Our first scholar in the series is Kartik Srivastava, who is a PhD candidate at the Kennedy School at Harvard University. Before this, he received his bachelor's degree from Yale University, where he majored in Economics and Engineering Sciences.

His research focuses on development economics, labor economics, and political economy. We spoke about her job market paper titled, Familiar strangers: Evidence from referral-based hiring experiments in India. We talked his large-scale experiment at a footwear manufacturing firm in Delhi, on how referral-based hiring improve firm productivity, cohesion, and inclusion, differences in hiring between higher caste versus lower caste networks, feudalism and labor opportunities, and much more.

Recorded August 28th, 2025.

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Today my guest is Narayani Basu, who is a historian and the author of the latest book, A Man for All Seasons: The Life of K. M. Panikkar. Her last book was a biography of V.P. Menon: The Unsung Architect of Modern India.

We talked about KM Panikkar, his comparison with VP Menon, the Indian nationalist movement in the interwar years, the origins of India’s diplomatic relationship with China, Pannikar’s Zionism and much more.

Recorded August 1st, 2025.

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Timestamps

(00:00:00) - Intro

(00:01:07) - The Elusive K. M. Panikkar

(00:07:52) - Panikkar’s and the Indian National Movement

(00:19:32) - Panikkar’s Intellectual Arc

(00:26:45) - Unifying an Indian Identity

(00:35:38) - India’s Princely States

(00:40:19) - Panikkar and China

(00:54:43) - Panikkar and the 1950s

(00:59:43) - Panikkar’s Thought vs. His Government Work

(01:08:35) - Panikkar’s Blind Spots

(01:15:48) - Panikkar and Today’s India

(01:18:27) - Outro

Today my guest is Yamini Aiyar, who is currently a Visiting Senior Fellow at the Saxena Center for Contemporary South Asia at Brown University and the author of the recent book Lessons in State Capacity from Delhi’s Schools. Her main research interests are contemporary politics, state capacity, welfare policy, and federalism.

We talked about the challenges of education policy and welfare in India, the lack of agency experienced by school administrators and teachers, the role of local governments in education, Delhi’s experiment with education reforms, portable benefits and school vouchers, and much more.

Recorded July 16th, 2025.

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Timestamps

(00:00:00) - Intro

(00:01:27) - Delhi School Experiment

(00:12:45) - Education in a Welfare State

(00:28:34) - Incompetent Petty Tyrants

(00:38:17) - Federalism and Education

(00:50:18) - How to Build Empowerment

(01:05:39) - Is the Delhi Experiment Generalizable?

(01:18:52) - Portability and Education

(01:28:15) - Outro