Economic Growth
Can Indians get rich before getting old?
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153 questions about how India is actually governed
1 · All Agriculture
Agriculture
18 questions 6 videos syllabus
Understanding agricultural policy in India through the lens of free markets — from APMC reform and contract farming to the economics of minimum support prices.
- 1 Why are Indian farmers called annadatas rather than entrepreneurs?
- 2 Why do farmers remain poor even though India is a top producer of food?
- 3 Why is farming so heavily subsidised yet still unprofitable?
- 4 Why do consumer prices keep rising even when farmers earn so little?
- 5 Why are farms in India so small and fragmented, and why does that matter?
- 6 Why can't farmers freely buy, sell, or lease their land like other property owners?
- 7 Why is it hard to shift farmland to non-agricultural use or use it as collateral?
- 8 Why do so many farmers grow water-hungry crops in dry regions?
- 9 Are input subsidies for fertiliser, power, and water a safety net or a trap?
- 10 Does contract farming empower farmers?
- 11 Why are farmers still required or nudged to sell in government mandis?
- 12 Why is there so much food waste?
- 13 Why does the Food Corporation of India buy and hold such large grain stocks?
- 14 Why is agricultural trade policy so unpredictable, and what does that do to investment?
- 15 Why do many farmers say they would leave agriculture if they could?
- 16 Who really decides what a farmer grows on their land?
- 17 Why are farmers in developed countries wealthier than Indian farmers?
- 18 How can policy treat farmers as entrepreneurs who are free to stay, free to leave, and free to trade?
Economic Growth
Understand why economic growth matters, and what drives it
3 · All Education
Education
Exploring market-based approaches to education reform in India — from school choice and voucher systems to the unintended consequences of the Right to Education Act.
- 1 Why do many still pay for school education when we have a fundamental right to free education?
- 2 Why do government schools underperform?
- 3 Would pumping more resources into government schools help improve them?
- 4 Are the teaching standards poor in government schools? Why?
- 5 How can we make government school teachers more accountable?
- 6 What can we do to fix government schools?
- 7 Private schools have made education a business. How do we check against that?
- 8 Don't private schools only cater to the rich and elite?
- 9 Private schools may be better than government schools, but their quality is still poor. Why?
- 10 How can the government ensure that private schools deliver quality?
- 11 How can we realise the right to free education for all children?
4 · All Feminism
Feminism
Understanding women's economic freedom in India, from land rights and labour law to why markets and feminism are not at odds.
- 1 Are policies like menstrual leave empowering, or do they unintentionally disadvantage women in hiring?
- 2 Can the state correct gender norms in society?
- 3 Can you be a feminist and pro-free market at the same time?
- 4 Do reservations and quotas help women?
- 5 How has women's participation in work and public life changed over the years?
- 6 How have markets and trade shaped women's lives historically?
- 7 Is feminism only about women?
- 8 What does "economic freedom" actually mean for women?
- 9 What effect do India’s labour laws have on women?
- 10 What is the gender pay gap, and does it exist?
- 11 What would genuinely "free" economic opportunity look like for women in India, and how far are we from it?
- 12 Why do more educated women in India often participate less in the labour force, rather than more?
5 · All Goods and Services Tax
Goods and Services Tax
Understanding India's Goods and Services Tax and the economics behind it. Explore how GST works, why it was introduced, and the debates over tax rates, exemptions, compliance, and reform.
- 1 Did GST really create “one nation, one market”?
- 2 Does GST help small businesses, or crush them with compliance?
- 3 Has GST delivered on its promise?
- 4 How does GST work?
- 5 How has GST performed as a source of revenue?
- 6 How should the tax system help the poor?
- 7 If something is GST-exempt, why isn’t it cheaper?
- 8 Is India's GST a real VAT — or “VAT in form, not in function”?
- 9 Isn’t a consumption tax like GST regressive, since the poor spend more of what they earn?
- 10 Shouldn’t essential goods be taxed at lower rates to help the poor?
- 11 The GST is levied on the formal economy. How does informality influence GST’s actual impact on society?
- 12 What makes a tax system "good"?
- 13 What was GST 2.0, and was it a step in the right direction?
- 14 When you buy from another state, which government gets the tax?
- 15 Who runs GST, and why does the GST Council matter so much?
- 16 Why are exemptions considered cancer in the VAT system?
- 17 Why are petrol, power, and property still outside GST, and why does it matter?
- 18 Why do tax reformers keep repeating "broad base, low rate, simple rules"?
- 19 Why was GST seen as a landmark reform in 2017?
India's Constitution
Examining the history and evolution of India's Constitution, the rule of law, and liberalism.
- 1 How has our constitutional law evolved in the last 75 years?
- 2 The Rule of Law is a core value in the Indian Constitution. What does Rule of Law mean?
- 3 What are Rights to Freedoms? How has the Right to Freedom of Speech and Expression fared in India?
- 4 What are some of the significant elements of the Rule of Law? Where would one find them in the Constitution of India?
- 5 What are the Fundamental Rights in India’s Constitution? What is the relationship between the Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles of State Policy?
- 6 What ideologies and influences shaped the drafting of the Indian Constitution?
- 7 What is the basic philosophy behind India’s Constitution? Is it a liberal one?
- 8 What is the Basic Structure Doctrine of the Constitution of India?
- 9 What is the Right to Life and Liberty? How has this Right evolved through the history of the Indian Constitution?
7 · All Labour and manufacturing
Labour and manufacturing
Understanding the bottlenecks to manufacturing and labour productivity growth in India
- 1 How do India's manufacturing prospects compare with those of competing manufacturing economies?
- 2 How do labour regulations affect women's access to manufacturing jobs?
- 3 How do working hour regulations limit what a factory worker can actually earn?
- 4 How is India's labour regulatory framework structured?
- 5 What does India’s manufacturing sector actually look like?
- 6 What drives firms to prefer contract workers over permanent employees, and who bears the cost?
- 7 Why do laws designed to protect workers end up restricting them instead?
- 8 Why does so much manufacturing employment sit outside formal arrangements, and what does that mean for workers?
- 9 Why has India's rapid economic growth not translated into more or better manufacturing jobs?
Property Rights
A look into the importance of property rights and its evolution in India
- 1 How did the Right to Property come to be a Fundamental Right in the Constitution of India?
- 2 How did the Right to Property lose its Fundamental Right status in the Constitution of India?
- 3 How has the Constitution of India treated property rights of communities ?
- 4 How have community property rights developed historically?
- 5 Is the right to property absolute?
- 6 What does Eminent Domain mean in relation to property rights? What is its current legal status in India?
- 7 What is the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution ?
- 8 What is the role of the Forests Rights Act in recognising property rights of indigenous communities?
- 9 What was the pre-independence legal status of community property rights in India?
- 10 What was the status of Property Rights in pre-Independence India ?
Public Choice
Understanding why governments do what they do, from subsidies and stalled reforms to why good policies fail in practice
- 1 Why are government officials rarely rewarded or penalised based on their performance?
- 2 Why can a policy seem ‘good’ and still cause harm?
- 3 Why do good policies so often fail at the point of implementation?
- 4 Why do governments offer subsidies and freebies, especially around elections?
- 5 Why do politicians announce new schemes when similar ones already exist, instead of fixing the existing scheme?
- 6 Why do politicians focus on visible, short-term actions rather than long-term reforms?
- 7 Why do some government projects in India take far longer and cost far more than expected?
- 8 Why does the government keep running loss-making public enterprises?
- 9 Why is it so difficult to hold politicians accountable for what they actually deliver?
Small entrepreneurs
Explore the laws that govern the freedom to earn a living in India, from street vendors and domestic workers to small businesses and self-employed professionals.
- 1 Alcohol, tobacco, gambling, sex work: when a trade is thought immoral, can the state declare it is not really a trade at all?
- 2 Can the government ban a peaceful livelihood just because it disapproves of it?
- 3 Does the Constitution protect only formal businesses, or also informal workers?
- 4 Domestic workers depend on several households for their income, often with no written contract, no fixed leave, and no clear protection against mistreatment. Are they protected as workers, or does the home-based nature of the job leave them outside labour law?
- 5 How do vendors decide where to sit when there is no official vending plan?
- 6 I keep seeing more cars and motorcycles on Delhi's roads, but people say there cannot be too many auto-rickshaws. Who decides how many autos are allowed, and why is there no similar limit on private vehicles?
- 7 I rarely see cycle-rickshaws or e-rickshaws in Lutyens' Delhi or much of South Delhi. Are they banned there? If congestion is the concern, why are large private cars and SUVs allowed in narrow, crowded lanes elsewhere?
- 8 I see so many e-rickshaws and auto-rickshaws on the road, but they're all run by individual drivers. Why don't companies run them like they run cabs or airlines?
- 9 If public land belongs to everyone, why do vendors sit at the same spot every day as if it belongs to them?
- 10 If vendors already manage space among themselves, why do we need government rules at all?
- 11 If vendors occupy public space, why should the law protect them? What about pedestrians, residents, shopkeepers, buses, and delivery workers who also need the street?
- 12 If we don't cap the number of street vendors, won't every pavement and market lane become impossible to walk through?
- 13 Should street vending be allowed only for poor people who have no other source of income?
- 14 Shouldn't the government move street vendors out of busy streets and into designated vending zones?
- 15 What does it mean to have a right to carry on a trade, business, or occupation in India?
- 16 When I book an auto through an app, I know the fare before the ride. But a metered auto on the road often refuses to go by the meter. If meters are legally required, why do they matter so little in practice?
- 17 When many people use public space for private purposes, who should decide who gets to use it, where, and when?
- 18 Who should decide how many vendors sit in a market, and where exactly they sit?
- 19 Why are street vendors allowed to sell on footpaths and roads? Aren't streets for walking and traffic?
11 · All Trade
Trade
Understanding India's foreign trade and its record on openness. Explore how comparative advantage works, what four decades of self-reliance cost India, and whether China's rise makes free trade naive.
- 1 After the tariff wars and the new deals, what is the smart trade strategy from here?
- 2 Cheap Chinese imports destroyed factory jobs across the West. Did that really happen, and could it happen to India?
- 3 China subsidises, undervalues its currency, forces tech transfer. Isn't "free trade" with China just naïve?
- 4 Does the rupee's value decide whether India can compete?
- 5 Every rich country protected its young industries once. Why is it wrong for India to do the same?
- 6 If cheap imports can shut Indian factories, why do economists still support free trade?
- 7 If we buy far more from a country than we sell it, are we losing?
- 8 India exports more software than clothes. How did that happen, and does it matter?
- 9 India gets called the "tariff king." Why are Indian tariffs so sticky? Do they benefit the economy?
- 10 India tried to make everything itself for 40 years, then opened up in 1991. What did that journey teach us?
- 11 "Make in India" pays firms crores to build here. Is it working or just subsidising assembly of Chinese parts?
- 12 Opening up made India richer. So why are hundreds of millions of us still poor?
- 13 The government is making imports meet Indian "quality standards." Surely keeping out shoddy goods is a good thing?
- 14 What decides what a country makes well, and can that change?
- 15 When we depend on a rival for chips, solar panels, medicine ingredients, how worried should we be?
12 · All Urbanism
Urbanism
Understanding Indian cities and urban governance from housing affordability and slums to traffic congestion, walkability, public spaces, and the rules that shape how cities grow.
- 1 Can Indian cities be made to look beautiful, more organised, and less chaotic?
- 2 Should we be concerned about slums in cities?
- 3 Why are there so few open spaces and parks in Indian cities?
- 4 Why do potholes never stop emerging, and what prevents timely repairs?
- 5 Why do some cities become unsafe after sunset?
- 6 Why is flooding a norm in Indian cities?
- 7 Why is there so much traffic on city roads and highways?
- 8 Why is walking in our cities so difficult?
- 9 Why is your house rent so high?