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
Oral democracy
Critical scrutiny of the challenges of electoral democracy including elite capture, corruption, and patronage has led to a revival of the idea of direct democracy – giving power directly to groups o...
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Vijayendra Rao Paromita Sanyal
- 24 April, 2019
- Articles
Are transparency and accountability enough? Open corruption and why it exists
While India’s federal anti-corruption ombudsmen have just taken up their work, awareness of the complexity of corruption is growing. This article studies whether highly accountable Indian village co...
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Dahyeon Jeong Ajay Shenoy Laura Zimmermann
- 18 April, 2019
- Articles
Should civil servants be allowed to serve in their home areas?
Bureaucrats form an essential part of State capacity. Should they be allowed to serve in their home areas? This article finds that Indian Administrative Service officers assigned to their home states ...
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Marianne Bertrand Robin Burgess Guo Xu
- 08 April, 2019
- Articles
Strengthen MNREGS to support the rural economy
India’s Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS) has generated a lot of controversy about its effectiveness as a safety net designed to benefit landless rural households. M...
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Karthik Muralidharan Paul Niehaus Sandip Sukhtankar
- 22 March, 2019
- Perspectives
Rethinking cadre allocation procedures in civil services
The allocation procedure of All-India Services’ officers to states is an important aspect of personnel administration in the public sector. This article shows that a change in allocation policy in 2...
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Ashutosh Thakur
- 18 March, 2019
- Articles
(Un)ease of doing business: How congested courts hinder firm productivity
The strength of contract enforcement determines how firms source inputs and organise production, and hence influences productivity. Using microdata on Indian manufacturing, this article quantifies the...
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Johannes Boehm Ezra Oberfield
- 01 March, 2019
- Articles
Out of power? Political capture of the Indian electricity sector
Although power generation has been growing exponentially in India, the quality of electricity supply remains poor. This article argues that political corruption is among the root causes behind unrelia...
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Meera Mahadevan
- 21 January, 2019
- Articles
Need for a choice-based approach in PDS
A large share of public spending on the Public Distribution System (PDS), India’s flagship food security programme, does not reach intended beneficiaries. Thus, the idea of Direct Benefits Transfer ...
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Karthik Muralidharan Paul Niehaus Sandip Sukhtankar
- 11 January, 2019
- Perspectives
Evaluating Economic and Administrative Linkages in Determining Firm’s Location Choice in Hajipur (Bihar)
The purpose of this project is to understand the rationales of firms’ location choice in which complex decision making mechanisms are manifested by various factors. This project attempts to understa...
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Abhinav Alakshendra
- 31 December, 2018
- IGC Research on India
Like father, like son? The economic impacts of political dynasties in India
Political dynasties remain ubiquitous in democratic countries even though many societies democratised to end hereditary rule. This article studies how dynastic politics affects economic development in...
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Siddharth George
- 19 December, 2018
- Articles
Indian economy: High performer or Potemkin village?
The recent schizophrenic commentary on the health of the Indian economy raises questions on the true state: Is India doing really well or are we just seeing an impressive facade? In this post, Amartya...
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Amartya Lahiri
- 14 December, 2018
- Perspectives
Are independent candidates unimportant for political representation?
Independent candidates are often deemed ‘frivolous’ or ‘spoilers’ by mainstream political figures and authorities, although there is little to no evidence on their effect on elections. This ar...
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Sacha Kapoor Arvind Magesan
- 03 December, 2018
- 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