16 December, 2019Consent to nothing: Aadhaar-based payment systems in welfare
The process of seeding Aadhaar with bank accounts in order to link welfare schemes and cash transfers with Aadhaar payment systems, created chaos on the ground. In this note, Niklas Wagner and Sakina ...
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Sakina Dhorajiwala Niklas Wagner 
23 August, 2019
- Notes
How democratic are the states of India?
India is often credited for its success as the world’s largest democracy – but does the degree of democracy vary across Indian states? This article develops an index to map the development of subn...
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Jos Bartman Imke Harbers Enrike van Wingerden
- 13 August, 2019
- Articles
Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana: Issues and gaps in service delivery and access
The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana is a much-needed and purposeful scheme, given the health hazards faced by women inside households as 79% of rural Indian households still depend on traditional unclea...
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Rahul Ranjan
- 11 December, 2019
- Perspectives
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
Consumption spikes and election delays
There is ample anecdotal evidence on political parties bribing voters with cash or consumption goods prior to elections, in India and other developing countries. However, there is an expected lack of ...
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Shabana Mitra Anirban Mitra Arnab Mukherji
- 20 April, 2017
- Articles
Free speech and the rule of law
In this article, Maitreesh Ghatak, Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics, argues that the fight over freedom of expression in India is a shadow fight; the real fight is about preser...
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Maitreesh Ghatak
- 07 April, 2017
- Perspectives
Tax, lies, and red tape
Weak institutional environments in poor countries may lead to lower tax compliance by firms. This may be especially true for family firms, whose owners have higher stakes in the firm and longer horizo...
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Megha Patnaik
- 31 March, 2017
- IGC Research on India
Bidding for roads
This project aims to understand how to make it harder for local politicians to capture small-scale infrastructure projects. In the context of the bidding process for contracts under India’s flagship...
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Oliver Eynde Jacob Shapiro
- 31 March, 2017
- IGC Research on India
The Impact of Community Mobilization on Land Rights Governance: Evidence from a Homestead Land Entitlement Initiative in Gaya District of Bihar, India
This project evaluates the impact of a community level program in Gaya district that seeks to establish, train, and mobilize village-level community-based organizations to assist Scheduled Caste house...
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Sanjay Kumar Andre Nickow
- 31 March, 2017
- IGC Research on India
Bidding for Roads
The project looks into the mechanisms of political influence by analyzing whether contractors without political connections are deterred from applying, or whether the evaluation process is biased in f...
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Oliver Eynde Jonathan Lehne Jacob Shapiro
- 31 March, 2017
- IGC Research on India
Rural development programmes: Implementation challenges and solutions
With a majority of the population living in rural areas in India, rural development is key to the development of the country. Based on his experience of working closely with the district administratio...
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Pushkar Pahwa
- 17 March, 2017
- Perspectives
Deconstructing the global wave of right-wing populism
At present, there seems to be palpable reaction against ideas of tolerance, minority rights, freedom of expression, and respect for individual autonomy and dignity, in many parts of the world. In thi...
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Pranab Bardhan
- 08 February, 2017
- Perspectives
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...
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Mudit Kapoor
- 23 December, 2016
- Perspectives
Do Gram Panchayat leaders favour their own constituencies in MNREGA fund allocation?
Political incentives are known to play a role in the allocation of public resources from upper- to lower-tier governments. This column seeks to examine whether ruling parties in local governments favo...
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Subhasish Dey Kunal Sen
- 19 December, 2016
- Articles
Governance performance of Indian states: 2001-02 and 2011-12
Defining governance as service delivery, this column develops a measure of the quality of governance – also adjusting for the impact of the level of development - and provides a ranking of major Ind...
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Samik Chowdhury Sudipto Mundle Satadru Sikdar
- 13 December, 2016
- Articles
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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
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
Rethinking cadre allocation procedures in civil services
The allocation procedure of All-India Services’ officers to states is an important aspect of personnel administration in the public sector. This article shows that a change in allocation policy in 2...
- Ashutosh Thakur
- 18 March, 2019
- Articles