05 March, 2025The 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
- Articles
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
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Powering progress: How reliable community electrification boosts women’s autonomy
While there has been significant progress in expanding access to grid electricity in India, the reliability of electricity remains a concern. Based on five national-level datasets spanning over a peri...
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Rikhia Bhukta Debayan Pakrashi Sarani Saha Ashish Sedai
- 06 January, 2025
- Articles
The intergenerational mortality tradeoff of Covid-19 lockdown policies
The introduction of lockdown policies to contain the transmission of Covid-19 led to a debate on what type of lockdowns were warranted, and whether the benefits justified the accompanying economic con...
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Damien de Walque Quy-Toan Do Jed Friedman Andrei Levchenko Lin Ma Gil Shapira
- 15 September, 2021
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Challenges faced by community health workers in Covid-19 containment efforts
Although community health workers have been the backbone of the fight against Covid-19 in India, there has not been sufficient focus on their well-being and working conditions. Based on a survey in th...
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Somya Bhatia Stutilina Pal Devanik Saha
- 11 August, 2021
- Notes from the Field
The power of school feeding programmes to improve nutrition
India has the world’s highest number of undernourished children and the largest school-feeding programme – the Mid-Day Meal (MDM) scheme – but limited evidence is available on the intergeneratio...
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Harold Alderman Suman Chakrabarti Daniel Gilligan Purnima Menon Samuel Scott
- 04 August, 2021
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Start what you finish! Risk and schooling investments
Economic shocks prompt parents to work more in order to reduce the fallout, and children may spend more time helping in the household or on the family farm, thereby interrupting their schooling. Analy...
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Andrew Foster Esther Gehrke
- 19 July, 2021
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Grandads, dads, and sons: Examining multigenerational mobility in India
While studies have examined the association in socioeconomic status between parent and offspring, there has been relatively little research on multigenerational mobility, especially in the developing ...
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Anustup Kundu Kunal Sen
- 05 July, 2021
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Covid-19: Does obesity play a role?
Overnutrition is a major public health issue in India. Being overweight or obese has been linked to the development of health conditions that make individuals more susceptible to severe illness due to...
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Archana Dang Indrani Gupta
- 28 June, 2021
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Saas, bahu, and ASHA: Information diffusion in rural Bihar
India has made significant progress in improving maternal and child health outcomes, and the contribution of ASHAs – female community health workers – in promoting healthcare-seeking behaviour is ...
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Mousumi Dutta Saswata Ghosh Zakir Husain
- 16 June, 2021
- Notes from the Field
Gender pay gap in India’s health workforce
Despite constituting almost half of the qualified health workforce in India, female health workers face a visible gender pay gap and lack of conducive work conditions. In this post Arushi Pandey exami...
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Arushi Pandey
- 09 June, 2021
- Perspectives
Economic consequences of Covid-19 lockdowns: Lessons from India’s first wave
As India combats the second wave of Covid-19, the impact on economic activity remains a major concern. Drawing lessons from the first wave in 2020, this article provides an assessment of how containme...
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Robert C M Beyer Tarun Jain Sonalika Sinha
- 08 June, 2021
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Informing youth about job opportunities to make training programmes more effective
Launched in 2014 by the central government, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana seeks to provide skills-based training to rural, marginalised youth, and to place them in salaried jobs. Base...
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Wiji Arulampalam Bhaskar Chakravorty Clément Imbert Roland Rathelot
- 06 May, 2021
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IGC Webinar: The impact of Covid-19 in India and pathways to recovery
The ongoing Covid-19 health crisis has affected lives across the world, and caused a massive economic shock. To help policy stakeholders and the general audience understand the socioeconomic impact of...
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I4I Team
- 20 April, 2021
- Events
Dynamics of achievement gap between public and private school students
The achievement gap between public and private school students is well-documented in the literature on education in India, but there has not been sufficient focus on the dynamics of this gap over time...
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Gaurav Dhamija Ian K. McDonough Punarjit Roychowdhury
- 19 April, 2021
- Articles
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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