Podcast appearances and mentions of milan vaishnav

Indian Genius: The Meteoric Rise of Indians in America is a new book by the author and journalist Meenakshi Ahamed. While many immigrant groups have found success in the United States, few have excelled as far and as fast as Indian Americans, reaching heights in a single generation that many thought would take the better part of a century to achieve. Ahamed's new book offers fascinating portraits of several Indian Americans in three distinct sectors—technology, medicine, and public policy. The book tries to understand what exactly accounts for Indian Americans' ability to break into mainstream American culture and their meteoric rise within its ranks.Listeners may remember our 2021 conversation with Meena on her previous book, A Matter of Trust: India–US Relations from Truman to Trump.To talk about her new book, Meena joins Milan on the show this week. They talk about the “godfather” of the Indian tech community in Silicon Valley, the balance between creativity and execution, and the role of caste. Plus, the two discuss the real (and perceived) influence of Indian Americans in Washington.Episode notes:1. Sanjoy Chakravorty, Devesh Kapur, and Nirvikar Singh, The Other One Percent: Indians in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016).2. “Understanding India's Diaspora,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.3. Sumitra Badrinathan, Devesh Kapur, and Milan Vaishnav, “Indian Americans at the Ballot Box: Results From the 2024 Indian American Attitudes Survey,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, October 28, 2024.4. “Meenakshi Ahamed on U.S.-India Relations from Truman to Trump,” Grand Tamasha, February 17, 2021.

We go to St. Peter's Square as Roman Catholic cardinals gather in the Sistine Chapel to select the next pope. David Gibson of Fordham University is there, along with NPR's Daniel Burke and Claire Giangravè of Religion News Service. And, India launched what it called retaliatory missiles at Pakistan early Wednesday morning. Pakistan is considering it an act of war. Milan Vaishnav of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace explains what's at stake for the two countries. Then, President Trump reportedly plans to shut down Energy Star, a program that has helped consumers find energy-efficient appliances since 1992. Grist's Tik Root tells us what the move could mean.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

One of the most talked about policy experiments in India in recent memory is the reform of government schools in the city-state of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. Under the leadership of the Aam Aadmi Party, the Delhi government has implemented an innovative program to equip students with foundational literacy and numeracy. But while these reforms are much discussed, they have been surprisingly under-studied. A new book by the scholar Yamini Aiyar tries to remedy this gap.Yamini's new book, Lessons in State Capacity from Delhi's Schools, draws on three years of ethnographic research where she and a team of colleagues were embedded in a cluster of schools across the national capital.Yamini is currently Visiting Senior Fellow at the Saxena Center for Contemporary South Asia and the Watson Institute at Brown University. Many of our listeners will know her from her work with the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi, where she served as President from 2017 to 2024.To kick off season thirteen of Grand Tamasha, Yamini joins Milan on the show this week. They discuss Yamini's decade-long adventure studying India's public schools, the core elements of the Delhi education model, and the mysterious ways in which the India bureaucracy operates. Plus, they discuss whether the Delhi experiment can travel beyond the national capital.Episode notes:1. “How Bureaucracy Can Work for the Poor (with Akshay Mangla),” Grand Tamasha, March 29, 2023.2. Yamini Aiyar and Shrayana Bhattacharya, “The Post Office Paradox: A Case Study of the Block Level Education Bureaucracy,” Economic & Political Weekly 51, no. 11 (2016).3. Lant Pritchett, “Is India a Flailing State?: Detours on the Four Lane Highway to Modernization,” HKS Faculty Research Working Paper Series RWP09-013, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2009.4. Devesh Kapur, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, and Milan Vaishnav, Rethinking Public Institutions in India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2017).

Grand Tamasha is Carnegie's weekly podcast on Indian politics and policy co-produced with the Hindustan Times, a leading Indian media house. For five years (and counting), Milan has interviewed authors, journalists, policymakers, and practitioners working on contemporary India to give listeners across the globe a glimpse into life in the world's most populous country.For the past two years, in anticipation of the show's holiday hiatus, we've published an annual list of our favorite books featured on the podcast over the previous twelve months.In keeping with this tradition, here—in no particular order—are Grand Tamasha's top books of 2024.Savarkar and the Making of HindutvaBy Janaki Bakhle. Published by Princeton University Press.Accelerating India's Development: A State-Led Roadmap for Effective GovernanceBy Karthik Muralidharan. Published by Penguin Viking India.The Identity Project: The Unmaking of a Democracy (published in the United States and the UK as The New India: The Unmaking of the World's Largest Democracy)By Rahul Bhatia. Published by Context (South Asia); Little, Brown (UK); and PublicAffairs (United States).In this special bonus episode, Milan talks about why he loved each of these books and includes short clips from his conversations with Janaki, Karthik, and Rahul.This is the final episode of our twelfth season. Thanks to our listeners to being such loyal followers of the show. We're excited to kick off our thirteenth season in mid-January after taking a short holiday break.Episode notes:1. Milan Vaishnav, “Grand Tamasha's Best Books of 2023,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, December 19, 2023.2. Milan Vaishnav, “Grand Tamasha's Best Books of the Year,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, December 20, 2022.3. “Identifying the New India (with Rahul Bhatia),” Grand Tamasha, September 25, 2024.4. “A Blueprint for India's State Capacity Revolution (with Karthik Muralidharan),” Grand Tamasha, May 22, 2024.5. “Savarkar, In His Own Words (with Janaki Bakhle),” Grand Tamasha, March 27, 2024.

The never-ending U.S. election has finally ended and Republican nominee Donald Trump has clinched a decisive victory. Trump is on track to win 312 electoral college votes and, for the first time, a majority of the popular vote.Kamala Harris, a surprise entrant in the race, lost a closely contested election, marking the second time in three elections that a female Democratic presidential nominee failed to topple Trump.The election has implications for Indian Americans, for India, and for U.S.-India relations.To discuss these topics and more, Milan is joined on the show this week by Grand Tamasha news roundup regulars, Sadanand Dhume of the Wall Street Journal and the American Enterprise Institute and Tanvi Madan of the Brookings Institution.The trio discuss the election results, the voting patterns of Indian Americans, what a Trump 2.0 might look like, and the implications of the elections for U.S.-India relationsEpisode notes:1. Tanvi Madan, “India will need to adapt to a new White House,” Indian Express, November 4, 2024.2. Sadanand Dhume, “Indian-Americans and the ‘Racial Depolarization,'” Wall Street Journal, November 6, 2024.3. Sumitra Badrinathan, Devesh Kapur, and Milan Vaishnav, “Indian Americans at the Ballot Box: Results From the 2024 Indian American Attitudes Survey,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, October 28, 2024.4. VIDEO: “Deciphering the Indian American Vote,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, October 31, 2024.5. Milan Vaishnav, “With Trump, it's back to the future for the US,” Hindustan Times, November 6, 2024.6. Sumitra Badrinathan, Devesh Kapur, and Milan Vaishnav, “How Will Indian Americans Vote? Results From the 2020 Indian American Attitudes Survey,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, October 14, 2020.7. AAPI Data tweet on exit poll data on Asian American voters, November 8, 2024.8. Tanvi Madan, “Has India made friends with China after the Modi-Xi agreement?” Brookings Institution, October 29, 2024.

As American voters go to the polls, all indications point to a statistical dead-heat between vice president and Democratic Party nominee Kamala Harris and former Republican president Donald Trump. The outcome will likely turn on tens of thousands of voters in a handful of key swing states. According to leading pollsters and polling aggregators, the race in these states is too close to call.In this hotly contested race, one demographic whose political preferences are much discussed, though less studied, is Indian Americans. A new study, the 2024 Indian American Attitudes Survey (IAAS), tries to fill this gap. The IAAS is a nationally representative online survey conducted by the Carnegie Endowment in conjunction with data and analytics firm YouGov. The report is authored by Sumitra Badrinathan of American University, Devesh Kapur of Johns Hopkins-SAIS, and Grand Tamasha host Milan Vaishnav.This week on the show, Milan speaks with Sumitra and Devesh about the main findings of their new report and what they portend for the election as well as future political trends in the United States.Episode notes:1. Sumitra Badrinathan, Devesh Kapur, and Milan Vaishnav, “Indian Americans at the Ballot Box: Results From the 2024 Indian American Attitudes Survey,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, October 28, 2024.2. VIDEO: “Deciphering the Indian American Vote,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, October 31, 2024.3. Sumitra Badrinathan, Devesh Kapur, and Milan Vaishnav, “How Will Indian Americans Vote? Results From the 2020 Indian American Attitudes Survey,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, October 14, 2020.4. Christopher H. Achen and Larry M. Bartels, Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016).5. Sara Sadhwani, “Asian American Mobilization: The Effect of Candidates and Districts on Asian American Voting Behavior,” Political Behavior 44 (2022):105–131.6. Devesh Kapur, Nirvikar Singh, and Sanjoy Chakravorty, The Other One Percent: Indians in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016).7. “Sumitra Badrinathan and Devesh Kapur Decode the 2020 Indian American Vote,” Grand Tamasha, October 14, 2020.

The United States is fast approaching the end of a lengthy presidential campaign in which the issue of immigration has taken center stage.Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for failing to protect America's borders, with Trump's misleading claims that immigrants in Ohio are eating people's pets emerging as one of the defining moments of the race so far. Harris, on the other hand, has gone on the offensive, blaming Trump for sabotaging a bipartisan Senate bill that would have beefed up border protection.Amidst this back-and-forth, there's been relatively little attention paid to the changing composition of who exactly is trying to enter the United States without prior authorization. Since 2020, India has emerged as the country of origin for the largest number of migrants attempting to enter the U.S. outside of the Western Hemisphere.A new analysis by the Niskanen Center, “Indian migrants at the U.S. border: What the data reveals,” digs into what we know—and what we don't—about this surge from India. The authors of this new analysis, Gil Guerra and Sneha Puri, join Milan on the show this week to talk about their new research.Gil is an Immigration Policy Analyst at the Niskanen Center, where he focuses on immigration and foreign policy, migrant integration, and demographic trends at the U.S.-Mexico border. And Sneha is an Immigration Policy Fellow at the Niskanen Center, focusing on a wide range of immigration policy issues such as legal migration pathways, employment-based visas, and irregular migration.The three discuss the data on irregular migration, the surge in Indian “encounters” at the border, and the reasons behind the spike. Plus, the trio discuss the similarities and differences between Chinese and Indian migration, the recent controversies around Khalistani separatists in the diaspora, and the policy options facing the next U.S. president.Episode notes:1. Gil Guerra and Sneha Puri, “Indian migrants at the U.S. border: What the data reveals,” Niskanen Center, September 16, 2024.2. Gil Guerra, “Four countries that will shape migration in 2024 – and beyond,” Niskanen Center, April 1, 2024.3. Sergio Martinez-Beltran, “Indian migrants drive surge in northern U.S. border crossings,” NPR, September 10, 2024.4. Sanjoy Chakravorty, Devesh Kapur, and Nirvikar Singh, The Other One Percent: Indians in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016).5. Devesh Kapur and Milan Vaishnav, “Industrial Policy Needs an Immigration Policy,” Foreign Affairs, August 22, 2024.6. Terry Milewski, Blood for Blood: Fifty Years of the Global Khalistan Project (New York: Harper Collins, 2021).7. Aparna Pande, From Chanakya to Modi: Evolution of India's Foreign Policy (New Delhi: Harper Collins India, 2017).8. “Dr. S. Jaishankar on the Future of U.S.-India Relations,” Grand Tamasha, October 2, 2024.9. “The India-Canada Conundrum (with Sanjay Ruparelia),” Grand Tamasha, November 8, 2023.

एक वोट, एक मूल्य ये प्रजातंत्र का मूल सिद्धांत है। इसी बात को ध्यान में रखते हुए, बदलती जनसंख्या के साथ लोकसभा की सीटों का बंटवारा भी बदलने की व्यवस्था हमारे संविधान में की गयी थी। हर दशकीय जनगणना के बाद जनसंख्या के अनुपात में सीटों का बंटवारा होना था। लेकिन, इमरजेंसी के दौरान इस व्यवस्था को पच्चीस सालों के लिए स्थगित कर दिया गया।  २००१ में इस बंटवारे को २०२६ तक टाल दिया गया। अब २०२६ नज़दीक आ रहा है। इसके साथ ही जिन राज्यों में जनसँख्या घटी है, उन राज्यों में लोकसभा के सीटें कम हो जाने का डर एक राजकीय मुद्दा बनकर उभर रहा है। इस ज्वलंत मुद्दे को कैसे समझें? क्या हम किसी समाधान पर पहुँच सकते हैं? चलिए, इसी पर आज की पुलियाबाज़ी करते हैं।  One vote, one value is the basic principle of democracy. Hence, Article 81 of the Indian Constitution mandated a regular redistribution of Lok Sabha seats with changing population. After every decennial census, seats were to be reallocated amongst states in proportion to the population, so that the weight of every vote remains more or less the same across the country. However, during the Emergency, this exercise was postponed for twenty-five years. In 2001, it was further postponed till 2026. Now, as 2026 is approaching, delimitation has become a political issue especially in the southern states which stand to lose seats owing to their reduced population. What can be the potential solutions to this? How can we reallocate seats so that we respect the ‘One Vote, One Value' principle, while improving overall governance? We discuss:* One person, one vote* Historical background* Concentration of political power* The extent of malapportionment * Alternatives for new apportionment* Can actual voters be a criteria for seat apportionment?* Possible solution* Strengthening the Upper House * Vertical Devolution Please Note: Puliyabaazi is also available on Youtube in Video format. Please check out Puliyabaazi Hindi Podcast Youtube channel if you have not done so. Readings:India's Emerging Crisis of Representation by Milan Vaishnav and Jamie Hintson The States in Parliament by Lalit Panda and Ritwika Sharma, Vidhi Centre for Legal PolicyTSATU: Shruti Rajagopalan Dives Into DelimitationRelated Puliyabaazi:संसद को सुदृढ़ कैसे करें? Strengthening India's Parliament Ft. M. R. Madhavanसंसद के अंदर. Understanding the Indian Parliament.If you have any questions for the guest or feedback for us, please comment here or write to us at puliyabaazi@gmail.com. If you like our work, please subscribe and share this Puliyabaazi with your friends, family and colleagues.substack:Website: https://puliyabaazi.inHosts: @saurabhchandra @pranaykotas @thescribblebeeTwitter: @puliyabaazi Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/puliyabaazi/Subscribe & listen to the podcast on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Castbox, AudioBoom, YouTube, Spotify or any other podcast app. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.puliyabaazi.in

It has been more than three months since the conclusion of India's massive 2024 general elections. And it is no exaggeration to say that the results of the election caught many, if not most, election observers by surprise.To many, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appeared invincible in national elections especially given the widespread popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. And yet, the party suffered a significant setback, emerging as the single largest party but well short of a parliamentary majority.So, what actually happened in these elections? How can we understand the BJP's surprising showing? Has the Modi magic dissipated? And is Rahul Gandhi the new standard bearer of change?To discuss these and many other questions, Milan is joined on the show this week by Sanjay Kumar. Sanjay is Professor at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in New Delhi and co-director of Lokniti, India's premier public opinion research organization. Since 1996, Lokniti has carried out a National Election Study after every general election, creating a unique repository of knowledge on the political and social attitudes of the Indian citizen.On the show, Milan and Sanjay discuss the key findings from this year's National Election Study. They talk about the resonance of the INDIA alliance's campaign, divergent outcomes in the Hindi belt, Modi's declining popularity, and the emerging realignment in southern politics. Plus, the two discuss the reasons for India's exit poll debacle.Episode notes:1. Suhas Palshikar, Sandeep Shastri, and Sanjay Kumar, “CSDS-Lokniti 2024 pre-poll survey: There is no clear and close challenger to the BJP this time. ‘Ifs and buts' apply,” Hindu, April 13, 2024.2. Sandeep Shastri, Sanjay Kumar, and Suhas Palshikar, “CSDS-Lokniti post-poll survey: A return to an era of genuine coalitions,” Hindu, June 6, 2024.3. Lokniti Team, “Post-poll survey: Methodology,” Hindu, June 6, 2024.4. Sandeep Shastri, “CSDS-Lokniti post-poll survey: Modi factor seems to have stagnated over a decade,” Hindu, June 6, 2024.5. Sanjay Kumar and Fuhaar Bandhu, “CSDS-Lokniti post-poll survey: BJP maintains advantage among young voters,” June 7, 2024.6. Lokniti Team, “CSDS-Lokniti post-poll survey: Clearing misconceptions about the post-poll survey,” Hindu, June 9, 2024.7. “Decoding the 2024 Indian General Elections (with Sunetra Choudhury and Rahul Verma),” Grand Tamasha, June 6, 2024.8. “Why India's Modi Underperformed (with Ravi Agrawal, Yamini Aiyar, and Milan Vaishnav),” FP Live, June 7, 2024.9. “India's 2024 Election—and its Aftermath (with Sadanand Dhume and Tanvi Madan),” Grand Tamasha, June 19, 2024.

From pundits to polls, there was a wide expectation this year that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi would not only win a rare third consecutive term, but also secure an even bigger parliamentary majority than he had before. As results emerged on Tuesday, it was clear that India's voters had other ideas. Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party won the most seats—more than the entire opposition alliance combined—but it will need the help of coalition allies to form a government.  How will Modi govern in a third term, and what will it mean for the world? FP's Ravi Agrawal is joined by experts Milan Vaishnav and Yamini Aiyar to discuss.  Suggested reading: Ravi Agrawal: Why Modi Underperformed Devesh Kapur: Modi's Power Has Peaked  Sushant Singh:Modi's Campaign Rhetoric Is Dangerous Ravi Agrawal: The New Idea of India Mukul Kesavan: 4 Books to Understand Modern India Josh Felman and Josh Felman: Is India Really the Next China? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We've finally come to the end of the 46-day Indian general election. And we have a surprising result which many experts did not see coming. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi failed to secure a single-party majority in the Lok Sabha in what is being interpreted as a major setback.The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) did, however, win a majority and is set to form a new government on June 8th under Modi's leadership. The opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) grouping, in turn, performed much better than expected, winning 233 seats—a massive increase from 2019.On today's podcast, we bring you a conversation that Milan recorded with two of India's leading political experts: Sunetra Choudhury, national political editor of the Hindustan Times, and Rahul Verma, Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi.The trio spend an hour digging into the nitty gritty of these election results. They discuss the BJP's stumbles, the INDIA alliance's keys to success, and what the election tells us about national issues like the economy and Hindu nationalism. Plus, the three discuss what the we can expect from the new NDA government.If you're interested in the video of the conversation, you can find it on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/live/JfhZEAclHv4Episode notes:1. Milan Vaishnav, “Looking back before looking ahead in 2024,” Hindustan Times, June 5, 2024.2. Sunetra Choudhury, “As Cong nears 100 seats, Kharge makes overtures to NDA parties, works the phone,” Hindustan Times, June 4, 2024.3. Rahul Verma, “Elections that reminded netas, people are the boss,” Times of India, June 5, 2024.4. “India Elects 2024,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party lost its majority in India's parliament. The stunning blow is forcing Modi to rely on allies to form a government for the first time since he stormed to power a decade ago. On today's episode of The Big Take Asia, host K. Oanh Ha digs into India's 2024 general election results with Bloomberg reporter Sudhi Ranjan Sen on the ground in New Delhi. And Milan Vaishnav, senior fellow and director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, delves into what the results mean for both India and the world. Read more: India Election ResultsTo hear more from Milan Vaishnav listen to his podcast, Grand Tamasha.To hear more about our coverage of Narendra Modi, listen to our series, The Rise of Modi. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party lost its majority in India's parliament. The stunning blow is forcing Modi to rely on allies to form a government for the first time since he stormed to power a decade ago. On today's episode of The Big Take Asia, host K. Oanh Ha digs into India's 2024 general election results with Bloomberg reporter Sudhi Ranjan Sen on the ground in New Delhi. And Milan Vaishnav, senior fellow and director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, delves into what the results mean for both India and the world. Read more: India Election ResultsTo hear more from Milan Vaishnav listen to his podcast, Grand Tamasha.To hear more about our coverage of Narendra Modi, listen to our series, The Rise of Modi. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lisa Curtis, senior fellow and director of the Indo-Pacific Security Program at Center for a New American Security, and Milan Vaishnav, senior fellow and director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, discuss the geopolitical implications of India's general elections and the influence of religion on politics in India. Alyssa Ayres, dean of the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University and adjunct senior fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, moderates the discussion.

In just a few days, India's eighteenth general elections will get underway with voting in the first phase kicking off on April 19. Between April 19 and June 1, India will have seven separate polling days culminating in a final counting of votes on June 4.Every single pre-election survey to date shows the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alliance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi winning a comfortable majority of seats in the Lok Sabha. If these predictions come to fruition, it would be the first time that a party has won three consecutive elections under the same leader since Congress during the Nehru period.To preview these elections—and what they mean for India's future—Milan is joined on the show this week by Sukumar Ranganathan, editor-in-chief of the Hindustan Times. Few people in India have observed and analyzed politics, economics, and social change as comprehensively as Sukumar.Milan and Sukumar discuss the issues animating voters this election, the state of the economy, and the significant expansion of the BJP coalition. Plus, the two discuss the opposition's struggles, the BJP's big push in the southern states, and what we know about the agenda for Modi 3.0.Episode notes:1. Milan Vaishnav, “On electoral bonds, a short-lived celebration,” Hindustan Times, February 17, 2024.2. “Decoding the Indian Economy (with Pranjul Bhandari)” Grand Tamasha, April 3, 2024.3. Sukumar Ranganathan, “Five Things with @HT_Ed,” Hindustan Times (newsletter).4. Hindustan Times, General Elections Retrospective (accessed via the HT app).

On this episode of This Is Democracy, Jeremi and Zachary are joined by Milan Vaishnav to discuss the scale and future impact of India’s 2024 general election. Zachary sets the scene with his poem entitled, “A Democratic Quest” Milan Vaishnav is a senior fellow and director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment […]

A few weeks ago, the Indian government formally notified the rules implementing the controversial 2019 Citizenship Amendment Act, or CAA. The law provides persecuted religious minorities hailing from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan an expedited pathway to Indian citizenship, provided they belong to the Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jain, Parsi, or Sikh communities. Notably, the law does not provide such a pathway to those who belong to the Muslim faith.The notification of the CAA rules—on the eve of India's 2024 general election—has kicked off a fresh debate over the law, its implementing provisions, and the resulting implications for the future of secularism in India.To discuss all of this and more, Milan is joined on the show this week by legal scholar M. Mohsin Alam Bhat. Mohsin is a Lecturer in Law at Queen Mary University of London, where he specializes in constitutional law and human rights. Mohsin has written extensively about law and citizenship in India.Milan and Mohsin discuss the origins of the CAA, its constitutionality, and the fine print of the CAA rules. Plus, the two discuss the situation in Assam, that state's National Register of Citizens (NRC), and the prospects of an all-India NRC exercise.Episode notes: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.3 (2019): 12-14.6. Mohsin Alam Bhat, “‘The Irregular' and the Unmaking of Minority Citizenship: The Rules of Law in Majoritarian India,” Queen Mary Law Research Paper No. 395/2022.7. Niraja Gopal Jayal, “Faith-based Citizenship,” The India Forum, October 31, 2019. 

Two weeks ago, a five-judge bench of India's Supreme Court ruled that electoral bonds—a controversial instrument of political giving introduced by the Narendra Modi government—violated the Constitution and would immediately cease operating.Under the court's ruling, the State Bank of India will immediately stop issuing bonds; the Election Commission of India must disclose details of all transactions since April 2019; and any bonds which have not yet been encashed are to be refunded.On this week's podcast, Grand Tamasha host Milan Vaishnav—who has written extensively about campaign finance in India—takes a turn in the hot seat. In a special collaboration with DAKSH, a Bangalore-based non-profit working on judicial reforms and access to justice, Leah Verghese (host of the DAKSH Podcast) interviews Milan about the Court's ruling and what it means for the future of political funding in India.The two discuss the history of campaign finance in India, the controversy around electoral bonds, and the controversy around foreign funding of elections. Plus, Milan and Leah discuss why ordinary Indians should care about the dynamics of election funding.Episode notes:1. Milan Vaishnav, “On electoral bonds, a short-lived celebration,” Hindustan Times, February 17, 2024.2. Crime and Politics with Milan Vaishnav,” The DAKSH Podcast, September 2022.3. Devesh Kapur and Milan Vaishnav, eds., Costs of Democracy: Political Finance in India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2018).4. Milan Vaishnav, When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017).

This episode is a collaboration with Grand Tamasha, an excellent podcast on the latest developments in Indian politics, economics, foreign policy, society, and culture. Milan Vaishnav, the host of Grand Tamasha, joins us for this bonus episode. On 15 February 2024, the Supreme Court, in a unanimous landmark verdict, struck down the controversial electoral bonds scheme. Given that general elections are just around the corner, Milan discussed how this judgment will impact the financing of political parties in the largest democracy in the world. If you like our podcast, do consider supporting us with a donation at the link below: https://www.dakshindia.org/donate/ The DAKSH Podcast https://www.dakshindia.org/the-daksh-podcast/ Ajoy Sinha Karpuram, Why did the Supreme Court strike down the Electoral Bonds Scheme? https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-law/supreme-court-electoral-bonds-verdict-9163729/ Arun Jaitley, Why Electoral Bonds are Necessary https://pib.gov.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=175452 Association for Democratic Reforms & Anr.  Writ Petition (C) No. 880 of 2017 https://main.sci.gov.in/supremecourt/2017/27935/27935_2017_1_1501_50573_Judgement_15-Feb-2024.pdf Part 1: Behind the BJP's rise and rise, bonds, trusts and raids on corporates https://www.newslaundry.com/2024/02/20/behind-the-bjps-rise-and-rise-bonds-trusts-and-raids-on-corporates DAKSH Podcast, Crime and Politics (Milan Vaishnav) https:www.dakshindia.org/crime-and-politics/ Milan Vaishnav, On electoral bonds, a short-lived celebration https://www.hindustantimes.com/opinion/on-electoral-bonds-a-short-lived-celebration-101708170676086.html Press Release: Introduction of the Scheme of Electoral Bond https://www.dea.gov.in/sites/default/files/Electoral%20Bonds_Press%20RELEASE_2-1-2018.pdf

Ro Khanna, “The New Industrial Age,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2023.“The Next Chapter in U.S.-India Defense Ties (with Lindsey Ford),” Grand Tamasha, September 5, 2023.Sumitra Badrinathan, Devesh Kapur, Jonathan Kay, and Milan Vaishnav, “Social Realities of Indian Americans: Results From the 2020 Indian American Attitudes Survey,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, June 9, 2021.Arvin Alaigh, “A Reckoning for the Modi Democrats,” Dissent, December 23, 2020.

India had the world's largest economy until the 17th century but suffered almost 500 years of decline afterward. However, India is currently the world's most populous nation with one of the largest economies, growing faster this year than any other major country. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has brought stability to India, making the country economically and geopolitically resurgent. Critics worry that Modi's democracy is too autocratic and inward-looking, rooted in Hindu nationalism. India's future is uncertain as centrifugal forces of religion, inequality, and nationalism could overwhelm the current growth. Will India continue to evolve and become a global power? Milan Vaishnav is a senior fellow and director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington and an accomplished India watcher. He shared some answers in this episode of the New Thinking for a New World podcast. This podcast was first published on May 18, 2023

Từ giã Hoa Kỳ, thủ tướng Ấn Độ ra về với hàng loạt hợp đồng quan trọng trong các lĩnh vực từ công nghệ cao đến quốc phòng. « Công lao » của Trung Quốc và Nga trong đó khá lớn. Hơn cả tầm mức quan trọng về kinh tế, những thỏa thuận Washington và New Delhi đạt được phác họa ra « một lộ trình đầy tham của hợp tác song phương về những lĩnh vực chiến lược : công nghệ cao, viễn thông, trí tuệ nhân tạo và quốc phòng ». Kết thúc ba ngày làm việc tại Mỹ, thủ tướng Modi ra về với 5 chương trình hợp tác quốc phòng với Mỹ, với 7 thỏa thuận đầu tư vào Ấn Độ trong các lĩnh vực công nghệ cao và công nghệ không gian..., với 8 chương trình hợp tác phát triển năng lượng sạch. Đấy là chưa kể đến những văn bản đôi bên đã thông qua nhằm nâng cao hợp tác trong các lĩnh vực văn hóa, giáo dục, mở rộng thêm các văn phòng đại diện ngoại giao tại hai nước, về những sáng kiến chung cho khu vực Ấn Độ-Thái Bình Dương...  Mục tiêu Trung QuốcTrong lĩnh vực quốc phòng chẳng hạn, New Delhi trang bị drone MQ-9BSeaGuardian do General Atomics chế tạo, trị giá hợp đồng hơn 3 tỷ đô la. Đáng chú ý hơn nữa là hợp đồng cho phép General Electric sản xuất động cơ máy bay trinh sát F-414 trên lãnh thổ Ấn Độ. Vế quan trọng ở đây liên quan đến khâu chuyển giao công nghệ. Trả lời RFI tiếng Việt, nhà nghiên cứu Olivier Guillard thuộc trung tâm nghiên cứu về châu Á CERIAS đại học Québec-Montréal, giám đốc đặc trách về thông tin cơ quan tư vấn CRISIS24 -Garda World trước hết phân tích về tầm nhìn của New Delhi : « Thủ tướng Ấn Độ công du Hoa Kỳ với mục tiêu kép là kinh tế và chiến lược mà Trung Quốc là trọng tâm của vế chiến lược đó. Hai nền dân chủ lớn nhất thế giới này có quan điểm và cách tiếp cận khá gần gũi với nhau về Bắc Kinh. Cả hai hiện cùng đang có mối bang giao không mấy hữu hảo với Trung Quốc. Ấn Độ -Trung Quốc có tranh chấp lãnh thổ. Washington và New Delhi đọ sức với Bắc Kinh về mặt chính trị, chiến lược. Trên tất cả các chủ đề này không ai có ý định nhượng bộ. Chính thái độ đó lại càng thắt chặt thêm quan hệ Mỹ-Ấn. Washington trải thảm đỏ đón thủ tướng Narendra Modi, nhiều hợp đồng đã được ký kết. Nhà Trắng nói đến "năng lượng mới" trong bang giao song phương ». Đối với Washington, Milan Vaishnav, giám đốc chương trình Nam Á trung tâm nghiên cứu Carnegie ghi nhận : Làm thế nào đối mặt với « thách thức Trung Quốc », đó là câu hỏi đã thúc đẩy chính sách kinh tế và đối ngoại của Hoa Kỳ trong thời gian gần đây. Sản xuất chíp điện tử và linh kiện bán dẫn trả lời phần nào câu hỏi này và chính trên điểm này « Ấn Độ hiện là một đối tác quan trọng ». Chẳng vậy mà Micron Technology Inc. trong lĩnh vực công nghệ bán dẫn thông báo đầu tư hơn 800 triệu đô la vào một dự án để mở nhà máy tại bang Gujarat (miền tây Ấn Độ). Washington và New Delhi hợp tác phát triển công nghệ viễn thông thế hệ 6 -chuẩn bị thay thế hệ thống 5G hiện nay. India's Sterlite Technologies Limited đầu tư 100 triệu đô la mở nhà máy sản xuất cáp quang gần thành phố Colombia -bang South Carolina. Cùng lúc thỏa thuận MSP bảo đảm nguồn cung ứng cho đôi bên về các loại khoáng sản « thiết yếu » (critical minerals) tránh để chuỗi cung ứng bị « đổ gẫy »… Thị trường 20 tỷ đô la một năm Những hợp đồng nói trên thể hiện hai điều : một là Mỹ đánh cược vào Ấn Độ để giảm lệ thuộc vào chuỗi cung ứng mà ở đó Trung Quốc đã trở thành một mắt xích không thể thiếu (như với kim loại hiếm) đồng thời khai thác nhân công với chuyên môn cao tại Ấn Độ để phát triển những công nghệ mới, chận đường các công ty Trung Quốc. Đương nhiên tính toán đó đấp ứng tham vọng của thủ tướng Narendra Modi để đưa kinh tế Ấn Độ lên một « tầm cao mới ». Giám đốc cơ quan tư vấn CRISIS24 -Garda World, Olivier Guillard gắn liền vế thương mại với những mục tiêu về quốc phòng của cả đôi bên :« Vế thương mại là mục tiêu quá rõ ràng trong chuyến đi lần này của ông Modi. Trước tiên, đôi bên đã đạt được nhiều tiến bộ trên những hồ sơ nhậy cảm, từ sản xuất chíp điện tử đến chế tạo linh kiện bán dẫn. Quan trọng hơn cả là nhiều hãng lớn của Mỹ cam kết chuyển giao công nghệ cho New Delhi, sản xuất tại Ấn Độ và đầu từ hàng trăm tỷ đô la vào Ấn Độ. Đây là những hợp đồng mang tính nhậy cảm bởi không chỉ liên quan đến vế kinh tế mà còn bao hàm luôn cả vế quân sự và an ninh. Thí dụ như trong thỏa thuận sản xuất động cơ cho phản lực F-414 của Mỹ. Đối với thủ tướng Modi, đây là một điểm then chốt, bởi đáp ứng được tham vọng "Made in India" mà ông đã đề ra từ gần cả một chục năm nay. Ấn Độ muốn được chuyển giao công nghệ để có thể tự sản xuất, nâng cấp cơ cấu kinh tế của nước này, đồng thời bớt phụ thuộc vào nguồn cung cấp trang thiết bị quân sự chính là Nga ». Yếu tố NgaNhà chính trị học Christophe Jaffrelot giám đốc trung tâm nghiên cứu CERI - Sciences Po, trường Khoa Học Chính Trị Paris (báo La Croix 25/06/2023) đánh giá : chính khâu chuyển giao công nghệ mới là « chìa khóa » của các hợp đồng. Công nghiệp quốc phòng của Ấn Độ vẫn còn nhiều yếu kém, Ấn Độ vẫn chưa thể tự sản xuất xe tăng, chiến đầu cơ hay tàu ngầm.Hàng năm New Delhi chi ra 20 tỷ đô la để nhập khẩu vũ khí mà Nga là một nguồn cung cấp chính. Trước ngày thủ tướng Modi đến Hoa Kỳ, bộ trưởng Quốc Phòng Mỹ, tướng Lloyd Austin rồi cố vấn an ninh quốc gia của Nhà Trắng Jake Sullivan lần lượt đến New Delhi. Hôm 15/06/2023 ông Sullivan đã cùng với đồng cấp Ấn Độ là Ajit Doval công bố lộ trình đầy tham vọng cho hợp tác song phương trên một số lĩnh vực rất nhậy như vừa nêu. Nếu như đối với New Delhi viễn cảnh tự chủ về công nghiệp quốc phòng là điều quan trọng nhất thì trong mắt Washington, Ấn Độ là đối tác quan trọng để « bảo vệ một trật tự thế giới với những giá trị tự do, dân chủ là cơ bản » mà trật tự đó đang bị cả Trung Quốc lẫn Nga thách thức như đánh giá của Milan Vaishnav, giám đốc chương trình Nam Á trung tâm nghiên cứu Carnegie. Nga là yếu tố thứ nhì trong các hợp đồng cả về quân sự đến công nghệ mà Ấn Độ và Mỹ vừa đúc kết. Olivier Guillard giải thích :  « Điều chắc chắn là về mặt phòng thủ và công nghiệp quốc phòng từ nhiều thập niên qua Ấn Độ rất lệ thuộc vào Nga, vào các tập đoàn cung cấp Nga. Khoảng 60 % các trang thiết bị quân sự trên bộ, trên biển và trên không của Ấn Độ xuất xứ từ Nga. Mức độ lệ thuộc lớn như vậy càng lúc càng đè nặng lên các chính quyền ở New Delhi. Do vậy khoảng từ một chục năm trở lại đây Ấn Độ tìm cách đa dạng hóa các nguồn cung cấp vũ khí và trang thiết bị quân sự. Trong chiến lược này, Pháp là một đối tác quan trọng. Có từ 20 đến 25 % trang thiết bị quân sự của Ấn Độ là do Pháp cung cấp. Đừng quên rằng Ấn Độ là một trong những nguồn nhập khẩu vũ khí lớn nhất trên thế giới. Do New Delhi đang tìm kiếm thêm các nguồn cung cấp khác để bớt phụ thuộc vào Nga, cho nên Mỹ đã tận dụng cơ hội này để mở rộng thị phần tại Ấn Độ. Lần này ông Modi sang Mỹ mua drone có trang bị vũ khí nhằm tăng cường khả năng phòng thủ và tấn công cho bộ binh và không quân. Kèm theo đó là vế chuyển giao công nghệ. Một lần nữa chúng ta thấy là New Delhi muốn độc lập hơn với các nhà sản xuất Nga. Đương nhiên Matxcơva không hài lòng lắm nhưng Nga không có sự lựa chọn nào khác ».   Tham vọng của New Delhi qua mặt Trung Quốc Từ khi Liên Xô sụp đổ năm 1991 Ấn Độ liên tục tìm cách đa dạng hóa các nguồn cung cấp vũ khí. Trong mục tiêu này, New Delhi đã nhắm tới Israel, Pháp và đương nhiên là Hoa Kỳ. Cho đến tận dưới thời tổng thống George W. Bush (2000-2008) một số rào cản (do liên hệ mật thiết với các nhà sản xuất trang thiết bị quân sự Liên Xô, rồi với Nga) trong hợp tác quốc phòng Mỹ-Ấn mới bắt dầu từng bước được dỡ bỏ. Do vậy ông Nicolas Blarel, giám đốc nghiên cứu đại học Leyde, Hà Lan cho rằng, hàng loạt các thỏa thuận về quốc phòng vừa được thông qua tại Washington tuần trước do bối cảnh địa chính trị hiện nay với Trung Quốc, với Nga dẫn tới, nhưng đồng thời đây cũng là kết quả của hơn 20 năm đàm phán. Giờ đây với các chương trình chuyển giao công nghệ, chuyên gia này không loại trừ khả năng trong tương lai không xa chiến đấu cơ HAL Tejas của Ấn Độ hoàn toàn có thể cạnh tranh được và thậm chí là còn vượt trội hơn cả máy bay trinh sát tương đương của Trung Quốc. Nhưng làm thế nào dung hòa công nghệ của Mỹ và trang thiết bị có sẵn từ thời Liên Xô hay của Nga ? Trước mắt giới phân tích chưa thể giải đáp.Vấn đề còn lại là liệu rằng nền công nghiệp quốc phòng của Ấn Độ có nắm bắt cơ hội hợp tác với Mỹ để làm chủ những công nghệ mới hay không. Chỉ biết rằng thủ tướng Narendra Modi đã được tiếp đón trọng vọng tại Hoa Kỳ và ông đang chuẩn bị lên đường đến Paris : Ấn Độ là khách mời danh dự của Pháp nhân dịp lễ Quốc Khánh 14/07/2023. Từ 2016 New Delhi là một trong những khách hàng sử dụng chiến đấu cơ Rafale, biểu tượng của nền công nghiệp hàng không quân sự Pháp.  

In this episode of Market Minutes, Shailaja Mohapatra puts the spotlight on markets nearing all-time high levels, primary market action and what low levels of VIX means for traders. Also, catch Milan Vaishnav of Gemstone Equity Research in Voice of the Day segment. Market Minutes is a morning podcast that puts the spotlight on hot stocks, keys data points and developing trends (with inputs from news agencies)

Later this summer, California could be first American state to ban discrimination on the basis of caste. California's move, and the moves by universities, cities, and towns across the country, to raise issues of caste discrimination has generated a massive controversy that is roiling the Indian American community in the United States.One reporter, the freelance journalist Sonia Paul, has been doggedly pursuing this story for years, even before it became a mainstream news issue. Sonia is an award-winning journalist, writer, producer and story editor based in Oakland, California, and she is the daughter of immigrants from India and the Philippines.Sonia joins Milan on the show this week to talk more about her reporting and the state of caste in America. Sonia and Milan discuss the difficulties of reporting on caste in America, the coded ways in which discrimination often takes place, and the debates in the Indian American community over moves to add caste as a protected category. Plus, the two discuss the fierce contest over California's draft legislation. Episode notes:1. Sonia Paul, “The hidden caste codes of Silicon Valley,” BBC, April 18, 2023.2. Sonia Paul, “Trapped in Silicon Valley's Hidden Caste System,” Wired, March 1, 2022.3. “California Could Become the First State to Ban Caste Discrimination,” KQED “The Bay” (podcast), June 5, 2023.4. Sumitra Badrinathan, Devesh Kapur, Jonathan Kay, and Milan Vaishnav, “Social Realities of Indian Americans: Results From the 2020 Indian American Attitudes Survey,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, June 9, 2021.5. Maari Zwick-Maitreyi, Thenmozhi Soundararajan, Natasha Dar, Ralph F. Bheel, and Prathap Balakrishnan, Caste in the United States: A Survey of Caste Among South Asian Americans (Equality Labs, 2018).6. Sonia Paul, “From Black Lives Matter, activists for India's discriminated Dalits learn tactics to press for dignity,” The World, November 12, 2015.7. Patrick Cox, “Which version of Indian history do American school students learn?,” The World, April 27, 2017. 

India is like a caged tiger -- and the cage is unseen by most and difficult to break through. Subhashish Bhadra joins Amit Varma in episode 333 of The Seen and the Unseen to describe the many ways in which the Indian state holds back the Indian people -- and also to introspect on his own journey. (FOR FULL LINKED SHOW NOTES, GO TO SEENUNSEEN.IN.) Also check out: 1. Subhashish Bhadra on LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter. 2. Caged Tiger: How Too Much Government Is Holding Indians Back -- Subhashish Bhadra. 3. Freedom at Midnight -- Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre. 4. The Universe of Chuck Gopal — Episode 258 of The Seen and the Unseen. 5. Wherever I Lay My Hat (That's My Home) -- Marvin Gaye. 6. From Cairo to Delhi With Max Rodenbeck — Episode 281 of The Seen and the Unseen. 7. The Rooted Cosmopolitanism of Sugata Srinivasaraju — Episode 277 of The Seen and the Unseen. 8. Amitava Kumar Finds the Breath of Life — Episode 265 of The Seen and the Unseen. 9. Yeh Honsla -- Song from Dor. 10. Gurwinder Bhogal Examines Human Nature -- Episode 331 of The Seen and the Unseen. 11. The Perils of Audience Capture — Gurwinder Bhogal. 12. Episodes of The Seen and the Unseen with Ajay Shah: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. 13. The State of Our Farmers — Episode 86 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Gunvant Patil). 14. The Indian State Is the Greatest Enemy of the Indian Farmer -- Amit Varma. 15. Power and Prosperity — Mancur Olson. 16. A Tale Of Two Bandits: Naxals And The Indian State -- Amit Varma. 17. The First Assault on Our Constitution — Episode 194 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Tripurdaman Singh). 18. Sixteen Stormy Days — Tripurdaman Singh. 19. The Narrow Corridor: How Nations Struggle for Liberty -- Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson. 20. Paul Graham's essays. 21. Malevolent Republic — Kapil Komireddi. 22. Who Broke Our Republic? — Episode 163 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Kapil Komireddi). 23. A New Idea of India -- Harsh Madhusudan and Rajeev Mantri. 24. In Service of the Republic — Vijay Kelkar & Ajay Shah. 25. The Art and Science of Economic Policy — Ep 154 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vijay Kelkar & Ajay Shah). 26. The Transformative Constitution -- Gautam Bhatia. 27. The Great Repression — Chitranshul Sinha. 28. India's Sedition Law — Episode 146 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Chitranshul Sinha). 29. Georges Simenon on Amazon. 30. The Road to Serfdom — Friedrich Hayek. 31. Leviathan -- Thomas Hobbes. 32. India's Greatest Civil Servant — Episode 167 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Narayani Basu, on VP Menon). 33. Emergency Chronicles — Gyan Prakash. 34. Gyan Prakash on the Emergency — Episode 103 of The Seen and the Unseen. 35. Participatory Democracy — Episode 160 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ashwin Mahesh). 36. Minimum government, maximum governance: A manifesto for a limited state -- Reuben Abraham and Vivek Dehejia. 37. We Are Fighting Two Disasters: Covid-19 and the Indian State -- Amit Varma. 38. India's Far From Free Markets (2005) -- Amit Varma in the Wall Street Journal. 39. India's Lost Decade — Episode 116 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Puja Mehra). 40. The Lost Decade — Puja Mehra. 41. The Great Redistribution — Amit Varma. 42. The Delhi Smog — Ep 40 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vivek Kaul). 43. The Tragedy of Our Farm Bills — Episode 211 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ajay Shah). 44. The Emergency: A Personal History — Coomi Kapoor. 45. Coomi Kapoor Has the Inside Track — Episode 305 of The Seen and the Unseen. 46. Memories of a Father -- TV Eachara Varier. 47. Flying Spaghetti Monster. 48. Don't Insult Pasta (2007) — Amit Varma. 49. Republic of Rhetoric: Free Speech and the Constitution of India -- Abhinav Chandrachud. 50. South India Would Like to Have a Word — Episode 320 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Nilakantan RS). 51. 21 Lessons for the 21st Century -- Yuval Noah Harari. 52. Rethinking Public Institutions in India -- Edited by Devesh Kapur, Pratap Bhanu Mehta and Milan Vaishnav. 53. Black Mirror on Netflix. Check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing. And subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! Episode art: ‘Cage' by Simahina.

Leaders come and go, but institutions stay forever. This is the central takeaway of a new book by Subhashish Bhadra, Caged Tiger: How Too Much Government Is Holding Indians Back.Subhashish is an economist whose career has straddled both the policy and corporate worlds. He has worked at a leading global management consulting firm, a venture capital firm, and a tech start-up, working closely with CEOs, entrepreneurs, bureaucrats, politicians and academics throughout his career.His new book is a call to action that encourages Indians to move beyond their fixation with leaders and focus instead on building strong state institutions. While discussions of state capacity are typically the stuff of academic conference rooms and think tank seminars, Bhadra believes they should be at the core of everyday discussions Indians have on the future of their democracy.Subhashish joins Milan on the show this week to discuss his motivations for writing the book, the institutional flaws in Indian democracy, the need for a new “social contract” on welfare, and the appropriate balance between states and markets in India. Plus, Subhashish explains what ordinary citizens can do to change the status quo. Episode notes:Anirudh Burman, “Resisting the Leviathan: The Key Change in India's New Proposal to Protect Personal Data,” Carnegie India, November 28, 2022.Vijay Kelkar and Ajay Shah, In Service of the Republic: The Art and Science of Economic Policy (New Delhi: Penguin India, 2022).Devesh Kapur, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, and Milan Vaishnav, eds. Rethinking Public Institutions in India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2017).

India had the world's largest economy until the 17th century but suffered almost 500 years of decline afterward. However, India is currently the world's most populous nation with one of the largest economies, growing faster this year than any other major country. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has brought stability to India, making the country economically and geopolitically resurgent. Critics worry that Modi's democracy is too autocratic and inward-looking, rooted in Hindu nationalism. India's future is uncertain as centrifugal forces of religion, inequality, and nationalism could overwhelm the current growth. Will India continue to evolve and become a global power? Milan Vaishnav is a senior fellow and director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington and an accomplished India watcher. He shared some answers in this episode of the New Thinking for a New World podcast.

India Is Broken: A People Betrayed, Independence to Today is a big new book on India by the economist Ashoka Mody. Mody is an economic historian at Princeton's School of Public and International Affairs and a longtime official at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.His new book provides readers with an unvarnished look at India's twin economic and political failures over the past 75 years. Challenging the conventional wisdom, Mody argues that India's post-independence leaders—from Jawaharlal Nehru all the way to Narendra Modi—have failed to confront India's true economic problems, seeking easy solutions instead. As a popular frustration grew, India's democracy suffered, leading to an upsurge in nationalism, violence, and corruption.Mody joins Milan on the podcast this week to talk more about his book. The two discuss Mody's controversial thesis, the inadequacy of GDP as a metric of economic development, and the parallels between pre-Partition India and India of the president. Plus, the two talk about Mody's solutions for addressing India's twin economic and political challenges. Notes:Ashoka Mody, “India's Boom Is a Dangerous Myth,” Project Syndicate, March 29, 2023. Ashoka Mody, “India's Broken State,” Project Syndicate, February 20, 2023. Milan Vaishnav, When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017).

Age of Vice is the blockbuster new novel by the author Deepti Kapoor. It's a love story, wrapped inside a tale of capitalism run amok, wrapped inside a violent story of gangland politics. In nearly 600 pages, it transports readers from the badlands of eastern Uttar Pradesh to the five-star hotels and fabulous bungalows of New Delhi. To call this book a sensation would be the understatement of the year. Readers have snapped up copies, book editors have issued glowing reviews, and a television series is already in the works. Deepti Kapoor grew up in north India and worked for several years as a journalist in New Delhi. She's the author of a previous novel, A Bad Character, published in 2015. To talk more about Age of Vice and the inspiration behind it, Deepti joins Milan on the podcast this week. They discuss Deepti's journey from Delhi reporter to novelist, the research she conducted for the book, and the cynicism embedded in Indian politics. Plus, the two discuss the book's adaptation for the screen and the planned trilogy of books that is in the works. Ron Charles, “Deepti Kapoor's thriller ‘Age of Vice' starts 2023 with a bang,” Washington Post, December 29, 2022.Milan Vaishnav, When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017).Josy Joseph, A Feast of Vultures: The Hidden Business of Democracy in India (New Delhi: HarperCollins India, 2016). Deepti Kapoor, “Driving in Greater Noida,” Granta, February 23, 2015.

India Policy Watch #1: Why We Don't Care About GrowthInsights on burning policy issues in India— RSJEarlier this week, Pranay and I recorded an episode with Shruti Rajagopalan for her podcast Ideas of India. I have been following Shruti's columns and the podcast for a while now, and I will recommend you subscribe to both her podcast and her newsletter. She's always insightful, curious and uses first principles to probe issues. This means you cannot get away with the usual stock answers. One of the questions we discussed at length was why does the Indian electorate not prioritise growth while making their choices at polls. It is an interesting contention whose premise itself can be questioned. How can we conclude that they don't? And then, if we assume for a moment they don't, why do they not? I won't spoil your experience of listening to the episode by going into the details of what we discussed. But I will cover some ground in today's edition on why it seems that people in India don't care about economic growth. And as it often happens in life, this discussion happened in the same week when India published its GDP estimates for the quarter Oct-Dec, 2022. So what I will do today is cover the data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO), take a wider view of what's happening with the economy and round it off with that question that Shruti asked.Here's the headline news on growth: From the ET:“India's gross domestic product (GDP) for the October-December quarter moderated to 4.4 per cent from 6.3 per cent in the previous quarter, data shared by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation showed on Tuesday. The GDP has now moderated from 13.5 per cent in the first quarter of FY23 largely due to pandemic-related statistical distortions.Lower GDP growth can also be attributed to aggressive rate hikes by the Reserve Bank of India in order to tame the high inflation. In addition to these factors, the slowdown in exports and consumer demand has also contributed in bringing down the numbers. The dent in consumer demand can be linked with the bullish rate hikes by the central bank to bring down inflation in the past few months. Meanwhile, slowdown in external demand could be a consequence of the rate hikes by major central banks around the world.”Apart from this, the NSO made revisions to the GDP numbers for FY 22, FY 21, FY 20 and to the first two quarters of this FY. Heh! I'm reminded of that famous quip by a former RBI Governor, ‘In other countries the future is uncertain, but in India even the past is uncertain'. The growth numbers came in as a negative surprise. What's worse, manufacturing showed a contraction for the second quarter in a row. Not a great sign when the government has been pushing for companies to set up a base in India and eyeing that ‘China+1' pie. The WSJ had a summary of the key signs of worry in the Indian economy:“Weakness in private consumption stood out the most. India's private consumer spending, which comprises about 60% of India's gross domestic product, rose just 2.1% year over year, compared with an 8.8% increase in the September quarter. It was mainly hurt by higher interest rates and elevated inflation. Slower growth in rural spending after some pandemic-era subsidies were cut could have also played a role.A closer look at other numbers in the GDP data also paints a worrisome picture. Import growth fell more sharply than export growth, again signalling weak domestic demand. And while fixed investment growth was a relative bright spot, it still slowed for the second quarter in a row.Nomura economists Sonal Varma and Aurodeep Nandi think markets are still significantly underappreciating the risks to India's growth. They say the country's growth cycle has peaked, and a combination of weaker global growth and tight domestic and global financial conditions could spell further trouble for exports, investment and discretionary consumption.”So, what should one make of this data? There's clearly a moderation of growth. Some of it is expected because of the base effect of the pandemic years and the upward revision to growth done for the previous years. It is also true that global demand is weak, so exports will be sluggish for a while. On the other hand, manufacturing growth remaining weak despite all the PLI and ‘Make in India' efforts should worry policymakers. Domestic consumption is starting to feel the impact of rate hikes, and the liquidity situation remains tight. Of course, the data can be spun the other way too. The NSO has maintained its 7 per cent growth forecast for the full year, which implies a 5.1 per cent growth in Q4. Inflation is subsiding, and it is likely that after the potential April rate hike, we will have a pause unless global factors come into play. Also, an expected good monsoon and China opening up post its Zero Covid madness will mean domestic and global demand will be back. So, it is all a mixed bag if you just go by quarterly numbers.I thought it might make sense to look at the long-range data from NSO/CSO and other sources to reach better conclusions than merely reacting to quarter-on-quarter figures. Here's what I learnt:* The primary growth driver since 2015 (keeping the pandemic years aside) has been an increase in factor productivity. When compared to the previous decade, the contribution of capital to growth has come down. Simply put, while we have grown at a 6.5-7 per cent annual rate since 2015, which is similar to what we had between 2005-14, the composition of growth is different. We have become more productive, but we haven't added new capacity to our economy as fast as we did earlier. The good news is factor productivity growth is difficult to achieve, and we have done that. All that talk of digital infrastructure seems to be working. Now, can we reverse capital formation? That's the next point. * Will there be a long-delayed capex boom as has been promised by the government in the last two budgets? The debt to GDP has remained stagnant now for a decade. The total banking sector credit to GDP ratio has been range-bound between 50-55 per cent during this time. Why will it change now? First, the corporate debt to equity and debt to EBITDA are at their lowest right now in over 15 years. The demand for credit from corporates is linked more to the health of their balance sheet than their income statements. The Top 500 companies are sitting on the strongest balance sheets ever right now, and sometime soon, they will have to start believing in what they say at all these business conclaves about India's time being now. Second, there is significant deleveraging in the banking system, and the leverage (assets/equity ratio) among banks is at a multi decade low. Combine this with a decade long real estate slump which is showing signs of turning despite higher interest rates, the mix is right for the capex cycle to start. * Lastly, there are two real risks facing the economy when you go beyond the immediate numbers. The debt to GDP numbers remain elevated at 85-90 per cent range, and the government continues to crowd out others in the debt market. There is some consolidation, as was seen in this budget, but the government has to stay on course to reduce the fiscal deficit and bring the debt-to-GDP ratio back to the 70 per cent handle. The other risk is on the balance of payments (BoP) which will remain in deficit for the foreseeable future. Exports have slowed, and the tightening of the rate differential between India and the US will lower the risk appetite which will impact capital inflow. A longer duration BoP deficit puts India at risk in case of an ‘accident' in the global market.   Anyway, you might think Q3 data or a longer-term view of the economy at the moment should trigger a debate on the economy in the media. That people on the street would be interested in knowing how the government would tackle this, and it should be an important discussion point in mainstream media. But there's none of that anywhere. That leads me back to Shruti's question on why economic growth is not a critical subject of public discourse in India. Pranay and I had three hypotheses for this.First, it is not entirely true that growth isn't a political issue in India. There's been a steady rise in people's expectations of economic growth from the government. State elections are fought on an economic plank more often than not. Almost every party speaks of ‘vikas' without fail. Also, the fact that successive governments see the need to revise (or fudge) growth numbers suggest, in a perverse way, that they know people care about this stuff now.Second, it is true that people in India still don't correlate their immediate economic prospects with the policymaking of the government in power. The only economic indicator that bothers people and that they link back to the government is inflation. And that explains why governments tend to be sensitive to price rise data. Also, with the private sector becoming the primary source of new job creation, people tend to blame them for job creation or losses. The question of why the government doesn't facilitate policies that help the private sector invest and create more jobs isn't of immediate concern to people. Lastly, any discussion on economic growth in India devolves quite quickly to two notions that lots of Indians hold as true. One, we are gifted with the best resources and the best people, so we just have to announce to the world that our time has come, and they will flock to us. This has been exacerbated by a steady stream of global Indians doing well with leading global organisations. So, we think we have a birthright to be a vishwaguru. The WhatsApp forwards certainly don't help in tempering this skewed notion. The problem is this image then confronts the reality of our performance - low per capita income, poor human development parameters, shoddy infrastructure and economic underperformance. This leads our people to the second notion. That the only reason we aren't growing like we rightfully should is because there's some mysterious force stopping us. And this something is easily spun in elections as some other group, some group of ‘them' saboteurs derailing India versus the ‘us' who are trying our best. Almost every growth discussion in India goes down this predictable path - start with asking what will spur more growth, refuse to engage with real issues like factor reforms, inefficient and large footprint of the state, complex tax structure etc., and, soon, come down to who or what forces are stopping us from growing? From there, the discussion is easier, politically speaking. Find the ‘other'. And damn them. This has been the script for over half a century now. As we speak today, the other is either some leftist, global cabal out to sabotage India's inevitable rise or the minority community in India who don't care about growth or progress. There is a likelihood that as income and awareness levels go up, people will draw the link between economic performance and governance and demand better. But this natural progression is up against a concerted narrative and a pliant media that isn't interested in helping explain this link or asking the tough questions. So, we continue to have the spectacle of prime-time debates saturated with all sorts of non-issues on the day when GDP numbers are published. It is easier to blame someone for a problem than to solve it. Addendum— Pranay KotasthaneIt's telling that there are very few recent papers that investigate the link between economic growth and electoral outcomes. But the few that I could find suggest the link between economic growth and political dividends is improving. A 2015 paper by Milan Vaishnav and Reedy Swanson tested this relationship in the period 1980-2012 for major state elections. In the aggregate, there was no statistically significant relationship between growth and electoral performance. But, the picture was different when they looked at just the recent twelve-year section of the study period (2000-2012). Incumbents were rewarded for higher growth, and the relationship held true after controlling for other factors. Contrary to popular belief, they found that inflation didn't impact electoral outcomes, but economic growth did. Another recent paper from 2019 by Bang & Mishra contends that sectoral growth matters more than aggregate growth. Specifically, the agricultural growth rate can propel electoral performance, while services sector growth has no such effect. The paper didn't explain the methodology used, so we should interpret the results with caution. My own unsubstantiated assertion is that the period of fast growth was so short (2003-2008) that it doesn't register as a benchmark in voter decisions. Our reference points are far lower. Middling rates of economic growth without excess volatility are enough to convince us that we are going in the right direction. We might be subconsciously extrapolating this growth rate linearly, hence allowing other factors to outweigh our electoral decisions.Regardless, we need a lot more empirical studies to decode this puzzle. A Framework A Week: A Taxonomy of Policy Failures (and Policy Successes)Tools for thinking about public policy— Pranay KotasthanePolicies can fail due to different reasons. These reasons and diagnostic tools are scattered across several editions of this newsletter. In this edition, I will compile these tools so that we have a single meta-framework for analysing policy failures. The idea is that whenever you witness a policy failure, one of these menu items might help you diagnose it. A word of caution: this taxonomy is neither mutually exclusive (some failures might span multiple frameworks) nor collectively exhaustive (there definitely are other reasons I've not read yet). Nevertheless, it is a useful collection, I think. Framework 1: The Programmatic - Political AxesWe discussed this framework in edition #147. It assesses policy success on two parameters - programmatic efficiency & effectiveness, and political coalition building & communication. The 2x2 matrix below presents four stylised scenarios.The use of the “political work” axis highlights that judgments on policies are often subjective. They are “constructed” in our minds as much as they are outcomes of good craft work. That's why narratives are crucial in policy-making. Framework 2: A Fourfold MeasureAnother framework that we covered in edition #147 builds on the previous framework and devises four parameters of success/failure in order to eliminate getting swayed by narratives alone.Broadly speaking, Programmatic Assessment measures the Effectiveness and Efficiency of a policy. Process Assessment indicates Implementation Capability. Political Assessment measures narrative power.Framework 3: Unpacking Success and FailuresAllan McConnell's paper Policy Success, Policy Failure and Grey Areas In-Between, classifies policies along a spectrum in each of the first three dimensions from the previous framework. The spectrum has the following shades: outright success, resilient success, conflicted success, precarious success, and, finally, outright failure. For instance, here's how this spectrum would look along the Political dimension.This framework helps policy analysts identify contradictions between the different dimensions of policy failures. Some policies might be successful along one dimension but might fare poorly along another. McConnell identifies three typical contradictions:* Successful Process vs Unsuccessful Programmes. These are policies which follow well-established methods of deliberation, such as parliamentary debates, standing committee suggestions, and excellent law drafting. And yet, they might fail as a programme, i.e. they do not achieve the stated goals, and their costs far exceed the benefits. I put policies such as Items Reserved for Manufacture Exclusively by the Smallscale Sector under this category. * Successful Politics vs Unsuccessful Programmes. These are electorally popular policies that governments want to associate with long after their consequences have played out. Yet they fail to achieve the stated goals and impose far higher costs than intended benefits. Probably, the Bombay Rent Control Act and Corporate Social Responsibility Act fall into this category. * Successful Programmes vs Unsuccessful Politics. Until about a year ago, I would have classified the Civil Services Pension Reform of 2004 as an outright success along all dimensions. But with five states having gone back on it already, it's become a classic case of poor coalition-building. There's another common contradiction: Successful Programmes vs Temporal Failures. These are programmes that achieve short-term goals but lead to adverse unintended consequences in the long term. Minimum Support Prices policies for grains and the Bombay Prohibition Act fall under this category. Framework 4: Outlays - Output - OutcomesWe discussed this framework in edition #98. Inputs/Outlays refer to the resources provided to a scheme or project that the government runs. Outlays for a project is no guarantee for success. To measure success, policies or schemes need two other parameters: outputs and outcomes. Outputs refer to the direct and measurable product of program activities, often expressed in physical terms or units. Outcomes, on the other hand, are the long-term benefits that a project or intervention is designed to deliver.…This framework also yields a useful vocabulary for measuring success. We can assess policies in terms of its economy, efficiency, and effectiveness. Economy refers to inputs. It answers the question: are project inputs being purchased at the right price? Efficiency relates to outputs over inputs. It answers the question: what is the relationship between investment in inputs and the outputs that are produced? Effectiveness relates to outcomes over outputs. It answers the question: are outputs leading to the expected outcomes?This framework can help disambiguate implementation failures from “theory of change” failures. Often, implementation failures are caused due to insufficient outlay allocation or corruption, which impedes the conversion of outlays into commensurate outputs. In the case of “theory of change” failures, the assumed linkage between outcomes, outputs, and outlays is found to be incorrect. For example, the theory of change in education policies continues to be that more outlays on government schools and on teacher salaries will result in higher student enrollments, which would eventually lead to better learning outcomes. This linkage doesn't hold strongly, as ASER surveys have shown year after year. What we think of as implementation failures often turn out to be “theory of change” failures under the hood. Framework 5: Violating the Tinbergen RuleEditions #9 and #135 talk about this failure. The more the number of objectives that a policy or institution is supposed to achieve, the more likely it is to fail in achieving any of them. A classic case of failure is that of the traffic police in India — burdened with regulating traffic while its main function is enforcing adherence to traffic rules and regulations.Policies that seek to achieve many goals should raise the alarm in an analyst's mind.Framework 6: Incentive InterferenceThe mother of all policy failures is, of course, ignoring people's preferences and incentives. Bans, price caps, sticky subsidies, and high tax rates meddle with choices and preferences to such an extent that they are almost always counterproductive. HomeWorkReading and listening recommendations on public policy matters* [Article] It is easy to get swept away by the government's rhetoric on industrial policy. So it was a relief to see the Minister of State in MeitY strike a cautionary note about PLI schemes in a Mint report:“Think of PLI as the period during which we are transitioning from a less than fully competitive economy to a fully competitive manufacturing (economy). So the PLI will take care of that interim period. But the economy, the efficiency, the competitiveness, the skills, the logistics, costs, all of that will eventually kick in and make us competitive".As we keep saying, PLI is probably a necessity in today's geopolitical scenario, but it is hardly the solution to our economic woes. There was another article in the Financial Times on similar lines. * [Podcast] Over at Puliyabaazi, we spoke with senior journalist Seema Sirohi, who has closely tracked the India-US relationship for over three decades. Her book Friends with Benefits: The India-US Story is a must-read for anyone interested in this subject.* [Article] Check out S Dinakar's Business Standard piece to know why the Russian crude oil discount is not reflecting in your petrol pump bill. It's a classic case of government price-fixing, using a benchmark that saves government-owned refineries at the cost of consumers. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit publicpolicy.substack.com

The decline of India's parliament is a refrain that has often been repeated over the last seventy-five years of modern Indian democracy. A new book on India's Parliament addresses the decline thesis head-on and provides a warts-and-all assessment of India's legislative chamber.The book is called House of the People: Parliament and the Making of Indian Democracy and its author is the scholar Ronojoy Sen. Ronojoy, a senior research fellow at the Institute of South Asia Studies at the National University of Singapore, joins Milan on the podcast this week to discuss the evolution of India's parliament, the constitutional pre-history of legislative institutions in India, and the surprising lack of debate around universal suffrage. Plus, the two discuss the plague of parliamentary disruptions, the black box of conflicts of interest, and how the practice of Indian democracy transformed the institution of Parliament. Madhav Khosla and Milan Vaishnav, “The Three Faces of the Indian State,” Journal of Democracy 32, no. 1 (January 2021): 111-125.Ronojoy Sen, “Has the Indian Parliament stood the test of time?” Observer Research Foundation, August 15, 2022.

Last week, India's finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented her government's Fiscal Year 2023 budget. As in years past, the entire analyst class has been working overtime to scrutinize the minister's speech and the underlying budget spreadsheets to understand how this government plans to steer the Indian economy in the midst of global headwinds and an important general election in 2024.To discuss this year's budget and all that it means, Milan is joined on the show this week by Sukumar Ranganathan, editor-in-chief of the Hindustan Times. There are few journalists in India who follow budgets more closely or more insightfully.  Milan and Sukumar discuss the government's big infrastructure push, its electoral signaling, and future plans to raise revenue. Plus, the two discuss what we can say definitively about the Modi government's economic philosophy after nine years in office. Prashant Jha, “Budget passes BJP's political test ahead of 2024 elections,” Hindustan Times, February 2, 2023.Roshan Kishore, “Nightwatchman's Budget ahead of elections,” Hindustan Times, February 2, 2023.Abhishek Jha and Roshan Kishore, “The Indian economy: Past, present, future,” Hindustan Times, February 6, 2023. Archana Masih interview with Milan Vaishnav, “‘Adani affair overshadowed Budget's stability, prudence,'” Rediff News, February 6, 2023. 

One of the blessings (though it sometimes feels like a curse) of hosting Grand Tamasha, Carnegie's weekly podcast on Indian politics and policy, is that our host Milan Vaishnav ends up reading a ton of books and interviewing many authors. In what we hope will become an annual holiday tradition, Milan has made a list of his top three India reads of the year, based on some of the books we've highlighted on the show's recently wrapped eighth season. Our Grand Tamasha top three books of 2022 (drumroll, please): Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh: India's Lonely Young Women and the Search for Intimacy and IndependenceBy Shrayana Bhattacharya. Published by HarperCollins India.The Progressive Maharaja: Sir Madhava Rao's Hints on the Art and Science of GovernmentBy Rahul Sagar. Published by Hurst/HarperCollins India.The Newlyweds: Rearranging Marriage in Modern IndiaBy Mansi Choksi. Published by Atria/Icon/Penguin Viking. In this episode, Milan talks about why he loved each of these books and includes short clips from his conversations with Shrayana, Rahul, and Mansi. Think of this bonus episode as our little holiday present to you, our listeners. We'll see you in January.

Milan Vaishnav talks about the different aspect of the Indian diaspora in America. Milan is a Senior Fellow and Director of the South Asia Program and the host of the Grand Tamasha podcast at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.Milan Vaishnav on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MilanVMilan on Substack: https://milanvaishnav.substack.com/“The Grand Tamasha” Podcast: https://grand-tamasha.simplecast.com/Music:Opening Theme Music by Brandon Duke"East Chill" by Boomer (licensed through Storyblocks).Produced by Karkata Media LLC in association with Perspicacity Media LLC.Copyright 2022, Karkata Media LLC.

In this episode, we spoke to Milan Vaishnav, the host of the popular podcasts ‘Grand Tamasha' about the criminalisation of politics. Most Indians are familiar with the phenomenon of politicians with criminal records and appear to have accepted their participation in the democratic process . In today's episode, Milan helped us unpack this uneasy balance by exploring why political parties give tickets to criminals, why people continue to vote for them and whether this status quo is likely to change.   If you like our podcast do consider supporting us with a donation at the link below: https://www.dakshindia.org/donate/   Reading list: Milan Vaishnav. When crime pays: Money and muscle in Indian politics. Yale University Press, 2017 James Crabtree, Lunch with the FT: Raghuram Rajan. Financial Times August 15 2014 https://www.ft.com/content/b049ce16-230e-11e4-a424-00144feabdc0#axzz3B60Xysad Association for Democratic Reform https://adrindia.org/   CREDITS: Host: Leah Verghese This is a Maed in India production. Producer: Nikkethana K Sound Mixing: Lakshman Parsuram Project Supervisor: Shaun Fanthome

Over the weekend, Australian voters elected a new government with the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and Anthony Albanese at the helm, ousting the ruling Liberal-National Coalition for the first time in a decade. Key to the ALP's landmark victory was the vote of the Indo-Australians, now the second largest immigrant group in Australia.A new Carnegie study co-authored by Devesh Kapur, Caroline Duckworth, and our very own Milan Vaishnav, sheds light on three elements of the Indo-Australian community's political behavior: the community's political preferences, leadership preferences, and policy priorities. This week, we put Milan in the hot seat to discuss his new study along with Caroline Duckworth, a James C. Gaither Junior Fellow in Carnegie's South Asia Program. We also wanted to turn the tables on Milan to ask him about his recent trip to Delhi—his first in the COVID-era. We talk about India's ongoing heat wave, the political mood in the country, and the fractures in Indian federalism. Caroline Duckworth, Devesh Kapur, and Milan Vaishnav, “Indo-Australian Voters and the 2022 General Election,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, May 18, 2022.Jonathan Kay, “A Heat Wave Has Pushed India's Dysfunctional Power System Into a Crisis,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, May 12, 2022.

When Ideas Matter: Democracy and Corruption in India is the title of a new book by the author Bilal Baloch. The book provides a framework for understanding how governments respond to credibility crises. We all know that governments act in their own interests—but what are those interests? How are they defined? And where do they come from? These are the questions that Bilal explores in his new book, through an examination of two seminal crises in Indian history: Indira Gandhi's response to the JP movement in the mid-1970s and the UPA government's reaction to the India Against Corruption movement a decade ago.Milan and Bilal discuss the role ideas play in shaping government policy during acute crises, the relevance of ideas in interpreting India's response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the factional divisions that exist within the Modi government. Plus, the two discuss Bilal's new career as a tech start-up entrepreneur. Christine Hall, “GlobalWonks relaunches as Enquire AI following $5.5M round,” TechCrunch, December 15, 2021.Bilal Baloch, “10 years later, assessing UPA's response to IAC,” Hindustan Times, December 11, 2021.Sandip Sukhtankar and Milan Vaishnav, “Corruption in India: Bridging ResearchEvidence and Policy Options,” India Policy Forum 11: 193-276.

Due to scheduling conflicts, there is no new episode of Grand Tamasha this week. A new episode of Grand Tamasha will air next Tuesday at 9:00 PM EST/Wednesday 7:30 AM IST.Most of our listeners do not need an introduction to the Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan. You've watched his movies. You've sung the songs his films have popularized. You might even have had his poster on your wall growing up. A new book by the economist Shrayana Bhattacharya, Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh: India's Lonely Young Women and the Search for Intimacy and Independence, describes another role that Shah Rukh has fulfilled: he has been the north star for women across India as they search for intimacy, independence, and empowerment. Shrayana joins Milan on the podcast to discuss her new book—which is part economics tract, part reportage, part social commentary, and part feminist call to arms. Milan and Shrayana discuss how Shah Rukh has become a female (but not feminist) icon, the economics behind the lack of women's agency in India, and her own struggles with love and loneliness. Plus, the two discuss the mysteries of the Delhi social scene and the ways government policy can help challenge conservative, patriarchal social norms. K.X. Ronnie, “Interview, Shrayana Bhattacharya, author, Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh – “I'm a loud and proud feminist economist,” Hindustan Times, November 27, 2021.Devesh Kapur, Neelanjan Sircar, and Milan Vaishnav, “Introduction to e-Symposium: Urbanisation, gender, and social change in north India,” Ideas for India, December 6, 2021.Milan Vaishnav, “Women and work: How much does measurement matter?” Ideas for India, May 10, 2021.Ruth Pollard, “What a Bollywood Megastar Means for Women in India,” Bloomberg, December 9, 2021.

Data has no ideology, and journalists should always be guided by skepticism. Pramit Bhattacharya joins Amit Varma in episode 256 of The Seen and the Unseen to describe his journey learning the craft and the values of analytical journalism. Also check out: 1. Pramit Bhattacharya's writings in Mint. 2. The Importance of Data Journalism -- Episode 196 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rukmini S). 3. Data Journalism and Indian Politics — Episode 136 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Roshan Kishore). 4. India's Greatest Civil Servant -- Episode 167 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Narayani Basu). 5. Taking Stock of Our Republic -- Episode 157 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ramachandra Guha). 6. Growth in a Time of Debt -- The Reinhart–Rogoff paper. 7. Fear the Boom and Bust: Keynes vs. Hayek - The Original Economics Rap Battle! 8. Fight of the Century: Keynes vs. Hayek - Economics Rap Battle Round Two. 9. Conversation and Society -- Episode 182 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Russ Roberts). 10. The Literature Machine -- Italo Calvino. 11. Milton Friedman and Paul Samuelson on Amazon. 12. Farmers, Technology and Freedom of Choice: A Tale of Two Satyagrahas -- Amit Varma. 13. Vidarbha's Tryst With BT Cotton -- Pramit Bhattacharya. 14. The State of Our Farmers — Ep 86 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Gunvant Patil, in Hindi). 15. India's Agriculture Crisis -- Episode 140 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Barun Mitra and Kumar Anand). 16. Thinking it Through -- The archives of Amit Varma's weekly column for Mint in 2007-8. 17. The Life and Times of Abhinandan Sekhri -- Episode 254 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Abhinandan Sekhri). 18. Elena Ferrante's interview about her writing process. 19. Niranjan Rajadhayaksha and Manas Chakravarty in Mint.20. Dadabhai Naoroji and the Fight for India -- Episode 187 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Dinyar Patel). 21. Pramit Bhattacharya in conversation with Milan Vaishnav in Grand Tamasha. 22. Demystifying GDP -- Episode 130 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rajeswari Sengupta). 23. The Economic Consequences of the Peace -- John Maynard Keynes. 24. The Tamilian gentleman who took on the world -- Amit Varma 25. The Man of System — Adam Smith (excerpted from The Theory of Moral Sentiments). 26. Mohit Satyanand's newsletter. 27. GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History -- Diane Coyle. 28. Dunbar's number on Wikipedia. 29. Modeling Covid-19 -- Episode 224 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Gautam Menon). 30. Zeynep Tufekci, Eric Topol, Bhramar Mukherjee and Gautam Menon on Twitter. 31. How to Make the World Add Up -- Tim Harford. 32. Whole Numbers and Half Truths: What Data Can and Cannot Tell Us About Modern India -- Rukmini S. 33. Anti-Intellectualism in American Life -- Richard Hofstadter. 34. Understanding Statistics -- Antony Davies. 35. Anthills of the Savannah -- Chinua Achebe. 36. Elena Ferrante on Amazon. 37. A Gentleman in Moscow — Amor Towles. 38. Our Parliament and Our Democracy -- Episode 253 of The Seen and the Unseen (w MR Madhavan). Check out Amit's online courses, The Art of Clear Writing and The Art of Podcasting. And subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free!

Most of our listeners do not need an introduction to the Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan. You've watched his movies. You've sung the songs his films have popularized. You might even have had his poster on your wall growing up. A new book by the economist Shrayana Bhattacharya, Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh: India's Lonely Young Women and the Search for Intimacy and Independence, describes another role that Shah Rukh has fulfilled: he has been the north star for women across India as they search for intimacy, independence, and empowerment. Shrayana joins Milan on the podcast to discuss her new book—which is part economics tract, part reportage, part social commentary, and part feminist call to arms. Milan and Shrayana discuss how Shah Rukh has become a female (but not feminist) icon, the economics behind the lack of women's agency in India, and her own struggles with love and loneliness. Plus, the two discuss the mysteries of the Delhi social scene and the ways government policy can help challenge conservative, patriarchal social norms. K.X. Ronnie, “Interview, Shrayana Bhattacharya, author, Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh – “I'm a loud and proud feminist economist,” Hindustan Times, November 27, 2021.Devesh Kapur, Neelanjan Sircar, and Milan Vaishnav, “Introduction to e-Symposium: Urbanisation, gender, and social change in north India,” Ideas for India, December 6, 2021.Milan Vaishnav, “Women and work: How much does measurement matter?” Ideas for India, May 10, 2021.Ruth Pollard, “What a Bollywood Megastar Means for Women in India,” Bloomberg, December 9, 2021.   

Our political parties suck at governance but excel at narratives, as that's what wins them elections. Shivam Shankar Singh joins Amit Varma in episode 247 of The Seen and the Unseen to describe his experiences at the heart of different political machines. Also check out: 1. How to Win an Indian Election -- Shivam Shankar Singh. 2. The Art Of Conjuring Alternate Realities -- Shivam Shankar Singh and Anand Venkatanarayanan. 3. LAMP Fellowships. 4. The Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha websites. 5. Why I Am Resigning From the BJP -- Shivam Shankar Singh. 6. Is Parliament's questions system broken? — Here's how to fix it! -- Shivam Shankar Singh. 7. Episode of The Seen and the Unseen on China, in reverse chronological order: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. 8. In Absentia: Where are India's conservative intellectuals? -- Ramachandra Guha. 9. The Gita Press and 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 Fake News -- Episode 133 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Pratik Sinha). 22. Range Rover -- The archives of Amit Varma's poker columns for the Economic Times. 23. A Tale Of Two Bandits: Naxals And The Indian State -- Amit Varma 24. Power and Prosperity -- Mancur Olson. 25. When Crime Pays — Milan Vaishnav. 26. Crime in Indian Politics -- Episode 114 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Milan Vaishnav). 27. Politics -- A limerick by Amit Varma. 28. Government's End -- Jonathan Rauch. 29. The Anti-Defection Law -- Episode 13 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Barun Mitra). 30. The Barkha Dutt Files -- Episode 243 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Barkha Dutt). 31. Urban Governance in India -- Episode 31 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan). 32. The BJP Before Modi -- Episode 202 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vinay Sitapati). 33. How the BJP wins: Inside India's Greatest Election Machine -- Prashant Jha. 34. The BJP's Magic Formula -- Episode 45 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Prashant Jha). 35. Politics and the Sociopath -- Amit Varma. 36. A Life in Indian Politics -- Episode 149 of The Seen and the Unseen (w JP Narayan). 37. The Dictator's Handbook -- Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith. 38. The Psychology of Money -- Morgan Housel. 39. The Silent Coup: A History of India's Deep State — Josy Joseph. 40. India's Security State -- Episode 242 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Josy Joseph). 41. Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus on Amazon. This episode is sponsored by CTQ Compounds. Check out The Daily Reader, FutureStack and The Social Capital Compound. Use the code UNSEEN for Rs 2500 off. Please subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! And check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

This week on the Sinica Podcast, Kaiser welcomes former Acting Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs Susan Thornton to discuss a recently published audit of the Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED), the annual set of high-level meetings with Chinese officials that were convened during the Obama administration by the U.S. Departments of State and the Treasury. The audit's two lead authors, representing the two organizations behind the audit, the National Committee on U.S. Foreign Policy and the American Friends Service Committee, also join the conversation. Rorry Daniels is the Deputy Project Director at the National Committee on American Foreign Policy's Forum on Asia-Pacific Security, where she organizes research and Track II discussions on security issues and conflict mediation in the Asia-Pacific. Daniel Jasper is the Public Education and Advocacy Coordinator, Asia, for the American Friends Service Committee, where his work focuses on China and North Korea. Susan, Rorry, and Dan make a strong case that, contrary to an emerging bipartisan consensus in Washington that engagement with China was a failure, the policy of engagement actually bore substantial fruit.6:12 – The SED and the S&ED — why the ampersand matters10:37 – The rationale behind the S&ED16:15 – In the room at the S&ED meetings30:12 – Critiques of the S&ED process36:47 – The mechanics of the S&ED audit44:13 – Five major accomplishments of the S&ED1:01:38 – Other surprising U.S. gains from the S&ED1:10:51 – How could the process be improved?A transcript of this interview is available on SupChina.com. Recommendations:Rorry: The Good Place (a TV show by Michael Schur) and the eponymous podcast hosted by Tara Brach.Dan: Silence: The Power of Quiet in a World Full of Noise, by Thich Nhat Hanh, and The China Hustle, a documentary on China-focused short sellers, by Jed Rothstein.Susan: The Incredible Dr. Pol, a reality show about a veterinarian on National Geographic; Hidden Forces, a podcast hosted by Demetri Kofinas; and China and Japan: Facing History, the last book by the great scholar Ezra Vogel.Kaiser: Wildland: The Making of America's Fury, by Evan Osnos, especially in audiobook form, read by the author, and Grand Tamasha, a podcast about current affairs in India, hosted by Milan Vaishnav.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What exactly is going on between India and China? When cooperation would lead to a win-win game, why is there conflict? Kanti Bajpai joins Amit Varma in episode 234 of The Seen and the Unseen to share his Four Ps framework for understanding this conflict. Also discussed: academia, public intellectuals, how one learns, and why writing and teaching make you a better thinker Also check out: 1. India Versus China : Why They Are Not Friends -- Kanti Bajpai. 2. Roots of Terrorism -- Kanti Bajpai. 3. Kanti Bajpai on Amazon. 4. The China Dude Is in the House -- Episode 231 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Manoj Kewalramani). 5. The Dragon and the Elephant — Episode 181 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Hamsini Hariharan & Shibani Mehta). 6. What Does China Want? — Episode 143 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Manoj Kewalramani). 7. Understanding Terrorism -- Amit Varma's 2007 review of Alan Krueger's What Makes a Terorrist.8. Soft Power: The Means To Success In World Politics -- Joseph Nye. 9. The Future of Power -- Joseph Nye. 10. Roam Research. 11. Why India and China Are Not Friends -- Kanti Bajpai on The Grand Tamasha podcast, hosted by Milan Vaishnav. 12. A Cricket Tragic Celebrates the Game -- Episode 201 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ramachandra Guha). 13. The Hedgehog And The Fox -- Isaiah Berlin. 14. Kishore Mahbubani on Amazon. 15. Imagined Communities -- Benedict Anderson. 16. Memories and Things -- Episode 195 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Aanchal Malhotra). 17. The Mahatma and the Poet — The Tagore-Gandhi debates. 18. From Heaven Lake -- Vikram Seth. 19. Finding India in China -- Anurag Viswanath. 20. Strangers across the Border -- Reshma Patil. Please subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! And check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

While excellent newsletters on specific themes within public policy already exist, this thought letter is about frameworks, mental models, and key ideas that will hopefully help you think about any public policy problem in imaginative ways.Audio narration by Ad-Auris.  India Policy Watch: प Se Pew. प Se Pluralism  Insights on burning policy issues in India- RSJI’m sure by now most of you would have seen the findings of the new Pew survey on religion in India. The report is here and the methodology is outlined here. The size of the sample chosen, the extensive field work done, the questionnaire used and the index devised to measure religious segregation are rigorous and thorough. This is a solid survey that should be basis for further academic work. It will be useful for Pew to publish the raw data soon for further research. What The Survey Says About UsMy first reaction reading the findings was here’s a giant Rorschach test for all political commentators in India. What you might conclude from the report will reveal more about you than about India. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Here’s a short summary of the findings if you found the report TL;DR:Indians believe they have religious freedom. Respecting all religions to them is an important marker to being truly Indian. It is also core to their own religious identity. Further they don’t see widespread religious discrimination around them.Indians value religious diversity. However, Indians of a religion see themselves as very different from others of a different religion. A few things therefore follow from here: Stopping religious intermarriages is a high priority for everyone.Substantial proportion of Indians (upwards of 30 percent) won’t like to have followers of other religions as neighbours.A majority of Indians have almost all their close friends from within their religious groups A majority of Hindus conflate their religious identity with their national identity. They believe it is important to be a Hindu to be a true Indian (64 percent).Caste is still an important factor for cultural reasons. People don’t prefer caste intermarriages as much as religious intermarriages. But a surprisingly low proportion of Indians (below 20 percent) feel there is a lot of discrimination against SCs, STs and other backward classes. Even those in the ‘lower’ castes don’t feel so. Yet, most Indians don’t make close friends outside of their caste.There’s almost a universal belief in God. Religion is central to the lives of Indians. There’s limited evidence of ‘secularisation’ of the society with economic progress in the last 30 years.South is quite different from the rest of the country especially Central (UP, Uttarakhand, MP) and North in almost every parameter. Interestingly, more people from South feel there is caste based discrimination in society than Indians from any other region. The 16-page report is rich on insights. Yet at its heart is that old feature about India that confounds those who study it. A paradox. Indians are tolerant of other religions but will have nothing to do with people belonging to them. Our affairs are our affairs. Your affairs are yours. Never the twain shall meet and we all live happily ever after. That’s pretty much it. Predictably people have used this paradox in the findings to push what they believe is their truth. To some the report is a vindication of their belief that India continues to be an open, tolerant society. To others the report is a proof Indians are intolerant in practice while preaching otherwise. And it is getting worse.Confirming My PriorsSo, why should I be left behind? Why shouldn’t I use the survey to reinforce my priors? Let me do that before I write about the political frame to use to interpret the survey. Here’s my list of truths that will from here on be served by the findings of this surveyThe central paradox the survey reports has been true for the Indian society for centuries. I don’t want to lapse into romanticism but this is why people of diverse ethnic and religious groups settled here over time while retaining their identities. And this is why large parts of India could be under non-Hindu rulers (Buddhist, Jain or Muslim) for long periods in history while still remaining a Hindu majority land. This idea of ‘our religious affairs are ours, yours are yours” became the credo of the rulers too. This is not to say there wasn’t any religious persecution or proselytising in India. There was. But it never lasted long or spread wide to change the composition of its society. As they say, this paradox is a feature, not a bug. We might have a Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb but the two rivers don’t end up merging into one. We live together, separately. This is the secret of our longevity. Allama Iqbal, once wrote“Yunan-o-Misr-o-Roma sab mit gaye jahan se ab tak magarHai baki naam-o-nishan hamara,Kuchh baat hai ke hasti mit’ti nahin hamariSadiyon raha hai dushman daur-e-zaman hamara”Translation: The cultures of ancient Greeks, Egyptians and Romans have disappeared from the face of this Earth. But we still draw our tradition from the civilisation that flourished around Indus. We weathered many assaults from invaders, yet we didn’t lose our essence. There must be something unique in us.To me, the ability to live with this paradox is the uniqueness that Iqbal was looking for. I quote Iqbal here on purpose. I think he was one among the few original political thinkers to have emerged from the East in the last many centuries.We are a conservative society with streaks of liberalism. Not the other way around as we are often led to believe in certain sections of media and commentariat. I use conservative and liberal in the classical sense. We like to conserve what we think is good in us. The overwhelming belief in the religious rituals at key life events that shows up in survey is an indication of this. As is the aversion to intermarriages of any kind. If it has lasted so long it must be good, is a core belief. Surely, economic progress and urbanisation are changing our behaviour in public sphere. But we remain steadfastly conservative in private. We spoke about pluralism in the edition last week. I’m sorry to be quoting myself but it is appropriate here: The construct (value pluralism), popularised by Isaiah Berlin, allows for two or more incommensurable values to be held at the same time by a polity each of which may be true and still be at odds with one another. For Berlin, these differences are unlike a titanic battle between the right and the wrong; instead they are about accepting contradictions and differences in values which then deliver diversity and strength to a society. In the sense that Berlin thought of pluralism, I’d argue, we are truly plural. We can hold the two seemingly conflicting ideas of religious tolerance and communal separation of identities at the same time and live with the contradictions. Those looking to change this pluralism instead of trying to understand it are toying with something precious. The survey is a valuable aid in understanding what constitutes the identity of an Indian. This is important for politics in India. After all, identity and ideology are the two axes on which Indian politics operates (Chhibber & Verma). The role of the state in recognising and advancing the rights of the minorities and the marginalised is an ideological dividing line. Some parties want a proactive role of the state. Others like the society to solve its issues. Electoral studies have shown a clear divide among voters on this which dictate their choices at the polls. The Constituent Assembly debated this vigorously and the Indian constitution leaned towards state taking a more proactive role on this. But the lurking suspicion all along was that the society wasn’t in favour of this. The survey results confirm those suspicions to some extent. Framework For Classifying Societies Over the past year, I have spent some time reading up on authoritarianism and the rise of majoritarian instinct in societies. I have come to develop a crude classification of a diverse society with one dominant identity group. There are a total of five positions a society could be in at a point in time:Tinderbox: This is the scenario just short of ethnic cleansing or civil war. There is visceral hatred for other communities in the society and there are historical grievances, real or imagined, that won’t permit even an uneasy truce. Things are on the brink and a mere spark is enough to engulf the society in flames either through state sponsored cleansing or riots.Under the thumb: There’s a simmering hate for the other in private but it is mostly couched in public. The other communities are seen as inferior and undeserving of an equal status. There is an institutionalised effort to suppress them or to show them their place. If this is achieved, there’s peace and stability but on the terms of majority community. Others will need to make peace with it. If they resist, it will take the society into the ‘tinderbox’ zone.Living together, separately: There’s a strongly held belief in equality of all communities. This is accepted by all and the public behaviour of people is consistent with this. But there’s a deeply held belief about the other communities being different from you. Therefore, there is no coming together of identities in the personal domain. There’s also an understanding that the dominant identity is the ‘true’ identity of the society and this is manifested in everyday practices though not enforced. We have discussed this scenario. This is what the survey tells about India of the present.Syncretism (later multiculturalism): The multiple identities blend into one another through kinship and social relationships to create a super identity that people hold dear over other identities. This is the American myth of being a melting pot blending immigrants and their cultures into one that originated from a play of the same name. Syncretism is the dominant cultural strand of such societies with willing efforts by everyone to forget, or diminish, collective histories, religion and culture. Over the last two decades, this idea has lost steam. It has given way to cultural pluralism or multiculturalism where the coming together of identities is achieved without the radical act of forgetting your past. Easier said than done.Global village: This is John Lennon’s Imagine territory. All the people sharing the world together as one happy family.If I were to generalise (further), I’d suggest through human history ‘tinderbox’ or ‘under the thumb’ have been the predominant positions of societies. The advent of liberal democracies in the west nudged these societies gradually into the ‘living together, separately’ position till around 1960s. The civil rights movement and the strengthening of the ‘left liberal’ platform meant a move towards syncretism. Further deepening of identity politics brought in multiculturalism to the fore. This is the ongoing tussle between conservative and liberal positions. Where should a society be? I’d say the natural state of a society is ‘tinderbox’ or ‘under the thumb’ positions. This is the Hobbesian view. The desire among liberals would be to edge it closer to ‘multiculturalism’ while the conservatives would like to be in the ‘living together, separately’ state. There’s some evidence to suggest India possibly has a longer history of being in the ‘living together, separately’ position than western nations. I say this despite caste oppression and violence being a stark reality in Indian society. Like the Pew survey shows even the members of the ‘lower’ caste don’t believe this discrimination exists as much as outsiders do. It is something I cannot get my head around. But like Naipaul wrote at the beginning of The Bend In The River: “The world is what it is” .The Constitution nudges India towards syncretism or multiculturalism but as the survey shows it is a bridge too far. It is easier to lapse to the ‘under the thumb’ position from where India is today than to transition into a syncretic society. In that sense, the political right has it easy. It can exploit the current position or dog-whistle for the less liberal position without losing electoral strength. The political left or the liberals have the more onerous task of not letting the society slide while nudging it forward towards a more liberal position. This is fraught with electoral risks. On identity, therefore, the right will hold sway. Of course, elections aren’t won only on identity. But it will help the right to keep it at the front and centre of all political debates. And we have seen they are good at it. Matsyanyaaya: AfghanistanBig fish eating small fish = Foreign Policy in action— Pranay KotasthaneMatsyanyaaya accurately describes what Afghanistan is heading towards. With the Resolute Support Mission (RSM) — a US-dominated support force — planning to complete the withdrawal process by September 11, another chapter in Afghanistan’s political journey is set to begin. How did we get Here?It’s easy to point out many mistakes with the benefit of hindsight but equally difficult to pinpoint the main cause behind a tragedy. The US military withdrawal too can be explained by multiple causes. Let’s trace the points of failure in reverse chronological order. Failure point 1: The Doha DebacleThe US signing an uncharacteristically submissive ‘peace’ agreement with the Taliban only brought more violence to Afghanistan. While the agreement went to great lengths to refer to the Taliban as ‘the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognized by the United States as a state and is known as the Taliban’, the semantic acrobatics fooled none. It left the state of Afghanistan demoralised and gave a boost to the Taliban and its backers in the Pakistani military-jihadi complex. Even back then, this newsletter argued that:“Essentially, the US has committed to a full-withdrawal over 14 months. But the Taliban has not conceded much at all. I do appreciate that a withdrawal was inevitable but the way in which this has happened, it seems to be another humiliating moment for the US.”And:“To give any serious consideration to guarantees by a terrorist group that it would not support other terrorist groups indicates incompetence, short-sightedness, or both.”— Misguided Talks With the Taliban Won’t Bring Peace to Afghanistan, TheWire.inThese fears have come true. The agreement has only increased Taliban’s preference for violence. The lesson they took away was that violence delivers more than negotiations. Failure point 2: The premature withdrawal of ISAF in 2014The withdrawal of foreign presence in Afghanistan, in fact, started way back, in 2010. By 2014, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) had transferred security provision at the district-level to an underprepared Afghanistan National Defence and Security Forces (ANDSF). Apart from the obvious problem of corruption, the ANDSF was hobbled not by financial resources, but by a lack of human capital, poor leadership, and lack of training. Meanwhile, a recent paper by Fetzer et al. shows that the Taliban took advantage of the vacuum created by this change of guard:“We find a significant, sharp, and timely decline of insurgent violence in the initial phase – the security transfer to Afghan forces; we find that this is followed by a significant surge in violence in the second phase – the actual physical withdrawal of foreign troops. We argue that this pattern is consistent with a signaling model, in which the insurgents reduce violence strategically to facilitate the foreign military withdrawal to capitalize on the reduced foreign military presence afterwards.”In other words, this is not the first time that a withdrawal is being bungled up in Afghanistan.Failure point 3: The Inability to See Through Pakistan’s Double-GameTo get to the original sin of the US strategy, one has to go back even further. Even after 9/11, the US refused to see through the Pakistani military-jihadi complex’s duplicitous game. Through some strange calculations, Pakistan became a US ally in the Global War on Terrorism, while also providing shelter to the likes of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban leadership. Meanwhile, Pakistan also succeeded in getting the US to believe that the latter had to solve Kashmir and Afghanistan together, lest the South Asian nuclear tinderbox catch fire. Over the last five years or so, the US has become much better in understanding Pakistan’s game. Yet, Afghanistan continues to bear the consequences of this strategic blunder.How might the Future pan out?What’s likely to happen next? To me, it seems that three scenarios are possible.Scenario 1: A Power Sharing Arrangement between Taliban and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan takes shapeThis is the scenario that most countries are hoping for, and a possibility that many Afghans have reconciled with. And yet, this scenario seems unlikely. Taliban bombing spree through the last twelve months in Kabul and the continued attacks on security forces in the northern provinces suggest that it has no inclination towards a detente. Buoyed by the US withdrawal and the MJC’s support, the Taliban is more likely to aim for a complete monopoly over the use of force.Scenarios 2a and 2b: The ANDSF defeats Taliban or vice versaAn outright military by either side also seems unlikely. The ANDSF doesn’t have the might to protect every inch of territory from the Taliban but it does have the capability to defend key urban centres. On the other hand, the Taliban is not a national movement and will face significant headwinds in provinces dominated by non-Pashtun forces. Scenario 3: Return of a Civil WarEven if Taliban were to take over Kabul and overthrow the State, it will face dogged resistance from regional warlords, who are already shaping up to make a comeback. Husain Haqqani, writing for The Hill suggests that even the US should embrace this approach:“That all is not lost in Afghanistan is exemplified by the willingness of Afghan civilians to form militias to resist the Taliban. The U.S. armed various Iraqi militias against ISIS, and there is no reason why a similar approach cannot be adopted in Afghanistan.Of all the three scenarios, it is this one that seems most likely at the moment. In other words, peace will remain elusive, US withdrawal or not.What About India?Regardless which scenario plays out, the rise of the Taliban does not augur well for the India in the short-term. Taliban’s victory reaffirms the Pakistani military-jihadi complex’s faith in using terrorism as state policy, a lesson it might then apply against India with renewed energy. Second, India’s economic and diplomatic footprint will reduce. Indeed, this process has already begun with the closure of two consulates in Herat and Jalalabad. Third, given the close ties of the LeT, JeM, and the Taliban, there is a tangible fear that these forces will regroup in eastern Afghanistan, a hotbed of anti-India activities in the past. This could allow Pakistan to use terrorism against India while claiming that it has driven terrorists out of Pakistan. All in all, India’s reluctance to play a bigger role in Afghanistan earlier has meant that it is left with far fewer options at hand. Engaging with some elements of Taliban might hold India in good stead if Scenarios 1 or 2b emerge. Nevertheless, given that Scenario 2 is more likely, India must prepare to help its friends, not just in the north but also to anti- Taliban forces in the south. India’s focus over the long-term should shift towards eliminating Pakistan-backed terrorist outfits’ relocation to eastern Afghanistan. The long-term hope for India is that as the US reduces its presence, Pakistan will be left with the unenviable task of managing the volatile situation in Afghanistan. It will be drawn into the seemingly irreconcilable differences in the Afghanistan polity. The Afghanistan-Pakistan rivalry is an enduring one. Even though a much smaller state, Afghanistan retains asymmetric capabilities to hurt Pakistan. The victory for the MJC might turn out to be a pyrrhic one. All said, hope is not a policy. For now, India must contend with a re-energised Pakistani military-jihadi complex.HomeWorkReading and listening recommendations on public policy matters[Podcast] “Religion and Identity in Contemporary India”: The Grand Tamasha podcast where Milan Vaishnav discusses the survey with Neha Sahgal from the Pew Research [Video] Paul Collier, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Oxford University on his book “Exodus: immigration and multiculturalism in the 21st century”. Get on the email list at publicpolicy.substack.com

A troubling surge in hate crimes and discrimination targeting Asian Americans has hit the headlines in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The violence has cast a newfound spotlight on the bigotry many Asian immigrant populations experience in the United States.While Indian Americans have not borne the brunt of the discrimination of the COVID era, the community is no stranger to prejudice. A new study by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Johns Hopkins-SAIS, and the University of Pennsylvania looks at the question of discrimination and the broader social realities of the Indian diaspora of the United States.Milan is a co-author of this study, and this week he sits down with his fellow co-authors—Sumitra Badrinathan, Devesh Kapur, and Jonathan Kay—to discuss the report's findings. They discuss the degree of everyday discrimination Indian Americans face, the connection between polarization in India and divisions in the United States, and the ways in which divides in the diaspora could affect U.S.-India relations. Plus, the group reflects on larger issues of identity, social networks, and belonging in the Indian diaspora.Episode notes:Sumitra Badrinathan, Devesh Kapur, Jonathan Kay, and Milan Vaishnav, “Social Realities of Indian Americans: Results From the 2020 Indian American Attitudes Survey”Grand Tamasha, “Sumitra Badrinathan and Devesh Kapur Decode the 2020 Indian American Vote”Grand Tamasha, “Sumitra Badrinathan and Devesh Kapur on How Indian Americans View India”Sumitra Badrinathan, Devesh Kapur, and Milan Vaishnav, “How Will Indian Americans Vote? Results From the 2020 Indian American Attitudes Survey”Sumitra Badrinathan, Devesh Kapur, and Milan Vaishnav, “How Do Indian Americans View India? Results From the 2020 Indian American Attitudes Survey”

The Indian economy has been going downhill for a decade now. How has Covid-19 affected it? Ila Patnaik joins Amit Varma in episode 227 of The Seen and the Unseen to take stock of where we are today, and where we go from here. Also check out: 1. Ila Patnaik at NIPFP, The Print, YouTube, Indian Express & Business Standard. 2. Asia Confronts the Impossible Trinity -- Ila Patnaik & Ajay Shah. 3. The Economics and Politics of Vaccines -- Episode 223 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ajay Shah). 4. The Tragedy of Our Farm Bills -- Episode 211 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ajay Shah). 5. The Art and Science of Economic Policy -- Episode 154 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vijay Kelkar & Ajay Shah). 6. In Service of the Republic -- Vijay Kelkar and Ajay Shah. 7. 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 Kaul.) 16. The Seen and the Unseen episodes on Demonetisation and GST. 17.  Most of Amit Varma’s writing on DeMon, collected in one Twitter thread.   18. Understanding Indian Healthcare -- Episode 225 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Karthik Muralidharan). 19. Women at Work -- Episode 132 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Namita Bhandare). 20. Past episodes of The Seen and the Unseen on Covid-19, featuring (in reverse chronological order) Ashwin Mahesh, Gautam Menon, Ajay Shah, Anirban Mahapatra, Ruben Mascarenhas, Chinmay Tumbe, Rukmini S, Vaidehi Tandel, Vivek Kaul, Anup Malani and Shruti Rajagopalan. 21. India’s Problem is Poverty, Not Inequality -- Amit Varma. 22. Anup Malani on India’s COVID Second Wave — Episode 13 of Season 5 of Grand Tamasha, hosted by Milan Vaishnav. 23. Seeing Like a State -- James C Scott. 24. Milton Friedman and PJ O'Rourke on Amazon. Please subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It’s free! And check out Amit’s online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

Despite major challenges, India’s multicultural democracy has thrived for more than 70 years. But can it survive Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu-nationalist agenda? Here to help us answer this question is Milan Vaishnav. Vaishnav is the director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is the author of When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics.

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 Democracy -- Episode 160 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ashwin Mahesh). 5. Cities and Citizens -- Episode 198 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ashwin Mahesh). 6. Urban Governance in India -- Episode 31 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan). 7. A Scientist in the Kitchen -- Episode 204 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Krish Ashok). 8. In Service of the Republic -- Vijay Kelkar and Ajay Shah. 9. The Art and Science of Economic Policy -- Episode 154 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vijay Kelkar and Ajay Shah). 10. The Ultimate Resource -- Julian L Simon. 11. Population Is Not a Problem, but Our Greatest Strength -- Amit Varma. 12. Do Firms Underinvest in Long-term Research? -- Eric Budish, Benjamin N Roin & Heidi Williams. 13. Fortress and Frontier in American Health Care -- Robert F Graboyes. 14. Patents are Not the Problem! -- Alex Tabarrok. 15. The Tabarrok Curve. 16. The O-Ring Theory of Economic Development -- Michael Kremer. 17. Why Abhijit Banerjee Had to Go Abroad to Achieve Glory -- Amit Varma. 18. That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen -- Frédéric Bastiat. 19. Lancelot Pinto's reply (about Asthma patients) to Amit Varma's tweet. 20. Demystifying GDP -- Episode 130 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rajeswari Sengupta). And now, for some foundational papers: 21. Which doctor? Combining vignettes and item response to measure clinical competence (2005)-- Jishnu Das & Jeffrey Hammer. 22. Money for nothing: The dire straits of medical practice in Delhi, India (2007) -- Jishnu Das and Jeffrey Hammer. 23. Is There a Doctor in the House?: Medical Worker Absence in India (2011) -- Karthik Muralidharanan, Nazmul Chaudhury, Jeffrey Hammer, Michael Kremer & F Halsey Rogers. 24. Quality and Accountability in Health Care Delivery: Audit-Study Evidence from Primary Care in India (2016) -- Jishnu Das, Alaka Holla, Aakash Mohpal & Karthik Muralidharan. 25. The impact of training informal health care providers in India: A randomized controlled trial (2016)-- Jishnu Das, Abhijit Chowdhury, Reshmaan Hussam & Abhihit Banerjee. 26. Two Indias: The structure of primary health care markets in rural Indian villages with implications for policy (2020)-- Jishnu Das, Benjamin Daniels, Monisha Ashok, Eun-Young Shim & Karthik Muralidharan. 27. Augmenting State Capacity for Child Development: Experimental Evidence from India -- Alejandro J. Ganimian, Karthik Muralidharan & Christopher R Walters. Back to regular links to stuff discussed in the episode! 28. The Girl From Haryana -- Amit Varma (on Sakshi Malik and women wrestlers in Haryana). 29. The IndiaSpend interview of Rajani Bhat & Lancelot Pinto by Govindraj Ethiraj, (Also in Hindi.) 30. Beware of Quacks. Alternative Medicine is Injurious to Health -- Amit Varma. 31. Homeopathic Faith -- Amit Varma. 32. Deep Medicine -- Eric Topol. 33. The Market for Lemons -- George Akerloff. 34. The Medical Council of India -- Episode 8 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Pavan Srinath). 35. The Life and Times of Amit Varma -- Amit Varma's appearance on The Grand Tamasha, hosted by Milan Vaishnav. 36. Over 1000 teachers on UP panchayat poll duty died of Covid-19 -- Deccan Herald. 37. India's Power Elite: Class, Caste and Cultural Revolution -- Sanjaya Baru. 38. What Have We Done With Our Independence? -- Episode 186 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Pratap Bhanu Mehta). 39. The BJP Before Modi -- Episode 202 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vinay Sitapati). 40. Muhafiz -- Ismail Merchant's adaptation of Anita Desai's In Custody. 41. Aaj Ek Harf Ko Phir Dhundhta Phirta Hain Khayal -- from Muhafiz. 42. Kabhi Khud Pe Kabhi Haalaat Pe Rona Aaya -- from Hum Dono. This episode is sponsored by CTQ Compounds. Check out The Daily Reader, FutureStack and The Social Capital Compound. Use the code UNSEEN for Rs 2500 off. Please subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It’s free! And check out Amit’s online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

How do we make sense of the madness around us? Well, there's the rational, scientific approach: gather data, build models, keep refining and iterating, get closer and closer to the truth. Gautam Menon joins Amit Varma in episode 224 of The Seen and the Unseen to describe the exciting field of biophysics and his work in building mathematical models of infectious diseases -- especially Covid-19. Also discussed: the joys of science, and how Indian music is the best embodiment of the idea of India. Kumar Gandharva FTW! Also check out: 1. Gautam Menon on Twitter, Ashoka, IMSc and Google Scholar. 2. The Novel Coronavirus Variants and India’s Uncertain Future -- Gautam Menon. 3. How Do Scientists Model the Spread of an Infectious Disease? -- Gautam Menon. 4. Control, Consensus, Chaos: The Global Response to the Pandemic -- A talk on YouTube by Sheila Jasanoff. 5. The Big Question: Can India Find a Way Out of Its Covid Nightmare? -- Shahid Jameel interviewed by Bobby Ghosh. 6. Past episodes of The Seen and the Unseen on Covid-19, featuring (in reverse chronological order) Ajay Shah, Anirban Mahapatra, Ruben Mascarenhas, Chinmay Tumbe, Rukmini S, Vaidehi Tandel, Vivek Kaul, Anup Malani and Shruti Rajagopalan. 7. My Family and Other Animals -- Gerald Durrell. 8. A Cricket Tragic Celebrates the Game -- Episode 201 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ramachandra Guha). 9. Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction -- Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner. 10. We Are All Gamblers -- Amit Varma. 11. Range Rover -- Amit Varma's column on poker for the Economic Times. 12. Demystifying GDP -- Episode 130 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rajeswari Sengupta). 13. The New World Upon Us -- Amit Varma (on Alpha Zero). 14. Why Does the Pandemic Seem to Be Hitting Some Countries Harder Than Others? -- Siddhartha Mukherjee. 15. Episode Zero: The preview episode of The Seen and the Unseen. 16. Indian Scientists’ Response to CoViD-19. 17. A state-level epidemiological model for India: INDSCI-SIM. 18. Anup Malani on India’s COVID Second Wave -- Episode 13 of Season 5 of Grand Tamasha, hosted by Milan Vaishnav. Books recommended by Gautam Menon 1. Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic -- David Quammen. 2. The Rules of Contagion: Why Things Spread - and Why They Stop -- Adam Kucharski. 3, Early Indians: The Story of Our Ancestors and Where We Came From -- Tony Joseph, who also appeared on Seen/Unseen. 4. Lilavati's Daughters -- Edited by Rohini Godbole and Ram Ramaswamy, 5. The Man Who Knew Infinity -- Robert Kanigel. 6. Never Let Me Go -- Kazuo Ishiguro. 7. Half of a Yellow Sun -- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. This episode is sponsored by The Great Courses Plus. Check out their course, Mysteries of the Microscopic World, taught by Bruce E Fleury. For free unlimited access for a month, click here. Please subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It’s free! And check out Amit’s online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

The Biden administration has been in office for just a little over two months but India has already emerged as an important foreign policy priority for the president and his new team. But what do the United States and India seek to do together? What is the significance of this month’s leadership-level Quad summit? And, at a time when democracy is under stress globally, how are these two democracies managing their own domestic challenges at home?   To discuss these questions and more, the Indian Ambassador to the United States Taranjit Singh Sandhu joins Milan on the podcast this week. There are few people in the Indian government who have more experience living and working in the United States as Ambassador Sandhu, who is on his third tour of duty in Washington.   Ambassador Sandhu and Milan discuss how U.S.-India relations have evolved since the former’s first posting in Washington in 1997 and what the future might hold for the bilateral partnership. Plus, the two discuss democracy in India, the importance of the Quad, and the state of U.S.-India economic ties.  Episode notes: Joe Biden, Narendra Modi, Scott Morrison and Yoshihide Suga, “Our four nations are committed to a free, open, secure and prosperous Indo-Pacific region,” Washington PostMilan Vaishnav, “The Decay of Indian Democracy,” Foreign AffairsSumitra Badrinathan, Devesh Kapur, and Milan Vaishnav, “How Do Indian Americans View India? Results From the 2020 Indian American Attitudes Survey,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 

In this episode, Shruti speaks with Milan Vaishnav about a report, How Do Indian Americans View India?, in which he and his co-authors (Sumitra Badrinathan and Devesh Kapur) conducted a survey about the political beliefs of Indian Americans. They discuss the results of the survey and talk about how the Indian American community might change in the future. Vaishnav is the director and senior fellow of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is also the author of When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics (Yale University Press and HarperCollins India, 2017). His research focuses on Indian political economy, examining issues such as corruption and governance, state capacity, distributive politics and electoral behavior. Follow Shruti on Twitter: https://twitter.com/srajagopalan  Follow Milan on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MilanV  For a transcript of this conversation and helpful links, visit DiscourseMagazine.com.

Joining us for this special episode today is Milan Vaishnav, director of the South Asia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Mr Vaishnav's research is centred around the Political Economy of India, for instance, state capacity, corruption, governance and electoral behaviour. He is the author of When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics, and has edited a number of books. Milan is also an adjunct professor at the Edmund a Walsh School of foreign service at Georgetown University. Today he joins us to discuss the results of a survey on how Indian Americans view India. Hosted by Sriram Lakshman, U.S. Correspondent, The Hindu

Indian Americans are now the second-largest immigrant group in the United States. Their growing political influence and their courtship by the Indian government raises important—as yet unanswered—questions. How do Indians in America regard India, and how do they remain connected to developments there? What are their attitudes toward Indian politics and changes underway in their ancestral homeland? And what role, if any, do they envision for the United States in engaging with India? This week on the show, Milan sits down with his co-authors Sumitra Badrinathan and Devesh Kapur to unveil the findings of a new report they’ve authored on how Indian Americans view India. Milan, Sumitra, and Devesh discuss what their new data tells us about Indian Americans remain connected to their ancestral homeland, how they assess the performance of Narendra Modi, and how they view India’s democratic trajectory. Plus, the trio talk about what a more divided diaspora might mean for U.S.-India relations and India’s foreign policy in the years to come. Episode notes:Grand Tamasha, “Sumitra Badrinathan and Devesh Kapur Decode the 2020 Indian American Vote”Grand Tamasha, “Deep in the Heart of Texas: Inside ‘Howdy, Modi!’”Sumitra Badrinathan, Devesh Kapur, and Milan Vaishnav, “How Will Indian Americans Vote? Results From the 2020 Indian American Attitudes Survey”Sanjoy Chakravorty, Devesh Kapur, and Nirvikar Singh, “The Other One Percent: Indians in America.”

Welcome back to the Hopkins Podcast on Foreign Affairs, the entirely student-run podcast out of Johns Hopkins University. In this episode, we dive into the topic of Hindu nationalism — how has it affected Indian politics, society, and foreign policy? To help us answer these questions, today on the podcast we are joined by Dr. … Continue reading The Rise of Hindu Nationalism with Dr. Milan Vaishnav

Ajume H. Wingo, Christophe Jaffrelot, Gideon Levy, Makarand R. Paranjape and Mukulika Banerjee in conversation with Milan Vaishnav. While the notion of democracy had its birth in Ancient Greece and gained currency in the 18th century revolutions in France and America, it was in the 20th century that it became a global aspiration. Yet each nation that professes allegiance to democracy has a shifting definition of what the concept entails. A distinguished panel of speakers examine the constitutional safeguards as well as the civic attitudes that define the critical parameters of democractic process. Christophe Jaffrelot's recent publications include India’s First Dictatorship: The Emergency, 1975-1977, The Majoritarian State: How Hindu Nationalism is Changing India, and Dr. Ambedkar and Untouchability: Analysing and Fighting Caste. Ajume H. Wingo has published widely on liberal democratic philosophy and politics, particularly on institutional building in places where there are non-liberal democratic or illegitimate political institutions. He is the author of Veil Politics in Liberal Democratic States. Gideon Levy is a journalist and author of The Punishment of Gaza. Mukulika Banerjee was the inaugural director of the LSE South Asia Center and is associate professor in social anthropology at the London School of Economics. Her books include Why India Votes?, and the recently completed monograph, Cultivating Democracy: Politics and Citizenship in Agrarian India. Milan Vaishnav is a senior fellow and director of the South Asia Programme at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and is the author of When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics. A crucial conversation on the pulse and vital parameters of democracy around the world. This episode is the audio version of a live online session from #JLFColorado2020.

On today's episode of World Review from the New Statesman, Emily Tamkin in Washington DC and Ido Vock in Berlin are joined by Milan Vaishnav, director of the South Asia programme at the Carnegie Endowment and author of When Crime Pays. They discuss Indian-American voting patterns, the Biden administration's possible relations with South Asia, and recent elections in Bihar.Send us your You Ask Us questions at youaskus.co.uk.If you haven't signed up yet, visit newstatesman.com/subscribe to purchase your subscription. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

How did the Indian-Americans vote in the 2020 Presidential Elections? Was the nomination of Kamala Harris a decisive factor? How different will India-US ties be in a Biden administration? How did the Narendra Modi administration in India handle the COVID-19 pandemic? What are some of the most grave challenges being confronted by the Indian democractic system? In this episode, we explore all these fascinating questions with one of the most well-reputed political economists of India – Dr. Milan Vaishnav, a Senior Fellow and the director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington D.C. His primary research focuses on issues such as corruption and governance, state capacity, distributive politics, and electoral behavior. He is the author of the book "When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics" and is the host of the podcast "Grand Tamasha." Being an Indian-American himself, Dr. Vaishnav offers unique insights into the electoral behaviour of the Indian-Americans, a group that became visibly more important in the elections this year. We begin the interview with unpacking the Indian-American vote in the 2020 Elections. Dr. Vaishnav explains the results of the India-Americans Attitude Survey, a survey conducted by Dr. Vaishnav and his colleagues to understand the electoral behaviour and preferences of the India-American voters. The survey, one the only ones that focuses on the Indian-Ameican community, revealed that much like other voters, Indian-Americans care about basic domestic issues - economy and healthcare. At the same time, the state of India-US relations was an insignificant factor in determining their electoral choice. Countering the general perception of Indian-Americans being overwhelmingly supportive of Trump and the Republiucan Party, Dr. Vaishnav argues that the community is predominantly Democratic. He highlights that the Trump-Modi bonhomie did not cause a shift in the choices of the Indian-Americans. Talking about the state of the India-US ties, Dr. Vaishnav emphasized that under the Trump administration, the security and diplomatic cooperation between the two nations was tremendously expanded, while the economic cooperation remained stagnant. A Biden administration is expected to continue the growing security partnership, one that surely will be invigorated with the presence of an Indian-American Vice President. Dr. Vaishnav also delves deep into the successes of the Modi administration in handling the pandemic, amid growing concerns about the state of the Indian economy. He also sheds light on one of the most intriguing questions for Indian political economists: Why is Modi so popular despite widespread concerns over the Indian economy and its sovereignty? We hope that you enjoy listening to an interview about a country and a community that continues to fascinate and intrigue many. It is our hope that through these series of interviews, we continue to demystify India, Indian-Americans, and the 2020 Elections for our listeners!

Last week, the world saw two highly anticipated elections come to an end. The never-ending 2020 U.S. presidential election finally came to a close—with Democratic challenger and former Vice President Joe Biden capturing the White House. On the other side of the world, tens of millions of voters went to the polls in the north Indian state of Bihar. The election produced a narrow victory for the ruling National Democratic Alliance—a coalition principally made of the Bharatiya Janata Party and its regional ally, the Janata Dal (United) Joining Milan to talk all things elections are Grand Tamasha news-round up regulars Sadanand Dhume of the American Enterprise Institute and theWall Street Journal and Tanvi Madan of the Brookings Institution. The trio discuss the key lessons of the U.S. 2020 election, the implications for India, and what the election tells us about the configuration of power in the United States come January 2021. Milan, Sadanand, and Tanvi also discuss the Bihar elections, what they say about Modi’s popularity, and the trials and tribulations of the political opposition. Episode notes:“Donald Trump Mashup”Sadanand Dhume, “Will Biden Say Howdy Modi?”Milan Vaishnav, “US: The end of a corrosive chapter”Tanvi Madan, “For Delhi, US election result is consequential in terms of how the next administration approaches China”

We just witnessed the conclusion of two key elections – the United States Presidential race and Bihar State Assembly Elections closer to home. The results in both elections will have huge repercussions for India. The incoming US President has wide discretion in setting the tone of foreign policy and signals a dramatic shift from the past 4 years, the victor, whereas the NDA's victory in Bihar would come as a relief to PM Modi as he approaches the midway point of his second term. Join Abhishek and Rishika as they talk to Milan Vaishnav, Senior Fellow and Director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, host of the Grand Tamasha podcast, political economy expert, and columnist at the Hindustan Times, as they discuss what a potential Biden presidency means for India, populism in Bihar and Washington, Indian American voter attitudes and whether Trump-ism is here to stay! Find Milan Vaishnav's work on his website, LinkedIn, or Twitter. Check out the YIF Election Tracker here: https://youngindia.foundation/election-calendar Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/t0USnqdEucA Show Notes – Indian-American Voter Attitudes Survey: https://carnegieendowment.org/2020/10/14/how-will-indian-americans-vote-results-from-2020-indian-american-attitudes-survey-pub-82929 U.S Government Branches: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuFR5XBYLfU President Obama on Prime Minister Modi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzS9AWO2phE

This newsletter is really a public policy thought-letter. While excellent newsletters on specific themes within public policy already exist, this thought-letter is about frameworks, mental models, and key ideas that will hopefully help you think about any public policy problem in imaginative ways. It seeks to answer just one question: how do I think about a particular public policy problem/solution?Welcome to the mid-week edition in which we write essays on a public policy theme. The usual public policy review comes out on weekends.PS: If you enjoy listening instead of reading, we have this edition available as an audio narration on all podcasting platforms courtesy the good folks at Ad-Auris. If you have any feedback, please send it to us. - RSJThe Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in partnership with the research and analytics firm YouGov conducted the Indian American Attitudes Survey (IAAS) between September 1 and September 20, 2020. Sumitra Badrinathan, Devesh Kapur and Milan Vaishnav now have a paper titled ‘How Will Indian Americans Vote’ based on this survey that has a few interesting conclusions.  The study is useful to test a few hypotheses that have emerged in India in the past few years. These include:Indian Americans have nudged closer to the Republicans on the back of Trump-Modi chemistry. The enthusiasm for PM Modi among NRIs and among BJP supporters in India for Trump has created a positive self-reinforcing cycle for both. Most Indian Americans have turned conservative over time going by their stand on domestic issues in India. This is drawn from the views of many vocal Indian Americans on social media platforms and the anecdotal evidence of friends and family on WhatsApp groups supporting the conservative or majoritarian stance of this regime. This has led many to assume a large defection of Indian Americans from the Democratic camp that leans liberal. There have been multiple instances of the Democratic leadership (Biden, Harris, Warren, Jaypal et al) being critical of India’s position on various core issues like revocation of Article 370, the clampdown in Kashmir and the handling of CAA protests. There’s been a feeling the Democrats will lose support among Indian Americans because of this. Lastly, Indian Americans are seen as a model minority that’s highly educated, law-abiding with twice the national average household income. Will the typical minority issues like immigration, race and identity politics animate them like they do for other minorities?The key conclusions from the study are summarised below. It is quite an eye-opener when you consider the hypotheses outlined above. Indian Americans remain solidly with the Democratic Party. Recent anecdotal narratives notwithstanding, there is scant evidence that Democratic voters are defecting toward Trump and the Republican Party. Seventy-two percent of registered Indian American voters plan to vote for Biden and 22 percent intend to vote for Trump in the 2020 November election.Indian Americans do not consider U.S.-India relations to be one of the principal determinants of their vote choice in this election. The economy and healthcare are the two most important issues influencing the vote choice of Indian Americans, although supporters of the two parties differ on key priorities. “Kitchen table” issues dominate over foreign policy concerns. Indian Americans exhibit signs of significant political polarization. Just like the wider voting public, Republican and Democratic Indian American voters are politically polarized and hold markedly negative views of the opposing party and divergent positions on several contentious policy issues—from immigration to law enforcement.U.S.-born Indian American citizens tilt left compared to foreign-born citizens. While both U.S.-born and naturalized Indian Americans favor the Democratic Party, this tilt is more pronounced for U.S.-born Indian Americans. Political participation by naturalized citizens is more muted, however, manifesting in lower rates of voter turnout and weaker partisan identification.Harris has mobilized Indian Americans, especially Democrats. Harris’s vice presidential candidacy has galvanized a large section of the Indian American community to turn out to vote. On balance, while the Harris pick might not change large numbers of votes (given the community’s historic Democratic orientation), her candidacy is linked to greater enthusiasm for the Democratic ticket.A large section of Indian Americans view the Republican Party as unwelcoming. Indian Americans refrain from identifying with the Republican Party due, in part, to a perception that the party is intolerant of minorities and overly influenced by Christian evangelicalism. Those who identify as Republicans are primarily moved to do so because of economic policy differences with the Democrats—with particularly marked differences regarding healthcare. Political beliefs seep into perceptions of U.S.-India bilateral relations. Indian Americans believe Democrats do a better job of managing U.S.-India ties by a considerable margin while Republicans hold more favorable views of Modi. Bottom line: That nationalist, majoritarian NRI friend on your WhatsApp group finds virtues in liberalism while making their electoral choice.    Voter Apathy ≠ Political Apathy— Pranay KotasthaneIndian governments’ don’t do well on law and order, education, and public health. And yet there’s wide support whenever Indian governments and political parties promise new schemes to accomplish even grander things. What explains this paradox?I have two hypotheses.One, the political enthusiasm hypothesis. This is the reverse of the voter apathy idea. It means that the voters who have a disproportionate influence on setting the political agenda (read middle-income voters) were never apathetic to politics but only to government provision of public services.They became apathetic towards government provision of public services because rising incomes meant that they could substitute the missing services with their own private solutions. Having done that, politics became a means to achieve other outcomes — those unrelated to market failures. Voting apathy never meant political apathy.See this from the Exit, Voice, Loyalty thesis. Loyalty makes exit difficult. So the median Indian voter never really exited from Indian politics and instead chose to voice concerns unrelated to government provision of basic services.My second hypothesis is more charitable to the Indian voter. I call it the expanding moral arc thesis. It is based on the book The Moral Arc by Michael Shermer. The book argues that the moral arc is continuously expanding because of science and reason.The key insight for us is that Indian politics is being played out in the background of this increasing moral arc. This makes the Indian developmental challenge possibly more moral but definitely less fast. The inequality narrative in India is a reflection of this expanding moral arc. The government’s role in India is seen as a moral project, not a utilitarian one and hence we are okay to give its record on fixing market failures a free pass.(Originally published at express.thinkpragati.com on April 2, 2019)HomeWorkReading and listening recommendations on public policy matters[Article] Systematic Inequality and American Democracy by Danyelle Solomon, Connor Maxwell, and Abril Castro published by the Centre for American Progress[Article] David Brooks on social trust and moral convulsions in America[Video] This discussion on Raghuram Rajan’s The Third Pillar: How Markets and the State Leave the Community Behind is worth a watch. It will make you think harder about the distinct roles of the state, markets, and the community. Get on the email list at publicpolicy.substack.com

Milan Vaishnav joins host Pavan Srinath to talk about the rise of Indian Americans in US politics. They discuss how Indian Americans might vote in the upcoming 2020 US Presidential Elections, political views across the community, and what issues matter most to them.  Milan Vaishnav is Director and Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C. Milan is one of three authors of a new report on how Indian Americans are likely to vote in upcoming elections. He also hosts The Grand Tamasha Podcast. BIC Talks is brought to you by the Bangalore International Centre. Visit the BIC website for show notes, links and more information about the guests. 

Although Indians in America account for less than one percent of registered voters, this election season they have been actively wooed by both Democrats and Republicans in an unprecedented manner. Thanks to the increasing political influence of Indian Americans, the camaraderie between Donald Trump and Narendra Modi, and the addition of Kamala Harris to the Democratic ticket, there is a sense that this community’s votes are very much at play. Today, Milan speaks with Sumitra Badrinathan (University of Pennsylvania) and Devesh Kapur (Johns Hopkins-SAIS) about the findings of a brand new survey--the Indian American Attitudes Survey (IAAS)-- that sheds light on the political attitudes of Indian Americans (full disclosure: Milan is a co-author of the new study). Milan, Devesh and Sumitra discuss why Indian Americans, contrary to media reports, remain solidly with the Democratic Party and why they are overwhelmingly concerned with kitchen table issues, rather than foreign policy concerns such as U.S.-India relations. They also talk about the impact of Kamala Harris, partisan polarization among Indians in America, and why Republicans face an uphill climb to win over Indian American voters. Notes:Sumitra Badrinathan, Devesh Kapur, and Milan Vaishnav, “How Will Indian Americans Vote? Results From the 2020 Indian American Attitudes Survey”Sanjoy Chakravorty, Devesh Kapur, and Nirvikar Singh, “The Other One Percent: Indians in America”Sara Sadhwani, “Kamala Harris is likely to bring in Indian American voters, this research finds”Devesh Kapur, “Diaspora, Development, and Democracy: The Domestic Impact of International Migration from India”

As India completes 73 years, it's worth taking stock of our journey so far. Pratap Bhanu Mehta joins Amit Varma in episode 186 of The Seen and the Unseen, an Independence Day Special that takes a discursive look at the political and social currents that made us what we are. Also check out: 1. Pratap Bhanu Mehta's writing in the Indian Express. 2. The Burden of Democracy -- Pratap Bhanu Mehta. 3. On Politics -- Alan Ryan. 4. The Making of Modern Liberalism -- Alan Ryan. 5. Human Dignity -- George Kateb. 6. Patriotism and Other Mistakes -- George Kateb. 7. Conversation and Society -- Episode 182 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Russ Roberts). 8. Fixing Indian Education -- Episode 185 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Karthik Muralidharan). 9. The Three Languages of Politics -- Arnold Kling. 10. The Dark Side of Democracy -- Michael Mann. 11. The Emergency -- Episode 103 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Gyan Prakash). 12. The Ideas of our Constitution -- Episode 164 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Madhav Khosla). 13. The Facts Do Not Matter -- Amit Varma. 14. A Meditation on Form -- Amit Varma. 15. An Indian Political Life: Charan Singh and Congress Politics, 1937 to 1961 -- Paul R Brass. 16. Taking Stock of Our Republic -- Episode 157 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ram Guha). 17. Who Broke Our Republic? -- Episode 163 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Kapil Komireddi) 18. Participatory Democracy -- Episode 160 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ashwin Mahesh.) 19. A Life in Indian Politics -- Episode 149 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Jayaprakash Narayan). 20. Kashmir and Article 370 -- Episode 134 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Srinath Raghavan). 21. The Citizenship Battles -- Episode 152 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Srinath Raghavan). 22. Indian Society: The Last 30 Years -- Episode 137 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Santosh Desai). 23. The Gita Press and Hindu Nationalism -- Episode 139 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Akshaya Mukul). 24. Political Ideology in India -- Episode 131 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rahul Verma). 25. Religion and Ideology in Indian Society -- Episode 124 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Suyash Rai). 26. The Intellectual Foundations of Hindutva -- Episode 115 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Aakar Patel). 27. Crime in Indian Politics -- Episode 114 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Milan Vaishnav). Do also check out Amit's writing course, The Art of Clear Writing, and subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter.

The Indian real estate market is an unusual beast: there is as much politics in it as economics. Amit Varma and Vivek Kaul get together in episode 7 of Econ Central to dissect its innards. Also discussed: why Joe Biden is like Rahul Roy, and MCBC gaalis reflect a toxic mindset and should be abandoned by us.   Also check out: 1. The Mystery of Real Estate Prices -- Episode 30 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vivek Kaul). 2. India's Unreal Estate -- Vivek Kaul for Newslaundry. 3. Why car sales are falling but not realty prices -- Vivek Kaul. 4. Narendra Modi Takes a Great Leap Backwards -- Amit Varma on DeMon. 5. Quid Pro Quo: Builders, Politicians, and Election Finance in India -- Devesh Kapur & Milan Vasihnav. 6. Crime in Indian Politics -- Episode 114 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Milan Vaishnav). 7. Overdraft: Saving the Indian Saver -- Urjit Patel. 8. The episodes of The Seen and the Unseen on Rent Control and FSI with Alex Tabarrok. 9. Twelve Dream Reforms -- Episode 138 of The Seen and the Unseen (Shruti Rajagopalan, Rajeswari Sengupta & Vivek Kaul). 10. The Market for 'Lemons' -- George Akerlof. 11. Rethinking Work, Home and Office -- Ajay Shah. 12. Rahul Roy and the Voting Mechanics of Bigg Boss -- Amit Varma. 13. Joe Biden’s Vice-Presidential Pick: Who’s in the Running? -- Alexander Burns in the New York Times.14. Aashiqui (1990) -- Rahul Roy's debut film. 15. Pyaar Ka Saaya -- Produced by B Subhash and starring Rahul Roy. 16. That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen -- Frédéric Bastiat. 17. The Law --  Frédéric Bastiat. 18. Conversation and Society -- Episode 182 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Russ Roberts). 19. Economics in One Lesson -- Henry Hazlitt. 20. Population Is Not a Problem, but Our Greatest Strength -- Amit Varma. 21. The Hype Around the Stock Market -- Episode 6 of Econ Central. 22. Max Roser's Tweet on the decline in smoking rates. Do check out Amit's course, The Art of Clear Writing, as well as Vivek's books, including Bad Money.

Milan Vaishnav, senior fellow and director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, discusses the effect of COVID-19 on the indian economy and political system.

Over the years, one could fill a small library with books that have been written about how Indian democracy survived against all of the odds—inequality, poverty, a difficult neighborhood, and a sprawling geography. Somewhat surprisingly, however, very few books have been written about the role the military has played—or not played—as it were. Many of India’s neighbors have experienced military coups and some, like Pakistan, have been unable to shake near-constant military involvement in daily political life.And yet, all is not well when it comes to civil-military relations in India. This is the argument of Milan’s guest on the show today, Anit Mukherjee, who is the author of the brand new book, The Absent Dialogue: Politicians, Bureaucrats, and the Military in India. Anit is a professor at the Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore who also just so happens to be a former officer in the Indian Army. Milan and Anit chat about civil-military relations in India, its impact on defense capabilities, and the prospect of reform under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

This week on Grand Tamasha, Milan sits down with the writer Aatish Taseer, an award-winning author who writes extensively about India and South Asia in his growing body of fiction and non-fiction writing. His most recent book, “The Twice Born: Life and Death on the Ganges,” is part travelogue, part social commentary, and part autobiographical journey of self-discovery set in the city of Benares, the spiritual capital of Hinduism.Two weeks ago, Aatish received notice that the government of India was revoking his status as an Overseas Citizen of India—known as OCI. The government alleges that Aatish concealed the fact that his father, the late Salman Taseer, was a Pakistani citizen (a violation of OCI regulations). Aatish was born in London, is now a permanent resident of the United States, but was raised in New Delhi, where he spent his formative years. Milan speaks with Aatish about his life, his reporting, and the latest developments around his citizenship status.

There is arguably no more consequential generation to the future of India than today’s millennials. The median age of India’s population is just 28 years old. This means that Indian millennials number around 400 million--roughly one-third of the entire Indian population. By the year 2021, two-thirds of India’s population will be within the working age of 20-35 years. It is no exaggeration to say that the economic, political, and social views of India’s youth will have a profound effect on the country’s future trajectory.This week on the show, Milan speaks with Vivan Marwaha, who is both an Indian millennial and the author of a new book on Indian millennials—What Millennials Want—that will be published by Penguin Random House India in 2020. Milan and Vivan talk about India’s much-ballyhooed “demographic dividend,” whether there is an Indian Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez waiting in the wings, and why India’s youth are bullish on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership.

Milan talks to Tanvi Madan of the Brookings Institution about the BJP's victory in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. We'll be back in your feed at our regularly scheduled time next week.

First, the new national political editor of the Hindustan Times Sunetra Choudhury joins Milan to round up this week’s news. Sunetra reflects on some of her key takeaways from the 2019 campaign and how, if at all, this year’s election broke new ground. The two also discuss the recent electoral turmoil in West Bengal and the regional opposition’s backroom discussions over a post-election “Federal Front.” Then, Milan sits down with Gilles Verniers, assistant professor of political science and Ashoka University and co-director of the Trivedi Centre for Political Data. If you’ve encountered insightful, data-driven election analyses this cycle, chances are Gilles or his colleagues had something to do with it. Milan and Gilles discuss how 2019 has stacked up in terms of women candidates and the nomination of incumbents. The two end their conversation by reviewing Gilles’ list of “states to watch” on May 23 as the results come in.

This is a rebroadcast of Episode 69 of The Pragati Podcast with Pavan Srinath. Milan Vaishnav joins host Pavan Srinath on Episode 69 of The Pragati Podcast to explain elections, money and crime in India. Milan is a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the author of When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics. The book recently won the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize for Best Non-Fiction Book of 2017 If you have any questions for Milan or the hosts, write in to podcast@thinkpragati.com and have it answered in a future episode. If you are interested in public policy or international relations, check out courses by the Takshashila Institution at takshashila.org.in/education. Several courses are starting in January 2019. Follow Pragati on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thinkpragati Follow Pragati on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thinkpragati/ You can listen to this show and other awesome shows on the IVM Podcasts app on Android: https://ivm.today/android or iOS: https://ivm.today/ios, or any other podcast app. You can check out our website at http://www.ivmpodcasts.com/

This week on the Grand Tamasha podcast, Neelanjan Sircar of Ashoka University and the Centre for Policy Research joins Milan for our weekly news roundup. The two discuss Neelanjan’s recent column on the epic electoral battle in the crucial heartland state of Uttar Pradesh, whose 80 seats hold the key to the next government. Milan and Neelanjan also discuss whether recent state election results are a good barometer for how those states will behave in national elections. In this week’s interview segment, Milan speaks with Niranjan Rajadhyaksha, Research Director and Senior Fellow at the IDFC Institute in Mumbai and author of the “Café Economics” column in Mint. Niranjan is one of India’s most thoughtful economists and, in this conversation, he provides his big picture assessment of the Modi economy after five years. Milan and Niranjan discuss India’s “two-speed economy,” the banking crisis, India’s export opportunity amidst the brewing U.S.-China trade spat, and the reform agenda for the next government. Niranjan also offers his two-prong rule of thumb for making sense of India’s contested economic data.

Milan chats with Indian-American comedian Hasan Minhaj, star of the hit Netflix show, Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj. In the season finale of Patriot Act, which aired on March 17, Minhaj turned his focus to the Indian general elections. In just half an hour, Minhaj covered topics ranging from Narendra Modi to the Congress Party's corruption scams to the rising tide of nationalism—all with his trademark satirical humor. Milan speaks with Hasan about what it's like commenting on Indian politics as a member of the Indian diaspora, why the 2019 election is a battle for the soul of India, and how forwards on a family WhatsApp group convinced him to do a show on Indian politics. Check out Milan's weekly podcast, Grand Tamasha, at grandtamasha.com

This week we are doing something a little different. Milan Vaishnav sits down with the new Chief Economic Adviser (CEA) to the Government of India, Dr. Krishnamurthy Subramanian. Milan had talked with Subramanian at the Georgetown University India Ideas Conference, hosted by the Georgetown India Initiative in partnership with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI). In his first official visit to Washington, Subramanian speaks with Milan about India’s macro-economic fundamentals, the status of India’s “twin balance sheet” challenge, and the road map for India’s Goods and Services Tax (GST). They also discuss the new wave of minimum income support schemes cropping up across India and their impact on the fiscal deficit. FICCI President Sandip Somany also joined Milan and Subramanian for the conversation. They also took questions from a live audience.

879 million Indians head to the polls in the largest elections in history. Jen talks to Milan Vaishnav, host of Grand Tamasha, about what's at stake in the 2019 Indian general election. To learn more, check out Milan's explanation of the Indian elections, and listen to more election analysis on Milan's weekly podcast on Indian politics, Grand Tamasha.

First, Milan sits down with Sadanand Dhume of the American Enterprise Institute and Wall Street Journal. In a recent column, Sadanand writes that “an outcome that appeared uncertain a few months ago looks exceedingly likely: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, leader of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, is poised to win a second term.” Milan speaks with Sadanand about his recent trip to western Uttar Pradesh and the on-the-ground pro-Modi sentiment he found there. The two also discuss a recent column Sadanand penned on the BJP’s worrying majoritarian rhetoric and Milan’s recent Washington Post op-ed on why voters are searching for an excuse to back Modi. Then, Milan speaks with Snigdha Poonam, national affairs reporter for the Hindustan Times, on her series on first-time voters. Each week, Snigdha and her colleagues profile a first-time voter across India and documenting their perspective on the 2019 race and what influences their vote. Milan and Snigdha talk about how young voters view Modi, Rahul Gandhi, and India’s economic travails. They also speak about Snigdha’s acclaimed book, Dreamers: How Young Indians Are Changing Their World, and the aspirations and anxieties that animate India’s youth.

Why is crime ubiquitous in Indian politics? Why is your neta also a dada? Political scientist Milan Vaishnav joins Amit Varma in episode 114 of The Seen and the Unseen to speak about the incentives in play that have brought us to this place. Also check out: When Crime Pays -- Milan Vaishnav The Grand Tamasha -- Milan Vaishnav's podcast You can listen to this show and other awesome shows on the new and improved IVM Podcast App on Android: https://ivm.today/android or iOS: https://ivm.today/ios

First, Milan Vaishnav sits down with Roshan Kishore (Data and Political Economy Editor, Hindustan Times) to discuss the latest economic figures from India. The Government of India reported that GDP growth in the third quarter of 2019 clocked in at 6.6 percent—the slowest pace in five quarters. India’s GDP growth forecast for 2018-19 has also been revised downwards to 7 percent from 7.2 percent. Milan and Roshan discuss the political implications of India’s slowing economy, the nature of rural distress, and how to make sense of India’s contested employment data. Then, Milan speaks with Neelanjan Sircar, one of India’s leading public opinion experts. Sircar, an assistant professor at Ashoka University and senior visiting fellow at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi, explains why pollsters have such a hard time forecasting elections in India and how to make sense of the public opinion surveys that are rushing in ahead of the 2019 general elections. Sircar explains why it is incredibly difficult, if not impossible, for an Indian version of Nate Silver—the star number cruncher of American elections—to emerge. Milan also talks with Sircar about the status of the heated election race in West Bengal, a state Sircar has been researching for a decade.

Milan Vaishnav talks about the aftermath of the recent conflict between India and Pakistan and its ramifications for India's domestic politics and foreign policy with Alyssa Ayres (Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations) and Rezaul Hasan Laskar (Foreign Editor, Hindustan Times). Although major hostilities have paused, tensions between the two neighbors remain high. But as India's election approaches, the domestic spin game has begun. The three discuss the government’s approach, the opposition’s positioning, and how international diplomacy fared during the crisis. Then, Milan speaks with Vipin Narang, associate professor of political science at MIT and a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Narang is one of the few scholars to have thought deeply about when foreign policy actually matters for domestic politics in India. While the conventional wisdom holds that foreign policy is an elite issue that does not capture the imagination of the masses, Narang (and co-author Paul Staniland) argue that foreign policy can penetrate mass politics when the issue is salient and the lines of accountability are clear. Narang also explains why Modi and the BJP are likely to benefit from the recent crisis.

This week on Grand Tamasha, Milan Vaishnav sits down with Sadanand Dhume (Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute and Wall Street Journal columnist) and Sukumar Ranganathan (Editor-in-Chief, Hindustan Times) to discuss the aftermath of India’s targeted military strikes against Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorist camps in Pakistan. The strikes were a direct response to the tragic February 14 JeM attack on Indian paramilitary forces in Jammu and Kashmir, in which at least forty Indian soldiers lost their lives. The three discuss the current mood in New Delhi and the implications for the coming general elections. They also debate the ramifications of the conflict for state politics in Jammu and Kashmir and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) standing in the troubled state. Then, Milan speaks with Arvind Subramanian, the former chief economic adviser to the Government of India, about the idea of a universal basic income (UBI) for India. Subramanian was responsible for putting the idea of an Indian UBI on the policy agenda with his landmark proposal in the government’s 2017-2018 Economic Survey. Since then, several states have implemented modified versions of a UBI and both the Congress Party and the ruling BJP have announced their own income support schemes. Subramanian, who is currently a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute of International Economics, weighs in on the competing proposals and outlines his own proposal for a QUBRI (Quasi-Universal Rural Basic Income).

Indian women are slowly changing the country's patriarchal political system, starting at the voting booth -- they now turn out to vote at a higher rate than men. What does that mean for next year's Indian general election? Jen talks to Carnegie expert Milan Vaishnav about women's growing political power in India. Milan Vaishnav is the director of Carnegie's South Asia Program. We want to hear from you! Write to us at diplopod@ceip.org, or call us at 202-939-2247. Leave us a voicemail and we might use your question on a future episode. You can also talk to us on Twitter using #DiploPod. And follow Jen on Twitter: twitter.com/JRPsaki Go Deeper: Read Milan's Q&A on women's voter turnout in India: http://carnegieendowment.org/p-77677 Read Milan's article on women's electoral trends in India: http://carnegieendowment.org/p-77689 More about Milan Vaishnav: http://carnegieendowment.org/experts/714 Follow him on Twitter: twitter.com/MilanV

Why do we vote criminals and corrupt politicians into power? Can politicians really buy the votes of Indians? Does good governance translate into electoral victories? Milan Vaishnav joins host Pavan Srinath on Episode 69 of The Pragati Podcast to explain elections, money and crime in India. Milan is a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the author of When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics. The book recently won the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize for Best Non-Fiction Book of 2017 If you have any questions for Milan or the hosts, write in to podcast@thinkpragati.com and have it answered in a future episode. If you are interested in public policy or international relations, check out courses by the Takshashila Institution at takshashila.org.in/education. Several courses are starting in January 2019. Follow Pragati on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thinkpragati Follow Pragati on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thinkpragati/

Pour la fin de la saison 1 de Spla$h, Etienne Tabbagh a décidé de dédier deux épisodes au vaste sujet de l’aide au développement. Dans ce premier épisode, Il convie Jean-Jacques Gabas, économiste et maître de conférences à Paris-XI Orsay et à l' IEP de Paris. Ensemble, ils décryptent le débat féroce qui oppose deux économistes américains autour de l’efficacité de l’aide au développement: d’un côté, William Easterly, très critique de certaines causes humanitaires, de l’autre Jeffrey Sachs, créateur du programme « Millenium Village Projet ». Pour comprendre l’initiative de ce dernier, Etienne Tabbagh a également contacté sur Skype la journaliste canadienne Nina Munk qui a suivi pas à pas la mise en place et la réalisation de ce projet en Ouganda.Sources et références documentairesWilliam Easterly, Le Fardeau de l’Homme blanc, 2009, éditions markus hallerJeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty, 2005Nancy Birdsall, Adeel Malik et Milan Vaishnav, “Poverty and the Social Sectors: The World Bank in Pakistan 1990-2003”, document commandé par la Banque mondiale, Département d’évaluation des opérations.A. Ganesh-Kumar, Ashok Gulati, Ralph Cummings Jr., “Foodgrains policy and management in India: responding to today’s challenges and opportunities”, Institut de recherche sur le développement, Bombay, et Institut international de recherche sur les politiques alimentaires, Washington DC, 2007Sandrine Chastang, “Toutes les manières de rater un don humanitaire”, Revue du MAUSS, 2008Abhijit V. Banerjee, Esther Duflo, Repenser la pauvreté, Éditions du Seuil, 2012Le site du projet : http://millenniumvillages.orgNina Munk, The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty, 2014Evaluation finale du projet : https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/langlo/PIIS2214-109X(18)30196-7.pdfRéponse de Jeffrey Sachs : https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/langlo/PIIS2214-109X(18)30199-2.pdfPour découvrir Commencer c'est par ici : www.nouvellesecoutes.fr/commencer/Et pour découvrir Banquette c'est par là : www.nouvellesecoutes.fr/banquette/Spla$h est une émission d’Etienne Tabbagh produite par Nouvelles Ecoutes. Cet épisode est réalisé par Aurore Meyer Mahieu. Mixé par Laurie Galligani. Coordonné par Marine Raut. Doublage par Laura CuissardCet épisode de Spla$h est rendu possible grâce à Quitoque, un service de livraison de panier-recette à domicile. Jusqu'au 30 septembre 2018, Quitoque vous offre 30€ sur votre premier panier-recettes avec le code SPLASH. Offre valable dès 57€ d'achat.

Why do Indian voters knowingly vote for politicians with pending criminal proceedings against them? Why do political parties recruit criminal politicians among their rank and file? If money and muscle do not mean the failure of democracy, but instead are how things work under certain circumstances, then what are the remedies against the growing prevalence of criminal politicians? In When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics (Yale University Press, 2017), Milan Vaishnav provides an incisive analysis, based on solid data, of what he terms the marketplace for politics which creates a demand for candidates with dubious credentials. Julia Perczel is a PhD candidate in anthropology at the University of Manchester. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why do Indian voters knowingly vote for politicians with pending criminal proceedings against them? Why do political parties recruit criminal politicians among their rank and file? If money and muscle do not mean the failure of democracy, but instead are how things work under certain circumstances, then what are the remedies against the growing prevalence of criminal politicians? In When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics (Yale University Press, 2017), Milan Vaishnav provides an incisive analysis, based on solid data, of what he terms the marketplace for politics which creates a demand for candidates with dubious credentials. Julia Perczel is a PhD candidate in anthropology at the University of Manchester. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why do Indian voters knowingly vote for politicians with pending criminal proceedings against them? Why do political parties recruit criminal politicians among their rank and file? If money and muscle do not mean the failure of democracy, but instead are how things work under certain circumstances, then what are the remedies against the growing prevalence of criminal politicians? In When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics (Yale University Press, 2017), Milan Vaishnav provides an incisive analysis, based on solid data, of what he terms the marketplace for politics which creates a demand for candidates with dubious credentials. Julia Perczel is a PhD candidate in anthropology at the University of Manchester. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Milan Vaishnav, Senior Fellow, South Asia Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, is the author of "When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics." Vaishnav dives into the interesting links between criminality, wealth and power found in Indian politics in this can't miss Global I.Q. Minute podcast.