The Interview With Karan Thapar

BCCI’s Ego Responsible for Crisis Facing T20 World Cup; ICC is Damaged

Sharda Ugra, who is widely considered India’s foremost sports journalist, says the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s ego is responsible for the potential crisis facing the T20 World Cup due to start on the 7th of February. As she put it: “The ICC is basically just the Dubai office of the BCCI”.
The crisis facing the T20 World Cup emerges out of Pakistan’s threat to boycott this event. Mohsin Naqvi, the head of the Pakistan Cricket Board and the country’s interior minister, has indicated that Pakistan will decide about its participation on Friday or, even, as late as Monday. Ugra says the ICC has mishandled the present crisis, which began with Bangladesh’s demand that its matches be held in Colombo rather than Kolkata and Mumbai but, actually, goes all the way back to BCCI’s instructions to Kolkata Knight Riders to drop Mustafizur Rahman from their team. She says without Pakistani participation (if that happens) the T20 World Cup would be damaged and its credibility is “out of the window”. 

Police Treatment of Journalists in J&K A Direct Attack on Freedom & Democracy; Extremely Distressing

Former judge of the Delhi high court Justice Rekha Sharma has said that the police treatment of journalists in the Kashmir Valley is “a direct attack on our freedom, an attack on our personal liberty … and an attack on democracy itself.” She says its “extremely extremely distressing”, adding “it’s totally without jurisdiction” and is in “disregard of the law”.
Justice Sharma was referring to the treatment of the Assistant Editor of the Express who is also the paper’s correspondent in Kashmir, Bashaarat Masood, who was summoned for four days between January 15 and 19 by the cyber police station in Srinagar and asked to sign a bond that he would not do anything to disturb the peace. He was also not the only journalist to be summoned in this manner.

For Trump Might is Right and the Rest of the World Has to Adjust to That Reality

ISRO’s Rocket Failure a Major Setback & It’s Chairman is Adding to the Problem

The Science Editor of The Hindu says that Monday’s failure of ISRO’s PSLV rocket is a major setback and a very big blow to the organization. He agrees that it raises worrying questions about the reliability of the PSLV rocket which is ISRO’s workhorse. In an interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, Vasudevan Mukunth raised questions about the functioning of ISRO Chairman V. Narayanan and ISRO’s lack of transparency during his tenure. He made this point in connection with the fact that this is the second successive back-to-back PSLV rocket failure. The earlier one was in May 2025. On both occasions the problem occurred during the third stage of the flight when the rocket was attempting to get into orbit around the earth. However, the Failure Analysis Committee investigation report into the May 2025 failure has not been made public. It was submitted to the Prime Minister’s Office but has not been released from there. This means that independent experts have not been able to review and analyse the findings. In turn, that has led to questions being asked whether there is something in the failure analysis report that is being hidden from the Indian public.

India Must Moderate the Anti-Bangladeshi Fury Fueled by the Media: Jawhar Sircar

In an interview where he seeks to explain the many reasons why Bangladeshis have reservations about India as well as the historical character of Hindu-Muslim relations within Bangladesh, the former CEO of Prasar Bharati and former Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP, Jawhar Sircar, has called for India to moderate the anti-Bangladeshi fury sweeping through the country and to “refrain from reacting to every provocation” from Bangladesh.
Sircar argues that the anti-Bangladeshi fury in India is playing into the hands of extremists and fundamentalists in Bangladesh. In this context, he points out that the decision to force Kolkata Knight Riders to drop Mustafizur Rahman was completely mistaken and wrong. It overlooked the fact that Rahman is an icon and hero for Bangladeshis and in no way responsible for the mistreatment of Hindus in that country. Now, he says, this will encourage ordinary Bangladeshis to turn against India.

Trump’s Venezuela Action Was “Brilliantly Executed; Venezuela Caught Flat-Footed”: Yashvardhan Sinha

India’s former Ambassador to Venezuela, who has also served as High Commissioner to Sri Lanka and the United Kingdom and, subsequently, as Chief Information Commissioner, says that Trump’s action in Venezuela to kidnap and spirit away the country’s President and his wife was “a brilliantly executed military operation”. Yashvardhan Sinha adds that “the Venezuelan military was caught flat-footed”. However, Sinha declined to say that the US has become a rogue superpower under Trump, even though in recent weeks it has carried out air strikes over Iran, Syria and Nigeria, repeatedly threatened to takeover Greenland, cast covetous eyes on Panama and is now threatening Colombia, Cuba and Mexico.

Denial of Bail to Khalid & Imam “Completely Wrong”; Judges Committed “Many Errors”: Dushyant Dave

In sharp criticism of the Supreme Court’s decision to deny bail to Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam, lawyer and former President of the Supreme Court Bar Association Dushyant Dave has called the decision “completely wrong”.
Dave says its “really flawed both in facts and law”. He says the two judges have done a disservice to themselves as well as to the Supreme Court. He says increasingly in India, judges are afraid to give bail.

New Law Completely Demolishes Concept of a Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme

In sharp and focused criticism of the government’s new rural employment scheme, which he says is mistaken and misleadingly called a guarantee, Nikhil Dey, a founder member of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, says it has “completely demolished the idea of a rural employment guarantee scheme”.

Bhakt Banerjee Grills Karan Thapar in This Year's Revenge Interview

It's time for our end-of-year tradition, an interview where Karan Thapar is the interviewee and is toughly or teasingly questioned by an interviewer we have invited on the show. On this occasion the guest interviewer is the highly popular YouTuber, journalist, radio jockey and political satirist Akash Banerjee, in the avatar of Bhakt Banerjee. 

Indigo Too Big to Regulate, DGCA Won't Do It, Nothing Will Change

Chairman of Cerg Advisory and economist Omkar Goswami has said that IndiGo, which controls nearly 66% of domestic air travel and on many routes is the only airline flying, has become too big to regulate. As Goswami put it: “When one player accounts for almost two-thirds of the passenger market and when it’s often the only carrier to many airports, the shoe is firmly on IndiGo’s foot. Not the governments, irrespective of what the DGCA may claim …IndiGo has become too big to regulate. It effectively calls the shots.”