08 January, 2025Fiscal 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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K. S. Kavi Kumar Anubhab Pattanayak 
14 November, 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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Expected or unexpected? Strategic communication around audits to maximise deterrence
Even with evidence on how audits can be designed to be more effective in deterring corruption by bureaucrats, in practice, budget constraints restrict governments from being able to conduct audits wit...
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Wendy Wong
- 11 September, 2024
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Unpacking how MSMEs are defined in India’s manufacturing and services sector
The Indian government announced a number of reforms to help micro, small and medium enterprises that had been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic – including changes in how an MSMEs are classified. Ra...
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Rahul Ranjan
- 30 May, 2023
- Perspectives
The costs of extreme competition for government jobs
Indian states have highly competitive examinations for public service recruitment, with many youth remaining unemployed for long periods to compete for these government vacancies. Kunal Mangal looks a...
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Kunal Mangal
- 21 April, 2023
- Articles
How women in politics impact maternal mortality
In the twelfth post of I4I’s month-long campaign to mark International Women’s Day 2023, Bhalotra et al. show that mortality during and after childbirth remains high, even where the knowledge and ...
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Has Budget 2023-24 been successful in balancing gender priorities?
Ahead of International Women’s Day, Tanya Rana and Neeha Susan Jacob categorise and analyse scheme allocations through the Union Budget’s Gender Budget Statement (GBS), by looking at what schemes ...
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Tanya Rana Neeha Susan Jacob
- 06 March, 2023
- Perspectives
Does being local matter? Administrative decentralisation and human development
In this post, Chaudhary and Iyer discuss the administrative decentralisation reforms brought about by the Panchayati Raj Act, and measure the effect of decentralisation on the provision of public serv...
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Latika Chaudhary Lakshmi Iyer
- 13 January, 2023
- Articles
Analysing e-governance service delivery outcomes: Insights from eTaal
In this piece, Trivedi and Mumtaz attempt to analyse the performance of e-governance service delivery across different tiers of government and service categories, through the volume of end-to-end elec...
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Fatima Mumtaz Anand Trivedi
- 04 January, 2023
- Perspectives
Improving admissions to technical colleges in India
Following their note on the issues that may arise from the ambiguity of EWS reservation policies, Aygün, Turhan, and Yenmez provide a critique of the multi-run deferred-acceptance algorithm currently...
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Orhan Aygün Bertan Turhan M. Bumin Yenmez
- 16 December, 2022
- Perspectives
Challenges of executing EWS reservation efficiently
A recent Supreme Court judgement excluded members of reserved categories from the scope of EWS. Aygün, Turhan, and Yenmez look at the implications of this decision, including reserved category member...
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Orhan Aygün Bertan Turhan M. Bumin Yenmez
- 14 December, 2022
- Perspectives
Introduction to e-Symposium: The architecture of affirmative action
The Supreme Court of India recently upheld an amendment that excluded Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backwards Classes from the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) quota, restricting it on...
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Parikshit Ghosh
- 12 December, 2022
- Symposium
Design choices for implementing affirmative action
In this expository piece, Ashutosh Thakur explains the various ways in which affirmative action policies can be implemented, and discusses the underlying tradeoffs and issues at hand. He delineates th...
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Ashutosh Thakur
- 12 December, 2022
- Perspectives
Panchsutras for carrying out a successful Governance Transformation
Following his last piece, which put forth a Governance Matrix that could be used assess a government system’s readiness to drive outcomes, Gaurav Goel puts forth five principles, or panchsutras, whi...
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Gaurav Goel
- 09 December, 2022
- Perspectives
The panchayat asset register: An instrument to conserve India’s commons
With common lands making up nearly a quarter of Indian territory, the State has taken steps to protect them from encroachment. The Indian Constitution grants panchayats custodial rights to protect vil...
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Pooja Chandran Subrata Singh
- 07 December, 2022
- 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