The Takshashila Podcast

The Ministry of Consumer Affairs has spelled out its intention to curb online fake reviews. But what is a 'fake' review? Should the government intervene in such cases? What are the policy fall-outs of the government's move?

In this episode, Kingshuk Saha and Anupam Manur discuss the Bombay Plan, its making and its impact on the Indian economy.

In this episode, Shrikrishna Upadhyaya hosts Ritwika Sharma, Senior Resident Fellow & Lead, Charka - Centre for Constitutional Law at Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, on the reasons behind the failure of anti-defection law, the problems created by the merger exemption and possible changes to the law.

Social norms are informal rules which dictate collective behaviour. In this episode of All things policy, Harshit Kukreja and Shrikrishna Upadhyaya discuss social norms, their evolution and life cycle, and the role of social norms in policy solutions to jaywalking, queuing up in lines and cleanliness in your cities.

Vanita Kohli-Khandekar, India's best-known news and entertainment media industry expert and the author of the definitive book on India's media business, analyses what happened in 2022 and crystal-gazes into 2023.

In this episode, host Sowmya Prabhakar is in conversation with Aditi Mutatkar, Indian badminton player and silver medallist at the Commonwealth Games. They begin the chat with the daily sports scene in India and move into the zone of access, safety, systemic hurdles, government schemes, and inclusion in sports. They end on a reassuring note with research in sports and the promise that holds for the future.

in the first episode of the year, Pranay Kotasthane gets Takshashila team members to make some predictions for the year. We will review how these predictions play out at the end of 2023.

Listen to this conversation as Manoj Kewalramani talks to Sundeep Waslekar about the ideas in his new book “A World Without War: The History, Politics and Resolution of Conflict”.

What does India's financial epicentre need to reach its Net Zero goal by 2050? Is it overambitious, or are we too late already? Lubaina Rangwala, the principal policy consultant for MCAP dissects not only the city's effort to mitigate the climate crisis, but also addresses national questions that we ought to answer soon.

In this episode, Shrikrishna Upadhyaya quizzes Simrin on the developments at the COP 27 and the future of climate action. They discuss the loss and damage fund, phasing out of fossil fuels and the debate on setting a climate goal at a temperature increase of 1.5 °C as opposed to 2 °C.

In this episode, Manoj Kewalramani talks to Sowmya Nandan and Malathi Renati about the challenges of grassroots governance by RWAs and how sound public policy education can help understand and improve this.

Despite tensions along the LAC remaining high for the past two years, India’s trade with China has continued to expand. What’s driving this trend? Is a high trade deficit with China a strategic problem? And are India’s PLI schemes the answer to boosting Indian manufacturing and reducing vulnerabilities vis-a-vis China? Manoj Kewalramani and Pranay Kotasthane discuss all this and more.

In this episode Vijaya Krishnappa, co-founder of Kosha.ai and Sowmya Prabhakar unpack everything that goes into creating genuine handlooms, the layers in between and the competition beyond the Indian market itself. Vijaya also shares insights on the role of society (samaaj), government (sarkaar) and markets (bazaar) in this whole ecosystem.

Last week, New Zealand passed a new law banning tobacco products for the next generation. In this episode of All Things Policy, Shambhavi Naik and Harshit Kukreja discuss this law, its implications, role of government intervention in tobacco consumption and much more.

The RBI has recently announced a pilot of the digital rupee for wholesale and retail transactions. Central bank digital currencies are increasingly being adopted by banks across the world. Shailesh Chitnis joins Bharath Reddy to talk about the implications of these developments.

The United Nations General Assembly has approved a resolution that calls on member states to stop testing direct-ascent anti-satellite weapons. The moratorium was first declared by the United States in April 2022 in hopes that it would be adopted by the wider international community. Shrikrishna Upadhyaya talks to Pranav Satyanath to unpack the pros, cons, and implications of this resolution.

How do caste networks affect India's rural and urban economies? How do these networks impact economic mobility? Suman Joshi and Sarthak Pradhan discuss in this episode of All Things Policy.

Sridhar Krishna, Anupriya Mohta and Sudisha Mishra discuss how we can leverage Michael Porter’s framework for competitive advantage of nations and turn this adversity into a great opportunity to be the country that greens the planet through global leadership in Green Technology.

In this episode, Shrikrishna Upadhyaya hosts Sachin Kalbag (Senior Fellow, Takshashila Institution) to unpack the strategy and discuss the multi-sectoral approach to tackling suicide adopted by the strategy.

How does motherhood affect women's participation in the labour markets? Are there key differences in an Indian context? Is there a rural-urban difference? Sarthak and Suman discuss these issues in the episode.