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Has Budget 2023-24 been successful in balancing gender priorities?

Ahead of International Women’s Day, Tanya Rana and Neeha Susan Jacob categorise and analyse scheme allocations through the Union Budget’s Gender Budget Statement (GBS), by looking at what schemes ...

  • Perspectives

How women in politics impact maternal mortality

In the twelfth post of I4I’s month-long campaign to mark International Women’s Day 2023, Bhalotra et al. show that mortality during and after childbirth remains high, even where the knowledge and ...

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The panchayat asset register: An instrument to conserve India’s commons

With common lands making up nearly a quarter of Indian territory, the State has taken steps to protect them from encroachment. The Indian Constitution grants panchayats custodial rights to protect vil...

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The Governance Matrix: Understanding a system’s readiness for change

To explain the gap between the expectation of perfect outcomes and the reality of an imperfect system, Gaurav Goel puts forth The Governance Matrix, a tool which can be used to assess the readiness of...

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Time in office and gender gap in dishonesty: Evidence from local politics

Existing literature associates a higher share of women in politics with lower corruption; honesty is viewed as an inherent or static character trait. However, using information collected from 400 elec...

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Party preferences and strategic voting in India

In the absence of compelling information that would allow them to accurately predict election outcomes in their constituency, many voters believe that their preferred candidate will win. Looking at vo...

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Electricity Act amendment: The need for a cautious approach

The recently proposed amendment to the Electricity Act, 2003 comes after nearly two decades with few legislative changes. In this post, Dixit and Josey review electricity sector developments, especial...

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The WhatsApp effect: Evidence on political engagement, preferences and polarisation

In recent years, political parties in India have increasingly leveraged WhatsApp as a tool to reach voters, raising concerns about the influence of social media on the democratic process. This article...

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Demographic and development outcomes of administrative proliferation

This creation of new administrative districts by splitting existing districts is a frequent occurrence in India, where the number of districts has more than doubled in the last four decades. Looking a...

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Do value-added taxes benefit firms? Evidence from the adoption of state-specific value-added taxes

Value-added tax (VAT) systems have grown popular in the last 30 years, especially among developing countries looking for ways to raise tax revenue efficiently. Using 2000-2012 data on product, state-s...

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Private returns to bureaucratic appointments: Evidence from financial disclosures in India

Bureaucrats often face rigid salary structures, and face low-powered incentives that have less wage differentiation based on performance. Using bureaucrats’ self-reported asset declarations from the...

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Fixing incentives for power plants to reduce outages

Consumers in India face frequent power outages despite relatively high-quality infrastructure and ample supply of power plants. This article identifies a novel explanation for India’s blackouts: whe...

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Does going cashless make you tax-rich? Evidence from India’s demonetisation

During 2014-2017, the share of adults using electronic payments in the developing world increased by over a third, and policymakers have expressed optimism regarding the role of this trend in promotin...

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How colonial is Indian law?

Critiques of the colonial rule in India and its legacy have been extended to law – with many allusions to the need to shake off the yoke of the colonial legacy. In this post, Roy and Swamy unpack th...

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Budget and politics in pandemic times

Applying a political economy lens to the recently announced Budget 2022-23, Yamini Aiyar contends that the emphasis on capital expenditure over welfare in the two Budgets announced during the pandemic...

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Recent Contributors

Kunal

Kunal Mangal

Azim Premji University

Siwan

Siwan Anderson

University of British Columbia

Sonia

Sonia Bhalotra

University of Warwick

Damian C.

Damian C. Clarke

Universidad de Chile

Atheendar

Atheendar Venkataramani

University of Pennsylvania

Joseph Flavian

Joseph Flavian Gomes

Université Catholique de Louvain

Tanya

Tanya Rana

Centre for Policy Research

Neeha

Neeha Susan Jacob

Centre for Policy Research

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Most Popular Governance Posts

Unique Health Identification and Aadhaar: A case for mandatory linkage

As part of the Digital India initiative, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) issues a Unique Health Identification (UHID) number to each patient, which documents their entire journey in th...

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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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Rethinking cadre allocation procedures in civil services

The allocation procedure of All-India Services’ officers to states is an important aspect of personnel administration in the public sector. This article shows that a change in allocation policy in 2...

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