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Governance

Building State capacity for accelerating development through effective governance

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Accountability and responsibility

Accountability of public institutions and employees is deemed important for them to function for the common good. In this post, Drèze and Sen argue that accountability is only one aspect of a much br...

  • Perspectives

How immigration policy uncertainty affects labour markets

President Trump’s re-election has reignited debate over H-1B visa policies, a temporary high-skill work visa programme wherein 70% of visas are held by Indians. Analysing jobs data from India from t...

  • Articles

Fiscal transfers and natural calamities: Does political alignment matter?

Fiscal transfers from the central government serve as an important mechanism for state governments to mitigate adverse impacts of extreme climate events. This article demonstrates that higher allocati...

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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 ...

  • 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...

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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...

  • 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...

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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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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.

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • 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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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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Recent Contributors

Maitreesh

Maitreesh Ghatak

London School of Economics

Karthik

Karthik Muralidharan

University of California, San Diego

Jean

Jean Drèze

Ranchi University; Delhi School of Economics

Amartya

Amartya Sen

Harvard University

Sabyasachi

Sabyasachi Das

Ahmedabad University

Souvik

Souvik Dutta

Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology

Soham

Soham Sahoo

Loughborough University and Indian Institute of Ma

Muneer

Muneer Kalliylil

Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

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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...

  • 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, ...

  • 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...

  • Perspectives