01 October, 2025Policy Roundup: Trump tariffs, India’s energy security, broader export strategy
This post presents our monthly curation of developments in the Indian policy landscape – highlighting I4I content pertaining to US tariffs on India, oil trade and energy security, and the need for g...
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Nalini Gulati 
01 September, 2025
- Perspectives
Why statisticians matter for nation-building
In a data-driven era, the role of statisticians in shaping national development is more vital than ever. Yet, their presence in key policy domains remains limited. In this post, Pramanik and Das conte...
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Sourish Das Santanu Pramanik
- 26 June, 2025
- Perspectives
The man who loved forests
On Ideas for India’s 10th anniversary, our Editor-in-Chief Parikshit Ghosh pens a tribute honouring the late Ashok Kotwal, whose vision and values percolated our portal’s character to make it a ve...
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Parikshit Ghosh
- 19 July, 2022
- Editors Corner
Ashok Kotwal speaks with Jean Drèze
I4I Editor-in-Chief Ashok Kotwal speaks with Jean Drèze, visiting Professor at Ranchi University and an ‘economist-activist’ who has been working in India at the grassroots level for a long time...
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Jean Drèze Ashok Kotwal
- 28 March, 2018
- Notes from the Field
Understanding cultural persistence and change
When does culture persist and when does it change? This column examines a determinant that has been put forth in the anthropology literature: the variability of the environment from one generation to...
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Paola Giuliano Nathan Nunn
- 07 March, 2018
- Articles
Economics among the road scholars
Jholawala Economics’ is a derogatory term that the urban elites use to dismiss the arguments of social activists without having to contend with them. However, some of the jholawalas are indeed first...
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Jean Drèze
- 22 December, 2017
- Perspectives
Fundamental errors in the voting booth margins
Psychologists have long documented that we over-attribute people's actions to innate characteristics rather than to circumstances. This column shows that when we commit this ‘fundamental attribution...
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Edward Glaeser Giacomo Ponzetto
- 17 November, 2017
- Articles
Introducing a new feature: – ‘Explainers’
Our day-to-day lives are tossed around due to economic changes, resulting sometimes from government policies and sometimes by unidentifiable forces of the world economy. Governments always label every...
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Ashok Kotwal
- 16 October, 2017
- Perspectives
Humanising economics
In a tribute to Richard Thaler, recipient of this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics, Ashok Kotwal and Nalini Gulati discuss his pioneering work on decision-making that lies in the space between econom...
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Nalini Gulati Ashok Kotwal
- 10 October, 2017
- Perspectives
Does political background of leaders matter for development?
The objective of this paper is to investigate whether a legislator's political background matters for development/provision of public goods. This project studies this issue at the sub-national level i...
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Aaditya Dar
- 25 July, 2017
- IGC Research on India
Using drones for social sector research
While drones have historically been used in military operations, their application for peaceful purposes has risen steeply in recent years. In this note, representatives from Outline India - a resear...
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Prerna Mukharya
- 19 June, 2017
- Notes from the Field
Kenneth Arrow, 1921-2017
In a tribute to Kenneth Arrow, Debraj Ray, Professor of Economics at NYU, outlines the contributions of the late Nobel laureate to economic thought.
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Debraj Ray
- 02 March, 2017
- Perspectives
John Nash and modern economic theory
In a tribute to John Nash, Parikshit Ghosh, Associate Professor at Delhi School of Economics, outlines the revolutionary contributions of the late Nobel laureate to economic thought.
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Parikshit Ghosh
- 04 June, 2015
- Perspectives
Clicks and editorial decisions: How does popularity shape online news coverage?
Identifying whether newspaper editors focus on what is ‘newsworthy’ or what is ‘trendy’ when choosing stories is important for the design of media regulation. This column shows how the popula...
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Ananya Sen Pinar Yildirim
- 18 May, 2015
- Articles
The perplexing case of Gujarat
The common perception is that Gujarat has performed a lot better than the rest of India in terms of development, particularly in the past decade. This column analyses data recently compiled by th...
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Arka Roy Chaudhuri Ashok Kotwal
- 04 May, 2014
- Articles
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Evidence, policy, and politics
Commenting on the concept of evidence-based policy, Jean Drèze argues that the relation between evidence and policy needs further thought. Based on his involvement with social policy in India, he bel...
- Jean Drèze
- 03 August, 2018
- Perspectives
On the perils of embedded experiments
There is growing interest in ‘embedded experiments’, conducted by researchers and policymakers as a team. Aside from their potential scale, the main attraction of these experiments is that they se...
- Jean Drèze
- 10 March, 2022
- Perspectives
The particulars of social policy in India: Evidence, State capacity, and policy design
Economist-activist Jean Drèze has argued that economists are no better equipped to comment on development policy design than other social science researchers and other stakeholders, and that policyma...
- Apurva Bamezai M.R. Sharan
- 12 September, 2018
- Perspectives