05 March, 2025The wide-ranging benefits of India’s Public Distribution System
India’s Public Distribution System (PDS) is the world’s largest food transfer programme and India’s most far-reaching social safety net, accounting for 60% of the country’s social assistance b...
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Kathy Baylis Ben Crost Aditya Shrinivas 
17 February, 2025
- Articles
Network membership and demand for health insurance
Despite being free and having liberal eligibility criteria, the adoption of public health insurance in India remains low. This article examines how informal networks influence adoption behaviour, in t...
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Titir Bhattacharya Tanika Chakraborty Anirban Mukherjee
- 17 January, 2025
- Articles
Powering progress: How reliable community electrification boosts women’s autonomy
While there has been significant progress in expanding access to grid electricity in India, the reliability of electricity remains a concern. Based on five national-level datasets spanning over a peri...
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Rikhia Bhukta Debayan Pakrashi Sarani Saha Ashish Sedai
- 06 January, 2025
- Articles
Tracking learning outcomes: ASER’s work through the pandemic
With the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and the associated lockdowns, schools quickly pivoted to online learning. However, there was limited information about whether children had access to learning m...
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Rukmini Banerji Wilima Wadhwa
- 31 October, 2022
- Videos
Tracking learning outcomes: ASER’s work through the pandemic
With the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and the associated lockdowns, schools quickly pivoted to online learning. However, there was limited information about whether children had access to learning m...
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Rukmini Banerji Wilima Wadhwa
- 31 October, 2022
- Podcasts
Insuring India: PM-JAY’s targeting problem
India’s largest health insurance programme is targetted at poor and vulnerable populations who would be least able to afford medical care. However, this article by Chhabra and Smith shows that a lar...
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Sheena Chhabra Owen Smith
- 19 October, 2022
- Articles
The future of old times
India needs to plan for a radical expansion of public support for the elderly. In this piece, Drèze and Duflo argue that near-universal social security pensions would be a good start. Elderly persons...
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Jean Drèze Esther Duflo
- 26 September, 2022
- Perspectives
High scoring but poor: The misallocation of talent in higher education
As labour market returns to college education have increased, more young adults now receive some form of higher education than ever before. Yet, college attendance remains low for children from poor s...
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Andres Yi Chang Jishnu Das Abhijeet Singh
- 08 September, 2022
- Articles
Illam Thedi Kalvi: A booster shot for post-Covid education
Amidst worries about learning loss caused by school closures during the Covid-19 pandemic, Tamil Nadu's Illam Thedi Kalvi (ITK) – a volunteer-based education programme – has played a vital role in...
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Sarthak Agrawal
- 05 September, 2022
- Notes from the Field
Access to antenatal care and its influence on children’s cognitive development
Research has shown that maternal health affects later-life outcomes of children. Using data from the Young Lives survey in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, this article shows that antenatal care has an i...
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Neha Adsul Sarthak Gaurav Priya Rampal
- 29 August, 2022
- Articles
The impact of community-based depression treatment in India
Although the prevalence of depression may have adverse economic impacts, especially in developing countries, treatment options in India are limited by a shortage of providers. This article looks at th...
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Manuela Angelucci Daniel Bennett
- 23 August, 2022
- Articles
Remedying poor student assessment data in India
Taking into account existing evidence on the accuracy of administrative data on student learning levels in India, Singh and Ahluwalia discuss why a reliable system of student assessment matters; fixin...
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Rahul Ahluwalia Prakhar Singh
- 26 July, 2022
- Perspectives
To invest in sanitation or not? The role of gender differences in perceptions
Although sanitation is essential for health, many households remain without a toilet due to financial constraints. This article describes the extent to which perceptions of costs and benefits of sanit...
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Britta Augsburg Bansi Malde Harriet Olorenshaw Zaki Wahhaj
- 22 July, 2022
- Articles
Access to health insurance in India: Direct and spillover effects
Many low-income households in India have been pushed into poverty by high healthcare costs. Uptake of the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana, the government-run national health insurance programme for bel...
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Gabriella Conti Cynthia Kinnan Anup Malani Alessandra Voena
- 01 July, 2022
- Articles
Assessing the extent and fiscal cost of teacher shortages in India
The New Education Policy has proposed that the one million teacher vacancies in public elementary schools be filled imperatively. Using 2019-20 District Information System for Education (u-DISE) data,...
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Sandip Datta Geeta Gandhi Kingdon
- 22 June, 2022
- Articles
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Tweets by Ideas4IndiaMost Popular Human Development Posts
Hindu-Muslim fertility differentials in India: District-level estimates from Census 2011
The 2011 Indian Census data show a higher growth rate of Muslim population compared to the Hindu population. This article provides an in-depth picture of Hindu-Muslim fertility differentials at the di...
- Saswata Ghosh
- 27 March, 2019
- Articles
Understanding India’s mental health crisis
Since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, several reports have indicated a worsening of mental health issues among individuals across age groups. In this post, Michele Mary Bernadine examines the stat...
- Michele Mary Bernadine
- 06 April, 2021
- Perspectives
Ten steps to transform the quality of education in India
In this article, Sridhar Rajagopalan, Managing Director of Educational Initiatives, suggests 10 initiatives that can help transform the quality of education in India.
- Sridhar Rajagopalan
- 19 November, 2015
- Perspectives