Big Take Asia

Despite India facing economic headwinds, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party defied expectations with a stunning state election sweep — capped by a historic win in opposition stronghold West Bengal.
On today’s Big Take Asia Podcast, host K. Oanh Ha speaks to Bloomberg’s Menaka Doshi about how the BJP secured a shock victory and what an emboldened Modi might mean for India and the world.
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Read more: Resurgent Modi Paves Way to Keep Power in India Well Beyond 2030
Hosted by K. Oanh Ha; Produced by Naomi Ng, Yang Yang; Reported by Menaka Doshi; Edited by Paddy Hirsch.
Fact-checking by Rachael Lewis-Krisky, Yang Yang; Engineering by Taka Yasuzawa.
Senior Producer: Naomi Shavin; Deputy Executive Producer: Julia Weaver; Executive Producer: Nicole Beemsterboer.
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As a high-stakes Trump–Xi summit looms, tensions over the Iran war and defiance of US sanctions threaten to derail what could be one of the year’s most consequential meetings. On Trumponomics, Bloomberg's Stephanie Flanders is joined by Jennifer Welch, chief geoeconomics analyst for Bloomberg Economics and Bloomberg News executive editor Dan Ten Kate to unpack whether the talks will happen—and what’s really at stake for the global economy if they do.
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China’s decision to block Meta’s $2 billion acquisition of AI startup Manus stunned the global AI industry.
On today’s Big Take Asia podcast, host K. Oanh Ha speaks with Bloomberg’s Newley Purnell and Lulu Chen about how the deal crumbled and what it signals for Chinese startups trying to go global.
Read more: China’s Meta Backlash Renders Manus Model ‘Officially Dead’
Hosted by K. Oanh Ha; Produced by Yang Yang and Naomi Ng; Reported by Newley Purnell and Lulu Chen; Edited by Paddy Hirsch.
Fact-checking by Eleanor Harrison-Dengate; Engineering by Alex Sugiura.
Senior Producer: Naomi Shavin; Deputy Executive Producer: Julia Weaver. Executive Producer: Nicole Beemsterboer.
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For more than 30 years, the Indian-born writer Amitav Ghosh has built a global following with novels that draw on deep historical research.
But his latest offering, Ghost-Eye, is more esoteric. The plot moves back and forth between India and the US, using past lives to explore the ties between the personal and the political.
The plot centers on a psychiatrist treating a 3-year-old who shocks her family by insisting she remembers a past life in a fishing community.
In this conversation with Mishal Husain, Ghosh explains why he’s finding it harder to write nowadays, how the memories of his childhood came flooding back during the Covid pandemic, why he sees capitalism as an obstacle to protecting the environment and thinks India has lost its way diplomatically.
Read this interview with Mishal’s notes on Bloomberg Weekend: www.bloomberg.com/latest/weekend-interview

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As global attention is focused on war in the Middle East, North Korea has been accelerating its nuclear and missile program — testing new weapons and producing more warheads.
On today’s Big Take Asia podcast, host K. Oanh Ha speaks with Bloomberg’s Jon Herskovitz on Kim Jong Un’s aggressive nuclear buildup and the strain that puts on US defenses.
Read more: North Korea’s Nuclear Arsenal is Outgrowing the US Missile Defenses
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Hosted by K. Oanh Ha; Produced by Naomi Ng; Reported by Jon Herskovitz, Soo-Hyang Choi; Edited by Paddy Hirsch Fact-checking by Yang Yang; Engineering by Taka Yasuzawa Senior Producer: Naomi Shavin; Deputy Executive Producer: Julia Weaver. Executive Producer: Nicole Beemsterboer.
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