Grain subsidies and junk food purchases among low-income individuals
While governments rely on expensive food subsidy programmes to address malnutrition among low-income communities, their impact is unclear as only self-reported data on food purchase decisions are avai...
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Ali Aouad
Kamalini Ramdas
Alp Sungu
23 September, 2024
- Articles
The problem of India’s stagnant real wages
New data from the Labour Bureau and the National Sample Survey Office point to a virtual stagnation of real wages in India over the past decade. In this post, Das and Drèze argue that this trend poin...
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Arindam Das
Jean Drèze
26 July, 2024
- Perspectives
Rethinking social safety nets in a changing society
This paper was coauthored by Debasis Barik, Pallavi Choudhuri, Bijay Chouhan, Om Prakash Sharma, Dinesh Kumar Tiwari (NCAER) and Sharan Sharma (University of Maryland College Park and NCAER). Histori...
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Sonalde Desai
15 July, 2024
- Articles
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...
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Martin Ravallion
16 September, 2020
- 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.
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Ashok Kotwal
15 September, 2020
- 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...
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Pranab Bardhan
12 September, 2020
- 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...
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Debraj Ray
11 September, 2020
- 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.
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Jean Drèze
09 September, 2020
- 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...
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Reetika Khera
Anmol Somanchi
19 August, 2020
- 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...
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Alex Armand
Britta Augsburg
Antonella Bancalari
05 August, 2020
- Notes from the Field
Covid-19: How long can consumption be sustained in lockdown?
In May 2020, the Finance Minister announced an economic relief package totaling Rs. 20 trillion, in response to the Covid-19 crisis. However, the actual stimulus is estimated to be only 1.3% of GDP. I...
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Anu Abraham
Mohd. Imran Khan
20 July, 2020
- Perspectives
Pandemic as a lens: Identifying and addressing livelihood vulnerabilities
Based on the findings from a phone survey of around 5,000 Indian workers, the authors explore the impact of the Covid-19 economic lockdown on two forms of livelihood vulnerabilities: employment insecu...
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Rosa Abraham
Amit Basole
Surbhi Kesar
Rahul Lahoti
Paaritosh Nath
13 July, 2020
- Notes from the Field
Hunger and precarity: The state of nomadic fortune-tellers of Odisha
In this note, Abinash Dash Choudhury, who works as part of a network of researchers to present fortnightly data on the humanitarian crisis associated with Covid-19 in India, writes about the current s...
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Abinash Dash Choudhury
30 June, 2020
- Notes from the Field
Covid-19 relief: Are women Jan Dhan accounts the right choice for cash transfers?
While the relief package announced by the Government of India for Covid-19 rightly complements food rations with cash transfers, the case for using the list of women Jan Dhan bank accounts for the lat...
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Anmol Somanchi
22 May, 2020
- Perspectives
Covid-19: A tailor’s tale
This note presents a narrative that is based on an interview conducted on 15 April with a tailor who walked most of the way from Jaipur to his home in Farrukhabad district in Uttar Pradesh, after the ...
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Bhavishya Mehta
Rohini Somanathan
12 May, 2020
- 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
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...
Devika Malhotra Sharma
11 September, 2019
- Perspectives