Anirudhya Mitra on Ajit Doval, the Pannun Plot, and How RAW Hunts India's Enemies | Dostcast

• Subscribe to Dostcast Clips: https://www.youtube.com/@dostcastclips?sub\_confirmation=1 Listen to Dostcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/70vrbHeSvrcXyOeISTyBSy?si=be05dbdd564245d9 Join the Dostcast Janta Party on WhatsApp for regular updates: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VbAZwo5D8SDs5kf94N3T Want to suggest a guest? Fill this form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ft\_-1QDs7XpsSWnaPOeF21yUlhk9bzKvwHSyh4hHfBU/edit?usp=drivesdk ==================================================================== Anirudhya Mitra spent his years at India Today and The Times of India breaking the stories most reporters never got near: the Bofors scam, the Rajiv Gandhi assassination, the drug wars running through India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. His book Ninety Days, on the hunt for Rajiv Gandhi's killers, became a national bestseller and the basis for the SonyLIV series The Hunt. His latest, The Delhi Directive, goes inside R&AW's covert war and the operations Delhi will never admit to. He has spent decades cultivating intelligence sources, recording meetings no one knew were being recorded, and keeping notes on some of the most powerful men in the country. Blunt, precise, and completely unromantic about how the spy game actually works. In this episode, Vinamre and Anirudhya discuss: • How India's intelligence machine is actually structured — RAW, IB, and the moment the NSA became the most powerful man in the room under Ajit Doval • Dawood Ibrahim and Tiger Memon — why Mitra reads every Dawood attack as empire-building rather than pure terror, and the ISI deal that put him in Karachi • The Nikhil Gupta case — Vikas Yadav, the Pannun plot, and what the life of a spy on a foreign operation really looks like • Kulbhushan Jadhav, Lawrence Bishnoi, Goldy Brar — why a captured spy is kept alive, and what the Meng Wanzhou case reveals about how prisoner swaps really work A.S. Dulat, the making of a R&AW chief, and whether intelligence agencies run on their own power or the government's • The craft itself — secretly recording meetings, keeping notes on powerful men, phone tapping, and what "off the record" actually costs • Cultivating sources without becoming their mouthpiece — earning trust, resisting the narrative, and using AI to cross-check before you get played Follow Anirudhya Mitra on: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anirudhya.mitra/ X: https://x.com/AnirudhyaMitra3 Timestamps: 00:00:00 - Coming Up 00:02:02 - Intelligence hierarchy, Doval, Dhurandhar 00:07:18 - Replace your coffee with this 00:08:24 - Dawood Ibrahim, Tiger Memon 00:12:17 - Nikhil Gupta, Vikas Yadav, Pannun 00:29:25 - Kulbhushan Jadhav, Lawrence Bishnoi, Goldy Brar 00:36:13 - Spy world goes mainstream, Dulat 00:40:40 - Head of R&AW 00:43:28 - Media controlled by the government 00:47:19 - Agencies: deep state or controlled? 00:54:19 - Secretly recording sources, sting stories 01:02:36 - Keeping notes on powerful people 01:09:32 - Off the record, sources, phone tapping 01:15:32 - Access to power, earning trust 01:23:11 - Fighting fake narratives, AI fact-check 01:30:11 - Conclusion ==================================================================== Vinamre Kasanaa is a writer at heart, podcaster and entrepreneur by craft. He spends a significant part of his time reading and researching. With over 500 podcasts under his belt, he’s interviewed everyone—from HNIs and industry leaders to everyday superheroes. Follow Vinamre: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vinamre-kasanaa-b8524496/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vinamrekasanaa/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/VinamreKasanaa Dostcast: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dostcast/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/dostcast ==================================================================== Contact Us: For business inquiries: dostcast@egiplay.com