Next Year in Moscow

Narendra Modi is one of the most popular politicians on the planet. India’s prime minister is eyeing a third term atop the world’s biggest democracy.

A tea-seller’s son, Mr Modi began life an outsider and the man behind the political phenomenon remains hard to fathom. India has become an economic powerhouse during his ten years in charge. But he’s also the frontman for a chauvinistic Hindu nationalist dogma.

Can Mr Modi continue to balance both parts of his agenda and finish the job of turning India into a superpower? The Economist’s Avantika Chilkoti finds out what makes him tick.

Launching June 2024.

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How did two old, unpopular men end up running for the world's most demanding job? It’s the question John Prideaux, The Economist’s US editor, gets asked the most. And the answer lies in the peculiar politics of the baby boomers.

Since 1992, every American president bar one has been a white man born in the 1940s. That run looks likely to span 36 years - not far off the age of the median American. This cohort was born with aces in their pockets. Their parents defeated Nazism and won the cold war. They hit the jobs market at an unmatched period of wealth creation. They have benefitted from giant leaps in technology, and in racial and gender equality.

And yet, their last act in politics sees the two main parties accusing each other of wrecking American democracy. As the boomers near the end of their political journey, John Prideaux sets out to make sense of their inheritance and their legacy.

Launching July 2024.

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A year on from our last episode, Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition leader, is dead. Hope for the “beautiful Russia of the future” he imagined from his prison cell in Siberia is all but extinguished. How are the Russians who oppose Vladimir Putin’s war enduring these dark times?

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Maria Eismont, a defence lawyer, has remained in Russia. Her clients include high-profile opposition figures who have received long sentences for spreading “fake news” about the war in Ukraine. Facing long odds and great personal risk, she guides the Kremlin’s enemies through their day in court. Why has she chosen to stay and do this work?

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A sophisticated, predatory, multi-billion dollar industry is emerging from the shadows. It already rivals the size of the illicit drug trade. And it’s about to get bigger and much more powerful.

The Economist’s Sue-Lin Wong follows a trail that starts with the collapse of a bank in rural Kansas to uncover a global, underground scam economy built around human trafficking, corruption and money laundering. Can it be stopped?

Available now.

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