Driven by necessity I was knocking door to door for work. On my brother's reference, I called Bibek Debroy for outsourced research. He spoke to me for all of five minutes and offered to give me some data work ranking the states of India. The Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies (RGICS) would publish it and Bibek and I would co-author it. And he would give me some advance and the rest on completion. We had a meeting soon after and figured out a methodology and variables and structure, etc. And I was out of his office in just 15 minutes. A few weeks later I was back in his office with printouts of state-level data. Gujarat was coming on top in my ranking. I had validated the numbers, the sources, and the methods, and had even done sensitivity analyses. There were no mistakes there.
The questions on my mind were: Will Bibek ask me to change the method, or the weighting schema? Would he remove his name from this study? Or would he ask me to abandon the study? How could the head of the RGICS co-author a paper ranking post-Godhra Gujarat as the topmost? Again it took Bibek all of 15 minutes, or perhaps it was 10, to clear the confusion. "We will go with what you have, and we will publish with no change in results. Are you OK with that?" he asked me. I did not realize at that time, neither did Bibek perhaps, his RGICS days would soon be over.
This story is from the November 02, 2024 edition of Business Standard.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the November 02, 2024 edition of Business Standard.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
How AI is Disrupting the Literary World
This summer, Ayad Akhtar was struggling with the final scene of McNeal, his knotty and disorienting play about a Nobel Prize-winning author who uses artificial intelligence to write a novel.
Dark store surge set to spur realty demand
Quick commerce (qcom) firms are poised to impact India's real estate landscape as they expand their dark store networks to meet the growing demand.
The Bibek I knew
It was the early 2000s when I was setting up an economics research practice.
Saudi revives India investment plans amid shrinking mkt share
Move aimed at ensuring a major captive market for its crude oil, even as Indian refiners mull reducing the share of expensive Saudi grades sourced under term contracts
Tech, threats, territories - navigating industry growth in the new world order
As I step into my role as president of Nasscom, I view the next five years as a critical period, shaped by the intersection of three forces: Technology, threats, and territories.
STARS AND STYLE
The two biggest ever stars of Indian movies have followed contrasting styles as brands
Overhaul of HVLDE norms on cards
Market regulator Sebi has proposed an overhaul to the framework governing high-value listed debt entities (HVLDEs) in a bid to reduce the compliance burden.
Sebi moots changes to ERP framework
Revision to allow ERPs to rate unlisted securities
Testing the Midwestern assumption
Every now and then, a moment comes when the assumptions underlying a nation's politics are completely overturned.
From alienation to acceptance
A third of the way into Matthew Rankin's Universal Language, one stops wanting to know the film's secret and begins swimming in its mystery instead.
