SEBI has accused Rajesh Exports and its promoter Rajesh Mehta of one of India's most brazen alleged financial frauds — inflating revenues by fifteen lakh crore, claiming ownership of African gold mines that don't exist, and siphoning funds through a web of overseas entities while auditors looked the other way. On this episode of The Morning Brief, Anirban Chowdhury, N Sundaresha Subramanian, and JN Gupta of Stakeholders Empowerment Services break down how the alleged scheme worked, what investors actually stand to lose, and whether a company that has already shed eighty percent of its market cap has any reason left to come clean..

India's locker economy is booming — and buckling. Bank vaults remain the default choice for storing gold, heirlooms and family documents, but chronic shortages, inheritance disputes and a trust deficit are cracking the system open. Private vault operators are muscling in with biometric access and extended hours. Home-safe manufacturers are selling the idea of keeping wealth closer. And regulators are struggling to keep pace. As gold prices soar and household wealth rises, the question of who safeguards India's physical assets has never been more urgent — or more contested. This is the story of India's locker economy, and the battle to control it. Lijee Philip reports, Anirban Chowdhury narrates. Listen in:

As Anthropic files confidentially for an IPO with a reported valuation nearing $1 trillion, markets are watching closely. Host Anirban Chowdhury talks to Daniel Newman, CEO at data intellegince, research and advisory firm The Futurum Group to break down what investors should really scrutinise from enterprise attrition data to compute cost commitments. They unpack the revenue optics inflated by cloud credits, the profitability timeline that could stretch years, and why buying on Day One may be a risky bet. Newman also weighs in on whether going public will force Anthropic into a tension between quarterly expectations and long-horizon research and what OpenAI can learn from watching Anthropic go first.

Is the psychological 100-to-the-dollar mark now inevitable? In this episode of The Morning Brief, Rozebud Gonsalves speaks to economists from leading financial institutions–Gaura Sengupta, chief economist at IDFC First Bank, Kanika Pasricha, chief economic advisor, Union Bank of India, Madhavi Arora, chief economist, Emkay Global Financial Services and Dhiraj Nim, economist and FX Strategist, ANZ–about where the rupee is headed, the role of oil prices, tariffs, geopolitics and capital flows, who benefits from a weaker currency, and whether the RBI can slow the slide. Most importantly, is this depreciation a warning sign—or simply the cost of India's integration with a changing global economy? Listen in.

Operation Octopus is Hyderabad Police’s ambitious multi-phase crackdown on the infrastructure behind cyber fraud — not just the small fish, but the entire ecosystem. From mule accounts and rogue bank employees to ghost SIMs and crypto networks, each phase peels back a new layer of a sprawling criminal enterprise spanning multiple states and international actors. Commissioner VC Sajjanar estimates four hundred crore rupees is lost annually in Hyderabad alone. Yet kingpins remain at large. Based on Shilpa Ranipeta’s ground investigation, Anirban Chowdhury narrates how a single Facebook scam unravelled into one of India’s most complex cybercrime investigations.

India has 80 million stray dogs and accounts for 30 percent of the world's rabies deaths. The Supreme Court's latest judgment proposes capturing and relocating strays from schools, hospitals, religious and tourism sites but the experts on this episode argue it may do more harm than the problem it set out to solve. Host Anirban Chowdhury sits down with Gauri Maulekhi, Trustee of People for Animals, Alokparna Sengupta, Managing Director of Humane World for Animals India, and Luke Gamble, Founder and CEO of Mission Rabies, on why India's animal birth control programme collapsed despite 25 years of policy, what Malawi's rabies elimination model teaches us about structural solutions, and whether a judgment meant to protect citizens is quietly pushing India toward a less humane future.

Physical AI is being seen as the next frontier of artificial intelligence. Not AI that lives on screens. But AI that can navigate and operate in the real world — from humanoid robots and warehouses to factories and homes. But these systems need enormous amounts of real-world human activity data to learn movement and physical tasks. And increasingly, India is emerging as a low-cost training ground for that data collection. In this episode, Host Anirban Chowdhury talks to ET’s Puran Choudhary and Disha Acharya on wearable cameras, AI data pipelines, privacy risks, regulatory gaps and the hidden human layer powering the next AI boom.

When the Chief Justice of India Surya Kant called young professionals “cockroaches,” he likely didn’t anticipate a political uprising on social media. Host Dia Rekhi speaks to Sudhanshu Kaushik, president and CEO of the Centre for Youth Policy and author of The Future is Ours: The Political Promise of India's Youth and Rajat Sethi, founder QuBeats about the party— a meme-turned-movement that amassed 20 million followers, outpaced the BJP on Instagram, and triggered a government crackdown. Is this genuine youth disillusionment or chronically-online noise? And what does it signal for India’s political future? Listen in.

Dr Charlie Cherian has spent decades building St Thomas Hospital in Malakkara, a small town in Pathanamthitta, Kerala. He has never taken a foreign holiday. The farthest he has travelled is Bengaluru — and that was for work. Now KKR and Blackstone have pumped nearly nine hundred million dollars into Kerala's hospitals in just two years, acquiring chains, adding beds, and reshaping a system long run by independent doctors and families. For Cherian, the question is no longer whether private equity will change Kerala's healthcare — but whether doctors like him can survive it. Reported by Alenjith K Johny, narrated for audio by Anirban Chowdhury.

HP’s MD and SVP for India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka Ipsita Dasgupta joins ET’s Anirban Chowdhury in the latest Corner Office Conversation to discuss why India’s PC story is still in its early stages — and how AI PCs, creators, SMEs and students could drive the next wave of growth. She explains why HP sees “a PC in every child’s hands” as a national opportunity, how AI-powered computing could change productivity for enterprises and creators alike, and why India may emerge as a critical manufacturing and innovation hub in the global tech supply chain. She also speaks candidly about women in leadership, risk-taking, workplace culture and building communities that help women succeed in tech.

The TCS Nashik case has become one of the most disturbing workplace harassment scandals in India’s recent corporate history. The NCW’s findings point to systemic intimidation, leadership failure, weak POSH implementation and a culture of silence inside a major listed company. In this episode, Anirban Chowdhury speaks to Aparna Mittal, Founder of Samāna Centre for Gender, Policy and Law, about governance deficits, fear-driven workplaces, misuse of authority, whistleblower failures and why younger employees remain especially vulnerable. Listen in:

India grows 40% of the world’s mangoes. Yet exports less than 1%.So where does the rest go?In this episode of The Morning Brief, Anirban Chowdhury and Forum Gandhi talk to T Damodaran, Director, ICAR-CISH, Jyotsna Kaur Habibullah, founder of Lucknow Mango Festival, Kaushal Khakhar, CEO, Kay Bee Exports and mango farmers to unpack the hidden economics of India’s favourite fruit — from climate change destroying flowering cycles and farmers battling middlemen, to irradiation rules, export bottlenecks and fake Alphonsos flooding markets.The episode travels from Ratnagiri orchards to American supermarket shelves, from mango diplomacy to mango kombucha.At stake is far more than a summer delicacy.Listen on

Amaravati, Andhra Pradesh's under-construction capital, is still a landscape of earthmovers and iron poles — but its Quantum Valley is already drawing scientists and engineers from across India and abroad. Young engineers have left metro jobs, postdoctoral researchers have returned from the US, and retired scientists are converging on this unfinished city to work on quantum computing — technology that promises to transform drug discovery, artificial intelligence and beyond. Built around nine theme-based precincts, Amaravati is Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu's grand vision. Quantum Valley is its economic anchor — and its earliest settlers are already betting their careers on it. Nidhi Sharma reports and narrates.

India's biggest production houses are moving into micro-drama — but entering a format is very different from mastering it. In this episode of The Morning Brief, host Anirban Chowdhury, ET's in house film journalist and critic Rajesh Naidu and AI-native micro drama platform Dashverse founder Sanidhya Narain examine three defining tensions in the micro-drama space: whether the format can genuinely serve as an IP testing ground for films and series, whether legacy studios have the structural DNA to compete in a high-volume, low-cost game, and whether China's ad-dominant revenue model can work in India's market. Listen in.

When a Prime Minister asks a billion people to stop buying gold, something has already broken. In this episode of The Morning Brief, host Anirban Chowdhury sits down with Suvankar Sen, MD and CEO of Senco Gold, Atmadip Ray, Senior Editor at The Economic Times, and Madan Sabnavis, Chief Economist at Bank of Baroda — on what actually happened to consumer demand the moment Modi spoke, why India's ₹16 lakh crore gold loan market is now under RBI's scanner, and whether a rupee at 95, a crude bill of $123 billion and a $38 billion drop in forex reserves adds up to a crisis — or careful management. The numbers are stark. The question is whether the policy response is early enough.

Social media has handed health influencers and activist consumers a megaphone and consumer brands are firmly in the crosshairs. Host Ratna Bhushan talks to Saugata Gupta, MD & CEO, Marico Limited as he addresses the growing tension between brand reputation and online scrutiny, arguing that while some criticism is unfair, the solution lies in authentic manufacturing practices and smarter regulation not defensiveness. Drawing a parallel with landmark financial influencer regulation, it makes the case for a similar framework in the food and wellness industry.

A quiet revolution is underway in Indian oncology. Chinese-origin cancer drugs, brought to India through a growing number of pharma partnerships, are dramatically cutting the cost of immunotherapy — making treatment accessible to patients who previously had no options. Doctors are prescribing them, patients are responding well, and Indian companies — from Glenmark to Dr Reddy’s to Intas — are signing billion-dollar deals to expand access further. Western immunotherapy can cost up to five lakh rupees per session. Chinese-origin alternatives are bringing that down to fifty thousand. This episode explores how the India-China pharma axis is reshaping who gets treated, and how

When an AI system can autonomously find and exploit vulnerabilities at scale — who controls the risk? In this episode of The Morning Brief, host Anirban sits down with Gary Marcus, AI expert, scientist and author to examine Anthropic's Mythos — a frontier AI system built for defensive cybersecurity that has rattled governments, central banks, and security researchers worldwide. The conversation unpacks why the dual-use dilemma at Mythos's core is so difficult to resolve, how India's financial and digital infrastructure sits squarely in the line of fire, and what RBI, MeitY, and Indian banks are quietly preparing for. From Anthropic's Project Glasswing to the limits of regulatory readiness, the episode probes whether the institutions meant to protect us are moving fast enough — and whether a defensive tool, in the wrong hands, is a defensive tool at all.

China just surpassed the US as India's largest trading partner, with bilateral trade hitting $151 billion and a trade deficit that has ballooned to an all-time high of $112 billion. Beijing has also rolled out sweeping new supply chain rules that could penalise companies moving manufacturing out. So what does this mean for India? John Quelch, American President, Executive Vice Chancellor and Distinguished Professor of Social Science, Duke Kunshan University argues the deficit isn't the real story. China plays a long, calculated game — on tariffs, on technology, on geopolitics. India needs to learn to read that game, not react to it. From the Trump-Xi summit to robots, rare earths, and the untapped potential of two ancient civilisations — this conversation reframes everything.

A political script has been torn up across India’s key states. Tamil Nadu sees actor Vijay’s TVK disrupt decades of Dravidian dominance. West Bengal delivers a stunning power shift as BJP ends a 15-year Trinamool rule. Assam doubles down on continuity, handing Himanta Biswa Sarma a third term and deepening BJP’s hold. And Kerala returns to its classic anti-incumbency cycle, giving Congress a crucial win. In this episode of Polls on My Pod, Nidhi Sharma and ET's Dia Rekhi, Kumar Anshuman and CL Manoj decode the deeper story—fracturing vote banks, new social coalitions, and what these mandates signal for national politics ahead. Listen in:

Desc: She’s dressed in designer labels at a high-profile party. She runs a beauty parlour in northeast Delhi. She has a pistol in one hand and a social media following in the other. Meet India’s new women gangsters — educated, visible, and deeply embedded in the country’s most feared criminal networks. From Rajasthan to Delhi to gang bosses operating out of Portugal, this is a story about crime, glamour, broken homes, and a society in rapid transition. ET Deep Dive, based on Shantanu Nandan Sharma’s ground report, goes inside the world they’ve built. Anirban Chowdhury narrates.

Seven Rajya Sabha MPs quitting together is a structural rupture inside Aam Aadmi Party. From Raghav Chadha’s distancing to the exit of key organisational architects like Sandeep Pathak, this episode traces how AAP moved from a high-moral insurgency in 2015 to a party battling credibility, governance questions, and leadership centralisation. Anirban Chowdhury and ET’s Nidhi Sharma examine its real delivery—schools, clinics, welfare—alongside its biggest missteps: Sheeshmahal, Yamuna, and the excise policy. With Punjab now its last stronghold, the question is stark: can AAP still course-correct, or is this the beginning of a slow political unravelling? Tune in. Credit: Hindustan Times.

India's largest drugmaker, Sun Pharma, has announced the acquisition of US-based Organon in a landmark $11.75 billion all-cash deal, the biggest overseas purchase by an Indian company since Tata-Corus in 2007. The move effectively doubles Sun Pharma's size, vaulting it into the top 25 global pharmaceutical companies with combined revenues of $12.4 billion. Host Anirban Chowdhury talks to ET's pharma expert Vikas Dandekar and associate editor Arijit Barman about why this deal gives Sun Pharma an instant foothold in biosimilars, a dominant position in global women's health, and a portfolio of established brands across 150 countries. With $2.5 billion in combined pre-financing free cash flows, the company looks well-positioned to tackle Organon's inherited debt burden.

West Bengal's 2026 elections should be a contest of ideas but on the ground, something far darker is unfolding. What emerges from ground reporting is not voters debating whom to choose, but fearing whether they'll be allowed to vote at all. Booth capturing, voter list manipulation, and intimidation have replaced genuine democratic exercise. While TMC faces anti-incumbency after 15 years and BJP pushes hard, is the real casualty democracy itself? Host Nidhi Sharma talks to ET’s Jayatri Nag, Kumar Anshuman and a prominent senior journalist and columnist, Shikha Mukerjee why Bengal isn't just testing political loyalty, it's testing whether free and fair elections still exist in India.

Online dating has always been a grueling hustle, but a new, invisible third wheel has entered the chat: Artificial Intelligence. In this episode of ET Deep Dive, we explore how AI has quietly wedged itself into modern romance. From perfectly crafted opening lines to entirely automated textationships, lonely daters are now outsourcing their emotional labor and linguistic charm to chatbots. But what happens when witty banter online translates to an underwhelming stranger offline? We unpack the fatigue, the growing mistrust, and the psychological rupture of discovering your perfect match is merely an algorithm. Are we losing our basic human connection? Nupur Amarnath reports, And Dia Rekhi narrates.

Tamil Nadu heads to the polls with its familiar two-party battle DMK vs AIADMK facing an unprecedented challenge. Actor-turned-politician Vijay and his party TVK are injecting fresh uncertainty into a state that has ritually voted out incumbents since 1967. With law and order, corruption, and drugs dominating voter anxieties, MK Stalin's "Dravidian model" faces a tough stress test. Vijay's caste-neutral identity and populist promises are drawing the youth away from established loyalties. In 120 seats won by razor-thin margins, even a vote-splitter can rewrite history. Host Nidhi Sharma talks to ET’s Dia Rekhi and Krishna Kumar how April 23 could be one Tamil Nadu's most consequential elections.

India's medical tourism industry is in a quiet downturn. Foreign patient arrivals have fallen roughly a third since 2019 from nearly 700,000 visitors to around 500,000 dragged down by strained ties with Bangladesh, visa processing times stretching up to 60 days, and aggressive competition from Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. A tax incidence on medical referrals threatens to push costs higher just as global insurers remain largely unempanelled with Indian hospitals. The silver lining: average revenue per patient is rising, as high-value procedures like oncology and cardiac surgery now dominate. Host Anirban Chowdhury talks to ET’s Forum Gandhi and pharma editor Vikas Dandekar about the problem, its reasons and fixes. Listen in:

India's wealthy are quietly trading flash for function. The luxury MPV — long dismissed as a hotel shuttle or family hauler — has become the unlikely status symbol of the country's new-money elite. Founders close funding rounds from reclining rear seats. Executives hold confidential meetings behind privacy partitions. Celebrities vanish into near-silent cabins. The Toyota Vellfire, Lexus LM, and Mercedes-Benz V-Class are rewriting what luxury means: not the car you're seen stepping out of, but the private world you inhabit inside it. In a city where traffic consumes hours, the rear seat has become the new boardroom. Narrated by Anirban Chowdhury, this episode of the new TMB series ET Deep Dive is based on a story by Lijee Philip.

The government has just hit the ultimate political reset button, and the electoral math is ruthless. By tethering the historic 33% Women’s Reservation Bill to a sweeping 50% flat increase in parliamentary seats via the Delimitation exercise, the ruling dispensation is drawing up a radically new political map for India. But behind the necessary veil of gender parity lies a fierce geographical tug-of-war. Southern states are up in arms, bracing for a severe dilution of their political weight - effectively penalized in the legislature for their own demographic success. Meanwhile, the opposition finds itself cornered in a political masterclass: oppose the contested 2011 census-backed delimitation and risk being branded undeniably anti-women just as the electorate prepares to vote. In this episode of The Morning Brief, host Nidhi sits down with ET's news correspondent Jatin Takkar and Sanjay Kumar, professor at Centre for the Study of Developing Societies to dissect it all.

Quantum computing is here — and it's reshaping the global technology order faster than most realise. India is making its boldest move yet with a dedicated National Quantum Mission backed by ₹6,000 crore. On World Quantum Day, it unveiled the world's first open-access, Made-in-India quantum ecosystem at Amaravati. Host Nidhi Sharma join CV Sridhar, Mission Director of the AP State Quantum Mission, and Prudhvi Pinnaka, Founder and CEO of Qubitech to unpack the vision behind Quantum Valley — what's being planned, what's being built, and what it could mean for India's technological future. — from solving real-world challenges to training 64,000 students. The scale is striking. But is the ambition truly keeping pace with the ground reality?

In a single month, India's two largest airlines lost their CEOs. Pieter Elbers was pushed out of IndiGo following a catastrophic December 2025 meltdown that stranded 300,000 passengers and wiped 78% of profits. Campbell Wilson chose a more dignified exit from Air India, a planned departure from a carrier still bleeding billions, scarred by a fatal Ahmedabad crash, and hamstrung by a decades of legacy issues. Two expats, two very different tenures, two very different endings. In this episode, host Anirban Chowdhury talks to  ET's aviation tracker Arindam Majumdar and  John Strickland, a global aviation expert and founder of JLS Consulting to break down what went wrong, where both airlines stand today, Air India’s top-level void and the task ahead for Willie Walsh, one of global aviation’s toughest leaders slated to head IndiGo.

For generations, Indian women moved through perimenopause and menopause in silence — misdiagnosed, dismissed, or simply left to figure it out alone. That's changing. Driven by social media, celebrity candour, and a growing wellness economy projected to hit $24 billion globally by 2030, menopause is finally becoming a public conversation. But with awareness comes noise — supplements, coaches, and brand tie-ins are flooding a space where women are looking for genuine answers. This episode of ET Deep Dive is based on Nupur Amarnath’s story tracing how menopause went from stigma to storytelling, who's driving that shift in India, and what still needs to change.

What does it take to move India's manufacturing from 16% to 25% of GDP? Two industry heavyweights, Vinod Kumar, Partner & Leader – Manufacturing, PwC India and Srihari Kaninghat, Group Chief Digital Officer, JSW Group sit down with host Anirban Chowdhury to cut through the hype and get real about AI on the shop floor. From blast furnaces to boardrooms, they break down how AI is quietly revolutionising steel production, slashing material costs, predicting machine failures before they happen and why none of it matters if you can't get past the pilot stage. But here's the twist: they're not worried about robots stealing jobs. They want AI to make manufacturing cool again, attractive enough to pull India's brightest engineering minds back from IT cubicles and into the heart of industry. This one's for anyone who thinks AI is just a chatbot. Think again.

As global tensions ripple through trade, Indian exporters are beginning to feel the strain. In this episode of The Morning Brief, host Anirban Chowdhury speaks with exporters of leather products, textile and gems and jewellery as well as Dr. Arun Singh, Chief Economist at Dun & Bradstreet, India to unpack how the Middle East crisis is impacting business realities. From rising input costs in leather to shrinking demand in knitwear and a sharp drop in gems and jewellery exports, the conversation traces the widening impact across sectors. With supply chains under pressure and the Strait of Hormuz still in jeopardy, the moot question is: how resilient are India’s export industries in the face of prolonged global instability?

When Hamsaanandini Nanduri brought home two siblings — aged two and five — in 2017, she had six weeks of maternity leave, and a few of those were already gone. The law hadn't considered what it actually takes to settle a child who has known loss, institution walls, and then a new home overnight. Hamsa could manage. She knew many mothers couldn't. Four years later, she and her friend and lawyer Bani Dikshit quietly began to challenge that. In 2026, the Supreme Court ruled in their favour. This episode is about that journey — the patience it required, the gap between law and lived experience, and why this change in rules should be the starting point for a more gender-neutral, empathetic legal transformation for parents.

A decades-old rivalry simmers beneath Assam's 2026 elections. When Himanta Biswa Sarma, once a loyalist, walked out of Congress after being sidelined for Tarun Gogoi's son Gaurav, he took 58 MLAs with him and never looked back. Today, Sarma is a fiery incumbent Chief Minister seeking a hattrick, while Gaurav leads Congress into battle to reclaim his father's throne. On Polls On My Pod, ET’s host Nidhi Sharma talks to her northeast correspondent Bikash Singh to unpack this deeply personal contest. From shifting alliances and delimitation to illegal immigration and cash transfer promises with just 0.83% separating the two sides in 2021 will legacy or development ultimately decide Assam's fate?

Is AI in pharma just hype or a full-blown revolution? In this episode, ET's pharma editor Vikas Dandekar sits down with three industry heavyweights Sujay Shetty, Partner & Leader - Health Industries, PwC India, Phanimitra B, Chief Digital and Information Officer, Dr. Reddy’s and Ramesh Swaminathan, ED, Global CFO, Head of IT, Lupin to unpack how artificial intelligence is transforming drug discovery, clinical trials, manufacturing, and even org design. From AlphaFold collapsing years of R&D into weeks, to Lupin deploying Gen AI across 90+ data repositories, this conversation goes deep into what's actually working, who's winning, and why the companies without an AI roadmap risk being left behind. Listen in.

ndia is ageing faster than it can care for itself — and the cracks are already showing. From missed diagnoses to absent support systems, the silver economy is full of invisible gaps. But this isn’t just a story of decline. Today’s seniors are more aware, financially independent, and unwilling to fade into irrelevance. They want agency, purpose, and dignity. Into this space, a new generation of startups is stepping in — blending technology, empathy, and design to reimagine ageing itself. Narrated by Anirban Chowdhury, the first episode of the new TMB series ET Deep Dive, is based on Lijee Philip's story that explores the tension between unmet needs and emerging solutions — and what it will take to grow old without fear.

What does it take to lead when the stakes are high and everyone's watching? In this episode, Vikas Dandekar sits down with Sanjiv Navangul, MD & CEO of Bharat Serums and Vaccines, and cricketer Ajinkya Rahane — two leaders from opposite ends of the arena, with more in common than you'd expect. One builds companies around purpose and long-term resilience. The other has batted through some of cricket's most unforgiving scrutiny. Together, they make a case that real leadership is about discipline, humility, and the quiet consistency of showing up for others.

As the electoral bugle sounds across Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal, the nation braces itself for a whirlwind of political intrigue and upheaval. In the season opener of our special podcast series Polls on My Pod, host Nidhi Sharma is joined by ET’s CL Manoj to unpack Kerala’s fascinating crossroads. Long defined by its neat alternation between the Left Democratic Front and the United Democratic Front, the state now watches the LDF led by 80-year-old stalwart Pinarayi Vijayan defy history with a rare second consecutive term, only to confront the weight of incumbency. The conversation probes the gold theft scandal the UDF is capitalising on, Congress’s careful pivot to collective leadership, the BJP’s rising presence through star recruits like Suresh Gopi, and the subtle shifts in Christian-majority areas that could quietly redraw the state’s political map. As polling day nears, what trajectory awaits this historically progressive state?

Tanay Kothari has been building at the intersection of voice and AI since he was a teenager. His latest company, Wispr Flow, is a voice dictation tool that works across all your applications — learning your tone, cleaning your speech, and adapting to context. It's grown 30x in revenue over the past year, with Fortune 500 adoption accelerating and a strong India play underway. In this conversation with ET’s Tanishka Dubey, Tanay talks about what separates Wispr Flow from the crowded voice AI space, why Indian users are surprisingly strong paying customers, and his views on whether founders should be building foundational models at all.

As India approaches its self-imposed deadline to end Left Wing Extremism, host Nidhi Sharma speaks with ET’s internal security editor Rahul Tripathi, SHantanu Nandan Sharma, and Vijay Sharma, Deputy Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh. Ground reports from Bastar reveal a conflict in transition shrinking, yet not fully extinguished. Security operations have led to mass surrenders, reducing insurgent strongholds to a handful of districts. However, the deeper challenge now lies in rehabilitation and reintegration. Former militants, many still ideologically conflicted, are being trained in state-run camps under tight surveillance. As infrastructure and governance finally reach long-neglected regions, the question remains: can development outpace decades of distrust and radicalization, or is this merely the quiet before another cycle of unrest?

As the Iran war enters its fourth week, global markets are scrambling to price in shocks. The impact is rapidly deepening for India. Goldman Sachs has already revised its outlook twice, flagging rising oil prices, a widening current account deficit, and slowing growth. Host Anirban Chowdhury talks to Santanu Sengupta, managing director and chief India economist and warns that Brent could average $85, with spikes worsening inflation and forcing RBI rate hikes. India’s reliance on Middle Eastern crude places it at the epicentre of risk, raising a critical question: how much pain can be absorbed before it reaches consumers?Listen in.

A deepening geopolitical conflict in the Middle East is forcing markets to confront a far more structural shock than recent crises. Host and ET markets editor Nishanth Vasudevan talks to Bhanu Baweja, Chief Strategist at UBS Investment Bank who warns that investors may be underestimating the scale of disruption, particularly in oil, where potential supply losses dwarf the Russia-Ukraine impact. While markets remain anchored to a “short shock” playbook, the risk of prolonged volatility looms large. More critically, he flags a cascading threat where an oil shock morphs into a liquidity crunch and eventually disrupts AI-driven growth. For India, the real vulnerability lies not in foreign flows, but in the resilience of domestic investors. You can follow our host Nishanth Vasudevan on his social media: Linkedin & Twitter. Check out other interesting episodes like: How Will a Volatile ₹ Impact You in 2026?, How Quick Commerce is Triggering a Health Crisis for Gen Z, India’s Labour Law Reboot, Viral to Valuation: Building Women’s Cricket as a Brand and much more. Catch the latest episode of ‘The Morning Brief’ on The Economic Times Online, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, JioSaavn, Amazon Music and Youtube.

HDFC Bank, long seen as India’s gold standard in banking, is facing rare questions on governance. The sudden exit of chairman Atanu Chakraborty—backed by a cryptic letter citing “values and ethics”—has triggered market jitters and investor unease. Host Anirban Chowdhury talks to ET’s Saloni Shukla and Sashidhar Jagdishan, CEO, HDFC Bank about what India's banking world is afraid to answer: Was this one man's exit or an entire institution's warning signal?

A billion professionals. Eighteen years of data. And a skills gap that's widening as AI tools multiply. Mohak Shroff has watched LinkedIn evolve from a professional network into what he calls, at its core, an AI matching engine. That vantage point gives Shroff, SVP Engineering at Linkedin, a clear read on what's actually happening inside organisations right now. Not the boardroom narrative, but the messy reality of workers who don't know which skills to build, recruiters who can't find candidates despite better tooling, and companies confusing access to AI with genuine AI readiness. Listen in

India's semaglutide moment has arrived. As Novo Nordisk's patent expires on March 20th, over fifty generic brands are poised to flood the market potentially slashing monthly costs from ₹10,000 to ₹3,500. But this is no ordinary generic wave. Semaglutide is a complex peptide, cold chains are unforgiving, and patient adherence remains fragile. Host and ET’s pharma editor Vikas Dandekar talks to Sheetal Sapale, Vice President, Pharmarack, Dr. Rajiv Kovil, Diabetologist, Saurabh Agarwal, Director at HAB Pharmaceuticals and Research, Dr. Saurabh Jain, Vice President - Global Delivery Centers, Indegene and Vijay Charlu, President of Domestic Business, Corona Remedies to dissect who survives the shakeout, what it means for a slew of weight loss drugs in India, whether it will revolutionise metabolic treatment and whether India is truly ready for its statin moment.

Anthropic refused the Pentagon unrestricted access to its Claude AI, and the fallout reshaped the tech-defense landscape overnight. OpenAI rushed in to fill the void, signing a classified deal that triggered internal resignations and a user exodus toward Claude. Host Himanshi Lohchab talks to Abishur Prakash, Geopolitical Strategist, to unpack the fierce power struggle between governments demanding unrestricted AI and companies defending their ethical red lines. They also examine sovereign AI, battlefield automation, and whether Big Tech can or should stay out of warfare. The age of AI geopolitics has arrived. Listen in.

Five years after slamming the door on Chinese investments, India has quietly amended Press Note 3. With FDI stagnating, institutional investors pulling billions out, and Western capital stretched thin, New Delhi is making a hard-nosed economic calculation. The amendment signals cautious optimism. welcoming Chinese capital into startups and tech sectors, while keeping telecom and security-sensitive industries closed.Host Anirban Chowdhury speaks to Biswajit Dhar,  retired Professor, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, JNU and Amitendu Palit, a global trade expert at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. Questions on indirect investment and security concerns remain. Also, will this signal India as a more conducive, predictable investment environment to the global investor?

A once-in-a-generation oil shock is unfolding. Host Anirban Chowdhury speaks with Amrita Sen, Founder of Energy Aspects, Bob McNally, founder of Rapidan Energy Group and former White House energy advisor, and ET’s Puran Choudhary on a crisis triggered by the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz. More than 10 million barrels of crude a day have been disrupted roughly twice the scale of the 1956 Suez Crisis and for the first time there is virtually no spare production capacity to cushion the blow. Brent has surged past $110, LNG cargoes face force majeure, and Asian refineries are cutting runs. Strategic reserves offer only limited relief. In India, the shock is already visible on the ground, with LPG shortages, rationing and black-market price spikes spreading across multiple states. The bigger question: what happens to the global energy order if this disruption persists and what kind of Iran emerges from this war.