Ideas of India

4.5 (34)
Social Sciences
Updated Biweekly

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

1d ago

Ritam Chaurey on Placing the Firm at the Center of India's Structural Transformation

Today my guest is Ritam Chaurey, who is an Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. We talked about structural transformation in India over the last three decades, how firm level behavior responds to regulatory and fiscal changes, how firms choose between capital and labor, or permanent versus contractual labor, land use and factory location, and much more. Recorded April 29th, 2026. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Follow Ritam 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 Industrial Disputes Act, Permanent Workers, and Contractors (00:10:14) - Impacts of Reliance on Contract Labor (00:16:02) - Labor Protections and Their Impact on Firm Behavior (00:22:35) - Binding Constraints and the Rise of 'Invisible Workers' (00:27:46) - Labor Supply Preferences in Structural Transformation (00:34:07) - A 'Bad Law,' Musclemen, and the Evolution of Debt Law in India (00:40:21) - SARFAESI's Unintended Consequences (00:46:28) - The Drop in Fixed-Capital Assets (00:48:57) - The Impact of Judicial Delays on Labor-Capital Substitution (00:52:41) - The Bankruptcy Code and Marginal Improvements (00:55:54) - Spillover Benefits of Relaxing Land Use Regulation (01:04:18) - Location-Specific Subsidies and Barrier Relaxation (01:06:36) - A Case Study: Uttarakhand and Himachal (01:13:32) - The Impact of New Bank Branches in Underbanked Communities (01:23:24) - The Demonetization Shock (01:29:48) - Outro

1h 31m
May 21

Pratap Bhanu Mehta on Liberalism, Nihilism, and the Collapse of Sincerity

Today my guest is Dr. Pratap Bhanu Mehta, who is the Laurance Rockefeller Professor for Distinguished Teaching at Princeton and former president and chief executive of the Center for Policy Research, New Delhi. He is the author of various books and edited volumes, has served on various government committees, and is a columnist for the Indian Express. We talked about the return of nihilism in political life, the hollowing of professional identities, the politics of vishwas, Adam Smith on concentrated power, what it takes to build lasting institutions, the assumptions behind nonalignment, and much more. Recorded April 3rd, 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 (00:01:11) - The Challenges Facing Liberalism (00:06:50) - The Erosion of Moral Authority (00:11:32) - Nationalism, Feminism, and the Arc of History (00:16:55) - Globalization and the Crisis of Community (00:22:06) - Sincerity, Context, and Intelligibility in a Digital Age (00:30:37) - Professional Identities as Sources of Moral Meaning (00:40:45) - Formal Inclusion and Continued Inequality (00:45:54) - Concentration of Power and the Distortion of the State (00:51:37) - The Politics of Vishwas (01:01:57) - On Caste and the Limits of Identity Politics (01:05:34) - The Question of Social Trust (01:14:08) - Trust-Building and Barriers to Desegregation (01:24:53) - Institutions of Higher Learning (01:39:31) - The Assumptions of Nonalignment (01:46:12) - Outro

1h 47m
May 6

Shruti Rajagopalan and Milan Vaishnav on India's Delimitation Dilemma

Today we are releasing a webinar recording from April 24th where Milan Vaishnav and I had a conversation on delimitation in India. Milan is a senior fellow and the director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is also the host of the excellent Grand Tamasha podcast where this recording will be simultaneously released. We talked about the failure to pass the 131st constitutional amendment bill in Parliament, the government's intention to reapportion and increase the size of the Lok Sabha, the delimitation freeze pegged to the 1971 census that has survived five decades, why the fiscal bargain between states matters as much as the political bargain, and much more. Recorded April 24th, 2026. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Follow Milan on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro (00:01:24) - What is Delimitation? (00:35:03) - The Politics Behind the Constitutional Amendment (00:47:38) - The Political Arithmetic (00:51:53) - The Financial Bargain (01:30:21) - Outro

1h 31m
Apr 23

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

1h 14m
Apr 9

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

1h 47m
Mar 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

1h 8m
Mar 12

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

1h 35m
Feb 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

1h 47m

See All (162)

4.5

out of 5

34 Ratings

Passionate Guests and Host

08/17/2024

SomaTekumalla

This is a great source of quality information about India. I am thoroughly impressed by the knowledge and passion exhibited and the sincerity of their ideas Thank You. These learned guests seem to care a lot about unemployed youth in India and are cautioning us to avoid a demographic curse.
Shruti is exceptional

12/30/2023

Dwight Schrute 69

Almost every episode is fascinating and enlightening. Thanks for sharing and teaching.
Can be better

08/08/2020

xyzlisten

Ajay Shah as always is brilliant, lucid and his clarity of thoughts is absolutely phenomenal. Host seems more interested in showing off her own knowledge than breaking down ideas from the guests.
Long and boring

08/15/2020

brx12345

Very little interesting information unless you have DEEP ties to India.

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