24 September, 2025Election of criminal politicians and public service delivery
Why are politicians with criminal records elected to office, despite voters having the option to weed them out? Based on the hypothesis that criminal politicians strategically deliver targeted benefit...
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Abhinav Khemka 
18 September, 2025
- Articles
Boosting Lekhpal performance via data-driven feedback and recognition
The Lekhpals Actionable KPI System for Holistic Assessment and Management (LAKSHYAM) is an initiative to measure and enhance the work performance of Lekhpals, who are frontline functionaries of the Re...
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Fahad Hasin Sakshi Ugale
- 18 August, 2025
- Notes from the Field
Building State capacity for accelerating development through effective governance
In a new edition of I4I conversations, Maitreesh Ghatak (London School of Economics) is joined by Karthik Muralidharan (University of California, San Diego) to discuss his new book, Accelerating India...
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Maitreesh Ghatak Karthik Muralidharan
- 05 May, 2025
- Videos
He is a criminal but he is our criminal: Criminally accused politicians in India
The recent increase in the number of criminally-accused politicians elected to state assemblies has caused much furore in India. Despite the potentially important consequences and the widely divergent...
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Nishith Prakash Marc Rockmore Yogesh Uppal
- 01 August, 2015
- IGC Research on India
Elucidating avenues for corruption: Micronutrient fortification strategies in India’s Midday Meals Programme
Globally, iron deficiency is a leading cause of anaemia, a condition that is particularly harmful during early childhood, causing fatigue and slower physical and cognitive development with potentially...
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James Berry Saurabh Mehta Priya Mukherjee Gauri Kartini Shastry
- 30 July, 2015
- IGC Research on India
Why numbers matter
The delayed and partial release of data from the ‘Rapid Survey on Children’ by the Indian government has given rise to questions and speculation. In this article, former bureaucrat V. Ramani disc...
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V. Ramani
- 23 July, 2015
- Perspectives
PDS computerisation: What other states can learn from Kerala
Given the leakage in the Public Distribution System, Indian states are being encouraged to computerise their PDS. This column analyses Kerala’s experience with PDS computerisation and highlights me...
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Silvia Masiero
- 06 July, 2015
- Articles
Do ruling coalition-affiliated MLAs bring more development to their constituencies?
Despite the dismantling of the License Raj in the 1990s, interaction with government officials remains an important impediment to doing business in India. This column analyses the role of politics in...
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Samuel Asher Paul Novosad
- 22 June, 2015
- 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 ...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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.
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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
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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