Ideas of India

Mercatus Center Podcasts
  • 4.5 (34)
  • SOCIAL SCIENCES
  • UPDATED BIWEEKLY
Ideas of India

Through conversations with top thinkers in the social sciences and beyond, economist Shruti Rajagopalan explores the ideas that will propel India forward.

  1. Katherine Schofield on The Hidden History of Music in Mughal India

    FEB 13

    Katherine Schofield on The Hidden History of Music in Mughal India

    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 of Delhiand it’s influence on hindustani classical music, the powerful tawaifs of that time, and much more. Recorded January 24th, 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 (00:02:17) - The Nāṭyaśāstra and Tasting Music (00:09:29) - Raga Style and Persian Influences (00:18:35) - The Influence of Intoxicants (00:19:42) - Aurangzeb and Other Courtly Characters (00:33:37) - Aurangzeb’s Demise and Its Effect on Music (00:43:15) - Traveling Musicians and the Spread and Rise of Different Forms (00:49:49) - Development of Tomri (00:55:37) - What Makes Punjab So Different (00:59:17) - The Tawaif (01:02:06) - The Stories of Sophia Plowden and Khanam Jan (01:18:07) - Outro

    1h 19m
  2. Anton Howes on Trade, Innovation, and the Forgotten History of Salt

    JAN 30

    Anton Howes on Trade, Innovation, and the Forgotten History of Salt

    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 took place in Britain, and much more.  Recorded November 11th, 2024. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Follow Anton on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro (00:01:29) - History of the Salt Trade and Salt Tax in India (00:11:12) - Harvesting Salt in Bengal (00:17:140 - The Great Hedge of India (00:23:58) - The Rationale for Taxing Salt (00:25:49) - The Western European Salt Trade and Land Control  (00:34:22) - The Dutch Golden Age (00:39:44) - Baltic Salt and New Forms of Sleeching (00:45:51) - Maritime Trade (00:48:24) - Why Did the Industrial Revolution Take Place in Britain and Not Elsewhere? (01:03:14) - Solving the Problem of Debasement in Britain (01:08:33) - The Path to the Royal Society of Arts (01:16:39) - A Culture of Tinkerers and Improvers  (01:20:49) - The Society of Arts’ Aims and Legacy (01:31:15) - Theories of Progress (01:40:20) - The Society of Arts and the Tool of Status (01:47:43) - Outro

    1h 49m
  3. Anant Sudarshan on Market Solutions to Air Pollution, Energy Policy, and Ecological Disruption

    JAN 16

    Anant Sudarshan on Market Solutions to Air Pollution, Energy Policy, and Ecological Disruption

    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 Follow Shruti on X Follow Anant on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro (00:01:52) - Air Pollution in India (00:06:00) - Causes of Pollution in Delhi (00:07:32) - Addressing Crop Burning as a Source of Pollution (00:14:11) - Regulatory Frameworks for Pollution in India (00:18:16) - Creating a Market for Pollution (00:39:52) - Vehicular Pollution and Rationing (00:53:56) - How Subsidies Complicate the Pollution Problem (01:02:44) - Pigouvian Subsidies (01:08:19) - Electricity as a Right (01:26:04) - The Near-Extinction of Vultures in India (01:38:41) - Outro

    1h 40m

  4. 12/26/2024

    2024 in Review

    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 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) - Listener Questions (00:02:27) - Essential readings on the Indian economy (00:04:19) - The economy of eastern India from 1970 to today (00:06:18) - Achieving a “Developed India” (00:09:20) - Alternate paths for economic students (00:014:56) - Suggested dissertation topics for PhD students (00:18:57) - Revising stances on COVID shutdowns (00:24:42) - Problematic TV news programs in India (00:27:57) - Predicting the economic impact of AI (00:30:11) - The South Korean chaebol model (00:38:24) - Karthik Muralidharan: reimagining state capacity (00:41:02) - Aparna Chandra: institutional checks on judicial bias (00:44:03) - Arjun Ramani and Thomas Easton: critical reforms to maintain growth (00:47:29) - Ruchir Sharma: the state of American capitalism (00:51:00) - The Job Market Series (00:54:01) - Questions from Past Guests (00:56:59) - Shifting stances on schooling and drugs (01:02:11) - Law and economics (01:05:36) - “Home” when living in many cultures (01:09:44) - Next up for The 1991 Project (01:11:31) - Personal goals for 2025 (01:16:26) - Thanks and Good Wishes (01:18:29) - Outro

    1h 19m
  5. Pravin Krishna on the Political Economy of Multilateral and Preferential Trade Agreements, Trade Liberalization, and the Future of Global Trade

    12/05/2024

    Pravin Krishna on the Political Economy of Multilateral and Preferential Trade Agreements, Trade Liberalization, and the Future of Global Trade

    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 Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Follow Pravin on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro (00:00:59) - Essential Components of the Postwar Multilateral Trade System (00:04:38) - India’s Role in the GATT and the Special Status of Developing Countries (00:06:31) - India in the Global Trade System After 1991 (00:09:10) - The Decline of the WTO and New Trade Dynamics (00:17:45) - Understanding the Small Percentages of Preferential Trade (00:20:19) - Indian Trade Liberalization and Alliances from 2010–2020 (00:26:18) - Viner: Trade Creation and Trade Diversion (00:33:35) - More Optimistic View of Equilibrium (00:38:46) - Foreign Lobbies in Domestic Markets (00:49:3) - Just pick a number (00:55:21) - The Impact of Trade Liberalization (01:04:05) - Labor Elasticity in Relation to Trade Openness (01:11:17) - Predicting the Near Future Impact of U.S. Trade Tariffs (01:19:52) - How the New Administration’s Plans Might Impact India (01:25:58) - Future Trade Relations Between India and China (01:30:52) - Outro

    1h 32m
  6. Deepti Sharma on Survey Methods and the Hidden Biases in Economic Data

    11/21/2024

    Deepti Sharma on Survey Methods and the Hidden Biases in Economic Data

    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 studies. We discussed her job market paper, Does it matter who you ask for Time Use Data? We talked about the systematic bias in proxy reporting when compared to self-reporting in time use surveys, some techniques used to fix those biases, the gendered nature of these biases, policy implications of using these time use surveys and much more.  Recorded September 12th, 2024. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Follow Deepti on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro (00:01:12) - Grand Tamasha (00:02:42) - Proxy-Reporting Versus Self-Reporting in Time-Use Surveys (00:07:16) - Gender Bias and Systematic Bias in Proxy-Reported Data (00:10:27) - How Cultural Norms and Gender Perceptions Shape Reporting (00:16:59) - Challenges in Collecting Accurate Time-Use Data (00:19:34) - Methodological Approaches to Working with Proxy-Reported Data (00:24:43) - Suggested Approaches to Conducting Time-Use Surveys (00:31:21) - Impact of Climate Change on Gendered Agricultural Work (00:33:17) - Hysterectomy Rates and Health Insurance Policies in India (00:36:03) - Outro

    37 min
  7. Kushagr Bakshi on Constitutional Interpretation and the Transformation of Federalism

    11/14/2024

    Kushagr Bakshi on Constitutional Interpretation and the Transformation of Federalism

    Subscribe to Grand Tamasha on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, or your favorite podcast app. I spoke with Kushagr Bakshi is a Michigan International and Comparative Law Scholar and an SJD candidate at the University of Michigan Law School, where he also received his LLM. He received his first law degree from NUJS in West Bengal. We discussed a chapter of his dissertation called “The Country Without a Post Office: Jammu and Kashmir and the Imaginations of Freedom Within a Federation. We talked about assymetrical federalism versus hetererarchy, constitutional values and imagination for federalism in India, and much more.  Recorded October 24th, 2024. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Follow Kushagr on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro (00:01:06) - Grand Tamasha (00:04:12) - Asymmetric Versus Heterarchical Federalism (00:19:37) - Isn’t this Asymmetric Federalism? (00:31:39) - Democracy in Local Governments (00:43:27) - Rethinking the Rajya Sabha (00:53:30) - Outro

    54 min
  8. Aarushi Kalra on Digital Polarization and Toxicity, Understanding User Behavior, Social Media Algorithms, and Platform Incentives

    11/07/2024

    Aarushi Kalra on Digital Polarization and Toxicity, Understanding User Behavior, Social Media Algorithms, and Platform Incentives

    Subscribe to Grand Tamasha on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, or your favorite podcast app. I spoke with Aarushi Kalra Ph.D. candidate in Economics at Brown University. We discussed her job market paper, “Hate in the Time of Algorithms: Evidence from a Large-Scale Experiment on Online Behavior.” We talked about the demand and supply of toxicity against minorities on social media platforms, user behavior, platform behavior, real world segregation due to ethnic violence, and much more.  Recorded October 24th, 2024. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Follow Aarushi on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro (00:00:58) - Grand Tamasha (00:02:31) - Exploring How Social Media Users Engage with Toxic Content (00:06:06) - Understanding the Drivers of Toxic Speech on the Internet (00:08:50) - Definitions of Toxic Content (00:11:05) - Scale of Data and Choice of Language (00:12:23) - Impact of Recommendation Algorithms on User Engagement (00:16:27) - Key Findings on Toxic Content Exposure and Sharing (00:22:08) - Interpreting How Personalization Shapes Engagement in Toxic Social Media Content (00:25:31) - How Recognizing the Agency and Sophistication of Users Shapes Interpretive Models (00:31:45) - The Challenges of Platform Regulation (00:34:04) - The Challenges of Creating Interventions to Address Toxic Content (00:35:46) - Social Media as Normalizing Toxic Speech (00:38:09) - The Route of the Ram Rath Yatra As Lens on Segregation (00:48:58) - Outro

    50 min
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Through conversations with top thinkers in the social sciences and beyond, economist Shruti Rajagopalan explores the ideas that will propel India forward.

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