The biggest challenge for the Indian state is not its size, but its inefficiency. Carnegie Senior Fellow Milan Vaishnav and co-authors Devesh Kapur and Pratap Bhanu Mehta discuss their new book, Rethinking Public Institutions in India, and explore the massive challenges India faces and the state’s ability to adapt. (Runtime - 29:09)
18 million people are estimated to work for the Indian national government, and that number doesn’t include India’s regional and state governments. Yet, compared to the size of the Indian population—1.3 billion—it’s not very large. The biggest challenge for the Indian state is not its size, but its inefficiency. While the last three decades have seen dramatic transformations in the country’s economy and the private sector, the state has failed to modernize at the same rate. Tom Carver talks the authors of a new book titled, Rethinking Public Institutions in India, Carnegie Senior Fellow Milan Vaishnav, Devesh Kapur and Pratap Bhanu Mehta, about the massive challenges India faces and the state’s ability to adapt.
Milan Vaishnav is the author of When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics (Yale University Press and HarperCollins India, 2017). His work has also been published in scholarly journals such as India Review, India Policy Forum, and Latin American Research Review. He is a regular contributor to several Indian publications.
Devesh Kapur is the director of the Center for the Advanced Study of India, and a professor of political science and Madan Lal Sobti professor for the study of contemporary India at the University of Pennsylvania.
Pratap Bhanu Mehta is the president and chief executive of the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi and a contributing editor at the Indian Express.
Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.
Daniel Drezner, Professor of International Politics at The Fletcher School at Tufts University is a leading scholar of global politics, makes sense of these dizzying crises on a new episode of The World Unpacked. He joined Jon Bateman to explain why Europe and the U.S. are still so obsessed with each other, whether Trump’s Venezuela playbook could work in Iran, and how Substack has changed foreign policy decision-making.
Jon Bateman, Daniel Drezner
Sarah Chayes, who lived in and studied the world’s most corrupt nations, warns that the U.S. is walking the same path. In this episode of The World Unpacked, Sarah tells host Jon Bateman why systemic corruption looks nothing like how we picture it, how anti-corruption advocates are co-opted as enablers, and what to say if someone asks you for a bribe.
Jon Bateman, Sarah Chayes
Matt Duss, a former advisor to Bernie Sanders, is a leading figure in progressive foreign policy. On this episode of The World Unpacked, Matt lays out a global vision based on solidarity and harm reduction.
Jon Bateman, Matthew Duss
Oren Cass is driving these debates as one of the most influential conservative thinkers of the Trump era. Cutting against traditional GOP orthodoxy, he has long argued for more tariffs, trade barriers, and worker protections—anticipating and influencing many of Trump’s policies. Oren joined Jon Bateman on The World Unpacked to explore the China shock, AI disruption, and Alexander Hamilton.
Jon Bateman, Oren Cass
The Paveway bomb, invented by Texas Instruments in the 1970s, was the first truly precise munition. It revolutionized America’s air campaign in Vietnam and allowed whole new kinds of “limited” U.S. wars in Libya, Iraq, Serbia, and beyond.
Jon Bateman, Jeffrey E. Stern
