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...
-
Jean Drèze
Amartya Sen
13 March, 2025
- 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...
-
Ritam Chaurey
Kanika Mahajan
Shekhar Tomar
08 January, 2025
- 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...
-
K. S. Kavi Kumar
Anubhab Pattanayak
14 November, 2024
- 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...
-
Dinesh Mehta
Meera 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
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...
-
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...
-
Karthik Muralidharan
Paul Niehaus
Sandip Sukhtankar
03 December, 2014
- Articles
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
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