Jack Of All Knowledge

In this episode of Jack of All Knowledge, I am joined by Rahul Ahluwalia who is a director at Foundation for Economic Development in India. FED works with central and state governments in India to identify high-impact opportunities for economic growth and helps them realize those opportunities.  Rahul is, what many of us would call, a classical liberal thinker. I came across his work some time bac...

Hi, welcome to the 23rd episode of Jack of all knowledge. In this episode, I am speaking with Dr. Renuka Sane and Bhavin Patel, who are the executive director, and program director at Trustbridge, respectively. Trustbridge, is a research institute which seeks to improve India's business environment by improving the rule of law for businesses in India. It has two focus areas. One is regulatory...

In this episode, I am joined by Dr. Suvrat Kher. Suvrat is a geologist with deep expertise in sedimentary geology and remote sensing. Suvrat also writes the popular geology blog Rapid Uplift, which as per Suvrat is an exploration of geology and our changing planet. I was introduced to Suvrat and his amazing efforts to popularise geology through the blog.  In this conversation we speak about his ea...

In this episode I am speaking with second time guest on the show, Dr. Ajay Shah about {x}kdr forum and the problems it solves. We speak about how the organisation chooses problems to solve, how they contribute to the Indian developmental story, how Ajay manages to be as enthusiastic about solving big problems as he was 20 years ago, and much more.

In this episode, I am speaking with Bhargavi Zaveri Shah. She is currently pursuing a doctorate degree in law at the National University of Singapore. Her core research interests are the working of central banks and courts in developing countries. She has also done a lot of work on financial regulation, bankruptcy law, regulatory governance and the land market, all in the Indian context. In the co...

Roshan Abbas doesn't need much introduction. He's an enigma of creativity and a brilliant person. It was a pleasure to pick out his brains for an hour. The episode features timeless wisdom, poignant stories from his life, advice for creators and curious individuals, and much more a reflection of the great human being he is. Roshan is on Twitter as @roshanabbas

Ajay Shah and I speak about a range of issues - how to better our state capacity, what battles are worth for the state to take up, how to improve our governance models, how to align incentives in the governance institutions, what is the role of the modern state, how to bring out better outcomes for the society, what are in fact better outcomes and much more. Ajay's work can be found at: https:...

In this episode, I'm speaking with two of my favorite writers about a host of issues. From choosing which college to go to, to understanding what good parenting is, we talk about everything that makes the human brain go tick. We speak extensively about being curious, keeping your learning self alive, how to learn better, how to accumulate knowledge etc. It is a thoroughly enjoyable conversatio...

I'm talking to Amit Varma, host of the immensely popular podcast seen and the unseen; on a range of issues. We talk about his creative process, the making of seen and the unseen as an oral history project, politics, conversation & disagreements, policy etc. 

In the 15th episode of Jack of all knowledge, I'm talking to Shruti Rajagopalan - senior research fellow at Mercatus center, George Mason University and fellow at classical liberal institute NYU law. She is also the lead of Indian vertical of Emergent ventures (a grant making initiative) at GMU. She writes prolifically and also hosts the popular podcast Ideas of India. She's by far, one of the mos...

In the 14th episode of Jack of all knowledge, I'm talking to Alok Prasanna Kumar, co founder of Vidhi center for legal policy. Vidhi works on various law and justice issues and is committed to drafting good laws, strengthening public institutions, and realising fundamental rights. Alok did his undergraduate from NALSAR and then went to do his BCL from Oxford. After a brief career in litigation, he...

In the 13th episode of the Jack of all knowledge I'm talking to Abhinav Sekhri. Abhinav is a practicing lawyer based in Delhi. He graduated from NLS Bangalore in 2014 and since then has been litigating. He is especially interested in criminal law, evidence and procedure and also edits and writes about the same on his blog Proof of Guilt. He attended HLS for his masters on an Inlaks Shivdasini scho...

In this episode, I'm talking with Sukhnidh Kaur about a range of tech policy issues - from data governance, platform regulation, free speech and private power, and most importantly - about her work as the Digital Literacy fellow at the Internet Freedom Foundation. If you're buzzing in and around the Indian tech policy scene, chances are that you've seen Sukhnidh's brilliant explainer videos about...

In the 11th episode, I’m talking to Ashish Kulkarni – someone who genuinely embodies the title of this show ‘Jack of all knowledge’. Ashish is an assistant professor at the Gokhle Institute of Politics and economics, Pune. He also writes at his blog econ4everybody about economics, ideas, perspectives and everything under the sun. He also hosts a podcast called back to college in which he talks to...

In this episode of Jack of all knowledge, I'm joined by my dear friend and senior Nirmal Bhansali. Nirmal is a 5th year law student at NLUJ, and will be graduating from college this summer. I talk to him about a range of issues, from his experience of hosting two different podcasts, to curiosity and how learning happens inside and outside college. We go off on a bunch of different interesting tang...

In this episode, I'm joined by Apar Gupta, executive director and founder of Internet Freedom Foundation. IFF works on a range of issues including net neutrality, free expression, privacy and innovation through advocacy and strategic litigation. We talk about how IFF was born out of save our internet movement and how it works to advance democratic visions in a digital society. We also talk about h...

In this episode I'm joined by Sagnik Das, Asst Professor at Jindal Global Law School to talk about his wide range of experiences from learning the law, to practising it, and now to teaching it, and the wisdom he's gathered along the way. We talk about his time as an undergraduate student at NLUJ and later as a master's candidate at the prestigious Harvard Law School. We also talk about his interes...

In this episode of Jack of all knowledge, I'm talking to Nikhil Purohit, a final year student at NLS about the cat and mouse chase between scientific publishing industries and open access websites like SciHub, and LibGen. These websites have been sued for copyright infringement by major publishing companies in the Delhi HC recently. We talk about how the scientific publishing industry works, why p...

In the sixth epsiode of Jack of all knowledge, I'm taking to Shohini Sengupta, Asst. Professor of Research at the Jindal School of Banking and Finance. We talk extensively about Fin-tech companies and how technology has changed the face of financial regulation and regulators, broader financial laws in India & their intersection with privacy, and the architect of India stack. Shohini has done her B...

In the 5th episode of Jack of all knowledge, I talk to Hamsini Marada, lecturer at Jindal Global Law School, around a range of issues regarding how art and law interact with each other. We talk about how art is used as means of resistance, about how protest art works, what happens when provocative art attracts obscenity laws & the paradigm of free speech in India with respect to freedom to indulge...

In the 4th episode of Jack of All Knowledge, I talk to Medianamas's correspondent on drones, surveillance and privacy - Soumyarendra Barik on the evolving drone ecosystem in India - it's challenges and promises. MediaNama is the premier source of information and analysis on Technology Policy in India. We talk about a range of issues from facial recognition technology, to privacy and the state's ap...

In the third episode of Jack of all knowledge, I talk to Anushka Jain of the Internet Freedom Foundation to understand the usage of Facial Recognition Technology in India and the various problems associated with it. We also talk about how FRT is a tool in creating a culture of mass surveillance which has harmful consequences such as the chilling effect on protests, dissent and the free speech of p...

In the second episode of Jack of all knowledge, I use tools of behavioral economics and Game theory to try to understand why we Indians, behave a certain way. I also talk about the role that heuristics & cognitive biases play in determining what type of decisions we take and what the central clash between classical and behavioural economics is. This episode is based on the book 'Games Indians Play...

'You may take the Indian out of India, but you cannot take India out of the Indian'. Have you ever wondered, why? Why we, Indians behave the way we do? In the second episode of Jack of all knowledge, I dive into the world of game theory and behavioural economics to try to understand what drives our behavioural patterns and makes us behave and react a certain way. What makes us, Indians, who we are...

With the NEP, Education and Educational policy is the talk of the town. Sankalp Vohra joins me in episode 1 of Life and Stuff to discuss the normative educational ecosystem in India and the promise of multidisciplinary studies, both as a novel concept and it's practical application in programs like the Young India Fellowship. Also check out my blog 'Life and Everything in between' at https://lifea...