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Poverty & Inequality

Introduction to e-Symposium: Estimation of poverty in India

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Urban exclusion: Rethinking social protection in India in the wake of Covid-19

Economic insecurity caused by lockdowns during the early days of Covid-19 forced many households to rely on government welfare schemes to fulfil their consumption needs. Using data from the June 2020 ...

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Fatal oblivion: India's National Family Benefit Scheme

The National Family Benefit Scheme (NFBS) – which provides financial assistance to families in the event of the death of a breadwinner – has been plagued by low budget allocations, restricted cove...

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The implications of India’s spatial development

Mahatma Gandhi once said, “poverty is the worst form of violence”. In this piece, Ejaz Ghani highlights India’s poverty burden, its regional disparities and convergence thereof. He highlights ho...

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Minimum standard of living for all Indians

In this article, T.N. Srinivasan, Samuel C. Park, Jr. Professor Emeritus of Economics, Yale University, contends that the idea of an assured minimum income for all citizens of India was being discuss...

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The universal basic share

Debraj Ray, Professor of Economics at NYU, proposes a simple amendment of the universal basic income – what he calls the ‘universal basic share’. The idea is to commit a fixed fraction of the g...

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Is India ready for a universal basic income scheme?

Maitreesh Ghatak, Professor of Economics, London School of Economics, contends that potential resources do exist to fund a universal basic income scheme, via subsidy cuts and/or raising more tax reve...

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Introduction to e-Symposium: The idea of a universal basic income in the Indian context

The idea of an unconditional basic income given to all citizens by the State, has caught on in the developed world. Does it make sense for India? To examine the issue, Parikshit Ghosh (Member of the ...

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Basic income in a poor country

Pranab Bardhan, Professor of Economics, University of California, Berkeley argues that even though universal basic income is being considered unaffordable in some developed countries, it may well be ...

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Insights from long-term studies of Indian villages

Much of our knowledge of change in rural areas depends on longitudinal village studies. Drawing upon a number of village studies carried out over the years in India, this column provides a broad pict...

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Universal basic income: The best way to welfare

Abhijit Banerjee, Professor of Economics at MIT, suggests replacing welfare schemes of the government by a single universal basic income, which entitles every adult resident to a minimum weekly incom...

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How serious is the neglect of intra-household inequality in poverty measures in India?

Poverty measurement at the household level assumes that the poverty status of all household members, irrespective of age and gender, is the same as that of the household. This column presents a frame...

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The 'poverty line' - III

In the last of a three-part series on the poverty line, Prof. S. Subramanian, former National Fellow, Indian Council of Social Science Research, discusses how the official methodology of poverty meas...

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The 'poverty line' - II

In the second of a three-part series on the poverty line, Prof. S. Subramanian, former National Fellow, Indian Council of Social Science Research, argues that there is a built-in incentive for officia...

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The 'poverty line' - I

In the first of a three-part series on the poverty line, Prof. S. Subramanian, former National Fellow, Indian Council of Social Science Research, contends that the term should not be bandied about fr...

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Afterword: What lies ahead for MNREGA?

In an afterword to the e-symposium on ‘10 years of MNREGA and the way forward’, I4I Editor Farzana Afridi contends that the evidence summarised in the e-symposium suggests that MNREGA is not merel...

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Sandip

Sandip Sukhtankar

University of Virginia

Karthik

Karthik Muralidharan

University of California, San Diego

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Paul Niehaus

University of California, San Diego

Ejaz

Ejaz Ghani

Pune International Center

Students of Humanities and

Students of Humanities and Social Sciences Department

Indian Institute of Technology Delhi

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Dhananjay Sinha

Systematix Group

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Purvi Mundhra

Systematix Group

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Shagun Sabarwal

WomenLift Health

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Wealth inequality, class, and caste in India: 1961-2012

The level of wealth inequality in India is close to that of some highly unequal countries in the world. This article assesses the long-term evolution of wealth inequality in the country for the period...

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Covid-19: What can be done immediately to help vulnerable population

With over 80% of India’s workforce employed in the informal sector and one-third working as casual labour, Covid-19's spread and subsequent unplanned lockdowns, have created economic havoc in the li...

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EWS reservation in higher education: Affirmative action or vote bank politics?

The Constitution (103rd Amendment) Act, 2019, provides for 10% reservation for the economically weaker sections (EWS) in higher educational institutions within the general category. In this post, Devi...

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