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Fiscal transfers and natural calamities: Does political alignment matter?

Fiscal transfers from the central government serve as an important mechanism for state governments to mitigate adverse impacts of extreme climate events. This article demonstrates that higher allocati...

  • Articles

Why political competition matters when inequality is high

In a high-inequality setting, local politicians with secure positions may favour the rich by diverting resources towards them, at the cost of the poor. To test this hypothesis, this article analyses d...

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Expected or unexpected? Strategic communication around audits to maximise deterrence

Even with evidence on how audits can be designed to be more effective in deterring corruption by bureaucrats, in practice, budget constraints restrict governments from being able to conduct audits wit...

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Is electrification in India fiscally sustainable?

In the first article in the Ideas@IPF2023 series, Barnwal and Ryan describe the completion of household electrification in India as a fiscal feat, notwithstanding the persistent losses recorded by ele...

  • Perspectives

Institutionalising social audits: Lessons from Meghalaya

Sidharth Santhosh summarises key findings from Meghalaya's experience of mandating social auditing for welfare schemes, including the need for stronger coalitions between citizens and the state, and g...

  • Notes from the Field

Unpacking how MSMEs are defined in India’s manufacturing and services sector

The Indian government announced a number of reforms to help micro, small and medium enterprises that had been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic – including changes in how an MSMEs are classified. Ra...

  • Perspectives

The costs of extreme competition for government jobs

Indian states have highly competitive examinations for public service recruitment, with many youth remaining unemployed for long periods to compete for these government vacancies. Kunal Mangal looks a...

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How women in politics impact maternal mortality

In the twelfth post of I4I’s month-long campaign to mark International Women’s Day 2023, Bhalotra et al. show that mortality during and after childbirth remains high, even where the knowledge and ...

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Has Budget 2023-24 been successful in balancing gender priorities?

Ahead of International Women’s Day, Tanya Rana and Neeha Susan Jacob categorise and analyse scheme allocations through the Union Budget’s Gender Budget Statement (GBS), by looking at what schemes ...

  • Perspectives

Does being local matter? Administrative decentralisation and human development

In this post, Chaudhary and Iyer discuss the administrative decentralisation reforms brought about by the Panchayati Raj Act, and measure the effect of decentralisation on the provision of public serv...

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Analysing e-governance service delivery outcomes: Insights from eTaal

In this piece, Trivedi and Mumtaz attempt to analyse the performance of e-governance service delivery across different tiers of government and service categories, through the volume of end-to-end elec...

  • Perspectives

Improving admissions to technical colleges in India

Following their note on the issues that may arise from the ambiguity of EWS reservation policies, Aygün, Turhan, and Yenmez provide a critique of the multi-run deferred-acceptance algorithm currently...

  • Perspectives

Challenges of executing EWS reservation efficiently

A recent Supreme Court judgement excluded members of reserved categories from the scope of EWS. Aygün, Turhan, and Yenmez look at the implications of this decision, including reserved category member...

  • Perspectives

Introduction to e-Symposium: The architecture of affirmative action

The Supreme Court of India recently upheld an amendment that excluded Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backwards Classes from the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) quota, restricting it on...

  • Symposium

Design choices for implementing affirmative action

In this expository piece, Ashutosh Thakur explains the various ways in which affirmative action policies can be implemented, and discusses the underlying tradeoffs and issues at hand. He delineates th...

  • Perspectives

Recent Contributors

Sabyasachi

Sabyasachi Das

Ahmedabad University

Souvik

Souvik Dutta

Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology

Soham

Soham Sahoo

Loughborough University and Indian Institute of Ma

Muneer

Muneer Kalliylil

Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

Kanika

Kanika Mahajan

Ashoka University

Ritam

Ritam Chaurey

Johns Hopkins SAIS

Shekhar

Shekhar Tomar

Indian School of Business

Anubhab

Anubhab Pattanayak

IIT Kharagpur

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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