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Does subsidising publicly provided services discipline markets or distort demand?

Prior research has documented the failure of India’s flagship safe motherhood programme in reducing perinatal mortality, despite substantially increasing the share of mothers delivering at public he...

  • Articles

Did Covid-19 pandemic increase incidence of low-birth-weight among newborns?

Globally, one in four babies are born with low birth weight, with long-term impacts on health and economic outcomes. This article uses Indian data from 2019-2021 to analyse the impact of the Covid-19 ...

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India’s massive employment problem and some ways out

In the recent announcement of India’s Union Budget 2024-25, significant emphasis was placed on the need for job creation. In this post, Pranab Bardhan presents a four-pronged strategy for the sustai...

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Has the National Rural Health Mission improved utilisation of maternal healthcare services in Bihar?

Bihar is a socioeconomically backward state with a persistently poor record with respect to maternal and child health indicators. Based on data from the National Sample Surveys on healthcare, this art...

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Banerjee and Duflo’s journey with Pratham

This year’s economics Nobel laureates Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo have worked closely with education NGO Pratham in India for more than 20 years. Over time, this unique partnership of research...

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Draft National Education Policy: Vision for out-of-school children

The draft National Education Policy released in May 2019 took a step forward by recommending an extension of the scope of the right to education act by including pre-primary and secondary education wi...

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What the Swachh Bharat Mission did not change

On the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi and 5th anniversary of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), Coffey and Spears discuss findings from a field survey about changes in open defecation in rura...

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Access to toilets and public safety of women

Launched on 2 October 2014, Swachh Bharat Mission aimed to increase the proportion of rural households with access to a toilet from 38.8% to 100% by 2019. In the run-up to Gandhi Jayanti and the 5th a...

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What will determine the costs of Prime Minister’s Jan Arogya Yojana?

The Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana was launched in 2018 with the aim of covering hospitalisation expenses of the vulnerable 40% of the population, to protect them against financial risk arising out ...

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Is trade with India changing Africa’s healthcare landscape?

After China, India has become the second largest trading partner with sub-Saharan Africa. The southern and western regions of Africa – which have the largest number of people living with HIV/AIDS wo...

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Understanding school choices under RTE’s 25% mandate

Section 12(1)(c) of the Right To Education Act mandates non-minority status private schools to reserve at least 25% seats for the disadvantaged and weaker sections of the society. This article analyse...

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Rural sanitation: A charter of demands

A government survey shows that 93% of rural households in India have access to a toilet and 96% of those having a toilet use them. However, critics point out contradictions between these data and micr...

  • Notes from the Field

Why do parents invest in girls’ education? Evidence from rural India

Adolescent girls in rural Rajasthan frequently leave education early and marry young. This article develops a novel methodology to elicit average parental preferences over a daughter's education and a...

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Sustained health benefits of ICDS: Later life evidence

Child malnutrition is a serious concern for India where more than half of the children under age five are moderately or severely malnourished. The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) launched...

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Right to Education Act: Trends in enrolment, test scores, and school quality

A decade ago, India joined a range of countries that mandate free, compulsory education for school-aged children. Passed in August 2009, India’s Right to Education Act was potentially transformative...

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Gaurav Chiplunkar

University of Virginia

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Erin M. Kelley

World Bank

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Gregory Lane

University of Chicago

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Kumar Ashutosh

Krea University

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Manini Ojha

Jindal School of Government and Public Policy

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Mehreen Mookerjee

Zayed University, Dubai

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Sanket Roy

American University, Sharjah

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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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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.

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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...

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