Today my guest is Pranay Kotasthane who is the deputy director of the Takshashila Institution and chairs the High Tech Geopolitics Programme.

Pranay co-writes Anticipating the Unintended, a newsletter on public policy ideas and frameworks, and co-hosts Puliyabaazi, a popular Hindi-Urdu podcast on politics, policy, and technology. He is the co-author of - Missing in Action: Why Should You Care About Public Policy, When the Chips are Down, and the graphic nonfiction narrative We, the Citizens.

We spoke about rare earths and critical minerals, China's dominance, the gap between India's ambitions and opportunities, the potential for recycling, and much and more.

Recorded February 2nd, 2026.

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Timestamps

(00:00:00) - 1991 Fellowship
(00:01:11) - Intro
(00:02:59) - Rare Earths versus Critical Minerals
(00:10:15) - Why Are Rare Earths and Critical Minerals So Important Now?
(00:29:29) - Geopolitical Uncertainty
(00:33:14) - China's Process Advantage
(00:44:10) - Industrial Policy
(00:48:10) - India's Critical Elements Mission
(00:53:00) - Auctions
(00:56:53) - India's Position in the Value Chain
(01:04:36) - Recycling
(01:34:04) - Law of One Price
(01:41:28) - Pakistan and Rare Earth Reserves
(01:46:26) - Outro

Today my guest is Nachiket Mor, a health economist whose work focuses on the design of national and regional health systems. He is a visiting scientist at the Banyan Academy of Leadership in Mental Health, a senior research fellow at the Centre for Information Technology and Public Policy at IIIT Bangalore, and a commissioner and author on the Lancet Citizens' Commission on Reimagining India's Health System, which published its final report in The Lancet in January 2026.

We talked about the different layers of the Indian healthcare system, the design and policy failures in both public and private sector healthcare, the role of community workers, the health insurance and regulation market, and much more.

Recorded January 29th, 2026.

Learn more about The 1991 Fellowship.

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Timestamps

(00:00:00) - 1991 Fellowship
(00:01:11) - Intro
(00:02:32) - Policy Design Failure in India's Healthcare System
(00:07:43) - Layers of Indian Healthcare
(00:14:04) - ASHA Workers
(00:23:59) - State Capacity
(00:26:47) - The Exit to the Private Sector
(00:34:00) - Getting Ambitious with ASHA Workers
(00:37:54) - Stacking Healthcare
(00:51:53) - India's Private Sector Healthcare
(01:05:14) - Government Insurance Instruments
(01:13:10) - Insurance Regulation in India
(01:41:09) - Outro

Today my guest is Akshay Jaitly, the author of the recent book, Trilegal: The Making of a Modern Indian Law Firm. He is one of the founders of Trilegal and specializes in advising on energy and infrastructure projects. His research interests include power sector reform, the energy transition and public-private contracting.

We talked about how Trilegal grew in the context of India's market liberalization and sectoral reforms, different partnership structures, delegated legislation, regulatory capture, the alchemy between the founding partners, and much more.

Recorded January 6th, 2026.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.

Learn more about The 1991 Fellowship.

Connect with Ideas of India

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Follow Akshay on X

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Timestamps

(00:00:00) - 1991 Fellowship
(00:01:11) - Intro
(00:02:20) - In the Shadow of Liberalization
(00:07:28) - Specialization
(00:20:55) - Delegated Legislation
(00:28:35) - Managing Risk
(00:33:30) - Dispute Resolution
(00:38:44) - Trilegal's Partnership Structure
(00:51:57) - Scaling
(00:59:42) - Design or Alchemy?
(01:05:08) - Regulatory Capture
(01:11:27) - Foreign Law Firms
(01:19:08) - Outro