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
Bihar's alcohol ban: Prudent policy or tail-chasing?
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s decision to implement prohibition in the state from 1 April 2016 is based on the rationale that alcohol consumption is the primary reason for violence against wo...
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Sanjeev Kumar Nishith Prakash
- 21 December, 2015
- Perspectives
Intimidation, imitation, economics: Why youth are taking to terror
Men between the ages of 18 and 35 become terrorists, and it is the same demographic that supplies drug dealers, violent criminals, and foot soldiers of political parties. Abhijit Banerjee, Professor ...
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Abhijit Banerjee
- 15 December, 2015
- Perspectives
Democracy, inclusion, and prosperity
In his speech at the D.D. Kosambi Ideas Festival in February 2015 in Goa, RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan put on his hat as a professor of political economy and spoke about the development of a liberal m...
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Raghuram Rajan
- 17 November, 2015
- Perspectives
Bihar verdict: Development, cow politics, and caste
The Nitish Kumar-led Grand Alliance of JD(U)-RJD-Congress defeated the Modi-led NDA in the recent Bihar assembly elections. In this article, Maitreesh Ghatak, Professor of Economics at the London Sch...
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Maitreesh Ghatak
- 12 November, 2015
- Perspectives
Connecting the red corridor: Infrastructure provision in conflict areas
The government’s efforts to develop rural infrastructure have been particularly intense in the 90-odd districts that are affected by Maoism. How successful has the implementation of flagship infras...
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Oliver Eynde Jacob Shapiro
- 05 November, 2015
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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...
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Abhijit Banerjee
- 26 October, 2015
- 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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Anand Shrivastava
- 07 October, 2015
- Articles
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...
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Yamini Aiyar Ambrish Dongre
- 17 September, 2015
- 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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Sandip Sukhtankar Milan Vaishnav
- 16 September, 2015
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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...
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Abhijit Banerjee
- 09 September, 2015
- 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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Upasak Das Diego Maiorano
- 02 September, 2015
- Articles
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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Florian Blum Rohini Pande
- 21 August, 2015
- Perspectives
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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