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Governance

Decentralisation and spatial (mis)allocation of irrigation water

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The influence of local politicians in the private education market

Private schooling has experienced rapid expansion in India – both in terms of number of schools and student enrolment. Analysing data from 2005-2017, this article shows that constituencies represent...

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How immigration policy uncertainty affects labour markets

President Trump’s re-election has reignited debate over H-1B visa policies, a temporary high-skill work visa programme wherein 70% of visas are held by Indians. Analysing jobs data from India from t...

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Is it better to be governed by an elected leader or appointed bureaucrat?

The division of governance functions and responsibilities between politicians and bureaucrats varies, both across and within political regimes. Based on an experiment in Karnataka, this article examin...

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Star Wars

Debraj Ray gets to the heart of the growth versus redistribution debate and argues that a sectoral imbalance in growth is inevitable. While occupational choice is an important way to deal with this, ...

  • Perspectives

Economic growth versus social development: The spatial dimension

In the context of the economic growth versus social development debate sparked off by Bhagwati and Sen, this column argues for a more nuanced approach to assessing progress. Combining nationally repre...

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Turn Right or Left? Or is there a middle way?

Dilip Mookherjee shares his perspective on the recent Bhagwati versus Sen debate. While Sen represents the pro-state-led assistance stand and Bhagwati is seen as pro-market, what India requires is th...

  • Perspectives

Food Bill: Neither populist nor unaffordable

Criticism of the National Food Security Bill has led to the government dropping the idea of issuing an Ordinance and instead, saying it would try to get the Bill passed in a special session of Parlia...

  • Perspectives

Cash Transfer versus In-Kind Transfers: A conceptual framework and preliminary evidence

This project studied the performance of a conditional cash transfer scheme called Mukhyamantri Cycle Yojana, which provides money to purchase a bicycle to every student who is enrolled in standard nin...

  • IGC Research on India

Bihar's malnutrition crisis and potential solutions

The prevalence of underweight children in Bihar is higher than in any country in the world, and the provision of public services to address malnutrition is poor. Based on an assessment of the governm...

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The role of informal caste networks in public service delivery

Large public programmes designed at the national level are often undermined by corruption at the local level. This column proposes local level monitoring and enforcement through informal networks as ...

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IAP improving lives in Maoist-affected areas

In this Note from the Field, a PMRDF working in the Left Wing Extremism affected Purulia district in West Bengal, narrates how the Maoist movement disrupted livelihoods, revenue generation and public...

  • Notes from the Field

Adoption of Water-Saving Infrastructure in Agriculture: The Case of Laser Levellers

Water tables are falling rapidly, in large part due to the fact that individuals do not bear the social marginal cost of the water they use; free water extraction is a property right attached to land ...

  • IGC Research on India

Should bribe-givers be let off?

In 2011, Economist Kaushik Basu argued that for a class of bribes, the law should not punish the bribe-giver. This column presents results of experiments conducted to test this idea and provides insi...

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Two questions about the 2G scandal

The scandal involving corruption in the allocation of 2G licenses left the nation stunned. This column presents estimates of the revenue loss to the government, and says that while the common man was...

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Is the District Innovation Fund being utilised?

The 13th Finance Commission has recommended the creation of a District Innovation Fund in each district. The objective of the fund is to increase the efficiency of existing capital assets by filling v...

  • Notes from the Field

Recent Contributors

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Jean Drèze

Ranchi University; Delhi School of Economics

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Amartya Sen

Harvard University

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Sabyasachi Das

Ahmedabad University

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Souvik Dutta

Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology

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Soham Sahoo

Loughborough University and Indian Institute of Ma

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Muneer Kalliylil

Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

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Kanika Mahajan

Ashoka University

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Ritam Chaurey

Johns Hopkins SAIS

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Most Popular Governance Posts

Unique Health Identification and Aadhaar: A case for mandatory linkage

As part of the Digital India initiative, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) issues a Unique Health Identification (UHID) number to each patient, which documents their entire journey in th...

  • Perspectives

Caste dominance in rural India: Cause and effect

Rural India remains a caste-based society. This column explores why caste continues to play such an important role and what the effects are. It argues that trade and agricultural productivity suffer, ...

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The digital dream: Upskilling India for the future

While the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the pace at which technology is becoming commonplace in our lives, it has also exposed a stark digital divide, leaving a large proportion of India’s popul...

  • Perspectives