(Dispatches from India - by Arjun Ramani - Economy Class

Before starting my PhD, I spent the past three years as a journalist for The Economist. The final year was the best. I was based in India, lived between Mumbai and New Delhi, and travelled across 10 states and over 30 cities and villages as the country carried out history’s largest election. I was responsible for the paper’s India economics coverage, which culminated in a 10-page special report and cover story, and at a personal level, grew closer to my heritage. The central challenge of reporting from India is that it is a vast, heterogeneous and only half-modernised state, so information is more dispersed and likely to stay private than in US tech and finance, my previous beat. Finding the often unexpected guides who opened their worlds to me was what made writing in India so rewarding, and I’m happy to share those stories here. It surprises me that so few international resources go into understanding India on the ground. The country has 1.4bn people and counting, is compounding at a

Before starting my PhD, I spent the past three years as a journalist for The Economist. The final year was the best. I was based in India, lived between Mumbai and New Delhi, and travelled across 10 states and over 30 cities and villages as the country carried out history’s largest election. I was responsible for the paper’s India economics coverage, which culminated in a 10-page special report and cover story, and at a personal level, grew closer to my heritage. The central challenge of reporting from India is that it is a vast, heterogeneous and only half-modernised state, so information is