Today my guest is Snigdha Poonam who is a journalist and writer. She is the author of the new book Scamlands and also the author of the 2018 award winning book Dreamers: How Young Indians Are Changing Their World.

We talked about the scam industrial complex in different states like Jharkhand, Assam and Tamil Nadu in India, the interaction between the scam economy and the formal economy, the transnational scams in China and Cambodia and how they are connected to India, the aspirations and traumas of the scam work force and much more.

Recorded November 17th, 2025.

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Timestamps

(00:00:00) - Intro

(00:01:13) - The Scam-Industrial Complex

(00:03:48) - On Jamtara and the Economics of Joining a Scam

(00:09:12) - The Moral Logic of Scamming

(00:13:31) - How the State Enables the Scam Economy

(00:15:54) - Inside Assam's Paperwork and Insurance Scams

(00:23:04) - The Politics of Legibility in Assam

(00:32:47) - Women in the Scam Economy

(00:38:32) - How Scammers Get Trapped Inside the System

(00:46:18) - From Local Scams to Transnational Cybercrime

(00:52:18) - Scam Slavery in Southeast Asia

(01:02:15) - Reporting on the Shadow Economy

(01:10:49) - Starting the Story

(01:16:54) - From Aspiration to Desperation

(01:21:56) - Closing Reflections

(01:27:08) - Outro

Shruti and Ideas of India producer Dallas Floer sit down for the 2025 end-of-year episode. They look back at key themes and top episodes from the past year, address listener questions, and look forward to what's in store for Shruti and the show in 2026.

Recorded December 16th, 2025.

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Learn more about The 1991 Fellowship.

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Timestamps

(00:00:00) - Intro

(00:01:03) - Listener Questions

(00:25:50) - Big Themes and Top Episodes

(00:42:21) - Personal Moments

(00:46:53) - Looking to 2026

(00:49:47) - Hope or Concern for Next Generation

(00:51:45) - Intellectual Mood Around India

(00:53:01) - Shruti and Animals

(00:56:52) - What's New for 2026

(01:00:07) - The Ideas of India Team

(01:05:21) - Thank You's

(01:09:49) - Outro

Our seventh and final scholar in the series is Ammu Lavanya, a PhD candidate in Economics at George Washington University. Her research is in the areas of International Finance, Monetary Economics, Empirical Banking and Financial History.

We spoke about her job market paper titled International Financial Flows, Credit Allocation and Productivity. We talked about financial liberalization in India, the 2004 banking reform that increased the ceiling on raising foreign equity its impact on market value, lending capacity and increasing productivity through credit in India, the difference between private versus state owned banks, and much more.

Recorded October 9th, 2025.

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Timestamps

(00:00:00) - Intro

(00:03:06) - Understanding Capital Inflows and Financial Liberalization

(00:04:36) - Concerns Around Foreign Capital and Hot Money Flows

(00:07:12) - The Banking Reform and Ownership Landscape in India

(00:12:10) - Banks Most Affected and Patterns of Foreign Investment

(00:17:05) - Impact on Borrowing Capacity and Lending Behavior

(00:19:38) - Productive Lending and Screening Mechanisms

(00:25:53) - Managerial Practices and Governance Improvements

(00:34:20) - Firm-Level Effects and Data Construction

(00:39:50) - Aggregate Effects and Decline in Misallocation

(00:45:19) - Implications for Policy and the Future of Liberalization

(00:48:42) - Differences Between Public and Private Banks

(00:53:15) - Outro

Our sixth scholar in the series is Nayantara Biswas is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. She received her Ph.D. in economics from Clark University. Her research focuses on health equity impact evaluations of small-scale interventions and large-scale public policies.

We spoke about dissertation titled, The Impact of Social Policies on Reproductive Health, Maternal Employment, and Child Health: Evidence from India. We talked about demand side versus supply side policy interventions in public health, India's maternal health policy landscape, the ASHA workers program, variation across states in policy impact and much more.

Recorded August 28th, 2025.

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Timestamps

(00:00:00) - Intro

(00:01:35) - Setting the Stage

(00:04:44) - India's Maternal–Child Health Policy Landscape

(00:08:29) - Uneven Progress: State Differences, Culture, and Measurement Challenges

(00:09:24) - Who Are the ASHA Workers?

(00:11:56) - Trust, Access, and the Information Channel

(00:14:26) - Pay, Hours, and Unionization: Why Conditions Vary by State

(00:16:50) - How Incentives Are Structured

(00:21:44) - From Design to Data: Building the District-Level Panel

(00:25:20) - We Are Measuring ASHAs—and Something Else

(00:26:45) - DiD Simplified: How the Causal Claim Works

(00:33:45) - Policy Implications: Where to Invest and How to Train

(00:36:53) - Cost-Effectiveness: Supply vs. Demand

(00:39:53) - Why Supply-Side Effects Take Time

(00:41:50) - Beyond Pregnancy: Anganwadi Daycare and Women's Work

(00:46:27) - Outro

Our fifth scholar in the series is Karthik Narayan, who is a doctoral candidate in Economics at Nuffield College and at the Department of Economics, University of Oxford. His research focuses on monetary policy, macroeconomics and finance in developing countries.

We spoke about his job market paper titled, Macroeconomic Effects of Scheduled and Unscheduled Monetary Policy Surprises.

We talked about how the Reserve Bank of India makes and announces its policies, its impact on interest rates, inflation expectations and output, measuring the impact of policy announcements, the Lucas Critique and much more.

Recorded August 28th, 2025.

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Timestamps

(00:00:00) - Intro

(00:03:22) - Measuring Causality Is Hard

(00:11:16) - What Counts as a Policy Surprise?

(00:13:27) - OIS and MIBOR: Expectation Thermometers

(00:21:11) - Short term versus long term effects on asset prices

(00:27:18) - Noise and Fiscal-Monetary Coordination

(00:32:46) - Inflation Before and After the MPC

(00:37:24) - The Lucas Critique

(00:40:51) - Practical Implications

(00:45:48) - Other Research Interests

(00:47:39) - Outro

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.

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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.

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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.

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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