Feb 14 2026 to Feb 14 2026 11:30 a.m.

Where

Bangalore International Centre

7 4th Main Rd, Stage 2, Domlur 560071

Event Description

You’ve received the call. The scam artist trying to get your information. Perhaps you fell for it, perhaps you knew better. In either case, it becomes a story to tell over coffee.

But who are the people on the other end of line?

In her new book, Scamlands, journalist Snidha Poonam explores the vast fraud economies stretching from small-town India to global scam hubs. Nuanced, detailed and above all, personal, Poonam reports on the many lives that run parallel to our own. Tracing the supply chains of fraud, she reveals an economy that’s both ruthlessly efficient and heartbreakingly human.

In this talk, she is joined by columnist Aakar Patel to explore the themes of the book. They will examine how scam economies thrive in the gaps of inequality, why trust is collapsing faster than we can rebuild it, and what it means when fraud becomes a viable career path for an entire generation. The session ends with an audience Q&A.

There are no easy answers, but you’ll know more when that unknown number calls again.

Speakers

Snigdha Poonam
Author
Snigdha Poonam is the author of Scamlands: Inside the Asian Empire of Fraud That Preys on the World. For fifteen years, her literary nonfiction has explored how transformative forces act on society. Her first book, Dreamers, portrayed young men and women from India’s small towns whose ambitions reflected both the promise and the limits of a rapidly changing society. The book received wide critical acclaim, was published in several countries, and was optioned for film and television.

Aakar Patel
Columnist & Chair, Amnesty International India
Aakar Patel is a syndicated columnist who has edited English and Gujarati newspapers. His books include Why I Write, a translation of Saadat Hasan Manto’s Urdu non-fiction (Tranquebar, 2014), Our Hindu Rashtra: What It Is. How We Got Here, a study of majoritarianism in India and Pakistan (Westland, 2020), Price of the Modi Years, a history of India after 2014 (Penguin Random House, 2021), The Anarchist Cookbook, a guide on why and how to protest (HarperCollins, 2022) and the novel After Messiah (Vintage, 2023). He is Chair of Amnesty International India.