Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Ideas of India
| Titre | Date | Durée | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amol Agrawal on the Bankers who Built Modern India | 29 Aug 2024 | 01:24:24 | |
Today my guest is Amol Agrawal, who is the author of History of Private Banking in South Canara District (1906-69). He teaches economics at Ahmedabad University and blogs at the excellent blog Mostly Economics. We spoke about the colonial and post-colonial history of banking in India, the unique features of the South Canara district, and its bankers, inclusive banking by state and private banks, bank nationalization, and much more. Recorded July 26th, 2024. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Connect with Ideas of India Follow Shruti on X Follow Amol on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro (00:01:21) - History of Private Banking in India (00:12:06) - Lending and Deposits (00:16:17) - Industrial Development and Banking (00:21:24) - Bank Runs in India (00:25:54) - Success of South Canara Banks (00:28:38) - Systemic Risk in South Canara (00:36:16) - Banking Castes? (00:40:29) - What was the RBI so wrong about with South Canara banking? (00:47:50) - Pigmy Deposit Scheme (01:05:28) - Why Were India’s Banks Nationalized? (01:23:35) - Outro | |||
| Amartya Lahiri and Devashish Mitra on Trade and Manufacturing-Led Economic Growth in India | 15 Aug 2024 | 01:36:16 | |
Today my guests are Amartya Lahiri and Devashish Mitra who are joining me to discuss their latest paper for the 1991 project titled India’s Development Policy Challenge. Amartya Lahiri is the Royal Bank Research Professor in the Vancouver School of Economics at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Devashish Mitra the Gerald B. and Daphna Cramer Professor of Global Affairs at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University. We spoke about structural transformation and increasing total factor productivity, manufacturing versus services led growth, industrial policy, export led growth, how to employ India’s youth in more productive sectors, and much more. Recorded July 29th, 2024. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Connect with Ideas of India Follow Shruti on X Follow Amartya on X Follow Devashish on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro (00:01:27) - State of India’s Structural Transformation (00:08:28) - Has India’s Growth Peaked? (00:15:39) - Trade-, Export-, and Manufacturing-Led Growth (00:27:50) - Manufacturing-Led or Services-Led Growth Model? (00:47:16) - Scaling Manufacturing (00:59:38) - Labor Productivity in India (01:06:41) - Rising Protectionism (01:19:44) - Monetary Policy and Trade Policy (01:35:26) - Outro | |||
| Pranay Kotasthane Unravels the Global Semiconductor Industry | 11 Apr 2024 | ||
Today my guest is Pranay Kotasthane who is the deputy director of the Takshashila Institution and chairs the High Tech Geopolitics Programme. Pranay co-writes Anticipating the Unintended, a newsletter on public policy ideas and frameworks, and co-hosts Puliyabaazi, a popular Hindi-Urdu podcast on politics, policy, and technology. He is the co-author of - Missing in Action: Why Should You Care About Public Policy, and the graphic nonfiction narrative We, the Citizens. He has co-edited India’s Marathon: Reshaping the Post-Pandemic World Order. Today we are discussing his most recent book, When the Chips Are Down, coauthored with Abhiram Manchi. We spoke the evolution of the semiconductor industry, industrial targeting, Moore’s law, Rock’s law, Taiwan’s Comparative advantage, whether India can lead in semiconductor chips and more. Recorded March 12th, 2024. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro (00:08:35) - Moore's Law (00:14:08) - Rock's Law (00:21:41) - Geopolitics of the Semiconducter Industry (00:27:46) - Metacritical Technologies (00:38:49) - Geographical Concentration (00:48:34) - Zelenograd (00:59:44) - Unease of doing Business in India (01:09:45) - Industrial Targeting in Taiwan (01:30:57) - Outro Connect with Ideas of India Follow Shruti on X Follow Pranay on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. | |||
| Proma Ray Chaudhury on Gender and Women's Political Participation | 31 Dec 2020 | 00:31:47 | |
The fourth scholar in our young scholars series is Proma Ray Chaudhury, a PhD Candidate at the School of Law and Government in Dublin City University under the EU Marie Curie ETN Global India Project, working on gender and women’s political participation in contemporary India. I spoke with Proma about her paper titled, “The Political Asceticism of Mamata Banerjee: Female Populist Leadership in Contemporary India,” where she studies representation of female political leaders, in particular, Mamata Bannerjee in West Bengal. Full transcript of this episode Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox! | |||
| Tanu Kumar on the Connection Between Housing Subsidies and Political Activity | 24 Dec 2020 | 00:27:39 | |
For the next few weeks I will be speaking to young doctoral and post-doctoral candidates entering the academic job market and the policy world about their newly minted research on Indian political economy. The third scholar in our young scholars series, Dr. Tanu Kumar is a postdoctoral fellow at William and Mary’s Global Research Institute. She is a political scientist studying urban politics and service delivery. I spoke with Tanu about her paper, “Home-Price Subsidies Increase Local-Level Political Participation in Urban India,” which has been conditionally accepted at the Journal of Politics. In her paper, Tanu studies the effects of a housing subsidy program in Mumbai through an original survey of winners and nonwinners of program lotteries, and its effect on local political participation. We also discussed another one of Tanu’s papers, “The Human Capital Effects of Subsidized Government-Constructed Homes in Urban India,” on how this housing subsidy affects long-term investments in human capital. Full transcript of this episode Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox! | |||
| Rohit Ticku on Temple Desecrations and Same-Sex Marriage Laws | 17 Dec 2020 | 00:25:52 | |
For the next few weeks I will be speaking to young doctoral and post-doctoral candidates entering the academic job market and the policy world about their newly minted research on Indian political economy. The next scholar in our young scholar series is of Dr. Rohit Ticku. Rohit is a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for the Study of Religion, Economics, and Society at Chapman University. He is working on religion, culture and identity from an economic point of view. I spoke with Rohit about his paper, titled Economic Shocks and Temple Desecrations in Medieval India, which is coauthored with Anand Shrivastava and Sriya Iyer, where they show that economic downturns led rules to strategically desecrate temples to quell mass uprisings. I also discussed another one of Rohit’s papers titled Same Sex Marriage Laws and Coming out in America:Theory and Evidence from Catholic Priesthood (coauthored with Avner Seror) on the effect of the same-sex marriage laws on the expression of sexual identity in the United States. Full transcript of this episode Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox! | |||
| Vaishnavi Surendra on the Moneylender as Middleman in Rural India | 10 Dec 2020 | 00:28:20 | |
For the next few weeks, I will be speaking to young doctoral and post-doctoral candidates entering the academic and policy works about their newly minted research on Indian political economy. The first scholar in our young scholars’ series is Dr. Vaishnavi Surendra. Vaishnavi is a post-doctoral scholar at University of California, Berkley. She is a development economist working in the area of household finance and her research is focused on studying credit markets in rural India. Today I’ll be speaking with her on her findings on moneylenders in rural India. In her paper titled, “The Moneylender as Middleman: Formal Credit Supply and Informal Loans in Rural India” Vaishnavi demonstrates that informal moneylenders borrow from the formal banking system and lend to households acting as intermediaries to ease lending capital constraints in rural India. Full transcript of this episode Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox! | |||
| Adam Auerbach on Slum Residents Demanding Development | 26 Nov 2020 | 01:29:48 | |
Shruti talks with Adam Auerbach about competition, creative problem-solving, and formalizing political activity in India’s urban slums. In this episode, Shruti spoke with Adam Auerbach about his 2019 book, Demanding Development: The Politics of Public Goods Provision in India’s Urban Slums. Auerbach is an assistant professor in the School of International Service at American University. His research interests include local governance, urban politics, and the political economy of development, with a regional focus in South Asia and particularly in India. Shruti also talked with Adam about the ethnic and social diversity of Indian slums, the lack of geographic mobility between those neighborhoods, political representation at the extremely local level, and much more. Full transcript of this episode enhanced with helpful links: https://www.discoursemagazine.com/tag/ideas-of-india-podcast/ Connect with Shruti on Twitter: https://twitter.com/srajagopalan | |||
| Rohit De on the Everyday Life of Law in the Indian Republic | 12 Nov 2020 | 01:22:35 | |
Today’s guest is Rohit De, who is an associate professor of history at Yale University. His recent book, A People's Constitution: The Everyday Life of Law in the Indian Republic, is an excellent look at how the constitution actually transformed the daily lives of citizens in profound and lasting ways. Rohit details how those on the margins of society, like butchers and prostitutes, or drinkers and traders, made claims using the constitution after India’s founding and shaped India’s constitutional culture. I had a chance to speak with Rohit about the four cases he makes in the book. We talked about how individuals asserted their rights against an oppressive, regulatory, and socialist state that had criminalized their daily activities and infringed on their ability to carry on their profession. We also had a chance to talk about Indian constitutionalism, economic planning and controls during the Nehruvian socialism, the meaning of constitutional franchise, constitutional symbolism during the citizenship amendment protests in India, Rohit’s intellectual journey, and much more. Full transcript of this episode enhanced with helpful links: https://www.discoursemagazine.com/tag/ideas-of-india-podcast/ Connect with me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/srajagopalan | |||
| Biju Rao on Democracy, Deliberation, and Development | 29 Oct 2020 | 01:20:31 | |
Today my guest is Vijayendra Rao, or as he's known, Biju Rao, a lead economist in the Development Research Group at the World Bank. His recent book coauthored with professor Paromita Sanyal called Oral Democracy: Deliberation in Indian Village Assemblies, is an excellent study of citizens voice in India's Gram Sabhas, or village assemblies, which are also the largest deliberative institution in human history. I had a chance to speak with Biju about deliberative democracy in India, federalism and local governments, conducting ethnographic research, what it means to be a development economist, the relevance of methodology and history, and much more. Full transcript of this episode Follow Biju on Twitter Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox! | |||
| Viral Acharya on Restoring Financial Stability in India | 15 Oct 2020 | 01:34:09 | |
Today’s guest is Viral Acharya, who is the C.V. Starr Professor of Economics in the Department of Finance at New York University’s Stern School of Business. His recent book, Quest for Restoring Financial Stability in India is an excellent introduction to the problems of autonomous central banking in the face of fiscal dominance by the ever-expanding Indian state. The book contains a series of Viral’s lectures given during his tenure as Deputy Governor at the Reserve Bank of India. This conversations covers his views on fiscal dominance and its impact on central banking, the current banking crisis brewing in India, India’s informal economy, problems with fiscal federalism, the role of technocrats and the role of ideology, and the reversal of policy direction towards more statism. Full transcript of this episode Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox! | |||
| Sriya Iyer on the Economics of Religion in India | 01 Oct 2020 | 01:25:07 | |
My guest today is Sriya Iyer, a Bibby Fellow and College Lecturer at St Catharine's College and Affiliated Lecturer and Janeway Fellow at the Faculty of Economics at the University of Cambridge. Her recent book, The Economics of Religion in India is an excellent survey of her work on religion in India, from the economic point of view, studied using the tools of economics. In this book Sriya analyzes provisioning of religious and non-religious services by religious organizations in India, ethnic conflict, riots, competition between religious organization, and religious education. This work is extremely insightful and sheds light to understand more recent trends of nationalism in India. In this episode we cover her work on the economics of religion, caste, the rise of the BJP and Hindu nationalism, her intellectual influences, and much more. Full transcript of this episode Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox! | |||
| Anuj Bhuwania on Public Interest Litigation | 17 Sep 2020 | 01:27:44 | |
Anuj is a professor at the Jindal Global Law School. And his recent book, Courting the People: Public Interest Litigation in Post-Emergency India is an excellent account of the development and failure of the Public Interest Litigation movement. In this book Anuj details the big PIL cases in the last few decades – concerning pollution of the Taj Mahal, pollution of river Ganges, as well as cases dealing with vehicular pollution, deindustrialization and slum demolitions in Delhi. His analysis brings out two implications of the PIL movement on India – one on Indian citizens, especially the poor, because of arbitrary and draconian orders of the court. And the toll the PIL movement has taken on the Indian judiciary and its reputation. I had a chance to speak with Anuj about the relaxation of locus standi requirements and procedural constraints on the judiciary in India since the 1980s; about the current state of Supreme Court, ruled more by whim than by law, the work of a legal anthropologist, his intellectual influences, and much more. This conversation was recorded before the Prashant Bhushan contempt of court case. But Anuj’s ideas and research also help explain these recent trends in the Indian judiciary. Full transcript of this episode Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox! | |||
| Badri Narayanan and M. Krishnan Navigate the Choppy Waters of Fisheries Negotiations | 28 Mar 2024 | 01:00:35 | |
Today my guests are M. Krishnan and Badri Narayanan Gopalakrishnan. M. Krishnan is an economist based in Chennai and Singapore, and specializes in agriculture education systems, fisheries, and aquaculture research. He is currently an advisor at Infinite-Sum Modeling Inc and was a distinguished scientist of the Agricultural Research Service of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. Badri Narayanan Gopalakrishnan is an economist specializing in trade and international policy. He is a Fellow at the (NITI) Aayog, Government of India, where he formerly led the institution’s sections on Trade and Commerce, Strategic Economic Dialogue, International Cooperation, and Vision India@2047. Today we are discussing their recent coauthored paper titled Indian Fisheries in the Context of WTO Regulations, published by the Mercatus Center in collaboration with Center for Governance and Markets at the University of Pittsburgh. We spoke about the big issues concerning fisheres, in particular, India’s interests in at the 13th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) recently held in Abu Dhabi. Recorded March 13th, 2024. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro (00:01:50) - Fisheries in India (00:13:46) - Overfishing and Illegal Fishing in India (00:19:59) - Overfishing Negotiations (00:22:01) - Subsidies (00:26:27) - At the Negotiating Table (00:28:24) - IUUs (00:33:01) - Seasonal Fishing Ban (00:37:33) - Leading the Global South (00:45:17) - Measurement (00:48:47) - Domestic Politics (00:53:35) - The Future (00:59:38) - Outro Connect with Ideas of India Follow Shruti on X Follow Badri on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. | |||
| Dinyar Patel on Dadabhai Naoroji and the Building of Modern-Day India | 03 Sep 2020 | 01:24:44 | |
Dinyar Patel an Assistant Professor of South Asian History at the SP Jain Institute of Management & Research and a research affiliate at the Mittal Institute at Harvard University. His latest book, Naoroji: Pioneer of Indian Nationalism, is an excellent biography of Dadabhai Naoroji, a foundational figure in the building of modern-day India. I had a chance to speak with Dinyar about the trajectory of Indian nationalism, the ideas that influenced Naoroji, the difference between Naoroji and his contemporaries like fellow parsi and British MP Mancherjee Bhownagree, Naoroji’s correspondence with radical socialist Henry Hyndman, Dinyar’s intellectual and professional journey, and much more. Full transcript of this episode Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox! | |||
| Madhav Khosla on the Framing of the Indian Constitution | 20 Aug 2020 | 01:06:51 | |
Welcome to Ideas of India, a podcast where we examine academic thinking that can propel India forward. My name is Shruti Rajagopalan. Today, my guest is Madhav Khosla, associate professor of political science at Ashoka University and the Ambedkar Visiting Associate Professor at Columbia Law School. His latest book, India’s Founding Moment: The Constitution of a Most Surprising Democracy, details the main ideas or traditions of thought that informed the Indian constitutional project and discusses how the framing of the Constitution changed India’s trajectory. In his book, Madhav talks about the decision of the framers to have a very long and codified Constitution as a pedagogical project. He argues that the framers centralized power to fight localism and parochialism. And we spoke about the framers’ idea of representation in a society fragmented by religion and caste, with the backdrop of Partition, and the relevance of those choices today. I had a chance to talk about these themes, the link between India’s founding and its constitutional troubles today, the framers of the Constitution, Madhav’s intellectual influences, and much more. This conversation was recorded in person in February, before the COVID pandemic. But Madhav’s book on the founding is unlikely to lose its relevance anytime soon. Full transcript of this episode Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox! | |||
| Ajay Shah on Indian State Capacity and Policy Priorities | 06 Aug 2020 | 01:25:04 | |
Welcome to Ideas Of India, where we examine the academic ideas that can propel India forward. My name is Shruti Rajagopalan, and I’m an economist at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. My guest today is Ajay Shah, professor of economics at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy in New Delhi. Over the years I’ve learned a lot from Ajay’s academic and policy-oriented research on India, which is written at the intersection of economics, law, and public administration. His latest book, In Service of the Republic: The Art and Science of Economic Policy, co-authored with Prof. Vijay Kelkar, is an excellent overview of their interdisciplinary approach to policy in India. An important theme in the book is that market failure in itself does not justify state intervention. And between market failure and government intervention we must examine state capacity, the incentives of political actors, and the checks and balances provided by the larger institutional framework. While Ajay used to be more focused on technical aspects of economics and about where markets can fail, now his focus is on working through the rules and institutional arrangements through which we govern ourselves. In addition to the ideas in the book, Ajay and I talk about this evolution in his thinking, his first-hand experience with policy making, his journey as an economist, major influences, and much more. Full transcript of this episode Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox! | |||
| Aparna Chandra Puts the Supreme Court on Trial | 14 Mar 2024 | 01:35:02 | |
Aparna Chandra is a constitutional scholar and associate professor of law at the National Law school in Bangalore. She is the coauthor, along with Sital Kalantry and William Hubbard of the recent book Court on Trial: A Data-Driven Account of the Supreme Court of India. We spoke about the problem of pendency across all courts in the Indian judiciary, whether the Supreme Court is truly a people’s court, the problem of special leave petitions, potential ways to reform the judiciary, and much more. Recorded February 16th, 2024. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Timestamps (00:01:12) - Function of the Supreme Court (00:07:05) - Special Leave Petition (SLP) (00:13:57) - A People’s Court? (00:35:56) - Fast tracks and VIP Culture (00:48:25) - Malice, Incompetence or Compassion? (00:52:03) - People Like Us (01:04:41) - Ending SLPs (01:23:15) - Too Cool for Rules (01:29:51) - Chief Justice as First Among Equals (01:33:50) - Outro Connect with Ideas of India Follow Shruti on X Follow Aparna on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. | |||
| Doug Irwin on the History and Political Economy of Trade Policy | 22 Feb 2024 | 01:17:03 | |
This is our 100th episode and I want to thank our listeners, the guests who have been exceptionally generous with their time and insights, the fantastic team at Mercatus that helps me produce and disseminate the podcast, and to all our donors and supporters. Today my guest is Douglas Irwin, who is the John French Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College. He is the author of dozens of books and papers, most recently, Clashing over Commerce, which is a magisterial history of US trade policy. We spoke about India’s liberalization moment in 1991, the five phases of globalization, British repeal of Corn laws, premature deindustrialization, the relevance of the WTO, absolute versus comparative advantage, the future Argentina, and much more. Recorded January 23rd, 2024. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Follow Shruti on X Follow Doug on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. | |||
| Rahul Matthan on AI, Privacy, and Digital Public Infrastructure | 08 Feb 2024 | 01:36:38 | |
Today my guest is Rahul Matthan, a technology lawyer and partner at Trilegal. He assisted the Indian government in developing India’s data privacy law and he is the author of the recent books Privacy 3.0 and The Third Way. We spoke about India’s digital public infrastructure revolution, India’s unified payments system, AI, blockchain, the design issues around India’s NCPI, Aadhaar, privacy, and much more. Recorded January 22nd, 2024. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Follow Shruti on X Follow Rahul on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. | |||
| Aditya Balasubramanian on Swatantra Party and Opposition Politics in India | 25 Jan 2024 | 01:10:10 | |
Aditya Balasubramanian is a Senior Lecturer in History at Australian National University. His research focuses on various aspects of the history of modern South Asia. And he is the author of the new book, Toward a Free Economy: Swatantra and Opposition Politics in Democratic India. We spoke about the history of a conservative and ideological opposition politics of India, influence of BR Shenoy and more generally the Austrian economists on Swatratra party, about C Rajagopalachari, other members, and much more. Recorded December 22nd, 2023. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Follow Shruti on X Follow Aditya on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. | |||
| The Art of Talking Films with Nasreen Munni Kabir | 11 Jan 2024 | 01:28:20 | |
Today my guest is Nasreen Munni Kabir, a documentary filmmaker, TV producer and director, author, biographer, translator/subtitler, and an absolute authority on all things Hindi cinema. We spoke about her biographical conversation series of books with artists like Javed Akhtar, Gulzar, Lata Mangeshkar, Waheeda Rahman, Zakir Hussain, AR Rahman. We also spoke about her documentary films on Guru Dutt, and television series Movie Mahal chronicling the history of Hindi cinema, how she chooses her subjects, the difficulty of subtitling Hindi films, her favorite films, songs, artists, and much more. Recorded December 12th, 2023. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Follow Shruti on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. | |||
| 2023 in Review | 28 Dec 2023 | 01:16:23 | |
Today the roles are reversed. In the 2023 end of the year review episode, producer Dallas Floer asks Shruti questions from our listeners about Shruti's ideas of India, how Shruti prepares for the podcast, various guests, the most listened to and the most underrated episode picks of the year, and much more. Recorded December 12th, 2023. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Follow Shruti on X Follow Dallas on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. | |||
| Rajat Kochhar on Agricultural Market Power and Farmer Adaptation to Climate Change | 14 Dec 2023 | 00:40:11 | |
Our last scholar in the series this year is Rajat Kocchar, a post-doctoral scholar at University of Chicago’s Energy and Environment Lab. He has a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Southern California, and his research lies in the field of environmental economics, in particular, on the understanding the factors that incentivize adaptation to climate shocks. We discussed his paper, “Does Market Power in Local Agricultural Markets Hinder Farmer Climate Change Adaptation?” We talked about the impact of distortionary policies and regulations on farmer’s ability to cope with weather shocks in India, the agricultural produce market system, the choice of crop mix, and the effectiveness of water audits in the UK and much more. Recorded September 21st, 2023. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Follow Shruti on X Follow Rajat on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. | |||
| Vani Swarupa Murali on the Lack of Decentralization in India and Its impact on Water Depletion | 30 Nov 2023 | 00:36:05 | |
Shruti spoke with Vani Swarupa Murali a PhD. Candidate and an instructor at the South Asian Studies Department in the National University of Singapore (NUS). She has a Masters in Asian Studies from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore. Her research lies at the intersection of political science and agricultural policy and environmental governance. We spoke about “When Sowing is not Reaping: Decentralisation, Groundwater Extraction and Agrarian Livelihoods in Tamil Nadu.” We talked about the overly centralized administrative, political, and fiscal Indian state, its impact on farmers’ livelihood, groundwater depletion and other environmental consequences, and more. Recorded August 31st, 2023. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Follow Shruti on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. | |||
| Anirudh Burman on Rethinking India’s Land Regulation | 01 Aug 2024 | 01:29:33 | |
Today my guest is Anirudh Burman. He is an associate research director and fellow at Carnegie Endowment India, and prior to that, he worked at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy and the Centre for Policy Research, both in New Delhi. He has his master’s in law from Harvard Law School. We spoke about the dysfunctional land markets and the kinds of reforms required in land use policy, land sale and land transfers. We also talked about the various experiments with land pooling and leasing in India, how to think about eminent domain law, land titling, land title insurance and much more. Recorded July 15th, 2024. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Connect with Ideas of India Follow Shruti on X Follow Anirudh on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro (01:11:01) - Land Pooling | |||
| Kartikeya Batra on Long-Run Effects of Land Redistribution in India | 16 Nov 2023 | 00:45:44 | |
Shruti spoke with Kartikeya Batra, who is a Ph.D. candidate in economics at the University of Maryland and has a master’s in international affairs from The Fletcher School. His research lies at the intersection of political economy, development economics, and economic history. They discussed his job market paper titled “Long-Run Effects of Land Redistribution: Evidence from India,” and talked about the erstwhile Zamindari or Taluqdari system and its impact on modern day Uttar Pradesh, land titling versus land redistribution in India, the importance of property rights, relationship between land owning castes and socioeconomic outcomes, and much more. Recorded September 19th, 2023. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Follow Shruti on X Follow Kartikeya on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. | |||
| Vatsal Khandelwal on Pessimistic Belief Correction and its Impact on Well-Being | 02 Nov 2023 | 00:37:35 | |
In this episode, Shruti spoke with Vatsal Khandelwal, who is a junior research fellow at Merton College and an associate member of the Department of Economics at University of Oxford. His main research interest are development and behavioral economics, with a focus on social and economic networks. They discussed his job market paper titled “Silent Networks: The Role of Inaccurate Beliefs in Reducing Useful Social Interactions,” (coauthored with Ronak Jain). They spoke about pessimistic beliefs and their impact on individual’s well-being, the methods to correct incorrect beliefs about social norms, the importance of social networks, support groups, students’ expectations’ impact on performance more. Recorded September 21st, 2023. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Follow Shruti on X Follow Vatsal on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. | |||
| Sarath Pillai on the Influence of Nineteenth Century German Thought on Early Twentieth Century Indian Constitutionalists | 19 Oct 2023 | 00:41:39 | |
Shruti spoke with Sarath Pillai, who is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Center for the Advanced Study of India at University of Pennsylvania. He holds a PhD in History from the University of Chicago, a Master of Studies in Law from Yale Law School, a MA in history from the University of Delhi, and a Postgraduate Diploma in archives and records management from the National Archives of India, Delhi. They discussed his job market paper titled “German Lessons: Comparative Constitutionalism, States’ Rights, and Federalist Imaginaries in Interwar India,” recently published in “Comparative Studies in Society and History.” They spoke about how the views of the princely states on federalism and constitutionalism are different from the view of the Indian nationalists; the influence of German thought on India in the early twentieth century; subnationalism and federalism in modern day India and more. Recorded September 6th, 2023. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Follow Shruti on X Follow Sarath on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. | |||
| Rithika Kumar on the Impact of Male Migration on Women’s Political Engagement | 05 Oct 2023 | 00:31:59 | |
Shruti spoke with Rithika Kumar, who is a Postdoctoral Visiting Fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame. She received her PhD in political science from the University of Pennsylvania in August 2023. Her research lies at the intersection of gender, urbanization and politics in India. Shruti and Rithika discussed her job market paper titled “Left Behind or Left Ahead?” and the feminization of politics, political and social impact of migration, norms holding back women, and much more. Recorded September 6th, 2023. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Follow Shruti on X Follow Rithika on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. | |||
| Vanisha Sharma on the Effects of Internet Expansion in Developing Communities | 21 Sep 2023 | 00:28:57 | |
Shruti spoke with Vanisha Sharma who is a Ph.D. candidate at the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University. She earned her BA in economics with a double minor in psychology and sociology at the University of Hong Kong. She is also the co-editor-in-chief for the blog Economics That Really Matters, which encourages early researchers to share development economics research. Vanisha's research involves estimating effects of internet expansion in developing, rural communities. We discussed her job market paper titled “Social (Media) Learning: Experimental Evidence from Indian Farmers.” Shruti and Vanisha talked about how farmers learn through social media, how it impacts their farm expenditure, their battle against pests and weather shocks and more. Recorded August 31st, 2023. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Follow Shruti on X Follow Vanisha on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. | |||
| Duncan Webb on Reducing Anti-Transgender Discrimination in India | 07 Sep 2023 | 00:36:36 | |
Duncan Webb is a Ph.D. candidate in economics at the Paris School of Economics. He received his B.A. in PPE at Oxford University and his masters in economics at Paris School of Economics. His research lies at the intersection of development and behavioral economics. We spoke about his job market paper titled, “Silence to Solidarity: Using Group Dynamics to Reduce Anti-Transgender Discrimination in India.” Shruti and Duncan talked about deep-rooted prejudice versus marginal prejudice, preference falsification, behavior in group settings, endogamy, caste prejudice and more. Recorded August 31st, 2023. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Follow Shruti on X Follow Duncan on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. | |||
| Amit Ahuja and Devesh Kapur on the Complexity of Violence and Fragility of Order in India | 31 Aug 2023 | 01:23:06 | |
In this episode, Shruti speaks with Amit Ahuja, Associate Professor of Political Science at UC Santa Barbara, and Devesh Kapur, Starr Foundation Professor of South Asian Studies at SAIS at Johns Hopkins University, about their latest volume, Internal Security in India: Violence, Order, and the State. Learn more about their latest volume and their other work here. Recorded August 24th, 2023. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Follow Shruti on X Follow Amit on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. | |||
| Shreyas Narla and Kadambari Shah on Why Women Economic Policy Makers Matter | 17 Aug 2023 | 01:14:21 | |
In this episode, Shruti speaks with Shreyas Narla and Kadambari Shah about women missing from the 1991 reforms high table decision making, trends in female labor force participation, how women in economics are finding their seats in various economic institutions across India, and more. To learn more about Shreyas and Kadambari’s research, oral history interviews, and their work on the 1991 Project, visit the1991Project.com. Recorded July 7th, 2023. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Follow Shruti on X Follow Shreyas on X Follow Kadambari on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. | |||
| Saurabh Kirpal on the Constitutional Case for Marriage Equality in India | 03 Aug 2023 | 01:35:46 | |
In this episode, Shruti speaks with Saurabh Kirpal about the constitutional roots of marriage equality, fundamental rights, the role of the state, problems and challenges of the Indian courts and much more. Kirpal is a senior advocate at the Delhi High Court, the author of “Fifteen Judgments: Cases That Shaped India’s Financial Landscape” and the editor of the anthology “Sex and the Supreme Court: How the Law Is Upholding the Dignity of the Indian Citizen.” Recorded June 26th, 2023. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Follow Shruti on Twitter Follow Saurabh on Twitter Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. | |||
| Peter J. Boettke on Austrian Economics and the Knowledge Problem | 19 Jul 2023 | 02:08:21 | |
In this episode, Shruti speaks with Peter J. Boettke about the writings of F.A. Hayek, why artificial intelligence will not solve the knowledge problem, what many economists throughout history misunderstood about the market process, mainline vs. mainstream economics and much more. Boettke is a Distinguished University Professor of Economics and Philosophy at George Mason University, the BB&T Professor for the Study of Capitalism and the director of the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He has written dozens of books, including “The Battle of Ideas: Economics and the Struggle for a Better World,” “The Economic Way of Thinking,” “Living Economics: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow” and, most recently, “F.A. Hayek: Economics, Political Economy and Social Philosophy.” Recorded June 8th, 2023. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Follow Shruti on Twitter Follow Pete on Twitter Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. | |||
| Kadambari Shah and Shreyas Narla on Continuing the Reform Agenda | 18 Jul 2024 | 01:21:16 | |
Today my guests are Shreyas Narla and Kadambari Shah, who are my colleagues at the Mercatus Center and research scholars working with me on the 1991 Project. We spoke about the kinds of policy change we would like to see in the coalition government led by Modi’s in his third term. We talked about the research Shreyas, Kadambari and I have been working on in the areas of competition policy, regulating India’s digital marketplace, labor law reforms, scaling India’s manufacturing, streamlining GST, and much more. Recorded July 1st, 2024. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Connect with Ideas of India Follow Shruti on X Follow Shreyas on X Follow Kadambari on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro | |||
| Aditi Mittal on Being a Comedian | 06 Jul 2023 | 01:27:10 | |
In this episode, Shruti speaks with Aditi Mittal about how to build a comedy career, why she curses and makes jokes about sex, the logistical difficulties of being a woman in comedy, male vs. female spaces and much more. Mittal is a comedian, writer and actor. She has two Netflix specials, “Things They Wouldn’t Let Me Say” and “Girl Meets Mic,” which is part of the Comedians of the World series. Her third show, “Mother of Invention,” is on Amazon Prime U.K. and AUS and on NextUp Comedy. She’s also the host and executive producer of the podcast Women in Labour. Recorded May 30th, 2023 Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Follow Shruti on Twitter Follow Aditi on Twitter Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. | |||
| Rohini Nilekani on Society, State and Markets | 22 Jun 2023 | 01:10:43 | |
In this episode, Shruti speaks with Rohini Nilekani about civil society’s role in the state, public infrastructure, building state capacity, democratizing access to credit and much more. Nilekani is a journalist, children’s book author, activist and philanthropist. She is the founder of Arghyam, a foundation for sustainable water and sanitation, and the co-founder of Pratham Books. She is also the chairperson of Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies and the co-founder and director of EkStep, a nonprofit education platform. Her latest book is “Samaaj, Sarkaar, Bazaar: A Citizen-First Approach.” Recorded May 10th, 2023 Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Follow Shruti on Twitter Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. | |||
| Amit Varma on The Creator Economy | 08 Jun 2023 | 01:32:26 | |
In this episode, Shruti speaks with Amit Varma about being alert to changing technologies, building online communities, creating for love vs. validation, how to use ChatGPT productively and much more. Varma is a writer, journalist and podcaster based in Mumbai. He hosts the weekly podcast The Seen and the Unseen and is a columnist at the Times of India. He is also the author of the blog India Uncut, which was active from 2004 to 2008. He won the Bastiat Prize for Journalism in 2007 and 2015, the first person to win it twice. Recorded May 29th, 2023 Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Follow Shruti on Twitter Follow Amit on Twitter Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. | |||
| Rahul Sagar on Finding India’s Hidden 19th-Century History | 25 May 2023 | 01:20:20 | |
In this episode, Shruti speaks with Rahul Sagar about East India Company rule vs. crown rule, public finance constitutionalism, effects of technology on India’s intellectual history, historic preservation and much more. Sagar is the Global Network Associate Professor of Political Science at NYU Abu Dhabi. His primary research interests are in political theory, political ethics and public policy, and he has written on a range of topics including executive power, moderation and political realism. His books include “The Progressive Maharaja: Sir Madhava Rao’s Hints on the Art and Science of Government,” “To Raise a Fallen People: The Nineteenth-Century Origins of Indian Views on International Politics” and “Secrets and Leaks: The Dilemma of State Secrecy.” Recorded May 16th, 2023 Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Follow Shruti on Twitter Follow Rahul on Twitter Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. | |||
| Montek Singh Ahluwalia on Mapping the Journey of Policy Reform with a Policy Reformer | 11 May 2023 | 01:19:42 | |
In this episode, Shruti speaks with Montek Singh Ahluwalia about how policy reforms happen, civil servants vs. technocratic experts, the importance of expert committees, good and bad lobbying, economic growth and much more. Ahluwalia is an Indian economist and civil servant who was the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission of India, a position which carried the rank of cabinet minister. He was previously the first director of the Independent Evaluation Office at the International Monetary Fund. Recorded April 26th, 2023 Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Follow Shruti on Twitter Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. | |||
| Sajith Pai on Startups and Venture Capital | 27 Apr 2023 | 01:17:59 | |
In this episode, Shruti speaks with Sajith Pai about the various sectors of the Indian market, unique payment systems, public versus private investment, the role of artificial intelligence and much more. Pai is a long-time media executive turned venture capitalist. After working in media and entertainment, much of it in The Times of India Group, across strategy and corporate development roles, he moved to Blume Ventures, one of India’s leading early-stage venture firms, in 2018. At Blume, he actively focuses on and support its investments in the domestech space, including consumertech, smb saas, b2b marketplaces and more. He also writes on tech, business, culture and their intersections. Recorded March 29th, 2023 Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Follow Shruti on Twitter Follow Sajith on Twitter Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. | |||
| Chakravarthi Rangarajan on Monetary Policy After Liberalization | 13 Apr 2023 | 01:20:18 | |
In this episode, Shruti speaks with Chakravarthi Rangarajan about currency crises, how the post-liberalization reforms built on earlier reforms, fiscal dominance, capital mobility and much more. Rangarajan is an Indian economist, a former member of parliament and 19th governor of the Reserve Bank of India. He formerly chaired the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council. He is also the chair of the Madras School of Economics; a former president of the Indian Statistical Institute; the founding chairman of the C.R. Rao Advanced Institute of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science; former chancellor of the University of Hyderabad; and a professor at Ahmedabad University. His book “Forks in the Road: My Days at RBI and Beyond” describes the path-breaking reforms that he implemented during his tenure as governor of the Reserve Bank of India. Recorded March 22nd, 2023 Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Follow Shruti on Twitter Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. | |||
| Pranay Kotasthane and Raghu S. Jaitley on Individuals and the Indian State | 30 Mar 2023 | 01:26:00 | |
In this episode, Shruti speaks with Pranay Kotasthane and Raghu S. Jaitley about the intersections of markets, society and the state. They discuss the importance of individual decision-making, self-governance versus good governance, why economic growth is a moral imperative, the persuasive power of Indian cinema and much more. Kotasthane is the deputy director of the Takshashila Institution and chairs the High Tech Geopolitics Programme. Jaitley is a public policy and political economy enthusiast. They co-write “Anticipating the Unintended,” a newsletter on public policy ideas and frameworks. Their book, “Missing in Action: Why You Should Care About Public Policy,” examines Indian public policy through the lens of the state. Recorded March 28th, 2023 Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Follow Shruti on Twitter Follow Pranay on Twitter Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. | |||
| Nitin Pai on Educating Citizens | 16 Mar 2023 | 01:19:59 | |
In this episode, Shruti speaks with Nitin Pai about storytelling through the lens of his book, “The Nitopadesha.” They discuss the lessons of Indian folktales for citizens and bureaucrats, the importance of civic education, when democracy does and doesn’t work, the effects of economic growth on individual prosperity and much more. Pai is the co-founder and director of the Takshashila Institution, an independent think tank and school of public policy based in Bangalore, whose goal is to champion India’s national interest and constitutional values. Pai previously worked in technology policy for the government of Singapore and played a role in the deregulation of the telecommunications industry and deployment of broadband infrastructure. Recorded March 1st, 2023 Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Follow Shruti on Twitter Follow Nitin on Twitter Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. | |||
| Alain Bertaud on Order Without Design | 02 Mar 2023 | 01:34:47 | |
In this episode, Shruti speaks with Alain Bertaud about how Indian cities have evolved, utilities pricing, land use restrictions such as floor area ratio and floor space index, slums, charter cities, urbanization in Africa and much more. Bertaud is an urbanist, distinguished visiting scholar at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, and senior research scholar at New York University’s Marron Institute of Urban Management. From 1980 to 1999, he was the principal urban planner at the World Bank. His book about urban planning is titled “Order Without Design: How Markets Shape Cities.” Recorded February 7th, 2023 Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Follow Shruti on Twitter Follow Alain on Twitter Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. | |||
| Sajith Pai Unpacks the 2024 Indus Valley Annual Report and the Changing Indian Consumer | 04 Jul 2024 | 01:24:19 | |
Today my guest is Sajith Pai, who is a partner at Blume Ventures and he is a long-time media executive turned VC. At Blume, Sajith supports investments in media, ed tech and e-commerce, while simultaneously helping Blume building a research and knowledge platform. We spoke about the 2024 Indus Valley Annual Report. written by Sajith and his co-authors, Anurag Pagaria, Nachammai Savithiri both at Blume Ventures; the many countries that make up the country of India; bifurcated between India1, 2, and 3; gross fixed capital formation, fintechs, the consumption led boom that India is experiencing, the space industry, and much more. Recorded June 25th, 2024. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Connect with Ideas of India Follow Shruti on X Follow Sajith on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro (00:14:15) - Gross Fixed Capital Formation (01:00:57) - India's Fintechs (01:11:09) - Space Tech in India (01:17:36) - What's on Pai's Bookshelf? (01:23:39) - Outro | |||
| Poornima Dore on Regional Economic Diversity | 16 Feb 2023 | 01:19:41 | |
In this episode, Shruti speaks with Poornima Dore about using regions rather than states as the unit of analysis, the importance of the construction sector, diversification, balanced regional development planning and much more. Dore is the director of analytics, insights and impact at Tata Trusts. She teaches at some of India's premier management and technical institutes and is also an active musician. Her research covers macro-regional growth, smart cities and local economy insights. She co-authored “Regional Economic Diversity: Lessons from an Emergent India,” a comprehensive study at the National Sample Survey regional level that quantifies regional output and talks about what kind of diversification can help India. Recorded January 31, 2023 Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Follow Shruti on Twitter Follow Poornima on Twitter Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. | |||
| Nikhil Menon on Planning Democracy | 02 Feb 2023 | 01:36:41 | |
In this episode, Shruti speaks with Nikhil Menon about the history of Indian socialism and central planning, government-artist relationships, economists who dissented from the central-planning orthodoxy, the legacy of P.C. Mahalanobis and much more. Menon is a historian of modern South Asia, specializing in the political and economic history of 20th-century India. His research explores the histories of democracy and development in independent India. His book, “Planning Democracy: Modern India’s Quest for Development,” tells the story of how India wedded western-style democracy and Soviet-inspired economic planning in the middle of the 20th century. Recorded November 22nd, 2022 Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Follow Shruti on Twitter Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. | |||