01 February, 2019The early advantage: Learning levels in grade 1
According to ASER 2019, children in grade 1 of government schools in India lag behind private school children in both language and numeracy skills. In this post, Wilima Wadhwa explains that children i...
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Wilima Wadhwa 
24 January, 2020
- Perspectives
A quiet revolution: The case of primary education in Uttar Pradesh
The challenge in India’s school education system today is how to translate years of schooling into learning. While there is reason to lament the learning crisis, a quiet movement is taking place in ...
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Shobhini Mukerji
- 31 May, 2019
- Notes
What the Swachh Bharat Mission did not change
On the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi and 5th anniversary of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), Coffey and Spears discuss findings from a field survey about changes in open defecation in rura...
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Diane Coffey Dean Spears
- 02 October, 2019
- Perspectives
For no more Gorakhpur
In August 2017, the media was splashed with the grim news of the tragic deaths of children at a hospital in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, owing to alleged medical negligence. In this article, Chandrakant ...
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Chandrakant Lahariya
- 17 January, 2018
- Perspectives
Despite improvements in child health, why do so many newborns still die?
The ‘Million Death Study’ shows that the death rate of under-five children in India dropped from about 90 per 1,000 to about 47 during 2000-2015. However, improvements in death rates in the first ...
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Diane Coffey
- 02 January, 2018
- Perspectives
Identifying an effective teacher in public schools in Delhi
While there is near universal school enrolment among 6-14 year olds in India, learning levels are abysmally low. In this context, this project looks at senior secondary government schools in Delhi to ...
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Bidisha Barooah Deepti Goel
- 26 December, 2017
- IGC Research on India
Achieving universal health coverage in India: Inefficiency is the problem, not money
India has been widely criticised for having one of the world’s lowest public spending on health. In this article, Kanchan Mukherjee contends that even with this minimal expenditure it is possible to...
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Kanchan Mukherjee
- 19 December, 2017
- Perspectives
Improving nutritional outcomes through conditional cash transfers
The Indian government plans to universalise the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana – a conditional cash transfer programme for pregnant women and lactating mothers that aims to improve maternal and...
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Alok Kumar Sneha Palit
- 22 November, 2017
- Articles
Engaging the community to make schools accountable for delivering quality education
While the dismal quality of primary education in India has received considerable attention at the state and national levels, rural communities still seem to associate school quality with parameters su...
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K. Vaijayanti
- 21 November, 2017
- Notes
Malnutrition and the National Food Security Act
The National Food Security Act aims to remove hunger and reduce malnutrition by providing subsidised foodgrains to two-thirds of the population. Using nationally representative data, this column finds...
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Anders Kjelsrud Rohini Somanathan
- 31 October, 2017
- Articles
Barriers in accessing applications under RTE quota in Gujarat
In the school year 2017-18, Gujarat shifted from a paper-based system at the district level to an online system at the state level, for applications under the Right to Education Act. In this note, res...
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Ambrish Dongre Ishu Gupta Ankur Sarin Karan Singhal Nisha Vernekar
- 30 October, 2017
- Notes
Recognition of snakebite as a neglected tropical disease: What does it mean for India?
In June this year, the WHO placed snakebite envenoming on its list of top-20 priority neglected tropical diseases. In this article, Dr Bharati contends that India, which has the highest burden of snak...
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Kaushik Bharati
- 10 October, 2017
- Perspectives
A letter to Oxfam: Reframing the questions around private-sector healthcare
A 2009 Oxfam paper puts forth the view that scaling-up private healthcare provision is very unlikely to deliver high-quality care to the poor. Commenting on the paper, Jishnu Das contends that while i...
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Jishnu Das
- 29 September, 2017
- Perspectives
Japanese encephalitis in Gorakhpur: Why has vaccination failed to make an impact?
Vaccination is the mainstay of prevention strategies for Japanese encephalitis – the child killer disease that recently caused many deaths in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh. In this article, Dr Kaushik B...
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Kaushik Bharati
- 18 September, 2017
- Perspectives
Making India open-defecation free by 2019
Swachh Bharat Mission – the flagship sanitation programme of the Indian government – aims to make India open-defecation free by 2019. However, this has only been achieved in 17 of 686 districts so...
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Bhaskar Pant
- 06 September, 2017
- Perspectives
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Tweets by Ideas4IndiaMost Popular Human Development Posts
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...
- Abhijeet Singh
- 14 April, 2014
- Articles
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...
- Saswata Ghosh
- 27 March, 2019
- Articles
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.
- Sridhar Rajagopalan
- 19 November, 2015
- Perspectives