16 December, 2024Grain subsidies and junk food purchases among low-income individuals
While governments rely on expensive food subsidy programmes to address malnutrition among low-income communities, their impact is unclear as only self-reported data on food purchase decisions are avai...
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Ali Aouad Kamalini Ramdas Alp Sungu 
23 September, 2024
- Articles
The problem of India’s stagnant real wages
New data from the Labour Bureau and the National Sample Survey Office point to a virtual stagnation of real wages in India over the past decade. In this post, Das and Drèze argue that this trend poin...
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Arindam Das Jean Drèze
- 26 July, 2024
- Perspectives
Rethinking social safety nets in a changing society
This paper was coauthored by Debasis Barik, Pallavi Choudhuri, Bijay Chouhan, Om Prakash Sharma, Dinesh Kumar Tiwari (NCAER) and Sharan Sharma (University of Maryland College Park and NCAER). Histori...
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Sonalde Desai
- 15 July, 2024
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Persistent problems with PDS: An assessment of the Covid-19 ration scheme
This note summarises the findings of a survey conducted by students at IIT Delhi to evaluate the functioning of the PMGKAY scheme across Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab. It reveals that many househo...
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Students of Humanities and Social Sciences Department
- 13 September, 2023
- Notes from the Field
India’s rising ruralisation defies claims of declining poverty
Building on some of the key contributions to the Great Indian Poverty Debate, Dhananjay Sinha assesses the economic transformation in India over the past few decades. He outlines the lack of private c...
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Purvi Mundhra Dhananjay Sinha
- 21 July, 2023
- Perspectives
Finding the indiscernible poor: Community knowledge as a targeting approach
Varying estimates of poverty have often resulted in some deprived communities being excluded from government welfare schemes. Sabarwal and Chowdhry look at the case of Satat Jeevikoparjan Yojana in Bi...
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Parikrama Chowdhry Shagun Sabarwal
- 19 June, 2023
- Perspectives
Weighty evidence? Poverty estimation with missing data
Attempts have been made to estimate poverty in India with biased survey data, by adjusting household weights to remove the bias. Based on simulation exercises with artificially contaminated household ...
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Jean Drèze Anmol Somanchi
- 10 April, 2023
- Perspectives
Statistical priorities for the ‘Great Indian Poverty Debate 2.0’
In the final post of a six-part series on the estimation of poverty in India, Himanshu summarises attempts by researchers to estimate poverty using three varied approaches, given the lack of official ...
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Himanshu .
- 15 October, 2022
- Perspectives
Filling a gaping hole in the World Bank’s global poverty measures
In the fifth post of a six part series on the estimation of poverty in India, Martin Ravallion provides a non-technical summary of Roy and van der Weide's working paper. He discusses some of their mai...
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Martin Ravallion
- 14 October, 2022
- Perspectives
Extreme poverty in India is yet to be eliminated: A comment on BBV
In the fourth post of a six-part series on the estimation of poverty in India, Sinha Roy and van der Weide reflect on the dramatically different estimates produced by two studies, and the source of th...
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Sutirtha Sinha Roy Roy Van der Weide
- 13 October, 2022
- Perspectives
The Great Indian Poverty Debate, 2.0
In the third post of a six part series on estimating poverty in India, Justin Sandefur considers the approaches employed for projections of poverty estimates since 2011-12 – the last year for which ...
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Justin Sandefur
- 12 October, 2022
- Perspectives
Introduction to e-Symposium: Estimation of poverty in India
Estimates of poverty in India put forth in two papers published earlier this year – by Bhalla, Bhasin and Virmani; and Roy and van der Weide – have sparked the “Great Indian Poverty Debate 2.0...
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Maitreesh Ghatak
- 10 October, 2022
- Symposium
Measuring poverty in the absence of Consumption Expenditure Survey data
In the first post of a six-part series on , Surjit Bhalla and Karan Bhasin discuss issues related to measurement of absolute poverty in India. They summarise their IMF working paper from April 2022, a...
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Surjit Bhalla Karan Bhasin
- 10 October, 2022
- Perspectives
Has India eliminated extreme poverty?
In the second post of a six-part series on Gaurav Datt unpacks the claim that India was on the verge of eliminating extreme poverty, and questions two key assumptions on which it rests. Rather, he sh...
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Gaurav Datt
- 10 October, 2022
- Perspectives
The implications of India’s spatial development
Mahatma Gandhi once said, “poverty is the worst form of violence”. In this piece, Ejaz Ghani highlights India’s poverty burden, its regional disparities and convergence thereof. He highlights ho...
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Ejaz Ghani
- 30 September, 2022
- Articles
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Tweets by Ideas4IndiaMost Popular Poverty & Inequality Posts
Wealth inequality, class, and caste in India: 1961-2012
The level of wealth inequality in India is close to that of some highly unequal countries in the world. This article assesses the long-term evolution of wealth inequality in the country for the period...
- Nitin Kumar Bharti
- 28 June, 2019
- Articles
Covid-19: What can be done immediately to help vulnerable population
With over 80% of India’s workforce employed in the informal sector and one-third working as casual labour, Covid-19's spread and subsequent unplanned lockdowns, have created economic havoc in the li...
- Reetika Khera
- 25 March, 2020
- Perspectives
EWS reservation in higher education: Affirmative action or vote bank politics?
The Constitution (103rd Amendment) Act, 2019, provides for 10% reservation for the economically weaker sections (EWS) in higher educational institutions within the general category. In this post, Devi...
- Devika Malhotra Sharma
- 11 September, 2019
- Perspectives