22 July, 2019Escaping the subsidy-quality trap in India’s retail electricity market
Cross-subsidies in retail electricity tariffs leave distribution utilities with neither the incentive nor the capital to improve reliability, particularly for their most subsidised consumers. Using bi...
-
Shefali Khanna Kevin Rowe 
19 May, 2021
- Articles
When criminality begets crime: The role of elected politicians
The criminalisation of politics has become a massive threat to society. While the impact of criminally accused leaders on economic outcomes has been studied in the literature, little is known about th...
-
Nishith Prakash Soham Sahoo Deepak Saraswat Reetika Sindhi
- 19 March, 2021
- Perspectives
DUET: Decentralise employment generation to urban local bodies
Dilip Mookherjee supports Drèze’s suggestion to decentralise employment generation to urban local bodies, and contends that the moribund nature of urban local government is a key reason for the neg...
-
Dilip Mookherjee
- 14 September, 2020
- Perspectives
PDS computerisation: What other states can learn from Kerala
Given the leakage in the Public Distribution System, Indian states are being encouraged to computerise their PDS. This column analyses Kerala’s experience with PDS computerisation and highlights me...
-
Silvia Masiero
- 06 July, 2015
- Articles
Do ruling coalition-affiliated MLAs bring more development to their constituencies?
Despite the dismantling of the License Raj in the 1990s, interaction with government officials remains an important impediment to doing business in India. This column analyses the role of politics in...
-
Samuel Asher Paul Novosad
- 22 June, 2015
- Articles
Citizens' trust in local politicians and implications for good governance
The new state of Telangana was carved out of Andhra Pradesh in June 2014, after a prolonged movement by the people of Telangana region for a separate state. Based on field experiments among citizens ...
-
Lata Gangadharan Tarun Jain Pushkar Maitra Joseph Vecci
- 10 June, 2015
- Articles
How effective are gram sabhas?
Village panchayats across India are mandated to organise local public meetings called gram sabhas several times a year, wherein villagers discuss issues such as local public good provision. This colu...
-
Sabyasachi Das
- 06 May, 2015
- Articles
14th Finance Commission: A trust-based approach towards local governments
The 14th Finance Commission has been hailed as ‘path-breaking’ for recommending larger fund allocations to state governments and giving them more autonomy in spending these funds. In this article...
-
Meera Mehta Dinesh Mehta
- 27 April, 2015
- Perspectives
The Chhattisgarh experience and the National Food Security Act
Many of the reforms introduced under the National Food Security Act are modeled on PDS reforms implemented in Chhattisgarh. These reforms are widely believed to be responsible for the state’s succe...
-
Prasad Krishnamurthy Vikram Pathania Sharad Tandon
- 20 April, 2015
- Articles
Maoist violence and MNREGA
The spate of Maoist attacks on security personnel in Chhattisgarh this week serves as a reminder that Moaist insurgency is the single biggest internal security threat faced by India. This column anal...
-
Gaurav Khanna Laura Zimmermann
- 15 April, 2015
- Articles
Strategically greasing the wheels: The political economy of India’s rural employment guarantee scheme
Inefficient and capacity-constrained bureaucracies often pose a significant hurdle to the effective implementation of anti-poverty programmes in developing countries.
-
Aditya Dasgupta James Robinson
- 31 March, 2015
- IGC Research on India
Should the less educated be barred from village council elections?
In December 2014, the state government of Rajasthan issued an executive order barring citizens with less than eight years of formal education from running for village council chief elections in all b...
-
Rohini Pande
- 23 February, 2015
- Perspectives
Three concerns about AAP's promise
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has come to power in Delhi with a historic mandate. In this article, V Ramani, Partner at Access Advisory and former bureaucrat, flags three key concerns around their approa...
-
V. Ramani
- 18 February, 2015
- Perspectives
An economist's view on the new government's initiatives
In this article, Pranab Bardhan, Professor of Economics, University of California, Berkeley, provides his perspective on some of the initiatives of the new Indian government at the centre in their fi...
-
Pranab Bardhan
- 19 December, 2014
- Perspectives
Response to the Bhagwati-Panagariya rejoinder on MNREGA
In a recent article, Abreu et al. refuted the Bhagwati-Panagariya argument for phasing out MNREGA in favour of cash transfers. In this article, Abreu et al. respond to claims in a rejoinder by Bhagwa...
-
Dilip Abreu Pranab Bardhan Maitreesh Ghatak Ashok Kotwal Dilip Mookherjee Debraj Ray
- 14 December, 2014
- Perspectives
Twitter feed
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
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...
- Ashutosh Thakur
- 18 March, 2019
- Articles