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We speak to Zia Ahmad OAM on his wonderful achievement and recognition as the first Muslim to receive the Medal of the Order of Australia for services to journalism and the second member of his family to receive the nation’s highest civilian honour.

Zia Ahmad is the editor-in-chief of the Australasian Muslim Times, AMUST, the country’s leading independent Muslim newspaper and news portal, founded with his father in 1991.

He is a valued member of The Humanism Project, a progressive South-Asian collective that advocates for social justice in Australia.

In this freewheeling interview, he traces his remarkable journey as a child from Kashmir, in India, to Sydney in Australia, the life lessons from his father as they built a new life here, and the guiding principles that have shaped his worldview, passions and humanity.

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Dr. Aditya Sondhi is a Senior Advocate at the Supreme Court of India, a scholar, and an Ambedkarite. He frequently lectures on the application of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar’s constitutional philosophy in modern jurisprudence.

He joins us for a special Dalit History Month episode in association with Hindus for Human Rights Australia, and takes us in chamber for a free wheeling conversation. Highlights:

- Constitutional morality as envisioned by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar
- The Manusmriti and the place of religious texts within courthouses.
- In India, is it fair to say ‘Caste is the Law'?
- The role of unions in the era of an Uberised workplace
- Protections for domestic worker rights within an Ambedkarite vision for an equitable society
- His personal connection to Dr. Ambedkar’s legacy, and his relevance in our deeply divided world today.

Dr. Sondhi also hosts 'The PodCaste' available on Spotify which features conversations around caste, seeking to unravel the visible and invisible presence of caste in urban settings, academia and practice.

He is the author of Poles Apart: The Military and Democracy in India and Pakistan (Penguin, 2024).

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Mohamed Alharbi, a part of the core campaign leadership that brought Zohran Mamdani's bid for Mayor of New York to a historic win, unpacks how people centred politics triumphed. An exclusive Pause with Nandini catch up on the sidelines of Australian Progress 2026.

We speak of strategy and tactics but more about working with heart. He also reflects on what this win means for people of colour, the way the conservatives were won over and of course, Aunties for Zohran, who evidently have no chill.

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To provide 10 million girls access to education in the next 10 years - no easy feat but also not beyond the realm of possibility for an exceptional organisation, Educate Girls, which has made history as the the first Indian organisation to win the prestigious 2025 Ramon Magsaysay award.

With Gayatri Nair Lobo at the helm, Educate Girls is working at the grassroots, bringing millions of girls into education. The organisation solves for issues at the local and societal level to enable continued engagement and emancipation for girls through education.

Gayatri speaks to us about the work, the challenges, and the dream.

Watch, listen, reflect. This has been an honour.

To learn more about Educate Girls or to donate, visit:

https://educategirls.us/

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Part 2 of a conversation with four of the five founding members of The Reserved Compartment - Aleena, Gautam, Daniel and Abhijit.

The Reserved Compartment is a pioneering, community-driven initiative to amplify Dalit, Ambedkarite, gender-inclusive voices through spoken word poetry, storytelling, music, and performance.

By reclaiming the term "Reserved Compartment," which historically refers to
segregation, they are creating a platform for subaltern narratives to challenge caste, gender, and other intersecting oppressions.

Rooted in the legacy of the Bhakti movement, the Ambedkarite jalsa-shahiri tradition, and the Dalit Panthers, they aim to move beyond tokenism, ensuring the art and lived experiences of marginalized artists are honoured with dignity.

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Four of the five founding members of The Reserved Compartment, Aleena, Gautam, Daniel and Abhijit join me to talk about their first-of-its-kind poetry initiative - The Reserved Compartment. The fifth, Shripad could not join us.

The Reserved Compartment is a pioneering, community-driven initiative to amplify Dalit, Ambedkarite, gender-inclusive voices through spoken word poetry, storytelling, music, and performance.

By reclaiming the term "Reserved Compartment," which historically refers to
segregation, they are creating a platform for subaltern narratives to challenge caste, gender, and other intersecting oppressions.

Rooted in the legacy of the Bhakti movement, the Ambedkarite jalsa-shahiri tradition, and the Dalit Panthers, they aim to move beyond tokenism, ensuring the art and lived experiences of marginalized artists are honoured with dignity.

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Sneha and Runjhun from the Aunties Fund join me to talk about The Aunties Fund.
The Aunties Fund is the first permanent fund for South-Asian women, by South-Asian women. They are on a mission to raise $100,000 for culturally informed services for women facing domestic abuse.
The data is startling.
1-3 migrant women face some form of domestic abuse. Many are South Asian. Visa and Dowry abuse is the most prevalent.
This fund will help 4 exceptional organisations working in this space.
• Indian (Sub-continent) crisis & support agency
• House of Sakinah
• Immigrant Women's Speakout Association
• Harman Foundation
Find them on https://www.instagram.com/auntiesfund to know more.
Donate at: https://aunties-fund.raiselysite.com

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The British novelist, Rajeev Balasubramanyam, now a somewhat unlikely Instagram influencer, joins us on Pause with Nandini to explore the difficult questions of the psyche, and of our times. We speak of the spiritual and the political, mental health, wounded narcissism, a personal journey through sex, drugs and alcohol to a healing through self-enquiry, and the reasons for a re-engagement with the political.

We speak of the woundedness of young men, the angry patriarchal masculinity on one hand and the rising discourse about toxic masculinity on the other - and a generation of young men caught between the two. We speak of how there can be a third way, rooted in masculine vulnerability, in the ability to cry, and the need to heal.

This is an important conversation in our fractured times, that goes beyond the what, deeply into the why, and through a story of an examined life, it takes us to into a path of possibilities, redemption, and ultimately of hope.

You can follow him on Rajeevwriter on Instagram.

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