24 September, 2025Election of criminal politicians and public service delivery
Why are politicians with criminal records elected to office, despite voters having the option to weed them out? Based on the hypothesis that criminal politicians strategically deliver targeted benefit...
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Abhinav Khemka 
18 September, 2025
- Articles
Boosting Lekhpal performance via data-driven feedback and recognition
The Lekhpals Actionable KPI System for Holistic Assessment and Management (LAKSHYAM) is an initiative to measure and enhance the work performance of Lekhpals, who are frontline functionaries of the Re...
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Fahad Hasin Sakshi Ugale
- 18 August, 2025
- Notes from the Field
Building State capacity for accelerating development through effective governance
In a new edition of I4I conversations, Maitreesh Ghatak (London School of Economics) is joined by Karthik Muralidharan (University of California, San Diego) to discuss his new book, Accelerating India...
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Maitreesh Ghatak Karthik Muralidharan
- 05 May, 2025
- Videos
Why governments across the globe are cracking down on civic organisations
Dupuy, Ron and Prakash content that NGOs need to generate resources from the communities they serve. This will make them accountable to these communities and enhance their legitimacy, and incentivise ...
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Kendra Dupuy Aseem Prakash James Ron
- 21 December, 2017
- Perspectives
Breaking the clientelist trap: Can reform create demand for good governance in Bihar?
How has over a decade of rapid and programmatic policy reform in Bihar affected voters? Based on a household survey comparing political attitudes of residents on either side of the Bihar-Jharkhand bor...
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Jonathan Phillips
- 14 November, 2017
- Articles
Doing Business in India: Myths and realities
Ahead of the global release of the 2018 edition of the World Bank Doing Business rankings, this column compares data from firm-level surveys conducted by the Bank and the IDFC Institute-NITI Aayog wi...
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Mathew Lillehaugen Milan Vaishnav
- 25 October, 2017
- Articles
The power of enforcement: State capacity and child marriage in India
In an attempt to deter child marriage, a recent Supreme Court verdict has criminalised sexual relations between a man and minor wife. Worldwide, more than 700 million women alive today were married be...
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Tanushree Goyal Sam Van Noort
- 24 October, 2017
- Articles
Political Change and Crime Reduction in Bihar
The aim of this project was to understand the mechanisms through which the political changes in 2005 contributed to the dramatic subsequent reduction in violent crimes. This project is an extension of...
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Oliver Eynde Clément Imbert Nishith Prakash
- 12 October, 2017
- IGC Research on India
Three barriers that make it hard for policymakers to use the evidence that development researchers produce
There has been a surge in policy research globally over the past two decades that is geared to promote evidence-based policymaking. But can policymakers put this evidence to use? Based on a survey of...
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Michael Callen Adnan Khan Asim Khwaja
- 20 September, 2017
- Articles
Drawing the line: The short- and long-term consequences of partitioning India
Colonial rule in India culminated in the birth of two nations, forcing the displacement of millions. This column analyses the economic and political consequences of the Partition in 1947. It finds tha...
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Prashant Bharadwaj Saumitra Jha
- 08 September, 2017
- Articles
Political decentralisation, female leadership, and health in rural Bihar
Political decentralisation and female representation in governance are known to improve social welfare by influencing policy decisions in favour of women and children. Analysing data from rural Bihar,...
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Santosh Kumar Nishith Prakash
- 23 August, 2017
- Articles
Governance and public service delivery in India
The International Growth Centre recently produced a synthesis paper (Afridi 2017) bringing together insights from its research on governance and public service delivery in India, over the past seven y...
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Farzana Afridi Nalini Gulati
- 07 August, 2017
- Perspectives
Midday meals scheme: Are corruption claims exaggerated?
Soon after Aadhaar was made compulsory for availing midday meals in schools, the government claimed that the move had helped expose several instances of schools siphoning off funds under the scheme by...
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Monika Yadav
- 31 July, 2017
- Articles
Why 'free' speech is not always 'costless'
A recent CBI raid at the premises of the owners of NDTV has sparked off yet another round of debates about freedom of the media, the spectre of authoritarianism, and freedom of expression in India. In...
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Maitreesh Ghatak
- 19 July, 2017
- Perspectives
Juvenile delinquency and income disparity across Indian states
The gravity and frequency of juvenile crime incidents in recent years point towards the urgent need for rigorous analysis of the issue. Based on data from Indian states, this column shows that juvenil...
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Nabamita Dutta Dipparna Jana Saibal Kar
- 05 June, 2017
- Articles
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Tweets by Ideas4IndiaMost Popular Governance Posts
Unique Health Identification and Aadhaar: A case for mandatory linkage
As part of the Digital India initiative, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) issues a Unique Health Identification (UHID) number to each patient, which documents their entire journey in th...
- Mudit Kapoor
- 23 December, 2016
- Perspectives
Caste dominance in rural India: Cause and effect
Rural India remains a caste-based society. This column explores why caste continues to play such an important role and what the effects are. It argues that trade and agricultural productivity suffer, ...
- Siwan Anderson
- 16 August, 2012
- Articles
The digital dream: Upskilling India for the future
While the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the pace at which technology is becoming commonplace in our lives, it has also exposed a stark digital divide, leaving a large proportion of India’s popul...
- Venugopal Mothkoor Fatima Mumtaz
- 23 March, 2021
- Perspectives