Today my guest is Vijayendra Rao, or as he's known, Biju Rao, a lead economist in the Development Research Group at the World Bank. His recent book coauthored with professor Paromita Sanyal called Oral Democracy: Deliberation in Indian Village Assemblies, is an excellent study of citizens voice in India's Gram Sabhas, or village assemblies, which are also the largest deliberative institution in human history.

I had a chance to speak with Biju about deliberative democracy in India, federalism and local governments, conducting ethnographic research, what it means to be a development economist, the relevance of methodology and history, and much more.

Full transcript of this episode

Follow us on Twitter

Follow Shruti on Twitter

Follow Biju on Twitter

Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox!