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Poverty & Inequality

Declining PDS leakages: A look at the numbers

  • Perspectives

A 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...

  • 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...

  • Articles

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...

  • Perspectives
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The changing demand for welfare in rural Pakistan

The proliferation of cash transfer programmes in developing countries has raised concern regarding a crowding-out effect on citizens' demands for investment in universal public services. Based on a ho...

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The Covid-19 crisis and food security

India’s national lockdown in 2020, imposed to contain the spread of Covid-19, threw millions of people out of work and sharply reduced earnings for those who remained employed. Based on data from mu...

  • Perspectives

Covid-19: Health and economic impacts in Indian slums

Initial predictions suggested that slum communities – densely packed, with shared water taps, and an impossibility of social distancing – would be particularly hard-hit by Covid-19. In this note, ...

  • Notes from the Field

Examining district-level performance of Ujjwala: The case of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand

Launched in 2016, Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) aims to encourage the adoption of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) for cooking. Using National Sample Survey data for 2014 and 2017, this article ex...

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How many jobs were lost in urban India during lockdown?

The nationwide lockdown imposed in March 2020 to contain the spread of Covid-19, disrupted economic activity – particularly in urban India. Using data from the Periodic Labour Force Survey for the p...

  • Perspectives

Energy access for marginalised communities: Evidence from rural India

While overall energy access of Indian households has improved rapidly over the past decade, access to clean fuel is still low as compared to electricity. Besides, social structures and hierarchies con...

  • Articles

Covid-19: How well are government schemes supporting Bihar’s vulnerable populations?

The immediate adverse impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and associated lockdown was visibly greater for migrant workers and their households, whose ability to access government schemes in their villages...

  • Notes from the Field

DUET re-examined

In September 2020, Jean Drèze’s proposal for an urban work programme called DUET (Decentralised Urban Employment and Training) was presented on I4I. This was followed by an extensive symposium in w...

  • Perspectives

In-kind transfers as insurance

Academics and policymakers worldwide are leading the push towards unconditional cash as the preferred mode of transfer from the government to the poor. Yet surveys across countries find that large pro...

  • Articles

Did MNREGA cushion job losses during the pandemic?

The 2021-22 Budget allocation for MNREGA is 34% lower than the revised estimates for the programme in 2020-21. Analysing official MNREGA data, this article suggests that districts that have historical...

  • Articles

How wide is the ‘sink of localism’ in India?

While spatial segregation based on caste or religion is a constitutive feature of social life in India, there have been very few systematic studies of it. This article presents central findings from t...

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Declining common lands in India: Role of economic inequality

The area under common pool land resources (CPLRs), which are crucial to rural livelihoods in India, has recorded a steady decline over the last three decades. Common land is diverted either as private...

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Recent Contributors

Prabhu

Prabhu Pingali

Tata-Cornell Institute

Raghav

Raghav Puri

Cornell University

Jean

Jean Drèze

Ranchi University; Delhi School of Economics

Rahul

Rahul R

Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata

Dean

Dean Karlan

Northwestern University

Tommaso

Tommaso Crosta

Bocconi University

Finley

Finley Ong

Lengo AI

Julius

Julius Ruschenpohler

Global Poverty Research Lab

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Most 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...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • Perspectives