Deepti Kapoor's Age of Vice, published in 2023, is a story of power, corruption, and complicity, set in modern India. In the early 2000s, the lives of Ajay, Neda, and Sunny – the novel's three main characters – cross in New Delhi. There is idealism, optimism even; but also crime, drugs, and violence, as Sunny Wadia follows in the footsteps of his powerful father. Age of Vice, which became a New York Times bestseller and will be adapted into a tv series, is a deeply researched portrait of a changing country, with a fast-growing economy, and ever greater inequality.

Deepti visited Zurich in October 2023 to talk about the book at Asia Society Switzerland's Big Picture event. The conversation was moderated by James Crabtree, 2024 TOY Senior Fellow at Asia Society Switzerland and himself author of The Billionaire Raj, a well-received book on crony capitalism and the rise of India's billionaire class. More info and other episodes: https://asiasociety.org/switzerland/podcast-state-asia

On November 6, 2024, leading global thinker Adam Tooze delivered Asia Society Switzerland's third annual State of Asia Address in front of a full house in the prestigious aula of the University of Zurich. Listen to the address in this episode of the podcast.

Tooze talked about the different impact the return of Donald Trump as U.S. President has for Europe and Asia, about Asia in a time of polycrisis, and about the importance of keeping track of what’s happening in Asia.

Tooze holds the Shelby Cullom Davis chair of History at Columbia University in New York City. In 2019, Foreign Policy Magazine named him one of the top Global Thinkers of the decade.

Chartbook, his newsletter on economics, geopolitics and history, has over 120,000 subscribers. He is a columnist for Foreign Policy, where he also hosts a weekly economics podcast, Ones & Tooze.

This episode is from Asia Society Switzerland's STATE OF ASIA podcast, bringing you exclusive, engaging conversations with leading minds on issues that shape Asia and affect us all. More info and other episodes: https://asiasociety.org/switzerland/podcast-state-asia.

China and India seem to be en route a to better, or less bad, relationship for the first time in years. Germany published its first 'Focus on India' policy paper, immediately followed by a visit of Chancellor Scholz to New Delhi. The new EU Commission has specifically named India as an important part of its strategies. Russia, just like India a founding member of BRICS and host of that forum's 2024 summit, has its own pressing reasons to maintain the historical ties with India. And then there's the Quad, in which India cooperates ever closer with the United States, Australia, and Japan.

What is India making of this momentum? Will it stick to its policy of non-alignment, or is, despite all the approaches from all sides, nonetheless a tilt to the West visible?

On this episode, we discuss all this with Garima Mohan, Senior Fellow in the Indo-Pacific program at the German Marshall Fund, where she leads the work on India and heads the India Trilateral Forum. Her research focuses on Europe-India ties, EU foreign policy in Asia, and security in the Indo-Pacific.

This episode is from Asia Society Switzerland's STATE OF ASIA podcast, bringing you exclusive, engaging conversations with leading minds on issues that shape Asia and affect us all. More info and other episodes: https://asiasociety.org/switzerland/podcast-state-asia.