surendra sunda

[cecfee @cecfee]

📢 Announcing the "New Data & Methods" , a workshop for PhD students and early-career faculty!

Join us on 30–31 July 2026 at the Auditorium, ISI Delhi Centre for two days of lectures on cutting-edge empirical methods in economics, featuring leading researchers working on industrial organization, labour, climate & energy, and urban economics.

Speakers:
• @TisharaG - Structural methods, industrial organization & firms
• @sugatchaturvedi - Machine learning and text-as-data in labour economics
• @_AnshumanTiwari - Satellite and other data for climate & energy
• Keynote: @thesamasher (Sam Asher) - Spatial data & urbanization

The workshop is organized by @LEADatKrea and the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) Delhi Centre under the Digital Platforms and Women's Economic Empowerment (DP-WEE) Project, in collaboration with @SERI_Network

📌 Registration is mandatory.
🗓️ Register by 20 July.
🎓 More details in the attached Image.

🔗 Register here, it's free: https://t.co/9MUhtHLEo8

#Economics #DevelopmentEconomics #DataScience #MachineLearning #ClimateEconomics #UrbanEconomics

[Taha Ibrahim Siddiqui @TahaSidiq]

1/4 🚨 PUBLIC GOOD ALERT 🚨

Finding data for research on India often means searching across government portals, papers, repositories and word of mouth.

I built Guide to Indian Data, a public catalogue to make discovery easier:
https://t.co/wtcqCxWidW 🧵#econ #opendata

[surendra sunda @surendrasunda]

@pranaykotas @kyleichan Not only for India.
https://t.co/DklAy0fkrq

[Harsh Nisar @NisarHogaya]

Finally visited this. This is going to turn into a weekly pilgrimage. Much needed space in Delhi - have found myself googling for libraries in Delhi on/off over the last decade.

It's free to visit and has 15,000 books! Such a nice CSR activity by @Coforge_Tech

Coforge Library, Vasant Kunj.

[Alex Veremeyenko @alex_verem]

i'm obsessed with what's happening in AI reforestation right now

this Franco-Brazilian startup called MORFO took a patch of land in Brazil that was rock-hard and compacted from years of cattle farming. they replanted it using a single drone. months later the ground was covered in grass, bushes, and small trees. the land came back to life.

here's how the whole thing works.

1. drones scan the terrain with high-resolution cameras and sensors
2. AI analyzes the imagery alongside soil samples, moisture levels, slope, and surrounding vegetation
3. the system picks from a catalog of 300+ native species, deciding exactly which plants will thrive in which specific spot
4. the drone fires biodegradable seed pods packed with seeds, nutrients, and moisture at 180 capsules per minute
5. satellite and drone imagery monitors regrowth over time, with AI tracking vegetation cover and biodiversity
6. two people and one drone cover 50 hectares a day. a person planting by hand manages about one hectare.

and MORFO isn't alone. AirSeed in Australia drops 250,000 seed pods per day into bushfire-scarred koala habitat, replanting swamp mahogany that koalas depend on to survive. Flash Forest in Canada fires 50,000 pods daily into wildfire-destroyed boreal forest, planning the replanting alongside Cree Indigenous communities. re-green won Prince William's Earthshot Prize after planting 6 million seedlings across 30,000 hectares of Amazon and Atlantic Forest.

five companies across four continents built this same approach independently. nobody coordinated. the physics of the problem demanded it.

knowing which seeds belong in which soil used to require years of ecological fieldwork, manual planting crews, and budgets that made large-scale restoration nearly impossible. now two people with a drone and an AI model trained on local soil data can replant 50 hectares before lunch.

this is the AI work that'll still matter in 50 years.

[surendra sunda @surendrasunda]

@cl7martinez @cl7martinez, I was just reading your recent article, and the news came. You already pointed out the problems in that. None of those problems is tackled in these reforms. The core issue is still untouched. Keep writing it.

[Sagar Awatade @SagarAwatade]

I don't know who else to tell this to, so I am going to tell my story here.

Every day is a struggle for a young business, but the last few months have been harder than usual.

We are a small Indian company. For more than ten years we have been building a homegrown brand in a product category dominated by big foreign players.

There are almost no Indian names in this space. We set out to be one.

We started in 2014. Over the years we began making parts in India instead of just importing, and we started selling in the US, Dubai, Nepal, Malaysia and South Africa.

We showed up at global trade fairs to represent an Indian brand on the world stage.

In 2023 we changed the import code we use for our product. We did not do this quietly. Every shipment was declared. Nothing was hidden. We didn't invent our approach.

We followed written professional advice and the way this product is treated in markets around the world.

And now we are facing a government demand running into tens of crores in duty recovery and penalties, plus personal penalties on the founders and even on an employee.

For a company our size, this is not a fine we can pay and move on from. This ends us.

We have not run from any of this. I am not built like that. It is not how I was raised. We have written to the authorities, met officials in person, and we have now filed a writ in the High Court.

All we are asking for is a fair treatment.

I set out to build in India and sell to the world. I am asking only that the system back honest founders trying to compete globally, instead of breaking them.

The process is the process, and it exists for a reason. But process should not feel like punishment.

From where I am standing today, it does.
I am not giving up. I have worked too hard for this. If you have read this far, please share it. If you know someone who can help, point them my way. Help me get the word out.

[surendra sunda @surendrasunda]

@ajay_shah This is the case with most of the Indian State governments. I think they are following the path of the Central Government to a certain extent. There is a lack of will among Indian politicians and bureaucrats to talk about these constraints when devising any welfare scheme.

[Ajay Shah @ajay_shah]

https://t.co/lLc8AMQ9Eg

[Bhargavi @bhargavizaveri]

India is desperate for stable foreign capital. INR is in a virtual free fall. Yet, there is an *absurd* bottleneck nobody talks about: the RBI’s FIRMS portal — mandatory for FC-GPR filings and therefore for receiving FDI share capital — has been down for weeks.

As a result, inward remittances for legitimate equity investments into Indian companies are getting stuck because founders literally cannot complete regulatory filings.

At a moment when the country needs every dollar of productive FDI it can attract, this is exactly the kind of invisible bureaucratic friction India should not be imposing on itself.

@RBI @RBIsays @NITIAyog @nsitharaman

[Lawrence H. White @lawrencehwhite1]

Available by subscription to the Peterson Academy. I hope you enjoy watching as much as I enjoyed taping it.

[surendra sunda @surendrasunda]

@aier The moment the government says it is protecting consumers, short the company's stock.

[Samuel Hughes @SCP_Hughes]

Most of the world's great traditions of ornamental masonry architecture faded away in the twentieth century. But one remained: the Hindu temple.

The classical style of Hindu temples never died out, and in recent decades has grown steadily more vibrant and powerful. Much of the best traditional architecture in the world today is in India, or in places around the world where Hindu communities have settled.

Temples still make little use of structural steel or even arcuation, relying instead on trabeated masonry like the ancient Egyptians and Greeks. Because stone does not corrode, these buildings will last for many thousands of years with minimal maintenance, far longer than the fabric of the modern cities that surround them.

With the help of temple staff around the world, my friend Tilak Parekh has put together a wonderful review of modern Hindu temple architecture, looking at the ingenuity and sacrifice which created these great buildings.

https://t.co/aUGIrdcFru

[surendra sunda @surendrasunda]

@DavidBeckworth @izakaminska https://t.co/KkLcazZhmF
It's not just that countries are caught between US and Chinese currency blocs. Some are actively exploiting the competition. The UAE requested a dollar swap line, simultaneously signaling it could shift oil transactions to yuan if the request was denied.

[Nicholas Decker @captgouda24]

Folks, I am looking for podcast guests! If you're an economist and you'd like to share your work with thousands of people, please do reach out. I'm thinking an informal conversation, in the style of Paul Krugman.

[Ajay Shah @ajay_shah]

Call for papers for Emerging Markets Conference 2026 -- https://t.co/mrRO0r49eU

[Business Standard @bsindia]

#Opinion | Political consensus on #GST reform is broad, but the current design with multiple rates, exemptions and incomplete input tax credit continues to fragment the base, reintroduce cascading and weigh on growth, write @ajay_shah and Arbind Modi

https://t.co/tJSV2hf8Sn

[IIEP at GW @IIEPGW]

Excited to welcome @melovely_max , Sajjid Chinoy, and @krishna_pravin to the 6th #GWIndia Conference on April 16 to discuss "India’s Trade Strategy in an Uncertain World."

Learn more & register:
https://t.co/poanw7Emzk

[Shruti Rajagopalan @srajagopalan]

In the latest episode of @IdeasofIndia @mercatus I speak with Devesh Kapur @SAISHopkins and @arvindsubraman @PIIE about their book A Sixth of Humanity: Independent India's Development Odyssey.

Audio+ Video: https://t.co/ELYoRVNOnI

Complete Transcript: https://t.co/lzVbMib0Ci

[Center for Study of Public Choice @GMU_CSPC]

Applications are open for the 2026 Public Choice Summer Outreach Conference, June 12–14 near DC. No fee. Scholarships available.

Topics include voting theory, political economy, and much more, including a special Q&A with @tylercowen.

🔗 https://t.co/bF5MMbxl4n
#PublicChoice