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...
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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...
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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...
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Dilip Mookherjee
- 14 September, 2020
- Perspectives
Getting India wrong
In this article, Partha Dasgupta argues that deliberations on economic development, as in the recently published books by Bhagwati-Panagariya and Dreze-Sen respectively, are of little instrumental use...
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Partha Dasgupta
- 12 August, 2013
- Perspectives
The National Food Security Ordinance: Five misconceptions
The National Food Security Ordinance was promulgated in July 2013. The public debate that ensued, especially the criticism in the business media, has tended to be either devoid of facts or factually ...
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Reetika Khera
- 07 August, 2013
- Perspectives
I4I turns 1!
It has been a year since the voice of ‘Ideas for India’ was first heard. Our mission was to be an outlet for evidence-based arguments on a wide set of issues relevant to Indian growth and developm...
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Ashok Kotwal
- 06 August, 2013
- Perspectives
Star Wars
Debraj Ray gets to the heart of the growth versus redistribution debate and argues that a sectoral imbalance in growth is inevitable. While occupational choice is an important way to deal with this, ...
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Debraj Ray
- 05 August, 2013
- Perspectives
Economic growth versus social development: The spatial dimension
In the context of the economic growth versus social development debate sparked off by Bhagwati and Sen, this column argues for a more nuanced approach to assessing progress. Combining nationally repre...
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Ranjan Ray
- 31 July, 2013
- Articles
Turn Right or Left? Or is there a middle way?
Dilip Mookherjee shares his perspective on the recent Bhagwati versus Sen debate. While Sen represents the pro-state-led assistance stand and Bhagwati is seen as pro-market, what India requires is th...
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Dilip Mookherjee
- 25 July, 2013
- Perspectives
Food Bill: Neither populist nor unaffordable
Criticism of the National Food Security Bill has led to the government dropping the idea of issuing an Ordinance and instead, saying it would try to get the Bill passed in a special session of Parlia...
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Ashok Kotwal Milind Murugkar Bharat Ramaswami
- 19 June, 2013
- Perspectives
Cash Transfer versus In-Kind Transfers: A conceptual framework and preliminary evidence
This project studied the performance of a conditional cash transfer scheme called Mukhyamantri Cycle Yojana, which provides money to purchase a bicycle to every student who is enrolled in standard nin...
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Maitreesh Ghatak Sandip Mitra
- 01 June, 2013
- IGC Research on India
Bihar's malnutrition crisis and potential solutions
The prevalence of underweight children in Bihar is higher than in any country in the world, and the provision of public services to address malnutrition is poor. Based on an assessment of the governm...
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Ronald Abraham Andrew Fraker
- 24 May, 2013
- Articles
The role of informal caste networks in public service delivery
Large public programmes designed at the national level are often undermined by corruption at the local level. This column proposes local level monitoring and enforcement through informal networks as ...
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Sriniketh Nagavarapu Sheetal Sekhri
- 06 May, 2013
- Articles
IAP improving lives in Maoist-affected areas
In this Note from the Field, a PMRDF working in the Left Wing Extremism affected Purulia district in West Bengal, narrates how the Maoist movement disrupted livelihoods, revenue generation and public...
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Animesh Ghosh
- 05 April, 2013
- Notes from the Field
Adoption of Water-Saving Infrastructure in Agriculture: The Case of Laser Levellers
Water tables are falling rapidly, in large part due to the fact that individuals do not bear the social marginal cost of the water they use; free water extraction is a property right attached to land ...
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Nathan Larson Sheetal Sekhri Rajinder Sidhu
- 31 March, 2013
- 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
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