Daybreak - India's newest think tank has Adani's money and the government's ear

Episode Date: May 6, 2026

A two-year-old think tank backed by Adani just got 14 of its suggestions, some of them word for word, written into a law passed by Parliament. That law opened India's nuclear sector to private players for the first time in history. Months later, Adani floated a new subsidiary to enter the same field.The think tank is called Chintan Research Foundation. It started in a South Delhi cafe. It calls itself independent. And it's now one of the more visible and contested players in Delhi's policy world.So what exactly does Rs 100 crore buy you in India's policy ecosystem?Also listen to: Friday Roundup: Adani goes nuclear and AI's talent exit

Here's something that most people probably don't know about how policy gets made in India. By the time a minister stands up in the parliament to announce a new law, the idea behind it has usually been around for years. It's been circulating at researchers and officials at institutions that most people have never heard of. These places are called think tanks and the less you've heard of them, the better they're probably doing their job. But here is what is harder to ignore. 100 crore rupees. That is what one of India's most powerful conglomerates committed to funding a policy shop

that two years ago was made up of five people and a couple of South Delhi cafes. That conglomerate is a dani and the think tank is called chintan. And the question worth sitting with is what does 100 croix buy you in Delhi's policy world? Quite a lot, as it turns out. As my colleague, the Ken reporter Indirpal Singh, wrote in his recent story,

in just over a year, Chinten published 350 papers, held 30 events and got 14 of its suggestions, some of them word to word, written into a law passed by the parliament. I'm talking about the Shanti Bill that opened up India's nuclear sector to private players for the first time in our country's history. Unsurprisingly, just two months later, Adani power floated a new subsidiary to enter the nuclear power field. We even covered this on daybreak.

I will add the link to the show notes of this episode. So today, we are going to look at two questions. How does a brand new think tank get its fingerprints on national legislation this fast? And what does that tell us about how policy actually gets shaped in this country? Welcome to Daybreak, a business podcast from the Ken. I'm your host, Nigda Sharma, and I don't chase a new cycle.

Instead, every day of the week, my colleague Rachel Vargis and I will come to you with one business story that is worth understanding and worth your time. Today is Friday, the 8th of May. Let's start with a man at the centre of all of this. Shishir Priya Darshi spent 20 years in the Indian Civil Services and 22 years at the World Trade Organisation in Geneva retiring in 2022 as a director. He then joined the Adani group as president of global relations

before founding Chintan. And he is, by all accounts, a skilled operator. You know, the kind of person who works every room he enters, exchanges cards with purpose, and turns out, builds a database of 3,000 contacts from scratch. Chintin's origin story is almost charming. It was July 20,000. 24. Priya Darshi had the idea in his head and he wanted young people to build it with.

So he wrote to the Indian School of Public Policy asking to speak to their cohort. Two days later, he was in front of them. By the end of that talk, he had four interns. Their first meetings were held at the school, then at cafes, then the waiter at one of those cafes told Priya Darshi, politely, that the group was generating too much noise. They then moved to Panshil Park and then to Vassan Khunsch. The speed of this growth did not happen on conviction alone though. In 2024, a senior Adani group official said that the conglomerate was committed to funding Chinten to the tune of 100 cro rupees and likely more in the future.

That kind of capital for a new policy shop is like rocket fuel. Now, here is where things get interesting. The think tank Priyadashi says, he wants to build is the one that represents, and I'm quoting, the voice of the industry, not just Adani's voice, but industry writ large. While talking to Indirpal, he invoked CIA or the Confederation of Indian Industry as a reference point. He even talked about editorial freedom and said that the funding base is being diversified. In other words, he basically made the standard argument that every corporate-backed think tank eventually makes.

But the policy areas that Chintin has chosen to focus on, which is trade, climate and foreign policy are precisely the areas where Adani has the most active commercial interests. And the most visible policy win for Chintan's resume is the Shanty Act of 2025, which opened India's nuclear sector to private players. And like I told you earlier, two months after that law was gazetted, Adani power floated a new subsidiary called Adani Atomic Energy Limited, to enter this field. Now, Priyadarshi does not deny any of this.

He just argues what is good for Adani is often good for the Indian industry and that what is good for Indian industry is often good for policy. Now, to be fair, this argument is not without merit, but it is also not without obvious problems. More on this in the next segment. To understand what Chintan is trying to build, you have to understand what it is modelling itself on. The reference point that Pridarshi keeps returning to is ORF, the Observer Research Foundation.

ORF is India's most powerful thing tank, backed primarily by reliance, and it took roughly a decade of grinding work to become the government's go-to foreign policy shop. Its flagship event, the Raisina Dialogue draws the heads of state from some of the most powerful countries of the world. In the financial year 2025 alone, ORF received nearly 70% of its total funding from reliance. Priya Darshi is clear-eyed about what ORF has built. He says, and I'm quoting, ORF has done a phenomenal service to the country. And he's not being ironic. What he wants for Chinten is something similar.

Large internationally focused annual events on climate, trade and geo-economics. He is already working on South Corp. which is a global climate conclave model on the scale of ricina. But ORF's success also illustrates the trap itself. When nearly 70% of your funding comes from one source, the question every outside observer eventually asks is, can you actually bite the hand? Can ORF take a position on GEO's dominance of the telecom market

that Reliance does not like? Can Chintan publish a paper, critical of the Adani group's port strategy and have it land with any credibility? The standard defence and Priyadashi offers a version of it is that editorial decisions rest with the institution, not the funder. But the more sophisticated critique is not about individual papers. It is structural. The founder of a public policy consulting firm put it cleanly to Indyapal.

They said, and I'm quoting again, there are two ways to deal with this. One, you keep editorial control and use your discretion. Two, you decide what research to fund and what not. Some areas and topics are safer than others where even criticising will not do any harm. In other words, the censorship does not need to be explicit. You simply choose which questions to ask.

And then there is the political dimension. The Centre for Policy Research, one of Delhi's oldest and most prestigious think tanks found itself subject to a tax investigation in 2022 over allegations of dubious funding, which is an episode that was widely read as a consequence of its willingness to take positions that the government found uncomfortable. Shintan has so far moved in the opposite direction.

The Aravali summit that it hosted in partnership with the External Affairs Ministry had Foreign Minister S. Jais Shankar as keynote speaker. The Vice-Chancellor of J&U described the event's purpose as developing, and I'm quoting, Bharthier-centric narratives. These are not the positions of an institution preparing to ask difficult questions of those in power. See, corporate-backed think tanks are a feature of every major policy ecosystem. The US, Europe, have had them forever and so has India.

But what makes Chintan worth watching is the candor. Priyadarshi does not pretend that the think tank emerged from some purely intellectual impulse. He openly describes it as a vehicle for industry's voice in policy. He says Adani's early support provided important momentum and he admits that he is building towards something that looks like Rycina. The honest version of what Chintan is, a well-funded, well-connected advocacy institution that produces, uses research aligned with its patrons' interests and calls itself independent, is not a scandal.

It is a description of how much of Delhi's policy world already works. The only question that really matters is whether the ideas are good. And on that, the jury is still out.