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Dispatches from Kolkata
Wednesdays at 7:35am and 4:45pm

Every week NPR contributor (and former San Franciscian) Sandip Roy brings you a little taste of the 'new India' – a letter home from his other home.

Latest Episodes
  • In an age where everyone can be a social media influencer, the recent attempt on former President Trump’s life shows that experience still matters.
  • A five-month countdown to India's most expensive wedding ever ended last week with the big bash that saw celebrities from all over the world descend on Mumbai. Sandip did not have an invite but sends us a postcard nonetheless.
  • Almost 100 years after Gandhi, the British Prime Minister seems to calling for a ‘British’ Swadeshi movement. But as Sandip Roy points out, Sunak’s call for a nationalist rebellion has only ignited a meme war.
  • June has become Pride Month all over the world. In Kolkata this month groups are celebrating 25 years of Sappho for Equality, the city's oldest support group for lesbian. bisexual women and transman rights as well as 25 years of the first Pride Walk in India.
  • Polar ice caps are melting. Huge swathes of the world are sweltering under record high temperatures. But how do you talk about climate change to children, the ones who will inherit this changing world of ours?
  • India's cola wars have gotten more interesting with the entry of a new cola which is actually an old cola. Campa Cola was once a Coca Cola substitute in India. Now it wants to be a competitor.
  • Fountain pens might seem part of a vanishing world but a group of pen enthusiasts seen signs of hope in India. Sandip visits a Fountain Pen festival in Kolkata.
  • Some hailed it as a brave new financial revolution. But where there’s big money to be made, and made fast, there will also be people playing fast and loose. Just as crypto grew by leaps and bounds in India, so did crypto crime.
  • There’s a new focus this election season in India, a new type of influencer, the ‘Netizen.’ But what does this really mean for the democratic process?
  • An Indian institution turns 90 at the end of this week.It’s not a bricks and mortar institution. It’s one of India’s most prolific writers - Bond, Ruskin Bond.