13 March, 2025Decentralisation and spatial (mis)allocation of irrigation water
Canal water – an important source of irrigation in India – often tends to be unequally distributed among farmers within a geographical area. Based on a survey in the state of Odisha, following the...
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Sabyasachi Das Souvik Dutta 
14 February, 2025
- Articles
The influence of local politicians in the private education market
Private schooling has experienced rapid expansion in India – both in terms of number of schools and student enrolment. Analysing data from 2005-2017, this article shows that constituencies represent...
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Muneer Kalliylil Soham Sahoo
- 07 February, 2025
- Articles
How immigration policy uncertainty affects labour markets
President Trump’s re-election has reignited debate over H-1B visa policies, a temporary high-skill work visa programme wherein 70% of visas are held by Indians. Analysing jobs data from India from t...
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Ritam Chaurey Kanika Mahajan Shekhar Tomar
- 08 January, 2025
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The politics of post-retirement appointments: Corruption in the Supreme Court?
The Indian judiciary bats for judicial independence. Wary of executive interference, judges ferociously protect their institutional turf. But does India’s judicial system suffer from an underhanded ...
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Madhav Aney Shubhankar Dam Giovanni Ko
- 15 June, 2020
- Articles
Court congestion, caste identity, and business performance
Effective contract enforcement is the key for the formation and expansion of business enterprises. But how does improvement in court performance matter differently to different caste groups? This arti...
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Tanika Chakraborty Anirban Mukherjee Sarani Saha Divya Shukla
- 14 May, 2020
- Articles
Kerala’s management of Covid-19: Key learnings
Kerala was the first Indian state to be affected by Covid-19 with the highest number of cases at one point in time, but today it has a flat infection curve and one of the highest recovery rates in Ind...
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S.M. Vijayanand
- 02 May, 2020
- Perspectives
How district courts influence firm growth
The Economic Survey 2018-19 highlights that the single biggest constraint to ease of doing business in India is contract enforcement and dispute resolution, and increasing capacity in lower judiciary ...
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Manaswini Rao
- 29 January, 2020
- Articles
Electoral cycles and incomplete public works projects: An analysis of the MPLAD scheme
The successful execution of public works programmes undertaken by governments often hinges on the completion of a vast array of local-level projects intended to create tangible amenities to improve th...
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Jonathan Darsey Anjali Thomas
- 08 January, 2020
- Articles
There are none so blind as they who will not see
Based on Government of India’s own data, the government and the community of economists in India have come up with different narratives about the position of Indian economy. In this post, Pronab Sen...
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Pronab Sen
- 16 December, 2019
- Perspectives
Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana: Issues and gaps in service delivery and access
The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana is a much-needed and purposeful scheme, given the health hazards faced by women inside households as 79% of rural Indian households still depend on traditional unclea...
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Rahul Ranjan
- 11 December, 2019
- Perspectives
Do politicians receive special treatment in courts?
Do Members of Legislative Assemblies (MLAs) facing pending criminal cases receive favourable treatment in the Indian legal system? This article uncovers opposite effects of winning office, depending o...
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Rubén Poblete-Cazenave
- 26 August, 2019
- Articles
Consent to nothing: Aadhaar-based payment systems in welfare
The process of seeding Aadhaar with bank accounts in order to link welfare schemes and cash transfers with Aadhaar payment systems, created chaos on the ground. In this note, Niklas Wagner and Sakina ...
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Sakina Dhorajiwala Niklas Wagner
- 23 August, 2019
- Notes from the Field
How democratic are the states of India?
India is often credited for its success as the world’s largest democracy – but does the degree of democracy vary across Indian states? This article develops an index to map the development of subn...
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Jos Bartman Imke Harbers Enrike van Wingerden
- 13 August, 2019
- Articles
Political alignment and economic outcomes: Evidence from legislative assembly elections in India
Theory suggests better economic outcomes prevail when providers at different levels of government are politically aligned. While politicians are jointly responsible for several policies, other policie...
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Sourav Sarkar
- 02 August, 2019
- Articles
Ujjwala 2.0: What should be done next?
Stopping the use of wood and other solid fuels for cooking and other household uses is crucial to mitigating air pollution and its staggeringly high health impacts in India. In 2016, the government an...
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Ambuj Sagar Alok Tripathi
- 22 July, 2019
- Articles
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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