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 Gr...
Jan 15, 2026•1 hr 36 min•Ep. 152
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 trauma...
Jan 02, 2026•1 hr 28 min•Ep. 151
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...
Dec 23, 2025•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 150
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 ...
Dec 04, 2025•54 min•Ep. 149
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 suppl...
Nov 20, 2025•48 min•Ep. 148
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, inf...
Nov 06, 2025•49 min•Ep. 147
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, ...
Oct 23, 2025•43 min•Ep. 146
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, s...
Oct 09, 2025•51 min•Ep. 145
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 ...
Sep 25, 2025•38 min•Ep. 144
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 ...
Sep 11, 2025•48 min•Ep. 143
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 helpfu...
Aug 28, 2025•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 142
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 governmen...
Aug 14, 2025•1 hr 29 min•Ep. 141
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...
Jul 31, 2025•1 hr 29 min•Ep. 140
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...
Jul 17, 2025•1 hr 38 min•Ep. 139
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 fede...
Jul 03, 2025•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 138
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 ...
Jun 20, 2025•1 hr 47 min•Ep. 137
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, ...
Jun 05, 2025•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 136
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 worl...
May 22, 2025•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 135
Today my guest is 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 his retirement in 2022. His most recent initiative is We Are One Humanity (WAOH) , a writers collective responding to the worldwide thrusts against democracy and equa...
May 08, 2025•1 hr 39 min•Ep. 134
Today my guest is Prachi Mishra, who is a Professor in the Department of Economics, and Director and Head of Isaac Center for Public Policy at Ashoka University. Prior to joining Ashoka, Prachi was Chief of the Systemic Issues Division and Advisor in the Research Department at the International Monetary Fund. We spoke about the current state of the Indian economy, India's growth trajectory, if the rupee is overvalued, India's fiscal consolidation, and much more. We also spoke about Trade, but th...
Apr 24, 2025•1 hr 25 min•Ep. 133
Today my guest is Sajith Pai , who is a Partner at Blume Ventures , an early stage Indian venture fund. He is also a well known writer, and the author of the annual Indus Valley Report. We spoke about the trends in the latest Indus Valley Report, the stratifications in Indian consumer markets, investor sentiment, policies and infrastructure to foster the AI boom in India, the AI start-up scene and much more. Recorded March 6th, 2025. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Connect wi...
Apr 10, 2025•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 132
Today my guest is Justice Jasti Chelameswar , who is a former justice of the Supreme Court of India. Prior to his elevation, he served as chief justice in High Courts in Gauhati and Kerala and as a justice in the Andhra Pradesh High Court. We spoke about his judgments on electoral qualifications, judicial conduct, transparency in judicial appointments, the constitutional right to privacy, separation of powers, and how dissent shapes constitutional interpretation, and much more. Recorded February...
Mar 27, 2025•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 131
Today my guest is Akshay Jaitly , one of the founders of Trilegal, one of India's leading law firms. He 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 the top-down nature of electricity regulation and pricing in India, the dysfunctional DISCOMS, the reforms required for an energy transition towards renewables and nuclear energy, and much more. Recorded Februar...
Mar 13, 2025•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 130
Today my guest is Christopher J Coyne , who is a Professor of Economics at George Mason University, the Associate Director of the F.A. Hayek Program at the Mercatus Center. We talked about the economics of conflict and peace, history of the US security state, the US intervention in Afghanistan, domestic consequences of militarism abroad, and much more. Recorded January 15th, 2025. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video . Connect with Ideas of India Follow us ...
Feb 27, 2025•1 hr 46 min•Ep. 129
Today my guest Katherine Butler Schofield who is a professor of South Asian Music and History at King's College London. She is the author of the recent book Music and Musicians in Late Mughal India: Histories of the Ephemeral, 1748–1858 . She also hosted a podcast series called The Histories of the Ephemeral on the same theme. We talked about the history of classical music in India - from Natyasastra to Dhrupad and to khayals and qawallis. about Aurangzeb's relationship with music, the sacking o...
Feb 13, 2025•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 128
Today my guest is Anton Howes head of innovation research at The Entrepreneurs Network, and the historian-in-residence at the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce . He is the author of Arts and Minds: How the Royal Society of Arts Changed a Nation and the excellent Substack Age of Invention . We talked about salt trade in India, the Dutch culture of innovation, the Royal Society of Arts, endogenous versus O-ring theories of growth, why the Industrial Revolution...
Jan 30, 2025•1 hr 49 min•Ep. 127
Today my guest is Anant Sudarshan , an Associate Professor at the Department of Economics at the University of Warwick and a Senior Fellow at the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC) . We talked about air pollution in India, crop burning, subsidizing electricity, depleting ground water, the impact of the collapse of keystone species and much more. Recorded November 25th, 2024. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Fo...
Jan 16, 2025•1 hr 40 min•Ep. 126
Today the roles are reversed. Producer Dallas Floer interviews Shruti for the annual end of year episode where they look back at key themes and episodes from the past year, address listener questions, discuss the job market series, and share some questions from previous guests. On behalf of Shruti and the entire Ideas of India team, thank you for listening to the podcast this year. We're excited to bring you more episodes in 2025. Recorded November 26th, 2024. Read a full transcript enhanced wit...
Dec 26, 2024•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 125
Today my guest is Pravin Krishna is the Chung Ju Yung Distinguished Professor of International Economics and Business at Johns Hopkins University, at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and Department of Economics . We talked about history of preferential trade agreements, India's approach to trade liberalization, whether such agreements are trade creating or diverting, and much more. Recorded November 12th, 2024. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Connect with I...
Dec 05, 2024•1 hr 32 min•Ep. 124
Subscribe to Grand Tamasha on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, or your favorite podcast app. I spoke with Deepti Sharma , who's an Assistant Professor at Ahmedabad University. She completed her PhD in public policy from the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Management of Health Services at the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad. Her current research focus is empirical methods, applied microeconomics, public health and gender st...
Nov 21, 2024•37 min•Ep. 123
