1. Karthik Muralidharan, Niehaus, Paul, and Sandip Sukhtankar, "General Equilibrium Effects of (Improving) Public Employment Programs: Experimental Evidence from India," Econometrica91, no. 4 (2023): 1261-1295. 2. Karthik Muralidharan, Paul Niehaus, and Sandip Sukhtankar, "Integrating Biometric Authentication in India’s Welfare Programs: Lessons from a Decade of Reforms," Center for Effective Global Action Working Papers, University of California, 2022. 3. Karthik Muralidharan, Paul Niehaus, Sandip Sukhtankar, and Jeffrey Weaver, "Improving Last-Mile Service Delivery Using Phone-Based Mon ..read more

Breaking the Mould: India’s Untraveled Path to Prosperity is a big new book by the economists Raghuram Rajan and Rohit Lamba. The book is both a critique of India’s development model as well as a manifesto for reform. Most notably, it challenges the conventional wisdom that India’s primary goal should be to transform the country into a blue-collar manufacturing powerhouse. Rajan and Lamba argue that India cannot duplicate China’s development model, but it has the opportunity to leapfrog by focusing higher up the value chain. To discuss the book’s ideas and its policy implications, Milan is joi ..read more

Episode notes: 1. Rahul Bhattacharya, “Rahul Gandhi is on the march. But where is he heading?” 1843 Magazine, May 2, 2024. 2. Samanth Subramanian, “multi-storied,” Substack newsletter. 3. Bhagi Siva and Samanth Subramanian, “What it takes to live near an elephant herd,” Washington Post, January 21, 2024. 4. Samanth Subramanian, “When the Hindu Right Came for Bollywood,” New Yorker, October 10, 2022. 5. Samanth Subramanian, “How Hindu supremacists are tearing India apart,” Guardian, February 20, 2020 ..read more

1. Smriti Kak Ramachandran, “Lok Sabha polls: BJP announces new candidate for Ladakh,” Hindustan Times, April 23, 2024. 2. Smriti Kak Ramachandran, “No changes to constitution, assures PM,” Hindustan Times, April 22, 2024. 3. Smriti Kak Ramachandran, “Odisha gives BJP sleepless nights,” Hindustan Times, April 18, 2024. 4. Smriti Kak Ramachandran, “Lok Sabha election manifestos: Modi’s Guarantee, Congress’s NYAY,” Hindustan Times, April 16, 2024. 5. Smriti Kak Ramachandran, “String of new BJP entrants puts focus on headhunter,” Hindustan Times, April 16, 2024. 6. Smriti Kak Ramachandran, “BJP L ..read more

Maitreesh Ghatak and Rishabh Kumar, “Poverty in India Over the Last Decade: Data, Debates, and Doubts,” The India Forum, April 10, 2024. Maitreesh Ghatak, “The rise of the affluent is the real India growth story,” Hindustan Times, February 29, 2024. Maitreesh Ghatak, “The simmering debate over poverty rate,” Mint, May 4, 2023. Maitreesh Ghatak, Ramya Raghavan, and Linchuan Xu, “Trends in Economic Inequality in India,” The India Forum, September 19, 2022. Maitreesh Ghatak, “India’s Inequality Problem,” The India Forum, June 23, 2021. “The Crisis in India’s Economic Data (with Pramit Bhatt ..read more

Milan Vaishnav, “On electoral bonds, a short-lived celebration,” Hindustan Times, February 17, 2024. “Decoding the Indian Economy (with Pranjul Bhandari)” Grand Tamasha, April 3, 2024. Sukumar Ranganathan, “Five Things with @HT_Ed,” Hindustan Times (newsletter). Hindustan Times, General Elections Retrospective (accessed via the HT app ..read more

Ankit Panda, Indo-Pacific Missile Arsenals: Avoiding Spirals and Mitigating Escalation Risks (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2023). “Southern Asia's Nuclear Future with Ashley J. Tellis,” Grand Tamasha, October 26, 2022. Ankit Panda, “The Indo-Pacific’s new missile age demands Washington’s attention,” Breaking Defense, November 16, 2023. Ankit Panda, “How India’s breakthrough as an ‘elite space power’ devalues discovery and innovation,” South China Morning Post, April 7, 2019. Alex Travelli, “The Surprising Striver in the World’s Space Business,” New York T ..read more

1. “What’s Happening to India’s Rohingya Refugees? (with Priyali Sur and Daniel Sullivan),” Grand Tamasha, May 24, 2023. 2. Mohsin Alam Bhat and Aashish Yadav, “CAA will not help persecuted Hindus, Sikhs from neighbouring countries,” Indian Express, March 19, 2024. 3. “The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019,” PRS Legislative Research. 4. Madhav Khosla and Milan Vaishnav, “The Three Faces of the Indian State,” Journal of Democracy 32, no. 1 (2021): 111-125. 5. Mohsin Alam Bhat, “The Constitutional Case Against the Citizenship Amendment Bill,” Economic and Political Weekly 54, no ..read more

Episode notes: Sidharth Bhatia, “An Eating and Drinking Tour of India, With Some Misadventures Along the Way,” The Wire, July 8, 2023. Zac O’Yeah, “A culinary trip across Southeast Asia,” Indian Express, January 6, 2024 ..read more

Devesh Kapur, Chandra Bhan Prasad, Lant Pritchett, and D. Shyam Babu, “Rethinking Inequality: Dalits in Uttar Pradesh in the Market Reform Era,” Economic and Political Weekly 45, no. 35 (August 28-September 3, 2010): 39-49. Devesh Kapur, Chandra Bhan Prasad, and D. Shyam Babu, Defying the Odds: The Rise of Dalit Entrepreneurs (New Delhi: Vintage, 2014). D. Shyam Babu, “From empowerment to disenfranchisement: Lower caste mobilisation appears to have run its course,” Times of India, August 28, 2019. Chandra Bhan Prasad, “Fellow Dalits, open your own bank: If no one else, Dalit middle class ..read more