Ideas of India Mercatus Center Podcasts
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- Science
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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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Aparna Chandra Puts the Supreme Court on Trial
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
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Doug Irwin on the History and Political Economy of Trade Policy
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.
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Rahul Matthan on AI, Privacy and Digital Public Infrastructure
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.
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Aditya Balasubramanian on Swatantra Party and Opposition Politics in India
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.
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The Art of Talking Films with Nasreen Munni Kabir
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.
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2023 in Review
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.
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Customer Reviews
Shruti is exceptional
Almost every episode is fascinating and enlightening. Thanks for sharing and teaching.
Can be better
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
Very little interesting information unless you have DEEP ties to India.