14 November, 2024Is it better to be governed by an elected leader or appointed bureaucrat?
The division of governance functions and responsibilities between politicians and bureaucrats varies, both across and within political regimes. Based on an experiment in Karnataka, this article examin...
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Abhishek Arora Siddharth George Nivedita Mantha Vijayendra Rao M.R. Sharan 
25 September, 2024
- Articles
Why political competition matters when inequality is high
In a high-inequality setting, local politicians with secure positions may favour the rich by diverting resources towards them, at the cost of the poor. To test this hypothesis, this article analyses d...
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Anders Kjelsrud Kalle Moene Lore Vandewalle
- 13 September, 2024
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The ‘Odisha model’ for disaster resilience
From its management of the devastating Super Cyclone in 1999 to the more recent challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, the state of Odisha has been a testament to the power of adaptive governance....
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Souryabrata Mohapatra
- 16 August, 2024
- Perspectives
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...
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Pushkar Pahwa
- 17 March, 2017
- Perspectives
Deconstructing the global wave of right-wing populism
At present, there seems to be palpable reaction against ideas of tolerance, minority rights, freedom of expression, and respect for individual autonomy and dignity, in many parts of the world. In thi...
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Pranab Bardhan
- 08 February, 2017
- Perspectives
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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Mudit Kapoor
- 23 December, 2016
- Perspectives
Do Gram Panchayat leaders favour their own constituencies in MNREGA fund allocation?
Political incentives are known to play a role in the allocation of public resources from upper- to lower-tier governments. This column seeks to examine whether ruling parties in local governments favo...
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Subhasish Dey Kunal Sen
- 19 December, 2016
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Governance performance of Indian states: 2001-02 and 2011-12
Defining governance as service delivery, this column develops a measure of the quality of governance – also adjusting for the impact of the level of development - and provides a ranking of major Ind...
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Samik Chowdhury Sudipto Mundle Satadru Sikdar
- 13 December, 2016
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The devil is in the details: Successes and limitations of bureaucratic reform
To address absenteeism among staff at public healthcare facilities, the government of Karnataka introduced an innovative biometric device to monitor and enforce attendance rules. This column presents ...
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Iqbal Dhaliwal Rema Hanna Rebecca Toole
- 09 December, 2016
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Politician's pain is poor man's gain: Income distribution in close-election constituencies
Studies have highlighted the role of electoral competition in directing the flow of public funds. Analysing data from India, this column finds lower income inequality and polarisation in tightly conte...
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Anirban Mitra Shabana Mitra
- 09 November, 2016
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Surrogacy bill: Implications and way forward
Contributing to the ongoing debate on India’s surrogacy bill, Dutta and Sarkar discuss the potential implications of the bill on the country’s billion-dollar surrogacy industry. They contend that ...
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Souvik Dutta Subhasree Sarkar
- 06 November, 2016
- Perspectives
Improving School Governance at Scale: A Randomised Evaluation of the Madhya Pradesh School Quality Assessment Programme
Weak governance is a critical constraint in delivering quality education in developing countries. This project conducts a randomised evaluation of one of the most ambitious recent attempts by a develo...
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Karthik Muralidharan Abhijeet Singh
- 31 October, 2016
- IGC Research on India
Can the female sarpanch deliver? Evidence from Maharashtra
One-third of all seats in village councils are reserved for women. The government has proposed an increase in quota to 50%, and in the period of reservation from five to 10 years. Based on a survey co...
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Mithila Biniwale Stephan Klasen Jan Priebe Dhanmanjiri Sathe
- 23 October, 2016
- Articles
Banning commercial surrogacy in India
In an attempt to protect the welfare of surrogate mothers, the Indian government has proposed to introduce legislation that will ban commercial surrogacy in the country. In this article, Ajit Karnik, ...
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Ajit Karnik
- 05 October, 2016
- Perspectives
The Political Effects of Programmatic Development Policy: Can Bihar Break the Clientelist Trap?
This project aims to understand the conditions of supporting the continuation and expansion of programmatic governance in Bihar state. Bihar’s "clientelism trap" (incentives to return to clientelist...
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Jonathan Phillips
- 30 September, 2016
- IGC Research on India
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Tweets by Ideas4IndiaMost 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...
- Mudit Kapoor
- 23 December, 2016
- Perspectives
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, ...
- Siwan Anderson
- 16 August, 2012
- Articles
The digital dream: Upskilling India for the future
While the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the pace at which technology is becoming commonplace in our lives, it has also exposed a stark digital divide, leaving a large proportion of India’s popul...
- Venugopal Mothkoor Fatima Mumtaz
- 23 March, 2021
- Perspectives