Contributor : Profile
Reetika Khera is an Associate Professor of economics at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi. In the past, she has been Associate Professor at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad, and Assistant Professor at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Delhi. She studied at the Delhi School of Economics (M.A. and Ph.D.) and Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex (M.Phil.). She was a post-doctoral Research Associate at Princeton University where she worked on child nutrition. Before joining IIT-Delhi, she was a visitor at GB Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad, Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics and the Planning Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi.
For her Ph.D., she conducted a primary study in eight villages of Rajasthan. The thesis looked at the effectiveness of public interventions (such as relief works and the public distribution system) to prevent famines. Since then, she has remained involved in various field activities in India including surveys, social audits and "research for action" related to the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), Public Distribution System and others. An important part of her work has been to encourage and train university students to participate in these activities. More than 300 university students from across the country have participated in surveys and other field activities under her guidance. She has published in professional journals, magazines and newspapers on issues of food security, NREGA, education, child nutrition and elections in India.
Posts by Reetika Khera
Aadhaar Bill: Incremental information-gathering powers for government?
The government already has the means to collect a lot of information on citizens (example, phone conversations and logs, credit card transactions, income tax records, bank account details, etc.). Conv...
- Jean Drèze Reetika Khera Raju Rajagopal Bharat Ramaswami
- 02 May, 2016
- Perspectives
MNREGA: Technology vs. technocracy
In this article, Reetika Khera, Associate Professor of Economics at IIT Delhi, argues that for MNREGA to flourish in the future, technologies that empower workers should be encouraged, and the tenden...
- Reetika Khera
- 17 March, 2016
- Perspectives
Against the tide: Deaton's economics
In a tribute to Angus Deaton, recipient of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Economics, Reetika Khera, who did her post-doctorate research at Princeton University under Deaton, outlines his India-specific cont...
- Reetika Khera
- 17 December, 2015
- Perspectives
Child development: How are Indian states faring?
The recent release of the ‘Rapid Survey On Children’ report presents an opportunity to take a fresh look at the state of Indian children. Based on a simple Child Development Index constructed for...
- Jean Drèze Reetika Khera
- 10 December, 2015
- Articles
UID project: Does evidence matter?
The Indian government has been pushing to make UID compulsory, and is now moving towards charging for use of authentication services. This article asserts that the three key selling points of UID –...
- Reetika Khera
- 05 February, 2014
- Perspectives
The National Food Security Ordinance: Five misconceptions
The National Food Security Ordinance was promulgated in July 2013. The public debate that ensued, especially the criticism in the business media, has tended to be either devoid of facts or factually ...
- Reetika Khera
- 07 August, 2013
- Perspectives
Cutting delays in MNREGA wages
Officials in charge of paying MNREGA wages in the state of Andhra Pradesh can now expect to receive fines if there are delays. This column shows how this move was made possible by a simple automated s...
- Saloni Chopra Reetika Khera
- 10 October, 2012
- Articles