Grand Tamasha

Maitreesh Ghatak and Rishabh Kumar, “Poverty in India Over the Last Decade: Data, Debates, and Doubts,” The India Forum, April 10, 2024.Maitreesh Ghatak, “The rise of the affluent is the real India growth story,” Hindustan Times, February 29, 2024.Maitreesh Ghatak, “The simmering debate over poverty rate,” Mint, May 4, 2023.Maitreesh Ghatak, Ramya Raghavan, and Linchuan Xu, “Trends in Economic Inequality in India,” The India Forum, September 19, 2022.Maitreesh Ghatak, “India’s Inequality Problem,” The India Forum, June 23, 2021.“The Crisis in India’s Economic Data (with Pramit Bhattacharya),” Grand Tamasha, February 12, 2020.“Decoding the Indian Economy (with Pranjul Bhandari),” Grand Tamasha, April 3, 2024.

Milan Vaishnav, “On electoral bonds, a short-lived celebration,” Hindustan Times, February 17, 2024.“Decoding the Indian Economy (with Pranjul Bhandari)” Grand Tamasha, April 3, 2024.Sukumar Ranganathan, “Five Things with @HT_Ed,” Hindustan Times (newsletter).Hindustan Times, General Elections Retrospective (accessed via the HT app).

Ankit Panda, Indo-Pacific Missile Arsenals: Avoiding Spirals and Mitigating Escalation Risks (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2023).“Southern Asia's Nuclear Future with Ashley J. Tellis,” Grand Tamasha, October 26, 2022.Ankit Panda, “The Indo-Pacific’s new missile age demands Washington’s attention,” Breaking Defense, November 16, 2023.Ankit Panda, “How India’s breakthrough as an ‘elite space power’ devalues discovery and innovation,” South China Morning Post, April 7, 2019.Alex Travelli, “The Surprising Striver in the World’s Space Business,” New York Times, July 4, 2023.Toby Dalton et al., “Dimming Prospects for U.S.-Russia Nonproliferation Cooperation,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, March 14, 2024.

1. Mohamed El-Erian and Michael Spence, “The Indian Giant Has Arrived,” Project Syndicate, March 22, 2024.2. Pranjul Bhandari, “Beyond the budget: what happened when no one was really looking?” Mint, January 30, 2024.3. Pranjul Bhandari, “India’s fiscal future: Lots done, more to do,” Mint, November 22, 2023.4. Pranjul Bhandari, “India’s growth prospects are on the up. What changed?” Indian Express, December 19, 2023.5. Pranjul Bhandari, “Building an India for manufacturers,” Indian Express, October 9, 2023.

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.

Episode notes:Sidharth Bhatia, “An Eating and Drinking Tour of India, With Some Misadventures Along the Way,” The Wire, July 8, 2023.Zac O’Yeah, “A culinary trip across Southeast Asia,” Indian Express, January 6, 2024.

Devesh Kapur, Chandra Bhan Prasad, Lant Pritchett, and D. Shyam Babu, “Rethinking Inequality: Dalits in Uttar Pradesh in the Market Reform Era,” Economic and Political Weekly 45, no. 35 (August 28-September 3, 2010): 39-49.Devesh Kapur, Chandra Bhan Prasad, and D. Shyam Babu, Defying the Odds: The Rise of Dalit Entrepreneurs (New Delhi: Vintage, 2014).D. Shyam Babu, “From empowerment to disenfranchisement: Lower caste mobilisation appears to have run its course,” Times of India, August 28, 2019.Chandra Bhan Prasad, “Fellow Dalits, open your own bank: If no one else, Dalit middle class can fund Dalit capitalism to produce Dalit billionaires,” Times of India, November 25, 2019.Devesh Kapur, “Fraternity in the making of the Indian nation,” Seminar 701 (2017).

Milan Vaishnav, “On electoral bonds, a short-lived celebration,” Hindustan Times, February 17, 2024.“Crime and Politics with Milan Vaishnav,” The DAKSH Podcast, September 2022.Devesh Kapur and Milan Vaishnav, eds., Costs of Democracy: Political Finance in India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2018).Milan Vaishnav, When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017).

Constantino Xavier and Riya Sinha, “How India Budgets to Become a Leading Power,” Centre for Social and Economic Progress, February 8, 2023.Constantino Xavier, “India: Looking to Help Frame a New Global Balance,” in Regional Security Outlook 2023 (Canberra: Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific, 2022).Constantino Xavier and Amitendu Palit, eds., Connectivity and Cooperation in the Bay of Bengal Region (New Delhi: Centre for Social and Economic Progress, 2023).Constantino Xavier and Jabin Jacob, eds., How China Engages South Asia: Themes, Partners and Tools(New Delhi: Centre for Social and Economic Progress, 2023).Hillary Rodham Clinton, “Remarks on India and the United States: A Vision for the 21st Century,” Chennai, India, July 20, 2011.

“South Asia’s Economic Turmoil (with Ben Parkin),” Grand Tamasha, September 21, 2022.“Pakistan After Imran Khan (with Aqil Shah),” Grand Tamasha, May 4, 2022.Zoha Waseem, “A House Divided: Karachi’s Politics Remain in Flux,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, May 3, 2022.

Karan Thapar, “Debunking propaganda myths, restoring truths,” Hindustan Times, January 27, 2024.Sreenivasan Jain, Mariyam Alavi, and Supriya Sharma, “Bringing Journalistic Scrutiny to Hindutva Conspiracy Theories,” The Wire, January 17, 2024.

“India's Tryst With Policymaking (with Pranay Kotasthane),” Grand Tamasha, January 25, 2023.Pranay Kotasthane and Raghu S. Jaitley, Missing In Action : Why You Should Care About Public Policy (New Delhi: Penguin India, 2023).Pranay Kotasthane, “Anticipating the Unintended,” weekly Substack newsletter.

“What the Personal Data Protection Act Means for India (with Rahul Matthan),” Grand Tamasha, Septemner 27, 2023.“Book Discussion: The Third Way: India’s Revolutionary Approach to Data Governance,” Carnegie India Global Technology Summit 2023, December 7, 2023.Rahul Matthan, “Tech policy in India has had a year packed with action,” Mint, December 27, 2023.

Back in 2019, we started the Grand Tamasha podcast on a whim. India’s 2019 general elections were around the corner, and we sensed that there might be a (temporary) marketplace for a weekly audio podcast focused on Indian politics and policy for diehards hoping to keep up with the campaign action. Nearly five years later, the podcast has become a weekly fixture and the marketplace has turned out to be more welcoming that we had imagined. For Milan, one of the joys of doing a podcast week-in and week-out is the ability to read some of the best new books on India and speak with their authors—from journalists to historians, and political scientists to novelists. Last year, we published our first annual list of our favorite books featured on the podcast in 2022. As the current year comes to an end and we prepare for a mini-podcast hibernation for the holidays, here—in no particular order—are our Grand Tamasha top books of 2023 (drumroll, please): Shadows at Noon: The South Asian Twentieth Century By Joya Chatterji. Published by Yale University Press, Penguin Random House India, Vintage. Migrants and Machine Politics: How India's Urban Poor Seek Representation and Responsiveness By Adam Michael Auerbach and Tariq Thachil. Published by Princeton University Press. Age of Vice By Deepti Kapoor. Published by Riverhead, Juggernaut. Making Bureaucracy Work: Norms, Education and Public Service Delivery in Rural India By Akshay Mangla. Published by Cambridge University Press. In this episode, Milan talks about why he loved each of these books and includes short clips from his conversations with Joya, Adam and Tariq, Deepti, and Akshay. Think of this final episode of our tenth season as our little holiday present to you—our listeners.

Prashant Jha, “What BJP wins in 3 states mean for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections,” Hindustan Times, December 4, 2023.  Vaibhav Tiwari, “‘Conceit’: Congress slammed by INDIA bloc allies after 3-1 election drubbing,” Hindustan Times, December 4, 2023. Ritesh Mishra and Dipankar Ghose, “Misfired OBC gambit, infighting: How to lose a mandate in 5 years,” Hindustan Times, December 4, 2023. Sunetra Choudhury, “HT Interview: Unsavoury words were used against me…Madhya Pradesh election results have silenced them: Scindia,” Hindustan Times, December 4, 2023.

1.      Michael Greenstone et al., “The Solvable Challenge of Air Pollution in India,” India Policy Forum 2017-18: 1-51. 2.      Michael Greenstone et al., A Roadmap Towards Cleaning India’s Air (EPIC India and Harvard Kennedy School, 2018). 3.      Michael Greenstone et al., “Can Pollution Markets Work in Developing Countries? Experimental Evidence from India,” Working Paper, January 27, 2023.

“India’s Hidden Treatise on Statecraft (with Rahul Sagar),” Grand Tamasha, November 2, 2022.“The Hidden History of Conservative Economics in Post-1947 India (with Aditya Balasubramanian,” Grand Tamasha, October 11, 2023.“Ramachandra Guha Revisits India After Gandhi,” Grand Tamasha, April 19, 2023.

. “A Court in Crisis? Interview with the authors of 'Court on Trial', a data-driven analysis of the Supreme Court of India,”Bar&Bench, September 7, 2023.[VIDEO] “How do we fix the Supreme Court of India?”Scroll Ideas, September 1, 2023.Soutik Biswas, “Supreme Court: Why India's powerful top court is in a 'crisis,’”BBC News, July 31, 2023.

1. Sanjay Ruparelia, “The opportunities and challenges of courting India,” in Maxwell A. Cameron, David Gillies and David Carment, eds.,Democracy and Foreign Policy in an Era of Uncertainty: Canada Among Nations 2022(Palgrave Macmillan, 2023): 241-268.2. “Reframing Canada’s Global Engagement: Ten Strategic Choices for Decision-Makers,” Global Canada, September 2020.3. Sanjay Ruparelia, “In India, the government’s election machine is humming – but the economy and democracy are at risk,”The Globe and Mail, March 22, 2022.

1. Crystal A. Ennis and Nicolas Blarel, eds.,The South Asia to Gulf Migration Governance Complex(Bristol, UK: Bristol University Press, 2022). 2. Nicolas Blarel,The Evolution of India's Israel Policy: Continuity, Change, and Compromise since 1922(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). 3. Sumit Ganguly and Nicolas Blarel, “Modi’s Comments on Israel-Gaza War Signal Shift,”Foreign Policy, October 12, 2023. 4. Nicolas Blarel, “Navigating Asian Rivalries: Israel’s ties with China and India,” National University of Singapore-Middle East Institute, Singapore Insights No. 300, July 25, 2023.