Guwahati, April 24 -- In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Indian living room underwent a weekly transformation. Before the cacophony of five hundred satellite channels and the relentless ping of smartphone notifications, there was a singular, quiet ritual. On Friday nights, households across the subcontinent tuned into the national broadcaster to watch The World This Week. For a generation growing up in a pre-liberalized India, this was more than just a news program. It was an intellectual window.

As the distinctive, rhythmic pulse of the tabla theme music began, Prannoy Roy would appear-not as a shouting head, but as a sober guide. In forty-five minutes, he would distill the complexities of global governance and international shifts ...