From policy rooms to a Bengal constituency — Dr. Ashok Lahiri has seen India from every angle. Here’s what he found.

Dr. Lahiri’s three ground-level learnings are disarming: the real difference between India and Bharat is structural, not aspirational; Bengal’s partition wounds are fundamentally unlike Punjab’s; and governing India’s complexity with integrity is far harder than any elite commentary admits. The discussion covers the impossible triangle — citizens demanding higher spending, lower taxes, and zero debt simultaneously — and why law, order, and secure property rights remain the irreducible foundation of any economy. A rare economic mind speaking with political skin in the game.

About Speaker –
Dr. Ashok K Lahiri is an Indian economist and a member of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly from Balurghat. He is currently serving as a member of the Fifteenth Finance Commission. Lahiri previously served as 12th Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India, reader at the Delhi School of Economics, chairman of Bandhan Bank, executive director at the Asian Development Bank and director of the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy and had stints with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, as a consultant and senior economist respectively. He is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party.