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Human Development

Youth’s digital readiness in rural India

  • Notes from the Field

Lighting the path to learning: Can electricity boost children’s test scores?

When households gain access to electricity, children are more likely to be enrolled in school. But do they also perform better? Based on West Bengal’s universal household electrification programme a...

  • Articles

The wide-ranging benefits of India’s Public Distribution System

India’s Public Distribution System (PDS) is the world’s largest food transfer programme and India’s most far-reaching social safety net, accounting for 60% of the country’s social assistance b...

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Network membership and demand for health insurance

Despite being free and having liberal eligibility criteria, the adoption of public health insurance in India remains low. This article examines how informal networks influence adoption behaviour, in t...

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How cleaner cookstoves and fuels could benefit women’s health and the environment

With lesser access to financial resources and greater domestic responsibilities, women face the brunt of the climate change crisis. In particular, women are more affected by indoor air pollution cause...

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Budget 2022-23: The elephants and the ostrich

Analysing India’s 2022-23 Union Budget, Neeraj Hatekar contends that MNREGA, the rural job guarantee programme that has not received additional funding vis-à-vis 2021-22 budget estimates, should be...

  • Perspectives

Gender difference in mathematics learning in rural India

A growing body of evidence in developed countries has indicated that female disadvantage prevails and persists in mathematics learning outcomes, with the likely causes being social factors, cultural n...

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Economic development, the nutrition trap, and metabolic disease

Two recently documented facts run counter to the conventional wisdom that economic development leads to better health: the absence of a clear link between income and nutritional status in developing c...

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Food insecurity and child malnutrition: New empirical evidence from India

Child malnutrition is among the most pressing public health issues in India today. Equally alarming is the country’s food security crisis. Analysing ‘Young Lives Survey’ data from the states of ...

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Estimating changes in India’s workforce during 2011-2018

Prior to the 2017-18 Periodic Labour Force Survey, there was paucity of official, labour-market data since the last nationally representative survey was from 2011, and other surveys in the intervening...

  • Perspectives

Urbanisation, gender, and social change: Do working women enjoy more agency?

Women’s limited work participation in India is not only of economic significance, but also has ramifications for their well-being and societal status. Based on a household survey in four north India...

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Assessing the assessments: Taking stock of India’s ‘learning outcomes’ data

As India recovers from the pandemic and the new National Education Policy is implemented, availability of reliable data on ‘learning outcomes’ is crucial. In this post, Johnson and Parrado assess ...

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Incentivising quality of public infrastructure: Does it work?

Community toilets in slums are often poorly maintained, and upgrading facilities is difficult due to low willingness-to-pay among potential users and ‘free riding’. Based on an experiment in Uttar...

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Covid-19 and mobility: A behavioural perspective

The imposition of a nationwide lockdown in March 2020 to check the spread of Covid-19, sparked debates on the necessity and effectiveness of such measures due to resulting economic hardships. In this ...

  • Perspectives

Examining Covid-19 travel restrictions in developing countries

At the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the developing world took many of the same policy steps as developed nations to contain the spread, including lockdowns. This article uses evidence from India t...

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Timeliness and coverage of child vaccinations across India

Despite free vaccinations for children below 12 years of age under the Universal Immunisation Programme, one-third of global child deaths due to vaccine-preventable diseases occur in India. In this po...

  • Perspectives

Recent Contributors

Farzana

Farzana Afridi

Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi Centre

Patrick

Patrick Agte

Stockholm School of Economics

Jitendra Kumar

Jitendra Kumar Soni

Government of Rajasthan

Deepak

Deepak Kumar

ASER Centre

Shweta

Shweta Bhutada

ASER Centre

Somdeep

Somdeep Chatterjee

Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta

Shiv

Shiv Hastawala

State University of New York at Binghamton

Jai

Jai Kamal

Indian Institute of Management Jammu

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Most Popular Human Development Posts

Hindu-Muslim fertility differentials in India: District-level estimates from Census 2011

The 2011 Indian Census data show a higher growth rate of Muslim population compared to the Hindu population. This article provides an in-depth picture of Hindu-Muslim fertility differentials at the di...

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Understanding India’s mental health crisis

Since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, several reports have indicated a worsening of mental health issues among individuals across age groups. In this post, Michele Mary Bernadine examines the stat...

  • Perspectives

Ten steps to transform the quality of education in India

In this article, Sridhar Rajagopalan, Managing Director of Educational Initiatives, suggests 10 initiatives that can help transform the quality of education in India.

  • Perspectives