04 September, 2025Kerala’s silent crisis: Educated youth, but locked out of work
Despite performing well in terms of educational access and attainment, the southern state of Kerala exhibits very high rates of youth who are not in education, employment, or training. Based on qualit...
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Isha Gupta 
28 August, 2025
- Notes from the Field
When fathers migrate: Does It benefit or disrupt left-behind children’s education?
While studies have explored the impact of male out-migration on left-behind women, there is limited evidence on the effects on children. Analysing data from eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, this artic...
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Pintu Paul
- 04 August, 2025
- Articles
Making vocational training more effective at improving youth employment outcomes
Youth unemployment remains a significant challenge in India, with large-scale public skilling programmes achieving limited success in improving labour-market outcomes. This article explains the approa...
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Evan Borkum Irina Cheban Edith Felix
- 16 July, 2025
- Articles
Japanese encephalitis in Gorakhpur: Why has vaccination failed to make an impact?
Vaccination is the mainstay of prevention strategies for Japanese encephalitis – the child killer disease that recently caused many deaths in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh. In this article, Dr Kaushik B...
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Kaushik Bharati
- 18 September, 2017
- Perspectives
Making India open-defecation free by 2019
Swachh Bharat Mission – the flagship sanitation programme of the Indian government – aims to make India open-defecation free by 2019. However, this has only been achieved in 17 of 686 districts so...
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Bhaskar Pant
- 06 September, 2017
- Perspectives
Can India reap the demographic dividend in higher education?
India’s population is going through a ‘demographic bulge’, with an increase in the proportion of the working age group and a decrease in that of dependents. In this article, Shivakumar Jolad com...
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Shivakumar Jolad
- 05 September, 2017
- Perspectives
Gorakhpur's Japanese Encephalitis malady
The recent controversy around multiple child deaths in a public hospital in Gorakhpur district in Uttar Pradesh has brought the focus back on Japanese Encephalitis – the child killer disease. In thi...
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Smriti Mudgal Sharma
- 24 August, 2017
- Perspectives
Health policy and economic growth in India
A new synthesis paper (Menon 2017) produced by the International Growth Centre brings together evidence from various health-related IGC studies on India undertaken over the past seven years, to draw i...
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Nalini Gulati Nidhiya Menon
- 27 July, 2017
- Perspectives
Why doesn’t anybody know if Swachh Bharat Mission is succeeding?
In 2014, the Prime Minister announced a goal of eliminating open defecation by 2019. In this article, Coffey and Spears, contend that now almost two-thirds of the way through the Swachh Bharat Mission...
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Diane Coffey Dean Spears
- 10 July, 2017
- Perspectives
Language and development
Language choice is central to organisation of society, transmission of knowledge, and interpersonal communication, and hence, has implications for socioeconomic inequality. This column examines the co...
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David D. Laitin Rajesh Ramachandran
- 05 July, 2017
- Articles
Building institutional capacity for rural sanitation in Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state with about 200 million people, has historically not performed well on sanitation. In this article, Mariappa Kullappa of the World Bank Water Global Practic...
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Mariappa Kullappa
- 29 June, 2017
- Notes from the Field
Good monsoon, bad test scores? Substituting away from schooling
Good monsoons in India raise agricultural productivity and hence, bring added work and higher wages. Is this extra work at the expense of schooling for poor children? This column finds that increased ...
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Manisha Shah Bryce Millett Steinberg
- 27 June, 2017
- Articles
Zika virus: Is it a potential threat to India?
The WHO recently reported the first three laboratory-confirmed cases of Zika virus disease in India – all in the state of Gujarat. In this article, public health consultant Kaushik Bharati discusses...
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Kaushik Bharati
- 09 June, 2017
- Perspectives
Assam's Brahmaputra Community Radio Station: Innovation in health communication
River Brahmaputra which flows across the Northeast Indian state of Assam, carves out a network of nearly 2,300 islands, isolating them from the mainland and excluding their inhabitants from access to ...
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Anjali Mariam Paul
- 12 May, 2017
- Articles
Moving towards a principles-based drug retail policy in India?
The health ministry has proposed a new e-platform for tracking the country’s entire drug supply chain, including online sales. In this article, Smriti Sharma and Amey Sapre contend that the e-platfo...
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Amey Sapre Smriti Mudgal Sharma
- 02 May, 2017
- Perspectives
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Tweets by Ideas4IndiaMost Popular Human Development Posts
Hindu-Muslim fertility differentials in India: District-level estimates from Census 2011
The 2011 Indian Census data show a higher growth rate of Muslim population compared to the Hindu population. This article provides an in-depth picture of Hindu-Muslim fertility differentials at the di...
- Saswata Ghosh
- 27 March, 2019
- Articles
Understanding India’s mental health crisis
Since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, several reports have indicated a worsening of mental health issues among individuals across age groups. In this post, Michele Mary Bernadine examines the stat...
- Michele Mary Bernadine
- 06 April, 2021
- Perspectives
Ten steps to transform the quality of education in India
In this article, Sridhar Rajagopalan, Managing Director of Educational Initiatives, suggests 10 initiatives that can help transform the quality of education in India.
- Sridhar Rajagopalan
- 19 November, 2015
- Perspectives