The Talk
Demonetisation was the most disruptive thing to have happened to the Indian economy for a long time. The country was divided about its value and implications and what it beheld for the economy and politics. At the Manthan Debate, two prominent thinkers, with contrarian positions on the issue, presented their arguments to give us a 360 degree view of the issue to help us to make up our minds.
Anil Padmanabhan, Executive Director, The Mint and Himanshu, Prof
Anil Padmanabhan has been a journalist for 30 years. He has worked in various news organisations including the Press Trust of India, Business Standard and India Today. At present he is the Executive Editor in Mint, the business daily of the Hindustan Times group. He also writes a weekly column, Capital Calculus, which focuses on the intersection of politics and economics.
Himanshu is Associate Professor in Economics at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University. He has been teaching economics at JNU since February 2008. Prior to joining JNU, Himanshu was a Fellow at the Centre de Sciences Humaines, a research institution of the French Ministry of Higher Education and CNRS. He is currently visiting fellow at Centre de Sciences Humaines, New Delhi and Associate at India Observatory, LSE. He has been associated with the Asia Research Centre and India Observatory of the London School of Economics and Political Science since 2007. He has also been C R Parekh fellow at Asia Research Centre of the London School of Economics. His areas of research include issues related to measurement and analysis of poverty and inequality, employment, food security, agrarian change and rural development.