•  
Main Banner Image
Governance

Why political competition matters when inequality is high

  • Articles

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...

  • Articles

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

Impact of Electronic Voting Machines on electoral frauds, democracy, and development

In an attempt to curb electoral malpractices, Electronic Voting Machines were introduced on a national scale by the Election Commission of India in the 1990s. Using data from state assembly elections ...

  • Articles
304 posts
Refine list by:
--Please Select--
--Please Select--

Andhra Pradesh's youth training and employment scheme: Did it work?

To promote youth employment, the state government of Andhra Pradesh launched an innovative public-private partnership programme for skill development, training and job placement for the youth. This n...

  • Notes from the Field

Political clientelism in MNREGA: Evidence from West Bengal

The problem of political clientelism becomes imminent in decentralised systems where certain individuals or groups associated with the political party locally in power, get preferential access to sca...

  • Articles

Emerging challenges: Economic and social

To mark the second anniversary of I4I in July 2014, we invited two eminent scholars – Abhijit Banerjee (MIT) and Mukul Kesavan (Jamia Milia) to discuss the emerging economic and social challenges in...

  • Videos

Do women in power have an impact on corruption?

The recently elected 16th Lok Sabha of India will have a record number of 61 women parliamentarians. This column assesses whether women in the labour force or positions of power can have an impact on...

  • Articles

What voters reward: Evidence from the 2009 Indian parliamentary elections

Do voters care about economic outcomes? This column analyses the 2009 parliamentary elections in India and finds that voters favoured parties that delivered high growth in their states and rejected t...

  • Articles

Can workfare programmes moderate violence?

It is widely known that income shocks may trigger spurts of violence. This column explores whether workfare programmes can help mitigate support for violent movements. It finds that MNREGA has had a ...

  • Articles

Open defecation in cities: A faltering India story

Despite significant public investment in urban sanitation, over 37 million people in Indian cities resort to open defecation. This column examines the existing information on open defecation in urban...

  • Articles

Mirror, mirror on the wall, which is the most dynamic state of them all?

This column analyses the economic performance of 16 major Indian states over the last three decades. It finds that Bihar has improved the most during the 2000s, Kerala has always been a star performe...

  • Articles

Governance by ordinance

The UPA government recently explored taking the ordinance route to promulgate six anti-corruption bills. This article traces the shift from the post-Independence culture of healthy parliamentary deba...

  • Perspectives

Direct Benefits Transfer: An idea whose time has come

About a year ago, the Government of India launched a Direct Benefits Transfer programme that involves transferring government benefits and subsidies directly to residents through a biometric identifi...

  • Notes from the Field

Has community monitoring helped reduce corruption in public programme delivery?

MNREGA mandates social audits of public work projects undertaken under the Act in order to empower beneficiaries to scrutinise programme expenditures, and monitor programme delivery. Has community mo...

  • Articles

India's illiberal speech climate

India’s cultural watchdogs and hate speech laws are increasingly seeking to restrict free expression in the country. This article contends that the right to take offence is fundamentally incompatib...

  • Perspectives

Recent Contributors

M.R.

M.R. Sharan

University of Maryland

Siddharth

Siddharth George

National University of Singapore

Vijayendra

Vijayendra Rao

World Bank

Abhishek

Abhishek Arora

Harvard University

Nivedita

Nivedita Mantha

World Bank

Lore

Lore Vandewalle

KU Leuven

Kalle

Kalle Moene

University of Oslo

Anders

Anders Kjelsrud

Oslo Metropolitan University

View all Contributors

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, ...

  • Articles

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...

  • Articles