Today my guest is Justice Jasti Chelameswar, who is a former justice of the Supreme Court of India. Prior to his elevation, he served as chief justice in High Courts in Gauhati and Kerala and as a justice in the Andhra Pradesh High Court. 

We spoke about his judgments on electoral qualifications, judicial conduct, transparency in judicial appointments, the constitutional right to privacy, separation of powers, and how dissent shapes constitutional interpretation, and much more.

Recorded February 25th, 2025.

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Timestamps

00:00:00 - Intro

00:01:27 - Election Law Cases

00:17:15 - Process of Writing Opinions

00:25:38 - Misconduct of Judicial Officers

00:31:34 - NJAC Opinion

00:44:47 - Fundamental Right to Privacy

01:06:29 - Death Penalty Matters

01:15:36 - Outro

Today my guest is Akshay Jaitly, one of the founders of Trilegal, one of India’s leading law firms. He specializes in advising on energy and infrastructure projects. His research interests include power sector reform, the energy transition and public-private contracting.

We talked about the top-down nature of electricity regulation and pricing in India, the dysfunctional DISCOMS, the reforms required for an energy transition towards renewables and nuclear energy, and much more. 

Recorded February 11th, 2025.

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Timestamps

00:00:00 - Intro 00:01:06 - Electricity in India 00:15:31 - DISCOMs 00:41:26 - Open Access 00:44:31 - Expanding Capacity 00:46:52 - Renewable Energy 00:50:04 - Technology Diffusion 00:59:11 - Nuclear Power 01:17:18 - Outro

Today my guest is Christopher J Coyne, who is a Professor of Economics at George Mason University, the Associate Director of the F.A. Hayek Program at the Mercatus Center. We talked about the economics of conflict and peace, history of the US security state, the US intervention in Afghanistan, domestic consequences of militarism abroad, and much more. 

Recorded January 15th, 2025.

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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.

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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

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.

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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

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.

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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

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.

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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

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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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