Private space travel once belonged in the realm of science fiction—but today, celebrities like Katy Perry are booking tickets on Blue Origin, and billionaires are launching rockets. In this episode, Dhruva and Utkarsh explore the growing role of private companies in space exploration and whether the shift away from government-led missions is cause for celebration or concern.

They delve into the tension between public and private funding: Should space exploration serve collective scientific goals or market incentives? Is "move fast and break things" the right ethos for a domain where failure can mean catastrophe? And as access to space becomes commercialized, who really benefits?

Supporters of private spaceflight argue it accelerates innovation, lowers costs, and inspires a new generation. But critics warn of widening inequalities, neglected public priorities, and the commodification of what many view as a shared human frontier.

Beyond rockets and revenue, this conversation grapples with deeper questions of purpose, responsibility, and who gets to write humanity’s next chapter among the stars.

In this episode, you will learn

• What is disability and ways in which our society discriminates against people with disabilities

• What can do about it
• Ways to deconstruct "I am not your inspiration"

In The Anti-Ableist Manifesto, Tiffany Yu highlights the myriad ways in which our society discriminates against people with disabilities - and what we can do about it. Foregrounding disabled identities that have too often been rendered invisible, she demonstrates how ending discrimination begins with self-reflection.

From recognising biases to understanding microaggressions, The Anti-Ableist Manifesto teaches us how to deconstruct ableism at work, in our communities and within ourselves.

About this Podcast

• What did European missionaries misunderstand about Hinduism when they first arrived in India?

• How did colonial power and missionary pressure help reshape Hindu identity from within?

• Could the rise of modern Hindu nationalism be traced back to these early cultural and religious encounters?

When European missionaries arrived in India in the sixteenth century, they entered a world both fascinating and bewildering. Hinduism, as they saw it, was a pagan mess: a worship of devils and monsters by a people who burned women alive, performed outlandish rites and fed children to crocodiles. But it quickly became clear that Hindu ‘idolatry’ was far more layered and complex than European stereotypes allowed, surprisingly even sharing certain impulses with Christianity.

Nonetheless, missionaries became a threatening force as European power grew in India. Western ways of thinking gained further ascendancy during the British Raj: while interest in Hindu thought influenced Enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire in Europe, Orientalism and colonial rule pressed Hindus to reimagine their religion. In fact, in resisting foreign authority, they often adopted the missionaries’ own tools and strategies. It is this encounter, Manu S. Pillai argues, that has given Hinduism its present shape, also contributing to the birth of an aggressive Hindu nationalism.

Gods, Guns and Missionaries surveys these remarkable dynamics with an arresting cast of characters – maharajahs, poets, gun-wielding revolutionaries, politicians, polemicists, philosophers and clergymen. Lucid, ambitious, and provocative, it is at once a political history, an examination of the mutual impact of Hindu culture and Christianity upon each other, and a study of the forces that have prepared the ground for politics in India today. Turning away from simplistic ideas on religious evolution and European imperialism, the past as it appears here is more complicated – and infinitely richer – than previous narratives allow.