Academic economists in India produce peer-reviewed research on development economics, labour markets, public finance, agricultural economics, and macro-finance, then publish in AER, ECTA, QJE, JPE, and the Indian Economic Review. The entry path is a PhD from MIT, Harvard, LSE, Princeton, Yale, DSE, ISI Kolkata/Delhi/Bengaluru, or Ashoka University, followed by a job-market paper strong enough to place at a research-active Indian institution or an international university. Day-to-day work alternates between running microeconometric analyses on IHDS, NSSO, ICRISAT VDSA, ASI, and ASER datasets; designing and overseeing RCT field experiments through J-PAL India, IFMR Krea, and 3ie India; writing working papers for NCAER, NIPFP, NBER, and BREAD; teaching graduate courses; and writing SERB, INSPIRE, or Gates Foundation grant proposals. Senior positions include full professor at Ashoka, ISI Fellow, or Principal Economist at RBI DEPR, NCAER, or NIPFP, with crossover opportunities at IMF, World Bank, and ADB.