19 March, 2021Regionalist party representation and tribal insecurity
Observers have long been ambivalent about regionalism as a principle underlying the organisation of politics. Analysing data from India, this article shows that when regionalist parties win elections,...
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Sacha Kapoor Arvind Magesan 
19 February, 2021
- Articles
Citizen-State relations: Countryside and city
To what extent do citizens expect officials to respond to local problems, and how do they make demands on the State to advance their well-being? Based on surveys in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, this ...
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Adam Auerbach Gabrielle Kruks-Wisner
- 24 August, 2020
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How district courts influence firm growth
The Economic Survey 2018-19 highlights that the single biggest constraint to ease of doing business in India is contract enforcement and dispute resolution, and increasing capacity in lower judiciary ...
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Manaswini Rao
- 29 January, 2020
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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...
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Gaurav Khanna Laura Zimmermann
- 15 April, 2015
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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.
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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Dilip Abreu Pranab Bardhan Maitreesh Ghatak Ashok Kotwal Dilip Mookherjee Debraj Ray
- 14 December, 2014
- Perspectives
Assessing the quality and usefulness of MNREGA assets in Maharashtra
Questions have been raised regarding the quality and usefulness of assets created under MNREGA. To examine the validity of the scepticism, this column reports results from a study of MNREGA assets in...
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Upasak Das Ashwini Kulkarni Sudha Narayanan Krushna Ranavare
- 05 December, 2014
- Articles
Building state capacity for better programme implementation: Lessons from the Andhra Pradesh Smartcard Programme
Biometric payment systems are posited to reduce leakages in public welfare programmes but there is limited evidence on their effectiveness. This column presents evidence on the impact of the Andhra P...
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Karthik Muralidharan Paul Niehaus Sandip Sukhtankar
- 03 December, 2014
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What's the plan for MNREGA?
The new government’s plans to scale back MNREGA have elicited a mixed response. In this article, Abhijit Banerjee contends that both supporters and critics, and indeed the entire nation, deserve to ...
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Abhijit Banerjee
- 02 December, 2014
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Impact of Elite Capture on the Provision of Public Services
This project studies the effectiveness of major Government programmes in JEEViKA (Bihar Rural Livelihoods Project) villages versus others to see whether the presence of self-help groups leads to impro...
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Lata Gangadharan Tarun Jain Pushkar Maitra Joseph Vecci
- 01 December, 2014
- IGC Research on India
The Bihar story: Resurrection of the state
In the not so distant past, the Indian state of Bihar was a byword for corruption, lawlessness, poverty, and absence of governance. Over the last decade or so, the state has demonstrated a remarkable ...
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Jitan Manjhi
- 26 November, 2014
- Perspectives
Politics and MNREGA: A limited Link in Andhra Pradesh
The Ministry of Rural Development claims that MNREGA needs to be changed in order to reduce politics and corruption in the scheme. One of the studies cited by the Ministry is an analysis of the exten...
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Christopher B. Barrett Yanyan Liu Sudha Narayanan Megan Sheahan
- 19 November, 2014
- Articles
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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
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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...
- Ashutosh Thakur
- 18 March, 2019
- Articles