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Governance

Accountability and responsibility

  • Perspectives

Decentralisation and spatial (mis)allocation of irrigation water

Canal water – an important source of irrigation in India – often tends to be unequally distributed among farmers within a geographical area. Based on a survey in the state of Odisha, following the...

  • Articles

The influence of local politicians in the private education market

Private schooling has experienced rapid expansion in India – both in terms of number of schools and student enrolment. Analysing data from 2005-2017, this article shows that constituencies represent...

  • Articles

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...

  • Articles
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Fixing incentives for power plants to reduce outages

Consumers in India face frequent power outages despite relatively high-quality infrastructure and ample supply of power plants. This article identifies a novel explanation for India’s blackouts: whe...

  • Articles

Does going cashless make you tax-rich? Evidence from India’s demonetisation

During 2014-2017, the share of adults using electronic payments in the developing world increased by over a third, and policymakers have expressed optimism regarding the role of this trend in promotin...

  • Articles

How colonial is Indian law?

Critiques of the colonial rule in India and its legacy have been extended to law – with many allusions to the need to shake off the yoke of the colonial legacy. In this post, Roy and Swamy unpack th...

  • Perspectives

Budget and politics in pandemic times

Applying a political economy lens to the recently announced Budget 2022-23, Yamini Aiyar contends that the emphasis on capital expenditure over welfare in the two Budgets announced during the pandemic...

  • Perspectives

Improving public service delivery by fixing payment systems

Fixing how funds flow through the government systems grabs far fewer headlines than malnutrition, problems in the education sector, or crumbling infrastructure. In this post, Charity Troyer Moore cont...

  • Perspectives

India’s new National Water Policy: A paradigm shift

In 2019, the Ministry of Jal Shakti set up a committee of independent experts – led by Dr Mihir Shah – to draft a new National Water Policy. To examine the recommendations made by the Committee, A...

  • Videos

India’s new National Water Policy: A paradigm shift

In 2019, the Ministry of Jal Shakti set up a committee of independent experts – led by Dr Mihir Shah – to draft a new National Water Policy. To examine the recommendations made by the Committee, A...

  • Podcasts

She wins: Electing women in ethnically divided societies

The Indian Constitution reserves a minimum of 33% of village council head positions for women, and Bihar is among the nine states that have opted for 50% reservation. This note investigates how gender...

  • Notes from the Field

Escaping 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...

  • Articles

2021 West Bengal Assembly election: Did the Covid-19 surge matter?

In the recent Assembly elections in the state of West Bengal, the ruling Trinamool Congress bucked an anti-incumbency headwind to secure victory. Using electoral data from 2016, 2019, and 2021, Ghata...

  • Perspectives

Rising industrial accidents: Fallout of boosting ‘Ease of Doing Business’?

India has witnessed a surge in severe fire and explosion-related accidents in industrial and commercial establishments, in recent years. In this post, R Nagaraj contends that perhaps the dilution – ...

  • Perspectives

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...

  • Perspectives

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Maitreesh Ghatak

London School of Economics

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Karthik Muralidharan

University of California, San Diego

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Jean Drèze

Ranchi University; Delhi School of Economics

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Amartya Sen

Harvard University

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Sabyasachi Das

Ahmedabad University

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Souvik Dutta

Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology

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Soham Sahoo

Loughborough University and Indian Institute of Ma

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Muneer Kalliylil

Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

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Most 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...

  • 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, ...

  • 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...

  • Perspectives