•  
Main Banner Image
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
222 posts
Refine list by:
--Please Select--
--Please Select--

Why are MNREGA wages so low?

The widespread disruption of economic activity caused by the Covid-19 pandemic has forced many to turn to MNREGA work in rural India. In this post, Agarwal and Paikrashow that current wages under thee...

  • Perspectives

CPR-I4I webinar video: A new economic imagination?

Centre for Policy Research and Ideas for India jointly held a webinar on 16 September 2020, to discuss domestic demand specifically in rural India. It built on a recent I4I post by three of the speake...

  • Videos

Balancing corruption and exclusion: A rejoinder

The role of Aadhaar in reducing corruption in the PDS has been highly controversial. In a recent I4I article, Muralidharan et al. summarised the insights of their study of Aadhaar-based biometric auth...

  • Perspectives

DUET: Need to keep open mind, pilot cautiously

Commenting on Drèze’s DUET proposal for an urban work programme, Sandip Sukhtankar contends that given the potential promise but obvious issues that need to be addressed, the proposal is indeed rip...

  • Perspectives

DUET: Weighing the costs and benefits

Presenting her perspective on Drèze’s DUET proposal, Farzana Afridi contends that in the net, we need to evaluate the relative cost and benefit of having a potentially administratively complex urb...

  • Perspectives

DUET: Learning from the experiences of other countries

Commenting on Drèze’s DUET proposal, Martin Ravallion suggests that three steps are needed: learning from other countries’ experiences with similar policies, conducting trials in various contexts...

  • Perspectives

DUET: Addressing ‘why’ before ‘how’

Commenting on Drèze's DUET proposal and related views, Ashok Kotwal argues that we need to consider the rationale for such an urban work programme, before diving into the design details.

  • Perspectives

DUET: Employment programme in public works in small towns

Given the severe problems of unemployment and under-employment in urban India, particularly among the country’s burgeoning youth population, Pranab Bardhan emphasises the need for an employment prog...

  • Perspectives

DUET: Towards employment as a universal right

Debraj Ray contends that we should push forward with the agenda of employment as a universal right, and DUET would move that needle. He discusses two aspects of the proposal – keeping track of worke...

  • Perspectives

DUET: A proposal for an urban work programme

Jean Drèze presents a proposal for a simple scheme of subsidised public employment in urban areas, generated by multiple public institutions on their own initiative.

  • Symposium

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

Covid-19: Willingness to vaccinate among slum-dwellers

Vaccination is among the success stories in modern-day medicine, and is seen by the WHO as a key element of the response to the Covid-19 pandemic. In this note, Augsburg et al. discuss findings from a...

  • Notes from the Field

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

View all Contributors

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