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
The early advantage: Learning levels in grade 1
According to ASER 2019, children in grade 1 of government schools in India lag behind private school children in both language and numeracy skills. In this post, Wilima Wadhwa explains that children i...
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Wilima Wadhwa
- 24 January, 2020
- Perspectives
Learning environment as third teacher? Evidence on the impact of school infrastructure
One of the ways to ensure education quality in schools is to create education facilities that are child-centred and provide a safe, inclusive, and effective learning environment for all. In this post,...
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Diego Ambasz Tigran Shmis Maria Ustinova Kumar Vivek
- 06 December, 2019
- Perspectives
The precocious period: Impact of early menarche on schooling in India
In socio-cultural contexts onset of menstruation (menarche) adversely affects educational attainments of girls. This article shows that onset of menses before age 12 causes a 13% decrease in school en...
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Madhulika Khanna
- 04 December, 2019
- Articles
Has the National Rural Health Mission improved utilisation of maternal healthcare services in Bihar?
Bihar is a socioeconomically backward state with a persistently poor record with respect to maternal and child health indicators. Based on data from the National Sample Surveys on healthcare, this art...
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Saswata Ghosh Zakir Husain
- 18 November, 2019
- Articles
Banerjee and Duflo’s journey with Pratham
This year’s economics Nobel laureates Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo have worked closely with education NGO Pratham in India for more than 20 years. Over time, this unique partnership of research...
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Rukmini Banerji
- 13 November, 2019
- Perspectives
Draft National Education Policy: Vision for out-of-school children
The draft National Education Policy released in May 2019 took a step forward by recommending an extension of the scope of the right to education act by including pre-primary and secondary education wi...
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Seema Rajput
- 11 November, 2019
- Perspectives
What the Swachh Bharat Mission did not change
On the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi and 5th anniversary of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), Coffey and Spears discuss findings from a field survey about changes in open defecation in rura...
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Diane Coffey Dean Spears
- 02 October, 2019
- Perspectives
Access to toilets and public safety of women
Launched on 2 October 2014, Swachh Bharat Mission aimed to increase the proportion of rural households with access to a toilet from 38.8% to 100% by 2019. In the run-up to Gandhi Jayanti and the 5th a...
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Kanika Mahajan Sheetal Sekhri
- 01 October, 2019
- Articles
What will determine the costs of Prime Minister’s Jan Arogya Yojana?
The Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana was launched in 2018 with the aim of covering hospitalisation expenses of the vulnerable 40% of the population, to protect them against financial risk arising out ...
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Indrani Gupta Abhijit Roy
- 23 September, 2019
- Articles
Is trade with India changing Africa’s healthcare landscape?
After China, India has become the second largest trading partner with sub-Saharan Africa. The southern and western regions of Africa – which have the largest number of people living with HIV/AIDS wo...
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Siddharth Dixit Natalie Emery Chinmoy Kumar
- 20 September, 2019
- Perspectives
Understanding school choices under RTE’s 25% mandate
Section 12(1)(c) of the Right To Education Act mandates non-minority status private schools to reserve at least 25% seats for the disadvantaged and weaker sections of the society. This article analyse...
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Ambrish Dongre Ankur Sarin Karan Singhal
- 16 September, 2019
- Articles
Rural sanitation: A charter of demands
A government survey shows that 93% of rural households in India have access to a toilet and 96% of those having a toilet use them. However, critics point out contradictions between these data and micr...
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Liby Johnson
- 13 September, 2019
- Notes from the Field
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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