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

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

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.”

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

Today’s episode is the second part of my conversation with Rajmohan Gandhi, a historian and biographer involved in efforts for trust-building and reconciliation and author of more than fifteen books, of which the most recent is Fraternity: Constitutional Norm and Human Need. He taught history and politics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 1997 until he retirement in 2022. His most recent initiative is We Are One Humanity (WAOH), a writers collective responding to the worldwide thrusts against democracy and equality.

We spoke about his reflections on communal violence between Hindus and Muslims, revenge and reconciliation in South Asia, Sikhs and Buddhists, differences between north and south India, constitutional values, and much more.

Recorded April 17th, 2025.

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Today my guest is Rajmohan Gandhi, a historian and biographer involved in efforts for trust-building and reconciliation and author of more than fifteen books, of which the most recent is Fraternity: Constitutional Norm and Human Need. He taught history and politics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 1997 until his retirement in 2022. His most recent initiative is We Are One Humanity (WAOH), a writers collective responding to the worldwide thrusts against democracy and equality.

We spoke about his reflections on his biographies of the founding fathers, Vallabhai Patel, Mohandas Gandhi, C Rajagopalachari, and Gaffar Khan, their competing visions, debates with others like Ambedkar and Nehru, constitutional values, the civil rights movement, his faith, and much more.

Recorded April 18th, 2025.

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Timestamps

Intro - 00:00:00

Patel - 00:01:34

Rajaji - 00:31:20

Ghaffar Khan - 00:51:53

Gandhi - 01:05:53

Competing Visions - 01:17:32

Biographies of Family Members - 01:18:54

Serendipity in the Research Process - 01:23:40

Civil Rights in the US - 01:27:23

Pessimistic or Optimistic? - 01:35:16

Role of God and Faith - 01:36:27

Outro - 01:38:20