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Unrest in Iran

January 16, 2026 • Kiran Menon, Debkanya Dhar

0:00 | 16:48

Understanding Iran's Crisis: History, Protests, and Global Implications | Takaro Kids

Welcome to Takaro Kids, a weekly podcast that helps young listeners understand important global events. In this episode, hosts Kiran and Debbie discuss the current situation in Iran. From historical context, including ancient Persia to recent protest movements, they provide a comprehensive overview of the country's political and economic turmoil. Listeners will learn about the inflation issues, economic mismanagement, and the significant role of the Supreme Leader. The hosts also highlight Iran's geopolitical importance due to its oil reserves and geographical location. The episode wraps up with an engaging quiz question about Iran's historical connection to India. Stay tuned for an informative session that simplifies complex world events for kids!

00:00 Introduction to Takaro Kids Podcast
00:39 Mumbai Elections and Voting Importance
01:59 Current Turmoil in Iran
06:13 Historical Context of Iran
10:10 Geopolitical Importance of Iran
14:03 Quiz Time and Conclusion

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Debkanya 0:00

Mics camera, action. Welcome to Takaro Kids, a weekly podcast that helps children, kids of all ages understand the events that shape the world around us. How have you been, Kiran? How was your week?

Kiran Menon 0:17

It's been good. There's been a lot happening, so just trying to keep track of all of it. We are gonna be talking about something very, very specific, a part of the world, Iran is what we're gonna be talking about, and uh, you know, been following that. yeah, it's been a pretty busy week. What about you, Debbie? Did you do something else?

Debkanya 0:39

Yes, it's been a very important week because I live in Mumbai. I've mentioned this before, and I actually went and voted yesterday and I'm very proud of myself,

Kiran Menon 0:50

but what did you vote for?

Debkanya 0:52

so.

Kiran Menon 0:53

to vote

Debkanya 0:54

You didn't have to vote exactly. Because this is A BMC election. BMC is the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, election. Why is it important?

Kiran Menon 1:05

or BMC?

Debkanya 1:06

BMC

Kiran Menon 1:07

Ah,

Debkanya 1:08

Mumbai is one word. Yeah.

Kiran Menon 1:10

excellent.

Debkanya 1:10

Yeah,

Kiran Menon 1:11

Good.

Debkanya 1:11

you know what we voted for. So basically why you didn't have to vote and why I had to vote is because this is a very Mumbai specific election where we were voting for our, for the person who will be in charge of taking care of our city. So infrastructure, our roads, somebody who can help tackle all the, the pollution and the a QI in the city has been quite bad. Somebody who can, uh, you know, tackle. Water supply issues in the city, uh, the environment, a lot of things that affect our day-to-day lives.

Kiran Menon 1:40

Mm-hmm.

Debkanya 1:41

what, uh, we went out and voted for yesterday.

Kiran Menon 1:44

Nice. Okay, Good to know. And, uh, good job on voting. Everyone who's eligible to vote should vote, and, uh, that's the only way that we can make a difference in the city, the state, and the country that we live in. But talking about countries, there is one, which is in a lot of turmoil right now, right?

Debkanya 2:06

That's right. Yep. It is. We are gonna travel up, towards the north and towards the west of, from where we are, from India. We are basically going to a place which was in the ancient world, known as Persia, and is today known as Iran.

Kiran Menon 2:23

Sia, it has such a rich history. You know, there's so many stories. I think there are many movies around the whole Persian region. Um, there was a game called Prince of Persia, which used to be really, really big when we were kids. I mean, I think it's making a comeback now, but Prince of Persia used to be huge. So yeah, it's a very, very influential region in world history.

Debkanya 2:46

And unfortunately they've been in a, you know, a lot of trouble recently. If you've been watching the news, if you're hearing about it at all, what's happening there is there have been widespread protests across the country, people. Regular citizens, shopkeepers, the youth, women, they've all come out and they're all protesting. It's been getting quite violent over there because they've been severe crackdown by the, by the government where they are trying to stop people from protesting. They're telling them to stop, go home, we don't want to hear you, but people are not giving up. So it's been quite a scary situation. The security forces have opened fire on the protestors. There have been mass arrests. There's been a lot of people who've just disappeared, who've been taken away, um, and put into jails. Not a good situation in Iran at all right now.

Kiran Menon 3:37

You know, if you think about Iran, it's been kind of struggling for quite a bit,

Debkanya 3:42

Mm-hmm.

Kiran Menon 3:42

it's, uh. The reason for sky high inflation, what's inflation, right? Where prices of food, of your essentials, everything from a biscuit to rice to everything just keeps going up and up. There are multiple reasons why. Maybe because there's not enough. Uh, supply of it, maybe because they're not able to import some of the things, because not every country makes everything that people eat, so you have to import some of those things. So inflation actually shows a very real view of how well a country or an economy is doing. And with sky high inflation, it basically means that the country is struggling. Right?

Debkanya 4:20

Yep.

Kiran Menon 4:21

along with that. The currency of Iran actually reducing in value as well. Now, what does that mean? I'm sure many of you have often heard your parents or, you know, maybe colleagues kind of talk about, peers talk about things like what is the rupe to the dollar and globally today, every single currency of every single country. Benchmarks their currency value to the dollar. And so Iran's currency is actually reducing quite significantly against that dollar. It's been really, really tough for the last few years, where, uh, they've been facing a lot of sanctions from the US. Sanctions is basically where US has gone in and clamped down saying that, Hey, Iran's oil exports will be charged, much higher prices like the trade tariffs that we've been talking about over the last few episodes and over the last one year. Right. So all of that coming together along with the fact that there are reports that. Even internally, it was completely mismanaged. All the finances and you know, infrastructure was not being developed. So all of that really, really reached that melting point where people could not take anymore, and that's why this whole unrest has kind of happened. Very, very often, think about it, most unrest, most times people get unhappy is when it has to do with their livelihood, with their economic situation, with their finances. And so that's very often when people start getting up and, you know, really, really, um. Throwing a hissy fit about it, which they should.

Debkanya 6:11

And this is not the first time Kiran. I mean, Iran was a beautiful country. It was a very modern country once upon a time. But things have changed over the years. In fact, one of some of the more recent protests, like in 2019, um, there were protests in Iran, which was called the We can't Afford Life protest again, same thing that you were saying that people could not afford basic things, fuel prices went up. So workers, families, the poor and middle class people, they all went out and said, you know, something's got to change. And even then the government response was, we'll shut down the internet. We will crack down in a very harsh manner and teach people a lesson so they don't come out and protest. Then again in 2022 iran saw, and this one I was particularly interested in because this was the protest where a lot of women and young women, uh, young girls came out. A lot of students came out and started protesting. They started cutting their hair in public. They started protesting about their freedom because Iran now. Islamic, uh, Republic, right? They're very strict about, the way you need to lead your life, especially for women. You have to cover up, you cannot do certain things. You cannot go out at a certain time. There are a lot of restrictions on the movement and the activities of women. So a lot of young women had enough of this and they said, you know, we are going to come out and protest. So that was also, again, there was a very bad backlash against them, at that time as well.

Kiran Menon 7:30

It's actually interesting that you talked about that. Because actually had who came in, you know, long back about 45 years ago changed the entire governmental structure of Iran. It became a religious leader who leads the entire country. And so this religious leader, and at that point it was He was above the president, the government, the parliament, the courts, everything. He had the final say over everything. Right? And then he obviously died in 1989, and now we actually have Ali Khamenei, who is the supreme leader of, of Iran. Still the same rules. He is still the main man. Everything goes with what he says. He has the final say on everything. And so it's not really a democracy. It's not like in India where we where we vote like

Debkanya 8:26

Exactly.

Kiran Menon 8:26

went and voted for even just your Mumbai municipal

Debkanya 8:31

body. Yeah.

Kiran Menon 8:32

Yeah. And here there is no real voting for who the leader is.

Debkanya 8:37

I mean, Iran has never been a democracy. It used to have a king before this, he was called the Shah of Iran.

Kiran Menon 8:43

Yep.

Debkanya 8:43

that's what, remember I was saying that Iran used to be quite modern. Actually it was because the Shah actually had a great relationship with the western world. He was very friendly with the US, with Europe, uh, cities were very modern. But again, even then, people were not very happy with the way the monarchy was treating the poor. A lot of rich people were getting every, all the benefits and the poor were being left behind. And that's actually what pushed the people to, you know, push out the monarchy and bring in Ayatollah Khomeini. He was supposed to be, uh, bringing a revolution into the country. Change things completely. People felt that, oh, we are becoming too modern and moving away from who we are and our religion. So then Khomeini came and said, okay, you know what? Religion is going to be the main tenet by which we live our lives, right? So it was never a democracy, it's just that. He came in to change things. People were happy because he felt like, okay, finally we've got somebody who's, who cares about us, cares about the poor. But now over the years, uh, you know, we have a second Supreme leader in Khamenei. Very similar sounding names, guys, but they're two different people. Um,

Kiran Menon 9:48

Is the,

Debkanya 9:49

yes, Ali Hosseini Khamenei. Again, same kind of protests coming up again where they're just saying like, Hey, you know, we don't have a say. And now things are just too strict. We have to do everything that the religious leader tells us to do. We can't do anything, uh, you know, as per our own wishes, right? So they're being controlled a lot. So that's, that's the situation there in Iran. And Iran is very important.

Kiran Menon 10:12

It is very important because of the entire energy and you know, the geographical position of the country.

Debkanya 10:17

Oh yeah.

Kiran Menon 10:18

what's interesting is, um, you know, the US has been against Iran because Iran, and, and this is also very complicated, you know, it goes back to that whole, uh, analogy that we keep bringing up, which is in a playground, you know. So, US is friends with Israel, Israel and Iran. against each other. So therefore Iran is against US and US is against Iran. So there's a whole lot of this sort of complicated, uh, friendship and, and enemies that kind of happen within this region. So it's, it's getting really, really complicated. Right. And. What I've heard, and you know, which is interesting, you can never write this off, is, um, just like how Donald Trump went into Venezuela, like we discussed the last week, took out Maduro and brought him back. Is there a possible military option that he's considering from an Iran perspective? And it is really, really important to think about this because Iran, like you said a very, very important country. It is an oil country, and

Debkanya 11:27

That is the key. That is the key, yeah.

Kiran Menon 11:30

with Venezuela. He's going in there for the oil. Um, so does this make it his next target? Who knows, right?

Debkanya 11:38

And you spoke about the geographical location. It's such situated right in the middle. It's pretty much, it's almost like that country. It's a big country which connects Europe, connects Africa, to Asia. You know, it's, I mean, what was called the Middle East, basically, you know, it's, that's what it is. It's at the heart of it.

Kiran Menon 11:55

Yeah.

Debkanya 11:56

And oil, like you said, great resource, there. And also the other thing about Iran, which is interesting and a lot of countries are worried about. And a situation of political unrest is not good for the region is because Iran is also a nuclear power. Right? They have been, they have been developing their, uh, nuclear energy. They've been of course saying that we are doing this in order to, you know, give people the benefits of say, for example, electricity. Right? But, but what Iran has also been doing is keeping everyone out. So no one really knows to what extent their, their abilities to harness nuclear power has gone. Uh, they have no idea. There are no watchdogs allowed. So everywhere in the world, if you have anything to do with nuclear power, if you have a nuclear plant, then you have watchdogs who come in and check, okay, hey, what are you using it for? Where is it going to go? What are you doing to make sure that this place is safe? Iran has not allowed anyone in.

Kiran Menon 12:50

From a geographical perspective, it is actually one of the biggest countries in the region. It's bigger than Iraq, it's bigger than, you know, Oman. It's way bigger than Israel, way bigger than even

Debkanya 13:02

I think it's close to Saudi Arabia in terms of size.

Kiran Menon 13:05

Saudi Arabia size. Exactly. And

Debkanya 13:07

Yeah.

Kiran Menon 13:08

it is a large landmass as well. So, you know, it's very, very important from a geopolitical perspective.

Debkanya 13:18

I find this country fascinating, what it used to be, if you look at pictures, you can do this, actually, you can Google Iran. Look at what it used to be long, long ago. It was a very modern country, you know, they had.

Kiran Menon 13:30

most fashion forward

Debkanya 13:32

Exactly, exactly. I mean, women in Iran wars the most classy outfits. Very modern, but today they are all covered up in hijabs and that's the expected, uh, dress code there. Right? How things have changed,

Kiran Menon 13:46

Actually,

Debkanya 13:47

the course of the years.

Kiran Menon 13:48

for everyone who's listening to do. Go online. Just look at Iran photos from early 19 hundreds to Iran photos in early two thousands, right? And you will see that massive difference. it

Debkanya 14:02

yes.

Kiran Menon 14:03

for the quiz question.

Debkanya 14:08

Yay. The quiz question this week. I mean, I love this one and I think a lot of you might already know this. Did you know that Iran has a very, very strong India connection? Okay, a thousand years ago. We are talking about 1100 to 1300 years ago, approximately. A group of people moved from Iran because of the, you know, there was again, some unrest in the region. People had to run away from the region because of this. So a group of people from Iran moved to India and settled here to form a very important Indian community. Which you would've heard of. I'm not gonna give you options here. Think about this. Ask around, what is that community called?

Kiran Menon 14:55

Very, very easy answer, so that's why.

Debkanya 14:57

Mm-hmm.

Kiran Menon 14:57

options, huh!.

Debkanya 14:59

No options.

Kiran Menon 15:00

Work, and let's see who comes up with the right answer. Again, it's not the first person who sends us the answer. It's not the last person. It's not how many times you've sent the answer, you could be the winner who tells us what is the India connection? What is the group of people from Iran who moved to India many, many, many, many, many years ago? What is that community called? Last week our question was about Trump's preferences of countries that he wants to take over because he's now taken over Venezuela to a large extent.

Debkanya 15:34

Yeah.

Kiran Menon 15:35

the other one that he's been talking about? We did say that he's interested in Iran as well, potentially, but had made it very clear he wants to take over one other country. The options were Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Greenland and Madagascar. It is amazing because I think a lot of you listen to our episodes very regularly because we've talked about this country before and so many of you got it right. Greenland is the right answer.

Debkanya 16:02

This week's lucky winner is Vihaan Kukreja. Congratulations Vihaan on sending us the correct answer. Greenland, it is. For this, you're going to get the Takaro T-shirt and a gift certificate.

Kiran Menon 16:15

Congratulations for sending us the answer. so you know, look for our message and respond back with the details and we'll send you of this as soon as possible. If you answer this week's quiz questions, send it to us on www.takarokids.com or send it over on Instagram as a direct message or as a comment to one of our posts. No problem. Uh, but get an adult to do that for you.