Search Results for: shruti

Episode 336: Shruti Rajagopalan Dives Into Delimitation

In a democracy, every vote should be equal. But in India, that’s not the case. Shruti Rajagopalan joins Amit Varma in episode 336 of The Seen and the Unseen to give a detailed primer into the complex issue of Delimitation — and to suggest her own radical solution.

Also check out:
1. Shruti Rajagopalan on Twitter, Substack, Instagram and her podcast, Ideas of India.
2. Demography, Delimitation, and Democracy — Shruti Rajagopalan’s detailed post on Delimitation.
3. Episodes of The Seen and the Unseen w Shruti Rajagopalan, in reverse chronological order: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17.
4. India’s Emerging Crisis of Representation — Milan Vaishnav and Jamie Hintson.
5. Of Openings and Possibilities — Pranay Kotasthane on Delimitation.
6. South India Would Like to Have a Word — Episode 320 of The Seen and…

Episode 289: Shruti Jahagirdar is the Sporty One

She’s skated down tekdis, played volleyball for her state, run through deserts and wrestled a bear with her bare hands. Ok, not the last one. Shruti Jahagirdar joins Amit Varma in episode 289 of The Seen and the Unseen to discuss women’s sports in India, fitness, nutrition and a world without limits.

Also check out:
1. Shruti Jahagirdar on Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.
2. Halomi Fitness, Shruti Jahagirdar’s startup.
3. The Evolution of Cricket — Episode 97 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Harsha Bhogle).
4. Building Sports Ecosystems — Episode 126 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Joy Bhattacharjya).
5. The State of Indian Sport — Episode 238 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Joy Bhattacharjya and Nandan Kamath).
6. Other episodes of The Seen and the Unseen on sport with Ram Guha, Prem Panicker, Sharda Ugra, Ayaz Memon, Snehal Pradhan and…

Episode 169: Taking Stock of Covid-19

How should India handle Covid-19? Every option on the table carries huge costs, and will take countless lives. Shruti Rajagopalan joins Amit Varma in episode 169 of The Seen and the Unseen to help navigate the complex decisions that policy makers are being forced to make with little information.

Also check out:
1. India must shut itself down to contain the coronavirus — Shruti Rajagopalan (Mar 16)
2. Shruti Rajagopalan on India and the coronavirus — Marginal Revolution (Mar 25)
3. The lockdown may be doing us more harm than good — Shruti Rajagopalan (Mar 30)
4. Assessing Healthcare Capacity in India — Shruti Rajagopalan and Abishek Choutagunta
5. Pandemic Policy in Developing Countries: Recommendations for India — Shruti Rajagopalan and Alex Tabarrok
6. We have miles of roadblocks to remove before we sleep (Apr 13) — Shruti Rajagopalan
7. We Are Fighting Two Disasters:…

Episode 206: Lessons From 2020

…should think more about inter-generational tradeoffs, and consider lowering the voting age. (Shruti)
6. Software is eating the biological world. (Alex)
7. Science is not the problem. The problem is economic illiteracy. (Shruti)
7.5. We should move from collectivized decision-making to respecting individual choice. (Alex)
8. We need to rethink education. Not just the delivery of it, but how we think of education itself. (Amit)
9. A bigger problem than state capacity is state will. (Alex)
10. Politicians don’t always behave in a rational, self-interested way. (Shruti)
11. Politics is driven only by tribalism. (Amit)
12. The internet is even better than we thought. (Alex)
13. Markets don’t solve everything. (Shruti)
14. We should worry more about computer viruses. (Alex)
15. We should take a closer look at how we relate to other people. (Amit)
15.5 Be like dogs. Live in the moment. (Shruti)

Also check out: 1. Elite Imitation…

Episode 180: Elite Imitation in Public Policy

Indian decision makers often blindly copy public policy from abroad, without considering whether it would work in local conditions. Shruti Rajagopalan and Alex Tabarrok join Amit Varma in episode 180 of The Seen and the Unseen to explain the damage caused by such ‘isomorphic mimicry,’ and why it happens in the first place.

Also check out:
1. Premature Imitation and India’s Flailing State — Shruti Rajagopalan & Alexander Tabarrok.
2. Modern Principles of Macroeconomics — Tyler Cowen & Alex Tabarrok.
3. Modern Principles of Microeconomics — Tyler Cowen & Alex Tabarrok.
4. DeMon, Morality and the Predatory Indian State — Episode 85 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan).
5. The Delhi Smog — Episode 44 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vivek Kaul).
6. Is India a Flailing State? — Lant Pritchett.
7. We Are Fighting Two Disasters: Covid-19 and the Indian…

Episode 237: The Importance of the 1991 Reforms

The liberalisation of 1991 lifted more than a quarter of a billion people in India out of poverty. And yet, we often don’t recognise their importance, and have gone backwards in the last decade. Shruti Rajagopalan and Ajay Shah join Amit Varma in episode 237 of The Seen and the Unseen to discuss what life was like before 1991, where we had gone wrong, what we put right and what remains to be done.

Also check out:
1. The 1991 Project.
2. The quest for economic freedom in India — Shruti Rajagopalan.
3. Ideas and Origins of the Planning Commission in India — Shruti Rajagopalan.
4. The Art and Science of Economic Policy — Episode 154 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vijay Kelkar and Ajay Shah).
5. The Economics and Politics of Vaccines — Episode 223 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ajay…

Episode 272: The Ferment of Our Founders

Our freedom fighters didn’t just fight the British. They also grappled with each other in the marketplace of ideas and actions. Shruti Kapila joins Amit Varma in episode 272 of The Seen and the Unseen to describe how so many of our founders were also innovative political philosophers — and how we still fight their battles today.

Also check out:
1. Shruti Kapila at Cambridge, The Print and Twitter.
2. Violent Fraternity: Indian Political Thought in the Global Age — Shruti Kapila.
3. An Intellectual History for India — Edited by Shruti Kapila.
4. Political Thought in Action: The Bhagavad Gita and Modern India — Edited by Shruti Kapila and Faisal Devji.
5. The Death and Life of Great American Cities — Jane Jacobs.
6. Nehru: The Debates that Defined India — Tripurdaman Singh and Adeel Hussain.
7. Nehru’s Debates — Episode 262 of The Seen…

Episode 313: The Long Road From Neeyat to Neeti

…Seen and the Unseen w Pranay Kotasthane: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
8. The Art and Science of Economic Policy — Episode 154 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vijay Kelkar & Ajay Shah).
9. In Service of the Republic — Vijay Kelkar & Ajay Shah.
10. Angus Maddison’s chart on GDP through the ages.
11. Caste, Capitalism and Chandra Bhan Prasad — Episode 296 of The Seen and the Unseen.
12. What Have We Done With Our Independence? — Episode 186 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Pratap Bhanu Mehta).
13. The Gentle Wisdom of Pratap Bhanu Mehta — Episode 300 of The Seen and the Unseen.
14. Bhaktamal — Nabha Dass.
15. The Three Languages of Politics — Arnold Kling.
16. The Importance of the 1991 Reforms — Episode 237 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan and Ajay Shah).
17….

Episode 85: DeMon, Morality and the Predatory Indian State

…They discuss the predatory Indian state, how Indians are forced into jugaad to cope with it, and that this jugaad might seem to be a good thing, but represents the enormous cost that all of us pay.

Also see:
1. Most of Amit Varma’s writing on DeMon, collected in one Twitter thread.
2. ‘Narendra Modi Takes a Great Leap Backwards’ — Amit Varma
3. ‘The Landscape of Freedom in India’ — Amit Varma
4. ‘The Humanitarian Cost Trumps Any Economic Argument’ — Amit Varma
5. ‘What the RBI data on demonetization tells us’ — Shruti Rajagopalan
6. ‘Demonetisation and Welfare’ — Shruti Rajagopalan and Larry White
7. ‘Formalization of the economy is a form of coercion’ — Shruti Rajagopalan
8. Episode 2 of The Seen and the Unseen, on Demonetisation, with Suyash Rai
9. Episode 18 of The Seen and the Unseen, on restaurant regulations, with Madhu Menon

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Episode 138: Twelve Dream Reforms

Times are bad — but pessimists can dream! Tired of only talking about problems, Shruti Rajagopalan, Rajeswari Sengupta and Vivek Kaul join Amit Varma in episode 138 of The Seen and the Unseen, to propose solutions! Three each. Many bad jokes and Bollywood songs are thrown in.

Also check out
1. Population Is Not a Problem, but Our Greatest Strength — Amit Varma.
2. Alone in the City — Amit Varma
3. Where Are the Jobs? — Ep 87 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Yazad Jal)
4. Education in India — Ep 77 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Amit Chandra)
5. Urban Governance in India — Ep 31 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan)
6. The Bad and Complex Tax — Ep 74 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan)
7. GST Revisited — Ep

…

Episode 153: The Indian Economy in 2019

…DeMon, Morality and the Predatory Indian State — Episode 85 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan)
10. The Bad and Complex Tax — Episode 74 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan)
11. GST — Episode 3 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Devangshu Datta)
12. GST Revisted — Episode 28 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vivek Kaul)
13. India’s Lost Decade — Episode 119 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Puja Mehra)
14. Demystifying GDP — Episode 130 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rajeswari Sengupta)
15. In Service of the Republic — Vijay Kelkar and Ajay Shah
16, Every Act of Government Is an Act of Violence — Amit Varma
17. Narrative Economics — Robert Shiller
18. Where Are the Jobs? — Episode 87 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Yazad Jal)
19. India’s Agriculture Crisis —…

Episode 200: The Hunter Becomes the Hunted

The tables are turned in episode 200 of The Seen and the Unseen. Host Amit Varma is in the firing line, replying to questions from 22 of his past guests and fans as Shruti Rajagopalan plays proctor. They talk about poker, podcasting, politics, policy and the personal.

Show Notes
1. Select episodes of The Seen and the Unseen featuring Shruti Rajagopalan (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), Manu Pillai (98, 127, 156), VK Karthika, Rajat Ubhaykar, Chinmay Tumbe, Prem Panicker (41, 46), Joy Bhattacharjya, Akshaya Mukul, Ira Mukhoty, Parvati Sharma, Manimugdha Sharma, Supriya Gandhi, Harsha Bhogle, Karthik Muralidharan, Srinath Raghavan (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), Pranay Kotasthane (1, 2), Hamsini Hariharan (1, 2, 3, 4), Russ Roberts, Arvind Subramanian, Ram Guha (1, 2, 3), Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Narayani Basu, Amardeep Singh, Aakar Patel, Rahul Verma, Ashok Malik, Barun Mitra+Kumar Anand, Matt Ridley, Neelesh Misra, Puja Mehra, Rajeswari…

Episode 233: Pranay Kotasthane Talks Public Policy

…Cost Neglect in Public Policy — Emil Persson and Gustav Tinghög.
20. Whose Money is it Anyway? — Amit Varma.
21. The 4 Ways to Spend Money — Milton Friedman.
22. Discover Your Inner Economist — Tyler Cowen.
23. In Service of the Republic — Vijay Kelkar & Ajay Shah.
24. The Art and Science of Economic Policy — Episode 154 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vijay Kelkar and Ajay Shah).
25. Amit Varma’s prescient 2017 tweet on the price caps on stents.
26. Episodes of the Seen and the Unseen on GST with Devangshu Datta, Vivek Kaul and Shruti Rajagopalan.
26. Most of Amit Varma’s writing on DeMon, collected in one Twitter thread.
27. Narendra Modi Takes a Great Leap Backwards — Amit Varma
28. Episodes of The Seen and the Unseen on Demonetisation with Suyash Rai and Shruti Rajagopalan.
29. The Delhi Smog — Episode 44…

Episode 274: Two-and-a-Half Bengalis Have an Economics Adda

India is in bad shape. Bad economics is one reason why. Economists Rajeswari Sengupta and Shrayana Bhattacharya join Amit Varma in episode 274 of The Seen and the Unseen to take stock of the mess. You don’t like dissent? Too bad. We’re Bongs, and you cannot shut us up.

Also check out:
1. Shrayana Bhattacharya on Twitter, Instagram and Google Scholar.
2. Rajeswari Sengupta on Google Scholar and her own site.
3. Demystifying GDP — Episode 130 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rajeswari Sengupta).
4. Twelve Dream Reforms — Episode 138 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan, Rajeswari Sengupta & Vivek Kaul).
5. The Loneliness of the Indian Woman — Episode 259 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shrayana Bhattacharya).
6. Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh — Shrayana Bhattacharya.
7. The Importance of the 1991 Reforms — Episode 237 of The…

Episode 290: Karthik Muralidharan Examines the Indian State

…the 1991 Reforms — Episode 237 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan and Ajay Shah).
27. State Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century — Francis Fukuyama.
28. The Origins of Political Order — Francis Fukuyama.
29. Political Order and Political Decay — Francis Fukuyama.
30. Computer Nahi Monitor — Episode 5 of season 1 of Panchayat.
31. Naushad Forbes Wants to Fix India — Episode 282 of The Seen and the Unseen.
32. Courts Redux: Micro-Evidence from India — Manaswini Rao.
33. The Checklist Manifesto — Atul Gawande.
34. Annie Hall — Woody Allen.
35. The Politics Limerick — Amit Varma.
36. The Decline of the Congress — Episode 248 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rahul Verma).
37. The Burden of Democracy — Pratap Bhanu Mehta.
38. A Theory of Clientelistic Politics versus Programmatic Politics — Pranab Bardhan and Dilip Mookherjee.
39….

Episode 296: Caste, Capitalism and Chandra Bhan Prasad

…Chandra Bhan Prasad.
8. Who was the real Ambedkar? — Chandra Bhan Prasad.
9. On Ambedkarism, Caste and Dalit Capitalism — Chandra Bhan Prasad in conversation with Shruti Rajagopalan in the Ideas of India podcast.
10. ‘Indian languages carry the legacy of caste’ — Chandra Bhan Prasad interviewed by Sheela Bhatt.
11. Rethinking Inequality: Dalits in Uttar Pradesh in the Market Reform Era — Devesh Kapur, Chandra Bhan Prasad, Lant Pritchett and D Shyam Babu.
12. The Collected Writings and Speeches of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar.
13. The Dalit Emancipation Manifesto of 1951 — Babasaheb Ambedkar.
14. Select episodes of The Seen and the Unseen that discussed caste with TM Krishna, Shruti Rajagopalan and Manu Pillai.
15. Select episodes of The Seen and the Unseen that discussed the 1991 reforms with Shruti Rajagopalan+Ajay Shah, Vinay Sitapati and Montek Singh Ahluwalia.
16. Select episodes of The Seen and the Unseen that discussed…

Episode 323: SVB, Banking and the State of the Economy

…of Montek Singh Ahluwalia — Episode 285 of The Seen and the Unseen.
14. The Long Road From Neeyat to Neeti — Episode 313 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Pranay Kotasthane and Raghu S Jaitley).
15. Elite Imitation in Public Policy — Episode 180 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan and Alex Tabarrok).
16. Premature Imitation and India’s Flailing State — Shruti Rajagopalan & Alexander Tabarrok.
17. Public Opinion — Walter Lippman.
18. The World Outside and the Pictures in our Heads — Walter Lippman.
19. Watching the Wheels — John Lennon. (Amit also loves Chris Cornell’s version.)
20. You’re Missing — Bruce Springsteen.
21. The End of Silicon Valley (Bank) — Ben Thompson on Stratechery.
22. This Banking Crisis Won’t Wreck the Economy — Tyler Cowen.
23. SVB Took the Wrong Risks — Matt Levine.
24. Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market…

Episode 345: Economic Learnings of India for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Bihar

…the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan).
8. Raees: An Empty Shell of a Gangster Film — Amit Varma.
9. Bootleggers and Baptists-The Education of a Regulatory Economist — Bruce Yandle.
10. Films, Feminism, Paromita — Episode 155 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Paromita Vohra).
11. The Poetic Feminism of Paromita Vohra — Episode 339 of The Seen and the Unseen.
12. The Loneliness of the Indian Woman — Episode 259 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shrayana Bhattacharya).
13. Shruti Rajagopalan Dives Into Delimitation — Episode 336 of The Seen and the Unseen.
14. Population Is Not a Problem, but Our Greatest Strength — Amit Varma.
15. Fixing Indian Education — Episode 185 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Karthik Muralidharan).
16. Education in India — Episode 77 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Amit Chandra).
17. Return to Good Riddance : A Cameo of Contemporary…

Episode 353: Apar Gupta Fights the Good Fight

…world – and happy Independence Day! (2016) — Apar Gupta.
45. IFF on Reddit.
46. Twitter and Tear Gas — Zeynep Tufekci.
47. Radically Networked Societies — Episode 158 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Pranay Kotasthane).
48. Anushka Jain’s thread on SRK and digital rights.
49. IFF’s Aarogya Setu Infographic.
50. The AgriStack: A Primer — Rohin Garg.
51. Naushad Forbes Wants to Fix India — Episode 282 of The Seen and the Unseen.
52. The Struggle And The Promise — Naushad Forbes.
53. Shruti Rajagopalan on our constitutional amendments.
54. The Right to Property — Episode 26 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan).
55. The Ideas of Our Constitution — Episode 164 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Madhav Khosla).
56. Emergency Chronicles — Gyan Prakash.
57. Gyan Prakash on the Emergency — Episode 103 of The Seen and the Unseen.
58. The…

Episode 26: The Right to Property

The Right to Property is the underpinning of all our rights — and yet, the Indian constitution does not consider it a Fundamental Right, though it once did. Constitutional expert Shruti Rajagopalan joins Amit Varma to discuss why this right is important, and the consequences of its being weakened in India.

Also read: Why We Need The Right To Private Property — Shruti Rajagopalan

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Episode 35: The Bhopal Gas Tragedies

In episode 35 of The Seen and the Unseen, economist and lawyer Shruti Rajagopalan explains why there were three Bhopal Gas Tragedies, not just one.

Also read: Bhopal Gas Tragedy: Paternalism and Filicide (pdf link) — Shruti Rajagopalan

…

Episode 74: The Bad and Complex Tax

GST was supposed to be a Good and Simple Tax, but has ended up as just the opposite. This is hurting the poor the most. Economist Shruti Rajagopalan joins Amit Varma in episode 74 of The Seen and the Unseen to suggest a way out.

Also check out
Simple Rules for a Complex World — Shruti Rajagopalan
GST — Episode 3 of The Seen and the Unseen with Devangshu Datta
GST Revisited — Episode 28 of The Seen and the Unseen with Vivek Kaul

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Episode 82: Swachh Bharat

The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is short-sighted, and does not achieve its purpose. Why? What can we do? Economist Shruti Rajagopalan joins Amit Varma in episode 82 of The Seen and the Unseen to break it all down.

Also read
India needs sewage systems, not free toilets — Shruti Rajagopalan
That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen — Frédéric Bastiat
The Use of Knowledge in Society — Friedrich Hayek
Public Choice: Politics Without Romance — James Buchanan
Where India Goes — Diane Coffey and Dean Spears
Why Are Our Cities So Messed Up — ep 31 of The Seen and the Unseen
How We Messed Up Our Caste Problem — ep 52 of The Seen and the Unseen

…

Episode 92: An Economist Looks at #MeToo

Will the #MeToo movement change behaviour by changing incentives? Economist Shruti Rajagopalan joins Amit Varma in episode 92 of The Seen and the Unseen to talk about Criminal Economics in the context of crimes on women in India.

Also check out:
Changing the Costs for the Rational Sexual Predator: Shruti Rajagopalan in Mint
Men Must Step Up Now: Amit Varma’s editorial in Pragati
The Importance of #MeToo: Episode 90 of The Seen and the Unseen
Metrics of Empowerment: Episode 88 of The Seen and the Unseen
Fixing Our Judicial System: Episode 62 of The Seen and the Unseen

…

Episode 100: The 100th Episode Ramble

The Seen and the Unseen reaches 100 episodes! Yea! Economist Shruti Rajagopalan, the most frequent guest on the show, joins host Amit Varma as they shoot the breeze about the 99 episodes before this, the horrors of 2018, and the further horrors of 2019.

Also check out:
These past episodes with Gunvant Patil, Vikram Doctor, Harsha Bhogle, Gideon Haigh+Prem Panicker, Rajesh Jain, Vishwanath S, Parth Shah, Amit Chandra, Alex Tabarrok, Naveen Noronha, Kumar Anand, Vivek Kaul, Ashok Malik, Nikita+Supriya (on #MeToo), Devika+Nidhi+Hamsini and Matt Ridley.

And also with Shruti on the Right to Property, DeMon, GST, #MeToo and Caste.

And ah, The Matunga Racket.

…

Episode 119: Modi’s Lost Opportunity

Despite being a Congress spokesperson, economist Salman Soz was hopeful in 2014 that the Modi government would be good for India. As the title of his new book indicates, that turned out to be quite The Great Disappointment. Soz joins Amit Varma in episode 119 of The Seen and the Unseen to elaborate on the many economic failures of the Modi government. He also tackles tough questions on the Congress party .

Also check out:

1. The Great Disappointment — Salman Soz

2. India’s Lost Decade — Ep 116 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Puja Mehra)

3. DeMon, Morality and the Predatory Indian State — Ep 85 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan)

4. The Bad and Complex Tax — ep 74 of The Seen and the Unseen ( w Shruti Rajagopalan)

5. The Fraud of Indian

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Episode 123: India’s Supreme Court

As the recent sexual harassment case indicates, all is not well with the Supreme Court of India. Constitutional economist Shruti Rajagopalan joins Amit Varma in episode 123 of The Seen and the Unseen to explain why the Supreme Court has gone wrong on both ends of the tradeoff between Independence and Accountability.

Also check out:
Justice Is Dead, Long Live the Justices — Shruti Rajagopalan
Imagine No Possessions — Episode 26 of The Seen and the Unseen
Fixing Our Judicial System — Episode 62 of The Seen and the Unseen
Ek Baar Jo Maine Commitment Kar Di — Amit Varma
Where Have All the Leaders Gone? — Amit Varma

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Episode 188: What a Long Strange Trip It’s Been

…and the Unseen on GST with Devangshu Datta, Vivek Kaul and Shruti Rajagopalan.
18. DeMon, Morality and the Predatory Indian State — Episode 85 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan).
19. ‘Narendra Modi Takes a Great Leap Backwards’ — Amit Varma.
20. Most of Amit Varma’s writing on DeMon, collected in one Twitter thread.
21. Restart: The Last Chance for the Indian Economy — Mihir Sharma.
22. We Are Fighting Two Disasters: Covid-19 and the Indian State — Amit Varma.
23. The State of Our Farmers — Episode 86 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Gunvant Patil).
24. India’s Agriculture Crisis — Episode 140 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Barun Mitra and Kumar Anand).
25. We Must Save Our Farmers — Amit Varma.
26. The Indian State is the Greatest Enemy of the Indian Farmer — Amit Varma.
27. Demystifying GDP — Episode 130…

Episode 191: Our Cities After Covid-19

…— Karen Harris, Andrew Schwedel and Austin Kimson.
8. Triumph of the City — Edward L Glaeser.
9. Order Without Design – How Markets Shape Cities — Alain Bertaud.
10. The Importance of Cities — Episode 108 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Reuben Abraham & Pritika Hingorani.)
11. The Seen and the Unseen episodes with Alex Tabarrok on FSI and Rent Control.
12. Urban Governance in India — Episode 31 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan).
13. Taking Stock of Covid-19 — Episode 169 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan).
14. The Nuances of Lockdown — Episode 176 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Anup Malani).
15. India’s Economy in the Time of Covid-19 — Episode 177 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vivek Kaul).
16. Fixing Indian Education — Episode 185 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Karthik…

Episode 194: The First Assault on Our Constitution

The constitution of India, it has been said, is not a book but a periodical. Starting with Jawaharlal Nehru, every prime minister who wanted to do something unconstitutional simply amended the constitution. Tripurdaman Singh joins Amit Varma in episode 194 of The Seen and the Unseen to discuss India’s First Amendment, which began a rot that never ended.

Also check out:
1. Sixteen Stormy Days — Tripurdaman Singh.
2. Imperial Sovereignty and Local Politics — Tripurdaman Singh.
3. The books of CA Bayly.
4. Shruti Rajagopalan on our constitutional amendments.
5. The Right to Property — Episode 26 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan).
6. ‘Not murder but mimicry’ — Kapil Komireddi’s tweet.
7. Modi’s Lost Opportunity — Episode 119 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Salman Soz).
8. India’s Greatest Civil Servant — Episode 167 of The Seen and the Unseen…

Episode 215: A Writer Learns to See

…The Seen and the Unseen (w Arunava Sinha).
10. राधा सौंदर्य — Beni Prasad Beni.
11. Thandi Hawayein Lehrake Aaye.
12. Aakar Patel at The Windowpane Sessions.
13. A Scientist in the Kitchen — Episode 204 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Krish Ashok).
14. A Meditation on Form — Amit Varma.
15. Jackson Katz’s TedX talk about violence against women and the passive voice. (Also, this quote.)
16. Demystifying GDP — Episode 130 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rajeswari Sengupta).
17. DeMon, Morality and the Predatory Indian State — Episode 85 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan).
18. Most of Amit Varma’s writing on DeMon, collected in one Twitter thread.
19. Our Colourful Past — Episode 127 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Manu Pillai).
20. Early Indians — Tony Joseph. (And the Seen/Unseen episode with him.)
21. The Right to Property…

Episode 225: Understanding Indian Healthcare

We may have been in denial earlier, but no more. Covid-19 has laid bare how badly India’s healthcare system is broken. Before we can fix it, we must understand it. Karthik Muralidharan joins Amit Varma in episode 225 of The Seen and the Unseen to shed light on his many years of studying this field. The discussion also contains thoughts on whether GDP is edible, and a bout of antakshiri right at the end.

Also check out:
1. Fixing Indian Education — Episode 185 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Karthik Muralidharan).
2. Past episodes of The Seen and the Unseen on Covid-19, featuring (in reverse chronological order) Gautam Menon, Ajay Shah, Anirban Mahapatra, Ruben Mascarenhas, Chinmay Tumbe, Rukmini S, Vaidehi Tandel, Vivek Kaul, Anup Malani and Shruti Rajagopalan.
3. We Are Fighting Two Disasters: Covid-19 and the Indian State — Amit Varma.
4. Participatory…

Episode 227: Taking Stock of Our Economy

…India’s Lost Decade — Episode 116 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Puja Mehra).
8. The Lost Decade — Puja Mehra.
9. What a Long Strange Trip It’s Been — Episode 188 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Arvind Subramanian).
10. The Fight of the Central Banker — Episode 193 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Viral Acharya).
11. Pandemonium in India’s Banks — Episode 212 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Tamal Bandyopadhyay.)
12. Demystifying GDP — Episode 130 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rajeswari Sengupta).
13. The Indian Economy in 2019 — Episode 153 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vivek Kaul).
14. Two Economic Crises (2008 & 2019) — Episode 135 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Mohit Satyanand).
15. Twelve Dream Reforms — Episode 138 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan, Rajeswari Sengupta and Vivek…

Episode 228: The Kavita Krishnan Files

…— Episode 88 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Devika Kher, Nidhi Gupta and Hamsini Hariharan).
10. The #MeToo Movement — Episode 90 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Supriya Nair & Nikita Saxena).
11. An Economist Looks at #MeToo — Episode 92 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan).
12. Misogyny is the Oldest Indian Tradition — Amit Varma.
13. Men Must Step Up Now — Amit Varma.
14. Over 1600 Teachers Died of COVID-19 After Poll Duty for Panchayat Elections — Manoj Singh.
15. Enid Blyton on Amazon.
16. Little Women — Louisa May Alcott.
17. To Kill a Mockingbird — Harper Lee.
18. The Awakening, and Selected Short Stories — Kate Chopin.
19. Max Beerbohm and James Thurber on Amazon.
20. Crime and Punishment — Fyodor Dostoevsky.
21. House of the Dead — Fyodor Dostoevsky.
22. Leaves From the Jungle — Verrier Elwin.
…

Episode 247: The Business of Winning Elections

…Hindu Nationalism — Episode 139 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Akshaya Mukul).
10. Political Ideology in India — Episode 131 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rahul Verma).
11. Dreamers: How Indians are Changing the World — Snigdha Poonam.
12. Young India — Episode 83 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Snigdha Poonam).
13. Maharashtra Politics Unscrambled — Episode 151 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Sujatha Anandan).
14. The Lost Decade — Puja Mehra.
15. India’s Lost Decade — Episode 116 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Puja Mehra).
16. The Importance of the 1991 Reforms — Episode 237 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan and Ajay Shah).
17. Hamsini Hariharan’s tweet on ‘Indic’.
18. Private Truths, Public Lies — Timur Kuran.
19. The Facts Do Not Matter — Amit Varma.
20. Sample SSR conspiracy theory: He’s alive!
21. Fighting…

Episode 262: Nehru’s Debates

There was a time when our leaders dived into the public discourse and embraced the world of ideas. Tripurdaman Singh and Adeel Hussain join Amit Varma in episode 262 of The Seen and the Unseen to describe four debates that Jawaharlal Nehru entered with Muhammad Iqbal, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Sardar Patel and Syama Prasad Mookerjee. These old debates matter today, because those ideas are still being contested.

Also check out:
1. Nehru: The Debates that Defined India — Tripurdaman Singh and Adeel Hussain.
2. Sixteen Stormy Days — Tripurdaman Singh.
3. The First Assault on Our Constitution — Episode 194 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Tripurdaman Singh).
4. Jawaharlal Nehru on Amazon.
5. Shruti Rajagopalan’s talk on the many amendments in our constitution.
6. Karl May on Amazon.
7. Christopher Bayly on Amazon.
8. Violent Fraternity — Shruti Kapila.
9. Amit Varma’s tweet about…

Episode 276: The Incredible Curiosities of Mukulika Banerjee

…Life and Times of Nirupama Rao — Episode 269 of The Seen and the Unseen.
24. The #MeToo Movement — Episode 90 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Supriya Nair and Nikita Saxena).
25. Urban Governance in India — Episode 31 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan).
26. ‘Tell a Sanghi/Bhakt at a job interview…’ — SirKazamJeevi’s tweet.
27. A Life in Indian Politics — Episode 49 of The Seen and the Unseen (w JP Narayan).
28. Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India — Akshaya Mukul.
29. The Gita Press and Hindu Nationalism — Episode 139 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Akshaya Mukul).
30. Memories and Things — Episode 195 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Aanchal Malhotra).
31. Aakar Patel Is Full of Hope — Episode 270 of The Seen and the Unseen.
32. Modeling Covid-19 — Episode 224 of…

Episode 280: Manjima Bhattacharjya: The Making of a Feminist

…The Seen and the Unseen that touched on feminism with Paromita Vohra, Kavita Krishnan, Kavitha Rao, Namita Bhandare and Shrayana Bhattacharjya,
11. Kali For Women.
12. Jagori.
13. Mrityudand — Prakash Jha.
14. The Ferment of Our Founders — Episode 272 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Kapila).
15. Rukmini Sees India’s Multitudes — Episode 261 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rukmini S).
16. Bargaining with Patriarchy — Deniz Kandiyoti.
17. On the Road to Change — A conversation between Kavita Krishnan and Amit Varma.
18. If It’s Monday It Must Be Madurai — Srinath Perur.
19. One Bad Law Goes, but Women Remain Second-Class Citizens — Amit Varma.
20. Most of Amit Varma’s writing on DeMon, collected in one Twitter thread.
21. Who gains from the new Maternity Benefit Act Amendment? — Devika Kher.
22. Here’s What’s Wrong With the Maternity Benefits Act — Suman…

Episode 282: Naushad Forbes Wants to Fix India

He’s been an academic who’s studied the country, and a businessman who’s created wealth and jobs. Now he wants to help India achieve its potential. Naushad Forbes joins Amit Varma in episode 282 of The Seen and the Unseen to talk about his life and learnings — and the roadmap that can help India lift its citizens.

Also check out:

1. The Struggle And The Promise: Restoring India’s Potential — Naushad Forbes.
2. Ram Guha Reflects on His Life — Episode 266 of The Seen and the Unseen.
3. Aakar Patel Is Full of Hope — Episode 270 of The Seen and the Unseen.
4. PG Wodehouse on Amazon.
5. The Importance of the 1991 Reforms — Episode 237 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan and Ajay Shah).
6. Elite Imitation in Public Policy — Episode 180 of The Seen and the Unseen…

Episode 285: The Life and Times of Montek Singh Ahluwalia

Our real heroes are often backstage. Montek Singh Ahluwalia joins Amit Varma in episode 285 of The Seen and the Unseen to discuss his life, his learnings and the liberalisation of 1991.

Also check out:
1. Backstage: The Story behind India’s High Growth Years — Montek Singh Ahluwalia.
2. Breaking Through: A Memoir — Isher Judge Ahluwalia.
3. The M Document — Montek Singh Ahluwalia’s legendary note from 1990.
4. The Importance of the 1991 Reforms — Episode 237 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan and Ajay Shah).
5. The Forgotten Greatness of PV Narasimha Rao — Episode 283 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vinay Sitapati).
6. Public Choice Theory — Episode 121 of The Seen and the Unseen.
7. Principles of Economics — Alfred Marshall.
8. Alexandre Dumas on Amazon.
9. Gurbani and Heer Ranjha.
10. The Life and Times…