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, social versus legal acceptance, and much more. 

Recorded September 5th, 2025.

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Timestamps

(00:00:00) - Intro

(00:01:23) - How Courts Recognize “Family”

(00:03:12) - Why This Paper? Rethinking “Family”

(00:05:28) - India’s Legal Patchwork: Customs vs. Code   

(00:11:07) - Judicial Heuristics: Rituals, Cohabitation, Children   

(00:14:44) - Endogamy vs. Interfaith: Law, Bias, and Recognition

(00:22:22) - How the State Views Children

(00:25:27) - Welfare Logic & Gendered Maintenance 

(00:29:29) - UCC and the “Intimacy Contract”

(00:35:48) - The Role of the State

(00:42:30) - Contract vs. Sacrament

(00:49:00) - Outro

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 of shame and pride and heroism in Indian versus American films, the challenges with textual analysis of a visual medium, and much more.

Recorded September 5th, 2025.

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Timestamps

(00:00:00) - Intro

(00:03:44) - Shame and Pride in Film

(00:12:31) - Teaching Machines Norms

(00:16:52) - Textual Analysis in a Visual Medium

(00:18:26) - The Trouble with Subtitles and Scripts

(00:27:41) - Self-Shaming vs. Other-Shaming

(00:30:33) - LLM Alignment Needs a Culture Check

(00:36:20) - Looking Ahead: A Final Reflection

(00:37:01) - Outro

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 footwear manufacturing firm in Delhi, on how referral-based hiring improve firm productivity, cohesion, and inclusion, differences in hiring between higher caste versus lower caste networks, feudalism and labor opportunities, and much more.

Recorded August 28th, 2025.

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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.

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Timestamps

(00:00:00) - Intro

(00:01:07) - The Elusive K. M. Panikkar

(00:07:52) - Panikkar’s and the Indian National Movement

(00:19:32) - Panikkar’s Intellectual Arc

(00:26:45) - Unifying an Indian Identity

(00:35:38) - India’s Princely States

(00:40:19) - Panikkar and China

(00:54:43) - Panikkar and the 1950s

(00:59:43) - Panikkar’s Thought vs. His Government Work

(01:08:35) - Panikkar’s Blind Spots

(01:15:48) - Panikkar and Today’s India

(01:18:27) - Outro

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 governments in education, Delhi’s experiment with education reforms, portable benefits and school vouchers, and much more.

Recorded July 16th, 2025.

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Timestamps

(00:00:00) - Intro

(00:01:27) - Delhi School Experiment

(00:12:45) - Education in a Welfare State

(00:28:34) - Incompetent Petty Tyrants

(00:38:17) - Federalism and Education

(00:50:18) - How to Build Empowerment

(01:05:39) - Is the Delhi Experiment Generalizable?

(01:18:52) - Portability and Education

(01:28:15) - Outro

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 more. 

Recorded July 8th, 2025.

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Timestamps

(00:00:00) - Intro

(00:01:38) - India’s Fiscal Federalism System

(00:22:46) - India’s Welfare State

(00:34:19) - Unequal Growth

(00:45:58) - Consumption Taxes

(01:02:30) - Public Finance in India

(01:27:06) - Outro

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.

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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 federalism, and much more.  

Recorded May 21st, 2025.

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Timestamps

(00:00:00) - Intro

(00:01:07) - Local Political Actors

(00:16:16) - Portability

(00:20:36) - Village Government in India

(00:53:42) - Separation of Powers

(01:03:51) - Inclusion

(01:21:20) - Outro

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 structural reforms India still needs to undertake, and much more. 

Recorded April 25th, 2025.

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Timestamps

(00:00:00) - Intro

(00:01:13) - Labyrinth of Control

(00:23:55) - Dismantling the Licensing System

(00:48:27) - Regrets

(01:07:31) - The Infrastructure Report

(01:28:05) - Structural Transformation

(01:46:23) - Outro

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, 2025.

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Timestamps

00:00:00 - Intro

00:01:08 - Speaking with Nature

00:08:42 - Unquiet Woods

00:38:29 - Science and Progress of Environmentalism 

00:47:33 - Radhakamal Mukerjee

00:55:06 - K. M. Munshi

01:03:38 - Technological Progress and Tradeoffs

01:11:22 - Jayaprakash Narayan

01:19:39 - Outro