Nihal Sahu

I’m a Research Fellow at Vidhi. I work on building the rule of law in India by producing research, advising government departments, and helping draft legislation.

I’m most active on Twitter and Bluesky. The best way to reach me is by email at nihal.sahu (at) vidhilegalpolicy (dot) in.

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Bookshelf +73 books

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I don't write a ton, but I'm quite proud of some of my writing.

Practice

the core mechanism • you can practice behaviours, not just skills • identity is downstream of practice • what you end up practicing will often depend on your environment

Against searching for saints

in defense of paying people to do things • incentives solve principal-agent problems • motivated agents exist but are unevenly distributed and hard to identify

Notes on the death of Elizabeth II

legal realism • rule of law in India • the English roots of constitutional traditions

Liberalism is gentleness

short • people have multidimensional preference sets • we love the ability to make choices

Addiction aesthetic

quitting smoking

Authority

the development of modern states • statecraft has a technology tree • parliamentary democracy • separation of powers • rule of law

Tax cuts as price controls

gain-of-function research on tax cuts

Tipping the odds

economists and lawyers • the limits of interpretation • what is Law™

I have a favourite band

literary earworms • finding identity • developing taste • rainbow kitten surprise • self-loathing

Against lawyer brain

escaping formalism for substance • why legal training teaches you to avoid the real world • learning to form opinions under uncertainty • choosing outcomes over process • strong beliefs, loosely held

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I say, pray for me, pray for yourself, and after you have finished praying, sit down and calculate.
— Lee Kuan Yew