11 August, 2025A short history of MNREGA: 20 years in 10 charts
Launched in 2005, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) has completed 20 years. In this post, Drèze and Ramesh reflect on the programme’s achievements, failures, and f...
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Jean Drèze Rahul R 
31 July, 2025
- Articles
What broad lessons have we learned from 115 studies on unconditional cash transfers?
Globally, around 700 million people currently live in extreme poverty, and in recent years, unconditional cash transfers have emerged as a popular tool for poverty alleviation in low- and middle-incom...
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Tommaso Crosta Dean Karlan Finley Ong Julius Ruschenpohler Christopher Udry
- 20 June, 2025
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Food deprivation: A thali index reveals what poverty estimates do not
Poverty in India is typically estimated based on a poverty line that identifies the purchasing power needed to satisfy the daily calorific intake deemed necessary. In this post, Balakrishnan and Raj m...
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Pulapre Balakrishnan Aman Raj
- 06 June, 2025
- Perspectives
Extreme poverty in India is yet to be eliminated: A comment on BBV
In the fourth post of a six-part series on the estimation of poverty in India, Sinha Roy and van der Weide reflect on the dramatically different estimates produced by two studies, and the source of th...
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Sutirtha Sinha Roy Roy Van der Weide
- 13 October, 2022
- Perspectives
The Great Indian Poverty Debate, 2.0
In the third post of a six part series on estimating poverty in India, Justin Sandefur considers the approaches employed for projections of poverty estimates since 2011-12 – the last year for which ...
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Justin Sandefur
- 12 October, 2022
- Perspectives
Introduction to e-Symposium: Estimation of poverty in India
Estimates of poverty in India put forth in two papers published earlier this year – by Bhalla, Bhasin and Virmani; and Roy and van der Weide – have sparked the “Great Indian Poverty Debate 2.0...
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Maitreesh Ghatak
- 10 October, 2022
- Symposium
Measuring poverty in the absence of Consumption Expenditure Survey data
In the first post of a six-part series on , Surjit Bhalla and Karan Bhasin discuss issues related to measurement of absolute poverty in India. They summarise their IMF working paper from April 2022, a...
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Surjit Bhalla Karan Bhasin
- 10 October, 2022
- Perspectives
Has India eliminated extreme poverty?
In the second post of a six-part series on Gaurav Datt unpacks the claim that India was on the verge of eliminating extreme poverty, and questions two key assumptions on which it rests. Rather, he sh...
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Gaurav Datt
- 10 October, 2022
- Perspectives
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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Ejaz Ghani
- 30 September, 2022
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How financial access impacts women’s decision-making role in households
Government programmes which grant women access to financial support often provide assistance which is too small to significantly impact women’s economic position within the household. This article u...
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Anjini Kochar C. S. Nagabhusana Ritwik Sarkar Rohan Shah Geeta Singh
- 31 August, 2022
- Articles
The post-pandemic global inequality boomerang
Global inequality has fallen over the last three decades, despite a rise in inequality within some countries. This article uses a World Bank database covering the years 1981-2019 to posit that the dec...
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Ravi Kanbur Eduardo Ortiz-Juarez Andy Sumner
- 04 July, 2022
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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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Pallavi Choudhuri Sonalde Desai Santanu Pramanik
- 13 June, 2022
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Using personalised information delivery to improve uptake of emergency government benefits
Although many governments introduced additional benefits as part of existing welfare schemes for Covid-19 relief, there is often a significant gap between the introduction of, and access to these bene...
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Amrit Amirapu Irma Clots-Figueras Bansi Malde Anirban Mitra Debayan Pakrashi Zaki Wahhaj
- 01 June, 2022
- Articles
A microfinance model to enhance borrowers’ lifetime utility
Research has shown that providing credit along with services such as savings instruments, can increase the utility that borrowers obtain from credit. Presenting a theoretical model where microfinance ...
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Dyotona Dasgupta Prabal Roy Chowdhury
- 11 April, 2022
- Articles
Examining Himachal’s urban employment guarantee
Despite proposals by economists on the need for an urban work programme in India, a national-level policy seems some time away from coming to fruition. However, some states have implemented such progr...
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Krishna Priya Choragudi
- 21 March, 2022
- Notes from the Field
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Tweets by Ideas4IndiaMost Popular Poverty & Inequality Posts
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...
- Nitin Kumar Bharti
- 28 June, 2019
- Articles
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...
- Reetika Khera
- 25 March, 2020
- Perspectives
A review of the coverage of PDS
The coverage of the Public Distribution System (PDS) has been of wide interest due to the pandemic and lockdown. Based on government data sources, Khera and Somanchi estimate the state-wise coverage o...
- Reetika Khera Anmol Somanchi
- 19 August, 2020
- Perspectives