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Human Development

Youth’s digital readiness in rural India

  • Notes from the Field

Lighting the path to learning: Can electricity boost children’s test scores?

When households gain access to electricity, children are more likely to be enrolled in school. But do they also perform better? Based on West Bengal’s universal household electrification programme a...

  • Articles

The wide-ranging benefits of India’s Public Distribution System

India’s Public Distribution System (PDS) is the world’s largest food transfer programme and India’s most far-reaching social safety net, accounting for 60% of the country’s social assistance b...

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Network membership and demand for health insurance

Despite being free and having liberal eligibility criteria, the adoption of public health insurance in India remains low. This article examines how informal networks influence adoption behaviour, in t...

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School absences as an early warning system

When children are frequently absent from school, it could be a sign that they are going through adverse personal circumstances. In this note, Anurag Kundu discusses the experience of launching a large...

  • Notes from the Field

Women empowerment in India: Does colonial history matter?

Examining whether colonial history matters for women’s contemporary economic outcomes in India, this article shows that women who live in areas that were under direct British rule are better off in ...

  • Articles

Nutritional penalty of motherhood: Can midday meals for children also improve their mothers’ health outcomes?

Midday meals provide a nutritional safety net for children and improve their learning outcomes and attendance. Nikita Sharma argues that spillover benefits might also exist for mothers of the children...

  • Perspectives

Access to clean drinking water and women’s safety in India

In this study, Sekhri and Hossain use district-level data to find empirical evidence that groundwater scarcity results in an increase in sexual violence against women. They argue that in households wi...

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Foundational learning outcomes: More recovery than loss

Sharing data from the recently released ASER 2022, Wilima Wadhwa discusses the trends in primary school enrollment and learning during the pandemic. Using data collected from Karnataka, Chhattisgarh a...

  • Perspectives

Herself, and her child: Are they worse off due to Covid-19?

Lockdowns imposed to contain the spread of Covid-19 led to loss of employment and income. They also created greater food insecurity, with women and children being more vulnerable to such shocks. In t...

  • Articles

Old habits and new norms

As schools reopen and memories of the pandemic fade, Madhav Chavan takes stock of practices and ideas that have become the ‘new normal’. He highlights the increase in enrollment and absence of lea...

  • Perspectives

Sweet cash: Women’s demand for healthcare in developing countries

Agrawal et al. explore the role of gender-based preferences for demand of healthcare. Using CPHS data they find that the positive income shock – generated by a change in the mandated rates of contri...

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Empowering patients with information to improve hospital accountability

Despite the expansion of free healthcare for the poor throughout India, many hospitals continue to charge patients out-of-pocket fees. In this study, Dupas and Jain investigate whether informing patie...

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The unintended positive consequences of India’s safe motherhood programme

India’s flagship maternal health intervention, Janani Suraksha Yojana, provided conditional cash transfers to women opting for institutional deliveries. In this study, Chatterjee and Poddar document...

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Low-tech and teacher support interventions during school closures

School closures during Covid-19 significantly impacted early childhood education, especially in households without sufficient parental engagement. Using data from households affiliated with Balwadis a...

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A data story on female child marriage in India

In the eighth post of I4I’s month-long campaign to mark International Women’s Day 2023, Shubham Mudgil and Swathi Rao from The Quantum Hub use a novel dataset based on NFHS-5 to present data highl...

  • Perspectives

Recent Contributors

Farzana

Farzana Afridi

Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi Centre

Patrick

Patrick Agte

Stockholm School of Economics

Jitendra Kumar

Jitendra Kumar Soni

Government of Rajasthan

Deepak

Deepak Kumar

ASER Centre

Shweta

Shweta Bhutada

ASER Centre

Somdeep

Somdeep Chatterjee

Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta

Shiv

Shiv Hastawala

State University of New York at Binghamton

Jai

Jai Kamal

Indian Institute of Management Jammu

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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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Understanding India’s mental health crisis

Since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, several reports have indicated a worsening of mental health issues among individuals across age groups. In this post, Michele Mary Bernadine examines the stat...

  • Perspectives

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