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Governance

Why political competition matters when inequality is high

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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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The ‘Odisha model’ for disaster resilience

From its management of the devastating Super Cyclone in 1999 to the more recent challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, the state of Odisha has been a testament to the power of adaptive governance....

  • Perspectives

Reshaping social protection in India

As India has undergone a transformation in recent decades in terms of trends such as poverty reduction, food security and urbanisation, there is a need to also revamp the traditional social protection...

  • Perspectives
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Are independent candidates unimportant for political representation?

Independent candidates are often deemed ‘frivolous’ or ‘spoilers’ by mainstream political figures and authorities, although there is little to no evidence on their effect on elections. This ar...

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Bank and its critics

There has been a lot of commentary in recent weeks on the Reserve Bank of India, around its capital base, performance, and autonomy. In this post, Amartya Lahiri contends that RBI has a more coherent ...

  • Perspectives

Promoting women in grassroots governance: Strategies that work

There are more than a million women elected to the Panchayati Raj Institutions of local governance in India. Despite constitutional provisions, women face many barriers when they participate in local ...

  • Notes from the Field

Does choice of procurement contract matter for cost and quality of highways?

In the past, infrastructure projects in India have suffered from long delays, massive cost overruns, and poor quality of assets. A widely held belief is that public private partnerships (PPPs) can sol...

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Food subsidy – PDS, cash, or both?

Should food subsidies – currently availed in the form of subsidised cereals – be given out in the form of cash instead? In this post, Krishna and Agrawal contend that rather than asking this binar...

  • Perspectives

Anganwadi: A workforce of women with a near-impossible mandate

With a workforce of 1.4 million women, the Anganwadi system forms the backbone of India’s Integrated Child Development Services Scheme – the world’s largest community-based programme for child d...

  • Notes from the Field

How leader identity impacts group coordination

In principle, leaders can facilitate group coordination towards a common goal but in diverse societies, their effectiveness may depend upon their social identity, and how citizens react to leader iden...

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Heart of darkness: Misplaced priorities of Jharkhand’s District Mineral Foundation

In 2015, the central government launched District Mineral Foundations in the districts affected by mining, which are mandated to collect royalty from all mining activities and use the funds for the we...

  • Notes from the Field

The Impact of Community-Driven Accountability on Land Rights Governance: Evidence from a Homestead Land Titling Initiative

How and under what circumstances can civic mobilization improve local governance and service delivery? This project seeks to contribute to debates on this question through a multi-method analysis of a...

  • IGC Research on India

Judicial Institutions and Economic Development: Examining Micro-evidence from India

This project examines the relationship between a country’s legal environment and its economic outcomes. This project will be constructing relevant measures of friction from trial level data at subor...

  • IGC Research on India

Do Indian voters mind their representatives getting rich in office?

Asset declarations, requiring politicians to disclose their financial information, are becoming increasingly common across the world. In India, financial declarations are part of public affidavits fil...

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How governance and public expenditure impact human development

The state of Madhya Pradesh displays wide variance in human development outcomes across its districts. This article examines the link between public expenditure, quality of governance, and human devel...

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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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Why did the Indian economy stagnate under the colonial rule?

How did the Indian economy fare under the colonial rule? Is the average Indian significantly better off after Independence? This column examines trends in GDP per capita in order to determine the stan...

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