Author: EconHistorienne
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Mint opinion: India’s descent into stepwells of growth
Important long read by Kaushik Basu. How India started out as a promise and is now fast deteriorating into decline.
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Debuted with Opinion in Moneycontrol today
I will be writing op-eds for moneycontrol, India’s number 1 financial news website, and today was my debut. Do read. Moneycontrol Link: https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/opinion/time-for-a-policy-rethink-on-crime-and-poverty-eradication-5762451.html
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How to be happy
I am attempting to gather my thoughts around each of the points suggested by Harsh Mariwala on Twitter today on how to be happy. Let’s see how it goes: Think about what you’re grateful for Umm. What am I grateful for? For life, no matter whatever it brings. Being alive is a gift. Also for […]
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The Ambani-Adani alliance in Indian business
Chances are, you have read this already. If you haven’t, I would urge you to read this sharp piece by Andy Mukherjee. It’s an alarming tale, cautioning us of the monopoly India is poised to be heading towards. If privatisation has done any good, it has mostly done it for the capitalists, more recently in […]
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Oral History Interview for SAADA
Such a lovely interview by Gaiutra Bahadur (whose Coolie woman is one of my favorite books based on the life of the subaltern) of her aunt Kokila Bahadur for SAADA, who arrived in America when she was in her late 20s as a nurse trainee at a local hospital. Today, she is 81 and in […]
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Quote
“I knew I could be the best in the world if I got one second better every day.” This inspired me today. Who said this?
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John McPhee’s invaluable memo on Elicitation
The piece I always turn to every time I have to head out for field interviews. Do give it a try, it teaches you something.
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Mercantile capitalism in a polycentric world
Interesting new paper on the evolution of Indian capitalism that challenges the age-old trope of exceptionalism of the West and Asia’s fall. A little brief on the paper and full download can be found here,
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Insurgent Empire
Neat review of Priyamvada Gopal’s book Insurgent Empire in South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies by Dinyar Patel [citation below] Gopal frames this period as just a prelude to truly sustained and productive co-operation between colonial subjects and British anti-imperialists in the inter-war period, but such alliances had already blossomed in significant ways. By […]
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Loving shout out to my brother’s film making
He made this short three years ago. Missing him terribly, sharing the work that I so love for the visual delight it is.
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Millennials are gutted but some companies are trying to uplift them
Millennails are truly gutted. I remember I had barely started my career as a journalist when the 2008 financial crisis plunged the global economy and it seems, my generation has not recovered from it yet. Blame it on economic crises after crises, and this year, we are staring into a recession even as we lose […]
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Netmeds
India online pharmacy scene is hotting up. RIL has bought majority stake in Netmeds within days of Amazon making its foray into the Indian e-pharmacy market in Bengaluru. Walmart-owned Flipkart is also looking to foray in the space, which has grown during the COVID-19 pandemic. This windfall for the online pharma space in India come […]
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India Unemployed
Five million salaried Indians lost their jobs last month. This is the highest figure for this year. And as the graphs show, it’s going to get worse in August. The job loss among the salaried class is not a surprise to me. I have known this for sometime as I have spent the last year […]
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Bubonic Plague replay 2020
If you thought this is done with and buried by our ancestors in history, you are terribly wrong. A California resident has now tested positive for the plague, becoming the first case in five years since the disease has been detected in the state. The plague originated in Asia over 2,000 years ago and was […]
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Death of a star
I was in deep trauma after the news came in and wrote this which I strongly urge you to read. Often, I am compelled to write about events that are beyond the purview of my research in economic history but I am a whole person, not just someone doing this research. When something affects me, […]
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Stephen Marglin
Everyone this week has been raving about this interview and it’s not for no reason. Harvard economist Stephen Marglin talks about his India connection in this interview with Maya Adereth, Shani Cohen and Jack Gross on Phenomenal World. Interesting conversation, richly framed. Don’t miss it.
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Usne Kaha Tha
Usne Kaha Tha – a short story by Chandradhar Sharma Guleri – is one of my most favorite short stories in Hindi. “Mujhse kudmai karegi” evokes so many emotions even today. You know if you have read the story. Today, for my podcast Chausar Sakhi, I attempt reading out the story for you. The Chausar […]
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Mumbai floods
Floods in Mumbai are an annual affair. I know this may hurt some people but the day I visited Mumbai for the first time, it was raining cats and dogs, and exactly 21 days later, a major flooding of the financial capital took place. Financial Times reported this last year – the headline points to […]
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Ruth Alice Allen
‘East Texas Lumber Workers’ (1961) is yet another pioneering work of Allen focusing on the economic conditions of the Texan lumber country, in which Allen viewed people’s physical, social and economic environments as the most important influence on their behaviour. Besides these, Allen worked on a range of collections and monographs on the labour history […]
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Book alert!
Dr John Turner and Dr Will Quinn of Queen’s University Belfast have written a brilliant new book titled ‘Boom and Bust‘, which is a fascinating account of the ten bubbles in history occurring in the 19th century Australia to modern China. In the words of the The Enlightened Economist: Each episode is set in the […]
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Google All the Way and Oral History Interviews
This is a terrific and eye-opener of a report I read this past week on how Google search tricks us and cleverly keeps us on Google. Read on here to be surprised, really. Sums it up rather brilliantly: Here is a very interesting oral history interview where historian Reed Chervin interviews his doctor cousin, Dr. […]
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Emergent Ventures winners
I have always followed with keen interest the Emergent Ventures awards for their brilliant choice in choosing winners. Here is the list they announced last week, which I am bookmarking to follow.
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100 years of Bombay School of Economics
Cafe Economics (and my former boss, if you don’t follow him already, do so pronto) paid a brilliant tribute to his alma mater in his Mint column last week. Click below to read:
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Emmanuel Farhi
Prof. Emmanuel Farhi was too young to die. Just as SSR was too young to die too. Farhi was 41; SSR was 34. In both events, we lost bright stars. This post is on Farhi’s passing away which has shocked people who knew, loved and admired him. Moving tributes poured in from people who knew […]
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EconHistorienne #5: Scattered, aren’t we all?
even the best of optimism needs flickering boats and sinking in the seas once in a while…
Pallavi Singh 