Today my guest is Vijayendra Rao, or as he's known, Biju Rao, a lead economist in the Development Research Group at the World Bank. His recent book coauthored with professor Paromita Sanyal called Oral Democracy: Deliberation in Indian Village Assemblies, is an excellent study of citizens voice in India's Gram Sabhas, or village assemblies, which are also the largest deliberative institution in human history.  I had a chance to speak with Biju about deliberative democracy in India, federalism and local governments, conducting ethnographic research, what it means to be a development economist, the relevance of methodology and history, and much more.  Full transcript of this episode enhanced with helpful links:  https://www.discoursemagazine.com/tag/ideas-of-india-podcast/ Connect with me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/srajagopalan Connect with Biju on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bijurao