Indicast Podcast Network - Mother Feed

K V Kamath has been appointed as the Chairman of Infosys Inc while Mohandas Pai, the HR director of Infy quits. In this podcast, we also cover a bit about the business impact of the royal wedding. In other news, Air India has multiplied its self inflicted problems with more than 1000 pilots going on strike. This episode is unexpectedly all over the place. Hope you like it nevertheless. Ritika is back in this one.

India may soon have cardless banking if Nandan Nilekani and his team working on the Unique Identification Number can complete the project in time. After the initial testing among a sample size of 58,000 people, the project looks like it's in the right direction. In this podcast, we talk about this new way of exchanging cash from the technology as well as the consumer perspective. With an influx of 3G ads on television, we cover a few ads which have been successful in breaking the clutter, if only marginally. In other news, Kishore Biyani plans to recreate a Big Bazaar like model in the finance world.

Anna Hazare waited for a few days before he broke his fast. The Congress relented. In this podcast, we try and bring you what the Lokmat Bill means and why did Hazare press for it. In Sports, Sachin Tendulkar has been declared the Wisdens Leading Cricketer of the year. Pakistan plans to bring their own version of IPL amidst their captain Afridi making some interesting comments on India.

Sanjeev Agarwal, the Joint CEO of Big Bazaar joins us to talk about his experience of watching India play at Mohali, Ahmedabad and finally at Mumbai where India lifted the World Cup trophy after 28 years. Anna Hazares fast unto death has finally succeeded in moving people in the parliament to come up with the Lokpal bill after a longer wait of 42 years. Aditya brings up a puberty related topic where our adolescents are getting bolder by the era.

In our film industry, what Amitabh Bachchan or Dilip Kumar is to acting, Nitin Chandrakant Desai is to art direction. The winner of four national awards and many successful movies such as Lagaan, Devdas, Jodha Akbar, Hum Dil Dechuke Sanam, Munnabhai, etc talks about his craft and the challenges of his everyday job. He takes us through his experiece of working with directors like Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Sanjay Leela Bhansai, Danny Boyle and Ashutosh Gowarikar. His job demands him to think on his feet and deliver results in open sets where temperature can soar up to 45 degrees.This podcast charts the journey of the man who once lived in a 10X10 Worli chawl and today is Indias most respected Art Director who still maintains the modesty of a newcomer.

India takes on Pakistan in the second semi final later today at Mohali. In the universal set of India and Pakistan, if set A were cricket and Set B were politics, then A intersection B is confusion, tension and a false sense of security. But we do rely on hope. In this podcast, we talk about this and more. Warren Buffet is in India. The DGCA spanking continues on pilots who have forged their way into the service. And Adityas better half makes her debut in a film titled Bal Gandharva which is going to the Cannes Film Festival.

Sudhir Naik, the ground incharge and the curator at Wankhede joins us to talk about the efforts that went behind making the pitch, the outfield and the stadium which will soon host the finals of the World Cup on April 2, 2011. As a former test cricketer and Mumbai Ranji captain, Sudhirji speaks passionately about his role and how he kept his head when all about him were losing theirs. He along with his team made it possible to get the ground up and running for the three matches of this World Cup by spending months together on the ground and toiling it through the summer and rains.

Even by Japans standards, the crisis is of enormous proportions. In this podcast, we try to cover the economic impact of the earthquake and the tsunami that followed. The radiation leaks in the nuclear reactor only added to the problems. Quite a few Indian IT companies have their operations in Japan and in turn Japan happens to be Indias third largest investor. While it may not affect India gravely, it is definitely not decoupled from this crisis. In other news, Rajat Gupta resigns from ISB and Grameen Banks Yunus is having his problems hanging on to the company that he created.

Wiki Leaks has found a new market. It is India. After tying up with The Hindu, it has released a few cables which accuse some of our politicians of selling votes for cash. Japan is still recovering from one of its worst nightmares after suffering from one of the biggest earthquakes of the century. Back home in India, Jairam Ramesh, our Environment Minister is gearing up to carry out a security check across all of Indias 20 nuclear plants. In other news, Vidharbha is the new Tiger capital of India and right at the end of this episode, Aditya is genuinely fascinated by a pair of silicon implants killing a snake!

Did you know that there were 18,000 Indians holed up in Libya about a week back. The Indian government is going all out to evacuate all Indians in the region as Col Gaddafi refuses to let go of his assumed control over Libya. Back home, Aruna Shanbaug lies in a vegetative state for 37 years running but sees a glimmer of hope as the court allows passive euthanasia in her case. We would love to know your views on euthanasia. Have you heard of a state stocking up on blood in anticipation of state elections. We just did. It is West Bengal. In other news, our beloved Uncle Pai, the creator of Amar Chitra Katha and Tinkle series passed away. RIP.

The Indian IT industry has a new concept to deal with and TCS has pounced onto it. It is called Cloud Computing. With a revenue projection of 1 billion USD, TCS will focus on Small and Medium Enterprises which total to a whopping 38 million. Many are calling this move as the Nano of the IT world where TATA hopes to replicate its success by tapping not the Fortune 500 companies but the smaller ones who can avail of this interesting concept. Rolls Royce, the British car maker announced record sales in India. We briefly cover the Union Budget highlights in this episode.

Scarcity makes things invaluable and that is what makes the World Cup cricket a mouth watering proposition for advertisers. All India Radio is slated to earn around Rs. 7 crore from the 45 day long event. Others like Pepsi, Castrol, Hyundai, Amul have bet their best buck hoping to capture minds and eye balls. In other news, Indigo plans to hire 1,500 employees this year with aviation sector grappling the effects of rise in the Aviation Turbine Fuel price. And scooters are back.

The World Cup is peaking with Ireland recording the first upset of the tournament by beating England. However, Ayaz is vocal about whether they can sustain this success and that there should be a better way of inducting the minnows in the world cup by having a more rigourous selection process. Ayaz and Minal take us through the bowling strengths of all teams. The surprise package is Shahid Afridi who has already bagged two 5 fors in three matches. Imran Tahir from South Africa made a dream debut for South Africa knocking off three wickets against West Indies. Ayaz places special respect for the young man and Minal wonders when will our spinners get their act together. Minal brings up the Ponting behaviour who hurt a TV set and Ayaz has an interesting theory on why players should be allowed to do this!

Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh woke up to the din surrounding him and ordered a Joint Parliamentary Committee to probe the corruption scandals that have rocked the government in the past few months. The High Court has upheld its death penalty sentence on Ajmal Kasab, the terrorist who was involved in the 26th November attacks. The Cricket World Cup 2011 is here and the the official website entrusted with selling tickets to fans was overwhelmed when 10 million hits landed on the website in a matter of minutes before the servers saturated. In this rather light podcast, we talk about a little bit of everything.

Egypt showed the world how the common man can wake up and throw everything hes got against an oppressive regime. Aditya feels that India has reached its inflection point too. I beg to differ and the argument continues... In our neighbouring country, not all is well. Former president Musharraf has been accused of murdering Bhutto. In sports, the Cricket World Cup 2011 has begun. Who are you betting on

Its hard to believe that a fearless competitor who would charge at lightning speed towards his opponents to tackle a ball which can sometimes fly at 150 miles per hour can be so modest and down to earth with his words. Viren Rasquinha talks about his experience as Indian hockey team captain, the challenges plaguing Indian hockey and the demands of playing an international sport. As a merit ranker in school and an international level sportsman, Viren had the pick of jobs at the Indian School of Business, where he was pursuing his MBA. Instead, he chose to roll up his sleeves and get down to resolving the issues challenging Indian sports players by joining Olympic Gold Quest as COO. Olympic Gold Quest is an organization founded by Geet Seethi and Prakash Padukone that supports top-notch Indian players with the most potential of winning an Olympic Gold medal for India. 1 billion people in India and only 1 individual Olympic gold - Olympic Gold Quest aims to change this. Support Olympic Gold Quest at http://www.o

The legendary artist, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi passed away and Aditya recounts some of his experiences of watching Pandits live concerts. This week saw high profile exits of top CEOs from India as well as the US hopefully for the best. In some good news, India set up its first tidal plant in Gujarat. In politics, the Ekta Yatra orchestrated by BJP was predictably stopped in Jammu and Kashmir. In sports, Coke has poached Sachin from Pepsi and Gary Kirsten, argubaly India's best coach will call it quits after the World Cup.

Ayaz and Minal start the podcast by taking us through the recently concluded India and South Africa ODI series and the gains that both countries can look forward to carry in the world cup 2011. While Virat Kohli and Pathan Seniors form gives our selectors some pleasant worry as they will have to drop at least one batsman, Ayaz reckons that Raina may have to bear the brunt of their splendid run. This podcast also covers teams from the Group A with special focus on Pakistan cricket which has submitted its team without naming its captain! The coverage is back to ESPN STAR sports and they face a touch challenge to bring us unadulterated cricketing content

2010 came and went. Aditya dubs it as the year of scams and names such as A Raja, Swami Nityananda, Nira Radia, Kalmadi, Chavan come to mind. But ironically, one man who made a tremendous mark on India is from the world of politics Nitish Kumar, the Chief Minister of Bihar. India probably had one of its best years in sports. In this episode, we celebrate our 5 years of tormenting and entertaining each one of you. Thanks for sticking with us. Spread the word.

With the World Cup only a month away, one would have thought that all TV ad spots would start advertising the biggest spectacle which is played once in four years, but IPL auctions stole the wind out of the World Cup with players being bought and sold in an open English auction. In other news, India is undertaking the biggest operation in the decade census and this time the transgenders have been recognised under the others category.