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...
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Somdeep Chatterjee
Shiv Hastawala
Jai Kamal
23 April, 2025
- 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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Kathy Baylis
Ben Crost
Aditya Shrinivas
17 February, 2025
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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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Titir Bhattacharya
Tanika Chakraborty
Anirban Mukherjee
17 January, 2025
- Articles
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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Siobhan Siu Bai McDonough
Nikita Sharma
07 March, 2022
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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...
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Neeraj Hatekar
09 February, 2022
- 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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Upasak Das
Karan Singhal
24 January, 2022
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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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Nancy Luke
Kaivan Munshi
Anu Mary Oommen
Swapnil Singh
10 January, 2022
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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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Gaurav Dhamija
Manini Ojha
Punarjit Roychowdhury
06 January, 2022
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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...
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Amit Basole
Paaritosh Nath
17 December, 2021
- 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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Megan Maxwell
Milan Vaishnav
07 December, 2021
- Articles
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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Doug Johnson
Andrés Parrado
01 November, 2021
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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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Alex Armand
Britta Augsburg
Antonella Bancalari
08 October, 2021
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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 ...
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Nishant Chadha
Shafin Naik
06 October, 2021
- 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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Fiona Burlig
Garrison Schlauch
Anant Sudarshan
01 October, 2021
- Articles
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...
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Abyaleek Chaudhuri
Sisir Debnath
27 September, 2021
- Perspectives
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Tweets by Ideas4IndiaMost 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...
Saswata Ghosh
27 March, 2019
- Articles
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...
Michele Mary Bernadine
06 April, 2021
- 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.
Sridhar Rajagopalan
19 November, 2015
- Perspectives