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Human Development

Disparity in access to quality education and the digital divide

  • Perspectives

Covid-19 and schooling: 2020 experience and way forward

The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic brought with it significant challenges for the education sector. On the one hand, closing schools meant imposing a heavy cost on a whole generation of students, and ...

  • Videos

What can we learn about Swachh Bharat Mission from NFHS-5 factsheets?

Swachh Bharat Mission was introduced by Government of India in 2014 to eliminate open defecation. Based on data from the National Family and Health Survey (NFHS)-5 factsheets, this article shows that ...

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Rising obesity in rural India, under the growing urban shadow

According to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS), 2015-16, nearly 20% of India’s population is obese. This article shows that the country’s obesity trends have followed the nature of its econ...

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Does early motherhood impact the development of children?

According to a new UNFPA report, the Covid-19 pandemic might cause 13 million additional child marriages – a key driver of early motherhood. Using panel data from South India, this article shows tha...

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Preferences or expectations? Understanding the gender gap in choice of college majors

A multidisciplinary literature – mostly focused on the US – shows that choice of majors among college students is gendered, and females are particularly under-represented in math-intensive fields....

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Teacher accountability: Non-teaching work over classroom engagement

While the Right to Education Act, 2009 mandates 200 days of teaching for primary classes, the actual number seems to be much lower in government schools. Based on qualitative fieldwork and a survey in...

  • Notes from the Field

Locked out of critical care: Covid-19 lockdown and non-Covid mortality

India’s 10-week long national lockdown to contain the spread of Covid-19 was among the most severe in the world. This article investigates the effects of the lockdown restrictions on healthcare acce...

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Covid-19: How the pandemic evolved in Kerala over the 'unlock' phases

Kerala, the state with the largest number of Covid-19 cases when India entered the lockdown on 25 March, had only 16 active cases on 20 May. However, the second wave of the pandemic in the state, coin...

  • Perspectives

On India’s ‘low’ Covid-19 case fatality rate

India’s Covid-19 case fatality rate is impressively low at 1.7%, compared to the world average of 4%. This apparently superior performance could, however, simply be a product of three factors: the c...

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Integrating technology into education systems: Lessons from Jharkhand

Ideas to improve the performance of India’s school system, many of which involve the use of information and communication technology, have been proposed and implemented with varying degrees of succe...

  • Notes from the Field

School choice in rural India: Perception versus reality

School choice has increased significantly in India – with growth of low-fee private schools – and this is considered important within a market-based approach to schooling. Based on a field study a...

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How birth weight affects test scores during mid-childhood years

Besides lack of schooling resources, a possible reason why children grapple with low learning outcomes may be poor health at birth. Analysing data from Andhra Pradesh, this article finds that a 10% i...

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Can greater access to education be inequitable?

Right to Education Act, 2009, was designed to provide the right to free, quality school education to all 6-14 year olds in India. This article examines the influence of RTE on the expansion of private...

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Disparity in access to quality education and the digital divide

On account of the Covid-19 pandemic, most educational institutions in India have adopted online teaching as a solution to offset huge deficits in instruction hours. However, citizens who do not have d...

  • Perspectives

Can India improve its public schools? Research says yes

An important policy question is whether the quality of public schools can be improved enough to effectively increase student outcomes. This article examines the effects of a natural experiment to crea...

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Rajeswari Sengupta

Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research

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Harsh Vardhan

SP Jain Institute of Management and Research

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Ideas for India

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University of Virginia

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University of California, Davis

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University of Warwick

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Northwestern University

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Federal Reserve Board

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Most Popular Human Development Posts

Hindu-Muslim fertility differentials in India: District-level estimates from Census 2011

The 2011 Indian Census data show a higher growth rate of Muslim population compared to the Hindu population. This article provides an in-depth picture of Hindu-Muslim fertility differentials at the di...

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Giving up too early on malnourished children? Catch-up growth and Midday Meals

It is widely believed that malnourishment in the first few years of childhood adversely affects cognition and adult economic outcomes. This column presents new research which shows that full recovery...

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Ten steps to transform the quality of education in India

In this article, Sridhar Rajagopalan, Managing Director of Educational Initiatives, suggests 10 initiatives that can help transform the quality of education in India.

  • Perspectives