In 1974, India surprised the world with “Smiling Buddha”: a secret underground nuclear test at Pokhran, Rajasthan. India called it a “peaceful nuclear explosion”—but few outside of India saw it that way.
The 1974 nuclear tests became a symbol of India’s ability to help itself, especially given how the country was left out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, an agreement the country argued was colonial. But, as Jayita Sarkar’s Ploughshares and Swords: India’s Nuclear Program in the Global Cold War(Cornell University Press, 2022) points out, India’s nuclear program was in fact the product of Cold War tensions and international networks–including some foreign sources of nuclear knowledge and material. (An open-access version of Jay’s book can be found here)
Jayita Sarkar is Senior Lecturer in Economic and Social History at the University of Glasgow and the Founding Director of the Global Decolonization Initiative. She can be followed on Twitter at @DrJSarkar, and her Linktree can be found here.
In this interview, Jay and I talk about India’s nuclear program, from its very beginnings through to when India was brought back into the world’s—or, at least, the U.S.’s–nuclear good graces in 2008.
Nicholas Gordon is an associate editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at@nickrigordon.
Thousands of flights across the U.S. were canceled or delayed early Wednesday morning after a Federal Aviation Administration computer outage. Officials are calling it the largest national grounding of flights since 9/11, though there’s no evidence to suggest that it was the result of a cyberattack.
New York Republican leaders publicly called for Representative George Santos to resign from Congress, following revelations that Santos fabricated many key aspects of his resume. Meanwhile, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy is standing by him, even as Santos faces formal ethics complaints and potential criminal investigations.
And in headlines: President Biden’s lawyers reported finding classified materials at his former office space, Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin was released from the hospital, and Naomi Osaka announced that she’s expecting her first child.
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We're talking about an issue that grounded all flights across all airlines and all airports in the country, and more classified documents were found where they shouldn't be.
Also, we'll tell you why the first lady needed surgery and what Damar Hamlin's doctors say as he heads home from the hospital.
Plus, a solar investment makes U.S. history, changes are coming to America's largest theme parks, and a comet that hasn't been seen in about 50,000 years is coming back to the night sky tonight.
Those stories and more news to know in around 10 minutes!
Paris Marx is joined by Louise Matsakis to discuss the growing divide between the US and China, the long history of Western concern about the East, and why we should pay attention to who these anti-China narratives benefit.
Louise Matsakis is a technology reporter at Semafor who previously worked at NBC News, Rest of World, and Wired. You can follow her on Twitter at @lmatsakis.
Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.
Ovidio Guzmán, the son of Sinaloa cartel head Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán, was arrested last week in a huge sting by the Mexican government. Who is Ovidio and how does his arrest affect the cartel?
Guest: Luis Chaparro, journalist and producer who moves between Texas and Mexico covering narcos, drugs and immigration.
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Classified documents from Joe Biden’s time as vice president were found Nov. 2, six days before the midterm elections, in Biden’s private office at the Penn Biden Center in Washington. The Biden administration didn’t announce the discovery, which was reported first Monday by CBS News.
Biden commented briefly Tuesday, saying he was “surprised to learn that there were any government records that were taken there to that office.”
“It would be funny if it weren’t so serious, right?” Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., asks during an interview on “The Daily Signal Podcast,” adding:
What the Biden administration said about Donald Trump and the FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago, and the classified documents [stored there] that they won’t actually tell us what they really were, and then the same thing happens to Joe Biden, his vice presidential records going to the Biden Center, which, by the way, was funded by over $60 million from the Chinese Communist Party.
On the podcast, Banks adds:
There are two sets of rules in America today: one for anyone named Biden, Obama, or Clinton, and then a different set of rules for the rest of us. And so, because of that two sets of rules and the lack of impartiality by the Biden administration, their DOJ, that’s what we should be investigating.
Banks also discusses the four-day fight over choosing a speaker of the House, what he hopes Republicans will focus on in the 118th Congress, and whether he will spearhead any investigations.
The United States is an outlier (in a good way) in the protection of speech. Jacob Mchangama is author of Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media.
