08 January, 2025Fiscal 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...
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K. S. Kavi Kumar Anubhab Pattanayak 
14 November, 2024
- 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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Anders Kjelsrud Kalle Moene Lore Vandewalle
- 13 September, 2024
- Articles
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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Wendy Wong
- 11 September, 2024
- Articles
Improving public service delivery by fixing payment systems
Fixing how funds flow through the government systems grabs far fewer headlines than malnutrition, problems in the education sector, or crumbling infrastructure. In this post, Charity Troyer Moore cont...
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Charity Troyer Moore
- 28 January, 2022
- Perspectives
India’s new National Water Policy: A paradigm shift
In 2019, the Ministry of Jal Shakti set up a committee of independent experts – led by Dr Mihir Shah – to draft a new National Water Policy. To examine the recommendations made by the Committee, A...
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Ashwini Kulkarni Mihir Shah
- 20 January, 2022
- Videos
India’s new National Water Policy: A paradigm shift
In 2019, the Ministry of Jal Shakti set up a committee of independent experts – led by Dr Mihir Shah – to draft a new National Water Policy. To examine the recommendations made by the Committee, A...
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Ashwini Kulkarni Mihir Shah
- 20 January, 2022
- Podcasts
She wins: Electing women in ethnically divided societies
The Indian Constitution reserves a minimum of 33% of village council head positions for women, and Bihar is among the nine states that have opted for 50% reservation. This note investigates how gender...
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Arindam Banerjee Sayan Banerjee Charles R. Hankla Kunal Singh Anjali Thomas
- 22 July, 2021
- Notes from the Field
Escaping the subsidy-quality trap in India’s retail electricity market
Cross-subsidies in retail electricity tariffs leave distribution utilities with neither the incentive nor the capital to improve reliability, particularly for their most subsidised consumers. Using bi...
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Shefali Khanna Kevin Rowe
- 19 May, 2021
- Articles
2021 West Bengal Assembly election: Did the Covid-19 surge matter?
In the recent Assembly elections in the state of West Bengal, the ruling Trinamool Congress bucked an anti-incumbency headwind to secure victory. Using electoral data from 2016, 2019, and 2021, Ghata...
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Maitreesh Ghatak Pushkar Maitra
- 12 May, 2021
- Perspectives
Rising industrial accidents: Fallout of boosting ‘Ease of Doing Business’?
India has witnessed a surge in severe fire and explosion-related accidents in industrial and commercial establishments, in recent years. In this post, R Nagaraj contends that perhaps the dilution – ...
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R. Nagaraj
- 28 April, 2021
- Perspectives
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...
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Venugopal Mothkoor Fatima Mumtaz
- 23 March, 2021
- Perspectives
When criminality begets crime: The role of elected politicians
The criminalisation of politics has become a massive threat to society. While the impact of criminally accused leaders on economic outcomes has been studied in the literature, little is known about th...
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Nishith Prakash Soham Sahoo Deepak Saraswat Reetika Sindhi
- 19 March, 2021
- Perspectives
Regionalist party representation and tribal insecurity
Observers have long been ambivalent about regionalism as a principle underlying the organisation of politics. Analysing data from India, this article shows that when regionalist parties win elections,...
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Sacha Kapoor Arvind Magesan
- 19 February, 2021
- Articles
Combating corruption and illicit outflows: A welfare-oriented approach
A discussion of the association between corruption in economies and leakage through illicit outward flows – with important implications for welfare – is missing in the literature. Based on a theor...
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Swapnendu Banerjee Siddhartha Mitra Vivekananda Mukherjee
- 17 December, 2020
- Articles
Land disputes in ‘Santhal Parganas’: Issues and solutions
Four of the six districts in Santhal Parganas division of Jharkhand have been classified as ‘aspirational districts’ by NITI Aayog. In this note, Karn Satyarthi describes the unique manner in whic...
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Karn Satyarthi
- 15 December, 2020
- Notes from the Field
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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