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Governance

Like father, like son? The economic impacts of political dynasties in India

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Does political reservation for women improve programme delivery?

This column outlines results of a study that assesses the impact of women leaders on corruption and other aspects of the quality of delivery of MNREGA. It argues that administrative experience, traini...

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Do roads bring votes in rural India?

A large-scale rural roads programme in India has provided access to over two-third of villages that lacked a paved road in 2001. Do citizens reward incumbent governments electorally for these improvem...

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Oral democracy

Critical scrutiny of the challenges of electoral democracy including elite capture, corruption, and patronage has led to a revival of the idea of direct democracy – giving power directly to groups o...

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Breaking the silence on growing intolerance

Recent violent incidents in the country indicate a growing intolerance towards those whom we disagree with, as well as an unwillingness of politicians to defend the rights of people to speak and live...

  • Perspectives

Economic development and Maoist insurgency

The Indian government’s two-pronged strategy to counter Maoist insurgency involves economic development and military repression. Analysing data for 2006-2011, this column finds that increasing wage...

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Outlays to Outcomes: Understanding pathways to improving learning outcome

This project responds to a specific Government of Bihar request to assess the effectiveness of its "Mission Gunvatta" programme, which aimed at improving the learning outcomes of children attending el...

  • IGC Research on India

What do we know about corruption in India?

Despite ample media coverage of corruption, there remains a gap between headline-making scandals, policy options under discussion, and the actual evidence base drawn from empirical research on corrup...

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The need for police reform

The police in India are still mainly governed by the Police Act of 1861. In this article, Abhijit Banerjee, Professor of Economics at MIT, emphasises the need for police reform in order to check misu...

  • Perspectives

Is the MNREGA fund crunch making the programme clientelistic?

Fund allocation for MNREGA has seen a steady decline in real terms over the last few years. Analysing official MNREGA data along with survey data from Rajasthan, this column shows that in the face of...

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The political economy of data

Recent experiences, especially from Scandinavian countries, show that opening administrative data sources can substantially improve public policymaking. In this article, Pande and Blum contend that w...

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The significance of local power structures in Bihar's coupon-based PDS

In 2007, Bihar introduced the coupon system in PDS to curb leakages at fair price shops. This column argues that even though the administrative logic of the coupon system is fundamentally sound, such...

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Charting a course for the Indian economy

Karthik Muralidharan (Associate Professor of Economics, University of California, San Diego) speaks with Arvind Subramanian (Chief Economic Adviser, Government of India) on a broad set of issues rang...

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He is a criminal but he is our criminal: Criminally-accused politicians in India

The recent increase in the number of criminally-accused politicians elected to state assemblies has caused much furore in India. Despite the potentially important consequences and the widely divergent...

  • IGC Research on India

Elucidating avenues for corruption: Micronutrient fortification strategies in India’s Midday Meals Programme

Globally, iron deficiency is a leading cause of anaemia, a condition that is particularly harmful during early childhood, causing fatigue and slower physical and cognitive development with potentially...

  • IGC Research on India

Why numbers matter

The delayed and partial release of data from the ‘Rapid Survey on Children’ by the Indian government has given rise to questions and speculation. In this article, former bureaucrat V. Ramani disc...

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Recent Contributors

Anandi

Anandi Mani

Blavatnik School of Government

Lakshmi

Lakshmi Iyer

University of Notre Dame

Naveen

Naveen Sunder

Cornell University

Ashwini

Ashwini Deshpande

Ashoka University

Rajesh

Rajesh Ramachandran

Heidelberg University

Britta

Britta Augsburg

Institute for Fiscal Studies

Bet

Bet Caeyers

Institute for Fiscal Studies; NHH Norwegian School

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Sara Giunti

University of Milan-Bicocca

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Most Popular Governance Posts

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, ...

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Rural development programmes: Implementation challenges and solutions

With a majority of the population living in rural areas in India, rural development is key to the development of the country. Based on his experience of working closely with the district administratio...

  • Perspectives

Governance and public service delivery in India

The International Growth Centre recently produced a synthesis paper (Afridi 2017) bringing together insights from its research on governance and public service delivery in India, over the past seven y...

  • Perspectives