensate for that uh you use brute force and you don't know where to draw the line how far are you going to do go first you say North Gaza then you say

okay you can move to the south then people went South now they're attacking Rafa it's a it's a city where they have what 1.4 million Palestinians where will they go who is going to take them nobody wants them this is not a solution what was the most horrific thing or the most troubling thing in your whole tenure in Israel that you experienced I wouldn't say horrific but the most poignant moment was when a friend of Mine called me for a Shabbat dinner whose uh husband uh went to fight whose son went to fight whose uh

very old mother had to leave her home because that was the area that was tense and came to stay with her and um you know in the day there going to funerals in the evening they're looking at the news just the again the strength of these People moved me that in the middle of all of this they are following customs and they are trying to take it one day at a time when their whole world seems to have collapsed around them it was very moving ah you briefly brought up the India China situation uh there's

two ways of approaching this topic I can get into specifics and ask you specific questions Or I can ask you the more macro style of things because I anticipate that there's a lot of people watching this podcast who don't follow the news as well uh you've reported on China for a long time now so it's a very macro question but what is the emotion generally speaking that Chinese people have towards Xi Jinping right now and and him as a Leader uh in many ways he is the big boss right now in China fair to say

he's the only boss right decision maker chairman of all things that's that's what they call him he heads every body worth heading equivalent of a Chinese Putin yeah okay uh Xi Jinping what's your reading of his psychology and how he's looking at ties with India um okay so um I don't know how much of Chinese history you've uh read or the one of the biggest fears of the Communist Party in the last century was to not go the way Soviet Russia did Communist Regime that imploded right so they decided uh ma did whatever he did

the cultural revolution and the crazy experiments that he did which made The Chinese miserable but nobody could question it then came I'm talking about broad Den shopping um and he uh he gave the slogan um hide your strength and bide your time do your work basically don't upset the apple cart just focus on what you have at hand and work on the economy and China saw a lot of progress in that period um then in the first 10 years of this century The Chinese States it was the L decade they could not do as much

as they wanted to so this is the China that we've seen and the Chinese kept telling the world that we are going to have a peaceful rise we will not upset anyone um then comes Shi Jinping who starts a Crackdown on corruption and puts millions of people in jail or out of work in the name of fighting graft including top people in the military and That Crackdown still goes on you know they call it the Tigers and flies so he says that he will he will go after the big players the Tigers and he will

SWAT the Flies the smaller local level corrupt guys but the Chinese regime and this is not limited to Shi Jinping has always been worried about people demanding their political rights so it is not a very commonly known fact that China's expenditure on internal security is more Than their expenditure on external uh security or military forces that is how much money they they are scared of protests that is why the the firewall that is why the the tight curbs on what information goes to people in in the age of the Internet it's it's not easy to

always uh stop everything the tight curbs on psychology yeah so that um that is one challenge for him The Second Challenge is the debt bubble uh local governments grew because they took a lot of debt that debt became unsustainable uh the property Market that that bubble has burst some very big players have gone under ever Grand Country Garden others they've struggled there are people who put their life savings into homes did not get the homes the money is nowhere to be found the Builder is gone bust um there there is a lot of anger There

then the banks cannot take any more loans China's debt is unsustainable so is America's but this is a this is a more peculiar case so one reading is that and while all of this is happening and there's a lot of internal chaos this guy goes around poking everyone Philippines Vietnam India us Japan Australia picking fights with everyone left right and Center they have a lot of money they Have a they have the biggest Navy in the world they have a they have a big military infrastructure but it's an untested military nobody knows just having weapons

does not ensure Victory the US saw it in Vietnam the US saw it in Afghanistan um you could say those was those were different conflicts but I'm saying that that that's not enough what are you going to do then he wants to take Taiwan so I think one reading is that and I I also subscribed to that thought that he um overplayed his hand tried to do everything too soon China isn't there yet and the and the pic did not help him at all so they tried to do their own soft power thing and hard

power they Tred to mix it with this brri they gave loans to a lot of countries but those loans became debt traps so those countries are Regretting so basically you've spent money you've built a force but nobody likes you your own people don't like you and your neighbors don't like you and the rest of the world doesn't trust you it's not an ideal situation to be in having said that there is no credible uh or or um significant challenge to his power in today's China right now and so and so we'll have to wait and

see what Happens the only people who capable of making predictions are the people who study situations day in and day out I'm not making predictions I'm I'm just giving you my reading of the situation I you know things can ma'am you're in po position to give the readings thank you and you insist on calling me ma'am so we like that slide it's either bro or ma'am so you choose I like bro okay moving on the one topic that we don't get to he about a lot from a Geopolitical perspective in India is Britain Post the

brexit like that's not something that reaches uh the geopolitical news consumer in India a lot and I say that because of our research team which brought this up okay what is your opinion on where Britain is going uh in the near future and the brexit in general also with a little bit of context so brexit is when they exited the Europe European system and it hasn't Really worked it it it was quite chaotic um does it matter for India at all um you could say because now Britain is looking uh to build trade Partnerships with

others we've we've had this Free Trade Agreement discussion going on for a very long time last year Rishi sonak was expected to seal it and come and watch an India England match uh in Delhi but it didn't work out um um so I think both sides are are holding their ground so you could say yes but But it's not done well for Britain I mean they have they have suffered and their economy is struggling um and they're looking at an election and the current conservative party or the Tories as they're called have been in power

for upwards of 13 years I think 13 or 14 years and there is very strong anti-incumbency now uh they should have an election um by January 2025 that's the deadline but they're most likely going to have it Earlier um and they've just had local body elections in which some of the old bastians of the conservative party went to the opposition so they are in a bad shape um so brexit yes has only added to the chaos they're talking about immigration they have this Rwanda plan I don't know if you followed that they have so basically

the government said that we will pay Rwanda an X sum of money to take Asylum Seekers away so if you are if you end up in the UK as an illegal immigrant SL Asylum Seeker they don't want you um they are going to put you on a plane send you to Rwanda and they're going to give the Rwandan government some money to figure out what to do with you slash rehabilitate you slash give you a new life now someone who's say leaving Afghanistan or Syria does not want to go to Rwanda um this has this

has raised questions on whether it's it's right um in terms of Human Rights and and so on and does it violate or run a foul of any International Convention it got stuck in courts but as things stand I think they're going to have the first flight off to Rwanda in a couple of months from now so it's it's it's in a flux their health system is not uh being able To meet the requirements of the society NHS is very very I mean getting a doctor's appointment is very hard in the UK uh it takes and

I know from personal experience I know somebody who um told me they were in Manchester and they wanted uh an ambulance and it took more than 24 hours to come so that tells you that how how broken the system is so at this point they they very much need markets like India and they want to have uh so brexit to to give a short Answer to your question has not panned out the way it was promised to the people who voted for it it has led to chaos and it has not helped the British economy

if we widen the lens a little bit the narratives that you hear in urban India about Europe are pretty dystopian you hear about this whole immigration problem how the locals are not happy with um the immigrants or the Refugees uh in the last 5 to 10 years uh how true is that what's your Viewpoint uh what's the general future of Europe is it actually kind of the death of this long-term Empire because that's one of the narratives or is that just a cool thing to say for the non-european world so it's not an Empire anymore

it is definitely a richer Society um they have better institutions because they spent centuries looting the rest of the world and so if there is good infrastructure It is thanks to our money right you want to watch you want to see uh an an old Indian artifact you will have to go to the British Museum of loot pay money and watch your own Heritage right uh but okay let's let's just say that what is gone is gone so they are they are better endowed than us in terms of resources um immigration is a is a

complex subject you know um on a human level if someone is running away from War we would want to help them uh but is your taxpayer ready to pay for because these are also societies where you get a lot of benefits if you don't have a job you get you get money you get handouts from the government you get housing and so on and where is that money coming from the taxpayers pocket right so if if you add people who are not actively contributing to your Society or your economy but just adding To the burden

then at some point the taxpayer is going to get up and say what's going on here that is one thing the second is the cultural makeup these are not multiethnic some of them are not they're they're used to seeing white people you can't say that for London anymore but so so you're seeing Pockets um in Europe where you don't see white Europeans and that unsettles some of Them them they call it xenophobia which it is but in some it's some for instance in France I think close to 10% of the population is Muslim a lot

of these people came from Algeria when France used to be the colonizer and there was this war and these people fought on the French side so they had to come now you have second third generation of those people they've not been able to completely integrate in the French society so they feel alienated hostility hostility they don't feel the they don't feel that they're part of the system I was in France last year where I Arab cab driver said that we don't speak to the white people they don't talk to us so yeah maybe that's an

so I'm saying that there are many layers to it right there are people who came as legit immigrants but their children have not been um assimilated into the society as they should have been then there are People who are running away from Wars wars that the West may have contributed Ed to if if Afghanistan is in a bad shape it's because you guys came and dropped what you call the mother of all bombs and did not think twice so where are those people going to go when the ukrainians come to Europe you welcome them because

they look like you blue-eyed golden haed but when Arabs come then you are not so sure that's one Side of it and all of these are realities you can't say one is correct and one is not so there is the economic angle to it there is social and cultural angle to it and then there is a third dimension um Germany which used to be the the growth engine of Europe is now sluggish it has uh it is it's going to stagnate they use a term called donor flation they have these donor kababs and the price

has gone up and the opposition is saying that we should give a I think 4 million 4 million EUR subsidy so that kebabs can be subsidized because it's a German way of life and so on and so forth basically there is inflation there is not enough growth and it's an aging Society so going forward they will not have enough workers so unless they take people in from outside they will not be able to keep the growth engine going ideally they would like to take in people who add value and do not add to the burden

but that's not a choice that You can always make and somewhere you'll have to make up for your all your historical you know they're doing Italy is doing a deal with tunisha like appointing them as a bodyguard you don't let anybody from Africa come into Italy so they're just throwing money at the problem UK is giving money to Rwanda Tunisia is giving Italy is giving it to Tunisia that's not working out as they would like it to work out so people are still Getting on board boats risking their lives boats capsized people die just in

the hope of finding a life in Europe that is a very sad reality you'll have to look at all of it um together to get a a sensible picture of what's Happening Vis A immigration wasn't there a phase in history where um I think this pre Crusades actually don't know when because I've not studied medieval European history but uh Europe was Majority Muslim at one point or parts of it parts of it Spain was I right there is a theory I've read where uh they say that it's becoming an extension of Arabia again I that's

xenophobic Trope I have no biases here no I mean what do you mean by it becoming an extension of Arabia yeah um Europe has benefited from The Riches of the rest of the world World and now Europe will have to accommodate the rest of the world that is what it boils down to I mean look at Iran for instance they had oil reserves there was a time when what five odd big oil companies all of them based in the west had control over all the majority of the known reserves and they tried to divide everything

that was there amongst themselves took all the money money plundered these lands now They can't turn around and say that everything that's happening there is your problem not ours have you been to Iran no would you go there for the sake of work yes absolutely why wouldn't I Iran has suddenly become geopolitically very significant in the last 2 three years they've always been geopolitically significant but they're in the news a lot more in the last two three years including this recent the Israel Iran missile strike uh we had aiji chav on The show who basically

broke down the whole missile strike and he said that it was more it seemed to him like it was more of a a show of power rather than an actual kind of attack like it was an attack that was easily intercepted by the uh iron doome yeah of Israel so specifically with Iran what's happened in the last 2 three years that they've risen to this uh point of geopolitical relevance and also I remember just the phase that preceded this current one of Being in the news there was a lot of protest going on in Iran

at the time of the football World Cup and a little bit before that is that linked to this phas no not at all okay um let me give you an overview of Iran I think we're covering countries and regions one by one so Iran was uh under the Sha was completely Pro West right um very liberal um Iran is a Shia majority country country some the other Arab Powers are Sunni majority so there is the sectarian divide um post the 79 Revolution uh Ki came to power the the mulas came to power the clergy um

and they dismantled everything that the Sha stood for and they made it a very for want of a better word they turned it into a regressive Society they took away a lot of freedoms from women they Um so it became the Islamic Islamic law prevailed um I wouldn't say that Iran has become relevant now Iran has been a relevant legit player because Iran is oil Rich so it had a lot of oil money uh but back in the day Iran had a war with Iraq under Saddam Hussein um if you talk about the current Iran

or the past say 10 years they entered into something called the jcpoa the the nuclear Deal uh with America and some other powers uh which said that Iran is not going to enrich uranium uh to make a bomb and it will allow International inspect spectors to come in in Li of which the West is going to lift certain sanctions and because the Iranian economy was in the do drums and it was not you know inflation is still very high so the regime thought and then Iran also has these phases of hardliners Coming to power and

then moderates coming to power so that was the phase where a moderate president was in power although whoever is in power is essentially appointed by the the supreme leader and they have these different um rings of power all of which are controlled by this one man who is the Ayatollah so but under Donald Trump the Americans walked out of that deal unilaterally they said we don't because Iran and Israel have this thing going forever uh one says that you have no right to exist the other says we will wipe you off the face of the

Earth but there there were never there was never a direct clash between the two so this is Iran versus the rest of the world the West within the region Iran has really spread itself thin it has proxies everywhere they have Hamas they have hisbah in Lebanon they have the huis in Yemen they have a force in Syria so they have their actors fighting regimes all over the region obviously everyone has issues with them this is where things are in the middle of all of this a 21-year-old girl is killed for not wearing the hijab properly

which triggered a lot of protests it was called the anti-h hijab protests uh it started I think in 2022 hundreds of people were arrested many were killed so you see it's it's been on the Boil Iran and Saudi Arabia have their own enmity Saudi is the sees itself as a leader of the Muslim World Sunni Kingdom home to the two biggest pilgrimage sites for Islam Makkah and Madina so I think a lot has been happening there and uh to the to the point where the strike with Israel it was a performative strike where you wanted

to tell your people that we've struck them but you did not want any damage to be caused because you did not Want the reprisal from the other side okay very complex and kind of simple at the same time okay I can't believe him asking you this next question okay but uh it's a topic that's been brought up on the show a lot and I have no opinion on the topic but I'd love to know pal sharma's opinion on the topic do you believe in the Illuminati oh no I no no no in short the extended

version of that question is do You believe that there is a core set of uh people from traditionally very very very rich families that are actually the decision makers uh from a power perspective or from a geopolitical movement perspective do you think it's run by a few rich people yes and no uh there are people who uh who benefit obviously if you if you come from an influential SLR family then you will get a you will hit the ground running you Will get some sort of support you you will have an advantage over others we

call it nepotism in Bollywood we see it in Dynasty politics in politics and so on and so forth and and even in business right having said that I think we have enough and more examples of people who are completely self-made and that is the beauty of our world at this moment where if you really have an idea and the conviction to see it through to its conclusion then you Will make it big you know at the start of the episode we spoke about those conflicts that are not reported upon like we speak about the uh

Israel conflict and the Ukraine conflict but there's also other things happening in the world there's ammunition being used everywhere M where is that ammunition made from a majority perspective because the traditional narrative is that it's all American a lot of it is American is that true so the American uh mil military industrial complex is very strong and uh all of these wars help them but uh the fact is that most of the world cannot afford those weapons uh there are many players in the defense Market you should look at the cpri report that comes out

every year that talks about the biggest defense buyers and suppliers America of course is a very very big player uh they don't Just sell weapons they also give weapons to a lot of Partners like Taiwan like Israel has been getting military um aid from from the US for as long as I can remember so that is one thing Africa um the Russians have a very big presence the Wagner group is very big in Africa the Chinese are trying to make inroads um India is trying to give um to sell we we've done a deal with

the Philippines on brahmos we have other Players uh we have some African Partners as well who are buying because Indian um aarb no Armenia I think has has not aeran Armenia has bought uh uh some weapons from us so uh Indian weapons are effective and also cost effective you have drones coming out of Iran the Shahed drones you have drones coming out of turkey the bayar to um so um there are a lot of a lot of players in this market and increasingly You can use a $200 drone to beat a big machine so it's

a very very it's not a Level Playing Field anymore so yes a lot of weapons are being used but they're coming from all sorts of places okay it's not a Level Playing Field anymore simply because of drone Warfare being a reality that and sometimes you know you we spend so much money on tanks and ships and submarines and given the way things are going sometimes they become Sitting Duck so what fair is evolving very fast I will not be able to give you specific um terminology for how it is changing and you I guess you

need all sorts of things to uh to secure your assets um but but I I remember reading somewhere that you know these America and France and Russia and China they're top dogs in this game but smaller dogs also bite wow so how are you going to cure yourself from those and those bites will Also hurt um who benefits financially of of Wars the weapons makers that's it no that's not it we did a story on uh again I come back to Gaza uh there are seven checkpoints or exit points out of the Gaza Strip um

one is Rafa which opens into Egypt and ever since the War Began there were people who were um facilitating the entry of gazin into Egypt for a Fee and then Reports say that it was streamlined and one Egyptian company was asked to do all of it whose owner happens to be close to the Egyptian president the government of Egypt has denied it but enough and more Reports say that this company is making millions of dollars a day getting people out of Gaza I think $5,000 for an adult and 2,500 or 800 for a child is

the fee to come out of the Gaza Strip they are making money off a War uh when Aid trucks go into Gaza there are Palestinian groups that say we will offer you security and support but we want a share of the aid and that share is taken and sold in the black market so War has its own economy that evolves it's not just the weapons maker from a very macro perspective and based on your study and observation is there a part of you that believes that there's some human beings who truly wish for at least

the current conflicts to stay lit Up instead of calm down the Israeli Prime Minister he is prime minister as long as the war is on that's it no that's not it I'm sure there are others there are people who Wars continue because they're serving someone's purpose so yes that that was my actual question yeah okay almost at the end of this episode we cannot complete a geopolitics special without speaking about America uh any long-term predictions for the presidential elections the us is going to have an old white man as their president that's it that is

a very accurate prediction both the people in the Frey are old and white it's a horrible choice that they have why that's their politics it's Joe Biden or Donald Trump right where is the diversity where is the youth Representation and on on first post on my show Vantage we've done a lot of stories where we we talk about um about what's so again you know to to be able to say where is a society or a country going in one answer is uh trying to attempt too much and the US has a lot of things

going for it but they have a lot of challenges as well um immigration is a challenge abortion rights are a Challenge you know when half of your population is not given the right of their on their own body to choose what they want it is a problem how do you call yourself a first world country a developed country when you are going to import such regressive laws on on your women where is the freedom of choice and this is not a pro-life argument I mean what about the life of the woman so that is a

that is a very significant uh part of the conversation Now in this us election there is gun violence that remains um a big concern and again the gun lobby is very strong they make so much money and they've sort of sold this idea that people need to be armed to be safe um that uh but the US also has a lead on a lot of things say in terms of Technology you know we say that chips are the new oil and while your Taiwan and other countries are manufacturing chips and um There are other countries

that are creating technology to uh to manufacture chips the design is happening in the US so they still companies like Nvidia they're they're very big they're very powerful so they still have a lead on a lot of things if the growth of the USA were in your hands who would you like to see as the president other than these two guys it's not my choice to make it's not my choice Do do you follow American politics of course I do very closely yes we have a show called first post America that that is uh doing

the buildup to the upcoming US election we covering it in a big way okay how about the next elections who would you like to see contest I would like to see a woman leader not just in the US but in a lot of other how many times you know you see you see all these sound bites every day I wonder to myself that all these grown men are fighting Like kids and saying all sorts of atrocious things about each other one is calling the other a dictator somebody saying something badmouthing calling names women leaders are

not doing any of this they governing their countries we don't have enough of them we saw it during the pandemic some of the best um managed managed countries and societies were led by women and not just in politics I would then take my argument a little further And I would say that we need more women leading in all spheres of life because they bring their own touch to it and it's very important politics boils down to policy and policy boils down to the human beings story people yes uh okay that's it that's today's podcast much

more relaxed than the last time and I'm done with my inam Loop my Redemption Loop Redemption Arc since the last one cuz I was not able to do justice to the last Conversation but I feel like I've done a better job this time so Sharma thank you for your time you're always welcome back to the studio and you're always uh welcome to give all of us all these geopolitical updates I just hope you weren't bored in today's conversation oh no not at all these are things that I talk about all the time as I said

earlier you're the Forefront of the soft power angle in the story of modern day India so thank you for what You do for our country and thank you for your time today I hope to have you on the show again thank you thank you for having me here and it was a pleasure talking to you as always thank you thank you so much man that was the podcast for today ladies and Gent gentlemen I hope you enjoyed this human conversation with the iconic py Sharma as much as I did if you're someone who's new to

the channel make sure you go and check out the rest of our podcast Library there's a lot of Evergreen podcasts and as for this particular one I truly hope that palish Sharma will be returning to the ran show very soon because there's always a lot happening in the modern geopolitical climate of the world there's always a lot happening in terms of India's soft power py sharma's going to be back on TRS but until then do check out the rest of this 5-year-old Library lots of love we'll see you very soon He [Music]