Renuka Sane on Regulatory Frameworks, Rule of Law, and Pensions Reforms in India
Ideas of India
Today my guest is who is the managing director of Managing Director of . An institution that seeks to improve India’s business environment by improving the rule of law. Renuka was a member of many expert committees including: the Task Force of Experts set up by the Employees Provident Fund Organisation; the research team of the Bankruptcy Legislative Reforms Commission; the Pension Advisory Committee of the Pension Fund Regulatory Development Authority; and the Working Group on personal insolvency at the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India. She received a Ph.D. in...
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Snigdha Poonam on the Political Economy of Transnational Scams
Ideas of India
Today my guest is who is a journalist and writer. She is the author of the new book and also the author of the 2018 award winning book : How Young Indians Are Changing Their World. We talked about the scam industrial complex in different states like Jharkhand, Assam and Tamil Nadu in India, the interaction between the scam economy and the formal economy, the transnational scams in China and Cambodia and how they are connected to India, the aspirations and traumas of the scam work force and much more. Recorded November 17th, 2025. Read a enhanced...
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2025 in Review
Ideas of India
Shruti and Ideas of India producer Dallas Floer sit down for the 2025 end-of-year episode. They look back at key themes and top episodes from the past year, address listener questions, and look forward to what’s in store for Shruti and the show in 2026. Recorded December 16th, 2025. Read a enhanced with helpful links. Learn more about . Connect with Ideas of India Follow on X Click for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro (00:01:03) - Listener Questions (00:25:50) - Big Themes and Top Episodes (00:42:21) -...
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Ammu Lavanya on How Foreign Capital Changed Indian Bank Lending
Ideas of India
Our seventh and final scholar in the series is , a PhD candidate in Economics at George Washington University. Her research is in the areas of International Finance, Monetary Economics, Empirical Banking and Financial History. We spoke about her job market paper titled . We talked about financial liberalization in India, the 2004 banking reform that increased the ceiling on raising foreign equity its impact on market value, lending capacity and increasing productivity through credit in India, the difference between private versus state owned banks, and much more. Recorded...
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Nayantara Biswas on Demand- and Supply-Side Interventions in India's Maternal Health Policy
Ideas of India
Our sixth scholar in the series is is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. She received her Ph.D. in economics from Clark University. Her research focuses on health equity impact evaluations of small-scale interventions and large-scale public policies. We spoke about dissertation titled, . We talked about demand side versus supply side policy interventions in public health, India’s maternal health policy landscape, the ASHA workers program, variation across states in policy impact and much more. Recorded August 28th, 2025. Read...
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Karthik Narayan on Measuring the Effects of Unscheduled vs. Scheduled Monetary Policy Announcements
Ideas of India
Our fifth scholar in the series is , who is a doctoral candidate in Economics at Nuffield College and at the Department of Economics, University of Oxford. His research focuses on monetary policy, macroeconomics and finance in developing countries. We spoke about his job market paper titled, We talked about how the Reserve Bank of India makes and announces its policies, its impact on interest rates, inflation expectations and output, measuring the impact of policy announcements, the Lucas Critique and much more. Recorded August 28th, 2025. Read a enhanced with...
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Asad Tariq on Electoral Redistricting and Public Goods Provision in India
Ideas of India
Our fourth scholar in the series is , who is a doctoral candidate in Economics at the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi. His research focuses on the political economy of development, with a particular interest in religion, politics and public service delivery in India. We spoke about his job market paper titled, . We talked about the 2008 delimitation exercise, especially at the state level, gerrymandering, the median voter versus swing voters and ethnic groups, public service delivery for minorities, especially Muslims, and much more. Recorded September 5th, 2025. Read...
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Chetana Sabnis on The Intimacy Contract and the Indian State
Ideas of India
Our third scholar in the series is , 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, . We talked about extramarital affairs, polygamous relationships, Uniform Civil Code, social versus legal acceptance, and much more. Recorded September 5th, 2025. Read a enhanced with helpful links. Connect with Ideas of India Follow on X Click for the...
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Sunny Rai on Using Large Language Models to Understand the Depiction of Shame and Pride in Bollywood versus Hollywood
Ideas of India
Our second scholar in the series is , who is a 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, . 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. Read a enhanced with...
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Kartik Srivastava on Referral-Based Hiring, Caste Networks, and Breaking Barriers in India's Labor Markets
Ideas of India
Our first scholar in the series is , 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, . 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...
info_outlineToday my guest is Sajith Pai, who is a Partner at Blume Ventures, an early stage Indian venture fund. He is also a well known writer, and the author of the annual Indus Valley Report. We spoke about the trends in the latest Indus Valley Report, the stratifications in Indian consumer markets, investor sentiment, policies and infrastructure to foster the AI boom in India, the AI start-up scene and much more.
Recorded March 6th, 2025.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.
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Timestamps
00:00:00 - Intro
00:04:32 - 2025 Trends
00:24:30 - Last Year vs. This Year
00:32:25 - The Role of Artificial Intelligence
00:45:59 - Artificial Intelligence Startup Scene
01:16:40 - Sajith’s Reading Habits
01:22:20 - Outro