Ideas of India

Feb 27 2025 129 ep. 69 mins 2.1k
Ideas of India Podcast artwork

Through conversations with top thinkers in the social sciences and beyond, economist Shruti Rajagopalan explores the ideas that will propel India forward.

  Science  Society & Culture
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Christopher Coyne on War, Conflict, and the Quest for a Stable Peace

Feb 27 2025 105 mins  
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.

Katherine Schofield on The Hidden History of Music in Mughal India

Feb 13 2025 79 mins  
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

Anton Howes on Trade, Innovation, and the Forgotten History of Salt

Jan 30 2025 108 mins  
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

Anant Sudarshan on Market Solutions to Air Pollution, Energy Policy, and Ecological Disruption

Jan 16 2025 99 mins  
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 Nov

2024 in Review

Dec 26 2024 79 mins  
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 ye

Pravin Krishna on the Political Economy of Multilateral and Preferential Trade Agreements, Trade Liberalization, and the Future of Global Trade

Dec 05 2024 91 mins  
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 diver

Deepti Sharma on Survey Methods and the Hidden Biases in Economic Data

Nov 21 2024 36 mins  
Subscribe to Grand Tamasha on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, or your favorite podcast app. 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 Managemen

Kushagr Bakshi on Constitutional Interpretation and the Transformation of Federalism

Nov 14 2024 54 mins  
Subscribe to Grand Tamasha on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, or your favorite podcast app. 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 �

Aarushi Kalra on Digital Polarization and Toxicity, Understanding User Behavior, Social Media Algorithms, and Platform Incentives

Nov 07 2024 49 mins  
Subscribe to Grand Tamasha on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, or your favorite podcast app. I spoke with Aarushi Kalra Ph.D. candidate in Economics at Brown University. We discussed her job market paper, “Hate in the Time of Algorithms: Evidence from a Large-Scale Experiment on Online Behavior.” We talked about the demand and supply of toxicity against minorities on social m

Abishek Choutagunta on Federalism, President’s Rule, and Constitutional Design

Oct 31 2024 54 mins  
Subscribe to Grand Tamasha on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, or your favorite podcast app. I spoke with Abishek Choutagunta, who received his PhD in economics from the Institute of Law and Economics, University of Hamburg. He is also an EV India fellow at the Mercatus Center. We discussed his paper “President’s Rule in India: State Emergency or Political Capture?” with C