16 November, 2023Synchronised elections, voter behaviour, and governance outcomes
An active policy proposal of the Government of India is to hold national elections at the same time as the assembly elections of all the states. This article examines whether holding national and stat...
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Vimal Balasubramaniam Sabyasachi Das Apurav Yash Bhatiya 
28 August, 2020
- Articles
Political determinants of newspaper markets in India
Newspapers are an important source of political information for Indian voters. This article looks at how political factors influence the newspaper market. Using the announcement of delimitation in the...
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Julia Cagé Guilhem Cassan Francesca R. Jensenius
- 23 November, 2023
- Articles
A proposal for public funding of elections and political parties in India
The Finance Minister of India recently introduced measures aimed at cleaning up political party funding in the country. In this article, Gowda and Santhosh highlight the limitations of these measures,...
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M.V. Rajeev Gowda Varun Santhosh
- 21 April, 2017
- Perspectives
Open defecation in cities: A faltering India story
Despite significant public investment in urban sanitation, over 37 million people in Indian cities resort to open defecation. This column examines the existing information on open defecation in urban...
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Meera Mehta Dinesh Mehta
- 23 April, 2014
- Articles
Mirror, mirror on the wall, which is the most dynamic state of them all?
This column analyses the economic performance of 16 major Indian states over the last three decades. It finds that Bihar has improved the most during the 2000s, Kerala has always been a star performe...
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Maitreesh Ghatak Sanchari Roy
- 23 March, 2014
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Governance by ordinance
The UPA government recently explored taking the ordinance route to promulgate six anti-corruption bills. This article traces the shift from the post-Independence culture of healthy parliamentary deba...
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Pushparaj Deshpande
- 17 March, 2014
- Perspectives
Direct Benefits Transfer: An idea whose time has come
About a year ago, the Government of India launched a Direct Benefits Transfer programme that involves transferring government benefits and subsidies directly to residents through a biometric identifi...
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Varad Pande
- 14 March, 2014
- Notes from the Field
Has community monitoring helped reduce corruption in public programme delivery?
MNREGA mandates social audits of public work projects undertaken under the Act in order to empower beneficiaries to scrutinise programme expenditures, and monitor programme delivery. Has community mo...
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Farzana Afridi Vegard Iversen
- 12 March, 2014
- Articles
India's illiberal speech climate
India’s cultural watchdogs and hate speech laws are increasingly seeking to restrict free expression in the country. This article contends that the right to take offence is fundamentally incompatib...
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Parikshit Ghosh
- 05 March, 2014
- Perspectives
Re-conceptualising crime and punishment
A Delhi court has awarded the death penalty to the convicts in the December 2012 gangrape incident. This article discusses the moral basis and dangers of relying on this form of punishment for deterr...
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Pushparaj Deshpande
- 26 February, 2014
- Perspectives
Does the quality of electricity matter?
India is home to almost a quarter of the world population that does not have access to electricity. This column estimates the impact of increased access to and improved quality of electricity on inco...
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Ujjayant Chakravorty Martino Pelli
- 10 February, 2014
- Articles
UID project: Does evidence matter?
The Indian government has been pushing to make UID compulsory, and is now moving towards charging for use of authentication services. This article asserts that the three key selling points of UID –...
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Reetika Khera
- 05 February, 2014
- Perspectives
Religion and relief in Muzzafarnagar
The communal riots that broke out in Muzzafarnagar in the state of Uttar Pradesh in September last year took several lives and left hundreds homeless. In this Note from the Field, Rohini Somanathan s...
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Rohini Somanathan
- 10 January, 2014
- Notes from the Field
Unintended consequences of India's child labour ban
Bans and regulations against child labour are among the most popular policy tools used to address the problem throughout the developing world. But how well do they work in practice? This column analy...
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Prashant Bharadwaj Leah K. Lakdawala Nicholas Li
- 08 January, 2014
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Some reflections on the National Food Security Act
The Food Security Bill became an Act with little parliamentary opposition. Yet the public debate has lingered. Would subsidised food grains reduce malnutrition? Won’t it be better to invest in heal...
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Ashok Kotwal Milind Murugkar Bharat Ramaswami
- 10 December, 2013
- 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
Why did the Indian economy stagnate under the colonial rule?
How did the Indian economy fare under the colonial rule? Is the average Indian significantly better off after Independence? This column examines trends in GDP per capita in order to determine the stan...
- Aniruddha Bagchi
- 16 September, 2013
- Articles