24 September, 2025Election of criminal politicians and public service delivery
Why are politicians with criminal records elected to office, despite voters having the option to weed them out? Based on the hypothesis that criminal politicians strategically deliver targeted benefit...
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Abhinav Khemka 
18 September, 2025
- Articles
Boosting Lekhpal performance via data-driven feedback and recognition
The Lekhpals Actionable KPI System for Holistic Assessment and Management (LAKSHYAM) is an initiative to measure and enhance the work performance of Lekhpals, who are frontline functionaries of the Re...
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Fahad Hasin Sakshi Ugale
- 18 August, 2025
- Notes from the Field
Building State capacity for accelerating development through effective governance
In a new edition of I4I conversations, Maitreesh Ghatak (London School of Economics) is joined by Karthik Muralidharan (University of California, San Diego) to discuss his new book, Accelerating India...
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Maitreesh Ghatak Karthik Muralidharan
- 05 May, 2025
- Videos
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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Sriniketh Nagavarapu Sheetal Sekhri
- 06 May, 2013
- Articles
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...
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Animesh Ghosh
- 05 April, 2013
- 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 ...
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Nathan Larson Sheetal Sekhri Rajinder Sidhu
- 31 March, 2013
- 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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Tarun Jain
- 28 March, 2013
- Articles
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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Sandip Sukhtankar
- 25 March, 2013
- Articles
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...
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Ajit Nayak
- 08 February, 2013
- Notes from the Field
Use of technology to improve public service delivery
How is technology being used to improve public service delivery at the grass root level? In this Note from the Field, the Prime Minister’s Rural Development Fellows that are working with district ad...
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Chandrasekhar Bhuyan Animesh Ghosh Kshovan Guha Dipti Paridhi Kindo Priyanka Kumari Ankush Singh Sushma Taywade Sweta Trayambak
- 06 February, 2013
- Notes from the Field
Role of Information Provision in Improving Public Service Delivery
Informal monitoring and enforcement can increase the efficiency of public service delivery. This project studies the Targeted Public Distribution System of India and finds that Scheduled Castes (SC) h...
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Sriniketh Nagavarapu Sheetal Sekhri
- 01 February, 2013
- IGC Research on India
Does political reservation for women improve programme delivery?
This column outlines results of a study that assesses the impact of women leaders on corruption and other aspects of the quality of delivery of MNREGA. It argues that administrative experience, traini...
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Farzana Afridi
- 17 January, 2013
- Articles
Economic policy agenda for India in 2013
What should the priorities be for economic policymakers in India in the coming year? This column emphasises the need for greater transparency, and improved governance and regulation for reviving econo...
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Dilip Mookherjee
- 02 January, 2013
- Articles
The impacts of linking NREGA payments to UID. A Study of Maharashtra
This project attempts to measure the impact of Universal Identification (UID)-linked wage payments on corruption in public works projects funded under MNREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Act)....
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Siwan Anderson Ashok Kotwal Ashwini Kulkarni Bharat Ramaswami
- 15 December, 2012
- IGC Research on India
A Novel, Market Based Mechanism to Incentivize Efficient Groundwater/Energy use in Indian Agriculture – Setting Up a Field Experiment in Gujarat
This project documents patterns of rural-urban migration and employment shifts in a region that is facing ongoing depletion of groundwater resources in northern Gujarat in India. Given that migration ...
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Ram Fishman Meha Jain Avinash Kishore Anjal Prakash
- 01 December, 2012
- IGC Research on India
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Tweets by Ideas4IndiaMost 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...
- Mudit Kapoor
- 23 December, 2016
- 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, ...
- Siwan Anderson
- 16 August, 2012
- Articles
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...
- Venugopal Mothkoor Fatima Mumtaz
- 23 March, 2021
- Perspectives