Our fourth scholar in the series is Asad Tariq, who is a doctoral candidate in Economics at the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi. His research focuses on the political economy of development, with a particular interest in religion, politics and public service delivery in India. We spoke about his job market paper titled, Constituencies of Change: Electoral Redistricting and Public Goods Provision in India.

We talked about the 2008 delimitation exercise, especially at the state level, gerrymandering, the median voter versus swing voters and ethnic groups, public service delivery for minorities, especially Muslims, and much more.

Recorded September 5th, 2025.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.

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Timestamps

(00:00:00) - Intro

(00:02:42) - Packing and Cracking

(00:05:10) - From Theory to Ballots

(00:06:40) - Median Voter Logic: A Mechanism in Play

(00:08:24) - Delimitation as an exogenous shock?

(00:19:06) - Does Identity of the elected leader matter?

(00:20:10) - Enter: Swing Voters

(00:23:07) - Schools, Roads, and Wires: Evidence on Public Goods

(00:26:21) - Crunching the Numbers

(00:29:44) - Drawing the Lines: Gerrymandering Then and Now

(00:37:40) - Policy Stakes and What’s Next

(00:41:45) - Outro

Our third scholar in the series is Chetana Sabnis, who is a doctoral candidate at the Department of Political Science at Yale University. Her research focuses on how states regulate intimate relationships and construct hierarchies of familial belonging. We spoke about her job market paper titled, The Intimacy Contract in Action: How Indian Courts Determine which Extramarital Relationships Deserve Recognition. We talked about extramarital affairs, polygamous relationships, Uniform Civil Code, social versus legal acceptance, and much more.

Recorded September 5th, 2025.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.

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Timestamps

(00:00:00) - Intro

(00:01:23) - How Courts Recognize “Family”

(00:03:12) - Why This Paper? Rethinking “Family”

(00:05:28) - India’s Legal Patchwork: Customs vs. Code

(00:11:07) - Judicial Heuristics: Rituals, Cohabitation, Children

(00:14:44) - Endogamy vs. Interfaith: Law, Bias, and Recognition

(00:22:22) - How the State Views Children

(00:25:27) - Welfare Logic & Gendered Maintenance

(00:29:29) - UCC and the “Intimacy Contract”

(00:35:48) - The Role of the State

(00:42:30) - Contract vs. Sacrament

(00:49:00) - Outro

Our second scholar in the series is Sunny Rai, who is a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Computer and Information Science University of Pennsylvania. She received her Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from University of Delhi.

Her research focuses on misinformation, mental health and cross-cultural variations in human language. We spoke about her co-authored job market paper titled, Social Norms in Cinema: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Shame, Pride and Prejudice. We talked about depictions of shame and pride and heroism in Indian versus American films, the challenges with textual analysis of a visual medium, and much more.

Recorded September 5th, 2025.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.

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Timestamps

(00:00:00) - Intro

(00:03:44) - Shame and Pride in Film

(00:12:31) - Teaching Machines Norms

(00:16:52) - Textual Analysis in a Visual Medium

(00:18:26) - The Trouble with Subtitles and Scripts

(00:27:41) - Self-Shaming vs. Other-Shaming

(00:30:33) - LLM Alignment Needs a Culture Check

(00:36:20) - Looking Ahead: A Final Reflection

(00:37:01) - Outro