Recorded

Inside Delhi’s pollution crisis

Delhi, home to more than 32 million people, has long been ranked the world’s most polluted capital city – for years, experts have called it a “gas chamber”.

And while pollution is a year-round struggle here, the crisis peaks every October and November, turning what was once a season of sunny picnics into months of suffocating smog.

In the past, winter was eagerly awaited by Delhi residents, who could step out of their homes and enjoy a warm, sunny day in public parks, with a cool breeze blowing.

But now a foul concoction of smoke from farm residue and firecrackers and emissions from industry and vehicles smothers the city when winter arrives.

In this special episode of the Recorded podcast, host Taniya Dutta reports from the heart of the crisis in New Delhi. She looks at the reasons for Delhi's annual pollution peak with experts, asks if the Indian capital is on the verge of becoming an uninhabitable place and considers what the government can do to clean the city's air – before it's too late.

Big Ideas Edition: Space exploration and the Middle East

Over the course of 2023, Sulaiman Hakemy, opinion editor at The National, had the chance to sit down with three international thought leaders, representing the fields of media and business strategy, public opinion and space science.

In this episode of the Big Ideas Edition, Sulaiman speaks to space science expert Prof John Zarnecki, who offers his observations of the UAE space programme, the country’s mission to Mars and its effect on the next generation.

Big Ideas Edition: Polling in the Middle East

Over the course of 2023, Sulaiman Hakemy, opinion editor at The National, had the chance to sit down with three international thought leaders, representing the fields of media and business strategy, public opinion and space science.

In this episode of the Big Ideas Edition, Sulaiman speaks to Joe Twyman, co-founder and director of Deltapoll, a leading polling and market research company.

They talk about understanding public opinion through surveys and discuss how to poll diverse audiences.

Big Ideas Edition: The future of media and technology

Over the course of 2023, Sulaiman Hakemy, opinion editor at The National, had the chance to sit down with three international thought leaders to explore the big ideas in the realms of media and business strategy, public opinion and space science.

They represent these fields, bring fresh insights to the table and go beyond the narratives in the context of the Middle East region.

On this episode of the Big Ideas Edition, Sulaiman speaks to Raju Narisetti, global publishing director at McKinsey & Company.

They talked about the business of journalism, the profitability of the media landscape, internet access in different regions and how technology will continue to transform the industry.

Prof Humaid Al Shamsi on breast cancer in the UAE

Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in the UAE, yet a large-scale review shows that better screening is reducing the number of advanced cases of the disease and improved survival rates are now comparable with those of leading western nations.

This was a recent study, led by Prof Humaid Al Shamsi, director of medical oncology at Burjeel Medical City.

In this episode of Recorded podcast, we sat down with Prof Al Shamsi to get to the bottom of how complicated breast cancer health literacy is and how much it affects the lives of people who have it. He is an esteemed oncologist, university professor and one of the most respected experts in the field, whose goal is to make people with breast cancer healthier.

Nurturing and developing the UAE’s creative economy

The creative economy. The term refers to the interchange of ideas, intellectual property, knowledge and technology. But it is an ever-evolving concept, and resists being pigeonholed into a single definition.

It has also become a bit of a buzzword in the UAE, especially in the last 15 years as the country has endeavoured to bolster its creative sector. In this time, several cultural institutions have been launched that reshaped the local creative landscape, notably Louvre Abu Dhabi and NYUAD on Saadiyat, Jameel Arts Centre and AlSerkal Avenue in Dubai and the House of Wisdom in Sharjah.

But launching cultural institutions is only the first step. Next comes the challenge of engaging with the public and inspiring the next generation of artists, architects, software engineers, writers, publishers, researchers and filmmakers.

Maya Allison, Executive Director of The NYUAD Art Gallery, and Bill Bragin, Executive Artistic Director at NYUAD Arts Centre, discuss the role NYUAD is playing in nurturing and developing this creative economy.

NYUAD and the role of art in life after the pandemic

The NYUAD Arts Centre and Art Gallery have returned to in-person programming for the first time in two years.

The Spring 2022 line-up features an eclectic mix of live musical, cinematic and dance performances as well as art exhibitions that defy traditional categorisation. Bill Bragin, from the NYUAD Arts Centre, and Maya Allison, from the NYUAD Art Gallery, have been working to cement the role of the University in the public sphere. 
 
Although the pandemic caused disruption, it also provided an opportunity to reflect on how the Gallery’s work reaches the local community. The pandemic was a call for cultural institutions to step up and help artists during a time of crisis and ensure local arts communities thrive. 

In this podcast Bill Bragin, Executive Artistic Director at the NYUAD Arts Center, and Maya Allison, Executive Director of The NYUAD Art Gallery, speak about the importance of nurturing local artists.

From the Iranian underground to the global art scene

Hesam Rahmanian, Rokhni Haerizadeh and Ramin Haerizadeh met in the underground art scene in Tehran in the early 1990s. After the Iranian Cultural Revolution that followed the overthrow of the Shah, free artistic expression could only take place in furtive private gatherings. It was during these meetings that the three were inspired to come together to form a collective, one founded on the principles of sharing and cooperation.

The trio have been in the UAE since 2009. Their latest show at the NYUAD Art Gallery, titled Parthenogenesis, offers the audience the opportunity to become immersed in a surreal, multimedia landscape representing what they’ve been doing since coming to the Emirates. The exhibition includes paintings, sculptures, poetry and dance made by them or in collaboration with other artists, encompassing vast themes of displacement, transformation and their ongoing commitment to working together.

This episode of Recorded is brought to you in Partnership with the NYUAD Art Gallery and Arts Centre.

The journey to find a creative home

Alaa Krimed is a luminary of the Middle East's contemporary dance scene. For the better part of the last decade, the Palestinian choreographer has been an ardent advocate of the art form through his Sima Dance Company, which he founded in Damascus in 2003. On a path that has been full of displacement, dance has remained his anchor as he first left Syria to avoid the war, then Lebanon to avoid the instability, to finally find a place for his creative practice to be nurtured in the Emirates. 
 
Philip Rachid has always found solace in hip-hop, be it the music, the dance, or the aesthetic. As a half-Bulgarian, half-Iraqi Kurdish kid growing up in Amsterdam he felt like an outsider and soaked in the messages of hip-hop's global culture to help him expand his creativity. But it was in the UAE that Rachid found a way to combine all his different creative mediums into one. 
 
This episode of Recorded is brought to you in Partnership with the NYUAD Art Gallery and Arts Centre.

How the Expo 2020 site will be transformed into a futuristic city

After six months of cultural shows, concerts and summits, Expo 2020 Dubai is over. But what happens next? What will stay and what will go? Ahmed Al Khatib, the Chief Development and Delivery Officer for Expo 2020 Dubai, tells us how the now iconic site will be transformed into a city where people live, work and play.