Ideas of India

Today my guests are M. Krishnan and Badri Narayanan Gopalakrishnan. M. Krishnan is an economist based in Chennai and Singapore, and specializes in agriculture education systems, fisheries, and aquaculture research. He is currently an advisor at Infinite-Sum Modeling Inc and was a distinguished scientist of the Agricultural Research Service of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. Badri Narayanan Gopalakrishnan is an economist specializing in trade and international policy. He is a Fellow at the (NITI) Aayog, Government of India, where he formerly led the institution’s sections on Trade and Commerce, Strategic Economic Dialogue, International Cooperation, and Vision India@2047. Today we are discussing their recent coauthored paper titled Indian Fisheries in the Context of WTO Regulations, published by the Mercatus Center in collaboration with Center for Governance and Markets at the University of Pittsburgh. We spoke about the big issues concerning fisheres, in particular, India’s interests in at the 13th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) recently held in Abu Dhabi. Recorded March 13th, 2024. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Intro (00:01:50) - Fisheries in India (00:13:46) - Overfishing and Illegal Fishing in India (00:19:59) - Overfishing Negotiations   (00:22:01) - Subsidies (00:26:27) - At the Negotiating Table (00:28:24) - IUUs (00:33:01) - Seasonal Fishing Ban (00:37:33) - Leading the Global South (00:45:17) - Measurement (00:48:47) - Domestic Politics (00:53:35) - The Future (00:59:38) - Outro Connect with Ideas of India Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Follow Badri on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox.

Aparna Chandra discusses the issues of pendency in the Indian judiciary, the Supreme Court's role as a 'people's court', challenges with special leave petitions, reforming the judiciary, government influence on court decisions, delays in the legal system, biases in the selection process, balancing national development with individual rights, reform ideas for special leave petitions, and challenges in judicial accountability.

The podcast delves into India's 1991 liberalization, phases of globalization, British Corn laws, WTO relevance, absolute vs. comparative advantage, future Argentina, and more. Doug Irwin discusses trade policy history, economic reforms in Latin America, global trade evolution, human mobility, trade economists' roles, Adam Smith vs. David Ricardo trade theories, US trade policy history, and political economy of tariffs.

Rahul Matthan, a technology lawyer and partner at Trilegal, discusses India's digital public infrastructure, the unified payments system, AI, blockchain, and privacy concerns around Aadhaar. He addresses the challenges of maintaining privacy in the era of advancing technology and explores the impact of DeepFakes on reputation and authenticity.

Aditya Balasubramanian, Senior Lecturer in History at Australian National University, discusses his new book on Swatantra Party and opposition politics in India. Topics include the influence of BR Shenoy and Austrian economists, the principles and coalition-building efforts of Indian conservatives, conservatism rooted in pluralism, the party's ideologies and coalition, and the views on inflation and authoritarianism.

Today my guest is Nasreen Munni Kabir, a documentary filmmaker, TV producer and director, author, biographer, translator/subtitler, and an absolute authority on all things Hindi cinema. We spoke about her biographical conversation series of books with artists like Javed Akhtar, Gulzar, Lata Mangeshkar, Waheeda Rahman, Zakir Hussain, AR Rahman. We also spoke about her documentary films on Guru Dutt, and television series Movie Mahal chronicling the history of Hindi cinema, how she chooses her subjects, the difficulty of subtitling Hindi films, her favorite films, songs, artists, and much more.  Recorded December 12th, 2023. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox.

The podcast host discusses their ideas of India, popular episodes, and their reflections and future plans. Topics explored include cancel culture, welfare measures, startup founders' allegiance, the potential of the Indian rupee as a global currency, challenges to developing talent in India, and optimism and pessimism for India's future. The host also shares insights into preparing for various episodes about podcasting, comedy, marriage equality, Austrian economics, and more. Additionally, they discuss rewatching 'The Sopranos,' upcoming movie releases, and supporting the podcast through subscriptions and merchandise purchases.

In this episode, Rajat Kochhar, an environmental economics scholar, discusses the impact of market power in local agricultural markets on farmer adaptation to climate change. They explore distortionary policies, regulations, crop choice, water audits, and the agricultural produce market system in India and the UK.

Shruti spoke with Vani Swarupa Murali a PhD. Candidate and an instructor at the South Asian Studies Department in the National University of Singapore (NUS). She has a Masters in Asian Studies from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore. Her research lies at the intersection of political science and agricultural policy and environmental governance. We spoke about “When Sowing is not Reaping: Decentralisation, Groundwater Extraction and Agrarian Livelihoods in Tamil Nadu.” We talked about the overly centralized administrative, political, and fiscal Indian state, its impact on farmers’ livelihood, groundwater depletion and other environmental consequences, and more. Recorded August 31st, 2023. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links. Follow us on X Follow Shruti on X Click here for the latest Ideas of India episodes sent straight to your inbox.

Shruti spoke with Kartikeya Batra, Ph.D. candidate in economics at the University of Maryland. They discussed the long-run effects of land redistribution in India, the Zamindari or Taluqdari system, land titling versus redistribution, property rights, the relationship between land owning castes and socioeconomic outcomes, and more.