The Documentary Podcast

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Storm over a teacup Feb 27, 2024

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In the mountainous east of Nepal many communities are dependent on tea. The nitrogen-rich soil of the high-elevation estates allow tea bushes to produce a unique flavour, but the picking has to be done by hand. Phanindra Dahal talks to farmers, factory managers, tea estate supervisors and leaders in the business to find out how this small nation is looking to compete globally and the challenges they are up against. One challenge is a complex relationship with its neighbour, India.

In the Studio: Claudia Piñeiro Feb 26, 2024

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Claudia Piñeiro is a multi-award winning novelist, with many of her books being adapted for television. She's one of Argentina's most translated writers, as well as being a popular screenwriter and playwright. The BBC's Andrea Kidd joins Claudia in her apartment in Buenos Aires, as she works on her latest, as yet, untitled novel. It follows the story of two step-sisters, one a radio journalist, the other an escort, both unaware of the other's existence, until a dramatic incident brings their lives together. But was it an accident or something more sinister?

Bonus: The Global Story Feb 25, 2024

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A bonus episode from The Global Story podcast. Is #Me Too finally exploding in French cinema?. The Global Story brings you one big story every weekday, making sense of the news with our experts around the world. Insights you can trust, from the BBC, with Katya Adler. For more, go to bbcworldservice.com/globalstory or search for The Global Story wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

Bonus: Hardtalk - Defying Putin Feb 24, 2024

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Russian authorities have announced the death of one of the country’s most significant opposition leaders Alexey Navalny in a remote penal colony in the Arctic Circle. Stephen Sackur spoke to him in Moscow in 2017 about the risks involved in being a prominent critic of President Putin.

BBC OS Conversations: Ukraine war babies and returning home Feb 24, 2024

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It is two years since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The war has claimed tens of thousands of lives, left millions of Ukrainians as refugees, and wrought much destruction. When your home is invaded and everything is shattered and turned upside down, what happens to your life? Host James Reynolds hears from three women in Ukraine who, despite the dangers of war, chose to have a baby. At the start of the war, millions of women and children escaped to safety abroad. With the passing of time, some have decided to return. Three of those women come together to discuss their decisions to go back home.

Three Million: 5. Ghosts Feb 23, 2024

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The Bengal Famine, particularly the experiences of people in the rural areas who suffered the most, is not well remembered today. There is no memorial, museum, or plaque to the victims or survivors anywhere in the world.

One man has made it his life’s work to record their testimonies with paper and pen. Kavita hears from him, and tries to understand more about why the three million people who perished aren’t better remembered or memorialised in India, Bangladesh and Britain.

Presenter: Kavita Puri Series producer: Ant Adeane Editor: Emma Rippon Sound design and mix: Eloise Whitmore Production coordinators: Maria Ogundele and Sabine Schereck Original music: Felix Taylor

With thanks to Dr Janam Mukherjee and Professor Joya Chatterji

Three Million: 4. The tapes Feb 23, 2024

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Kavita Puri discovers a set of cassette tapes containing rare interviews with Indian civil servants who were on the ground across Bengal during the famine, shedding new light on colonial responsibility.

And as the need for relief in Bengal becomes ever greater, more pressure is put on the British government from India’s new Viceroy. He asks for more food imports. Could the War Cabinet and Prime Minister Winston Churchill have done more to help alleviate the famine in the middle of the war?

Presenter: Kavita Puri Series producer: Ant Adeane Editor: Emma Rippon Sound design and mix: Eloise Whitmore Production co-ordinators: Maria Ogundele and Sabine Schereck Original music: Felix Taylor

With thanks to Dr Janam Mukherjee and Professor Joya Chatterji

Interviews conducted by Lance Brennan courtesy of University of Cambridge

Interviews with GS Khosla courtesy of University of Cambridge

Three Million: 3. The f-word Feb 23, 2024

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Colonial authorities wanted to censor the famine. They were worried that Britain’s wartime enemies - the Germans and the Japanese - would use it as propaganda against them.

But as more and more starving people arrive in cities across Bengal, it becomes harder to suppress. Indian writers, photographers and artists document the humanitarian catastrophe, but it was risky, as the censor forbade mention of the famine. A British journalist and editor of the English language Statesman newspaper, in Calcutta, decides to challenge the censor and begins publishing photographs and scathing editorials about what was really going on in Bengal. It shocks the world. In London, the BBC reports on “famine conditions” and, as we uncover, the British government tries to pressurise the broadcaster to tone down its coverage.

Presenter: Kavita Puri Series producer: Ant Adeane Editor: Emma Rippon Sound design and mix: Eloise Whitmore Production coordinators: Maria Ogundele and Sabine Schereck Original music: Felix Taylor

With thanks to Dr Janam Mukherjee, Professor Joya Chatterji and Dr Diya Gupta

Three Million: 2. The cigarette tin Feb 23, 2024

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A boy decides how much rice he can give from a cigarette tin to hungry people. A Christian missionary sets up a makeshift relief hospital. A small child watches through the gates of his house in Calcutta as emaciated women clutching children ask for food.

As the food crisis deepens, shocking testimonies from the countryside show the extent of starvation. Many thousands of hungry people begin moving from the rural areas towards the cities.

Indians - including children - are forced into life-or-death decisions.

Presenter: Kavita Puri Series producer: Ant Adeane Editor: Emma Rippon Sound design and mix: Eloise Whitmore Production coordinators: Maria Ogundele and Sabine Schereck Original music: Felix Taylor

With thanks to Dr Janam Mukherjee, Professor Joya Chatterji and Dr Diya Gupta.

Interview with Alan McLeod courtesy of the University of Cambridge

Three Million: 1. War Feb 23, 2024

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During the Second World War, at least three million Indian people, who were British subjects, died in the Bengal Famine. It was one of the largest losses of civilian life on the Allied side. But there is no memorial to them anywhere in the world - not even a plaque. Can three million people disappear from public memory?

From the creator and presenter of the award-winning series Three Pounds in my Pocket and Partition Voices, this is the story of the Bengal Famine of 1943. For the first time it is told by those who were there - farmers and fishermen, artists and writers, colonial British and everyday citizens. Nearly all of the testimony in the series has never been broadcast before.

Eighty years on, those who lived through it are a vanishing generation. Time is running out to record their memories.

We begin in 1942. As the Japanese sweep through South East Asia, Calcutta (now Kolkata) is inundated with hundreds of thousands of Allied soldiers from all over the world. Fear of a Japanese invasion of British India provokes a consequential decision.

Presenter: Kavita Puri Series producer: Ant Adeane Editor: Emma Rippon Sound design and mix: Eloise Whitmore Production coordinators: Maria Ogundele and Sabine Schereck Original music: Felix Taylor

With thanks to Dr Janam Mukherjee, Professor Joya Chatterji and Dr Diya Gupta.

Interviews with American soldiers courtesy of The National World War II Museum, New Orleans: nationalww2museum.org/

Interviews with G S Khosla and Debotosh Das Gupta courtesy of the University of Cambridge

Major General Dharitri Kumar Palit interviewed by Gillian Wright, 1987, British Library reference C63/195/09. Audio © British Library Board and the interviewee. The British Library has been unable to locate the family of the interviewee. Please contact oralhistory@bl.uk with any relevant information.

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