Ideas of India

Today my guest is Dr. Pratap Bhanu Mehta, who is the Laurance Rockefeller Professor for Distinguished Teaching at Princeton and former president and chief executive of the Center for Policy Research, New Delhi. He is the author of various books and edited volumes, has served on various government committees, and is a columnist for the Indian Express.
We talked about the return of nihilism in political life, the hollowing of professional identities, the politics of vishwas, Adam Smith on concentrated power, what it takes to build lasting institutions, the assumptions behind nonalignment, and much more.
Recorded April 3rd, 2026.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.
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Timestamps
(00:00:00) - Intro
(00:01:11) - The Challenges Facing Liberalism
(00:06:50) - The Erosion of Moral Authority
(00:11:32) - Nationalism, Feminism, and the Arc of History
(00:16:55) - Globalization and the Crisis of Community
(00:22:06) - Sincerity, Context, and Intelligibility in a Digital Age
(00:30:37) - Professional Identities as Sources of Moral Meaning
(00:40:45) - Formal Inclusion and Continued Inequality
(00:45:54) - Concentration of Power and the Distortion of the State
(00:51:37) - The Politics of Vishwas
(01:01:57) - On Caste and the Limits of Identity Politics
(01:05:34) - The Question of Social Trust
(01:14:08) - Trust-Building and Barriers to Desegregation
(01:24:53) - Institutions of Higher Learning
(01:39:31) - The Assumptions of Nonalignment
(01:46:12) - Outro

Today we are releasing a webinar recording from April 24th where Milan Vaishnav and I had a conversation on delimitation in India. Milan is a senior fellow and the director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is also the host of the excellent Grand Tamasha podcast where this recording will be simultaneously released. 
We talked about the failure to pass the 131st constitutional amendment bill in Parliament, the government's intention to reapportion and increase the size of the Lok Sabha, the delimitation freeze pegged to the 1971 census that has survived five decades, why the fiscal bargain between states matters as much as the political bargain, and much more.
Recorded April 24th, 2026.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.
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Timestamps
(00:00:00) - Intro
(00:01:24) - What is Delimitation?
(00:35:03) - The Politics Behind the Constitutional Amendment
(00:47:38) - The Political Arithmetic
(00:51:53) - The Financial Bargain
(01:30:21) - Outro

Today my guest is Samanth Subramanian, who is a journalist and writer and the author of the recent books The Web Beneath the Waves and A Dominant Character: The Radical Science and Restless Politics of J. B. S. Haldane.
We talked about under water sea cables and choke points in critical global infrastructure, the intersection of technology and geopolitics, large language models, JBS Haldane and the relationship between science and politics, and much more.
Recorded March 25th, 2026.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.
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Timestamps
(00:00:00) - Intro
(00:02:35) - Vulnerability and Resilience: Grappling with the Fragility of Undersea Connections
(00:03:48) - Underwater Sea Cables
(00:10:48) - How America's Big Tech Companies Dominate Bandwidth
(00:14:37) - Concentration of Infrastructure
(00:20:27) - The 2Africa Cable and Countries Without Leverage
(00:27:17) - Geopolitical Vulnerabilities
(00:34:51) - Indian Resilience
(00:39:27) - Choke Points in the Global AI Economy
(00:44:05) - The Challenges of Decommissioning Nuclear Plants
(00:49:45) - On the Frontiers and Ethics of AI Technology
(00:56:37) - Haldane's Legacy and Science in the Public Square
(01:06:34) - Optimism and Pessimism About the Future of Science
(01:12:59) - Outro

Today my guests are Arvind Subramanian and Devesh Kapur. Arvind is a Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and a former Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of India. Devesh is the Starr Foundation Professor of South Asian Studies and Director of the Asia Programs at the Johns Hopkins. They are co-authors of the recent book, A Sixth of Humanity: Independent India's Development Odyssey.
We talked about India's redistributive democracy, why Indian states have taken such different development paths, India's socialism and consequent scarcity, manufacturing challenges, and much more.
Recorded February 13th, 2026.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.
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Timestamps
(00:00:00) - Intro
(00:01:18) - A Sixth of Humanity
(00:06:51) - The Effect of Education on State Development
(00:13:39) - Redistributive Democracy in India
(00:21:54) - One Democracy, Multiple Outcomes at the State Level
(00:36:52) - Tamil Nadu
(00:38:01) - The Collapse of Punjab
(00:42:12) - Shades of Socialism in India
(01:08:00) - Upside-Down State
(01:26:36) - Manufacturing
(01:46:23) - Outro

Today my guest is Dr. V Anantha Nageswaran, who is currently serving as the Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of India. He is also the co-author of the books Economics of Derivatives and The Rise of Finance: Causes, Consequences and Cures. 
We talked about import substitution and strategic resilience, futures and options market, gross fixed capital formation, crypto markets, India's growth trajectory, and much more.
Recorded March 12th, 2026.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.
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Timestamps
(00:00:00) - Intro  
(00:02:38) - Import Substitution as a Policy  
(00:11:19) - Indian States' Spending Problem  
(00:18:16) - Capital Formation  
(00:25:47) - Increasing Financialization  
(00:30:21) - Options and Futures Markets in India  
(00:34:15) - Securities Transactions Tax (STT)  
(00:40:27) - Curbing Crypto  
(00:46:01) - How Should We Approach Policy Regulation?  
(00:51:04) - Deregulation  
(00:53:41) - Digital Public Infrastructure  
(00:56:28) - India's Growth Trajectory