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Defensive cooperation: Understanding pro-social attitudes in Indian Muslims

Mainstream theories of development predict greater willingness to contribute to public goods in more homogeneous settings. This article reports findings from a study in Delhi slums to assess how Hindu...

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Reporting of gender-based violence: Why public activism and dialogue matter

The recent case of an on-duty female doctor being brutally raped and murdered in a Kolkata hospital, has sparked nation-wide protests and yet again raised serious questions and concerns around women...

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Affirmative action in credit markets: Can it enhance minorities’ welfare?

In 2009, as part of a Government of India programme to improve the welfare of religious minorities, commercial banks were directed to increase credit to these groups. This article finds that the polic...

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Does affirmative action reduce productivity? The case of Indian Railways

Critics of job reservations argue that such policies have an adverse effect on work efficiency and productivity. This column analyses the effect of job reservations in the Indian Railways – the wor...

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Social Justice in Education: Are School Uniform and Scholarship Schemes Marred with Discrimination in Bihar?

This project evaluated on how well the attendance conditionality is being implemented in the schools of Bihar, and whether it’s marred with caste-based discrimination. The study found that the atte...

  • IGC Research on India

Keeping women safe

Since the December 2012 rape incident in Delhi, numerous policies have been proposed to stop the “war on women”. In this article, Rohini Pande discusses economic research, including her own, on t...

  • Perspectives

Do awareness programmes on TV help change prejudices?

Awareness-based TV programmes, such as Satya Mev Jayate hosted by Bollywood film personality Aamir Khan, aim to change deep-seated prejudices of the society. To what extent do such programmes influenc...

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How gender-inclusive is MNREGA in practice?

MNREGA mandates that a third of all workers under the programme should be women. But how gender inclusive has the implementation of the Act been? This column uses nationally representative data to an...

  • Perspectives

Did caste-based reservation increase schooling of beneficiaries?

Reservation for backward classes in schools has been in place in India since independence. This column uses a unique historical event that took place in the 1970s in India to evaluate the effect of a...

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Social Identity and Aspirations

The project is a field experiment in India that investigates whether the norms associated with one’s social identity affect one’s aspirations, beliefs, and eventual outcomes. Project exploits cues...

  • IGC Research on India

Tell us what you really think: Measuring gender attitudes in Haryana

Changing basic gender attitudes may be crucial for alleviating discrimination against women and improving gender outcomes. This column describes a unique measurement tool developed by social psycholo...

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Religion, minority status, and trust

A key factor that drives segmentation in societies is group identities along various dimensions. This column seeks to understand the effects of identity on individual behaviour. Based on an artefactu...

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Quotas and schooling decisions

Affirmative action, as an instrument for bridging inequalities across social groups, has been a contentious issue for decades. This column analyses the impact of reservation in public sector jobs and...

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Do wives care more about household welfare than husbands?

Social science literature shows that women promote household welfare more than men. This column examines if consumption choices of husbands and wives change, depending on whether they have to work to...

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Rape: The shame of a nation

The proliferating number of rape incidents in India is chilling. This column discusses the various perspectives on the causes of rape, and the economic, social and legal factors that play a role in t...

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Punarjit Roychowdhury

Shiv Nadar University

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Bharti Nandwani

Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (I

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Asha Sundaram

University of Auckland

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Debasis Bandyopadhyay

University of Auckland

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James Allan Jones

University of Auckland

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Poulomi Chakrabarti

Harvard University

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Melani Cammett

Harvard University

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Most Popular Social Identity Posts

Hindu-Muslim fertility differentials in India: An update

Building on past research, Saswata Ghosh and Pallabi Das estimate the state- and district-level fertility differentials between Hindus and Muslims using data from the latest round of the NFHS. They sh...

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A division of labourers: Caste identity and efficiency in India

Castes in India are closely associated with certain occupations and determine the jobs done by millions. This study uses a new dataset to show that a large proportion of workers still work in their ca...

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Sex ratios and religion in India and South Asia

In South Asia, low child sex ratios are increasingly an isolated Indian phenomenon. Within India, child sex ratios are ‘normal’ among Christians and Muslims but much lower among Hindus, Sikhs, and...

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