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Does subsidising publicly provided services discipline markets or distort demand?

Prior research has documented the failure of India’s flagship safe motherhood programme in reducing perinatal mortality, despite substantially increasing the share of mothers delivering at public he...

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Did Covid-19 pandemic increase incidence of low-birth-weight among newborns?

Globally, one in four babies are born with low birth weight, with long-term impacts on health and economic outcomes. This article uses Indian data from 2019-2021 to analyse the impact of the Covid-19 ...

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India’s massive employment problem and some ways out

In the recent announcement of India’s Union Budget 2024-25, significant emphasis was placed on the need for job creation. In this post, Pranab Bardhan presents a four-pronged strategy for the sustai...

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Assessing the extent and fiscal cost of teacher shortages in India

The New Education Policy has proposed that the one million teacher vacancies in public elementary schools be filled imperatively. Using 2019-20 District Information System for Education (u-DISE) data,...

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Using machine learning to target neonatal and infant mortality

India accounts for one-fourth of the world’s neonatal mortalities, and this has likely been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic – due to lockdowns and lack of access to critical antenatal and pos...

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Covid-19: Identifying and addressing vaccine hesitancy using ‘personas’

Vaccine hesitancy poses a threat to India’s fight against Covid-19, and given the different motivations that drive vaccine hesitancy, a one-size-fits-all solution may not be feasible. In this post, ...

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Does increasing female representation in school management improve school quality?

The 2009 Right to Education Act (RTE) mandated public and private aided schools to constitute School Management Committees (SMCs) to improve accountability in schools through community participation. ...

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How RSBY impacted healthcare utilisation and spending

Social Health Insurance seeks to protect the poor from high health spending, and encourage healthcare utilisation. Analysing 2004-05 and 2011-12 Indian Human Development Survey data, this article find...

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Covid-19 in India: Cases, deaths, and vaccinations

The Omicron variant resulted in a third major wave of Covid-19 in India, with the number of cases exceeding those in the second wave, albeit causing less severe illness on average. In this post, Kundu...

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How cleaner cookstoves and fuels could benefit women’s health and the environment

With lesser access to financial resources and greater domestic responsibilities, women face the brunt of the climate change crisis. In particular, women are more affected by indoor air pollution cause...

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Budget 2022-23: The elephants and the ostrich

Analysing India’s 2022-23 Union Budget, Neeraj Hatekar contends that MNREGA, the rural job guarantee programme that has not received additional funding vis-à-vis 2021-22 budget estimates, should be...

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Gender difference in mathematics learning in rural India

A growing body of evidence in developed countries has indicated that female disadvantage prevails and persists in mathematics learning outcomes, with the likely causes being social factors, cultural n...

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Economic development, the nutrition trap, and metabolic disease

Two recently documented facts run counter to the conventional wisdom that economic development leads to better health: the absence of a clear link between income and nutritional status in developing c...

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Food insecurity and child malnutrition: New empirical evidence from India

Child malnutrition is among the most pressing public health issues in India today. Equally alarming is the country’s food security crisis. Analysing ‘Young Lives Survey’ data from the states of ...

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Estimating changes in India’s workforce during 2011-2018

Prior to the 2017-18 Periodic Labour Force Survey, there was paucity of official, labour-market data since the last nationally representative survey was from 2011, and other surveys in the intervening...

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Recent Contributors

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Parijat Lal

Columbia University

Utkarsh

Utkarsh Kumar

Columbia University

Santosh

Santosh Kumar

University of Notre Dame

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Tim Halliday

University of Hawaii at Manoa

Pranab

Pranab Bardhan

University of California, Berkeley

Farzana

Farzana Afridi

Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi Centre

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Sonalde Desai

University of Maryland

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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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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.

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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...

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