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Female legislators and forest conservation

While women are known to be more concerned about the environment than men, do these preferences translate into action when women hold political power? This article shows that in constituencies reserve...

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Financing the climate transition of India’s power sector

A cornerstone of India’s climate transition plan is to shift towards a high-efficiency, low-emission power sector. In this post, Vardhan and Tilotia outline the investment and financing challenges a...

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Does India’s air pollution impact more than just health?

Air pollution presents a significant risk to human health in India, a fact which is now widely appreciated. Less well-known is a body of evidence suggesting that air pollution harms the day-to-day fun...

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The ‘Right to Energy’ and carbon tax: A game changer in India

India's carbon emissions in 2014 were more than three times its level in 1990. While the emissions have increased sharply, their distribution across income groups is extremely skewed. The poor in Indi...

  • Perspectives

Compensatory afforestation funds: A means or an end?

India has one of the most ambitious targets for forest cover as part of its Nationally Determined Contributions to the Paris Agreement which will require considerable land and financial resources. In ...

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Gone with the wind: Crop-burning and the human costs of pollution

Globally, an estimated 4 million people die prematurely because of air pollution every year. This article exploits seasonal changes in air quality arising due to agricultural fires – used by farmers...

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Rural electrification and structural transformation: A guar(anteed) bet?

Is large-scale electrification necessary for the structural transformation of rural economies? This article combines two natural experiments in India – an exogenous agricultural boom in the northwes...

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Nobel laureate William Nordhaus’ ideas for India

William Nordhaus has won a share of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Economics for his contribution to climate economics. In this post, Dean Spears discusses Nordhaus’ work and its implications for India. He...

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Understanding India’s energy and emissions future

India is an important player in global climate change mitigation, and it is crucial to understand its energy and emissions future. Projections for India’s 2030 CO2 emissions from energy range from 9...

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Financing scale-up of rooftop solar power via municipal bonds

While India’s solar power generation capacity has increased dramatically in recent years, the rate of deployment of rooftop solar is still insufficient to achieve the national targets. In this post,...

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Rural Electrification with Off-Grid Community Microgrids: An Impact Evaluation in Uttar Pradesh, India

This project assesses the socioeconomic effects of solar microgrids. The lack of access to electricity is a major obstacle to the socioeconomic development of more than a billion people.

  • IGC Research on India

Pollution Externalities and Health: A Study of Indian Rivers

In many developing countries, environmental quality remains low and policies to improve it have been inconsistently effective. This project conducts a case study of environmental policy, focussing on ...

  • IGC Research on India

Impact of groundwater accessibility on performance of firms

While labour laws and capital have been identified as key constraints to industrial growth, there is scant evidence on whether accessibility of vital natural resources, such as groundwater, also influ...

  • IGC Research on India

Temperature and human capital in India

A large proportion of the population in India has agrarian livelihoods that remain climate-exposed. The number of hot days per year in the country are expected to double by the end of this century. T...

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Clearing the air: The effects of transparency on plant pollution emissions

Of the 20 cities in the world with the worst fine particulate air pollution, 13 are in India. If good information on who pollutes is available, then traditional environmental regulation can bring down...

  • IGC Research on India

Recent Contributors

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Bipasha Maity

Ashoka University

Sutirtha

Sutirtha Bandyopadhyay

Indian Institute of Management Indore

Pranabes

Pranabes Probeshika Dutta

City University of New York

Naveen

Naveen Hari

Texas A&M University

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Harsh Vardhan

Management Consultant and Researcher

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Akhilesh Tilotia

The Infravision Foundation

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Surayya Masood

World Bank

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Most Popular Environment Posts

Happy Seeder: A solution to agricultural fires in north India

It is believed that much of the pollution in Delhi in November every year originates in the neighbouring states of Punjab and Haryana where farmers burn their fields to dispose of crop residue. This ...

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Has environmental regulation been successful in India?

India has an impressive number of environmental regulations – but have they been a success? This column presents evidence that while initiatives such as catalytic converters for cars have reduced ai...

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Carbon dioxide emissions from India’s industries: Data sources and discrepancies

Industries are one of the most significant contributors to energy-related carbon-dioxide (energy-CO2) emissions in India – the share of industries in the total emissions was 25%, second only to powe...

  • Perspectives