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
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act: is it working?
MNREGA is one of the government´s largest flagship schemes, and is the largest job creation programme of its kind in the world. Supporters believe that it is necessary to help rural workers smooth in...
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Jean Drèze Ashwini Kulkarni Neelakshi Mann Varad Pande Martin Ravallion
- 29 November, 2012
- Symposium
Political Clientelism and Government Accountability in West Bengal: Theory and Evidence
This project provide a theory of political clientelism, which explains sources and determinants of political clientelism, the relationship between clientelism and elite capture, and their respective c...
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Pranab Bardhan Sandip Mitra Dilip Mookherjee
- 31 October, 2012
- IGC Research on India
The fight against left-wing extremism
In this Note From the Field, Varad Pande of the Ministry of Rural Development argues that left-wing extremism and violence is a major challenge for India. He says that while this is definitely a secur...
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Varad Pande
- 23 October, 2012
- Notes from the Field
Cutting delays in MNREGA wages
Officials in charge of paying MNREGA wages in the state of Andhra Pradesh can now expect to receive fines if there are delays. This column shows how this move was made possible by a simple automated s...
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Saloni Chopra Reetika Khera
- 10 October, 2012
- Articles
Violence, organisation and skills
This column seeks to understand the effect of violent conflict on a country’s subsequent political and economic development. It argues that measuring post-conflict effects is extremely challenging d...
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Steven Wilkinson
- 28 August, 2012
- Articles
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, ...
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Siwan Anderson
- 16 August, 2012
- Articles
A plague on all houses
Which is better, India´s liberal capitalism modelled on the US or China´s authoritarian state-controlled capitalism? This column argues that dysfunctional governments in both systems are leading to ...
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Pranab Bardhan
- 13 August, 2012
- Articles
The Transfer Raj
When Chief Ministers come to power in India, they extensively reshuffle civil servants postings. This column asks why state politicians transfer bureaucrats, whether they favour loyalty over competenc...
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Lakshmi Iyer Anandi Mani
- 01 August, 2012
- Articles
How do Indian voters respond to candidates with criminal charges: Evidence from Lok Sabha elections
An alarming number of India’s politicians have criminal records or some charges against them. This column asks how they manage to get away with it. It looks at evidence from parliamentary elections ...
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Bhaskar Dutta Poonam Gupta
- 30 July, 2012
- Articles
Corruption and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act
Corruption continues to strangle India’s public finances. This column presents evidence of embezzlement in India’s flagship rural employment programme and suggests new ways policymakers can test w...
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Sandip Sukhtankar
- 16 July, 2012
- Articles
Understanding Mandis: Market Towns and the Dynamics of India's Rural and Urban Transformations
The idea behind this project is to undertake process-oriented investigations that will involve the study of interactions, especially between agricultural markets, settlements, technology, infrastructu...
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Devesh Kapur Mekhala Krishnamurthy
- 01 April, 2012
- IGC Research on India
Enhancing Local Public Service Delivery: Experimental Evidence on the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in Bihar
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGA) is among the largest social protection programmes in the world.
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Abhijit Banerjee Esther Duflo Rohini Pande
- 31 March, 2012
- IGC Research on India
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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