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Recent episodes
Samanth Subramanian on the Fragile and Resilient Technologies that Bind Us
Apr 23, 2026
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Arvind Subramanian and Devesh Kapur on India's Precocious Development Odyssey
Apr 9, 2026
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V. Anantha Nageswaran on Surveying the Growth and Financialization of the Indian Economy
Mar 26, 2026
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Ornit Shani and Rohit De on Assembling India's Constitution
Mar 12, 2026
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Pranay Kotasthane on the Political Economy of Rare Earths and Critical Minerals
Feb 26, 2026
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| Date | Episode | Description | Length | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4/23/26 |  Samanth Subramanian on the Fragile and Resilient Technologies that Bind Us | Today my guest is Samanth Subramanian, who is a journalist and writer and the author of the recent books The Web Beneath the Waves and A Dominant Character: The Radical Science and Restless Politics of J. B. S. Haldane. We talked about under water sea cables and choke points in critical global infrastructure, the intersection of technology and geopolitics, large language models, JBS Haldane and the relationship between science and politics, and much more. Recorded March 25th, 2026. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Follow Samanth on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro (00:02:35) - Vulnerability and Resilience: Grappling with the Fragility of Undersea Connections (00:03:48) - Underwater Sea Cables (00:10:48) - How America's Big Tech Companies Dominate Bandwidth (00:14:37) - Concentration of Infrastructure (00:20:27) - The 2Africa Cable and Countries Without Leverage (00:27:17) - Geopolitical Vulnerabilities (00:34:51) - Indian Resilience (00:39:27) - Choke Points in the Global AI Economy (00:44:05) - The Challenges of Decommissioning Nuclear Plants (00:49:45) - On the Frontiers and Ethics of AI Technology (00:56:37) - Haldane's Legacy and Science in the Public Square (01:06:34) - Optimism and Pessimism About the Future of Science (01:12:59) - Outro | — | ||||||
| 4/9/26 |  Arvind Subramanian and Devesh Kapur on India's Precocious Development Odyssey | Today my guests are Arvind Subramanian and Devesh Kapur. Arvind is a Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and a former Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of India. Devesh is the Starr Foundation Professor of South Asian Studies and Director of the Asia Programs at the Johns Hopkins. They are co-authors of the recent book, A Sixth of Humanity: Independent India's Development Odyssey. We talked about India's redistributive democracy, why Indian states have taken such different development paths, India's socialism and consequent scarcity, manufacturing challenges, and much more. Recorded February 13th, 2026. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Follow Arvind on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro (00:01:18) - A Sixth of Humanity (00:06:51) - The Effect of Education on State Development (00:13:39) - Redistributive Democracy in India (00:21:54) - One Democracy, Multiple Outcomes at the State Level (00:36:52) - Tamil Nadu (00:38:01) - The Collapse of Punjab (00:42:12) - Shades of Socialism in India (01:08:00) - Upside-Down State (01:26:36) - Manufacturing (01:46:23) - Outro | — | ||||||
| 3/26/26 |  V. Anantha Nageswaran on Surveying the Growth and Financialization of the Indian Economy | Today my guest is Dr. V Anantha Nageswaran, who is currently serving as the Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of India. He is also the co-author of the books Economics of Derivatives and The Rise of Finance: Causes, Consequences and Cures. We talked about import substitution and strategic resilience, futures and options market, gross fixed capital formation, crypto markets, India's growth trajectory, and much more. Recorded March 12th, 2026. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro (00:02:38) - Import Substitution as a Policy (00:11:19) - Indian States' Spending Problem (00:18:16) - Capital Formation (00:25:47) - Increasing Financialization (00:30:21) - Options and Futures Markets in India (00:34:15) - Securities Transactions Tax (STT) (00:40:27) - Curbing Crypto (00:46:01) - How Should We Approach Policy Regulation? (00:51:04) - Deregulation (00:53:41) - Digital Public Infrastructure (00:56:28) - India's Growth Trajectory | — | ||||||
| 3/12/26 |  Ornit Shani and Rohit De on Assembling India's Constitution | Today my guests are Ornit Shani and Rohit De, historians and the authors of the latest book Assembling India's Constitution. Ornit Shani is an associate professor of history at the University of Haifa and the author of How India Became Democratic: Citizenship and the Making of the Universal Franchise. Rohit De is an associate professor of history at Yale University and the author of A People's Constitution: The Everyday Life of Law in the Indian Republic. We talked about how their latest book is a radical departure from the usual telling of the making of the Indian Constitution as an elite project, the mass mobilization that took place during the drafting of the constitution, the role of public participation in political negotiation, the status of provincial legislatures and of princely states during the constitution making, and much more. Recorded January 20th, 2026 and February 10th, 2026. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Follow Ornit on X Follow Rohit on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro (00:02:49) - Situating Rohit and Ornit's Book (00:13:52) - More Than the Text (00:27:22) - Provincial Legislatures (00:35:40) - India's Princely States (01:01:04) - Mass Mobilization (01:16:10) - Theater and the Constitution (01:26:06) - Judicial Interpretation (01:31:21) - Future Projects (01:34:08) - Outro | — | ||||||
| 2/26/26 |  Pranay Kotasthane on the Political Economy of Rare Earths and Critical Minerals | 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, When the Chips are Down, and the graphic nonfiction narrative We, the Citizens. We spoke about rare earths and critical minerals, China's dominance, the gap between India's ambitions and opportunities, the potential for recycling, and much and more. Recorded February 2nd, 2026. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Learn more about The 1991 Fellowship. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Follow Pranay on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - 1991 Fellowship (00:01:11) - Intro (00:02:59) - Rare Earths versus Critical Minerals (00:10:15) - Why Are Rare Earths and Critical Minerals So Important Now? (00:29:29) - Geopolitical Uncertainty (00:33:14) - China's Process Advantage (00:44:10) - Industrial Policy (00:48:10) - India's Critical Elements Mission (00:53:00) - Auctions (00:56:53) - India's Position in the Value Chain (01:04:36) - Recycling (01:34:04) - Law of One Price (01:41:28) - Pakistan and Rare Earth Reserves (01:46:26) - Outro | — | ||||||
| 2/12/26 |  Nachiket Mor on Rethinking India's Healthcare System | Today my guest is Nachiket Mor, a health economist whose work focuses on the design of national and regional health systems. He is a visiting scientist at the Banyan Academy of Leadership in Mental Health, a senior research fellow at the Centre for Information Technology and Public Policy at IIIT Bangalore, and a commissioner and author on the Lancet Citizens' Commission on Reimagining India's Health System, which published its final report in The Lancet in January 2026. We talked about the different layers of the Indian healthcare system, the design and policy failures in both public and private sector healthcare, the role of community workers, the health insurance and regulation market, and much more. Recorded January 29th, 2026. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Learn more about The 1991 Fellowship. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Follow Nachiket on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - 1991 Fellowship (00:01:11) - Intro (00:02:32) - Policy Design Failure in India's Healthcare System (00:07:43) - Layers of Indian Healthcare (00:14:04) - ASHA Workers (00:23:59) - State Capacity (00:26:47) - The Exit to the Private Sector (00:34:00) - Getting Ambitious with ASHA Workers (00:37:54) - Stacking Healthcare (00:51:53) - India's Private Sector Healthcare (01:05:14) - Government Insurance Instruments (01:13:10) - Insurance Regulation in India (01:41:09) - Outro | — | ||||||
| 1/29/26 |  Akshay Jaitly on the Making of a Modern Indian Law Firm | Today my guest is Akshay Jaitly, the author of the recent book, Trilegal: The Making of a Modern Indian Law Firm. He is one of the founders of Trilegal and specializes in advising on energy and infrastructure projects. His research interests include power sector reform, the energy transition and public-private contracting. We talked about how Trilegal grew in the context of India's market liberalization and sectoral reforms, different partnership structures, delegated legislation, regulatory capture, the alchemy between the founding partners, and much more. Recorded January 6th, 2026. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Learn more about The 1991 Fellowship. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Follow Akshay on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - 1991 Fellowship (00:01:11) - Intro (00:02:20) - In the Shadow of Liberalization (00:07:28) - Specialization (00:20:55) - Delegated Legislation (00:28:35) - Managing Risk (00:33:30) - Dispute Resolution (00:38:44) - Trilegal's Partnership Structure (00:51:57) - Scaling (00:59:42) - Design or Alchemy? (01:05:08) - Regulatory Capture (01:11:27) - Foreign Law Firms (01:19:08) - Outro | — | ||||||
| 1/15/26 |  Renuka Sane on Regulatory Frameworks, Rule of Law, and Pensions Reforms in India | Today my guest is Renuka Sane who is the managing director of Managing Director of Trustbridge. An institution that seeks to improve India's business environment by improving the rule of law. Renuka was a member of many expert committees including: the Task Force of Experts set up by the Employees Provident Fund Organisation; the research team of the Bankruptcy Legislative Reforms Commission; the Pension Advisory Committee of the Pension Fund Regulatory Development Authority; and the Working Group on personal insolvency at the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India. She received a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of New South Wales. We talked about the old, new, and unified pension scheme and related reforms over the last few decades in India, India's broader financial regulation framework, separation of powers in regulatory authorities, the way regulatory orders are written, and much more. Recorded December 17th, 2025. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Learn more about The 1991 Fellowship. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Follow Renuka on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - The 1991 Fellowship (00:01:09) - Intro (00:02:49) - India's Pension System (00:35:42) - Private Sector Pension Schemes (01:06:28) - Regulatory Orders (01:24:03) - Improving Transparency at the Reserve Bank of India (01:34:57) - Outro | — | ||||||
| 1/2/26 |  Snigdha Poonam on the Political Economy of Transnational Scams | Today my guest is Snigdha Poonam who is a journalist and writer. She is the author of the new book Scamlands and also the author of the 2018 award winning book Dreamers: How Young Indians Are Changing Their World. We talked about the scam industrial complex in different states like Jharkhand, Assam and Tamil Nadu in India, the interaction between the scam economy and the formal economy, the transnational scams in China and Cambodia and how they are connected to India, the aspirations and traumas of the scam work force and much more. Recorded November 17th, 2025. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Learn more about The 1991 Fellowship. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Follow Snigdha on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro (00:01:13) - The Scam-Industrial Complex (00:03:48) - On Jamtara and the Economics of Joining a Scam (00:09:12) - The Moral Logic of Scamming (00:13:31) - How the State Enables the Scam Economy (00:15:54) - Inside Assam's Paperwork and Insurance Scams (00:23:04) - The Politics of Legibility in Assam (00:32:47) - Women in the Scam Economy (00:38:32) - How Scammers Get Trapped Inside the System (00:46:18) - From Local Scams to Transnational Cybercrime (00:52:18) - Scam Slavery in Southeast Asia (01:02:15) - Reporting on the Shadow Economy (01:10:49) - Starting the Story (01:16:54) - From Aspiration to Desperation (01:21:56) - Closing Reflections (01:27:08) - Outro | — | ||||||
| 12/23/25 |  2025 in Review | Shruti and Ideas of India producer Dallas Floer sit down for the 2025 end-of-year episode. They look back at key themes and top episodes from the past year, address listener questions, and look forward to what's in store for Shruti and the show in 2026. Recorded December 16th, 2025. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Learn more about The 1991 Fellowship. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro (00:01:03) - Listener Questions (00:25:50) - Big Themes and Top Episodes (00:42:21) - Personal Moments (00:46:53) - Looking to 2026 (00:49:47) - Hope or Concern for Next Generation (00:51:45) - Intellectual Mood Around India (00:53:01) - Shruti and Animals (00:56:52) - What's New for 2026 (01:00:07) - The Ideas of India Team (01:05:21) - Thank You's (01:09:49) - Outro | — | ||||||
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| 12/4/25 |  Ammu Lavanya on How Foreign Capital Changed Indian Bank Lending | Our seventh and final scholar in the series is Ammu Lavanya, a PhD candidate in Economics at George Washington University. Her research is in the areas of International Finance, Monetary Economics, Empirical Banking and Financial History. We spoke about her job market paper titled International Financial Flows, Credit Allocation and Productivity. We talked about financial liberalization in India, the 2004 banking reform that increased the ceiling on raising foreign equity its impact on market value, lending capacity and increasing productivity through credit in India, the difference between private versus state owned banks, and much more. Recorded October 9th, 2025. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Follow Ammu on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro (00:03:06) - Understanding Capital Inflows and Financial Liberalization (00:04:36) - Concerns Around Foreign Capital and Hot Money Flows (00:07:12) - The Banking Reform and Ownership Landscape in India (00:12:10) - Banks Most Affected and Patterns of Foreign Investment (00:17:05) - Impact on Borrowing Capacity and Lending Behavior (00:19:38) - Productive Lending and Screening Mechanisms (00:25:53) - Managerial Practices and Governance Improvements (00:34:20) - Firm-Level Effects and Data Construction (00:39:50) - Aggregate Effects and Decline in Misallocation (00:45:19) - Implications for Policy and the Future of Liberalization (00:48:42) - Differences Between Public and Private Banks (00:53:15) - Outro | — | ||||||
| 11/20/25 |  Nayantara Biswas on Demand- and Supply-Side Interventions in India's Maternal Health Policy | Our sixth scholar in the series is Nayantara Biswas is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. She received her Ph.D. in economics from Clark University. Her research focuses on health equity impact evaluations of small-scale interventions and large-scale public policies. We spoke about dissertation titled, The Impact of Social Policies on Reproductive Health, Maternal Employment, and Child Health: Evidence from India. We talked about demand side versus supply side policy interventions in public health, India's maternal health policy landscape, the ASHA workers program, variation across states in policy impact and much more. Recorded August 28th, 2025. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Follow Nayantara on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro (00:01:35) - Setting the Stage (00:04:44) - India's Maternal–Child Health Policy Landscape (00:08:29) - Uneven Progress: State Differences, Culture, and Measurement Challenges (00:09:24) - Who Are the ASHA Workers? (00:11:56) - Trust, Access, and the Information Channel (00:14:26) - Pay, Hours, and Unionization: Why Conditions Vary by State (00:16:50) - How Incentives Are Structured (00:21:44) - From Design to Data: Building the District-Level Panel (00:25:20) - We Are Measuring ASHAs—and Something Else (00:26:45) - DiD Simplified: How the Causal Claim Works (00:33:45) - Policy Implications: Where to Invest and How to Train (00:36:53) - Cost-Effectiveness: Supply vs. Demand (00:39:53) - Why Supply-Side Effects Take Time (00:41:50) - Beyond Pregnancy: Anganwadi Daycare and Women's Work (00:46:27) - Outro | — | ||||||
| 11/6/25 |  Karthik Narayan on Measuring the Effects of Unscheduled vs. Scheduled Monetary Policy Announcements | Our fifth scholar in the series is Karthik Narayan, who is a doctoral candidate in Economics at Nuffield College and at the Department of Economics, University of Oxford. His research focuses on monetary policy, macroeconomics and finance in developing countries. We spoke about his job market paper titled, Macroeconomic Effects of Scheduled and Unscheduled Monetary Policy Surprises. We talked about how the Reserve Bank of India makes and announces its policies, its impact on interest rates, inflation expectations and output, measuring the impact of policy announcements, the Lucas Critique and much more. Recorded August 28th, 2025. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Follow Karthik on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro (00:03:22) - Measuring Causality Is Hard (00:11:16) - What Counts as a Policy Surprise? (00:13:27) - OIS and MIBOR: Expectation Thermometers (00:21:11) - Short term versus long term effects on asset prices (00:27:18) - Noise and Fiscal-Monetary Coordination (00:32:46) - Inflation Before and After the MPC (00:37:24) - The Lucas Critique (00:40:51) - Practical Implications (00:45:48) - Other Research Interests (00:47:39) - Outro | — | ||||||
| 10/23/25 |  Asad Tariq on Electoral Redistricting and Public Goods Provision in India | Our fourth scholar in the series is Asad Tariq, who is a doctoral candidate in Economics at the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi. His research focuses on the political economy of development, with a particular interest in religion, politics and public service delivery in India. We spoke about his job market paper titled, Constituencies of Change: Electoral Redistricting and Public Goods Provision in India. We talked about the 2008 delimitation exercise, especially at the state level, gerrymandering, the median voter versus swing voters and ethnic groups, public service delivery for minorities, especially Muslims, and much more. Recorded September 5th, 2025. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Follow Asad on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro (00:02:42) - Packing and Cracking (00:05:10) - From Theory to Ballots (00:06:40) - Median Voter Logic: A Mechanism in Play (00:08:24) - Delimitation as an exogenous shock? (00:19:06) - Does Identity of the elected leader matter? (00:20:10) - Enter: Swing Voters (00:23:07) - Schools, Roads, and Wires: Evidence on Public Goods (00:26:21) - Crunching the Numbers (00:29:44) - Drawing the Lines: Gerrymandering Then and Now (00:37:41) - Outro | — | ||||||
| 10/9/25 |  Chetana Sabnis on The Intimacy Contract and the Indian State | Our third scholar in the series is Chetana Sabnis, who is a doctoral candidate at the Department of Political Science at Yale University. Her research focuses on how states regulate intimate relationships and construct hierarchies of familial belonging. We spoke about her job market paper titled, The Intimacy Contract in Action: How Indian Courts Determine which Extramarital Relationships Deserve Recognition. We talked about extramarital affairs, polygamous relationships, Uniform Civil Code, social versus legal acceptance, and much more. Recorded September 5th, 2025. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro (00:01:23) - How Courts Recognize "Family" (00:03:12) - Why This Paper? Rethinking "Family" (00:05:28) - India's Legal Patchwork: Customs vs. Code (00:11:07) - Judicial Heuristics: Rituals, Cohabitation, Children (00:14:44) - Endogamy vs. Interfaith: Law, Bias, and Recognition (00:22:22) - How the State Views Children (00:25:27) - Welfare Logic & Gendered Maintenance (00:29:29) - UCC and the "Intimacy Contract" (00:35:48) - The Role of the State (00:42:30) - Contract vs. Sacrament (00:49:00) - Outro | — | ||||||
| 9/25/25 |  Sunny Rai on Using Large Language Models to Understand the Depiction of Shame and Pride in Bollywood versus Hollywood | Our second scholar in the series is Sunny Rai, who is a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Computer and Information Science University of Pennsylvania. She received her Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from University of Delhi. Her research focuses on misinformation, mental health and cross-cultural variations in human language. We spoke about her co-authored job market paper titled, Social Norms in Cinema: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Shame, Pride and Prejudice. We talked about depictions of shame and pride and heroism in Indian versus American films, the challenges with textual analysis of a visual medium, and much more. Recorded September 5th, 2025. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Follow Sunny on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro (00:03:44) - Shame and Pride in Film (00:12:31) - Teaching Machines Norms (00:16:52) - Textual Analysis in a Visual Medium (00:18:26) - The Trouble with Subtitles and Scripts (00:27:41) - Self-Shaming vs. Other-Shaming (00:30:33) - LLM Alignment Needs a Culture Check (00:36:20) - Looking Ahead: A Final Reflection (00:37:01) - Outro | — | ||||||
| 9/11/25 |  Kartik Srivastava on Referral-Based Hiring, Caste Networks, and Breaking Barriers in India's Labor Markets | Our first scholar in the series is Kartik Srivastava, who is a PhD candidate at the Kennedy School at Harvard University. Before this, he received his bachelor's degree from Yale University, where he majored in Economics and Engineering Sciences. His research focuses on development economics, labor economics, and political economy. We spoke about his job market paper titled, Familiar strangers: Evidence from referral-based hiring experiments in India. We talked his large-scale experiment at a footwear manufacturing firm in Delhi, on how referral-based hiring improve firm productivity, cohesion, and inclusion, differences in hiring between higher caste versus lower caste networks, feudalism and labor opportunities, and much more. Recorded August 28th, 2025. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Follow Kartik on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. | — | ||||||
| 8/28/25 |  Narayani Basu on K. M. Panikkar: India's Impossible Man | Today my guest is Narayani Basu, who is a historian and the author of the latest book, A Man for All Seasons: The Life of K. M. Panikkar. Her last book was a biography of V.P. Menon: The Unsung Architect of Modern India. We talked about KM Panikkar, his comparison with VP Menon, the Indian nationalist movement in the interwar years, the origins of India's diplomatic relationship with China, Pannikar's Zionism and much more. Recorded August 1st, 2025. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Follow Narayani on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro (00:01:07) - The Elusive K. M. Panikkar (00:07:52) - Panikkar's and the Indian National Movement (00:19:32) - Panikkar's Intellectual Arc (00:26:45) - Unifying an Indian Identity (00:35:38) - India's Princely States (00:40:19) - Panikkar and China (00:54:43) - Panikkar and the 1950s (00:59:43) - Panikkar's Thought vs. His Government Work (01:08:35) - Panikkar's Blind Spots (01:15:48) - Panikkar and Today's India (01:18:27) - Outro | — | ||||||
| 8/14/25 |  Yamini Aiyar Schools Us on Education Policy in India | Today my guest is Yamini Aiyar, who is currently a Visiting Senior Fellow at the Saxena Center for Contemporary South Asia at Brown University and the author of the recent book Lessons in State Capacity from Delhi's Schools. Her main research interests are contemporary politics, state capacity, welfare policy, and federalism. We talked about the challenges of education policy and welfare in India, the lack of agency experienced by school administrators and teachers, the role of local governments in education, Delhi's experiment with education reforms, portable benefits and school vouchers, and much more. Recorded July 16th, 2025. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Follow Yamini on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro (00:01:27) - Delhi School Experiment (00:12:45) - Education in a Welfare State (00:28:34) - Incompetent Petty Tyrants (00:38:17) - Federalism and Education (00:50:18) - How to Build Empowerment (01:05:39) - Is the Delhi Experiment Generalizable? (01:18:52) - Portability and Education (01:28:15) - Outro | — | ||||||
| 7/31/25 |  Rathin Roy on How India Slices the Fiscal Pie | Today my guest is Rathin Roy, who's a Distinguished Fellow at the Kautilya School of Public Policy and a Visiting Senior Fellow at ODI Global. His main research interests are political economy, public finance, and development economics, and he also served on the 13th Finance Commission. We talked about India's fiscal resources are distributed across states and between the union and state governments, the divergence between rich and poor states, compensatory welfare and its consequences and much more. Recorded July 8th, 2025. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Follow Rathin on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro (00:01:38) - India's Fiscal Federalism System (00:22:46) - India's Welfare State (00:34:19) - Unequal Growth (00:45:58) - Consumption Taxes (01:02:30) - Public Finance in India (01:27:06) - Outro | — | ||||||
| 7/17/25 |  Chitrakshi Jain and Prashant Reddy T. on the Dysfunction in India's District Courts | Today my guests are legal scholars Chitrakshi Jain and Prashant Reddy T, the authors of the recent book Tareekh pe Justice, Reforms for India's District Courts. We talked about the dysfunction in India's lower courts, opacity in the evaluation of district court judges, the problems with judicial data, and much more. Recorded July 1st, 2025. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Follow Chitrakshi on X Follow Prashant on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. | — | ||||||
| 7/3/25 |  M.R. Sharan Examines Decentralization and Local Representation in India | Today my guest is M.R. Sharan, an assistant professor in the department of agricultural and resource economics at the University of Maryland College Park. He is the author of numerous papers and the book Last Among Equals: Power, Caste, & Politics in Bihar's Villages. His main research interests are development economics and political economy. We talked about his research on local government in India, incentives of various political actors and the power structures they inhibit, fiscal federalism, and much more. Recorded May 21st, 2025. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Follow Sharan on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro (00:01:07) - Local Political Actors (00:16:16) - Portability (00:20:36) - Village Government in India (00:53:42) - Separation of Powers (01:03:51) - Inclusion (01:21:20) - Outro | — | ||||||
| 6/20/25 |  Rakesh Mohan Reflects on Dismantling the License Permit Raj | Today my guest is Rakesh Mohan. He is the President Emeritus and Distinguished Fellow at Center for Social and Economic Progress in New Delhi. He has previously served as Executive Director on the Board of the International Monetary Fund and as Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. We talked about his work with the Government of India since the 1980s, especially dismantling the infamous License Permit Raj during the 1991 reforms, his work on urbanization and infrastructure, the kinds of structural reforms India still needs to undertake, and much more. Recorded April 25th, 2025. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro (00:01:13) - Labyrinth of Control (00:23:55) - Dismantling the Licensing System (00:48:27) - Regrets (01:07:31) - The Infrastructure Report (01:28:05) - Structural Transformation (01:46:23) - Outro | — | ||||||
| 6/5/25 |  Ramachandra Guha on the Origins of Indian Environmentalism | Today my guest is environmental scholar, historian and biographer Ramachandra Guha. He is the author of a number of books, including a two-volume biography of Gandhi and the award-winning book "India After Gandhi." We talked about his latest book, "Speaking with Nature: The Origins of Indian Environmentalism." We spoke about global versus local commons, bottom up approach to environmentalism in India, urbanization, economic growth and technological progress and much more. Recorded May 7th, 2025. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Follow Ram on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps 00:00:00 - Intro 00:01:08 - Speaking with Nature 00:08:42 - Unquiet Woods 00:38:29 - Science and Progress of Environmentalism 00:47:33 - Radhakamal Mukerjee 00:55:06 - K. M. Munshi 01:03:38 - Technological Progress and Tradeoffs 01:11:22 - Jayaprakash Narayan 01:19:39 - Outro | — | ||||||
| 5/22/25 |  Rajmohan Gandhi on Revenge and Reconciliation in South Asia | Today's episode is the second part of my conversation with Rajmohan Gandhi, a historian and biographer involved in efforts for trust-building and reconciliation and author of more than fifteen books, of which the most recent is Fraternity: Constitutional Norm and Human Need. He taught history and politics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 1997 until he retirement in 2022. His most recent initiative is We Are One Humanity (WAOH), a writers collective responding to the worldwide thrusts against democracy and equality. We spoke about his reflections on communal violence between Hindus and Muslims, revenge and reconciliation in South Asia, Sikhs and Buddhists, differences between north and south India, constitutional values, and much more. Recorded April 17th, 2025. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. | — | ||||||
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Chart Positions
14 placements across 13 markets.
Chart Positions
14 placements across 13 markets.