What This Means

The total number of pending cases in courts exceeds 5 crore, with the government being the largest litigant, accounting for 50% of these cases. Of the total pending cases, 85% are concentrated in district courts alone.

Nikhil Mehra, a Supreme Court lawyer, and Abhishek Dwivedi, a lawyer practicing before the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court, break down the various problems facing the courts in fast-tracking the huge pile of pending cases and the solutions for them in this episode of What This Means with Diksha Yadav.

01:13 - Understanding why the govt is a major litigant

04:47 - What's the way out for cases where the govt is the litigant?

10:00 - The challenges at the district courts

19:00 - What's hampering the recruitment of judges in lower courts?

30:00 - Video conferencing and technology adoption in various states

37:30 - Use of tech for organizing, streamlining procedures, and speeding up pending cases while avoiding unnecessary delays

47:25 - The reality of pending cases

50:25 - The repealing of 2000 obsolete laws - does it matter?

57:12 - The next few months won't be that great for the judiciary

57:45 - With NJAC, we may end up replacing judicial turf control with feudal turf control

Sriram Balasubramanian is a US-based economist and the author of Kautilyanomics and Dharmanomics. In this episode we discuss the following with him:

00:00 - Why Dharmanomics & what was missing in the public discourse & academia

07:39 - Why was Swachh Bharat successful?

10:14 - Temple Economy - then vs now and what can we learn from our past?

18.24 - The ecosystem around the temple area (shops, infrastructure, etc.) should be liberated from the clutches of the state.

20:47 - The economy boost during Mahakumbh 2025

24:07 - Major problem that some temples face today

26:03 - Corporate sector could do a lot more at the MahaKumbh event

29:30 - Informal firms role in Bharatiya economy

36:20 - What is Dharmic Capitalism?

39:52 - How Dharmanomics can help in India's growth amid a competitive environment such as tariff & tech wars

45:39 - The constant feeling of running out of time

54:16 - Why India is yet to produce a journal of International quality in the field of science or economics

55:26 - Book recommendations

To buy book: https://www.amazon.in/Dharmanomics-Indigenous-Sustainable-Economic-Model/dp/9356409692

Karan Bhasin is an economist based in New York. His latest paper with Dr Surjit S Bhalla 'Four Facts On Inclusive Growth In India' examines the persistent beliefs about poverty in India. In this episode we discuss the following with him:

00:00 - The Poverty Measurement Debate in India & The Poverty Decline

09:36 - How Government Schemes Impact Poverty Data

12:10 - India's Poverty Reduction: A Remarkable Trend W/o Leaving Agriculture

14:39 - Should India Conduct Household Consumption Expenditure Surveys Every Year?

19:28 - Is Inequality In India Really Widening? Here's What Consumption Data Shows

26.50 - Is India's Lower Middle Class & Middle Class Being Left Behind?

33:52 - In Focus: India's Economic Growth & Policy Gaps

37:58 - What It Means To Be Poor In India In 2025

In this episode with Prof Prasanna Tantri:

- What to make of the RBI's monetary policy and rate cut

- Will the rate cut help people looking to buy houses?

- Why is real estate so pricey?

- The RBI needs fixes for collecting data on inflation expectations.

- Prof.'s take on the budget

- Doubling the credit guarantee for MSMEs is not a good step.

Tax expert, Founder and CEO of Tax Compaas, Ajay Rotti, shares his top 3 expectations from Union Budget 2025.

- Key Expectations

- Ease of doing business

- Personal Tax & GST

- Focus on implementation & overcoming the administrative challenges

Rohit Pathania explains what is working & not working in the favour of political parties — AAP, BJP, Congress — ahead of the 2025 Delhi elections.

-The general voting trend in the state

-Who is winning the narrative war on the ground?

-What's working & not working for BJP

-Impact of Delhi elections in Punjab

-Can Congress win back their lost voter base in Delhi, & more!

Are we looking for next two or three quarter GDP growth or are we looking at Vixit Bharat 2047, is the real question, says

1. Key expectations from Budget 2024

2. What needs to be done to achieve 9-10% GDP growth

3. The GST system

4. Key issues hindering India's growth story

5. The freebie politics

Ananth Krishna Subhalakshmy explains:

- Does the One Nation One Election Bill attack the basic structure of the Constitution?

- How will the synchronisation of the state elections with the LS elections take place?

- Will the NDA government get the support from other parties such as AIADMK, BJD, YSRCP for the ONOE Bill? and more!

Amit Yadav explains in detail, what really happened in Kundarki, Katehri, Meerapur and other seats that went for bypolls in UP.

In this episode:

- Has the BJP got its winning formula for the 2027 state elections?

- What went wrong for the SP in the bypolls?

- What's the future of BSP, and can ASP outperform BSP in the 2027 state elections?

Prof. Prasanna Tantri says the real worry is not the dip in GDP growth in Q2 FY25, but rather that it has been around 6-7% for quite some time now. The focus needs to be on changing this and accelerating growth for the long term.

How can this be done? Find out in this episode of "What This Means" with Diksha Yadav.

Prasanna Tantri is an Associate Professor of Finance and Executive Director at the Centre for Analytical Finance at the Indian School of Business. He is also an Independent Director and the Chair of the Audit Committee at Power Finance Corporation.