A journal of ideas, enterprise, places and perspective.
The Aaran Journal began with a simple belief: some of the most useful perspectives are gathered outside the boundaries of any one discipline.
They come from building enterprises and watching decisions meet reality. From economics encountered not only through data, but through markets, businesses and people. From travelling through unfamiliar places and discovering how communities understand themselves. From books, conversations and individuals who challenge assumptions. And sometimes, simply from looking at something familiar for long enough to see it differently.
The Aaran Journal is a place for those perspectives to be explored.
The Aaran Journal is an independent journal founded and edited by Dr Siddhartha Aaran Phukan, bringing together writing on ideas, economics, strategy, places, people and the larger forces shaping enterprise and society.
The Journal does not attempt to cover everything. Nor is it intended to provide commentary on every development as it happens. Its purpose is more deliberate: to identify questions worth examining, experiences worth recording and ideas worth returning to.
Six ways of looking at the world
Ideas
Books, arguments, concepts and questions that change—or challenge—the way we understand something.
Economics
How economic forces are experienced in the real world: through businesses, markets, capital, incentives, productivity, policy and the decisions people make within them.
Strategy
How enterprises are built, resources allocated, organisations structured, opportunities evaluated and decisions made when the answer is rarely as obvious as it appears afterwards.
Places
More than travel. Culture, food, history, identity and the perspectives that emerge when we spend enough time somewhere to look beyond what a visitor first sees.
People
Individuals and communities whose experiences, work or ways of thinking reveal something larger than the story of one person alone.
A Longer View
A step away from the immediate. Reflections on enterprise, economics, society and institutions that become clearer when we resist the pressure to reach conclusions too quickly.
Perspective, not prescription
Much of what appears in The Aaran Journal begins with experience. But experience alone is not evidence, just as data alone does not always explain what happens in the world.
The Journal therefore sits deliberately between the two: observation and analysis, experience and research, the personal and the structural.
Some pieces will begin with an enterprise decision. Others with a place, a person, a book, an economic question or something noticed along the way.
They will not always arrive at definitive answers. That is intentional.
Sometimes the more valuable outcome of examining an idea carefully is not certainty, but a better question.
About the Founder & Editor
Dr Siddhartha Aaran Phukan is an entrepreneur, economist and institution builder whose work has involved building and governing enterprises across different sectors and geographies.
The Aaran Journal grew from his habit of writing about what sits around that work: the economic forces behind business decisions, the realities of building institutions, encounters with people and places, and ideas that become more interesting when viewed from more than one direction.
The Journal is independent in its editorial perspective. The views expressed here are those of their respective authors and are intended to encourage thought, discussion and a longer view of the subjects explored.
Ideas · Economics · Strategy · Places · People · A Longer View