With leading Indian analysts: Siddharth Varadarajan (The Wire) and Sushant Singh (Yale University)
When: Thursday 11 April 2024, 9:00 to 10:30 CEST
Where: Concordia Cloud (zoom)
Chatham House Rule
Registration deadline: 10 April 2024, noon.
Register now.
Cooperation partner
Cooperation project: forum journalismus und medien and the European Commission Representation in Austria.
Speakers
India’s Elections: major voters’ concerns
Siddharth Varadarajan, award-winning journalist, is the cofounder to the independent news portal, The Wire, and a senior fellow at the Centre for Public Affairs and Critical Theory, New Delhi. Previously, he was the Editor of The Hindu. Based in New Delhi.
India’s Global Strategies and Ambitions
Sushant Singh, journalist and lecturer in South Asian studies at Yale University and consulting editor with The Caravan magazine in India. A Senior Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi, his writings have regularly appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Walrus, DW, Tagesspiegel, The Hindu and other publications. Sushant was earlier the Deputy Editor of The Indian Express newspaper in India where he twice won the acclaimed Ramnath Goenka award for excellence in journalism.
Background
Indian general elections start on 19 April 2024, and end on 1 June 2024. The results will be announced on 4 June 2024. Nine hundred seventy million voters are eligible to elect 543 members of the 18th Lok Sabha.
India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, aspires to win his third mandate, according to some polls. Modi’s policies have polarised the population; his nationalism has been perceived as hostile by non-Hindus, he has intimidated and detained his political opponents and restricted press freedom. What is the base of Modi’s popularity? Which are his major policy achievements? Which are the major policy differences among political contenders?
India is regularly described as the largest democracy in the world. Is India’s democracy still healthy?
India’s growing population and economic importance is accompanied by increased international ambitions. What are the international strategies? How is India positioning itself with regards to the wars in Ukraine and in Gaza?
Format
Presentations followed by live Q&A.
Target Groups
Journalists and academic researchers.
Number of participants
Maximum 60
Further Questions
For additional information about the session, contact Mirjana Tomic, seminar director, mirjana.tomic@fjum-wien.at, or call 0676 365 26 93