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3rd Urban Economy Forum 2021:The Brampton Resolution

The 3rd Urban Economy Forum is one of the world’s most premier urban gatherings on sustainable urban economies and urban management. The collaborative approach for collective action taken by the organ...

by | On 07 Jan 2022

Climate finance for Cities and Urban Governments

Ambitious actions taken to reduce urban emissions and increase resilience can enhance cities’ quality of life and social equity in far-reaching ways.4 However, building just cities in an era of clim...

by | On 09 Nov 2021

Housing for All: A Goal Achievable by 2030

Urban Economy Forum 2020 echoes the global call for affordable housing for all. With over 1.8 billion people living in slums and informal settlements globally, the question remains, when will we be ab...

by Alex Venuto | On 07 Nov 2020

Envisioning Urban Economy in Uncertain Times

A major output of Urban Economy Forum is the Regent Park World Urban Pavilion by UN-Habitat (The Pavilion), a collaboration between the Urban Economy Forum, UN-Habitat and the Government of Canada. Th...

by | On 20 Oct 2020

Shifting Paradigms in Urbanism

Covid-19 has provided a magnifying glass which highlighted the fragility of our urban systems and suggested new ways to address the related challenges. The aftermath of COVID many paradigms may change...

by | On 16 Oct 2020

Urban Development Perspectives of Affordable Housing Strategy

Although, under the current institutional dispensations, both national and local governments have significant roles to play in providing infrastructure, services and housing in urban areas, the limite...

by Narayanan Edadan | On 08 Oct 2020

The Sunday Edit: Challenges of the Pandemic: Confronting Harsh Realities

Measures to control/mitigate the spread of the disease appear to be surprisingly ill informed about the living and working conditions of the urban millions who support the life and work of the city’s...

by Udaya S. Mishra | On 07 Jun 2020

The Sunday Edit: Exodus of Migrants from Urban Areas

Imaginative policies that simultaneously address rural and urban livelihood issues have to be put in place without delay to address the issue of labour migrants that has come into focus since the star...

by R. B. Bhagat | On 31 May 2020

COVID-19 in India: An Epidemic in Congested Cities

In our analysis, high urban proportion and population density were significantly correlated with the COVID-19 burden in districts having the highest burden of COVID-19. It seems COVID-19 is spreading...

by | On 29 May 2020

The COVID-19, Migration and Livelihood in India

Sudden eruption of migration crisis resulting from the out-break of COVID-19 again reminds us the urgency of the matter. This policy paper presents how our understanding of migration and livelihood...

by R. B. Bhagat | On 08 May 2020

Urban Food Markets and the Lockdown in India

On March 24, 2020, the Government of India announced a 21-day national lockdown that has since been extended to May 3, 2020. The lockdown has left urban food markets in disarray with severe supply b...

by Sudha Narayanan | On 06 May 2020

COVID-19: Global Diagnosis and Future Policy Perspective

The macroeconomic policy responses to COVID-19 pandemic and the impact of the pandemic on economic growth, and the level of consumption are analysed. The COVID-19 crisis is a dual crisis - public hea...

by Divy Rangan | On 06 May 2020

Changing Structure of Employment in Indian States

The study attempts a comparative assessment of the changing employment situation in major Indian states, measured in terms of worker-population ratios and the distribution of workers into status group...

by A.V. Jose | On 01 Feb 2019

Responses to Trade Opening: Evidence and Lessons from Asia

In various Asian countries, international trade has raised productivity, lowered mark ups through import competition (while increasing them through cheaper inputs that can be imported), raised wages,...

by Devashish Mitra | On 22 Jan 2019

Services Policies and Manufacturing Exports

This paper uses a structural gravity model to show the effects of services policies on manufacturing exports. Whereas the previous literature has focused on indirect effects of policies—flowing throug...

by Ben Shepherd | On 28 Dec 2018

Does the Exposure to Routinization Explain the Evolution of the Labour Share of Income ? Evidence from Asia

This paper analyzes the evolution of the labor share of income in Asia, a region where countries have experienced steep declines and increases as well as stable labor income shares in the quarter-cent...

by Mitali Das | On 13 Dec 2018

Mobility and congestion in urban India

The paper presents the development of a methodology to estimate robust city-level vehicular mobility indices, and apply it to 154 Indian cities using 22 million counterfactual trips measured by a web...

by Prottoy A. Akbar | On 22 Nov 2018

Looking Beyond the Farm and Household: Determinants of On-farm Diversification in India

This paper analyses the factors affecting on-farm diversification decision. Notwithstanding the influence of farm and household conditions, studies have also highlighted the role of external pull fact...

by Varun Kumar Das | On 20 Nov 2018

Debt Traps? Market Vendors and Moneylender Debt in India and the Philippines

A debt trap occurs when someone takes on a high-interest rate loan and is barely able to pay back the interest, and thus perpetually finds themselves in debt (often by re-financing). Studying such pra...

by Dean Karlan | On 04 Oct 2018

Documenting Heritage of Localities around Hyderabad Issues and Challenges

The story of irrevocable erasure and thoroughgoing transformation is part of the story of ‘development’ around Hyderabad as it is elsewhere. A case study of the transformation affecting the villages i...

by Aloka Parasher Sen | On 26 Jul 2018

Enabling Smart Urban Redevelopment in India through Floor Area Ratio Incentives

This working paper assesses the potential of incentive FAR approaches in two Indian cities, Mumbai and Ahmedabad, for leveraging the economic value of urban land. A thorough analysis of Mumbai’s clust...

by Apoorva Shenvi | On 25 Jul 2018

Macroeconomic Overview of the Philippines and the New Industrial Policy

This short paper has two main sections. The first section presents a more detailed picture and overview of the macroeconomic performance of the Philippines behind the Philippines’ remarkable growth. T...

by Maureen Ane D. Rosellon | On 06 Jul 2018

Mainstreaming SMEs: Promoting Inclusive Growth in APEC

SME development as a major domestic policy objective that is consistent and reinforced within APEC would not only engender inclusive growth, but also enable SMEs to become drivers of growth for the do...

by Erlinda M. Medalla | On 06 Jul 2018

Regulating Infrastructure Development in India

This paper reviews the existing framework for infrastructure development and the associated standards in India, and identifies areas for concern. Rather than deeply analysing any one standard, this pa...

by Sanhita Sapatnekar | On 15 Jun 2018

Economic Policy for Artificial Intelligence

Recent progress in artificial intelligence (AI) – a general purpose technology affecting many industries - has been focused on advances in machine learning, which recast as a quality adjusted drop in...

by Ajay K. Agrawal | On 12 Jun 2018

Financial Inclusion, Regulation, Financial Literacy and Financial Education in Armenia

Financial inclusion has significantly advanced in Armenia during the last decade. Rural and urban areas, however, have benefited unevenly. The high cost of providing financial services, the lack of ph...

by Armen Nurbekyan | On 07 Jun 2018

Overcoming Public Sector Inefficiencies Toward Universal Health Coverage - The Case for National Health Insurance Systems in Asia and the Pacific

This paper uses the Kutzin framework as described in the WHO Bulletin in 2013.20. This version has the advantage of incorporating both health system functions and goals, and will help us in understand...

by Eduardo Banzon | On 05 Jun 2018

Accessing Opportunities: Policy Decisions for Enhancing Urban Mobility

This paper first considers the challenges of urban mobility faced by developing cities, before exploring the role for policy in improving connectivity. In Section 2, this paper looks at options for...

by Paul Collier | On 30 May 2018

Growth, Inequality, Poverty and Urbanization

The focus in this paper is on growth, inequality and poverty, particularly in relation to urbanization. The analysis is pursued at three levels of disaggregation: states, districts and the million-plu...

by Arup Mitra | On 02 May 2018

Engines without Drivers: Cities in India’s Growth Story

It is now almost axiomatic that cities are the engines of growth. Historically, federal support programmes have focused on rural areas, but over the past fifteen years, the need to devise such progra...

by | On 13 Apr 2018

Nepal Human Development Report 2014: Beyond Geography Unlocking Human Potential

The report presents a rigorous statistical analysis across space and time, using the available national data.

by National Planning (NPC) | On 13 Apr 2018

Agricultural Productivity Shocks, Labor Reallocation, and Rural-Urban Migration in China

This paper analyses the way households in rural China use rural-urban migration and off-farm work as a response to negative productivity shocks in agriculture. I employ various waves of a longitudin...

by Luigi Minale | On 04 Apr 2018

Climate Policy under Cooperation and Competition between Regions with Spatial Heat Transport

The paper builds a novel stochastic dynamic regional integrated assessment model (IAM) of the climate and economic system including a number of important climate science elements that are missing in m...

by Yongyang Cai | On 04 Apr 2018

The Geography of Patenting in India: Patterns and Determinants

This study examines the regional profiles of patenting activities in India. The number of most dynamic sub-national spaces in patent applications is found to be limited to just two to three regions...

by Jaya Prakash Pradhan | On 29 Mar 2018

Trade Rules in E-commerce: WTO and India

Electronic commerce (e-commerce) is an integral part of business activities, and various models of e-commerce have emerged with liberalisation and technological developments. Global e-commerce trade...

by | On 28 Mar 2018

The Education Sector in Pakistan

The report says that the education scene in Pakistan, during the past four decades, has been characterized by substantial quantitative expansion at all levels.

by Khwaja Sarmad | On 28 Mar 2018

One Hundred Sixth Report On Demands For Grants 2018-19 (Demand No. 42 ) Of The Department Of Health And Family Welfare

The National Health Mission (NHM) encompasses two sub-missions, the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) and the National Urban Health Mission (NUHM).

by Rajya Sabha Secretariat | On 23 Mar 2018

Urbanization and India’s Slum Continuum: Evidence on the Range of Policy Needs and Scope of Mobility

In contrast with historical precedent, urbanization across the Global South is associated with increasing levels of urban poverty. These trends engender unique challenges for practitioners and schola...

by Emily Rains | On 21 Mar 2018

ICTs as Enabler in Higher Education

The paper aims at examining impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) on higher education and to identifying major impediments that have resulted in slow penetration of ICTs in high...

by Kaushalesh Lal | On 19 Mar 2018

The Contribution of Workers’ Remittances to Economic Growth in Pakistan

The paper says that the role of workers’ remittances in economic development of recipient countries is considered to be an important area of research.

by Zafar Iqbal | On 15 Mar 2018

Managing Financial Globalization: Insights from the Recent Literature

This paper seeks to draw lessons for developing countries based on a survey of the recent literature on financial globalization. First, while capital account openness holds promises (by potentially lo...

by Shang-Jin Wei | On 10 Mar 2018

What do Self-Reports of Wellbeing Say about Life-Cycle Theory and Policy?

The paper examines a measure of self-reported evaluative wellbeing, the Cantril Ladder, and use data from Gallup to examine wellbeing over the life-cycle. It assesses the validity of the measure, and...

by Angus Deaton | On 07 Mar 2018

Seeing the Forest for the Trees? An Investigation of Network Knowledge

The paper studies a dynamic model of the decision to continue or abandon a research project. Researchers improve their ideas over time and also learn whether those ideas will be adopted by the scienti...

by | On 07 Mar 2018

Learning When to Quit: An Empirical Model of Experimentation

The paper studies a dynamic model of the decision to continue or abandon a research project. Researchers improve their ideas over time and also learn whether those ideas will be adopted by the scienti...

by Bernhard Ganglmair | On 06 Mar 2018

Fringe Lives A Study of a Slum in Patna

The research says that urbanisation is considered to be a sign of economic development of a particular country.

by Rahul Jambhulkar | On 23 Feb 2018

Kerala - The Land of Development Paradoxes

The paper says that the development experience of Kerala tucked away in the south-western corner of the Indian sub-continent has been rather unique.

by K.K. George | On 14 Feb 2018

Governance Dilemmas of Sustainable Cities

This paper aims to scrutinize the dilemmas involved in governing sustainable cities, and it offers a suggestion for how the challenge might be addressed.

by Joakim Öjendal | On 08 Feb 2018

Do Large Agglomerations Lead to Economic Growth ? Evidence from Urban India

The cities and towns of India constitute the world’s second largest urban system besides contributing over 50 per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This phenomenon has been neglect...

by Sabyasachi Tripati | On 24 Jan 2018

Federalism and Foreign Direct Investment: How Political Affiliation Determines the Spatial Distribution of FDI – Evidence from India

This paper links the foreign economic engagement of India’s states with the literature on federalism, thereby contributing to an understanding of the political economy of FDI in- flows in a parliame...

by Chanchal Kumar Sharma | On 22 Jan 2018

Selection, Firm Turnover, and Productivity Growth: Do Emerging Cities Speed up the Process?

This paper identifies and estimates the impact of firm entry and exit on plant-level productivity in Ethiopia as part of a selection mechanism that might be driving aggregate productivity growth in ci...

by Patricia Jones | On 16 Jan 2018

India’s Water Challenges

Threats of international water conflicts have garnered headlines in many parts of the world including South Asia. Yet, there are almost no examples of outright water war in history. Instead, national...

by | On 12 Jan 2018

India’s National Policy on Urban Street Vendors

This Briefing Note describes the process by which India’s National Policy on Urban Street Vendors was developed, the content of the policy, and the ongoing story of its implementation.

by Shalini Sinha | On 05 Jan 2018

Cities, Rural Migrants and the Urban Poor

This paper tries to lay bare the intertwined histories of rehabilitation of the refugees from East Pakistan and the development of the city of Calcutta in the initial decades after the partition of Br...

by | On 02 Jan 2018

Urban Employment in India: Recent Trends and Patterns

This paper explores trends in urban employment in India, with a focus on urban informal employment (defined as informal wage employment and self-employment in informal enterprises, as well as informal...

by Martha Alter Chen | On 02 Jan 2018

Dispute Settlement in the WTO and the Least Developed Countries: The Case of India’s Anti-Dumping Duties on Lead Acid Battery Import from Bangladesh

This paper looks at the case where India contested the tariff concessions granted by the members of the European Communities (EC) to twelve developing countries under its Generalised System of Prefere...

by M. Taslim | On 29 Dec 2017

International Trade Governance and Sustainable Transport: The Expansion of Electric Vehicles

This paper has been conceived as an exploratory scoping exercise intended to identify and better understand trade-related issues and knowledge gaps, including how various types of trade measures and p...

by International Centre for Development (ICTSD) | On 22 Dec 2017

Urban Refugees in Delhi: Self-Reliance can’t be Exclusively Entrepreneurial

Self-reliance is, by definition, about individualised responsibility for social wellbeing and economic security. This idea drives urban refugee livelihood programmes, in India and beyond, as aid organ...

by | On 22 Dec 2017

Pollution and Road Infrastructure in Cities of The People's Republic of China

Urban road infrastructure is crucial in determining air pollution. Yet, little is known about the roles played by road width vs. road length. This paper attempts to fill this gap by estimating the eff...

by Zhi Luo | On 18 Dec 2017

Cities and Entrepreneurs over Time: Like a Horse and Carriage?

This paper explores the co-evolution of entrepreneurship and cities. First, it provides a stylized model of development wherein the rise of cities (urbanisation) is the outcome of the activities of en...

by Wim Naudé | On 15 Dec 2017

Global Investment Competitiveness Report 2017/2018 : Foreign Investor Perspectives and Policy Implications

This inaugural issue of the World Bank Group’s Global Investment Competitiveness Report presents novel analytical insights and empirical evidence on foreign direct investment’s (FDI) drivers and contr...

by World Bank [WB] | On 08 Dec 2017

Inclusive Urban Planning for the Working Poor: Planning Education Trends and Potential Shifts

The report outlines and critically assesses trends in urban planning education across the globe, specifically in countries of the global South, and the extent to which curricula address issues of incl...

by Vanessa Watson | On 07 Dec 2017

Climate induced rural-to-urban migration in Pakistan

The results of this study indicate that climate change acts in combination with many other socioeconomic determinants of migration.

by Fahad Saeed | On 04 Dec 2017

Livelihoods and access to services: An analysis of peri-urban areas of Lahore, Pakistan

This study examines the emerging peri-urbanization in the Punjab (Pakistan) in the context of Lahore.

by Qasim Shah | On 30 Nov 2017

Urban Consumption Inequality in China, 1995–2013

The paper uses 1995, 2002 and 2013 CHIP data to investigate the urban household consumption expenditure inequality. The overall inequality of urban household consumption expenditure measured by Gini c...

by Qingjie Xia | On 20 Nov 2017

Exploring the Trade– Urbanisation Nexus in Developing Economies: Evidence and Implications

Developing countries have seen a rapid rise in population urbanization in the past decades. At the same time, they have participated actively in the process of globalization. However, possible interli...

by | On 20 Nov 2017

Building Smart Cities in India - An Opportunity For Strategising Urban Development

The report states that the current urbanisation pattern in many Indian states is skewed with growth concentrating in and around the primate city.

by Sujaya Rathi | On 03 Nov 2017

Inclusive Urbanisation and Cities in the Twenty-First Century

In academic and policy discourse, urbanisation and cities are currently receiving a great deal of attention, and rightly so. Both have been central to the enormous transformation the world has been go...

by | On 01 Nov 2017

Urban Transport Focus - Small and Medium Sized Cities

The briefs says that the urban population in India is growing and so are motorisation rates.

by Sujaya Rathi | On 13 Oct 2017

Affordable Housing in Urban India

The report narrates that threefold increase in percapita income in urban areas is expected during this period of time.

by S.V. Ranganath | On 12 Oct 2017

Picking the Winner : Measuring Urban Sustainability in India

This study provides a snapshot of the sustainability of selected Indian cities by employing 57 indicators in four dimensions to develop an overall city sustainability index. In recent years, its compl...

by | On 06 Oct 2017

Urban Crisis in India: New Initiatives for Sustainable Cities

India no longer lives in villages. At the dawn of the new millennium, 300 million Indians lived in its nearly 3700 towns and cities, in sharp contrast to only 60 million in 1947 when the country bec...

by | On 03 Oct 2017

Secondary Towns and Poverty Reduction: Refocusing the Urbanization Agenda

This review is framed around the exploration of a central hypothesis: A shift in public investment towards secondary towns from big cities will improve poverty reduction performance.

by Luc Christiaensen | On 27 Sep 2017

Structural Transformation and Income Distribution: Kuznets and Beyond

This paper explores the question of structural transformation and income distribution through the eyes of the pioneer in such analysis, Simon Kuznets.

by Ravi Kanbur | On 27 Sep 2017

Birth of a Think Tank (The Founding of PIDS)

The report narrates that the basic philosophy of its operating principles was carefully nurtured from the start.

by Gerardo Sicat | On 26 Sep 2017

Working Group on Education: Digital Skills for Life and Work

The reports says that the question of how digital skills and competencies can be developed by all people — young and old, girls and boys, rich and poor — on a sustainable basis is an ongoing challenge...

by Broadband Commission Development | On 26 Sep 2017

Toilet Access among the Urban Poor – Challenges and Concerns in Bengaluru City Slums

Urban expansion in India over the last few decades has placed cities in a challenging situation with limited infrastructure facilities affecting the quality of life of people who live in low income se...

by Manasi S | On 13 Sep 2017

Scoping Study on Reducing Unnecessary Regulatory Burdens in the Philippine Food Manufacturing Industry

The food manufacturing industry (FMI) is a major contributor to the country’s total manufacturing output.

by Nerlita M. et al. | On 08 Sep 2017

Womanhood Beyond Motherhood: Exploring Experiences of Voluntary Childless Women

This study attempts to explore the emerging issue among women in Indian cities who voluntarily chose to be childless, with an emphasis on the reasons accorded for opting out of motherhood. Findings of...

by Chandni Bhambhani | On 07 Sep 2017

'Urban Bias' in the Flow of Funds and Deposit Mobilisation: Evidence from Karnataka, India

The paper argues that as bankers consider deposits a means for security, easy and attractive deposit schemes should be introduced in rural areas.

by Gagan Bihari Sahu | On 23 Aug 2017

Access & Utilisation of Health Care Services in urban low-income settlements, Surat, India

The report says that the urban poor constitutes nearly one-fourth of India’s urban population and is growing at three times of the national population growth rate.

by Akash Acharya | On 22 Aug 2017

Human Development Report 2016 - Human Development for Everyone

The Report explores who has been left out in the progress in human development and why.

by Selim Jahan | On 16 Aug 2017

Transitioning Towards a Green Economy in Karnataka

This report focused on agriculture, buildings, industries, transport, and power supply – sectors that account for all the state’s energy requirement and over 70% of its Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission...

by Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy CSTEP | On 14 Aug 2017

The Politics of Pseudoactions Local Governance and Gender Policy Implementation in the Western Balkans

The analysis, based on extensive fieldwork carried out over a three-year period, shows successful implementation of GRB in the region to be hindered not only by barriers such as lack of political comm...

by Andrea Spehar | On 11 Aug 2017

India, Climate Change and Security in South Asia

South Asia faces a wide array of social, political, and economic issues that already threaten security in the region. The region has a history of border disputes, sectarian violence, and government co...

by David Antos | On 09 Aug 2017

Report of the Working Group on Resolution Regime for Financial Institutions

The report narrates the recent global financial crisis demonstrated the shortcomings of the frameworks to handle the failure of large and systemically important financial institutions, also known as “...

by Reserve Bank of India RBI | On 08 Aug 2017

Urban Development and Rural - Urban Linkages in Six Towns in Bihar

The world is becoming increasingly urbanized. Globally 54 percent population lives in urban areas today (UN 2014). Although Asia is still relatively more rural than the Americas and the Europe, it is...

by Tanuka Endow | On 02 Aug 2017

Cities, Towns, and Poverty: Migration Equilibrium and Income Distribution in a Todaro-type Model with Multiple Destinations

Should public investment be targeted to big cities or to small towns, if the objective is to minimize national poverty? To answer this policy question the basic Todaro-type model of rural-urban migr...

by Luc Christiaensen | On 01 Aug 2017

Rethinking Electricity Sector Reform in Developing Asia: Balancing Economic and Environmental Objectives

The OECD or ‘standard’ model of electricity sector reforms has been widely adopted in non-OECD Asian countries since the 1990s. However, despite two decades of attempts at reforms, no notable progress...

by Tooraj Jamasb | On 31 Jul 2017

Electric Buses in India: Technology, Policy and Benefits

The current policy climate in India is rightly addressing the challenges of electric buses, providing an environment to accelerate their adoption and implementation.

by Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy CSTEP | On 27 Jul 2017

Targeting in Urban Displacement Context

The nature and scale of humanitarian crises are changing. The world is becoming increasingly urbanised – currently, 54 per cent of the world’s population lives in urban environments, which will rise t...

by | On 27 Jul 2017

Gender Equality Results Case Study: India - Urban Water Supply and Environmental Improvement Project

The Urban Water Supply and Environmental Improvement Project sought to provide basic services of water supply, sanitation, and garbage collection and disposal in four cities in Madhya Pradesh, India.

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 26 Jul 2017

Gender Equality Results Case Study: Bangladesh - Second Urban Primary Health Care Project

The project provided preventative and curative services, including access to immunization, reproductive health services, limited curative care, nutrition-related services, community outreach on health...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 25 Jul 2017

Innovative Strategies in Technical and Vocational Education and Training for Accelerated Human Resource Development in South Asia: Bangladesh

This publication is complemented by critical analyses to determine key issues, challenges, and opportunities for innovative strategies toward global competitiveness, increased productivity, and inclus...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 10 Jul 2017

Climate Change, Food Security, and Socioeconomic Livelihood in Pacific Islands

The results of the study indicate that climate change will likely have significant negative impacts on agricultural output in Fiji, Papua New Guinea, and Solomon Islands.

by M.W. Rosegrant | On 05 Jul 2017

Improving Interchanges: Introducing Best Practices on Multimodal Interchange Hub Development in the People’s Republic of China

This report provides an discussion on a range of important issues in the interchange hub design. It also provides a general approach in developing a good interchange hub.

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 04 Jul 2017

Travel Demand Management Options in Beijing

This study is part of the Asian Development Bank’s initiative to support greener and more sustainable transport systems that are convenient and lessen carbon dioxide emissions. Read how congestion cha...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 03 Jul 2017

Innovative Strategies in Technical and Vocational Education and Training for Accelerated Human Resource Development in South Asia: Nepal

This report will help improve the quality of the workforce; enhance employability, productivity, and remuneration, leading to higher economic growth.

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 30 Jun 2017

Transforming Towards a High-Income People's Republic of China: Challenges and Recommendations

This report summarizes findings and policy recommendations for the government's 13th Five-Year Plan.

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 29 Jun 2017

Fiji: Building Inclusive Institutions for Sustained Growth - Executive Summary

The report says Fiji’s economy has seen 5 years of positive growth since 2010 - one of its few episodes of sustained growth since 1970. Growth averaged 3.3% a year during 2010-2014, which is nearly fo...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 27 Jun 2017

Addressing Climate Change Risks, Disasters, and Adaptation in the People’s Republic of China

This study informs decision makers regarding major climate change risks to development and provides feasible policy recommendations for consideration to increase resilience and reduce vulnerability in...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 22 Jun 2017

Innovative Strategies in Higher Education for Accelerated Human Resource Development in South Asia: Bangladesh

The report also includes critical analyses to determine key issues, challenges, and opportunities for innovative strategies toward global competitiveness, increased productivity, and inclusive growth.

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 20 Jun 2017

Sri Lanka: Development Effectiveness Brief

The paper says that Sri Lanka has emerged in recent years as one of the most dynamic countries in South Asia. With a rich cultural heritage, an increasingly sophisticated work force, and a strategic l...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 19 Jun 2017

Fossil Fuel Subsidies in Asia: Trends, Impacts, and Reforms - Integrative Report

This report measures the size of associated subsidies on these fossil fuels including direct transfers, tax exemptions, subsidized credit, and losses of state enterprises in India, Indonesia, and Thai...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 14 Jun 2017

Emissions Trading Schemes and Their Linking: Challenges and Opportunities in Asia and the Pacific

The report as that there are currently 17 emissions trading systems (ETS) in place in four continents and account for nearly 40% of global gross domestic product. In Asia and the Pacific region, there...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 12 Jun 2017

Papua New Guinea: Development Effectiveness Brief

This report narrates that ADB has scaled up its assistance to Papua New Guinea for power infrastructure, with an emphasis on clean energy solutions, in line with the government’s prioritization of pow...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 08 Jun 2017

Gender Equality Results Case Study: Nepal Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women Project

This report presents the case study of that project, whose special features include responsiveness to local contexts and to conditions created by conflict, a well-coordinated system for women collecti...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 06 Jun 2017

Innovative Strategies in Higher Education for Accelerated Human Resource Development in South Asia: Sri Lanka

This report presents current arrangements and initiatives in the country’s skills development strategies. These are complemented by critical analyses to determine key issues, challenges, and opportuni...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 06 Jun 2017

Incentives for Reducing Disaster Risk in Urban Areas

The rapid growth of urban areas has often resulted in the siting of poorly designed infrastructure and assets in hazard-prone areas, increasing disaster risk.

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 05 Jun 2017

Changing Tax Capacity and Tax Effort of Indian States in the Era of High Economic Growth, 2001-2014

Growing demand for public expenditures, limitations in expanding fiscal space and limited scope to deviate from common harmonized tax system under the proposed Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime may...

by Sacchidananda Mukherjee | On 25 May 2017

Bangladesh: Looking Beyond Garments - Employment Diagnostic Study

This study highlights the role played by growing female workforce in the positive economic turnaround in Bangladesh. It is now essential to shift workers to more highly productive sectors through stru...

by Asian Bank | On 24 May 2017

Analysis of Simultaneous Elections : The "What", "Why" and "How"

This paper narrates that elections impact everyone in the entire country – citizens, businesses, administrative machinery, constitutional institutions, political parties, leaders and so on. Eventual i...

by Bibek Debroy | On 18 May 2017

Evaluation Study on Role of Public Distribution System in Shaping Household and Nutritional Security India

It has been observed that even though the Indian economy has achieved remarkable economic growth along with a decline in poverty over the last two decades, improvements in nutritional status have not...

by Niti Aayog GOI | On 18 May 2017

The Emergence of Pacific Urban Villages: Urbanization Trends in the Pacific Islands

The paper narrates that the specific needs of the Pacific in the process of urbanization must be recognized and adequately addressed in the post-2015 development agenda. Key priorities include upgradi...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 15 May 2017

Identity for Development in Asia and the Pacific

The objective of this report is to help governments and multilateral institutions assess and integrate ID systems into their development activities. The intended audience includes government policy ma...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 15 May 2017

Mapping Fragile and Conflict-Affected Situations in Asia and the Pacific: The ADB Experience

ADB recognizes four types of fragile and conflict-affected situations (FCAS)—conflict-affected, fragile,transitional, and subnational—and each situation has its own unique set of characteristics, and...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 12 May 2017

Nature-Based Solutions for Building Resilience in Towns and Cities: Case Studies from the Greater Mekong Subregion

This publication highlights the results of a successful partnership between the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the International Centre for Environmental Management (ICEM) with cofinancing from the...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 10 May 2017

Cities as Engines of Inclusive Development

This paper argues that the recent policy rhetoric towards cities in India has been shaped by their increasing economic importance in national output generation, as well as a series of prominent glob...

by Indian Institute for Human Settlements | On 05 May 2017

Eradicating Poverty and Promoting Prosperity in a Changing Asia-Pacific

This report explores three entry points to the theme of poverty and prosperity: (i) managing urbanization for inclusive development, (ii) strengthening responses to rural poverty in the context of t...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 04 May 2017

From Participation To Repurchase: Low Income Households And Micro-Insurance

The paper asks what drives insurance coverage in low income households by analysing repurchase patterns of micro-insurance policies. The paper uses data on customers of a financial services provider...

by Renuka Sane | On 03 May 2017

Picking The Winner: Measuring Urban

This study provides a snapshot of the sustainability of selected Indian cities by employing 57 indicators in four dimensions to develop an overall city sustainability index. In recent years, its comp...

by B.Sudhakara Reddy | On 03 May 2017

Policies to Expand Digital Skills for the Machine Age

A new technological epoch is underway – the so-called Machine Age – reflecting advances in artificial intelligence, digitalisation and Big Data. Some commentators have claimed that this epoch is diffe...

by | On 27 Apr 2017

Promoting Youth Employment Through Activation Strategies

This paper reviews the issues, theory, actual policies and empirical evidence pertaining to activation strategies related to young individuals. The remainder of the paper is organised as follows: Sect...

by | On 27 Apr 2017

The Puzzle of Indian Urbanisation

This paper uses simultaneous equations error component three-stage least squares (EC3SLS) panel data technique to find out both the direct as well as the indirect impact of trade, industrial dissimi...

by Pronab Sen | On 17 Apr 2017

Himachal Pradesh Budget 2017-18

The Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh, Shri Virbhadra Singh, presented a budget on 10 March 2017 for the financial year 2017-18. The total proposed budget for the FY 2017-18 is Rs. 35,783 crore.

by | On 14 Mar 2017

Development Planning and 'Urban' Context: Reflections on the Indian Scene

Through a broad portrayal of character of its development, changing urban patterns, nature of urban economic structure and contents of urban development policies, this paper takes a political econom...

by Biswaroop Das | On 17 Feb 2017

Collective Action on South Asia's 'Wicked Problems'

The problems of water, energy, climate change, and urbanisation, are all intertwined; they are, also, all 'wicked'. There is little consensus on how to effectively navigate these problems, let alone,...

by | On 02 Feb 2017

Bangalore’s Tragedy – A Dead City with Unabated, Unplanned and Untenable Urbanization

Bangalore has been experiencing unprecedented rapid urbanization and sprawl in recent times due to adoption of concentrated developmental path with impetus on industrialization for the economic develo...

by | On 31 Jan 2017

Rural - Urban Linkages in South Asia: Contemporary Themes and Policy Directions

The early literature on migrant urban communities emphasized the conditions and employment patterns of squatter residents who have emerged on the urban landscape. Only recently has attention shifted t...

by | On 23 Jan 2017

Escalating Pollution Threats in Urbanising Indian Cities

Rapid urbanisation with an increase in urban population from 28.3% (in 1950) to 50% (in 2010) is witnessed in megacities in India. Urbanisation is one of the demographic issues in the 21st century and...

by Bharath H. Aithal | On 16 Jan 2017

Solar Energy and Economic Development In India: A Review

Shortage of electricity prompted the countries to give a momentum to renewable energy resources. Renewable energy refers to energy resources that Aries naturally and repeatedly in the environment and...

by | On 04 Jan 2017

Household Expenditure on Higher Education in India: What Do we Know and What do Recent Data Have to say?

Data from two recent NSSO surveys are analysed to provide estimates of expenditure on higher education and loans availed for higher education. The average share of expenditure on higher education out...

by S. Chandrasekhar | On 03 Jan 2017

Financial Inclusion in the Digital Age

The policies needed to promote financial inclusion in the digital age were discussed at an international conference held at the Asian Development Bank Institute. The  event took place on 7–8 April 2...

by Shawn Hunter | On 29 Dec 2016

India’s Sanitation for All: How to Make It Happen

This discussion paper examines the current state of sanitation services in India in relation to two goals—Goal 7 of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which calls on countries to halve, by 2015,...

by Asian Bank | On 27 Dec 2016

Costs of Selected Policies to Address Air Pollution in China

Air pollution has been one of the most pernicious consequences of China’s last three decades of economic transformation and growth. Although Chinese governments—federal, provincial, and municipal—have...

by | On 23 Dec 2016

The Changing Contours of Inter group Disparities and the Role of Preferential Policies in a Globalizing World: Evidence from India

How persistent are traditional socioeconomic hierarchies in the face of marketization, significant structural shifts in the economy, and increased political representation of lower-ranked groups, and...

by Ashwini Deshpande | On 15 Dec 2016

An Analysis of Urban Growth Trends in the Post-Economic Reforms Period in India

Significant changes have been observed since 1991 in the nature and pattern of urban growth in India. Our cities are in the midst of restructuring space, in terms of both use and form. The paper addre...

by | On 14 Dec 2016

Problems and Challenges of Urbanization in India: A Sociological Evaluation

The urbanization is a process which urban social and urban civilization forming gradually. On the way of urbanization, we develop the economy first and improve the quality of people’s life later. Alth...

by | On 14 Dec 2016

From Proof of Concept to Scalable Policies: Challenges and Solutions, with an Application

The promise of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) is that evidence gathered through the evaluation of a specific program helps us—possibly after several rounds of fine-tuning and multiple replicatio...

by Abhijit Banerjee | On 14 Dec 2016

Government’s Role in India’s Ailing Cold Storage Sector

Every year, India wastes about 18 per cent of fruits and vegetables, due to lack of post-harvest storage facilities. The cold storage sector has been one of the most undermined sectors in India, devo...

by Madhu Sivaraman | On 05 Dec 2016

Challenges to the Role of Private Participation in Public Transportation: A Case of Kerala’s Private Buses

The State of Kerala in 2012 through a notification stopped issuing new permits to inter-district buses in Kerala while exempting state run Kerala State Transport Corporation. This was the beginning...

by Madhu Sivaraman | On 28 Nov 2016

Burden of Diseases due to Air Pollution in Urban India

Air pollution causes some of the most serious long-term impacts on human health. Unlike other health problems, the diseases caused by air-pollution are likely to affect everyone exposed to polluted...

by Amrita Ghatak | On 25 Nov 2016

China’s Rural-Urban Migration: Structure and Gender Attributes of the Floating Rural Labor Force

This article focuses on Chinese female rural migrant workers. Based on the survey data collected in Anhui and Sichuan provinces of China, the article investigates gender aspects of Chinese rural-urban...

by | On 22 Nov 2016

Rethinking Poverty: Report on the World Social Situation 2010

This Report on the World Social Situation seeks to contribute to rethinking poverty and its eradication. It affirms the urgent need for a strategic shift away from the market fundamentalist thinking,...

by United Nations (UN) | On 17 Nov 2016

Costs and Benefits of Urbanization: The Indian Case

Urbanization has both benefits and costs. In a market economy, the trade-off between benefits and costs determines the level, speed, and place of urbanization. This paper summarizes research finding...

by Kala Seetharam Sridhar | On 28 Oct 2016

Water, Megacities and Global Change

Numerous studies have explored urban growth and the emergence of the megapolitan phenomenon through increasing growth in the number of cities with over 10 million inhabitants. Similarly, the processes...

by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultura [UNESCO] | On 19 Oct 2016

Will China’s Demographic Transition Exacerbate Its Income Inequality? A CGE Modeling with Top-down Microsimulation

Demographic transition due to population aging is an emerging trend throughout the developing world, and it is especially acute in China, which has undergone demographic transition more rapidly than...

by Xinxin Wang | On 10 Oct 2016

Poor Women in Urban India: Issues and Strategies

It is generally recognised that poverty is experienced differently according to their gender, age, caste, class and ethnicity and within households. Income levels, food security and indeed life choice...

by | On 05 Oct 2016

India-Pakistan Bilateral Trade: Past, Present and Future

Formal trade between India and Pakistan due to tariff barriers and quota problems is not significant; significance is diminishing year after year.The reason for diminishing India-Pakistan bilateral...

by PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry PHD Chamber | On 29 Sep 2016

Role of Institutions and Policies in Diffusion of Micro-irrigation in Gujarat, Western India

the role of institutional innovations and subsidy policy interventions in the diffusion of micro-irrigation across the state in the recent years. While the first part makes a comprehensive review o...

by Chandra Sekhar Bahinipati | On 26 Sep 2016

A Study of Government Urdu Primary Schools in Bengaluru

This study provides an overview of Urdu-medium primary schools in the Bengaluru urban district of Karnataka in India. Akshara’s research examined access to government-run Urdu-medium schools and iss...

by Divya Vishawanath | On 23 Sep 2016

Zoning and the Economic Geography of Cities

Comprehensive zoning is ubiquitous in U.S. cities, yet surprisingly little is known about its long-run impacts. This paper provides the first attempt to measure the causal effect of land use regulatio...

by Allison Shertzer | On 19 Sep 2016

Harvesting Solar Power in India!

This is particularly so when the current solar power capacity in the country has just touched 8000 MW by July end, 2016, and no country in the world has such an ambitious target as India has set out...

by Ashok Gulati | On 16 Sep 2016

Toward SDG 2: Food Security and Urbanization in the Global South

In light of the United Nations’ SDGs1 and their global hunger directive, in particular Goal 2 to “end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition,” it is clear that food security will be a m...

by | On 09 Sep 2016

Habitat III National Reports for the Asia-Pacific Region

The National Reports received to date were considered during the development of the Regional Report and examples from National Reports have been incorporated into the Regional Report as appropriate T...

by United Nations (UN) | On 07 Sep 2016

Counting Critically: SDG ‘Follow-up and Review’ Needs Interlinked Indicators, Monitoring and Evaluation

Global indicators are important for understanding progress towards each of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, they can mask sub-national and thematic variations. They cannot explain ho...

by | On 02 Sep 2016

Learning and Behavioral Spillovers of Nutritional Information

This paper provides evidence for informational spillovers within urban slums in Chandigarh, India. I identify three groups, a treatment group, a neighboring spillover group, and a nonadjacent pure con...

by | On 30 Aug 2016

Picking the Winner: Measuring Urban Sustainability in India

This study provides a snapshot of the sustainability of selected Indian cities by employing 57 indicators in four dimensions to develop an overall city sustainability index. In recent years, its comp...

by B.Sudhakara Reddy | On 29 Aug 2016

Urban Governance for Adaptation: Assessing Climate Change Resilience in Ten Asian Cities

This paper examines how to manage urban climate-related impacts by promoting planned and autonomous adaptation to improve climate change resilience. An analytical framework is developed by combining u...

by | On 29 Aug 2016

Trends and Patterns in the Triple Burden of Malnutrition in India

This paper brings together recent evidence on what has come to be referred to as the triple burden of malnutrition—consisting of overnutrition, undernutriton, and micronutrient deficiencies—using va...

by Meenakshi J V | On 19 Aug 2016

Myanmar Transport Sector Policy Note: Urban Transport

This note presents a review of Myanmar’s urban transport. It focuses on the country’s main cities, Yangon and Mandalay, where issues are most severe, to also help solve similar problems in secondary c...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 12 Aug 2016

Policy and Evidence

There has to be evidence in the policy dialogue. Some may believe that all it takes to convince the body politic of the necessity to choose one policy over another is to present the evidence, complete...

by Raghuram G. Rajan | On 03 Aug 2016

The Informal Economy: Definitions, Theories and Policies

Today, there is renewed interest in the informal economy worldwide. This is because a large share of the global workforce and economy is informal and because the informal economy is growing in many co...

by | On 29 Jul 2016

Designing the Green Climate Fund: Issues for Consideration

At the 16th session of Conference of Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the COP adopted decisions in which it decided to establish a Green Climate F...

by Prodipto Ghosh | On 26 Jul 2016

Impact of Rural-To-Urban Migration on Family and Gender Values in China

Drawing on data from the 2006 China General Social Survey, propensity score matching was used to investigate the impact of rural-to-urban migration on family and gender values in China at distinct sta...

by | On 25 Jul 2016

Women on the Move Migration, Gender Equality and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

This brief presents an overview and analysis of the opportunities, risks and vulnerabilities for women migrants and refugees. It describes the realities of women migrating around the world, and specif...

by | On 19 Jul 2016

Food Security and the Millennium Development Goal on Hunger in Asia

The MDG on hunger requires that the proportion of people suffering from hunger be halved between 1990 and 2015. Behind this apparently simple statement lies much complexity: the food intake required t...

by | On 19 Jul 2016

Examination of Affordable Housing Policies in India

This paper criticizes the Government of India's programmes for affordable housing in India, namely the Rajiv Awas Yojana and Housing for All 2022. It analyses the efficacy of these policies in being a...

by Anindo Sarkar | On 18 Jul 2016

Reimagining India’s Urban Future: A Framework for Securing High-Growth, Low-Carbon, Climate-Resilient Urban Development in India

This paper reviews the current state of the literature on Indian urbanization to analyze existing urban development trajectories at the state level in order to understand the challenges Indian cities...

by Meenu Tewari | On 15 Jul 2016

Impact of Community-led Total Sanitation on Women’s Health in Urban Slums: A Case Study from Kalyani Municipality

This Evidence Report seeks to understand the health and other impacts of slum women’s access to sanitation through the Community-led Total Sanitation (CLTS) approach. It also examines the process thro...

by | On 15 Jul 2016

Rural Livelihood Diversification and its Measurement Issues: Focus India

The rural structural distinctiveness in terms of resource endowments and factors of production often has bearings on livelihood and well-being of their people, constraining improvement in the economic...

by Rajiv Mehta | On 11 Jul 2016

Does Social Health Insurance Reduce Financial Burden? Panel Data Evidence from India

Indian government launched the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), a national health insurance scheme, in 2008 that provides cashless health services to poor households in India. The scheme is eval...

by Mehtabul Azam | On 11 Jul 2016

The “Engine of Economic Growth”: An Overview of Private Investment Policies, Trends, and Projects in Cambodia

This paper aims to present an overview and analysis of the current investment landscape in Cambodia, as well as its impacts on people and the environment. It is hoped that the information ...

by Mark Grimsditch | On 01 Jul 2016

Some Inputs for Draft National Education Policy 2016

The National Education Policy, 2016 provides a framework for the development of education in India over the coming few years. It seeks to address both the unfinished agenda relating to the goals and t...

by Ministry of Human Resource Development, GOI | On 30 Jun 2016

Global Commodity Prices and Inflation in a Small Open Economy

Global commodity prices surge of 2007-08 sent an inflationary shock across the countries. 2014 global prices descend resulted in significant disinflation in many countries and even deflation in some ...

by Muhammad Nadim Hanif | On 30 Jun 2016

Child Poverty in Perspective: An Overview of Child Well-Being in Rich Countries

This report builds and expands upon the analyses of Report Card No. 6 which considered relative income poverty affecting children and policies to mitigate it. This report provides a pioneering, compre...

by United Nations Children's Fund UNICEF | On 30 Jun 2016

National Study on Working Conditions of Teachers: Karnataka State Report

The aim of this study was to document and analyze the recruitment and deployment policies and practice, salary and working conditions (transfer, postings, professional growth and development) of all c...

by Puja Minni | On 29 Jun 2016

Right to Food in India: Mitigating amidst Challenges

What are the policies that Indian government has implemented to alleviate poverty and hunger? Can we say that these are implemented in the right way? What lies in future?

by Aarti Salve | On 24 Jun 2016

Slum Free India: Myths and Realities- A Status Report on Rajiv Awas Yojana

The present report is a result of efforts that were spread over a period of more than a year (2013 – 2014) and included two national level consultations and sharing meetings held in Delhi, visit to m...

by Simpreet . | On 23 Jun 2016

Changes in Wage Structure in Urban India 1983-2004: A Quantile Regression Decomposition

This paper examines changes in the wage structure in urban India during the past two decades (1983-2004) across the entire wage distribution using the Machado and Mata (2005) decomposition approach. R...

by Mehtabul Azam | On 22 Jun 2016

Draft National Forest Policy, 2016

There was a felt to revise the National Forest Policy, 1988 to integrate the vision of sustainable forest management based on the principles of ecosystem approach, landscape level planning and the...

by Indian Institute of Forest Management IIFM | On 21 Jun 2016

An Analysis of Perceptions of Domestic Violence and Efficacy of the Implementation of the PWDV Act (2005) in Bihar

The present study has been conducted in the rural and urban areas of 9 districts of 9 commissionaries in Bihar. A random sample of 375 families is drawn from different socio-economic backgrounds. The...

by CARE India | On 20 Jun 2016

A Joined-Up Approach to Delivering the Global Goals for Sustainable Development

The sustainable management and restoration of our landscapes – achieving land degradation neutrality - will deliver many co-benefits. From biodiversity conservation and combating climate change to ens...

by | On 17 Jun 2016

Urban Water Systems in India: A Way Forward

This paper provides a new presentation of the urban water problem and offers a set of solutions that are sustainable, both in ecological and financial terms, and seek to tackle the deep inequities in...

by Mihir Shah | On 16 Jun 2016

Evaluating Labour Market Policy

This pper reviews major approaches and findings on the evaluation of the impact of different labour market institutions but pays particular attention to active labour market policies that play an impo...

by Werner Eichhorst | On 15 Jun 2016

Ministry of Finance and Planning Annual Report 2010

This paper contains the annual report 2010 of Ministry of Finance and Planning, Government of Sri Lanka.

by Ministry of Finance and Planning, Govt of Sri Lanka | On 15 Jun 2016

What Future for the Cities Within our Cities?

According to a report from the Mckinsey Global Institute, India is set to witness a leap in urban population by almost 25 crore over the next 20 years. That translates to roughly 35,000 more people in...

by | On 09 Jun 2016

Global Action on Climate Change in Agriculture: Linkages to Food Security, Markets and Trade Policies in Developing Countries

The objective of this report is to catalyse thinking about the ways in which agriculture – which has a vital role in global food security, development and natural resources use – can and must be fully...

by Aziz Elbehri | On 06 Jun 2016

Shifting Diets for a Sustainable Food Future

The role of one consumption-based solution: shifting the diets of populations who consume high amounts of calories, protein, and animal-based foods are analysed. Specifically, we consider three in...

by Janet Ranganathan | On 06 Jun 2016

Locked in a Low-Skill Equilibrium? Trends in Labour Supply and Demand in India

This paper analyzes aspects of supply and demand for labour in India using National Sample Survey data for the years 1983, 1993-94, 1999-2000 and 2004-05. With the possibility of a ‘demographic divide...

by Jayan Jose Thomas | On 03 Jun 2016

The Contours and Concerns of Drought-Induced Migration

Umi Daniel is currently working as Head Migration Thematic unit at Aide et Action South Asia. His areas of interests are tribal empowerment, people’s right to food, micro level planning, rights and en...

by Umi Daniel | On 03 Jun 2016

Health Sector Financing by Centre and States/UTs in India: [2013-14 to 2015]

Public expenditure data has been sourced from the State budget documents, detailed demand for grants of MoHFW and other Central Ministries/Departments. This document gives in totality classification...

by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare MoH&FW | On 02 Jun 2016

Environmental Roles of Agriculture in India

The environmental impacts generated by agricultural activity could be global or regional or national or local. However, they are site-specific and tend to vary with farming systems, technologies used...

by | On 01 Jun 2016

Identifying Stakeholders in the Land Use Management Process and Related Critical Factors in ASEAN

With growing populations and demand for food, farmers in ASEAN member states (except Singapore) are required to produce more and more food from land that continues to decline due to population growth,...

by | On 31 May 2016

Draft Report on the Implementation of Status of Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014

This report is an outcome of the continuous interaction of YUVA Urban and National Hawkers Federation (NHF) with the street vendors across different states. They have been a part of the struggle of...

by Sadaf Zafar | On 31 May 2016

Gender Wage Gaps among Regular Employed Persons

The gender wage gaps in Indian states and the wage gaps among educated people are shown.

by Lakshmi Priya | On 27 May 2016

Food vs Forests in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Challenge for the SDGs

Domestic food supply in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) will need to triple in the next 35 years. But SSA countries have also committed to reducing or halting deforestation. The tripling of food supply canno...

by Xiaoting Jones | On 25 May 2016

Degradation and Loss of Peri-Urban Ecosystems

Rapid degradation of peri-urban ecosystems is resulting in a loss of associated ecosystem services. Water provision, storm- and waste-water regulation, along with protection from natural disasters and...

by Rockeffeller Foundation RF | On 25 May 2016

Service Innovation in Philippine Industries

This paper examines the evidence on service innovation using the 2012 Census of Philippine Business and Industry and the 2009 Pilot Survey of Innovation Activities. It reveals the wide variation in R&...

by | On 25 May 2016

Nutritional Intake in India: 2004-2005

The present report on nutritional intake in India is based on data collected through the 61st round of NSS (July 2004-June 2005). It mainly focuses on intake of nutrients by households in terms of pro...

by Ministry of Statistics and Prog Implementation (MOSPI) | On 20 May 2016

Coastal Road and Mumbai's Development Plan (2014–2034)

Coastal Road and Mumbai's Development Plan (2014–2034), video interview with Shweta Wagh, urban conservationist. Filmed for Hamara Shehar Vikas Niyojan, Mumbai

by | On 20 May 2016

Sustainable Consolidation: Suggesting the Way Ahead for Kerala

The paper examines the fiscal scene of Kerala, during the last one and a half decades, by looking at the trends in receipts and expenditure. It finds that a revenue led fiscal consolidation is the w...

by T.M. Thomas Issac | On 20 May 2016

World Employment and Social Outlook 2016 – Transforming Jobs to End Poverty

This edition of the World Employment and Social Outlook (WESO) examines the relationship between decent work and poverty reduction. It starts by documenting trends in poverty around the world while pa...

by International Labour Organisation ILO | On 19 May 2016

Rainwater Harvesting: A Lifeline for Human Well-Being

This publication highlights the link between rainwater harvesting, ecosystems and human wellbeing and draws the attention of readers to both the negative and positive aspects of using this technology...

by | On 18 May 2016

Biodiversity for Sustainable Development: Delivering Results for Asia and the Pacific

The aim is to develop capacity at the individual, institutional and systemic levels to identify and implement new options for effective democratic governance for biodiversity and ecosystem management...

by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) | On 18 May 2016

The Relevance of Wetland Conservation in Kerala

Kerala has the largest proportion of land area under wetlands among all the states of India, changes to which can significantly affect ecosystem processes. Compared to other states of the country, wet...

by Sheeba Abraham | On 17 May 2016

Quality of Social Science Research in India

There is a growing recognition of the importance of academic research in India and is being monitored by public institutions. However the focus in these assessments has remained largely confined to...

by Amit S. Ray | On 16 May 2016

The Global Risks Report 2016: 11th Edition

Now in its 11th edition, The Global Risks Report 2016 draws attention to ways that global risks could evolve and interact in the next decade. The year 2016 marks a forceful departure from past finding...

by [WEF] World Economic Forum | On 11 May 2016

High and Dry : Climate Change, Water, and the Economy

The impacts of climate change will be channeled primarily through the water cycle, with consequences that could be large and uneven across the globe. Water-related climate risks cascade through food,...

by World Bank [WB] | On 11 May 2016

Bill for Compulsory Voting

An analysis of electoral data in local elections shows that rural local bodies have had higher turnouts than their urban counterparts in almost all states of India. Data from 2009-13 of city corporati...

by Bhanu Joshi | On 09 May 2016

Educational Attainment of Young Adults in India: Measures, Trends & Determinants

Given the fact that education of young adults plays crucial role from both economic and social point of view, the objective of the study is to analyse the pattern of improvements in their education an...

by Runu Bhakta | On 02 May 2016

Employment Structure and Rural-Urban Migration in a Tamil Nadu Village: Focusing on Differences by Economic Class

Since the mid-1990s, migration of workforces from rural to urban areas has accelerated in south India accompanied by remarkable urban-based economic development. To investigate the nature of such rura...

by Keiko Sato | On 29 Apr 2016

Tamil Nadu: What Voters Want and How They Rate Government Performance

This report consists the findings of a survey carried out in February 2016 in Tamil Nadu. The purpose of the survey was to find out what voters really want from the Government and how they rate the pe...

by Association for Democratic Reforms ADR | On 28 Apr 2016

Gender and Land Statistics

The Gender and Land Rights Database (GLRD) is an on-line platform that was launched by FAO in February 2010 with the objective of highlighting the major political, legal and cultural factors that infl...

by Food and Agricultural Organization [FAO] | On 12 Apr 2016

Education in India: NSS 71st Round

The report gives a detailed account of the education system in India.

by Ministry of Statistics and Prog Implementation (MOSPI) | On 05 Apr 2016

Global Report on Urban health: Equitable, Healthier Cities for Sustainable Development

The Global report on urban health: equitable, healthier cities for sustainable development, 2016 presents new data on the health of urban residents from nearly 100 countries, updating the first joint...

by World Health Organisation (WHO) | On 04 Apr 2016

Rules of the Monetary Game

Aggressive monetary policy actions by one country can lead to significant adverse cross-border spillovers on others, especially as countries contend with the zero lower bound. If countries do not inte...

by Prachi Mishra | On 31 Mar 2016

Budget Speech Delhi: 2016-17

Budget speech by Finance Minister Manish Sisodia.

by Manish Sisodia | On 29 Mar 2016

The Role of Construction as an Employment Provider: A World-Wide Input-Output Analysis

This study shows how important the construction sector has been over the last decade as an employment provider in countries at different levels of development. The analysis also revealed decreasing tr...

by Christoph Ernst | On 23 Mar 2016

Labor Supply Models: Unobserved Heterogeneity, Nonparticipation and Dynamics

This chapter is concerned with the identification and estimation of models of labor supply. The focus is on the key issues that arise from unobserved heterogeneity, nonparticipation and dynamics. We e...

by Richard Blundell | On 21 Mar 2016

Impacts of Rural-Urban Cleavages and Cultural Orientations on Attitudes toward Elements of Democracy: A Cross-National, Within Nation Analysis

This paper follows the lead in substituting variable names for national social systems from the project on “Democratization and Value Change in East Asia.” Specifically, it investigates the associatio...

by Robert Albritton | On 21 Mar 2016

Water Reallocation and Grabbing Processes, Mechanisms and Contributory Factors

The paper attempts to develop a project life-cycle approach to gain insights into the complexities of water reallocation. The paper is able to show that water reallocation and the resultant phenomeno...

by Subodh Wagle | On 21 Mar 2016

Linkages between Dispersed Urbanisation and Rural Industrialisation: A Case Study from West Bengal

In some poor parts of the world, rural areas are known as pastoral folk; for their heavily dependence on agricultural activities; and for having poor infrastructure, limited employment opportunities a...

by Subrata Dutta | On 20 Mar 2016

Rural-Urban Linkages and Socio-Economic Development: A Case Study Of Two Villages In Gujarat

Rural-urban linkages are both a cause and a consequence of socio-economic development. Though there is a vast volume of literature on this subject, there are quite a few gaps in our knowledge about th...

by RS Pundir | On 20 Mar 2016

Changing Wage Structure in India in the Post-Reform Era

This paper documents the changing structure of wages in India over the post-reform era, the roughly two-decade period since 1993. To investigate the factors underlying these changes, a supply-demand f...

by Basab Dasgupta | On 20 Mar 2016

Review and Compendium of Environmental Policies and Laws in Bhutan

This review and compendium of our country’s environmental laws, policies, and regulations aims to enhance the accessibility to information by judges, lawyers, government officials, and stakeholders in...

by Antonia Gawel | On 18 Mar 2016

Dynamics of Political Budget Cycle

Using the method of optimal control, when an incumbent politician derives utility from voting support and dis-utility from budgetary deficit, the equilibrium time paths of both voting support and budg...

by Ganesh Manjhi | On 17 Mar 2016

Does Environmental Kuznet’s Curve Exist For Indoor Air Pollution? Evidence From Indian Household Level Data

Existence of Environmental Kuznet’s Curve (EKC) is an empirical issue to analyze as evidence from the literature has been mixed. This study focuses on indoor air pollution generated from the use of fu...

by K.S. Kavi Kumar | On 16 Mar 2016

Do Foreign Banks in India Indulge in Cream Skimming?

Foreign banks in developing countries are often found to indulge in cream skimming, a lending strategy that targets only wealthy segments of the credit market and exclude small and marginal borrowers...

by Mandira Sarma | On 16 Mar 2016

The Enigma of the ‘Indian Model’ of Development

The paper is an attempt to unveil the enigma of the ‘Indian model’ of development. After discussing the evolution of India’s development policies over the last six decades, the paper attempts to unfol...

by Amit S. Ray | On 16 Mar 2016

Improving Interchanges Introducing Best practices on Multimodal Interchange Hub Development in the People's Republic of China

This report discusses the experiences and commonly encountered issues when developing railway interchange hubs. It proposes basic design principles as well as research approaches. The report focuses o...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 15 Mar 2016

The Housing Market and Housing Policies in Japan

Housing policies in Japan after World War II were focused on the quantitative supply of houses with a wide range of targeted groups and public rental houses. The Japan Housing Corporation (now the Urb...

by Masahiro Kobayashi | On 14 Mar 2016

China and North Korea: A Relationship in Transition?

Military tensions on the Korean Peninsula have been escalating for several months now. The latest events with the missile launches and newly released reports on the abduction of Chinese fishermen by N...

by | On 12 Mar 2016

Analyzing the Water Footprint of Indian Dairy Industry

Water footprint is a multidimensional indicator, showing water consumption volumes by source and by type of pollution; all components of a total water footprint are specified geographically and tempor...

by Zareena Begum Irfan | On 11 Mar 2016

‘China 2030: Building a Modern, Harmonious, and Creative Society’

China is unique among developing countries in achieving sustained economic and social success. So, policymakers in South Asia will do well to factor a robust Chinese economic future into their thinkin...

by Shahid Javed Burki | On 11 Mar 2016

The Culmination of the MDG’s: A New Arena of the Sustainable Development

Established in 2000; the Millennium Development Goals had played a major role in bringing back the developmental issues to focus. Nearing the end of the stipulated time when they had to be achieved an...

by Zareena Begum Irfan | On 10 Mar 2016

Remorse and Reform: Abe's Stormy Spring

From apologizing for Japan’s wartime past to collective defense and FTA negotiations with the United States, Japan faces a number of contentious issues in the coming months that call into question Pri...

by | On 10 Mar 2016

Analyzing the Aid Effectiveness on the Living Standard: A Check-up on South East Asian Countries

The present research work aims to analyse the effect that the disaggregated developmental aid has had on the health status and the standard of living in the urban sector after the MDGs were establishe...

by Zareena Begum Irfan | On 10 Mar 2016

Tariff Reduction and Income Distribution: A CGE-based Analysis for Urban and Rural Households in Pakistan

This paper intends to explore functional and households personal income distribution across four different income groups in both the urban and rural areas. Using Social Accounting framework, Siddiqui...

by A. R. Kemal | On 10 Mar 2016

Distributional Impact of Structural Adjustment on Income Inequality in Pakistan: A SAM-based Analysis

This study intends to analyze the impact of fiscal policy relating to subsidies (production and consumption subsidies), government current expenditure and expenditure on health and education on income...

by Zafar Iqbal | On 10 Mar 2016

Information Frictions and Adverse Selection: Policy Interventions in Health Insurance Markets

This paper develops and implements a general framework to study insurance market equilibrium and evaluate policy interventions in the presence of choice frictions. Friction-reducing policies can incre...

by Benjamin R. Handel | On 09 Mar 2016

India's Policy on Genetically Modified Crops

Agricultural biotechnology is highly contested site in India, encompassing debates on impact of technology on society, economic development, and India’s future agricultural Strategy. Proponents of b...

by Anitha Ramanna | On 09 Mar 2016

Challenges for Urban Local Governments in India

The findings of this study show that urban local governments in India continue to remain plagued by numerous problems, which affect their performance in the efficient discharge of their duties. These...

by Rumi Aijaz | On 09 Mar 2016

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank: What Can It Learn From, and Perhaps Teach To, the Multilateral Development Banks?

A striking phenomenon of recent global economic change is the emergence of new development actors, with alternative development experiences and development financing capacity. These actors are now cre...

by Stephany Griffith-Jones | On 08 Mar 2016

India Budget 2016: Old Economics, New Politics

India’s latest Budget focuses on the rural sector and the economically vulnerable sections and makes large allocations for agriculture and social sector programmes without compromising on fiscal disci...

by Amitendu Palit | On 04 Mar 2016

Debating Geo-Engineering Governance: How It Matters to the Asia- ¬Pacific Region

The debate on the risks and opportunities of geoengineering is currently gaining momentum. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is, for the first time, assessing the scientific basis as well...

by | On 03 Mar 2016

Thorium – The Way Forward for Safe, Affordable and Sustainable Nuclear Energy?

The problems caused by Japan’s recent nuclear power plant crisis have revived the debate on the future of nuclear energy. Discussions appear to be centred around the dilemma of whether or not to rely...

by S. Rajaratnam International Studies | On 03 Mar 2016

Peacebuilding Governance – Negotiating the Khmer Rouge Trials

The domestic policies of the Khmer Rouge regime resulted in widespread human insecurity. The pursuit of justice against past atrocity crimes through the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodi...

by Lina Gong | On 02 Mar 2016

Exercising the Responsibility to Assist: The Roles Of the International Community And Cambodian Civil Society

This Alert examines the role of intergovernmental and non-governmental stakeholders in promoting human security in Cambodia through transitional justice. It maps out the relations between and among th...

by | On 02 Mar 2016

Falling from Grace: Nuclear Energy in Japan Post ¬Fukushima

Prior to the triple disaster of March 2011, Japan was perceived as one of the more well-prepared nations in the world in the area of disaster response. However, the earthquake, tsunami and most partic...

by Sofiah Jamil | On 02 Mar 2016

Connecting the Dots: An Analysis of Union Budget 2016-17

It presents a comprehensive analysis of the priorities and proposals in Union Budget 2016-17, focusing on social sectors (such as education, health, drinking water and sanitation, food security etc.)...

by Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability CBGA | On 02 Mar 2016

Fiscal Policy Instruments and the Political Economy of Designing Programs to Reach the Poorest

This paper examines the fiscal instruments available to different levels of government and their interactions to enhance the effectiveness of public policies for the poorest and hungry groups. Address...

by Ehtisham Ahmad | On 01 Mar 2016

Decentralization and Local Service Provision : What Do We Know?

What do we know about the results of decentralized service delivery? Verifying outcomes and results of decentralized policies is a very challenging exercise, given the large number of stakeholders inv...

by Ehtisham Ahmad | On 01 Mar 2016

Labour Force Participation of Women in India: Some facts, Some Queries

The plan of the paper is as follows. Section 2 describes the data and definitions used in this study. Fertility and labour force participation are affected by broadly the same parameters. Section 3 lo...

by Surjit S. Bhalla | On 01 Mar 2016

Should China Revisit the 1994 Fiscal Reforms?

The 1994 Fiscal Reforms in China were spectacularly successful in meeting the immediate challenges that the economy faced at that time—a sharply dropping tax/GDP ratio, and limited ability of the cent...

by Ehtisham Ahmad | On 01 Mar 2016

Diet and Nutritional Status of Rural Population

Several sporadic studies carried out in the developing countries, including India have been reporting a steady increase in the prevalence of diet related chronic diseases like obesity, hypertension, d...

by National Institute of Nutrition | On 29 Feb 2016

Combating Low Birth Weight and Intra - Uterine Growth Retardation

Low birth weight is a major public health problem in India. About 30% of all infants born in hospitals are reported to weigh less than 2.5 kg at birth. Studies carried out by ICMR in the late seventie...

by Sarath Gopalan | On 29 Feb 2016

Re¬emerging Infectious Diseases: Time for Renewed Vigilance

Against the trends of increasing global travel, rapid urbanisation and growing population, the threat of infectious diseases looms large on the horizon. In Asia, the series of health crises brought...

by Gianna Gayle Amul | On 27 Feb 2016

Should Asian Cities be Climbing on the ‘Resilience’ Bandwagon?

Providing essential services to Asia’s booming cities is becoming more difficult. With over 100,000 people thought to be moving to the region’s urban spaces every day, the demands on cities are beco...

by J. Ewing | On 27 Feb 2016

Financing of Urban Local Bodies in India

The rising level of urbanisation in India draws attention to inadequate infrastructure levels in urban areas. While many factors play a role in infrastructure development, this paper examines the fina...

by Charan Singh | On 27 Feb 2016

Juxtaposing Scientific Uncertainty with Legal Certainty The Carbon conundrum

This paper problematizes the basis for international policies and regulations towards adaptation, mitigation and adjustment for ‘climate change’. Specific aspects of Fourth Assessment Report of IPCC h...

by Nandan Nawn | On 27 Feb 2016

A Model of Gender Inequality and Economic Growth

This paper introduces a model of gender inequality and economic growth that focuses on the determination of women’s time allocation among market production, home production, child rearing, and child e...

by Jinyoung Kim | On 27 Feb 2016

Securitization of Illegal Migration of Bangladeshis to India

Over 10 million illegal migrants from Bangladesh live in India, according to both official and unofficial estimates. This paper examines the securitization of the issue by various actors through a cen...

by | On 26 Feb 2016

Local Property Taxation and Benefits in Developing Countries - Overcoming political resistance?

While property taxation has existed since ancient times, and the taxation of land has been a mainstay of public finances through the Middle Ages, in both Europe and Asia, it has all but ceased to be a...

by Ehtisham Ahmad | On 26 Feb 2016

Railway Budget 2016-17: Preliminary Analysis

The Minister of Railways, Mr. Suresh Prabhu, presented the Railway Budget 2016-17 to Parliament on February 25, 2016. In his address, he commented on the performance of Railways in 2015-16 and laid o...

by Prachee Mishra | On 26 Feb 2016

Indian Railway Budget Speech 2016-17

Speech of Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu introducing the Railway Budget for 2016-17.

by Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu | On 25 Feb 2016

The Political Economy of Trade Policy in Indonesia

This paper focuses on Indonesia’s trade policies after the economic crisis. It examines the trend towards protection and addresses the issues of competitiveness. The concluding part briefly discusses...

by M. Basri | On 25 Feb 2016

Migrant Workers and the Right to Labour

There has been some public discussion on the issue of labour migrants and its supposed impact on the productivity of the national labour force. How true is this? Or is this simply another episode in t...

by | On 24 Feb 2016

Lifting the Lid Off Xinjiang’s Insecurities

The recent riots and attacks in China’s western province of Xinjiang have brought to the forefront the long simmering tensions between the Han Chinese and Uyghur communities. What have often been capt...

by | On 24 Feb 2016

Human Security: A Response to the Climate Security Debates

Debates about climate change as a threat to international peace have focused on conflict, civil unrest, and the consequences for states. Human security offers an alternative, people-centred approach t...

by Lorraine Elliot | On 24 Feb 2016

The US and Myanmar: Moving into a New Phase

At the recent United Nations general debate, US President Barack Obama outlined his vision for US foreign policy, making a clear break with the previous administration. The shift has significant impli...

by | On 24 Feb 2016

The AICHR Framework for Action

On 23 October 2009, ASEAN formally launched the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights at the 15th ASEAN Summit in Thailand. The ASEAN leaders also announced the ‘Cha-am Hua Hin Declaratio...

by | On 24 Feb 2016

The US and China: Dangers of Premature Extrapolation

Many commentators assume that China will become the next world superpower. This may be a premature assessment. As Judo players know, size can be a weakness rather than a strength. It is the spirit of...

by | On 24 Feb 2016

Copenhagen: A Missed Opportunity

The failure of the Copenhagen Climate Summit has come as no surprise, and unless major developing countries take a more principled stand for development, future summits can only serve as a stage for m...

by | On 24 Feb 2016

Regional Cooperation towards Multilateral Arrangements on Agriculture, Labour, and Environment in the Context of Globalisation: The Case of Indonesia

This study looks at Indonesia’s commitments to multilateral trade agreements, and assesses policies adopted by the government to meet the criteria set by those agreements. Particularly, three sectors...

by Titik Anas | On 24 Feb 2016

Strategies for Intellectual Property and Preventing Technology Leakage in China: A Comparison of Strategies Used in Japan, America, and Europe

Japanese corporations and American and European corporations take different approaches when it comes to business in China in general: (i) American corporations are concentrated in the music, motion pi...

by Yoshio Iteya | On 24 Feb 2016

Social Protection in Apec in Pursuit of Inclusive Growth

The paper seeks to take stock of some of the key APEC documents/reports relevant to social protection and safety net programs, and also of the experience of APEC member-economies, with special focus o...

by Janet S. Cuenca | On 24 Feb 2016

Grid – Connect Electricity Supply in India

This paper describes the methodology, data and key assumptions used for the power sector supply-side module of the India Low Carbon Growth study and presents preliminary results. The module is used to...

by World Bank | On 24 Feb 2016

Residential Consumption of Electricity in India – Documentation of Data and Methodology

This paper describes the methodology used for the electricity consumption section of the household module of the India Low Carbon Growth Study and presents preliminary results. The module is used to p...

by World Bank | On 24 Feb 2016

Modi’s Urban Initiatives – a Paradigm-shift?

A number of new initiatives announced by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi now, with the phased goal of transforming the overall quality of life in the country’s urban centres, have been conceptual...

by S Narayan | On 24 Feb 2016

Facing Food Shortages: Urban Food Security in an Age of Constraints

Seventy per cent of the world’s population are expected to live in urban areas by 2050. Food production to feed this larger, more urban and richer population will have to be done in the face of changi...

by | On 23 Feb 2016

From Crisis to Recovery in Asia: Strategies, Achievements, and Lessons

This paper reviews and highlights lessons from the stabilisation and reform programme that Thailand, Malaysia and Korea implemented in response to the 1997 crisis. The three countries’ rapid recovery...

by Kanit Sangsubhan | On 23 Feb 2016

Food Production and Environmental Health in Southeast Asia: The Search for Complementary Strategies

Growing food demands and escalating environmental stresses create a series of challenges throughout Southeast Asia. Projected population and consumption patterns strongly suggest that food production...

by J. Ewing | On 22 Feb 2016

Report on “Inter-State Water Conflicts in Southern Asia”

Water conflicts are a subject of intense debate and discussion in Southern Asia, which comprises India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and China. Factors such as the history of partiti...

by S. Rajaratnam International Studies | On 22 Feb 2016

Asia’s Food Security Conundrum: More Apparent than Real?

There is enough food in the world to feed everyone, yet one billion people are hungry. Biotech approaches to food production will not enhance food security in Asia unless severe distortions in existin...

by | On 22 Feb 2016

Rural-Urban Migration, Poverty and Child Survival in Urban Banglades

Despite recent decline, infant and child mortality in Bangladesh is still one of the highest among the developing countries with strong urban-rural differentials. Nearly one in ten children in Banglad...

by M. Islam | On 21 Feb 2016

Causes and Consequences of Rural-Urban Migration: A Study of Migrant Street Vendors in Dhaka City

In developing countries like Bangladesh rural-urban migration affects development in both urban and rural areas. As such, this study focuses on establishing the major causes and consequences of the mo...

by Research Institute of Social Welfare and | On 21 Feb 2016

Price of Daily Essentials: A Diagnostic Study of Recent Trends

The present report summarises major results that seeks to trace the supply chains of a group of essential commodities and, in view of their future supply (domestic production and import) prospect, att...

by Centre for Policy Dialogue CPD | On 21 Feb 2016

The Rio+20 Summit and ASEAN: Towards a Green Economy

Rio de Janeiro will host the third Earth Summit, or “Rio+20”, in June this year – 20 years after the first Earth Summit in 1992. At Rio+20 all governments will be asked to re-dedicate themselves to th...

by | On 20 Feb 2016

10 Things Designers Need to Work on

The 10 considerations are based on Christian Werthmann’s five year investigation of numerous small and large scale improvement projects in Latin America as wells as the outcome of two symposia titled...

by Christian Werthmann | On 19 Feb 2016

On compact, Integrated & Connected Cities

The Urban Planning and Design focus area of UN-Habitat aims to support cities, regional and national authorities in adopting improved policies, plans and designs for more compact, socially inclusive,...

by Rafael Tuts | On 19 Feb 2016

Value Capture as a Land Based Tool to Finance Development

Based on the recent publication ‘Implementing Value Capture in Latin America’ the Director of the Latin American Program at Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, MartimSmolka, explains the mechanism of va...

by Martim Smolka | On 19 Feb 2016

From Agropolis to Ecopolis – Heading Towards Regenerative Cities

In this lecture, Stefan Schurig (World Future Council) talks about the vision of regenerative cities as the greening of the urban environment and the protection of nature from urban expansion, and abo...

by Stefan Schurig | On 19 Feb 2016

Does Conservation Agriculture Deliver Climate Change Mitigation Through Soil Carbon Sequestration in Tropical Agro-Ecosystems?

Conservation agriculture (CA), comprising minimum soil disturbance, retention of crop residues and crop diversification, is widely promoted for reducing soil degradation and improving agricultural sus...

by David Powlson | On 19 Feb 2016

A Rights-Based Approach To Urban Development

Dr Urban Jonsson is the Executive Director of The Owls, an international consultancy company specialized in Human Rights and Development based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. DrJonsson is a leading author...

by | On 19 Feb 2016

Pro-Poor Solid Waste Management

MarijkHuysman bases her lecture on the importance of accessible and effective urban waste collection services for public health, environmental conditions, productivity and aesthetics of cities. Yet ev...

by | On 19 Feb 2016

How Much Do We Know about the Impact of the Economic Downturn on the Employment of Migrants?

The employment shock of late 2008 in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) may have been a product of three different events: (i) the contractionary macroeconomic policies introduced by the government...

by Xin Meng | On 19 Feb 2016

The Notion Of Prosperity

Mohamed Halfani (UN-Habitat) outlines the notion of prosperity as it relates to the work of UN-Habitat. This introduction to the theme of urban prosperity highlights the disjuncture between current de...

by | On 19 Feb 2016

Incremental Housing – The New Site & Services

Informal builders provide the bulk of affordable housing and define large areas of our cities. Originally created for those long considered as poor and unable to house themselves, over time the result...

by Dr. Reinhard Goethert | On 19 Feb 2016

Transforming Cities with Transit

In rapidly urbanizing and motorizing cities of the world, massive investments are being made in high-capacity transit systems to fend off worsening traffic congestion. Most investments have been guide...

by | On 19 Feb 2016

The Goods & Services Tax Debate in India: Concepts and Issues

The chequered but ongoing political efforts to introduce a uniform Goods & Services Tax (GST) throughout India should actually be seen through a larger economic prism. The current sense of urgency, re...

by | On 19 Feb 2016

Making Room for a Planet of Cities

The Making Room Paradigm draws on data collected from a sample of 120 cities, extracted from a much larger database, and is based on the realization that rapid urban population growth and its rapid co...

by Shlomo Angel | On 19 Feb 2016

Impact of Services Trade Liberalization on Employment and People Movement in South Asia

Services have been a key driver of overall economic growth in South Asia since the 1990s. This paper examines how the growth of services output, trade and investment have affected service sector emplo...

by Rupa Chanda | On 19 Feb 2016

Urbanization & Demographics: The Coordination Problem

The lecture is based on the realization that little attention is being paid to the inexorable increase in urban populations, particularly in very low income countries. Almost all of the world’s next 2...

by | On 19 Feb 2016

Principles of Planned Urbanization

In this opening session for the second season of the Global Urban Lecture Series, Dr. Joan Clos introduces three fundamental principles behind planned urbanization: Rules and Regulations, Urban Design...

by | On 19 Feb 2016

Gender perspectives in urban planning

Ana Falú from the National University of Cordoba – and the Coordinator of the UN-Habitat UNI Gender Hub – in this lecture discusses urban planning from a gender perspective, with emphasis on both who...

by | On 19 Feb 2016

Transforming the City towards Low-Carbon Resilience

Transforming the City towards Low-Carbon Resilience” introduces urban design principles that support the transformation of existing cities towards more resilience regarding the impact of climate chang...

by | On 19 Feb 2016

Wheat Markets and Price Stabilisation in Pakistan: An Analysis of Policy Options

This article provides a quantitative analysis of the effects of Pakistan government domestic wheat procurement, sales, and trade policies on wheat supply, demand, prices, and overall inflation. Analys...

by Paul Dorosh | On 18 Feb 2016

The Federation Model Of Community Organizing

In the past two decades through a process called “Enumeration” through which the members collect at city level data about slums, Slum Dwellers International have created a mechanism which serves to cr...

by | On 18 Feb 2016

Integrated Farming Systems And Resilient Agricultural Landscapes

Asia’s rapid change across socio-economic and political spheres, amid population growth and rising demand for food, feed and energy supplies, is unprecedented. To strike a balance between economic gro...

by Research Consultative Group on International Agricultural | On 18 Feb 2016

New Avenues for Regional Cooperation: Tackling Human Trafficking in Asia

In Southeast Asia, rising population and technological advances mean that unfortunately human traffickers have a growing target base online and are making greater use of technology. Nevertheless, crea...

by | On 17 Feb 2016

A Fresh Assessment of the Underground Economy and Tax Evasion in Pakistan: Causes, Consequences, and Linkages with the Formal Economy

Rise in the underground economy creates problems for the policy-makers to formulate economic policies, especially the monetary and fiscal policies. It is found that if there was no tax evasion, budget...

by M. Ali Kemal | On 17 Feb 2016

The Harris-Todaro Hypothesis

The Harris-Todaro hypothesis replaces the equality of wages by the equality of ‘expected’ wages as the basic equilibrium condition in a segmented but homogeneous labour market, and in so doing it gene...

by M. Ali Khan | On 17 Feb 2016

Power, Violence, Citizenship and Agency: A Review of the Literature

This Working Paper comprises a literature review that was carried out to inform the formulation of a research project on power, violence, citizenship and agency, which addresses how social actors reac...

by | On 17 Feb 2016

An ASEAN Nuclear Crisis Centre: Preparing for a Technological Disaster in Southeast Asia

As some Southeast Asian countries consider using nuclear energy, the region should now be preparing a regional nuclear emergency response, incorporating technological and nuclear emergencies into its...

by | On 16 Feb 2016

Gender Differences in Climate Change Perception and Adaptation Strategies: The Case of Three Provinces in Vietnam’s Mekong River Delta

This report, which forms part of the PIRCCA project outputs, focuses on the results of the survey conducted in the first half of 2015 on climate change perception and adaptation strategies of male and...

by Michael Sheinkman | On 16 Feb 2016

Entrepreneurship in Pakistan

In Pakistan innovation and risk taking is severely inhibited by the intrusive role of government in the marketplace. From the early days of planning when protection and subsidy policies determined win...

by Nadeem Ul Haque | On 16 Feb 2016

Delivering Access to Safe Drinking Water and Adequate Sanitation in Pakistan

Water and Sanitation is the neglected sector in Pakistan. Most of the households in Pakistan do not have access to safe drinking water and lack toilets and adequate sanitation systems. These poor peop...

by Faheem Jehangir Khan | On 16 Feb 2016

Health Care Services and Government Spending in Pakistan

The study has been carried out to measure the incidence of government spending on health in Pakistan at provincial, both rural and urban level; using the primary data of the Pakistan Social Standard L...

by Muhammad Akram | On 16 Feb 2016

Thailand’s Economic Integration with Neighboring Countries and Possible Connectivity with South Asia

Thailand’s increasing importance as a regional co-production base and as an intra-regional trade and border trade hub is due mainly to recent changes in its economic structure, namely, the lack of ope...

by Suthiphand Chirathivat | On 16 Feb 2016

A Primary Survey on Banks in Promoting Women Entrepreneurship in Bangladesh

Bangladesh Bank, the central bank of Bangladesh is contributing significantly to commercial banks to promote women entrepreneurship in Bangladesh. Various helpful policies are initiated to promote w...

by Bangladesh Bank BB | On 15 Feb 2016

Interest Rate Spread in Bangladesh: An Analytical Review

Lower spread is a vital indicator of the efficiency and competition in the financial system and conducive to higher economic growth of a country via investment spending. In Bangladesh, the spread in t...

by Shamim Ahmed | On 15 Feb 2016

Accountability and Transparency in Political Finance

When money corrupts campaigns and candidates, political finance can undermine the same democratic values and good governance that it also supports. To prevent and address the problem, transparency and...

by Transparency International TI | On 14 Feb 2016

Corruption and (In)Security

For security policies to be effective states must recognise and respond to how corruption ignites and magnifies these dangers. In some countries and regions corruption is the facilitator of insecurity...

by Transparency International TI | On 14 Feb 2016

Building Integrity to Ensure Effective Water Governance

As with any governance framework, participation, transparency and accountability form the guiding principles needed for ensuring policies and decisions on water are responsive to citizens. When these...

by Transparency International TI | On 14 Feb 2016

Public Provision of Education and Government Spending in Pakistan

The study has been carried out to measure the incidence of government spending on education in Pakistan at the provincial (both rural and urban) level, using the primary data of the Pakistan Social St...

by Muhammad Akram | On 14 Feb 2016

Afghanistan’s Displaced People: 2014 and Beyond

Afghanistan is the largest refugee repatriation operation in the world. More than 5.7 million people have returned in the last ten years, representing nearly a quarter of the current population of 28...

by Aidan O'Leary | On 14 Feb 2016

On Measuring the Complexity of Urban Living

This paper explores the concept of city ranking as a way to measure the dynamics and complexities of urban life. These rankings have various dimensions and uses. Both the context in which these rankin...

by Lubna Hasan | On 14 Feb 2016

Trends in Inequality, Welfare, and Growth in Pakistan, 1963-64 to 2004-05

The present study investigates the trends in inequality, welfare, and growth based on per capita household income/consumption in Pakistan, both its rural and urban areas, from 1963-64 to 2004-05. It e...

by Nadia Zakir | On 14 Feb 2016

Strengthening Corporate Governance to Combat Corruption

The collapse of global financial markets in September 2008 has ignited a debate on what caused their quick undoing. As captured in the comments of the OECD Secretary-General, there is a growing sentim...

by Transparency International TI | On 13 Feb 2016

Public Health in india: Challenges Ahead

As the world’s largest democracy and the second most populous country in the world, India has experienced sea change since its independence in various facets of development. However as per public heal...

by Anuj Sabharwal | On 13 Feb 2016

The Government Budget : A Critical Appraisal with Reference to Transparency and Accountability

Budget is the major economic policy document of the government for a particular year and perhaps beyond. Therefore, it is imperative to study the processes, institutional mechanisms, and decision-maki...

by Muttukrishna Sarvananthan | On 13 Feb 2016

Norms and Values in Digital Media: Rethinking Intellectual Property in the Digital Age

In 2013, The Media, Entertainment and Information Industries community of the World Economic Forum took a deep look into intellectual property issues in the digital age. "Norms and Values in Digital M...

by World Economic Forum [WEF] | On 11 Feb 2016

Matching Skills and Labour Market Needs: Building Social Partnerships for Better Skills and Better Jobs

Skills are critical assets for individuals, businesses and societies. Matching skills and jobs has become a high-priority policy concern, as mismatches, occurring when workers have either fewer or mor...

by World Economic Forum [WEF] | On 11 Feb 2016

New Perspectives on Ethnic Segregation over Time and Space: A Domains Approach

The term segregation has a strong connotation with residential neighbourhoods, and most studies investigating ethnic segregation focus on the urban mosaic of ethnic concentrations in residential neigh...

by | On 11 Feb 2016

Protecting Shared Traditional Knowledge: Issues, Challenges and Options

Shared and widely distributed traditional knowledge, among communities and across national borders is often the norm rather than the exception. However, it remains an area for which policy and legal s...

by | On 10 Feb 2016

Multilateralism and China–UN Relations

Composed of 192 member states, the United Nations (UN) is the largest and most comprehensive international organization as well as the most important international platform for multilateral diplomacy....

by | On 09 Feb 2016

Urbanization, Inequity and Health in India: a Landscape

In India an official definition of the term urban by Census is: over 5000 population; a population density of over 400 persons per sq km; over 75% of male workforce in non-primary activities. This art...

by Organising Team (MFC) | On 09 Feb 2016

Urban Health Programme in Chhattisgarh State: Evolution, Progress and Challenges

A Baseline Study was conducted in 11 cities in early 2012 by the State Health Resource Centre. The survey focused on understanding utilization of maternal and child health services by urban slum popul...

by Priyanka Sahu | On 09 Feb 2016

The Challenges in Urban Planning to Overcome Health Inequities in India

India has 8,928 urban areas or towns as per the Census 2011, 53 are cities or metros having more than 1 million population. Till date, we had taken for granted that several health indicators were wors...

by Dhruv Mankad | On 09 Feb 2016

Notes on Rohith Vemula and the Movement After

This article offers observations to Gopal Guru’s article which highlights the endemic caste discrimination in places of higher learning in India in the wake of the Rohith Vemula suicide in Hyderabad....

by Anveshi Research Centre for Women's Studies | On 09 Feb 2016

Ensuring Identity and Entitlements of India’s Urban Poor

Can we create awareness among the urban poor and create documents for them? What are the steps to be followed for that?

by K.R. Antony | On 09 Feb 2016

Urbanization and Cardiovascular Risk: Moving Forward from Framingham

How relevant are the risk score calculators based on the Framingham study for India? There are certain limitations for the use of this model in India. The relationship of risk factors to cardiac event...

by Anand Zachariah | On 09 Feb 2016

Women and Urban Health Governance: A Study of Empowerment and Entitlement

The ‘theory and practice of change’ that the UHRC has been fortunate to learn from first hand is that organized slum women who are trained, mentored, and supported have a greater capacity to access go...

by Siddharth Agarwal | On 09 Feb 2016

Industrial Relations Today: Reining in Flexibility

The paper was presented as a keynote lecture at the 10th anniversary of the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) in April 2008. It surveys the trajectory of scholarly work on labor a...

by | On 08 Feb 2016

Flexible Markets, Stable Societies?

The dissolution of the standard employment relationship since the 1970s has been paralleled by a destabilization of family relations. The paper, which is a slightly revised version of a plenary lectur...

by | On 08 Feb 2016

Climate-related Single-use Environmental Goods

The purpose of this issue paper is to support public understanding of the possible environmental, trade and developmental implications of the WTO negotiations on Environmental Goods (EGs), in particul...

by | On 08 Feb 2016

Remittances and Expenditure Patterns of the Left Behinds in Rural China

This paper investigates how private transfers from internal migration in China affect the expenditure behaviour of families left behind in rural areas. Using data from the Rural-Urban Migration in Chi...

by Sylvie Démurger | On 07 Feb 2016

Achieving Greater Disclosure In The Oil And Gas Industry

Natural resources can bring considerable amounts of wealth to a country. But transparency must be present for these riches to benefit citizens. Strong disclosure policies on the part of companies help...

by Transparency International TI | On 07 Feb 2016

Global Corruption Barometer 2013

The Global Corruption Barometer 2013 draws on a survey of more than 114,000 respondents in 107 countries. It addresses people’s direct experiences with bribery and details their views on corruption in...

by Transparency International TI | On 06 Feb 2016

Determinants of Urban Poverty: The Case of Medium Sized City in Pakistan

Urban poverty, which is distinct from rural poverty due to demographic, economic and political aspects remain hitherto unexplored, at the city level in Pakistan. The determinants of urban poverty in S...

by Masood Sarwar Awan | On 06 Feb 2016

Foreign Aid and Growth Nexus in Pakistan: The Role of Macroeconomic Policies

Despite receiving large quantities of foreign aid, Pakistan, like many other developing countries, has remained stagnant and become more aid dependent. This grim reality has provoked a vigorous debate...

by Muhammad Javid | On 06 Feb 2016

Remittances and Poverty Linkages in Pakistan: Evidence and Some Suggestions for Further Analysis

This exercise is envisaged to provide a brief account of the research studies on inter-relationship between remittance inflows from abroad and the poverty levels obtained in the country. This is discu...

by Mohammad Irfan | On 06 Feb 2016

Urban Poverty in Nepal

This research report tracks various aspects of poverty in Nepal across geographical areas and evaluates the rise of squatter settlements. It also looks at various dimensions of poverty, resilience for...

by Shivit Bakrania | On 05 Feb 2016

Business Principles for Countering Bribery

The Business Principles for Countering Bribery provide a framework for companies to develop comprehensive anti-bribery programmes. Whilst many large companies have no-bribes policies all too few imple...

by Transparency International TI | On 05 Feb 2016

Protecting Climate Finance: An Anti-Corruption Assessment of the Adaptation Fund

Protecting Climate Finance: An Anti-Corruption Assessment of the Adaptation Fund is the first in a series of reports by Transparency International aimed at analysing the policies and practices that se...

by Transparency International TI | On 05 Feb 2016

Protecting Climate Finance: An Anti-Corruption Assessment of the Climate Investment Funds

Protecting Climate Finance: An Anti-corruption Assessment of the Climate Investment Funds is the second in a series of reports by Transparency International aimed at analysing the policies and practic...

by Transparency International TI | On 05 Feb 2016

International Trade and Access to Sustainable Energy: Issues and Lessons from Country Experiences

How can trade policy respond to the needs and concerns of more than a billion people in the developing world that lack access to energy for fulfilling their daily needs such as cooking and lighting? A...

by | On 05 Feb 2016

People and Corruption: Africa Survey 2015 – Global Corruption Barometer

For the latest African edition of the Global Corruption Barometer, we partnered with the Afrobarometer, which spoke to 43,143 respondents across 28 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa between March 2014 a...

by Transparency International | On 03 Feb 2016

Civil Society Participation, Public Accountability and The UN Convention Against Corruption: December 2015

UNCAC Article 13 explicitly recognises the role that civil society can play in tackling corruption. That said, since the establishment of the UNCAC Review Mechanism, there has been debate amongst Stat...

by Transparency International | On 03 Feb 2016

Does Inside Ownership Matters in Financial Decisions and Firm Performance: Evidence from Manufacturing Sector of Pakistan

This study provides the evidence on the effect of managerial ownership on the firm’s performance and financial policies (debt and dividend) for 140 listed manufacturing firms of Pakistan.

by Haris Arshad | On 03 Feb 2016

Food Security Post-2015: What Countries Need to Do So That Regional Collaboration Can Be Effective

Attempts to explain why ending hunger has been so hard, so here the focus is on four main themes: the complex role of markets, the importance of government policies, the historical process of structur...

by C. Peter Timmer | On 03 Feb 2016

Urbanization and Inequality in Hypertension Diagnosis and Medication in Indonesia

Urbanization has been progressing quickly in Indonesia and the consequences on health and health inequities are still not well understood. In this paper, new empirical evidence is presented on the dif...

by Matthias Helble | On 02 Feb 2016

Pushing the Debate on Public Health

In honour of Krishna Raj, the legendary editor of Economic and Political Weekly, the Anusandhan Trust established the Krishna Raj Memorial Lecture series on Health and Social Sciences. This year’s lec...

by Padma Prakash | On 02 Feb 2016

Palestinian Refugees and the Syrian Revolution

Relying on statistics collected in the field, this study examines the involvement of Palestinians in the Syrian Revolution. Politically, this issue has generated heated debates among observers due to...

by | On 01 Feb 2016

The Role of NGOs In Conflict and Peace-Building

Non-government organisations (NGOs) have become increasingly involved in the international response to armed conflict, some aiming to mitigate the effects of war and others to help end the violence. B...

by Jonathan Goodhand | On 01 Feb 2016

Understanding The Dimensions And Dynamics Of Poverty In Underserved Settlements In Colombo

Existing measures of urban poverty carried out for national level comparisons portray very low levels of poverty with an average urban household spending an equivalent to the top 20% of national expe...

by Neranjana Gunetilleke | On 01 Feb 2016

The Story of Primary Health Care : from Alma Ata to the Present Day

The idea of primary health care (PHC) emerged in the 1960s, in recognition of the shortcomings of the health systems inherited by developing countries after independence. The urban, centralised and cu...

by Institute of Development Studies IDS | On 01 Feb 2016

Strong Public-Private Sector Partnerships Can Help to Reduce Undernutrition

Global progress towards reducing undernutrition has been made through enlightened public policies, targeted development assistance, private sector actions and commitments from civil society. Yet every...

by Nicholas Alipui | On 01 Feb 2016

Gender Equity Remains a Dream

The study explores how far gender equity is promoted or inhibited in these countries which have national policies on gender equity and are committed to international policies to end discrimination aga...

by Institute of Development Studies IDS | On 01 Feb 2016

Swings and Roundabouts: A narrative on Water Policy Development in Sri Lanka

This paper deals with the ‘swings and roundabouts’ encountered in water policy development in Sri Lanka. In recent decades, policy reforms for water resource management nationally-demanded but designe...

by Rajindra Ariyabandu | On 01 Feb 2016

Multidimensional Climate Threats Require New Approaches and More Resources for Adaptation Challenge

Long-term planning and investment are essential to prevent increasing vulnerability to climate change in developing countries. Tackling only the impacts will fail: fragmented action are only partial s...

by United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs | On 31 Jan 2016

Stronger Industrial Policies Needed to Face the Climate and Development Challenges

Following a period during which policy options in many developing countries were confined to a standardized set of market friendly measures, there is growing recognition that one size does not fit all...

by United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs | On 31 Jan 2016

The Challenges of Adapting to a Warmer Planet for Urban Growth and Development

The United Nations estimates that more than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas. It is expected that the proportion of city dwellers globally will have risen to three quarters by 2050,...

by United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs | On 31 Jan 2016

An Integrated Strategy for Sustainable Cities

The multiple challenges that cities face also represent a strategic opportunity to build sustainable cities and reap the benefits of rapid urbanization. Urban development should be understood as a bal...

by United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs | On 31 Jan 2016

Policies for Industrial Learning in China and Mexico

In this paper a comparative analysis of the role of government policies in industrial learning and the development of capabilities of indigenous firms in Mexico and China in order to shed light on why...

by Kevin P. Gallagher | On 31 Jan 2016

Building Resilience for Adaptation to Climate Change in the Agriculture Sector

This report is the result of the joint workshop on Building resilience for adaptation to climate change in the agriculture sector was organized by FAO and OECD. One of the conclusions of that 2010 Wor...

by Alexandre Meybeck | On 31 Jan 2016

Founding of IWMI In Sri Lanka

The parliamentary general elections in 1977 was a watershed in the political landscape of Sri Lanka. The government that came into power mid-year sought a more liberalized and open economy, and hence...

by Nanda Abeywickrama | On 30 Jan 2016

Trade Policy and Food Security: Farm Policies of Developed Countries: What Kind of Trade Policy Framework is needed to Support Food Security Goals?

Farm Policies in developed countries have been widely blamed for creating problems for food security in developing countries. These problems have included high barriers to developing country exports,...

by | On 30 Jan 2016

Agricultural Domestic Support and Sustainable Development in China

China's fast-growing farm subsidies have generated new interest in whether these programmes can help achieve public policy goals, without distorting trade and production. This study, by NI Hongxing, f...

by | On 30 Jan 2016

Assessing Barriers to Trade in Services in India

This study analyses the linkages between India’s services trade flow and its probable barriers. The results of the analysis show that the linkages between services export and services trade barriers a...

by Prabir De | On 30 Jan 2016

Determinants of Cesarean Deliveries in Pakistan

Role of cesarean section (C Section) is acknowledged worldwide to safe maternal and neonatal life, and especially in countries like Pakistan where maternal health care is not satisfactory. But there i...

by Saman Nazir | On 30 Jan 2016

Health Issues of a Branded Community in an Urban Slum of Mumbai

The ‘De-notified Tribes’ are those communities which were notified under the several versions of the Criminal Tribes Act (CTA) enforced during colonial rule in India between 1871 to 1947. After a sev...

by Praveenkumar Katarki | On 30 Jan 2016

A Report on the Status of Pardhis in Mumbai City

Owing to a dearth of government data and research studies on the urban existence of Pardhis, one of the principal aims of this study was to render visibility to the issue.

by Paankhi Agrawal | On 30 Jan 2016

Impact of Gender Inequality on the Republic of Korea's Long Term Economic Growth: An Application of the Theoretical Model of Gender Inequality and Economic Growth

This paper presents a theoretical model that can analyze the impact of gender inequality on long-term economic growth.

by Jinyoung Kim | On 30 Jan 2016

Public Expenditure, Employment and Poverty in Bangladesh An Empirical Analysis

The present paper titled Public Expenditure, Employment and Poverty in Bangladesh An Empirical Analysis has been prepared under the CPD-UNDP collaboration programme on Pro-Poor Macroeconomic Policies...

by Centre for Policy Dialogue CPD | On 29 Jan 2016

Poverty-Environment Nexus An Investigation of Linkage and Policy Implications

The present paper titled Poverty-Environment Nexus: An Investigation of Linkage and Policy Implications has been prepared under the CPD-UNDP collaboration programme on Pro-Poor Macroeconomic Policies...

by Centre for Policy Dialogue CPD | On 29 Jan 2016

Making Regional Cooperation Work for South Asia’s Poor

South Asia has attracted global attention because it has experienced rapid GDP growth over the last two decades. What is not so well known is that South Asia is the least integrated region in the worl...

by Ejaz Ghani | On 29 Jan 2016

Industrial Policies in Lower-Middle-Income Countries

Lower-middle-income countries (LMICs) are heterogeneous countries with various economic experiences. Many underwent different types of structural transformation from agriculture to manufacturing and s...

by | On 29 Jan 2016

Subsidies and Spillovers in a Value Chain World: New Rules Required?

The use of subsidy instruments, broadly defined to include fiscal measures and investment incentives, has been a constant feature of government policy in both high-income and emerging economies. This...

by | On 29 Jan 2016

Effect of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) on Malnutrition of Infants in Rajasthan, India: A Mixed Methods Study

The paper tries to analyse the effect of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), a wage-for-employment policy of the Indian Government, on infant malnutrition and delinea...

by | On 29 Jan 2016

Climate Variability and Change in the Himalayas: Community Perceptions and Responses

Mountain communities in the developing world are often marginalised from political influence and economic opportunities and generally face high levels of poverty. The ecosystems they dwell in are amon...

by Mirjam Macchi | On 28 Jan 2016

Renewable Energy and Process and Production Methods

In the debate on climate change, methods of producing products and energy are of paramount importance. While the product or the form of energy resulting may be the same, diverging production processes...

by | On 28 Jan 2016

Vulnerability Indicators for Aid Allocation

Any donor has a model for allocating assistance to developing countries. The model is implicit, most often so for bilateral donors, or explicit, most often so for international institutions. Why this...

by Patrick Guillaumont | On 28 Jan 2016

Post-2015 International Development Agenda in the Context of Interlocking Trade and Financing in the LDCs

The adoption of the ambitious post-2015 agenda centring on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the United Nations (UN) in New York in September marks an opportune moment to suggest development...

by | On 28 Jan 2016

A Legally Binding Agreement (LBA) - Growing Need for Air Pollution Reduction and Control in South Asia

With increasing urbanization and economic growth, air pollution is becoming an urgent concern in South Asian countries. The study upon which this paper is based has been conducted at SDPI, to look int...

by Mahmood Khwaja | On 28 Jan 2016

The Parameters of a National Minimum Hourly Wage

Both academic and political debates over the minimum wage generally focus on the minimum wage rate. However, the minimum wage is a complex institution composed of a wide variety of parameters. In t...

by Vinish Kathuria | On 28 Jan 2016

Economic Growth, Labour Markets and Gender in Japan

The purpose of this paper is not to look at the Japanese growth model, which has been well researched, but to look at women’s employment in the economic development of Japan. The questions that the pa...

by Uma Rani | On 28 Jan 2016

Urban Health: Policy and Polity

This note examines selected issues in urban health from social perspective. In particular, it brings out the key challenges in targeting and planning for the urban poor; their mobilisation and partici...

by Meera Chatterjee | On 28 Jan 2016

Public Health in Urban India: Lessons from Surat

Surat-a city in the western-most Indian state of Gujarat, is an important case study, especially for those municipalities attempting reform of public health services. This note takes Surat as a case s...

by Rajib Dasgupta | On 28 Jan 2016

Strengthening Public Health in Urban India: The Role of National Urban Health Mission

This note highlights the role of population-based public health; both in preventing disease outbreaks and managing those outbreaks whenever they occur. While its importance is well recognised in devel...

by Monica Das Gupta | On 28 Jan 2016

Institutional Arrangements in Providing Urban Health Services: Current Context and Possible Way Forward

This note looks beyond the parameters of a three-tier public health care system, to the supportive institutional arrangements necessary for provision of effective and accountable services to improve h...

by Shomikho Raha | On 28 Jan 2016

McKinsey's Urban Governance and Planning - Relevance to Health

In April 2010 the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) released a report aimed at ‘awakening India’s cities, building inclusive ones and sustaining economic growth. This policy note summarises the report’s...

by Meera Chatterjee | On 28 Jan 2016

Healthcare Challenges in Urbanizing India

Rapid urbanisation in India, driven by a globalised economy and its accelerated growth, will increasingly demand attention of policy makers. The objective of this policy note is to throw light on heal...

by Rajeev Ahuja | On 28 Jan 2016

Promoting Agricultural Growth in Myanmar: A Review of Policies and an Assessment of Knowledge Gaps

This paper reviews the agricultural policy environment in Myanmar up until 2014 with an eye towards identifying policies that can help to accelerate productivity and profitability in the agricultural...

by Ulrike Nischan | On 28 Jan 2016

Competition Law/Policy and the Multilateral Trading System: A Possible Agenda for the Future

Important synergies or complementarities exist between trade liberalization initiatives and the application of measures to suppress anti-competitive practices or arrangements. In fact, both anti-compe...

by | On 27 Jan 2016

Enabling the Energy Transition and Scale-up of Clean Energy Technologies: Options for the Global Trade System

With the challenges of access to energy, energy security, and the imperative of climate change becoming more pronounced in recent years, interest in clean energy has surged. Mitigation efforts to limi...

by | On 27 Jan 2016

Triple Wins for Sustainable Development

As countries prepare for the ‘Rio+20’ United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, UNDP is pleased to share this report. It sets out national examples of progress toward sustainable developme...

by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) | On 27 Jan 2016

Consolidated Replies on State of the Sector Report 2012 for Microfinance

This document incorporates outputs of two discussions conducted on State of the Sector Report 2012. The summaries of the two discussions on SOS 2012 also find place in the State of the Sector Report...

by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) | On 27 Jan 2016

Financial Inclusion and Livelihood Promotion of Rickshaw Pullers in India

The research study highlights the financial inclusion needs of cycle rickshaw pullers in India. These include access to service sectors; improvement of asset base; employment of their women; increase...

by | On 27 Jan 2016

Multinationals and Foreign Investment Policies in a Digital World

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the future of the multinational enterprise (MNE) and implications for the international investment regime. The paper begins by summarising current thinking on m...

by | On 27 Jan 2016

Health of Internal Labor Migrants In India: Some Reflections on the Current Situation and Way Forward

Social and development policies have not been successful so far in mainstreaming health issues of internal labour migrants in India. This opinion paper reflects on the current situation of migrants an...

by | On 27 Jan 2016

China’s Engagement in International Development Cooperation: The State of the Debate

This research aims to investigate the recent evolution of China’s discourse on development and aid. More precisely, how do China’s policymakers and influential scholars understand and debate China’s r...

by | On 26 Jan 2016

When the Hen Crows: Obstacles that Prevent Indigenous Women from Influencing Health-care Policies – A Case Study of Shillong, Meghalaya, India

Meghalaya is a landlocked and largely agrarian state in northeast India with an approximate population of three million. Various government surveys report that roughly half the state lives below the p...

by | On 26 Jan 2016

The Future of Knowledge Sharing in a Digital Age: Exploring Impacts and Policy Implications for Development

We live in a Digital Age that gives us instant access to information at greater and greater volumes. The rapid growth of digital content and tools is already changing how we create, consume and distri...

by John Brownlee | On 26 Jan 2016

A Common Sense Approach to the Right to Food

Despite the growing activism and debate around the right to food in the past decade, there has been little exploration of what the right means in everyday life and in the routine encounters between st...

by | On 26 Jan 2016

Nutritional Deprivation Among Indian Pre-school Children: Does Rural-Urban Disparity Matter?

This paper focuses on a particular aspect of such rural-urban difference, namely nutritional status of children. Over the years it is found that under nutrition among children in India; have declining...

by Rudra Narayan Mishra | On 26 Jan 2016

International Success Stories in Reducing Undernutrition: Strategic Choices, Policy Actions and Lessons

Thailand, Brazil and Vietnam are examples of developing countries that have successfully reduced undernutrition. While each country used its own set of policies, strategies and approaches to address u...

by Sheila Vir | On 26 Jan 2016

Pro-Nutrition Agriculture in India: Entry Points and Policy Options

India should comprehensively address its challenge of undernutrition. This includes, pursuing agricultural policies to strengthen agriculture-nutrition linkages. This note suggests that agricultural p...

by S. Mahendra Dev | On 26 Jan 2016

Overcoming the Challenges of Urban Food and Nutrition Security

Despite the high contribution of urban areas to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), urban poverty and nutrition security in India remains a challenge. Poor infrastructure, high unemployment, poor state...

by M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation | On 26 Jan 2016

Agency and Access under Decentralized Governance: Water Supply and Sanitation in Kolkata City

Ensuring sustainable access to basic services in urban India has continued to remain a major challenge for civic bodies. A fast growing urban population has exerted great pressure on the provisioning...

by Keshab Das | On 26 Jan 2016

Changing Livelihoods in Delhi’s Periphery, circa 1930–2012

The understanding of livelihoods in an economy dominated by informality can benefit considerably from correlations between macro data on employment and detailed studies of ‘work’ and ‘non work’ in sel...

by Devesh Vijay | On 24 Jan 2016

Inflation Accounting Across Income Groups: Does Inflation Hurt the Poor More in Bangladesh?

This note provides estimates of the contribution of food prices to inflation in Bangladesh. The results suggest that the current inflation takes a bigger toll on the poor because they spend more of th...

by M. Golam Mortaza | On 23 Jan 2016

Rethinking Social Protection Using a Gender Lens

This synthesis paper presents the findings from a multi-country research project which assesses the extent to which gender has been incorporated into the design and implementation of a wide range of s...

by Rebecca Holmes | On 23 Jan 2016

Framework for the  Proposed Comprehensive Trade Policy for Bangladesh

A number of studies have indicated that trade liberalisation did not have any significant impact on poverty reduction although the impact on employment generation had been positive (e.g. Raihan 2007)....

by Mehruna Chowdhury | On 23 Jan 2016

Social Cost-Benefit Analysis of Delhi Metro

The growing demand for public transport in mega cities has serious effects on urban ecosystems, especially due to the increased atmospheric pollution and changes in land use patterns. An ecologically...

by Rashmi Singh | On 23 Jan 2016

Trend and Characteristics of Recent Inflation in Bangladesh

In the backdrop of recent global developments, this note examines some of the characteristics of inflation in Bangladesh including the contribution of major commodity groups to overall inflation in ru...

by Bangladesh Bank | On 23 Jan 2016

East Asia in 2015

The future political landscape of Asia-Pacific would largely be decided, arguably, by happenings in the East Asian region. It is so because in East Asia, the interests of three important players of wo...

by Sandip Kumar Mishra | On 23 Jan 2016

India’s Right to Food Act: A Novel Approach to Food Security

The India Health Report: Nutrition 2015 surveys the trends in maternal and child undernutrition in India. It looks at trends and disparities in these outcomes across geographical regions, socio-econom...

by | On 22 Jan 2016

Urban Climate Change Resilience Policy Brief

India is witnessing rapid growth in the urban centers. Urbanization trend is expected to accelerate in coming decades as well. It is projected that the number of cities with a population of more than...

by Urban Climate Change Resilience UCCR | On 21 Jan 2016

Access, Equity and Inclusion : Ethical Norms and S&T Policy Outcomes

In our research on science policy and inclusion and ethics in S&T policy we identified that in the Indian context Access, Equity and Inclusion (AEI) can be the norms to assess the policy outcomes and...

by Krishna Ravi Srinivas | On 21 Jan 2016

Climate Change and Cities

This paper is a study of climate change discourse in urban India. It suggests that the policies being articulated to deal with climate issues are premised on incremental changes rather than radical re...

by Abhiroop Mukhopadhyay | On 21 Jan 2016

An Assessment of India's Innovation Policies

This paper presents a detailed overview of the innovation policy framework in India in order to assess its role in innovations and enterprise development in the Indian industry. This paper notes that...

by Biswajit Dhar | On 21 Jan 2016

Debates on Food Technologies in India: R&D Priorities, Production Trends and Growing Expectations

This discussion paper examines the use of three different technological options in the Indian agriculture. It shows that support to organic farming is increasing but at this stage innovation related i...

by Sachin Chaturvedi | On 21 Jan 2016

Demographics and Climate Change: Future Trends And their Policy Implications for Migration

This working paper seeks to explore the potential impact of future demographic and climate change on migration patterns in developing countries, in order to identify policy implications for internatio...

by | On 20 Jan 2016

World Fertility Report 2009

This report, published by the Population Division, is the third in the series of the analysis of reproductive behaviour worldwide. It discusses levels and trends of fertility, the timing of childbeari...

by UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs UNDESA | On 20 Jan 2016

Climate Change and Food Systems: Global Assessments and Implications for Food Security and Trade

This book collects the findings of a group of scientists and economists who have taken stock of climate change impacts on food and agriculture at global and regional levels over the past two decades....

by Food and Agricultural Organization [FAO] | On 20 Jan 2016

Zinc Status in South Asian Populations—An Update

This article attempts to highlight the prevalence of zinc deficiency and its health and economic consequences in South Asian developing countries and to shed light on possible approaches to combating...

by S Akhtar | On 20 Jan 2016

Urbanization, gender and urban poverty: Paid work and unpaid carework in the city

This collaborative working paper, and the shorter technical briefing note derived from it, discuss hidden dimensions of urban poverty, and the different ways in which they impact men and women. This g...

by | On 19 Jan 2016

Twelfth Plan Working Group on Disadvantaged Farmers, Including Women

This working group on Disadvantaged Farmers, including women is one of the key working groups for defining agricultural policy in the Twelfth Five Year Plan. Eighty-three percent of India’s farmers cu...

by Bina Agarwal | On 19 Jan 2016

Virtue and Vulnerability: Discourses on Women, Gender and Climate Change

In the limited literature on gender and climate change, two themes predominate – women as vulnerable or virtuous in relation to the environment. Two viewpoints become obvious: women in the South will...

by Seema Arora-Jonsson | On 19 Jan 2016

The Current Global Economic Crisis and Migration: Policies and Practice in Origin and Destination

Migration flows exhibit both long-term shifts and short-term fluctuations in terms of volume and pattern. The root causes of these shifts and fluctuations can most generally be linked to the term ‘dev...

by Ronald Skeldon | On 19 Jan 2016

Human Trafficking in Southeast Asia: Results from a Pilot Project in Vietnam

Human trafficking is one of the most widely spread and fastest growing crimes in the world. However, despite the scope of the problem, the important human rights issues at stake and the professed inte...

by Ngan Dinh | On 19 Jan 2016

Health Service Inequities as Challenge to Health Security

The paper provides an overview of the inequities in health outcomes and their variation across regional, social, and economic groups. It seeks to explain these variations by focusing on health service...

by | On 18 Jan 2016

Housing Policies in China: Issues and Options

This article consists in three parts. The first part deals with theory. We evaluate the pros and cons of government involvement in urban housing and of renting versus ownership. In the second part, we...

by Yves Zenou | On 14 Jan 2016

Globalization, Brain Drain and Development

This paper reviews four decades of economics research on the brain drain, with a focus on recent contributions and on development issues. We first assess the magnitude, intensity and determinants of t...

by Frédéric Docquier | On 14 Jan 2016

Job Search Processes for Tribal People from Jharkhand and West Bengal

Millions of job seekers in South Asia, including many tribals, are forced by lack of local employment opportunities to migrate towards urban areas. This fieldwork-based study aims to understand specif...

by Rajib Dhar | On 13 Jan 2016

Women Migrants and their Mental Health: A Study of Working Women Hostellers in Mumbai

Mental health is an important component of the total positive health and is interwoven closelywith the physical and physiological dynamics of the human body. Migrant population, being a non-native pop...

by Reshmi R S | On 13 Jan 2016

The Deprived, Discriminated & Damned Girl Child: Story of Declining Child Sex Ratios in India

This article traces the different elements that explain and help understand the phenomena of declining child sex ratios in India along with the debates on the subject, with specific focus on urban loc...

by Preet Rustagi | On 13 Jan 2016

Social Policy in Development: Coherence and Cooperation in the Real World

Research and practice related to social policy and poverty alleviation have left a legacy of a very broad agenda of “things that need to be done”, along with important unanswered questions about how t...

by | On 13 Jan 2016

The Effect of Childhood Migration on Human Capital Accumulation: Evidence from Rural-Urban Migrants in Indonesia

Developing countries are experiencing unprecedented levels of urbanization. Although most of these movements are motivated by economic reasons, they could affect the human capital accumulation of the...

by | On 11 Jan 2016

The Perils of Counting Caste

While the unpublished findings of the ‘Caste Census’ in India might not receive serious attention if ever made public, some of the socio-economic data, made available by the same Census, can set the m...

by Ronojoy Sen | On 10 Jan 2016

The Judicial Appointments Debate in India: The Need for Integrity and Transparency

The latest ruling by the Supreme Court of India against the government’s project of the National Judicial Appointments Commission has further stirred a public discourse on the best means to have the b...

by Vinod Rai | On 09 Jan 2016

Urgency of Understanding Sanitation Drivers in ‘Smaller Cities’ in India: National and International Relevance

The paper emphasises the fact that the fastest growth in India’s urban population is occurring in its smaller cities and towns. They have glaringly inadequate sewerage and public sanitation infrastruc...

by Shubhagato Dasgupta | On 09 Jan 2016

India’s Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme

In this paper, we evaluate India’s flagship rural employment guarantee programme, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), by answering questions such as whether the MG...

by | On 09 Jan 2016

Geographic Analysis of Livelihood Strategy in Jagritinagar Squatter Settlement, Kathmandu

The general objective of this study is to analyse the urban poverty issue from the livelihood and vulnerability perspective in Jagritinagar squatter settlement of Kathmandu Metropolitan City. The spec...

by Rajip Adhikari | On 08 Jan 2016

Development Trajectories, Emission Profile, and Policy Actions:Singapore

Singapore is the most industrialized and urbanized country in Southeast Asia and is totally dependent on oil and natural gas imports to satisfy its energy needs. Its national energy policy framework s...

by Tilak Doshi | On 07 Jan 2016

Special Study on Sustainable Fisheries Management and International Trade in the Southeast Asia and Pacific Region

This paper analyzes the current status of fisheries and aquaculture in Southeast Asia and international trade. Analysis concludes that a policy of sustainable management for both capture fisheries and...

by Masayuki Komatsu | On 07 Jan 2016

Internal and International Migration in South East Asia

This chapter examines the key developments and challenges of internal (domestic) and external (international) migration in Southeast Asia by looking at their main features and key drivers. Internal mi...

by | On 07 Jan 2016

Globalization, Infrastructure, and Inclusive Growth

This paper covers threes issues: first, defining and measuring inclusive growth; second, the relationship between international trade and inequality; and third, the links between infrastructure and in...

by Juzhong Zhuang | On 07 Jan 2016

Better Hospitals, Better Health Systems: The Urgency of a Hospital Agenda

This paper outlines the nature of the issues surrounding hospitals in emerging markets and makes the case for early action to bridge the abyss of neglected hospital investments and the path needed to...

by | On 06 Jan 2016

Urbanization as “Development” Versus Constitutional Safeguards for the Tribal People

Following are excerpts from Report of a PUCL Fact Finding Team into unrest and repression in the Sundergarh scheduled district of Odisha.

by People's Union of Civil Liberties PUCL | On 06 Jan 2016

Rights Based Climate Litigation In The Indian Courts: Potential, Prospects & Potential Problems

Climate litigation is in its infancy in India. Climate-related claims have yet to be litigated in the courts. There are a few cases in which climate change has been referred to but only in passing. Th...

by Lavanya Rajamani | On 05 Jan 2016

Unacknowledged Urbanisation: The New Census Towns of India

The unexpected increase in the number of census towns (CTs) in the last census has thrust them into the spotlight. Using a hitherto unexploited dataset, it is found that many of the new CTs satisfied...

by Kanhu Pradhan | On 05 Jan 2016

Estimates of Urban Infrastructure Financing Requirements in India 2006-2031

The paper describes the estimation exercise, i.e. the Urban Infrastructure Per Capita Investment Cost estimation and projection of urban finance requirements for the period 2006-2031 referred to as th...

by Shubhagato Dasgupta | On 05 Jan 2016

Special Economic Zones: Promise, Performance and Pending Issues

This set of four CPR Occasional Papers addresses different facets of what continues to be a contentious subject. The first paper, by S N Menon and SoumyaKantiMitra, provides an overview of the rationa...

by Centre Research | On 05 Jan 2016

Habitat III Issue Papers : 22 – Informal Settlements

Although some governments acknowledge the existence of slums and informal settlements, many do not. This lack of recognition and subsequent response directly undermines city-wide sustainable developme...

by | On 05 Jan 2016

Land Laws, Administration and Forced Displacement in Andhra Pradesh, India

The present study was taken up in this context with the objective of examining the land laws and administration in AP and see how the existing laws are implemented, forced acquisition of lands is ta...

by Ramachandraiah C | On 05 Jan 2016

Labour Migration for Employment: A Status Report for Nepal

This report reflects efforts to capture the trends in labour migration from Nepal, identify the structural gaps and suggests ways to move forward for the Government and stakeholders. Although various...

by The Asia Foundation | On 02 Jan 2016

Summary of Indonesia's Poverty Analysis

Economic growth averaging 5.8% since 2010 has helped to lift 3.3 million Indonesians out of poverty. Yet 28 million were still living below the government’s poverty line in March 2014. Indonesia’s nat...

by Priasto Aji Aji | On 01 Jan 2016

Local Funds and Political Competition: Evidence from the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in India

This paper examines how local politics affects public fund allocations. It uses the context of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in India which was introduced by the Indian National Congr...

by Abhiroop Mukhopadhyay | On 01 Jan 2016

Urban Systems and Urban Development in the People’s Republic of China

This paper examines the trends in urbanization in the People’s Republic of China. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is experiencing a trend toward population concentration in its large coastal c...

by Zhao Chen | On 01 Jan 2016

Urban Systems and Urban Development in the People’s Republic of China

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is experiencing a trend toward population concentration in its large coastal cities. However, at the same time, there is also a distortion of city size toward smal...

by Zhao Chen | On 29 Dec 2015

Do Labour Market Institutions Matter in Transition Economies? An Analysis of Labour Market Flexibility in the Late Nineties

The objectives of this paper are to develop initiatives on how to measure the flexibility of the labour markets of transition countries and shed some light on the ongoing debate on the role of labour...

by | On 29 Dec 2015

Can Selective Immigration Policies Reduce Migrants' Quality?

Destination countries can adopt selective immigration policies to improve migrants' quality. Screening potential migrants on the basis of observable characteristics also influences their self-selectio...

by Simone Bertoli | On 29 Dec 2015

Labour Standards and Development Finance Institutions: A Review of Current Policies and Activities

Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) have the purpose of providing financial resources to economic actors in regions and sectors where access to capital is limited. Rather than competing with priva...

by | On 29 Dec 2015

Strengthening Municipal Governance through Performance-based Budget Allocation in Bangladesh

In Bangladesh, pourashavas are an alternative destination to large cities. With the influx of urban residents within the next decades, governments and development partners must lead pourashavas toward...

by Norio Saito | On 29 Dec 2015

Can Social Security Boost Domestic Consumption in the People’s Republic of China?

This paper reviews the development of the social security system and trends in the urban labor market in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Despite its remarkable economic achievement, the PRC face...

by Wang Dewen | On 29 Dec 2015

Public and Private Control and Contestation of Public Space amid Violent Conflict in Karachi

Few cities in South Asia have been affected by violence more than Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city and economic centre. This working paper examines the impacts of the city’s declining security situati...

by Noman Ahmed | On 29 Dec 2015

UNDP and Climate Change

Released on the eve of the Paris climate change conference (COP21), this report – a mix of infographics and country case examples – outlines UNDP’s decades-long support to partner countries to tackle...

by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) | On 29 Dec 2015

Economic Crises and Women’s Work: Exploring Progressive Strategies in a Rapidly Changing Global Environment

This paper examines issues of women’s employment and decent work in the context of the on-going global financial and economic crisis. Recognizing that financial and economic crises affect men and wome...

by UN Women | On 28 Dec 2015

Housing Policies for Asia: A Theoretical Analysis by Use of a Demand and Supply Model

The main objective of this paper is to give an overview of the most commonly used housing policies and to illustrate their economic impact. To facilitate the analysis, we first introduce a simple two-...

by Naoyuki Yoshino | On 24 Dec 2015

Understanding Developing Country Resistance to the Doha Round

The Doha Round negotiations at the World Trade Organization have come to a halt. The vast majority of analyses of the (at least temporary) demise of the Doha Round have focused on the lack of the Unit...

by Timothy Sturgeon | On 23 Dec 2015

Urban Development in India in the 21st Century: Policies for Accelerating Urban Growth

This paper traces urban development in India in the 20th century. It studies urbanisation projections made by different scholars in the past, and speculates on a set of economic policy choice reasons...

by Shubhagato Dasgupta | On 21 Dec 2015

The Smart City Obsession: A Critique

Pune does not need a skewed smart city plan. The government needs to come up with a comprehensive white paper on the city's problems, and an integrated plan to tackle these problems, keeping the inte...

by Neeraj Jain | On 21 Dec 2015

Adaptation Activities In India

Highlights lessons learned from implementing development schemes and policies, which have incorporated adaptation due to the increasing incidence of extreme weather events.

by | On 21 Dec 2015

The High and Low Politics of Trade

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is in trouble. Its negotiating mechanism has mostly seized up, as reflected in the failure to conclude the long-running Doha Round. No obvious solution to this conun...

by | On 21 Dec 2015

Missed Opportunities in Global Health: Identifying New Strategies to Improve Mental Health in LMICs

Countries like South Africa and India are putting new mental health policies in place. There is now a clear agenda of “what to deliver” to make this deplorable reality better, and indeed a nascent adv...

by Victoria Menil | On 19 Dec 2015

Parental Education and Infant Mortality in India: Understanding the Regional Differences

This study examines the effect of parental education in the regional variation of infant mortality in India. The results are very robust to different potential confounding factors including socio-econ...

by Pradeep Choudhury | On 18 Dec 2015

World Population Prospects: The 2015 Revision

Understanding the demographic changes that are likely to unfold over the coming years, as well as the challenges and opportunities that they present for achieving sustainable development, is important...

by UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs UNDESA | On 17 Dec 2015

Urbanisation, rural–urban migration and urban poverty

Rural-urban migration continues to attract much interest, but also growing concern. Migrants are often blamed for increasing urban poverty, but not all migrants are poor. In many cities, however, migr...

by David Satterthwaite | On 17 Dec 2015

Nepal: A Failing State or a State in Transition?

The modest intention of this paper is to question the above assertion that Nepal is a failing state. To this end, it shall firstly outline the broad definition of failing states. Secondly, it will off...

by Oliver Housden | On 17 Dec 2015

Contemporary Naxal Movement in India: New Trends, State Responses and Recommendations

This paper makes an attempt to map the Maoist conflict in its present state of affairs and while describing its present manifestations, the past links have always been revisited. The paper also attemp...

by | On 17 Dec 2015

Children of Migrants: The Impact of Parental Migration on Their Children's Education and Health Outcomes

This paper examines how parental migration affects children’s health and education outcomes. Using the Rural-Urban Migration Survey in China data we are able to measure the share of children’s lifetim...

by Xin Meng | On 17 Dec 2015

Connecting the Disconnected: Improving Education and Employment Outcomes Among Disadvantaged Youth

In this paper we will briefly review recent trends in employment outcomes for disadvantaged youth, focusing specifically on those who have become "disconnected" from school and the labor market, and w...

by Peter Edelman | On 17 Dec 2015

Tax Revenue Mobilistation In Developing Countries: Issues and Challenges

In recent years, domestic revenue mobilisation in developing countries gained increasing prominence in the policy debate. Several factors explain this, including the potential benefits of taxation for...

by Mick Moore | On 16 Dec 2015

MQSUN Determinants of Child Undernutrition in Bangladesh Literature Review

The DFID Programme to Accelerate Improved Nutrition for the Extreme Poor in Bangladesh aims to improve nutrition outcomes for children, mothers and adolescent girls by integrating the delivery of a nu...

by Ahmed F. | On 16 Dec 2015

Merchants of Labor: Agents of the Evolving Migration Infrastructure

The special focus of this paper are the merchants of labour, the public and private agents who move workers over borders. The ILO Convention 97 (1949) recommended that migrants move over borders with...

by Philip Martin | On 15 Dec 2015

The Exposure, Vulnerability, and Ability to Respond of Poor Households to Recurrent Floods in Mumbai

This paper examines poor households in the city of Mumbai and their exposure, vulnerability, and ability to respond to recurrent floods. The paper discusses policy implications for future adaptive cap...

by | On 14 Dec 2015

National Strategy Day on India: Delivering Growth in the New Context

The World Economic Forum along with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) convened the National Strategy Day on India on 3rd and 4th of November to provide a platform to boost economic growth and...

by | On 09 Dec 2015

Impact of Labour Migration to the Construction Sector on Poverty: Evidence from India

Seasonal and circular migration is an important livelihood strategy for workers in developing countries and the construction industry is one of the largest recipients of such labour. The impact of lab...

by RPC Migrating out of Poverty | On 08 Dec 2015

Sustainable Urbanization in Asia

Rapid urbanization together with climate change is emerging as the most challenging issue of the twenty-first century. As the region with the highest percentage increase in urban population over the l...

by UN-HABITAT UNHABITAT | On 07 Dec 2015

Book Review:Development Urbanism, International Expertise, and Solutions to the Crises of India’s Urban Transition

Review of India: The Urban Transition - A Case Study of Development by Henrik Valeur, Copenhagen: Arkitektur B, 2014. Illus- trations, graphs. 344 pp. $44.50 (paper), ISBN 978-87-92700-09-4.

by Preeti Chopra | On 06 Dec 2015

The Future of Forests: Emissions from Tropical Deforestation With and Without a Carbon Price, 2016-2050

The future of tropical deforestation is projected from 2016-2050 with and without carbon pricing policies, based on 18 million observations of historical forest loss spanning 101 tropical countries.

by Jonah Busch | On 04 Dec 2015

Book Review: India: The Urban Transition - A Case Study of Development

Review of India: The Urban Transition - A Case Study of Development. Copenhagen Arkitektur B, 2014. Illustrations, graphs. 344 pp. $44.50 (paper), ISBN 978-87-92700-09-4.

by | On 03 Dec 2015

A Behaviour-based Approach to the Estimation of Poverty in India

Almost a sixth of the world’s population and a large fraction of its poorest people live in India. Until recently, national poverty estimates were widely criticized because they relied on aggregate pr...

by | On 02 Dec 2015

One-Child Policy, Marriage Distortion, and Welfare Loss

Using plausibly exogenous variations in the ethnicity-specific assigned birth quotas and different fertility penalties across Chinese provinces over time, the paper provide new evidence for the transf...

by | On 01 Dec 2015

Requiring Indian Utilities to Report: Harnessing Disclosure Legislation to Improve Water and Sanitation Services

The paper argues for a regular public reporting of key performance indicators by the WatSan utilities in India. It elaborates on how the policy behind these reforms could be operationalized.

by Premila Nazareth Satyanand | On 18 Nov 2015

India Approaches Replacement Fertility

This Population Bulletin updates a previous Bulletin from 2006, India's Population Reality: Reconciling Change and Tradition. India's population (currently at 1.3 billion) will exceed China's before 2...

by O.P. Sharma | On 18 Nov 2015

Fiscal Seigniorage “Laffer-curve effect” on Central Bank Autonomy in India

It is often emphasised that seigniorage financing of public sector deficits is technically a “free lunch” if the economy has not attained the full employment levels. However, conservative macroecono...

by Lekha S. Chakraborty | On 16 Nov 2015

Eradicating Extreme Poverty in Bangladesh: National Strategies and Activities

Although Bangladesh has achieved fairly steady economic growth, as of 2011, almost half of its population still lived in extreme poverty. As a result, the Government of Bangladesh and its development...

by Nayma Qayum | On 09 Nov 2015

The Sector Reforms Process in Rural Drinking Water and Sanitation: A Review of the Role of WASMO in Gujarat

This paper provides an assessment of the interventions in reforming the drinking water and sanitation sector in Gujarat as through the Water and Sanitation Management Organisation (WASMO) from a sup...

by Keshab Das | On 06 Nov 2015

Upgrading a Piped Water Supply from Intermittent to Continuous Delivery and Association with Waterborne Illness: A Matched Cohort Study in Urban India

Intermittent delivery of piped water can lead to waterborne illness through contamination in the pipelines or during household storage, use of unsafe water sources during intermittencies, and limite...

by Ayse Ercumen | On 05 Nov 2015

Trends and Patterns in Consumption Expenditure: A Review of Class and Rural-Urban Disparities

This paper primarily aims to capture the changing patterns of consumption expenditure of three broad classes, namely, the ‘upper’ ‘middle’ and ‘bottom’ classes in the rural and urban India. In contras...

by | On 05 Nov 2015

Gender and Land Tenure Security: Challenges and Barriers to Women’s Entitlement to Land in India

Given the importance of securing women’s rights to land as India grows and develops and recognizing the dearth of available data to guide the design of gender-sensitive interventions, this study provi...

by | On 04 Nov 2015

Performance of Targeted Public Distribution System in Kerala

Targeted Public Distribution System was introduced in the country following the failure of the Universal PDS to serve below the poverty line and poorest of the poor households.It is being implemente...

by T Jayan | On 04 Nov 2015

Top Ten Urban Innovations

Humanity faces the mammoth task of adding over 2 billion people to the urban population before 2050. This is the equivalent of creating a city the size of London or San Francisco every month for the n...

by | On 03 Nov 2015

Skyrocketing Prices of Pulses and the Agrarian Crisis: Impact of Neo-liberal Policies

This interview with Vijoo Krishnan, Joint Secretary All India Kisan Sabha, on the agrarian crises leading to farmer suicides and rising prices of food grains traces backs the agrarian crises to the ne...

by Vijoo Krishnan | On 02 Nov 2015

Costs of Providing Sustainable Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Services in Rural and Peri-Urban India

Water, sanitation and hygiene services are central to addressing poverty, livelihoods and health. They are also critical in addressing the needs of poor communities and in achieving the Millennium Dev...

by M.V. Ramachandrudu | On 29 Oct 2015

State Food Provisioning as Social Protection: Debating India’s National Food Security Law

This report provides an overview on the main issues debated during the development and passage of the India’s National Food Security Act (2013), which legally binds national and state governments to e...

by Harsh Mander | On 20 Oct 2015

An Exploratory Analysis of Deprivation and Ill-Health led Poverty in Urban India: A Case Study of Delhi

This paper examines the multi-dimensional nature of urban poverty with special emphasis on ill-health led deprivation. As a driver of poverty, ill-health reduces the income earning potential and incre...

by Samik Chowdhury | On 20 Oct 2015

Child Labours in India

Even after a hundred years of child labour legislation and fifty years of independence, child labour is a common occurrence in India. Today, their numbers exceed those of any other country. The urgent...

by | On 19 Oct 2015

India’s Food Grain Policies and the Public Distribution System: The Case of Rice. Who Wins, Who Loses, and by How Much?

Indian governments follow highly interventionist policies on food grains, especially rice and wheat. These policies include import and export controls which insulate the domestic market from world mar...

by Garry Pursell | On 14 Oct 2015

Cultural Impact of Television on Urban Youth - An Empirical Study

Intentionally or unintentionally the globalised television has brought about significant changes in people’s attitude, lifestyle, behaviour, etc, the various elements of culture. Thus globalised TV ha...

by Dr. B K Ravi | On 14 Oct 2015

Inequality: Trends, Harms and New Agendas

The paper focuses on within-country inequalities. It discusses in particular how the consequences of inequality are shaped by specific mechanisms that operate at the national, community and individual...

by | On 13 Oct 2015

Policies for a Better-Fed World

A wide range of interventions, from subsidized grains all the way to conditions on nutrition in conditional cash transfers, have either been tried or put in place in different countries in order to fi...

by Abhijit Banerjee | On 12 Oct 2015

Urban Poverty in Asia

This paper on Urban Poverty in Asia looks at the different dimensions of poverty in Asia, both income and nonincome, its two main regions, including a brief account of who and what class of people are...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 09 Oct 2015

Soil Health: Issues and Concerns - A Review

This paper brings out the importance of soil fertility management (SFM) with respect to agricultural production and livelihood contribution to the rural people. It looks into the farmers' own knowledg...

by B. Suresh Reddy | On 08 Oct 2015

Strategies for Tobacco Control in India: A Systematic Review

Tobacco control needs in India are large and complex. Evaluation of outcomes to date has been limited. The aim of this paper is to review the extent of tobacco control measures, and the outcomes of as...

by | On 30 Sep 2015

Rural Poverty Reduction Strategy for South Asia

Roughly 40 percent of the world’s poor live in South Asia, where poverty is basically a rural problem. Therefore, a significant gain in rural poverty reduction in this sub-region will be crucial to re...

by | On 30 Sep 2015

Maternal Mortality in India: A Review of Trends and Patterns

This paper discusses the trends and patterns in reduction in maternal mortality in India, and focuses on highlighting inter- and intra-state disparities. We find that the trends in the maternal mortal...

by William Joe | On 29 Sep 2015

Safe Cities and Gender Budgeting

Women in the communities make efforts to seek allocation under appropriate budget heads to identify streams of revenue, available revenue and the required expenditure. Town planners, policy makers and...

by Vibhuti Patel | On 28 Sep 2015

Poverty and Social Protection in Urban India

This paper, highlights the need for provisioning adequate social protection coverage to the vulnerable sections of population in urban India, assesses the role of the TPDS in reaching out to the depri...

by R. Radhakrishna | On 28 Sep 2015

Leveraging Urbanization in South Asia

Urbanization provides South Asian countries with the potential to transform their economies to join the ranks of richer nations in both prosperity and livability, but a new World Bank report finds the...

by World Bank | On 25 Sep 2015

Housing Finance Mechanisms in India

India is home to over 1.1 billion people. With about one in every sixth person in the world living in India, housing perforce assumes significant importance. Successive Indian governments have regarde...

by UN-HABITAT | On 25 Sep 2015

Planning and Design for Sustainable Urban Mobility: Global Report on Human Settlements 2013

Planning and Design for Sustainable Urban Mobility argues that the development of sustainable urban transport systems requires a conceptual leap. The purpose 'transportation' and 'mobility' is to gain...

by UN-HABITAT | On 25 Sep 2015

Working towards Sustainable Development: Opportunities for decent work and social inclusion in a green economy

A green economy is necessary if sustainable development is to be realized. However, as this report emphasizes, a green economy can also, if accompanied by the right policy mix, create more and better...

by | On 25 Sep 2015

The Challenge of Slums - Global Report on Human Settlements 2003

The Challenge of Slums presents the first global assessment of slums, emphasizing their problems and prospects. It presents estimates of the numbers of urban slum dwellers and examines the factors tha...

by United Nations Human Settlements Programme UN-Habitat | On 23 Sep 2015

India’s Worlds of Waste

The sheer magnitude of the social, political and technological challenges in implementing India’s new national priority of waste management, set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has attracted global a...

by | On 23 Sep 2015

The Evolution and Impact of Literacy Campaigns and Programmes 2000–2014

This paper was originally commissioned by the Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report as background information to assist in drafting the 2015 report. This report aims to provide an additiona...

by Ulrike Hanemann | On 22 Sep 2015

Urban informal settlers displaced by disasters: challenges to housing responses

The growing frequency of urban disasters and the lessons learned from mega-events such as the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti have spurred the development of human rights gu...

by Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre | On 22 Sep 2015

Designing and Evaluating Social Safety Nets: Theory, Evidence, and Policy Conclusions

This paper reviews the literature on the performance of commonly found social safety net programs in developing countries. The evidence suggests that universal food subsidies have very limited potenti...

by | On 18 Sep 2015

Unemployment in an Era of Jobless Growth

This paper focuses on the nature and characteristics of unemployment using the five-yearly surveys of the NSSO. The dominant narrative in the literature has been that the rate of unemployment, whichev...

by | On 18 Sep 2015

The Global Innovation Index 2015: Effective Innovation Policies for Development

The Global Innovation Index (GII) aims to capture the multi-dimensional facets of innovation and provide the tools that can assist in tailoring policies to promote long-term output growth, improved pr...

by | On 18 Sep 2015

Economic Growth and Employment Linkages: The Indian Experience

Conventional growth models incorporate capital but not labour as the determining variable. An alternative way to look at growth is to treat it a function of growth of employment and productivity: grow...

by | On 18 Sep 2015

Social Protection, Growth and Employment: Evidence from India, Kenya, Malawi, Mexico and Tajikistan

The paper addresses the issue of growth and development by looking at evidence from six country case studies to assess how to enhance the employment impact of social protection programmes by improving...

by United Nations Development Programme UNDP | On 16 Sep 2015

Addressing the Employment Challenge: India's MGNREGA

This paper examines, in particular, the effects of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) programme on employment, wages and incomes of the rural poor. It also considers its effect on...

by | On 14 Sep 2015

Women's Participation in the History of Ideas and Reconstruction of Knowledge

"The problems of knowledge are central to feminist theorizing which has sought to destabilize androcentric, mainstream thinking in the humanities and in the social and natural sciences". The feminist...

by | On 14 Sep 2015

Addressing Gender Concerns in India’s Urban Renewal Mission

The paper seeks to mainstream a gender perspective in the Jawaharlal National Rural Urban Renewal Mission through a set of guidelines for integrating gender issues in the urban renewal and reform agen...

by | On 11 Sep 2015

The Dismal State of the Social Sciences in Pakistan

The report measures the development of social sciences against several criteria, some of which are listed here: the number of Pakistani social scientists who have made internationally recognised contr...

by S. Akbar Zaidi | On 11 Sep 2015

Report of Working Group on Nutrition for the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17)

This report details the vision for 12th Five Year Plan on Nutrition which is to move towards Nutrition Security- especially the more vulnerable infants and young children, adolescent, girls and women,...

by Planning Commission | On 10 Sep 2015

The Inclusive Growth and Development Report 2015

The World Economic Forum releases the first edition of "The Inclusive Growth and Development Report" in the WEF forum in Dalian. Around the world, no bigger policy challenge preoccupies political lea...

by | On 10 Sep 2015

Sanitation in Maharashtra: A Policy Note

More than half of Rural Maharashtra defecates in the open. The main issue to understand is the nexus between the access to water and adoption of sanitation practices. It is also interesting to underst...

by Parliamentarian's Group for Children PGC | On 09 Sep 2015

Socio-Demographic Factors Associated with Domestic Violence in Urban Slums, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

Domestic violence is identified as a public health problem. It is associated with adverse maternal health. This study examined the prevalence and determinants of domestic violence among women in urban...

by C.P. Prakasam | On 09 Sep 2015

Education For All Towards Quality with Equity

India has made significant progress towards the goal of Education for All during the past few years. Keeping in view the pace of progress achieved till 2000, several programmes have been formulated an...

by Ministry of Human Resource Development, GOI | On 08 Sep 2015

Pirates and Slaves: How Overfishing in Thailand Fuels Human Trafficking and the Plundering of Our Oceans

The report calls for overfishing, pirate fishing and modern-day slavery in the Thai fishing industry to be addressed as interconnected issues. It examines the complex and multi-faceted problems in Tha...

by Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) | On 08 Sep 2015

Kerala Perspective Plan 2030

The Kerala Perspective Plan 2030 (KPP) is a Government of Kerala initiative that will serve as the basis for implementation of a series of initiatives aimed at fostering sustainable and inclusive grow...

by Government of Kerala Govt | On 04 Sep 2015

The Great Expectations: Impact of One-Child Policy on Education of Girls

The findings of the paper highlights the role of fertility policies in women’s empowerment of last century. This paper investigates the impact of the birth control policies on teenage girls’ education...

by Wei Huang | On 03 Sep 2015

Human Traffcking and Contemporary Slavery

The article begins with a discussion of definitional issues regarding human trafficking and modern slavery and then briefly critiques some popular claims regarding each problem. Examples of macro-leve...

by Ronald Weitzer Weitzer | On 03 Sep 2015

Why do Migrants do Better Than Non-Migrants at Destination? Migration, Class and Inequality Dynamics in India

This paper explores why migrants at their destination fare better than nonmigrants, across different socio-economic classes in India, while the general perception of migrants is that they are less end...

by Vamsi Vakulabharanam | On 03 Sep 2015

Issues in Employment and Poverty

The paper analyses the nexus between growth, employment and poverty and points out situations where high economic growth may fail to bring about a commensurate rate of poverty reduction if simultaneo...

by | On 02 Sep 2015

Reconceptualising Smart Cities: A Reference Framework for India

This CSTEP study describes the UN’s four guidance principles and defines a Smart City Reference Framework that should provide the overarching principles and guidance to smart city programmes. The rep...

by | On 02 Sep 2015

Internal Migration and the Development Nexus: The Case of Bangladesh

Over the last decade, the landscape of Bangladesh has changed remarkably. Persistent mobility of people questions existing development strategies, which are largely based on sectoral approaches that...

by Rita Afsar | On 31 Aug 2015

Addressing Urban Poverty: Relevance of Conditional Cash Transfers

This paper from a two-day conference in New Delhi explores the relevance of CCTs in addressing entrenched issues of urban poverty even as across Asia there remain few social protection measures that p...

by United Nations Development Programme UNDP | On 31 Aug 2015

Report on Early Childhood Development and Legal Entitlements

The Report consists of seven Chapters. While Chapter I introduces the issue at hand, Chapter II captures various International Conventions, Treaties and Declarations that concern the issue of ECD. Cha...

by Law Commission India | On 31 Aug 2015

Lessons for South Asia from the Industrial Cluster Development Experience of the Republic of Korea

This report presents the industrial cluster development policy of the Republic of Korea and draws lessons from that experience for South Asia. It briefly reviews Korean industrial policy since the 196...

by Jong-il Kim | On 31 Aug 2015

Employment and Inequality Outcomes in India

The report takes into account present scenario of urban poverty in India. Incidence of urban poverty can be attributed to lack of development as also to the nature and pattern of development. Importa...

by | On 25 Aug 2015

Curbing Militancy: Regulating Pakistan's Madrassas

Thousands of madrassas in Pakistan remain completely unregulated by the government and their sources of funding unknown while many more thousands offer an education to their students with bleak employ...

by | On 25 Aug 2015

Reconciling Work and Family Life: A Study of Women’s Time Use Patterns, Unpaid Work and Workplace Policies

The reconciliation of work and family life is one of the main challenges faced by working individuals, particularly women. Early exit of women from the labour market is particularly evident in urban a...

by | On 25 Aug 2015

MP Participation in the First Year of the 16th Lok Sabha

Monsoon Session 2015 marks the end of the first year of the 16th Lok Sabha. This note looks at the participation of MPs in both Houses of Parliament over the last year. Participation in debates includ...

by Kusum Malik | On 25 Aug 2015

Understanding Children’s Risk and Agency in Urban Areas and their Implications for Child-centred Urban Disaster Risk Reduction in Asia: Insights From Dhaka, Kathmandu, Manila and Jakarta

This paper presents the findings of a study undertaken by IIED in partnership with Plan International on urban children’s risk and agency in four large Asian cities: Dhaka (Bangladesh), Kathmandu (Nep...

by | On 24 Aug 2015

China: Case study on Human Development Progress towards the Millennium Developmental Goals at the Sub-National Level

This paper analyses an overview of china human development in Time and Space. The paper covers themes like regional inequality in China Since 1952 and Urban-Rural Inequality, 1980-2000. The paper is a...

by | On 21 Aug 2015

How Migration into Urban Construction Work Impacts on Rural Households in Nepal

The research draws on interviews with rural-urban migrant construction workers in Kathmandu as well as with families of construction workers, other migrant labourers and non-migrants in two contrastin...

by | On 21 Aug 2015

Poverty Reduction in China and India: Policy Implications of Recent Trends

This paper compares the experience of poverty reduction in China and India. It finds that more than economic growth per se, what has mattered crucially is the nature of the growth: whether it is assoc...

by Jayati Ghosh | On 21 Aug 2015

Short-term Migration and Intergenerational Persistence of Industry in Rural India

One of the well-known barriers to development is persistence of disadvantage among communities. The lack of occupational and therefore upward social mobility continues to restrain households from achi...

by | On 20 Aug 2015

Introduction to "Governing Marriage Migrations: Perspectives from Mainland China and Taiwan"

Cross-border migration for the purpose of marriage is on the rise, and at present it constitutes one of the most common forms of long-term international mobility in East Asia. The articles included he...

by | On 20 Aug 2015

Case Studies of Policy Coherence Initiatives in Developing Asia

This paper highlights four case studies of national efforts in developing Asia towards greater policy coherence and coordination, ranging from institutional cooperation in poverty reduction programmes...

by Internaional Labour Organization [ILO] | On 19 Aug 2015

Skills Development for Youth in India: Challenges and Opportunities

This paper reviews the current state of education, skills development, and employment for Indian youth, and considers the challenges facing India’s skills development system. Drawing from the experien...

by Aya Okada | On 13 Aug 2015

The Rising Cost of a Healthy Diet – Changing Relative prices of Foods in High- Income and Emerging Economies

In 2014 our previous study ‘Future Diets’ (Keats and Wiggins 2014) described how across the world an increasing share of the population is overweight and obese, with the rate of increase particularly...

by Rafael Moreira Claro | On 12 Aug 2015

Urban India 2011: Evidence

India’s urban transition has the potential to shift the country’s social, environmental, political and economic trajectory. Urbanisation will interact with the country’s ongoing demographic evolution...

by Indian Institute for Human Settlements | On 12 Aug 2015

Urban Policies and the Right to the City in India: Rights, Responsibilities and Citizenship

This publication highlights the relevance in India and the multiplicity of entry points of the right to the city as a vehicle for social inclusion and sustainable social development for Indian cities....

by Centre de Sciences Humaines CSH | On 12 Aug 2015

The Politics of Sustaining Inclusive Growth and Social Inclusion

This working paper records the findings of the project and discusses the key principles that underpin the Danish and Finnish welfare states. The paper reflects on the critical issues that must be cons...

by Valerie Koh | On 11 Aug 2015

Place of Poor in Urban Space

Through a case study of Mumbai city and LC resettlement colony, this paper highlights the tribulations of the poor in urban space. The experiences of recurring and multiple marginalities and vulnerabi...

by Manish K Jha | On 11 Aug 2015

Prevention of Loss or Decline of Vernacular and Indigenous Languages in the Indian Sub-Continent

Asian Societies with linguistic diversity have faced serious problems of loss or decline of vernacular and indigenous languages in modern times. Globalisation and urbanisation have brought a sea chang...

by P. Ishwara Bhat | On 10 Aug 2015

The Socially Responsible Company as a Strategic Second-Order Observer: An Indian Case

The emergence of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as a global component of business-society relationships has triggered many controversial debates in which CSR is either advocated as a source of...

by Damien Krichewsky | On 07 Aug 2015

Ways to Improve Job Training Policies for the Jobless

“In order to ensure that government policies do not produce government failure that impedes the vitality of the market and keeps disadvantaged individuals from becoming self-sufficient, the public ass...

by | On 06 Aug 2015

Measuring and Explaining Subjective Well-being in Korea

Subjective well-being has attracted sharply increasing attention among researchers and policy makers in recent years. The public also pays a lot of attention to it, evidenced by the heavy use of the w...

by | On 06 Aug 2015

Mobile Labour and the New Urban

This set of three papers explores new urban spaces and accumulation under post-colonial capitalism, through the themes of infrastructure and the new urban political subject, migrant labour, and commun...

by Mithilesh Kumar | On 04 Aug 2015

Energy Sources of Indian Households for Cooking and Lighting

This report is by the National Sample Survey Office, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Government of India is part of the series on household consumer expenditure on utilisation of...

by National Sample Survey Office NSSO | On 31 Jul 2015

India Labour and Employment Report 2014

This report provides an overview of the labour market and employment outcomes that the Indian economy has delivered as it globalized. It concludes that structural changes are slow and difficult, and t...

by | On 29 Jul 2015

Future and New Thoughts on Co-operative Banks

The co-operative movement in India is more than a century old; regulation thereof is also more than a century old with the first major impetus provided by the passage of the Co-operative Society Act i...

by R. Gandhi | On 29 Jul 2015

Study of the Global Crisis: A Question of Inevitability of the Euro Zone Crisis

The paper aims to analyse points of contention among economists and policymakers. This paper will discuss the pre-crisis conditions in the euro zone nations to gauge the extent of vulnerability of the...

by | On 28 Jul 2015

Forgotten Voices: The World of Urban Children in India

This report discusses how the major urban development schemes in India do not adequately take into account issues related to children’s health, education, growth, safety and participation. The rising...

by Save Children | On 28 Jul 2015

Race and Equality: A Study of Ethnic Minorities in Hong Kong’s Education System

This report analyzes the key education-related issues raised in these interviews as well as available studies on the needs of ethnic minority communities, press reports, government reports and educati...

by Kelley Loper | On 24 Jul 2015

Predicted Increases in Heat related Mortality under Climate Change in Urban India

Mapping mortality impacts of the projected climate in urban areas of developing countries will play a crucial role in instituting planned adaptation measures to protect public health. A comprehensive...

by Hem H Dholakia | On 14 Jul 2015

Regional Balanced Urbanization for Inclusive Cities Development: Urban–Rural Poverty Linkages in Secondary Cities Development in Southeast Asia

The impact of urbanization on growth and equality, and on urban and rural poverty are well-documented but do not discuss alternative models of urbanization. While the relationship between urbanizat...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 13 Jul 2015

Urbanisation and Urban Poverty: A Gender Analysis

Urbanisation and urban growth have accelerated in many developing countries in the past few years. While natural population growth has been the major contributor to urbanisation, rural-urban migration...

by Rachel Masika | On 10 Jul 2015

The Urban Disadvantage: State of the World's Mothers 2015

This report focuses on our rapidly urbanizing world and the poorest mothers and children who must struggle to survive despite overall urban progress. This report presents analysis of health disparit...

by Save the Children | On 07 Jul 2015

National Land Use Policy: Protecting Prime Agricultural Lands

With only less than 10 million hectares of agricultural land that is threatened by a rapidly urbanizing economy, how would the Philippines be able to meet its growing demand for food, and continue pro...

by Senate Economic Planning Office SEPO | On 06 Jul 2015

Policy Issues on Street Vending: An Overview of Studies in Thailand, Cambodia and Mongolia

Street vending and urban space for micro enterprises constitute an important policy theme that needs to be advanced further in development literature and policy. In many countries, urban space tends t...

by Kyoko Kusakabe | On 24 Jun 2015

Urban Informal Workers: Representative Voice & Economic Rights

he purpose of this paper is to provide a summary analysis of five case studies prepared for the 2013 World Development Report team that illustrate why and how the representative voice and economic rig...

by Martha Chen | On 24 Jun 2015

Emerging Pattern of Urbanization and the Contribution of Migration to Urban Growth in India

As India has embarked upon economic reforms during the 1990s, published data from the 2001 Census provides an opportunity to study the country's urbanization process with reference to regional inequal...

by R. B. Bhagat | On 23 Jun 2015

Fourteenth Report on Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme

The audit report on ICDS has revealed that the policy of universalization of ICDS Scheme remained unattained and the Scheme could not achieve the desired goals. Hence, controller and auditor general d...

by Lok Sabha Secretariat | On 22 Jun 2015

Impact of Climate Change on Food Production: Options for Importing Countries

This RSIS policy brief identifies possible implications of climate change disturbances on crops and livestock in world production centers by 2030, 2050 and 2080. Policy recommendations for importing...

by | On 22 Jun 2015

Street Vending in Ten Cities in India

For most street vendors, trading from the pavements is full of uncertainties. They are constantly harassed by the authorities. The local bodies conduct eviction drives to clear the pavements of these...

by Sharit Bhowmik | On 22 Jun 2015

Does Higher Economic Growth Reduce Poverty and Increase Inequality? Evidence from Urban India

This paper calculates select urban inequality and poverty indices and finds out their policy linkages. In addition, the determinants of urban poverty and inequality are estimated by using data of 52 l...

by | On 22 Jun 2015

Farm to Non-Farm: Are India’s Villages “Rurbanising”?

The process of urbanization in terms of workforce patterns is largely considered to be unidirectional – increasing engagement of the workforce in non-agricultural occupational pursuits. Using a unique...

by | On 16 Jun 2015

Medium Term Budget Framework: Pre Budget Document 1390-1392

This Pre Budget Report incorporates the Medium-Term Budget Framework (MTBF). The MTBF links the spending plans of budgetary units to overall government policy objectives.The purpose of the Report is t...

by Ministry of Finance Afghanistan | On 16 Jun 2015

Thimphu’s Growing Pains: Thimphu’s Growing Pains

This study analyses the urban planning efforts of the government for an explanation of some unintended outcomes. A popular perception is that development in Thimphu city could do with better planning....

by Manka Bajaj | On 16 Jun 2015

Policy Note 2014–2015 on Housing and Urban Development Department of Tamil Nadu Government

The Department of Housing and Urban Development works with dedication to implement the schemes prescribed in "Vision 2023", provide developed infrastructure, create self-sufficient urban life, encour...

by Tamil Nadu Government | On 10 Jun 2015

Himachal Pradesh Human Development Report 2002

The Himachal Pradesh HDR attempts to assess and explain the status of human development in the State and articulate policy implications. In the light of the definition of human development itself, iss...

by Himachal Pradesh Government of India | On 09 Jun 2015

Rethinking Partnerships in a Post-2015 World: Towards Equitable, Inclusive and Sustainable Development

These reports provide a critical analysis of how governments address the issues of poverty and whether aid and development cooperation policies are put into practice. This 2014 Reality of Aid Report b...

by The Reality of Aid Network | On 09 Jun 2015

Smart Urban Mobility: Road Less Travelled

The study attempts to analyse congestion problem with emphasis on having a policy incorporating realistic solution for having affordable, accessible, reliable and acceptable mobility. It has been fou...

by Tarun Mittal | On 09 Jun 2015

Gender and Migration: Negotiating Rights - A Women's Movement Perspective

This research responds to the growing demand by mass organizations, for better documentation of women’s migration in India amid reports from activists of great increases in and new and more vulnerable...

by Indu Agnihotri | On 08 Jun 2015

Scaling the Heights: Social Inclusion and Sustainable Development in Himachal Pradesh

This report peels through to many of the underlying drivers of Himachal Pradesh’s social inclusion. The paper tells us that commitment of the state and progressive policies are important, and that the...

by | On 08 Jun 2015

Gujarat Ecology Commission Annual Report 2013-14

This report of Gujarat Ecology Commission (GEC) provides information and other inputs which are needed to develop policy and provide the right approach for ecological conservation and sustainable deve...

by Gujarat Ecology Commission Government of Gujarat | On 08 Jun 2015

Book Review: Tokyo Void: Possibilities in Absence

Review of Tokyo Void: Possibilities in Absence by Marieluise Jonas and Heike Rahmann. Berlin: Jovis, 2014. pp 192. Rs. 2,100.00/- , ISBN-13: 978-3868592726.

by Milica Muminovic | On 05 Jun 2015

Flawed Urban Development Policies in Pakistan

History and civilisation move in cities. All major scientific, social, political, economic and technological innovations have happened in human agglomerations known as cities. Great civilisations and...

by | On 04 Jun 2015

Fourteenth Finance Commission: Continuity, Change and Way Forward

In preparation of its report, the Fourteenth Finance Commission was guided by the terms of reference; the approach of the previous finance commissions; the prevailing macroeconomic situation in the co...

by | On 03 Jun 2015

Making Indian Cities Liveable: the Challenges of India’s Urban Transformation

India’s urbanisation is a paradox of sorts. The country’s urban population is undoubtedly vast at 377 million (2011 Census). In international terms, however, India’s urban growth can hardly be describ...

by | On 03 Jun 2015

Report of the Sixty-Eighth World Health Assembly on Contributing to Social and Economic Development: Sustainable Action across sectors to Improved Health and Health Equity (follow-up of the 8th Global Conference on Health Promotion)

The framework provides guidance to Member States on taking country-level action across sectors for improving health and health equity. Such action includes the support of the health sector to other se...

by World Health Organisation (WHO) | On 02 Jun 2015

A Value Chain Approach to Measuring Distortions to Incentives and Food Policy Effects (with application to Pakistan’s grain policy)

An extended Nominal Rate of Assistance (NRA) methodology is used to disentangle the welfare impacts of policies for various interest groups along the value chain (to disaggregate effects within the “p...

by Elena Briones Alonso | On 02 Jun 2015

Fourteenth Report on Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and Empowerment of Women in Rural Areas

The primary objective of the Act is augmenting wage employment. In this regard, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 provides for the enhancement of livelihood security of the...

by Committee on Empowerment of Women GOI | On 01 Jun 2015

The Double Burden of Malnutrition: Case Studies from Six Developing Countries

This Food and Agriculture Organization publication assesses the extent of the "double burden" of malnutrition in six developing countries – China, Egypt, India, Mexico, the Philippines and South Afric...

by Food and Nutrition Division FAO | On 01 Jun 2015

Progress Report of the Sixty-Eighth World Health Assembly

The comprehensive mental health action plan 2013–2020 was adopted by the Sixty-sixth World Health Assembly in May 2013. The present report summarizes progress made in implementing the action plan. The...

by World Health Organisation (WHO) | On 01 Jun 2015

Land Markets, Government Interventions, and Housing Affordability

Urban population growth and economic growth require cities to expand into the agricultural land on their periphery. How much land is required for this extension? How much planning and direct intervent...

by Alain Bertaud | On 01 Jun 2015

Report of the Sixty-Seventh World Health Assembly on Global Vaccine Action Plan

In May 2012, the Sixty-fifth World Health Assembly endorsed the global vaccine action plan in resolution and requested the Director-General to monitor progress and report annually, through the Executi...

by World Health Organisation (WHO) | On 27 May 2015

Report of Sub Group-V on International Cooperation and Law

The present report is an attempt to focus on how our national policies and programmes can be better appreciated and reflected in the country’s obligations and commitments to the various international...

by Planning Commission | On 25 May 2015

Report of the Sixty-Seventh World Health Assembly on Framework of Engagement with Non-State Actors

At its 134th session, in the provisional agenda the Executive Board have requested the Director-General to develop a framework of engagement with non-State actors and separate policies on the engageme...

by World Health Organisation (WHO) | On 25 May 2015

Employment, Planning and Policy for the Twelfth Five Year Plan (2012-2017)

The Working Group has taken cognisance to the issues of inclusive growth. It lays emphasis on the view that employment generation should be focused on different segments of labour force – organized, u...

by Planning Commission | On 21 May 2015

Youth Participation in Civil Society and Political Life in Andhra Pradesh

This policy brief documents the participation of youth in Andhra Pradesh in civil society, the extent to which they uphold secular attitudes and their perceptions about and participation in political...

by Population Council | On 12 May 2015

Growth of Indian Agriculture: A District Level Study

The purpose of the study is to extend the period of analysis of the impact of new seed fertiliser technology from 1990-93 to 2003-06. A special significance to economic reforms in India in 1991 is giv...

by Gurmail Singh | On 12 May 2015

Nutritional Intake in India (July 2009 - June 2010)

This report presents the information on nutritional intake by the Indian population. Among the different nutrients only three nutrients – viz, calorie, protein and fat – are discussed in this report....

by National Sample Survey Office NSSO | On 05 May 2015

National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3): 2005–06

The report provides helpful insights into the changes that are taking place in the country and will provide policymakers and programme managers with up-to-date estimates of indicators that can be used...

by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare H & FW | On 29 Apr 2015

Children in India 2012: A Statistical Appraisal

The publication ‘Children in India 2012 – A Statistical Appraisal’, analyses the conditions of children in the fields of child survival, child development and child protection. The publication include...

by Ministry of Statistics and Prog Implementation (MOSPI) | On 28 Apr 2015

Demands for Grants 2015-16 (Demand No. 48) of the Department of Health and Family Welfare

The National Health Policy framed from time to time provides the framework for the implementation of policies and programmes for health care. The Eleventh Five Year Plan had focused on the poor and th...

by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare H & FW | On 28 Apr 2015

Report of the Expert Group to Recommend the Detailed Methodology for Identification of Families Living Below Poverty Line in the Urban Areas

The paper focuses on the objective of putting in place a uniform criteria to identify the BPL households in urban areas so that objectivity and transparency is ensured in delivery of benefits to the t...

by Planning Commission | On 27 Apr 2015

Growing through Cities in Developing Countries

This paper examines the effects of urbanization on development and growth. It begins with a labor market perspective and emphasizes the importance of agglomeration economies, both static and dynamic....

by | On 24 Apr 2015

Report of the Committee for Evolving a Composite Development Index of States

This report however, also takes a step forward in trying to draw a balance between “needs” and “performance”. Given that poor administration or weak institutions in a recipient state can fritter away...

by Ministry of Finance | On 23 Apr 2015

Twelfth Five Year Plan (2012–2017) Economic Sectors

This Five Year Plan document focuses on Economic Sectors which provides plans for Agriculture, Industry, Energy, Transport, Communication, Rural Development, Urban Development and Other Priority Secto...

by Planning Commission | On 23 Apr 2015

Shifting Discourses of Climate Change in India

Developing countries like India are under international pressure to sign a legally binding emissions treaty to avert catastrophic climatic change. Developing countries, however, have argued that any i...

by | On 21 Apr 2015

Compendium of State Policies from the Perspective of Climate Change Mitigation

The report documents compendium of state policies from perspective of climate change mitigation with findings such as many states endowed with rich natural resources are naturally very environment fri...

by | On 21 Apr 2015

Network Neutrality: A Thematic Analysis of Policy Perspectives Across the Globe

This policy review looks at four types of Internet traffic management policies across the globe: legal regulation, transparency, non-neutrality, and government control. Each of these has been employed...

by Christine Stover | On 16 Apr 2015

International Perspectives on Network Neutrality

This issue of Global Media Journal - Canadian Edition spotlights international perspectives on network neutrality focusing on the politics, policies and practices of network management. Contents - Int...

by | On 15 Apr 2015

Towards a Water and Food Secure Future

The aim of this paper is to provide policy-makers with a helpful overview of the technical and economic aspects of water use in agriculture, with particular emphasis on crop and livestock production....

by Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN UN | On 15 Apr 2015

Women, Violence and Conflict in Pakistan

This report presents an overview of both legal frameworks that have institutionalised discrimination and fuelled religious intolerance and violence against women and a dysfunctional criminal justice s...

by International Crisis Group | On 13 Apr 2015

Trafficking of Minor Girls for Commercial Sexual Exploitation in India: A Synthesis of Available Evidence

Globally, the number of adults and children who are trafficked for forced labour, bonded labour or commercial sexual exploitation is estimated to be about 12 million. Though India has made several com...

by K G Santhya | On 10 Apr 2015

World Urbanization Prospects 2014

This report presents the highlights of the 2014 Revision of World Urbanization Prospects, which contains the latest estimates of the urban and rural populations of 233 countries or areas from 1950 to...

by UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs UNDESA | On 01 Apr 2015

The Impossible Trinity: Where does India stand?

A comprehensive overview of a few empirical studies is presented that have explored the issue of Trilemma in the Indian context. Based on these studies an analysis is done on how have Indian policy ma...

by Satish Y Deodhar | On 30 Mar 2015

Industrial Policy: Its Relevance and Currency

This paper makes an attempt to reflect on the debate on industrial policy, which has seen a revival of sorts in recent years, by analysing the developments in the two most important faces of market-or...

by Biswajit Dhar | On 25 Mar 2015

Investing in Health for Economic Development in Vietnam

This report present the findings from a mission undertaken by the authors in Vietnam in 2005. This report provides some of the particular aspects of the health sector from an economic perspective. It...

by | On 24 Mar 2015

BRICS Trade Policies, Institutions and Areas for Deepening Cooperation

This document studies the Trade Policies and Institutions of BRICS, India and BRICS: issues of trade and technology; and examines the scope for deepening cooperation in services among BRICS members. T...

by | On 24 Mar 2015

Towards A Pareto Efficient Indian Agricultural Market - with specific focus on rice and wheat markets

The paper examines the policies of the central as well as state governments with respect to the agricultural market, specifically in rice and wheat markets, analyses their shortcomings and argues for...

by Dr Anandi Subramanian | On 23 Mar 2015

Bhutan: Making Progress on the Path to Prosperity

his country brief highlights how ADB operations have helped support Bhutan’s efforts in advancing socioeconomic development. Since Bhutan became a member in 1982, ADB has provided $486.29 million i...

by Asian Development Bank Institute | On 17 Mar 2015

Regional Disparities in Growth and Human Development in India

This paper argues that that per capita income in all states in India increased in the past four decades but in fact no sign of convergence could be visible as it was expected in the context of liberal...

by | On 13 Mar 2015

Parliamentary Procedures

The purpose of this primer is to assist newly elected Rajya Sabha MPs in navigating the Rules of Procedure of the Rajya Sabha. It has been organised in a manner that highlights the opportunities for p...

by | On 10 Mar 2015

Citizens Charter on Drinking Water and Sanitation before Union Budget

Ahead of the Union Budget, Civil Society Organizations ask for policy strategies to support drinking water and sanitation for vulnerable sections. Civil society budget groups, collectively as a networ...

by Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability | On 26 Feb 2015

Cleanliness and Sanitation: Underlying Constraints in India

Open defecation and improper garbage disposal are a reality of public spaces in India, not just due to poverty or a lack of initiative on the government, but social acceptance of attitudes which disr...

by Poorva Awasthi | On 24 Feb 2015

Cracks in Budgetary Policies towards the Social Sectors

The union budget for 2014-15 offers few changes in terms of policy priorities from the United Progressive Alliance government interim budget for 2014-15, and it fails to recognise the cracks in the co...

by Subrat Das | On 20 Feb 2015

A New Banking Landscape for New India

There are many contours that would define the Indian banking sector in the coming days. It would be important for the banks to keep track of emerging trends and be prepared not only to negotiate thro...

by S.S. Mundra | On 12 Feb 2015

(Un)Settling the City Analysing Displacement in Delhi from 1990 to 2007

The experience of displacement - of single and multiple evictions and resultant resettlement or homelessness - has defined the process of inhabitation for a vast majority of the poor in Delhi. Analyse...

by | On 09 Feb 2015

Urban Water Crisis in Delhi: Stakeholders Responses and Potential Scenarios of Evolution

This paper proposes to question this conventional diagnosis with a case study of the capital city of India, Delhi. Based on this case study, the paper shows that the scenario of convergence towards un...

by | On 06 Feb 2015

Migration and Informality

This paper outlines the trends and patterns of migrants . It also discusses the impact and socioeconomic characteristics of migration in Delhi.

by | On 05 Feb 2015

21st Century Aid: Recognising Success and Tackling Failure

This report examines the evidence on aid, and finds that while aid alone cannot solve the deprivation experienced by people living in poverty or redress the extreme imbalance of wealth that characteri...

by Oxfam International | On 03 Feb 2015

21st Century Aid: Recognising Success and Tackling Failure

This report examines the evidence on aid, and finds that while aid alone cannot solve the deprivation experienced by people living in poverty or redress the extreme imbalance of wealth that characteri...

by Oxfam International | On 03 Feb 2015

Parliament’s Role in Financial Oversight

This note presents an analysis of Parliament’s role of financial oversight and examines how to strengthen it. It highlights gaps and solutions to improve the existing structures affecting budgetary an...

by Apoorva Shankar | On 30 Jan 2015

Addressing Inequality in Southeast Asia through Regional Economic Integration

The paper mainly discusses the issues and policies relating to inequality in Southeast Asia. Policies to reduce inequality include more efficient fiscal policies, improve infrastructure and generating...

by Josef Yap | On 29 Jan 2015

Surge in Solar-Powered Homes: Experience in Off-Grid Rural Bangladesh

The studies broad aim is to access the welfare impact of solar home systems (SHS) on households and to evaluate the present institutional structure and financing mechanisms. Also it accesses the direc...

by Shahidur R. Khandker | On 27 Jan 2015

Trade Policy Uncertainty and the WTO

This paper discusses the impact of WTO commitments on changes in MFN applied tariffs, isolating pure trade policy changes from any other change in the level of protection due to market conditions by f...

by Valeria Groppo | On 22 Jan 2015

Towards A Pareto Efficient Indian Agricultural Market - with Specific Focus on Rice and Wheat Markets

The paper examines the policies of the central as well as state governments with respect to the agricultural market, specifically in rice and wheat markets, analyses their shortcomings and argues for...

by Anandi Subramanian | On 16 Jan 2015

Draft Consultation Paper on Handlooms

Despite the efforts made by the government to develop the handloom sector, there has been a decline in the number of weavers and the sector is struggling with various other problems. The paper discuss...

by Planning Commission, India | On 13 Jan 2015

Food and Nutrition Security Status in India: Opportunities for Investment Partnerships

Ensuring food and nutrition security is a challenge for India, given its huge population and high levels of poverty and malnutrition. India is a net agricultural exporter, particularly of milk, fruit...

by T. Nanda Kumar | On 18 Dec 2014

A Nutrition Secure India: Role of Agriculture

India continues to suffer from under-nutrition among large sections of its population. The country is unlikely to realise the first millennium development goal by 2015. How can agriculture be us...

by Suneetha Kadiyala | On 18 Dec 2014

Urban Governance in Bangladesh: The Post-Independence Scenario

Urbanization worldwide has been found to be an effective engine of economic growth and socio-cultural development. In pure economic terms, urbanization contributes significantly to the national econ...

by | On 17 Dec 2014

Impediments to Contract Enforcement in Day Labour Markets: A Perspective from India

This paper focuses on one such setting in India's urban informal economy: the 'day labour' market for casual labour. We survey seven such markets in Navi Mumbai (a city on the outskirts of Mumbai),...

by Karthikeya Naraparaju | On 12 Dec 2014

Dietary Intake and Rural-Urban Migration in India: A Cross-Sectional Study

Migration from rural areas of India contributes to urbanisation and lifestyle change, and dietary changes may increase the risk of obesity and chronic diseases. It tests the hypothesis that rural-to-u...

by Shah Ebrahim | On 02 Dec 2014

Food Price Subsidies and Nutrition: Evidence from State Reforms to India’s Public Distribution System

It investigate whether food price subsidies affect household nutrition using a dramatic expansion of the availability of subsidized rice in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh in the early 2000’s. Hous...

by Prasad Krishnamurthy | On 28 Nov 2014

Poverty-Hunger Divergence in India

The usual explanations for the divergence between calorie intake and consumption expenditure in India ignore the enormous squeeze on food budgets arising from dispossession (leading to loss of a...

by Deepankar Basu | On 28 Nov 2014

Agricultural Transformation and Food Security in India: Lessons for Southeast Asia

This article seeks firstly to look at the three aspects of food security in India, viz., food availability, accessibility, and absorption. Secondly, an attempt has been made to study food security in...

by Reshmi Banerjee | On 27 Nov 2014

Consequences of Unequal Urbanization on Development

Historically, urbanization has been a great force of economic transformation, modernization and social change in the developed world. On the flip side, migration has been blamed for the woes of modern...

by Ram Bhagat | On 21 Nov 2014

Enhancing the Nutrition-Sensitivity of Agricultural Development Interventions in the Eastern Gangetic Plains: Challenges and Options

This background paper aims first is to outline the rationale and merits for enhancing the nutrition-sensitivity of agricultural interventions in general, highlighting recognised pathways which lin...

by Toni Darbas | On 20 Nov 2014

Pathways of Economic Inequalities in Maternal and Child Health in Urban India: A Decomposition Analysis

Children and women comprise vulnerable populations in terms of health and are gravely affected by the impact of economic inequalities through multi-dimensional channels. Urban areas are believed to ha...

by Srinivas Goli | On 19 Nov 2014

Global Nutrition Report 2014

This Global Nutrition Report is the first in an annual series. It tracks worldwide progress in improving nutrition status, identifies bottlenecks to change, highlights opportunities for action, and co...

by Independent Expert Group (IEG) | On 17 Nov 2014

Prioritizing Demand-Driven Agricultural Research for Development in India

India has shown an impressive economic growth of about 8 percent per year in the last decade. But the coexistence of impressive growth with widespread poverty and hunger is a real worry and a seri...

by Asia-Pacific Association of Agricultural Research Institutions | On 12 Nov 2014

Migration and Urbanisation in India in the Context of Poverty Alleviation

Migration and urbanization are direct manifestations of the process of economic development in space, particularly in the contemporary phase of globalization. Understanding the causes and consequences...

by Amitabh Kundu | On 11 Nov 2014

Urbanization

Urbanisation in India is neither unique nor exclusive but is similar to a world-wide phenomenon. Indian urbanisation has proceeded as it has elsewhere in the world as a part and product of economic ch...

by K.C. Sivaramakrishnan | On 11 Nov 2014

Urban Water and Sanitation in Maharashtra

Measuring service levels of urban bodies implies measuring outcomes, and indirectly also reflects on institutional capacity, financial performance and other parameters. In addition, to facilitate comp...

by All India Local Self Government | On 11 Nov 2014

Making Sense of Green Building Rating

It is time to go beyond just lip service to push green reforms in building standards. On analysing reports from the Indian Green Building Council, researchers at the Centre for Science and Environment...

by Sunita Narain | On 11 Nov 2014

Female Literacy: A Success Story of Maharashtra

This paper makes in-depth study of the level of literacy among females and the extent of gender disparity in literacy in different districts of rural and urban Maharashtra. This paper also shows imp...

by Asha A. Jindal | On 11 Nov 2014

Economic Inequalities in Maternal Health Care: Prenatal Care and Skilled Birth Attendance in India

The use of maternal health care is limited in India despite several programmatic efforts for its improvement since the late 1980's. The use of maternal health care is typically patterned on socioecono...

by Praveen Kumar Pathak | On 06 Nov 2014

Structural Transformation and the Rural-Urban Divide

Development of an economy goes hand in hand with a declining importance of agriculture in output and employment. Given the primarily rural population in developing countries and their concentration in...

by Amartya Lahiri | On 06 Nov 2014

Socioeconomic Dynamics of Gender Disparity in Childhood Immunization in India

Recent evidence indicated that gender disparity in child health is minimal and narrowed over time in India. However, considering the geographical and socio-cultural diversity in India, the gender gap...

by Ranjan Kumar Prusty | On 03 Nov 2014

Decomposing the Gap in Childhood Undernutrition between Poor and Non–Poor in Urban India, 2005–06

Despite the growing evidence from other developing countries, intra-urban inequality in childhood undernutrition is poorly researched in India. Additionally, the factors contributing to the poor/non-p...

by Abhishek Kumar | On 03 Nov 2014

India’s Economy: From Where to Where?

The economic policies that our founding fathers conceived for India defy easy characterization. They were an exasperating combination of simultaneously supporting and stifling private entreprene...

by Arvind Subramanian | On 20 Oct 2014

What Undermines Aid’s Impact on Growth?

Why it is so hard to find a robust effect of aid on the long-term growth of poor countries, even those with good policies. A possible offset to the beneficial effects of aid is examined using a meth...

by Raghuram G. Rajan | On 20 Oct 2014

The Soya Project: Farm Evangelists

In 2008, two earnest young men set out to boost soya bean yields in the semi-arid region of Bundi in Rajasthan. Rainfall there is meagre and the soil lacks nutrients. But there are ready buyers for so...

by Civil Society | On 20 Oct 2014

Fighting Child Malnutrition

India has the dubious distinction of having the highest burden of malnutrition in the world – higher than Sub-Saharan Africa. Nearly 50 per cent of our children are underweight and stunted and 70...

by National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, India | On 16 Oct 2014

Report on the State Of Food Insecurity in Urban India

This report maps food insecurity in urban India. It captures the changes in the urban scenario from updated statistics like NFHS, NSSO etc. and highlight the parameters that would lead to improved foo...

by World Food Programme | On 16 Oct 2014

Creating Youth Employment in Asia

This paper examines the labour market characteristics for adults and the entire population. Then it analyses challenges and opportunities in labour market for youth. Next, the paper discusses the exis...

by S.Mahendra Dev | On 15 Oct 2014

The Myth of Green Building

There is no question that India and other parts of the still-under-construction world must build green. The building sector is a major contributor to climate change and local environmental destruction...

by Sunita Narain | On 14 Oct 2014

Role of Financial Sector in Spurring Growth and Expanding Financial Inclusion in North Eastern Region

The present speech analyses the significant role which can be played by the financial sector in spurring growth and expanding financial inclusion in NER. [CII Banking Collagium in Kolkata].

by P. Vijaya Bhaskar | On 13 Oct 2014

Evolution and Critique of Buffer Stocking Policy of India

An evaluation of the country’s buffer stock policy reveals gaps and inefficiencies. Large quantities of food grains have accumulated in the godowns of the Food Corporation of India (FCI) and its nom...

by Shweta Saini | On 26 Sep 2014

Food Security and Nutrition: Vision 2020

The concept of food security has undergone considerable changes in recent years. Food availability and stability were considered good measures of food security till the seventies and the achievement o...

by K. Venkata Reddy | On 18 Sep 2014

SEWA: Supporting Village-Level Organizations to Improve Rural Livelihoods

In spite of the rapid growth of the Indian economy, the fraction of the rural population living in poverty has declined only modestly. Increasing indebtedness, rises in input prices, and rapid commerc...

by Raj M. Desai | On 17 Sep 2014

Scaling up Agricultural Supply Chains in the Private Sector

This brief is one of series on scaling up in agriculture, rural development, and nutrition. PepsiCo is a global business operating in more than 200 countries and territories and rooted in creating and...

by Beth Sauerhaft | On 17 Sep 2014

Rural-Urban Migration and Urban Informal Sector in India

Migration is a process that gets intensified with the process of economic development. Population mobility from rural to urban areas is a common feature in India. Interestingly, this rural-urban migra...

by Debasis Chakraborty | On 11 Sep 2014

Vital Stats: Participation of Lok Sabha MPs in Budget Session 2014

Statistics of participation of MPs in budget session 2014 is shown here.

by Mandira Kala | On 10 Sep 2014

Background Paper on Issues related to Land Economics - Urbanisation, Development and Housing Requirements in the National Capital Region (NCR)

The mechanism adopted to keep the rise in property prices under check until 2000 was the active participation of the public sector in keeping supply ahead of demand. This seems to have worked well in...

by Jatinder S. Bedi | On 08 Sep 2014

Book Review: Ethnographies of Schooling in Contemporary India

Ethnographies of Schooling in Contemporary India explores the schooling experience in India today, and seeks to understand the impact of peer interaction in a variety of environments. Through the book...

by Maithreyi Krishnaraj | On 04 Sep 2014

Food Stamps: A Model for India

About 4.5 lakh fair price shops in India sell 10-20 lakh tons of rice and wheat at the subsidized rate per month. Majority of the ration shops are in urban areas, they are hardly ever open and only a...

by Parth Shah | On 27 Aug 2014

Unemployment Burden and its Distribution: Theory and Evidence from India

To develop a measure of unemployment that takes into account both the level and intensity of unemployment and that satisfies several desirable properties, including distribution sensitivity (dealing w...

by Sripad Motiram | On 25 Aug 2014

Comprehensive Nutrition Survey in Maharashtra

The Maharashtra Comprehensive Nutrition Survey 2012 is the first ever state-specific nutrition survey with a focus on infants and children undertwo and their mothers. A representative sample of child...

by United Nations Children's Fund UNICEF | On 23 Aug 2014

How Smart is a Smart City?

Smart is as smart does. The NDA government’s proposal to build 100 “smart” cities will work only if it can reinvent the very idea of urban growth in a country like India. Smart thinking will require t...

by Sunita Narain | On 21 Aug 2014

World Economic and Social Survey 2013: Sustainable Development Challenges

New strategies are needed to address the impacts of rapid urbanisation around the world, including increasing demands for energy, water, sanitation, public services, education and health, according to...

by UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs UNDESA | On 21 Aug 2014

Finance and Opportunity in India

One of the greatest dangers to the growth of developing countries is the middle income trap, where crony capitalism creates oligarchies that slow down growth. If the debate during the elections is any...

by Raghuram G. Rajan | On 13 Aug 2014

UN World Youth Report 2013 – Youth and Migration

THE WORLD YOUTH REPORT explores the situation of young migrants from the perspective of young migrants themselves. The report highlights some of the concerns, challenges and successes experienced by y...

by UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs UNDESA | On 12 Aug 2014

Letting Girls Learn: Promising Approaches in Primary and Secondary Education

This paper analyses the benefits from female education (who gains and in what ways) and the constraints (direct and opportunity costs, reflecting economics and tradition). It then outlines promising a...

by Barbara Herz | On 01 Aug 2014

Women and Science Education in India : A Saga of Marginalization

Science has traditionally been a male preserve. Socio-religious prejudices kept science education out of bounds for vast majority of women in India. Even today underrepresentation of women in science...

by Paromita Ghosh | On 29 Jul 2014

Science Education and Research in India

Many aspects of the Indian scientific development are extremely unsatisfactory, lacking in both quality and quantity. Although the outreach of teaching and research programmes has increased considerab...

by Gautam Desiraju | On 29 Jul 2014

Looking at Science through the Lens of Diversity: Views of Indian Students and Teachers

The study examined middle school students' and science teachers' ideas on science and diversity parameters like religion. 1522 students from Mumbai completed a survey designed to elicit their percepti...

by Pooja Birwatkar | On 28 Jul 2014

A Study of Policies Related to Science Education for Diversity in India

This paper presents the findings of a study concerning educational policies related to science education and diversity in India which is a geographically and socio-politically diverse country. If the...

by Sugra Chunawala | On 28 Jul 2014

State of the Urban Youth India 2012: Employment, Livelihoods, Skills.

The State of the Urban Youth India 2012: Employment, Livelihoods, Skills is a first attempt to pull together a data and knowledge base on and of youth in urban India. The focus of the Report is youth...

by IRIS Knowledge Foundation IKF | On 25 Jun 2014

Three Decades of Human Development across Indian States: Inclusive Growth or Perpetual Disparity?

The importance of strengthening the human development (HD) achievements in a country to augment its growth potential is well known in development literature. Several initiatives to enhance the HD leve...

by Sacchidananda Mukherjee | On 24 Jun 2014

Urbanization and Spatial Patterns of Internal Migration in India

With an urbanization level of 31.16 percent in 2011, India is the least urbanized country among the top 10 economies of the world. In addition, unlike other countries, the transition of workforce out...

by Ajay Sharma | On 26 May 2014

Growth of the Urban Shadow, Spatial Distribution of Economic Activities and Commuting by Workers in Rural and Urban India

Unlike migration, scant attention has been paid to the phenomenon of commuting by workers in developing countries. This paper fills this gap by using a nationally representative data set from India t...

by Ajay Sharma | On 20 May 2014

Position Paper on Education Post-2015

This position paper identifies that there is a strong need for a new and forward-looking education agenda that completes unfinished business while going beyond the current goals in terms of depth and...

by UNESCO UNESCO | On 16 May 2014

World Youth Report 2007 Young People’s Transition to Adulthood: Progress and Challenges

The Report highlights the unique aspects of youth development in various regions but emphasizes that young people the world over are ultimately constrained in their efforts to contribute to their own...

by United Nations UN | On 16 May 2014

Barnaparichay – a mall in progress, a street in transition

This paper examines the politics of the changing spatial order in Indian cities, post-liberalisation, with particular reference to College Street. The spatial reconstruction of College Street is large...

by Anurag Mazumdar | On 13 May 2014

Features of Urban Food and Nutrition Security and Considerations for Successful Urban Programming

This paper discusses the wide disparities that exist in childhood malnutrition, food insecurity and livelihoods within urban areas which, when combined with the mobility of urban residents,add to the...

by Marie T. Ruel | On 22 Apr 2014

Addressing the Global Food Crisis: Key trade, investment and commodity policies in ensuring sustainable food security and alleviating poverty

The recent global food crisis can be seen as a wake-up call which can be turned into an opportunity by developing countries and the international community to revitalize global agriculture producti...

by United Nations Conference on Trade and Development | On 22 Apr 2014

Politics and Public Policies: Politics of Human Development in Uttar Pradesh, India

In India, public policies for human development are politically contested for many reasons like diverse political interests, commitment to specific social bases by political regimes etc. They have r...

by Shyam Singh | On 10 Apr 2014

Report on the State of Food Insecurity In Urban India

The concept of food insecurity is multidimensional in nature and is determined by a whole range of issues such as domestic production of food, import and export of food, purchasing power of people to...

by V. B. Athreya | On 03 Apr 2014

Short-term Migration and Consumption Expenditure of Households in Rural India

In 2007-08, short-term migrants constituted 4.35 per cent of the rural workforce. A total of 9.25 million households in rural India had short-term migrants.Using a nationally representative data for...

by S. Chandrasekhar | On 27 Mar 2014

Examining the Structure of Opportunity and Social Mobility in India: Who Becomes an Engineering Student?

Rising inequality alongside rapid economic growth reinforces the need to examine patterns of social mobility in India. Are children from less well-off sections also able to rise to higher-paying posit...

by Anirudh Krishna | On 04 Mar 2014

What Census 2011 Reveals about Our Growers and Their Land

To gain a better understanding of the changes in the numbers of cultivators and Agricultural labor (marginal or main), it is useful to read them with the change in the number of agricultural holdings...

by Rahul Goswami | On 28 Feb 2014

Urban Growth and Rural Poverty in India

Analysis of time series data on poverty in India has revealed a clearly discernable link between urban poverty decline and rural poverty decline. Previous analysis, focusing on the pre-reform period,...

by Peter Lanjouw | On 27 Feb 2014

Measuring Urbanization around a Regional Capital: The Case of Bhopal District

The starting point of this study is the observation that many villages in India seem to possess urban characteristics. As compared to definitions of urbanization adopted by other countries, the Indi...

by Anima Gupta | On 21 Feb 2014

Land, Politics, Work and Home-Life in a City Slum: Reconstructing History from Oral Narratives

This paper is a limited attempt at sketching the history of a prominent slum in the city of Thiruvananthapuram, using mainly the memories of residents collected as oral narratives. [CDS Working pape...

by J Devika | On 07 Feb 2014

The 'Poorest Might Catch up': Convergence vs. Pseudo-convergence

Public welfare policies in developing countries have a Rawlsian perspective; they seek to uplift the poor, the poorest of the poor in particular. Policies to enable the poor to catch up with the rich...

by Suryanarayana M H | On 05 Feb 2014

Are Women’s Issues Synonymous with Gender in India? Looking Across Geographic Space

This paper attempts to shift the focus from ‘women’ to the significance of the gender equation by assessing the intensity of gender disparity across geographic space, and enquiring into the reasons...

by Nira Ramachandran | On 04 Feb 2014

Urbanization beyond Municipal Boundaries: Nurturing Metropolitan Economies and Connecting Peri-Urban Areas in India

This study identifies three priority areas for India's policymakers as they try to harness economic efficiency and manage spatial equity associated with urbanization. First, to enhance productivity, i...

by World Bank | On 28 Jan 2014

Do Indian States have the Power to Devise their Own Policies? A Study on Fiscal Space

With the decentralization process of the 1990s, linked to economic liberalization, there emerged new decisional scope for regional governments to shape their own policies. But the decentralization pro...

by Kim Robin | On 24 Jan 2014

Structural Reforms and Agriculture: Issues and Policies

The performance of Agriculture in India is important as the sector not only contributes to overall growth of the economy but also provides employment and food security to majority of the population...

by S. Mahendra Dev | On 23 Jan 2014

India’s Regional Security Cooperation: The Nehru Raj Legacy

The paper explores the logic of continuity in independent India’s security policy from where the British Raj had left off. Much like the Raj, Nehru’s India sought to provide security to its smaller ne...

by prashant kumar | On 21 Jan 2014

The State of India’s Cities and Towns

This Paper tries to paint a numbers- and chart-based picture of the current scenario of India’s Cities and Towns by taking five states into consideration- NCT Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhatti...

by prashant kumar | On 21 Jan 2014

Obituary: Prof. Ila Pathak (1933-2014): A Feminist Crusader

Ila Pathak was a dedicated social activist who stood by socially excluded sections of society, especially brutalized women. She tirelessly supported women survivors of dowry harassment, rape victims,...

by Vibhuti Patel | On 21 Jan 2014

Community Resilience and Critical Urban Infrastructure: Where Adaptive Capacities Meet Vulnerabilities

In many of Southeast Asia’s cities, critical infrastructure development is concentrated in affluent areas; and poor communities, lacking access to basic services, often resort to alternatives that may...

by Sofiah Jamil | On 15 Jan 2014

Women's Migration, Urban Poverty and Child Health in Rajasthan

The paper is concerned with the high levels of infant and child illness and death amongst poor urban slum communities in Rajasthan, a state with one of the highest infant mortality rates in India. Ur...

by Maya Unnithan Kumar | On 15 Jan 2014

Report of the Expert Group on Estimation of Proportion and Number of Poor

The Planning Commission constituted, in September 1989, an 'Expert Group' to consider methodological and computational aspects of estimation of proportion and number of poor in India. [Planning Comm...

by Planning Commission | On 07 Jan 2014

Comparing Urbanization in India and China: A Study

China and India are in the vanguard of a wave of urban expansion that is restoring the global prominence that Asia enjoyed before the European and North American industrial revolution. Never before i...

by Richard Dobbs | On 15 Oct 2013

The Case of Slum Rehabilitation in Delhi

Delhi Master Plan 2021 introduced the "In-situ rehabilitation" approach to slum redevelopment, in which slum residents transit to temporary housing while the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) reconstr...

by Anubhab Pattanayak | On 10 Oct 2013

Model State Affordable Housing Policy for Urban Areas

The aim of this policy is to create an enabling environment for providing “affordable housing for all” with special emphasis on EWS and LIG and other vulnerable sections of society such as Scheduled c...

by Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation MOHUPA | On 09 Oct 2013

Decentralized Provisioning of Supplementary Nutrition for the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) in Mumbai

This study is an attempt to examine the decentralized production of supplementary nutrition which has been instituted for the Integrated Child Development Services in urban Maharashtra, specifically,...

by Natasha S. K. | On 04 Oct 2013

The National Food Security Act, 2013

Our public distribution system has been severely criticized for its gaping lacunae. To fill in these gaps, a new Act was originally conceived by the National Advisory Council headed by Congress Presid...

by Ministry of Law, Justice and Company Affairs GOI | On 17 Sep 2013

Climate Variability and Internal Migration: A Test on Indian Inter-State Migration

Migration data is matched from the Indian census with climate data to test the hypothesis of climate variability as a push factor for internal migration. The main contribution of the analysis is to...

by Ingrid Dallmann | On 06 Sep 2013

Do Open Sewers Lead to a Reduction in Housing Prices? Evidence from Rawalpindi, Pakistan

The Hedonic property value method is used to estimate how a dismenity, bad odor from an open sewer system, affects housing prices in the city of Rawalpindi in Pakistan. An estimate of the benefits of...

by Mohammad Irfan | On 05 Sep 2013

Statement by Dr. Raghuram Rajan

Statement by Dr. Raghuram Rajan on taking office on September 4, 2013. [RBI Press release].

by Sabeeta Badkar | On 05 Sep 2013

Migration and Poverty in India: A Multi-Patterned and Complex Reality

The paper reviews the existing evidence on migration-poverty interface in the light of the macro and micro level studies in India. It also discusses the extent, patterns, and correlates of short term...

by Amita Shah | On 03 Sep 2013

Employment and Unemployment Situation among Major Religious Groups in India

This report is based on the eighth quinquennial survey on employment and unemployment conducted in the 66th round of NSS during July 2009 to June 2010. The survey was spread over 7402 villages and 5...

by National Sample Survey Office NSSO | On 19 Aug 2013

The Changing Pattern of Internal Migration in India: Issues and Challenges

This paper is an attempt to understand the emerging migration patterns in India and issues underlying it. With globalisation, urbanisation and accompanying changes in socio-economic conditions, migran...

by Sandhya Rani Mahapatro | On 07 Aug 2013

Montek Singh Ahluwalia on Poverty Line

Interview on the recent released poverty line.

by Planning Commission | On 05 Aug 2013

Patterns of Migration, Water Scarcity and Caste in Rural Northern Gujarat

Patterns of rural-urban migration and employment shifts in a region that is facing ongoing depletion of groundwater resources in Northern Gujarat, India is discussed. Given that migration typically d...

by Ram Fishman | On 30 Jul 2013

Nutritional Norms for Poverty: Issues and Implications

This study raises some relevant issues and examines them from an economic perspective. To begin with, it would examine how did the Indian approach, official in particular, to defining and measuring po...

by Suryanarayana M H | On 26 Jul 2013

Breaking New Ground: Enacting a National Land Use Policy

With only a total land area of 30 million hectares and a population of 92.3 million growing at an average rate of 2.12 percent, how should the Philippines allocate a very scarce and important resource...

by Senate Economic Planning Office SEPO | On 24 Jul 2013

The Health Effects of Motorization

The decisions taken by countries will determine the levels of physical activity, vehicular emissions, and crash risks, and thus influence Non-Commucable Diseases (NCD) and injury rates for future gene...

by Kavi Bhalla | On 12 Jul 2013

An Explanatory Analysis of Deprivation and Ill Health Led Poverty in Urban India: A Case Study of Delhi

This paper examines the multi-dimensional nature of urban poverty with special emphasis on ill-health led deprivation. As a driver of poverty, ill-health reduces the income earning potential and incre...

by Samik Chowdhury | On 28 Jun 2013

National Urban Health Mission

The Union Cabinet gave its approval to launch a National Urban Health Mission (NUHM) as a new sub-mission under the over-arching National Health Mission (NHM).

by Anonymous | On 27 May 2013

National Urban Livelihoods Mission

The Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation has proposed to launch a “National Urban Livelihoods Mission (NULM)” in 12th Five Year Plan.

by Anonymous | On 27 May 2013

Science and Economics for Sustainable Development o f India

This paper deals with the interface between science and economics in environmental policy making in India. It explains Nehru‘s concept of scientific temper and its influence in the formulation of scie...

by U. Sankar | On 23 May 2013

Socio Economic and Caste Census 2011 in Rural India

This booklet explains the SECC,2011, as it relates to rural India, and details the entire process in simple language. [Ministry of Rural Development]. URL:[http://rural.nic.in/sites/downloads/general...

by Ministry of Rural Development GOI | On 02 May 2013

Water in India: Situation and Prospects

This report attempts to provide a comprehensive analysis of the state of water resource development and management in India, based on secondary information. It maps the current challenges and sugg...

by Anjal Prakash | On 30 Apr 2013

Circular Migration in India

This brief explores circular migration in India and the policy response, and impact of this policy response, on the welfare of migrants and more broadly, on regional inequality. [ODI Policy Brief No....

by Kate Bird | On 24 Apr 2013

The Impact of NREGA on Rural-Urban Migration: Field survey of Villupuram District, Tamil Nadu

Migration can act as a negative force. It can lead to distress migration, which is what happens when people have to go to cities to find work because they cannot survive on what they can earn in thei...

by Naomi Jacob | On 17 Apr 2013

Food Price Inflation in India: Causes and Cures

Inflation in general and food price inflation in particular has been a persistent problem in India over the past few years. Price stability is crucial for sustainable growth as persistent inflation...

by Pradeep Agrawal | On 16 Apr 2013

India Migration Bibliography

The India Migration Bibliography covers over 3,000 books, research articles and reports written on the subject of internal migration, international migration and diaspora, related to India. The biblio...

by Chinmay Tumbe | On 15 Apr 2013

State of the Urban Youth India 2012: Executive Summary

The State of the Urban Youth India 2012: Employment, Livelihoods, Skills developed and produced by IRIS Knowledge Foundation, Mumbai on a commission from the UN-HABITAT Global Urban Youth Research Net...

by Padma Prakash | On 14 Apr 2013

Estimating Losses to Customers on Account of Mis-selling Life Insurance Policies in India

This paper presents two approaches that use publicly available data to estimate the loss to investors from mis-selling of insurance products. The first approach uses the number of lapsed policies fro...

by Monika Halan | On 12 Apr 2013

State of the Urban Youth India 2012: Employment, Livelihoods, Skills

The State of the Urban Youth India 2012: Employment, Livelihoods, Skills is a first attempt to pull together a data and knowledge base on and of youth in urban India. The focus of the Report is youth...

by IRIS Knowledge Foundation IKF | On 11 Apr 2013

Living Rough: Surviving City Streets

This paper records the findings of a small investigation into a fragment of experiences of people living on streets and into the social, economic, nutritional situation of urban homeless men, women, b...

by Harsh Mander | On 10 Apr 2013

Inequalities Reinforced? Social Groups, Gender and Employment

Based on the last four rounds of NSS data the study explores some dimensions of women’s labour market participation across social groups. [CWDS Occasional Paper No.59]. URL:[http://www.cwds.ac.in/OCPa...

by Neetha N | On 01 Mar 2013

The Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Bill, 2012

A bill to protect the rights of urban street vendors and to regulate street vending activities and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto [PRS India]. URL:[http://www.prsindia.obill, rg...

by Parliamentary Research Service PRS | On 27 Feb 2013

Self-Employment in China: Are Rural Migrant Workers and Urban Residents Alike?

This paper studies differences in the motivation to be self-employed between rural migrants and urban residents in modern China. Estimates of the wage differential between selfemployment and paid-empl...

by Yuling Cui | On 13 Feb 2013

Connecting the Dots: The Urban Informal Sector and Climate Vulnerabilities in Southeast Asia’s Megacities

In the megacities of developing Southeast Asia, the informal sector plays an important role in supporting economic development. Yet, in discussions of the ramifications of climaterelated natural haz...

by Sofiah Jamil | On 13 Feb 2013

Metabolism Of Mumbai- Expectations, Impasse and the Need For a New Beginning

As population and human activities expand they exert heavy environmental pressure through the resource requirement, their production and consumption. Hence, it is important to understand the resource...

by B. Sudhakara Reddy | On 12 Feb 2013

Property Tax System in India: Problems and Prospects of Reform

This paper analyses the property tax system in India, examines the reasons for its low revenue productivity, reviews the recent reform initiatives and identifies further reform areas. [NIPFP Working P...

by M. Govinda Rao | On 06 Feb 2013

Firewood Collections and Economic Growth in Rural Nepal 1995-2010: Evidence from a Household Panel

A longitudinal household survey from World Bank Living Standards Measurement Survey (LSMS) was used for the study. A relatively small (but representative) sample of households residing in the mountain...

by Jean-Marie Baland | On 28 Jan 2013

Political Clientelism and Capture: Theory and Evidence from West Bengal, India

There are relatively few theoretical models or empirical analyses of clientelism which analyse the sources and consequences of clientelism. Data from household surveys in rural West Bengal are used t...

by Pranab Bardhan | On 14 Jan 2013

Review of Input and Output Policies for Cereals Production in Pakistan

This report reviews the input and output policies for cereals implemented in Pakistan during the period 1996–2010. Pakistan has a long and varied history of intervening in farm input and output market...

by Abdul Salam | On 16 Nov 2012

Demographics, Labor Mobility, and Productivity

This paper considers two major issues that need to be treated as matters of urgency. First, internal (within country) migrations in the Asian (ACI) region are mostly undocumented and large. It is show...

by E J Wilson | On 05 Nov 2012

Tackling Urban and Rural Food Wastage in Southeast Asia: Issues and Interventions

Food wastage is prevalent in Southeast Asia and has significant implications for the region’s food, environmental and economic security. It is likely that the region wastes approximately 33 per cent o...

by Paul S Teng | On 08 Oct 2012

Poverty, Human Development and Health Financing in India

This study aims at analyzing the differentials across rich and poor states and across rich and poorer strata and rural urban segments of 19 major Indian states. The study indicates that besides ind...

by Brijesh C Purohit | On 28 Sep 2012

On the Internal Mobility of Indians: Knowledge Gaps and Emerging Concerns

This paper identifies key knowledge gaps on the issue of migration and commuting workers in India. [WP-2012-023]. URL:[http://www.igidr.ac.in/pdf/publication/WP-2012-023.pdf].

by S. Chandrasekhar | On 27 Sep 2012

Examining the Effect of Household Wealth and Migration Status on Safe Delivery Care in Urban India, 1992–2006

Although the urban health issue has been of long-standing interest to public health researchers, majority of the studies have looked upon the urban poor and migrants as distinct subgroups. Another co...

by Prashant Kumar Singh | On 24 Sep 2012

The Air that We Breathe: Addressing the Risks of Global Urbanization on Health

The Editors examine the lack of correlation between the size of a city and its air quality, noting that the strength of environmental laws and the accountability of the country's government have a gre...

by PLoS Medicine Editors | On 30 Aug 2012

Coordinating Healthcare and Pension Policies: An Exploratory Study

Rapid ageing of the population globally represents an unprecedented historical trend. As pension and healthcare costs are positively correlated with rising incomes, ageing, urbanization, and a shift f...

by Azad Singh Bali | On 20 Aug 2012

Food Security: Cities As Part of the Solution and Not the Problem

As the world becomes increasingly urban, food demand will come mainly from people living in cities while there will be fewer rural farmers producing food on less land with less water. Cities can play...

by Paul S Teng | On 16 Aug 2012

Environmental Changes and Ripples for Water Security in Southern States

Environmental change is regarded by many geopolitical experts as one of the biggest threats to international security in the coming years. In Southern Asia, its impact on rivers, and thus water secur...

by Dhanasree Jayaram | On 07 Aug 2012

Consequences of Gestational Diabetes in an Urban Hospital in Viet Nam: A Prospective Cohort Study

Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is increasing and is a risk for type 2 diabetes. Evidence supporting screening comes mostly from high-income countries. Prevalence and outcomes in urban Viet Nam ar...

by Jane E Hirst | On 03 Aug 2012

‘The Education Question’ from the Perspective of Adivasis: Conditions, Policies and Structures

Drawing on secondary data, insights and ideas from an all-India consultation meet at NIAS, four regional / zonal consultations, data from a project in Chamarajanagar district (Karnataka), and select...

by P Veerbhadranaika | On 01 Aug 2012

Determinants of On-the-job Search in India: Macro and Micro Evidences

The main aim of this paper is to examine two core features of on-the-job search in India. First, based on National Sample Survey (NSS) 66th round unit level data, we identify the factors influencing t...

by Krishna M | On 27 Jul 2012

Water, City and Urban Planning: Assessing the Role of Groundwater in Urban Development and Planning in Delhi

The paper examines the stages and patterns of urban evolution in the Delhi metropolis and its peri-urban areas and links the role of groundwater in urban development from the past to the present. Wi...

by Suresh Kumar Rohilla | On 20 Jul 2012

Conserving, Augmenting and Sharing Water

There is a huge crisis for water all around the world, certainly in India with groundwater table going down and drinking water selling almost at the rate of toned milk. That also shows that country ha...

by Anil K Gupta | On 20 Jul 2012

How Close Does the Apple Fall to the Tree? Some Evidence on Intergenerational Occupational Mobility from India

Using data from the India Human Development Survey (IHDS) 2005, intergenerational occupational mobility in India is examined, an issue on which very few systematic and rigorous studies exist. Individ...

by Sripad Motiram | On 12 Jul 2012

National Budget of Bhutan: Financial Year 2012-13

Budget of Bhutan 2012-13. URL:[http://www.mof.gov.bt/downloads/BudgetReport2012.pdf].

by Minister of Finance Bhutan | On 04 Jul 2012

Income Related Inequality in Financial Inclusion and Role of Banks: Evidence on Financial Exclusion in India

This paper analyzes income related inequality in financial inclusion in India using a representative household level survey data, linked to State-level factors. This paper also provides estimates of...

by Rama Pal | On 27 Jun 2012

Analysis of Gender Wage Differential in China’s Urban Labor Market

This paper estimates the gender wage gap and its composition in China’s urban labor market using the 2009 survey data from the Chinese Family Panel Studies. Several estimation and decomposition meth...

by Biwei Su | On 01 Jun 2012

Cambodia’s Hydropower Development and China’s Involvement

The research was undertaken to better understand the current policy and plans of the Cambodian government for the electricity sector; map the decision-making process; develop a greater understanding...

by Carl Middleton | On 25 May 2012

The Impact of Infrastructure on Agricultural Productivity

This paper provides an empirical basis for the perceived link between rural infrastructure and agricultural productivity. It validates the hypothesis that deficiencies in rural infrastructure e.g.,...

by Gilberto M Llanto | On 24 May 2012

Agricultural Growth and Rural Incomes: Rural Performance Indicators and Consumption Patterns

The present paper is part of a larger study on agricultural growth and rural incomes in the Philippines. This study examines the farm-nonfarm linkages of agricultural growth and the mechanisms by w...

by Arsenio M. Balisacan | On 24 May 2012

One Planet to Share: Sustaining Human Progress in a Changing Climate

In the run-up to Rio+20, this Asia-Pacific Human Development Report takes a bold look at climate change and what can be done about it. Tackling head-on the issue of poverty reduction and human deve...

by United Nations Development Programme UNDP | On 21 May 2012

Integrating Urban Datasets: The Path to Effective Socio-Economic Planning in Urban Pakistan

Effective urban policy making and implementation in Pakistan is impeded by the problem of integrating data containing incompatible spatial references. There is great heterogeneity across spatial units...

by Sohaib Khan | On 16 May 2012

Corruption

In this paper, a new framework for analyzing corruption in public bureaucracies is provided. The standard way to model corruption is as an example of moral hazard, which then leads to a focus on bette...

by Abhijit Banerjee | On 24 Apr 2012

Urban Policies: Political Gimmicks?

Review of the book 'Re-visioning Indian Cities: The Urban Renewal Mission' by Christopher Manickam. Author of the book: K. C. Sivaramakrishnan, published by Sage, New Delhi.

by Christopher Manickam | On 23 Apr 2012

Research Study on Women’s Empowerment, Good-governance and Decentralisation : Assuring Women’s Participation in Panchayats of Two Backward Districts of Northern Part of West Bengal

The study focused on the factors and forces behind the participation of women in Panchayat Structure specially after the seventy third Constitution Amendment Act. The role performance, role awarenes...

by Dilip Kumar Sarkar | On 20 Apr 2012

Voices from the Margin: Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Northeast Thailand: Pak Mun Dam

The protests against the Pak Mun Dam are amongst the longest running in the world. The dam is also one of the most studied, in part because it had all the features of a failed development policy: no...

by Katie Jenkins | On 18 Apr 2012

Development Trajectory, Emission Profile, and Policy Actions: Thailand

Thailand has made significant progresses toward green and low-carbon development; however, there is a need to further address the issue. The country has to focus on the implementation of no-regret pol...

by Qwanruedee Chotichanathawewong | On 16 Apr 2012

What is the Role of Social Pensions in Asia?

The main objective of this paper is to explore the potential role of social pensions and other noncontributory schemes in Asia, informed by insights from theory and international experience. The paper...

by Armando Barrientos | On 13 Apr 2012

Policy and Processes that Enable Honey Export: A Case Study from India

India started exporting a small amount of honey in 1991-1992 and has now established itself as an important honey exporter to the world market. The quantity exported has increased substantially, and t...

by Harish K Sharma | On 02 Apr 2012

A Review of Input and Output Policies for Cereals Production in India

This paper reviews the key policies with regard to agriculture inputs such as seed, fertilizer, water, agricultural equipment, research, extension, and agricultural credit. It also provides an overvie...

by Ganga Shreedhar | On 29 Mar 2012

Janam: Narratives of Urban Theatre

Review of A History of the Jana Natya Manch: Plays for the People By Arjun Ghosh Sage, New Delhi; 2012, pp 328, Rs. 695.

by Nikhil Govind | On 25 Mar 2012

Report of the Expert Group for Modernizaion of Indian Railways

There is in urgent need for modernization and generational Change need to be done in the Indian railways to assure safety, improve productivity, take advantage of advanced technology, respond to ever...

by Ministry of Railways | On 14 Mar 2012

Services-led Growth, Employment and Job Quality: A Study of Manufacturing and Service-sector in Urban India

This is a study of employment growth, structure, and job quality outcomes in manufacturing and service-sector in urban India spanning the period 1999-2000 to 2009-10. The context is that of dynamic...

by K.V. Ramaswamy | On 12 Mar 2012

Federal Budget of Pakistan-2011-12

BUDGET SPEECH 2011-2012 by DR. ABDUL HAFEEZ SHAIKH, Minister for Finance, Revenue, Economic Affairs, Statistics and Planning & Development.

by Minister of Finance Pakistan | On 12 Mar 2012

Final Report-Water Security and Climate Change: Challenges and Strategies

The main objectives of this seminar has been to contribute to the understanding of the development processes and problems related to water security and climate change; to focus on studies relating t...

by Gursharan Singh Kainth | On 12 Mar 2012

Asia’s Wicked Environmental Problems

The developing economies of Asia are confronted by serious environmental problems that threaten to undermine future growth, food security, and regional stability. This study considers four major envir...

by Stephen Howes | On 06 Mar 2012

Report of the Sub-Groups on Child Rights for 12th Five Year Plan

A Working Group on Child Rights was constituted by the Planning Commission to recommend priorities and strategies for children in the 12th Five year Plan 2012-17. Five Sub Groups of the Working group...

by Government of India Ministry of Women and Child Development | On 06 Mar 2012

The State of the World's Children 2012: Children in an Urban World

The experience of childhood is increasingly urban. Over half the world’s people – including more than a billion children – now live in cities and towns. This report adds to the growing body of eviden...

by United Nations Children's Fund UNICEF | On 01 Mar 2012

The End of the “Liberal Theory of History”? Dissecting the U.S. Congress’ Discourse on China’s Currency Policy

In the last ten years, economic issues related to currency policy have become the major ongoing dispute between China and the U.S. Especially the U.S. Congress is stridently demanding a tougher poli...

by Nicola Nymalm | On 01 Mar 2012

Saving Mumbai

What Mumbai needs as a starting point is a city administration that is accountable to the city's residents, and a directly elected mayor, as in all great cities of the world. [BS Weekend Ruminations]....

by T.N. Ninan | On 22 Feb 2012

In Remembrance: Girish Sant, Energy Expert, Activist

Girish Sant, co-founder of Prayas Energy Group, a pro-people's thin tank on energy issues, an inspiration to many, suffered a fatal heart attack on February3, 2012. A short note on his life and work.

by Anonymous | On 20 Feb 2012

Girish Sant on India's Energy Challenges

This interview with Girish Sant, head of Prayas Energy Group and one of India's foremost energy experts, was made during COP17 in Durban. Girish died on February 2, 2012. This interview was published...

by Marian M | On 20 Feb 2012

Towards a Model for Analyzing the Impact of Macroeconomic Adjustment Policies on Households: A Review of Empirical Household Models in the Philippines

The paper has two objectives, namely: (a) determine and assess how existing empirical household models are able to capture the effects of changes in the macroeconomic variables on the welfare of the...

by Aniceto C. Orbeta Jr. | On 17 Feb 2012

The Financial Structure and Performance of Philippine Credit Cooperatives

This study is an attempt to assess the importance and potential impact of any further development of the credit cooperative sector; identify development interventions that will result in a strong Fil...

by Gilberto M Llanto | On 13 Feb 2012

Consumer Responses to Incentives to Reduce Plastic Bag Use: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Urban India

In this paper a test for appropriate policies is done that could help control the use of plastic bags in Delhi. In January 2009, the Government of Delhi introduced a wide-ranging ban on the use of p...

by Kanupriya Gupta | On 03 Feb 2012

India’s Food Security Bill: A Waste or Win for the Hungry?

Home to over 25 per cent of the world’s hungry poor, India faces major food security challenges and the situation has barely improved in two decades. Will the National Food Security Bill that the Indi...

by Sally Trethewie | On 27 Jan 2012

Chinese Commodity Imports in Ghana and Senegal: Demystifying Chinese Business Strength in Urban West Africa

Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, independent entrepreneurial migrants from China have been increasingly flocking to Africa in search of “greener pastures.” This paper scrutinizes the...

by Laurence Marfaing | On 25 Jan 2012

Total Sanitation Campaign - Progress and Issues: Situational Analysis of Andhra Pradesh with reference to Total Sanitation Campaign

This paper has tried to address some key research questions like will India and Andhra Pradesh achieve the Millennium Development Goal of Sanitation ? Are the TSC targets realistic? What is coverage...

by M Snehalatha | On 25 Jan 2012

Rural to Urban Migration in Pakistan: The Gender Perspective

This paper analyses gender dimensions in rural to urban migration (age 10 years and above) in Pakistan. The study is based on Labour Force Surveys 1996-2006. The findings of the study show that over...

by Shahnaz Hamid | On 20 Jan 2012

Parental Education as a Criterion for Affirmative Action in Higher Education: A Preliminary Analysis

Affirmative action, especially in the form of reservation policies, to address the issues of inclusion and equity has been in place in India for a long time. Through these policies higher participatio...

by Rakesh Basant | On 09 Jan 2012

Are All Migrants Really Worse Off in Urban Labour Markets? New Empirical Evidence from China

The rapid and massive increase of rural-to-urban migration in China has drawn attention to the welfare of migrant workers, particularly to their working conditions and pay. This paper uses data from...

by Jason Gagnon | On 06 Jan 2012

Changes in the Use of Safe Water and Water Safety Measures in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Intervention Areas of Bangladesh: A Midline Assessment

The BRAC Water, Sanitation and Hygiene programme reached 150 upazilas in collaboration with the Government of Bangladesh since 2006. This study assessed the changes in the use of tubewell water and w...

by Nepal C. Dey | On 28 Dec 2011

Consultation Report on Strengthening the Role of Agriculture for a Nutrition Secure India

The Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), Mumbai and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), New Delhi organized a workshop ‘Strengthening the Role of Agriculture...

by Srijit Mishra | On 27 Dec 2011

Leveraging Environment and Climate Change Initiatives for Corporate Excellence

The paper reviews selected initiatives taken by Asian countries to comply with emerging global sustainability standards, reporting, and management systems, and tracks the response of Asian businesses...

by Venkatachalam Anbumozhi | On 26 Dec 2011

Will Neoliberal Policies Resolve Water Sector Dilemmas? Learnings from Maharashtra and Gujarat

This paper examines how the neoliberal policies have influenced the water sector reform policies and interventions in India, particularly, in the states of Maharashtra and Gujarat. In doing so, the...

by Viswanathan P K | On 26 Dec 2011

Durban Climate Agreement: The Morning After

The Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (DPEA) initiated at the Conference of Parties (CoP 17) mandated to finalise by 2015 a new legal structure to govern greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of nations c...

by D.Raghunandan | On 20 Dec 2011

Monetary Neutrality in the Nepalese Economy during 1975-2008

One of the methods of measuring the effectiveness of monetary policies is via inspection of monetary neutrality in the economy. It is a concept from classical economics and it suggests that changes...

by Mukesh Khanal | On 16 Dec 2011

National Urban Transport Policy

The objective of this policy is to ensure safe, affordable, quick, comfortable, reliable and sustainable access for the growing number of city residents to jobs, education, recreation and such other...

by Ministry of Urban Development GOI | On 30 Nov 2011

Draft of combined Fourth and Fifth Periodic Reports of India to CEDAW

This Report covers developments in implementation of the Convention in India from 2006 to 2011. The harmonised guidelines for preparation of Common Core Document and the reporting Guidelines of the...

by Government of India Ministry of Women and Child Development | On 25 Nov 2011

The Politics of Water Discourse in Pakistan

The policy brief explores the evolving discourse on water issues in Pakistan where the process of political articulation, securitization and mobilization which often links water to Kashmir is studied....

by Medha Bisht | On 24 Nov 2011

Policies for Increasing Non-Farm Employment for Farm Households in India

The present paper adopts a diagnostic approach; problems of non-farm employment in rural sector are identified by studying pattern and process of rural employment using data from the NSS quinquennia...

by Brajesh Jha | On 22 Nov 2011

Final Report of the Task Force on Domestic Workers: Realising Decent Work

This report presents the results of the deliberations of the Task Force. Section one provides the background. Section two presents the status of the implementation of March 2010 recomme...

by Ministry of Labour and Employment MoL&E | On 18 Nov 2011

Where is the Virtue in the Middle Class?

It is widely agreed by economists and political scientists that the middle class is vital to progress because of its many virtues. But it is difficult to define a middle class by income in a manner t...

by Charles Kenny | On 16 Nov 2011

Equity in the Time of Recession: Mumbai Youth Struggle to Bridge Yawning Opportunity Gap

Mumbai is the capital of Maharashtra, a large highly industrialised, progressive state that until a decade ago, reported remarkable progress on social and economic indices. Today, it is still a leadi...

by eSocialSciences eSS | On 11 Nov 2011

Energy Intensity and Firm Performance: Do Energy Clusters Matter?

In analyzing this phenomenon for Indian manufacturing industries, this study tries to find out the determinants of profitability of firms based on three energy clusters (natural gas, petroleum, coal)...

by Santosh Kumar Sahu | On 10 Nov 2011

The Determinants of Export Performance of China's Township-Village Enterprises

The rapid export growth of China's township-village enterprises (TVEs) has not been well understood and explained. Using a simple analytical model and exploring a unique dataset on China's TVEs the...

by Changqi Wu | On 08 Nov 2011

Teaching How to Bridge Neuroscience, Society, and Culture

In most universities, sharp disciplinary and departmental divisions continue to this day and have regrettably translated into the life sciences being taught with scarce attention to their historical a...

by Giovanni Frazzetto | On 31 Oct 2011

Macro-Economic Policy Outcomes and Agriculture Relation between Fiscal Deficits and Investment in Agriculture

In an earlier paper (Alagh, Munish, 2011) it was shown that macro economics matters in agriculture. The relevance of understanding the impact of macro-economic policy on agriculture was outlined. A...

by Munish Alagh | On 24 Oct 2011

Does Greater Autonomy Improve Performance? Evidence from Water Service Providers in Indian Cities?

The efficiency of urban water supply in 27 Indian cities are analyzed using data envelopment analysis (DEA). Cities are grouped by the management structure of their water utilities. Utilities with g...

by Shreekant Gupta | On 24 Oct 2011

Report of the Expert Group to Review the Methodology for Estimation of Poverty

There has been a growing concern on the official estimates of poverty released by the Planning commission. The official poverty estimates have been severely criticised on various counts. In view of...

by Planning Commission | On 21 Oct 2011

What is driving the Indian middle class towards electoral politics? Evidence from Delhi

Neighborhood Associations have assumed an important role in public policy decision making as the principal voice of the middle class across urban India. In recent years, these associations have sought...

by Poulomi Chakrabarti | On 20 Oct 2011

Discount Rate for Health Benefits and the Value of Life in India

This study contributes to the literature by estimating discount rate for environmental health benefits and value of statistical life of workers in India. The discount rate is imputed from wage-risk...

by K. R. Shanmugam | On 19 Oct 2011

Recent Global Crisis and the Demand for Gold by Central Banks: An Analytical Perspective

When India purchased 200 tonnes of gold under the International Monetary Fund's limited gold sales programme, it was interpreted inter alia that it may further inflate the gold price when the price...

by Karunagaran A | On 17 Oct 2011

Gender Dimensions: Employment Trends in India, 1993-94 to 2009-10

This paper examines some of the explicit as well as not so explicit trends in relation to women’s employment in India from 1993-94 till 2009-10 and argues that they indicate a grave and continuing...

by Indrani Mazumdar | On 10 Oct 2011

Populations at Risk: Other End of Youth Bulge

While there is much written on the youth bulge in developing countries, little is being done to address the problems of the elderly. And yet demographically, it is this section that is showing high gr...

by Lakshmi Priya | On 10 Oct 2011

Urban Transport Sustainability Indicators – Application of Multi-view Black-box (MVBB) Framework

In a recent work Nathan and Reddy (2011a) have proposed a Multi-view Black-box (MVBB) framework for development of sustainable development indicators (SDIs) for an urban setup. The framework is flex...

by Hippu Salk Kristle Nathan | On 10 Oct 2011

Labour Market in Urban Agglomerations: A case from an Indian Global City

The study explores different aspects of employment and labour market prevalent in large in UAs, in particular global cities. To capture the role of labour market in urban agglomeration, particularly...

by G.D Bino Paul | On 27 Sep 2011

Estimating Urban and Rural Incomes in Gujarat: 1993-94 to 2004-05

Income originating within geographical boundaries of urban and rural areas of Gujarat is estimated for three benchmark years – 1993-94, 1999-00 and 2004-05 - at current prices following the broad me...

by Ravindra H Dholakia | On 26 Sep 2011

Estimates of Workers Commuting from Rural to Urban and Urban to Rural India: A Note

The paper provides estimates of workers residing in rural (urban) India and commuting to urban (rural) areas for work. These estimates are based on National Sample Survey Organisation’s survey of Emp...

by S. Chandrasekhar | On 19 Sep 2011

Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Developing Countries

How does innovation impact on development? How, and under what conditions, do entrepreneurs in developing countries innovate? And what can be done to support innovation by entrepreneurs in develo...

by Wim Naude | On 16 Sep 2011

Report of the Expert Committee on Licensing New Urban Co-operative Banks

With a view to increasing the coverage of banking services amongst local communities, it was proposed in the Annual Policy Statement for the year 2010-11 to set up a Committee comprising of all stakeh...

by Reserve Bank of India RBI | On 15 Sep 2011

Household Level Pollution in India: Patterns and Projections

This study analyses the pollution-income relationship (for both local and global pollution), separately across rural and urban households in India based on unit record data on fuel consumption obta...

by K S Kavi Kumar | On 14 Sep 2011

Agrofuels – A Boost of Energy for the Mekong Region?

This background paper seeks to brief readers on the extent of the development, production and consumption of agrofuels, particularly liquid fuels for transport, in the Mekong region. The area of focu...

by Rebeca Leonard | On 12 Sep 2011

Faster, Sustainable and More Inclusive Growth: An Approach to the 12th Five Year Plan

In preparing the Approach Paper, the Planning Commission has consulted much more widely than ever before recognising the fact that citizens are now much better informed and also keen to engage. Over...

by Planning Commission, India | On 12 Sep 2011

The Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2011

A bill to ensure a humane, participatory, informed consultative and transparent process for land acquisition for industrialisation, development of essential infrastructural facilities and urbanisa...

by Parliamentary Research Service PRS | On 08 Sep 2011

Returns to Education in India: Some Recent Evidence

This paper estimates returns to education in India using a nationally representative survey. The standard Mincerian wage equation separately for rural and urban sectors is estimated. To account for th...

by Tushar Agrawal | On 06 Sep 2011

The Seed and Agricultural Biotechnology Industries in India: An Analysis of Industry Structure, Competition, and Policy Options

This paper examines the structure of India’s cereal seed and agbiotech industries, its potential effects on innovation and social welfare, and the policies that may improve both industry performance a...

by David J Spielman | On 31 Aug 2011

Drivers of Agricultural Diversification in India, Haryana and the Greenbelt Farms of India

The present study discusses factors responsible for agricultural diversification at different levels: country (India), state (Haryana) and farms of Kurukshetra district in Haryana. The study regress...

by Brajesh Jha | On 29 Aug 2011

Policy Dilemmas in India: The Impact of Changes in Agricultural Prices on Rural and Urban Poverty

Trade policy reforms which lead to changes in world prices of agricultural commodities or domestic policies aimed at affecting agricultural prices are often seen as causing a policy dilemma: a fall...

by Sandra Polaski | On 26 Aug 2011

Child Health and Nutritional Status of Children: The Role of Sex Differentials

The main objective of this paper is to examine the patterns of gender differences for children in the north state of Haryana in India for health outcomes. Specifically it addresses the incidence, and...

by Suresh Sharma | On 23 Aug 2011

Technology in Banking- In Pursuit of Excellence

The contribution of technology to the Indian banking industry, the role played by IDRBT and the significance of banking technology awards, in fostering the technological developments of banks. Issues...

by Anand Sinha | On 23 Aug 2011

Reforms in Indian Agro-processing and Agriculture Sectors in the Context of Unilateral and Multilateral Trade Agreements

In this paper, the potential impacts of trade and investment-related policy reforms on India’s agro-processing sector is explored. The direct effects of policy reforms within the processing sector, an...

by A. Ganesh-Kumar | On 22 Aug 2011

Urbanization in India: Evidence on Agglomeration Economies

The paper examines the urbanization pattern with context of India. The paper deals with various demographic aspects of urbanization. Also the paper focuses on characteristics and classes of cities, an...

by Arup Mitra | On 19 Aug 2011

Poverty Estimates in India: Old and New Methods, 2004-05

This paper provides estimates of poverty and inequality across states as also for different sub-groups of population for 2004-05 by using the old and new methods of the Planning Commission. The new m...

by Durgesh C Pathak | On 17 Aug 2011

Distress Situation in Dryland Areas Impacts on Livelihood Pattern and the Coping Strategies: A Review

This paper is a review of the different coping mechanisms adopted by the households in different dryland area of India. The primary focus of the present paper is to understand the coping mechanisms...

by Nikhil Govind | On 05 Aug 2011

“Indian” Literatures Today: English and Bhasha Literatures in an Uneasy Relationship

Review of Other Tongues: Rethinking the Language Debates in India. Edited byNalini Iyer, Bonnie Zare,Rodopi, Amsterdam. 2009. 248 pp. $71.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-90-420-2519-6.

by KumKum Chatterjee | On 23 Jul 2011

Provisional Population Totals: Rural Urban Distribution India: Series I

The rural-urban distribution of the population is shown. URL:[http://censusindia.gov.in/2011-prov-results/paper2/data_files/india/paper2_1.pdf].

by | On 21 Jul 2011

Private Health Sector in Maharashtra: A Study of Private Hospitals

The study was conducted across 261 private hospitals from 10 districts of Maharashtra, Nashik, Nandurbar, Pune, Satara, Thane, Ratnagiri, Osmanabad, Aurangabad, Amravati and Gadchiroli. Greater Mum...

by Padma Deosthali | On 01 Jul 2011

Macroprudential Policies: Indian Experience

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has been using macroprudential polices, more notably the countercyclical policies, since 2004 as a toolkit for ensuring financial stability though it had used them sporadic...

by Anand Sinha | On 16 Jun 2011

Poverty Reduction in China: Is High Growth Enough?

The slowdown and in some years reversal of poverty reduction in China forcefully demonstrates that growth is not sufficient for combating poverty even if that growth is of unprecedented magnitude. Pol...

by Guanghua Wan | On 16 Jun 2011

Rising Spatial Disparities and Development

The UNU-WIDER project on 'Spatial Disparities in Human Development' has collected and analysed evidence on the extent of spatial inequalities within developing countries. The studies find that spatial...

by Ravi Kanbur | On 15 Jun 2011

Poverty, International Migration and Asylum

This WIDER Policy Brief examins issues such as liberalizing migration policies; protecting refugees in regions of origin; addressing the root causes of migration and refugee flows; influencing percept...

by Christina Boswell | On 14 Jun 2011

Polarization, Inequality and Growth: The Indian Experience

Polarization in India is analysed roughly in the past two and half decades using consumption expenditure data. It is seen that polarization has increased sharply since the 1990s, reversing the earlie...

by Sripad Motiram | On 13 Jun 2011

Analysis of Technical Options for Mitigating Environmental Emissions from the Urban Transport System in Selected Asian Countries: Case Study of Delhi and Mumbai

India has been facing rapid urbanization. There is a two-fold increase in urban population during 1971-2001, registering a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.8%. Among all the problems caus...

by Sudhakar Yedla | On 03 Jun 2011

China’s Housing Markets: Regulatory Interventions Mitigate Risk of Severe Bust

A closer look at the developments in 35 cities across China, looking for potential regional real estate bubbles. An assessment is done about the success of the various policies and their potential n...

by Ulrich Clemens | On 02 Jun 2011

India’s Policy Deficit: As I Look At It

Policies, be they administrative, economic, educational, scientific, social or regarding anything else, are necessarily grounded in some ideology; relating to the conception of an ideal man, an i...

by S.K. Mishra | On 24 May 2011

Financial Sector Legislation: (Random) Lessons from (Random) Experinces

In this distinguished lecture on Law and Economics, the author shares the lessons in economics that he has learnt from random experiences of the same. [IGDIR PP-067] URL: [http://www.igidr.ac.in/pdf/p...

by Y. Venugopal Reddy | On 18 May 2011

Awareness of Urban Poor Customer for Malls

“Sell to the poor if you want to be rich” were the words spoken by the experts in rural marketing. Every marketer loves to reach out to the fat wallets where the selling is obvious, easy and conspicuo...

by Kusum Dharamshi | On 09 May 2011

Federalism and Fiscal Reform in India

This paper attempts to analyse the experience of incentivising economic reforms at the state level through central transfers to states. It reviews the experiences of the central government introdu...

by M. Govinda Rao | On 09 May 2011

Toward Results-Based Social Policy Design and Implementation

This paper analyzes some of the elements that cause the apparent perception in the realm of social policy, and in particular in the case of poverty alleviation and education policies in developing ...

by Miguel Székely | On 02 May 2011

Deregulation of Savings Bank Deposit Interest Rate: A Discussion Paper

The paper is an attempt to deal with pros and cons of deregulating savings deposit interest rate and take on board the suggestions of various stakeholders for either maintaining the status quo or dere...

by Reserve Bank of India RBI | On 02 May 2011

Targeting and Distribution of Post-Tsunami Aid in Sri Lanka : A Critical Appraisal

In this study, two types of aid transfers - boats and houses are examined- that were made to rehabilitate tsunami-affected fishery households in Sri Lanka. The goal is to investigate the distributio...

by Asha Gunawardena | On 20 Apr 2011

National Youth Policy 2010 (NYP 2010)

The NYP 2010 is a step forward from the earlier Policy formulated in 1988 and, later, in 2003. It reaffirms commitment of the nation to the holistic development of the young people of the country....

by Ministry of Youth and Sports Affairs YAS | On 19 Apr 2011

Do Local Elections in Non-Democracies Increase Accountability? Evidence from Rural China

Unique survey data is used to study whether the introduction of local elections in China made local leaders more accountable towards local constituents. A simple model is developed to predict the e...

by Monica Martinez Bravo | On 18 Apr 2011

Our Tahrir Square

The government has alienated the public through months of scandal on a scale not seen till now. URL:[http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/t-n-ninan-our-tahrir-square/431532/]

by T.N. Ninan | On 13 Apr 2011

The BCG World Atlas: A Database of Global BCG Vaccination Policies and Practices

Despite nearly a century of use, Bacille Calmette-Gue´rin (BCG) remains controversial, with known variations in BCG substrains, vaccine efficacy, policies, and practices across the world. Global i...

by Alice Zwerling | On 12 Apr 2011

Deficit Fundamentalism vs Fiscal Federalism: Implications of 13th Finance Commission’s Recommendations

The important recommendations of the Thirteenth Finance Commission (THFC) can be categorised under the following heads: • Enhanced vertical devolution from 30.5 to 32 per cent of divisible pool of ...

by Pinaki Chakraborty | On 31 Mar 2011

Out of World Crisis through Innovations

The paper examines the situation of financial crisis prevailing in the world economy and its impact on urbanization and development. URL: [http://www.fgks.in/event/Pardos.pdf]

by Françoise Pardos | On 24 Mar 2011

Economic Survey, 2010-11, Maharashtra

State income, public finances, agriculture and animal husbandry, education, health, population etc are given importance in the economic survey. URL: [http://mahades.maharashtra.gov.in/files/publicatio...

by Maharashtra Government | On 23 Mar 2011

‘Spatial Poverty Traps: What Are They and What Can Be Done About Them?'

This paper demonstrates how urban spatial poverty traps exist in developing countries and makes the case for including an urban focus to spatial poverty analysis and policy responses. It frames this w...

by Ursula Grant | On 23 Mar 2011

Where are Food Prices Heading?

This paper aims to review the main considerations around food price movements. It includes a discussion on the impact of speculation. URL:[https://www.dbresearch.com/PROD/DBR_INTERNET_EN-PROD/PROD00...

by Claire Schaffnit Chatterjee | On 16 Mar 2011

Multiple Dimension of Urban Well-Being: Evidence from India

This paper addresses differences in outcomes across households residing in slums and non-slum urban areas of India. Using a nationally representative household data set, they undertake a robust mult...

by S. Chandrasekhar | On 16 Mar 2011

Stimulus, Recovery and Exit Policy G20 Experience and Indian Strategy

There are large variations among the G20 countries in their deceleration experiences, transmission mechanisms and their current macroeconomic outlook. Hence, this paper argues that each country nee...

by Sudipto Mundle | On 14 Mar 2011

Budget for Gender Equity

The budgetary policy of the Government has a major role to play in achieving objectives of gender equality and growth through content and direction of Fiscal and Monetary Policies, measures for r...

by Government of India Ministry of Women and Child Development | On 08 Mar 2011

Preservation of Lakes in the City of Bangalore

The Karnataka High Court, while hearing a public interest litigation on the state of lakes and waterbodies in and around Bangalore, constituted a ten-member commitee under the chair of the high court...

by N. K Patil | On 04 Mar 2011

Emerging Issues for Regional Cooperation in Asia-Pacific

Dynamic human resources are one of the dominant factors for developing countries (DMCs) to achieve sustainable economic growth. Donors, including the ADB, are eager to help teach DMC policymakers ho...

by Toshiki Kanamori | On 21 Feb 2011

Report to the People on Environment and Forests: 2009-2010

The present report aims to generate greater awareness and environmental consciousness amongst our citizens. The objective of the report, therefore, is to generate a national debate among various s...

by Ministry of Environment and Forests GOI | On 16 Feb 2011

National Programme for the Health Care of the Elderly-Better Late than Never

While there are many path-breaking elements in the Programme document, the stress is on a top down programme that leaves little room for accommodating regional needs. Nor is there much emphasis on enc...

by Syam Prasad | On 15 Feb 2011

An Agenda for Research on Urbanization in Developing Countries: A Summary of Findings from a Scoping Exercise

This paper assesses the state of research and examines priorities for future work in the area of urbanization and growth. This is done by reviewing and summarizing the findings of five scoping papers...

by Patricia Clarke Annez | On 09 Feb 2011

Advanced Economies Pose Three Financial Risks to Developing Countries in 2011

As in recent years, the major risks for emerging market economies in 2011 will come not from the policies and actions of the countries themselves, but from developments in advanced economies. There...

by Liliana Rojas Suarez | On 03 Feb 2011

Broadening Poverty Definitions in India: Basic Needs in Urban Housing

This paper considers how the official poverty line in India would have to change, if it were to be set at a level that allowed urban households to afford minimally adequate accommodation. It discusses...

by S. Chandrashekar | On 02 Feb 2011

Development Strategies: Lessons from the Experiences of South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam

This piece synthesizes the development strategies of Korea, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam and draws some relevant lessons. Using a complex adaptive systems approach, strategic openness, a set of...

by Haider A. Khan | On 27 Jan 2011

Rethinking the Policy Objectives of Development Aid: From Economic Growth to Conflict Prevention

The current consensus objective of development aid in the international community is to reduce poverty in general and to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in particular. In addition,...

by Sakiko Fukuda- Parr | On 21 Jan 2011

Globalization and the Urban Poor

The focus of this paper is the effect of contemporary globalization on poverty and inequality in cities of the ‘global south’. Specifically it addresses the impact of globalization on marginalize...

by Janice E. Perlman | On 13 Jan 2011

An Early Assessment of CFPR II Support Packages

Based on the programmatic lessons and research knowledge accumulated from CFPR phase I, CFPR phase II was designed to expand its outreach while incorporating greater diversity in support packages. T...

by Narayan C Das | On 12 Jan 2011

An Inventory of the Development Programmes by Government and Non-Government Organizations in Selected Unions of Matlab (Excluding BRAC & ICDDR,B)

Endemic poverty is the stark reality that one confronts immediately about rural Bangladesh. Almost 50% of the rural households are now bereft of any visible resources, which could enable them to eke ...

by Monirul Islam Khan | On 06 Jan 2011

Dynamics of Urban Mobility: A Comparative Analysis of Megacities of India

This paper aims to analyse urban mobility patterns and consequent impacts on energy and environment in India. We investigate the quantity of energy use in 23 metropolitan regions for the period 1981–...

by B. Sudhakara Reddy | On 03 Jan 2011

The Economy of Thiruvananthapuram

The major objectives of the paper is to:- * to locate the Thiruvananthapuram district in the economic map of the State; *to document the structural and sectoral transformation of the district; *to...

by Oommen M A | On 22 Dec 2010

The Political Economy of Urban Poverty in Developing Countries: Theories, Issues, and an Agenda for Research

The implications of urban development for overall economic prosperity are well known. Employment, housing, policing, infrastructure and social policies in cities have been shaped and institutionalized...

by Raj M. Desai | On 21 Dec 2010

Urban Poverty in Developing Countries: A Scoping Study for Future Research

This paper is a scoping exercise to explore options for research on urban poverty in developing countries. Based on a review of the literature and experience, the first part of the paper reviews the c...

by Johannes F. Linn | On 21 Dec 2010

Capability Traps? The Mechanisms of Persistent Implementation Failure

Many countries remain stuck in conditions of low productivity that many call “poverty traps.” Economic growth is only one aspect of development; another key dimension of development is the expansion...

by Lant Pritchett | On 15 Dec 2010

Decline in Birth rate in Kerala

The rapid decline in mortality rates, rendered possible by the spread of modern medicine and public health services, and the high and unchanging fertility rates are generally considered portents...

by P R Gopinathan Nair | On 07 Dec 2010

Commitment to Development Index 2010

The Commitment to Development Index (CDI) ranks 22 of the world’s richest countries on their dedication to policies that benefit the five billion people living in poorer nations. Moving beyond standar...

by David Roodman | On 29 Nov 2010

Intellectual Property Protection, Regulation and Innovation in Developing Economies: The Case of Indian Pharmaceutical Industry

Historically, nations have modified their IP policies to support their development agenda. With the advent of TRIPS, the ability of countries to choose between different IP policy options has reduce...

by Rakesh Basant | On 23 Nov 2010

Issues in Real Estate and Urban Management – A Note

This note raise many policy issues related to real estate and the urban sector. Urban issues and the very high cost of real estate in India have deep rooted problems that have their origin in the po...

by Sebastian Morris | On 22 Nov 2010

Gulf Migration Study: Employment, Wages and Working Conditions of Kerala Emigrants in the United Arab Emirates

This is the fourth in a series of Working Papers published by the CDS on Kerala migration. Unlike the other three, this one is financed by the Kerala Government and the data were collected in UAE. ...

by K. C. Zachariah | On 18 Nov 2010

Asian Fertility Transition: Is Gender Equity in Formal Occupations An Explanatory Factor?

Early writers on fertility decline (Thompson 1929; Davis 1945 1955 1963; Notestein 1945; Feemdman 1961 -62) emphasized broad forces of modernization, such as urbanization, industrialization...

by D. Narayana | On 15 Nov 2010

Consultation Paper on Certain Issues Relating to Telecom Tariffs

This consultation paper brings out various issues that have a bearing on telecom tariff offers. In line with established practice, the Authority seeks the views of all stakeholders by 15th November,...

by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India TRAI | On 20 Oct 2010

Liberalization of Capital Inflows and the Real Exchange Rate in India: A VAR Analysis

The East Asian crisis of 1997-98 and the Mexican crisis of 1994 generated much concern among policy analysts regarding the role of macroeconomic policies in the management of capital inflows. A seri...

by Indrani Chakraborty | On 14 Oct 2010

Stemming Girls’ Chronic Poverty: Catalysing Development Change by Building Just Social Institutions

Childhood, adolescence and early adulthood remain for many girls and young women a period of deprivation, danger and vulnerability, resulting in a signifcant lack of agency and critical developm...

by Nicola Jones | On 12 Oct 2010

Understanding China’s Consumers

China’s consumers are better understood when looked at as two distinct classes: urban consumers and rural consumers. The urban households are much richer than their rural counterparts and consume thre...

by Syetarn Hansakul | On 12 Oct 2010

Lessons from Japan’s Banking Crisis

The Japanese government’s response to the financial crisis in the 1990s was late, unprepared and insufficient; it failed to recognize the severity of the crisis, which developed slowly; faced no major...

by Mariko Fujii | On 08 Oct 2010

Resettlement in Action

This report studies the ongoing resettlement for the middle route of the South-North Water Transfer Project at Danjiangkou in Hubei Province, China. The Water Transfer Project is China’s biggest wat...

by International Rivers Network IRN | On 30 Sep 2010

Beyond Population: Everyone Counts in Development

This essay reviews important demographic trends expected to occur between 2010 and 2050, indicates some of their implications for economic and global development, and suggests some possible policies t...

by Joel E. Cohen | On 29 Sep 2010

Women in the Urban Industrial Labour Force in India

This paper takes a look at the women urban industrial labour force in India. [Working Paper No. 127]

by Leela Gulati | On 24 Sep 2010

Is Gender Equity In Formal Occupations an Explanatory Factor?

Early writers on fertility decline (Thompson 1929; Davis 1945 1955 1963; Notestein 1945; Feedman 1961-62) emphasized broad forces of modernization, such as urbanization, industridiization, shi...

by D. Narayana | On 21 Sep 2010

If Only We Had Listened

The state of a nation is nowhere better mirrored than in its architecture.Our buildings reflect our economic and social strength, our values, our concern for environment, art, culture and beauty. Arch...

by Gautam Patel | On 15 Sep 2010

ICTs and Urban Microenterprises: Identifying and Maximizing Opportunities for Economic Development

The research reported here was guided by three questions: (1) What are the current and potential patterns of mobile phone, landline, PC, and Internet café use among urban microentrepreneurs? (2) Are m...

by Vigneswara Ilavarasan | On 06 Sep 2010

Youth Labour Markets in Europe and Central Asia

This paper looks at developments in and around the transition of young people from education to work in the ECA region in recent years. The purpose of the paper is to aid understanding of the curren...

by Niall O’Higgins | On 05 Aug 2010

The Employment-Unemployment Situation in India in the Nineteen Nineties: Some Results from the NSS 55th Round Survey (July 1999-June 2000)

The National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) has recently released the report containing key results of the NSS 55th Round Employment-Unemployment Survey covering the period July 1999 thru June 2...

by K. Sundaram | On 26 Jul 2010

Radio drug advertisement situation and regulation in Thailand

Drug consumption in Thailand is high in comparison with other countries. A key factor influencing this over consumption is advertising. Radio is the media that can easily reach a lot of people, in...

by Tanattha Kittisopee | On 23 Jul 2010

Implications Of The Economic Rise Of The PRC For Asean and India: Trade and Foreign Direct Investment

An important and vigorous policy debate ongoing in Asia concerns the impact of the economic rise of the PRC on the rest of the region. This paper examines the relative performances of the PRC, selec...

by Sadhana Srivastava | On 20 Jul 2010

The End of ODA (II): The Birth of Hypercollective Action

The development business has become much more complex in the past decade, with actors proliferating and collaboration fragmenting. This trend is characteristic of the change from collective action t...

by Jean-Michel Severino | On 08 Jul 2010

The Question of Land and Infrastructure Development in India: Urgently Required Reforms for Fairness and Infrastructural Development

In this paper an analytical critique of the law and restrictions as also of the framework of urban planning and a justification for why major change is required in the approach to land markets, lan...

by Sebastian Morris | On 29 Jun 2010

Municipal Finance of Urban Infrastructure: Knowns and Unknowns

Various trends, including an increasing emphasis on fiscal decentralization; political democratization in many areas; globalization and the financial liberalization that often accompanies it; growing...

by James Alm | On 18 Jun 2010

Unlocking Public Entrepreneurship and Public Economies

Unlocking human potential requires a rich network of institutional arrangements in both private and public spheres. Opening the private sphere to entrepreneurship and complex market organization i...

by Elinor Ostrom | On 17 Jun 2010

Restraints On Capital Flows: What Are They?

Though there has been much general debate recently about the pros and cons of capital controls, there remains substantial confusion and uncertainty about what exactly is entailed by the term ‘restra...

by Ramkishen Rajan | On 11 Jun 2010

Provoking Thought, Changing Talk: Discussing Inequality

This occasional publication series is part of the Social Equity and Opportunity Forum in the Dean’s Office of the College of Urban and Public Affairs. Directed by Janet Hammer, Ph.D., the Forum emph...

by Joseph Grady | On 10 Jun 2010

Policy Barriers Preventing Access to Emergency Obstetric Care in Rural India

The paper is based on study of policies, research reports and experience of working in the area of maternal health over last several years. The paper describes how policies restrict basic doctors*fr...

by Dileep V. Mavalankar | On 07 Jun 2010

Addressing Agricultural Power Subsidy: A Case Study of North Gujarat

This paper on the basis of fieldwork in the region of North Gujarat tries to analyze the perceptions among various sections of the farmers and examines whether the subsidy is pro-poor in nature. The...

by Vidyut Joshi | On 07 Jun 2010

Do Reservation Policies Affect Productivity In The Indian Railways?

The objective in this paper is to shed some empirical light on a claim often made by critics of affirmative action policies: that increasing the representation of members of marginalized communities i...

by Ashwini Deshpande | On 26 May 2010

Urban Governance and Finance in India

Over 330 million people live in India’s cities; 35 cities have a population of over a million and three (Mumbai, Delhi, and Kolkata) of the 10 largest metropolises in the world are in India. India’s...

by M. Govinda Rao | On 21 May 2010

External Assistance for Urban Development: A Scoping Study for Further Research

Analysis of developing country cities indicates that neither policy frameworks nor infrastructural investments have kept up with urban growth, that the wrong choices with long-term consequences are be...

by Homi Kharas | On 20 May 2010

Can Social Security Boost Domestic Consumption in the People’s Republic of China?

This paper reviews the development of the social security system and trends in the urban labor market in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Despite its remarkable economic achievement, the PRC face...

by Wang Dewen | On 20 May 2010

Grassroot Empowerment (1975-1990): A Discussion Paper

The discussion focusses on women in poverty their concentration in rural and urban areas, and the organisational approach for their mobilization and empowerment. Maximum emphasis has been placed on...

by Narayana K Banerjee | On 17 May 2010

Women Safety in Delhi

This paper attempts to question the state of ‘women community” at large with situation depicting the growing rate of crime, oppression and subjugation which is historically unprecedented and its re-...

by Chitra Mishra | On 03 May 2010

Improving Newborn Survival in Low-Income Countries: Community-Based Approaches and Lessons from South Asia

Obstacles to improving survival include: many newborn infants are invisible to health services; care-seeking for maternal and newborn ailments is limited; health workers are often not skilled and co...

by Nirmala Nair | On 03 May 2010

Commonwealth Games 2010: Displacement of Persons

This research paper analyses Government policy with regard to Jhuggi-Jhopri clusters- a particular type of housing present in Delhi. These colonies are perceived to be illegal by the Government. Wit...

by Eshaan Puri | On 13 Apr 2010

Preventing Road Deaths—Time for Data

The editors stress the impact of inadequate road safety on global health, in both developed and low- and middle-income countries. "Research into the risk factors for injury from road traffic crashes,...

by PLoS Medicine | On 08 Apr 2010

The Impact of the Commonwealth Games 2010 on Urban Development of Delhi -An Analysis with a Historical Perspective from Worldwide Experiences and the 1982 Asian Games

The paper raises some hard questions that need to be answered before one can conclude that events such as Common Wealth Games has a positive effect on the host community. Can the financial requirement...

by Vinayak Uppal | On 23 Mar 2010

Planning for Human Settlements in India-Spatial Perspective

This paper examines the basis upon which rural and urban areas are classified as such. It looks into various criteria for the above all over the world and re-iterates the Indian definition of an ‘urba...

by V.K. Dhar | On 22 Mar 2010

Quietly They Die: A Study of Malnourishment Related Deaths in Mumbai City

The attention of the media and planners has been focussed almost exclusively on rural and tribal malnutrition. However, malnutrition among urban children, particularly the economically vulnerable slum...

by Neeraj Hatekar | On 22 Mar 2010

Privatisation of Urban Transport in Delhi

This paper seeks to analyse the present situation of the bus transport system in Delhi and addresses the question of how privatising bus transport system in Delhi would make the present scenario of De...

by Shailly Arora | On 17 Mar 2010

The Impact of Slum Resettlement on Urban Integration in Mumbai: The Case of the Chandivali Project

The paper studies the socio-economic impact of the shift of slum dwellers to new rehabilitation site of Chandivali. It also discuses the issue of availability and choice of employment as a key driver...

by Damien Vaquier | On 18 Feb 2010

Escaping Chronic Poverty Through Economic Growth

The paper discusses the participation of poor participate in growth, and how different forms of growth connect to poverty. Also the paper discusses important policy levers, in relation to agriculture,...

by Chronic Poverty Research Centre CPRC | On 18 Feb 2010

Post-Independence Educational Development among Women in India

This paper aims to examine the policy debates on women's education and highlight some of the basic issues affecting the progress of women's education since the introduction of planned development in...

by Balaji Pandey | On 08 Feb 2010

Microfinance and the Millennium Development Goals in Pakistan: Impact Assessment Using Propensity Score Matching

Using data from a survey of clients of a microfinance bank, Khushhali Bank, in 2005, the study revisited the survey data and found that despite the Bank’s strict poverty-targeting program used in cl...

by Sununtar Setboonsarng | On 25 Jan 2010

The Nature of Rural Infrastructure: Problems and Prospects

This paper looks at rural infrastructure facilities in India, the lack of which is demonstrated to be an impediment to sustained economic development. It is argued that problems of rural infrastruct...

by Suman Bery | On 15 Jan 2010

Obstacles to Private Power Investments in India

This paper aims to highlight the critical importance of cost recovery in attracting and sustaining private investment for power development. Based on a brief review of Indian experience, it suggests...

by Vishvanath V. Desai | On 24 Dec 2009

Many Poverties

Discusses about the different poverty measuements.

by T.N. Ninan | On 22 Dec 2009

Rethinking Food Security Policies: IDSAsr Declaration

Declaration made at the end of two days national seminar on Food security and Sustainability in India held on November 7-8, 2009 organized by GAD Institute of Development Studies, PO Naushera, Amritsa...

by Gursharan Singh Kainth | On 14 Dec 2009

Urban Issues, Reforms and Way Forward in India

The Government has launched a reform-linked urban investment programme, JNNURM. The paper has analysed urban trends, projected population, service delivery, institutional arrangements, municipal finan...

by Chetan Vaidya | On 26 Nov 2009

Access and Mobility for the Urban Poor in India: Bridging the Gap Between Policy and Needs

Indian cities are characterised by rapid growth in human as well as motor vehicle populations. Although the poor benefit the least from motor vehicle activity, they bear the brunt of its impacts. The...

by Madhav Badami | On 26 Nov 2009

Kyoto Protocol Reference Manual on Accounting of Emissions and Assigned Amount

This manual is provided as a reference tool to assist Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (hereafter referred to as the Convention) (Annex I Parties) in the implementa...

by UN Framwork Convention on Climate Change UNFCCC | On 20 Nov 2009

Low Income Shelter Financing in Slum Upgrading: India Urban Initiatives

This report summarises findings from the USAID-sponsored project on models of financing for slum upgrading in India, undertaken on behalf of SPARC,a Mumbai-based NGO involved in slum upgrading and th...

by Sally Merrill | On 19 Nov 2009

Sustainable Urban Development In India: Some Issues

This paper aims at discussing some of the important issues relating to sustainable urban form that would lead to sustainable urban development with possible references to India. The paper is based on...

by Basudha Chattopadhyay | On 17 Nov 2009

From Income to Urban Contest in Global Settings: Chronic Poverty in Bangalore

The paper is a research which studies the government policies and agendas that affect the poor in India. For the research 8 to 10 families, who had been intervened several years ago were re-interviewe...

by Solomon Benjamin | On 16 Nov 2009

Migration and Urban Poverty in India Some Preliminary Observations

Migration decisions to urban areas that are backed by economic rationale and attempts to understand gains accruing to individuals from migration, in terms of poverty outcomes are analysed. The analy...

by William Joe | On 16 Nov 2009

Sisyphean Labours Domestic Water Supply In The Central-Western Himalayas

The paper begins with a review of national programmes and their performances. The next two sections highlight the record of domestic water supply programmes in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh with th...

by People's Science Institute PSI | On 10 Nov 2009

Poverty and Agrarian Distress in Orissa

The relatively lower reduction of poverty in Orissa, 0.2 percentage points per annum from 48.6 per cent in 1993-94 to 46.4 per cent in 2004-05, has been a matter of concern. The current exercise attem...

by Srijit Mishra | On 27 Oct 2009

Concept Paper on Child Labour in India

This concept papers aims at demystifying some of these social, economic and political myths, and stimulate discussion, debate and deliberation on various aspects of child labour. This paper, further...

by Child Rights and You CRY | On 07 Oct 2009

Food Consumption and Nutritional Status in India: Emerging Trends and Perspectives

The paper reviews the trends over three decades in the consumption of cereals, calories and micronutrients and nutritional status based on anthropometric measures using the data sets of NSS, NNMB and...

by Radhakrishna R | On 15 Sep 2009

UCLG Policy Paper on Local Finance

The Policy Paper seeks to give voice to a local government vision on financing and stems from a shared understanding of the challenges we face. The Policy Paper contains 25 concrete recom- mendations...

by UCLG Committee on Local Finance and Development UCLG | On 12 Sep 2009

Food Security in South Asia: Issues and Opportunities

The study aims to identify issues relating to food security, the policy initiatives taken to tackle these issues, evaluate these policies and suggest measures to overcome identified constraints in ord...

by Surabhi Mittal | On 11 Sep 2009

Employment and Income in India: Case of a City Economy

This paper analyses the pattern of growth observed in the city economy of Ahmedabad, a metropolitan city in the industrially developed state of Gujarat. The growth of this city is placed in the cont...

by Jeemol Unni | On 17 Aug 2009

Technology, Financial Inclusion and Role of Urban Cooperative Banks

The focus should be to simplify the technology which can operate on any platform. The technology solution to the business needs should be user-friendly without much third-party or IT vendor interventi...

by Chakrabarty K C | On 11 Aug 2009

Groundwater Irrigation in India: Gains, Costs and Risks

Groundwater has rapidly emerged to occupy a dominant place in India’s agriculture and food security in the recent years. It has become the main source of growth in irrigated area over the past 3 decad...

by Vasant P Gandhi | On 23 Jun 2009

India’s Population: Past, Present and Future

This paper presents a lecture delivered by the author under The Pravin Visaria Public Lecture in GIDR. India has made considerable demographic progress since 1947; however it seems that the country’s...

by Tim Dyson | On 16 Jun 2009

Women, Paid Work and Empowerment in India: A Review of Evidence and Issues

The paper is an attempt to review critically the association between women’s paid work and empowerment in India. As a prelude, the author seek to assess the extent of women’s participation in paid wor...

by Sunny Jose | On 15 Jun 2009

The Water and Sanitation Scenario in Indian Metropolitan Cities: Resources and Management in Delhi, Calcutta, Chennai, Mumbai

This paper reviews the urban water and sanitation scenario in metropolitan cities. Section 1 focuses on the institutional and organizational structure of the service providers by looking at the level...

by Joel Ruet | On 04 Jun 2009

Women’s Work in the Post Reform Period: An Exploration of Macro Data

An important aspect that is often highlighted in the context of economic reforms, is the translation of labour market changes into defining or redefining gender relations and empowerment of women. In...

by Neetha N | On 03 Jun 2009

Interactions between Policy Assumptions and Rural Women’s Work –A Case Study

This paper is mainly concerned about the approaches to rural women’s development and an understanding of their work roles in the planning strategies. Changes in the economic and social participation o...

by Kumud Sharma | On 03 Jun 2009

Effect of Mobiles on Socio-economic Life of Urban Poor

Using a survey of 1774 users and non-users in 84 slums in three metropolitan cities (Delhi, Ahmedabad and Kolkata), we try to understand the impact of mobiles on their social and economic lives. Urban...

by Ankur Sarin | On 27 May 2009

Manager’s Perceptions of the Impact of Foreign Direct Investment Liberalizations: Information Technology Firms in India

Firms differ in the effects that foreign direct investment liberalizations have on their businesses, and in the responses they make to adjust to the liberalized business environment. In this study th...

by Stanley Nollen | On 15 May 2009

The Two Waves of Service-Sector Growth

This paper will hopefully provide an important methodological tool for all researchers who may be attempting to analyze and explain the growth of the service sector and its share in the Indian GDP o...

by Barry Eichengreen | On 08 May 2009

People's Health Manifesto-2009

In this article hard realities of people’s health in India today, and some of the maladies of recent health policies are examined. This is followed by core recommendations to strengthen and reorient...

by Jan Swasthya Abhiyan JSS | On 08 May 2009

Gender and Innovation in South Asia

To understand how gender, women’s rights and citizenship intersect with innovation in SouthAsia, one must begin by considering some of the main features of life for South Asian women, about a half of...

by Sujata Byravan | On 06 May 2009

You Can Get There From Here..

This inaugural piece addresses a fundamental problem of communication – how to effectively talk about an issue. It’s not as simple as it seems. Its always known that people did not always “hear” what...

by Joseph Grady | On 05 May 2009

Globalisation Produces Good Outcomes, Enhance Them: Prof Bhagwati

This paper talks of good outcomes of Globalisation which needs to be further inproved wherein Institutional response mechanisms should be designed to address any problems that may arise in specific ar...

by Jagdish Bhagwati | On 03 May 2009

Nutritional Deprivation Among Indian Pre-School Children: Does Rural-Urban Disparity Matter ?

The rural-urban disparities are a reality in developing countries like India. Post reform, there are lot of empirical studies which has focused on this aspect of development experience in India. The v...

by Rudra Narayan Mishra | On 01 May 2009

The Potential of Media: Dialogue, Mutual Understanding and Reconciliation

The media has a demonstrated ability in fostering mutual understanding by communicating across divides, thus bringing competing narratives together into a shared story. This ambivalence presents an op...

by UNESCO UNESCO | On 28 Apr 2009

Report of The National Children’s Consultation on Their Right To Housing

A consultation with about 40 children who have faced violations of their housing rights in some form or the other was organized on 13th November 2006 from 9 – 12 am on the National platform of India S...

by India Social Forum ISF | On 14 Apr 2009

Cities with Suburbs: Evidence from India

For a country like India that contains a large number of Urban Agglomerations (UAs), suburbanisation has drawn little attention of the literature. I focus on this sparsely studied issue in this work....

by Kala Seetharam Sridhar | On 20 Feb 2009

Health Damage Cost of Automotive Air Pollution: Cost Benefit Analysis of Fuel Quality Upgradation for Indian Cities

An analysis of the economic implication of judicial activism of the apex court of India in the regulation of automotive air pollution is analysed. It estimates the health damage cost of urban air po...

by Ramprasad Sengupta | On 16 Jan 2009

Reducing Currency and Maturity Mismatch

The main objectives of this report are to identify and propose policies, factors and conditions that could mitigate or avoid double mismatches. policies here means any course of action pursued and ad...

by Khee-Giap Tan | On 19 Dec 2008

Educational Reforms in India: Universalisation of Primary Education in Kerala

The history and evolution and the factors underlying the success of primary education in Kerala. [CDS WP 189].

by P R Gopinathan Nair | On 10 Dec 2008

Workforce Development in India: Policies and Practices

The task of workforce development in India faces the changing realities of globalization and competitiveness, on one hand, and the need for inclusive growth on the other. This report focuses on the is...

by Shyamal Majumdar | On 30 Nov 2008

The Role of Fiscal and Monetary Policies in Sustaining Growth with Stability in India

This paper focuses on the role of fiscal and monetary policies in the evolution of the Indian economy over the years, with particular attention being given to the reforms undertaken in these policies...

by Rakesh Mohan | On 28 Nov 2008

The Demand for Disadvantage

In a poor, growing economy with academic costs well below the market value of educational training, the tag of disadvantage has come to acquire value and, ironically, the desire for mobility has brou...

by Rohini Somanathan | On 18 Nov 2008

World Development Report 2007 Development and the Next Generation

The Report examines five pivotal phases of life that can help unleash the development of young people’s potential with the right government policies: learning, working, staying healthy, forming famili...

by World Bank | On 11 Nov 2008

World Urban Youth Forum, Nanjing: Concept Note

The Fourth session of the World Urban Forum (WUF4) will be held in China, Nanjing 03-06 November 2008. The forum is convened pursuant to the resolution of 18th session of the Commission on Human Set...

by UN-HABITAT UNHABITAT | On 31 Oct 2008

India’s Macroeconomic Performance and Policies Since 2000

The paper reviews India’s macroeconomic performance and policies since 2000. The first section briefly summarizes key macroeconomic developments regarding economic growth, inflation, external balance...

by Shankar Acharya | On 29 Oct 2008

Impact of Urban Growth on Water Bodies The Case of Hyderabad

This study makes an attempt to analyse the transformation of common property resources (the lakes) into private property. [WP No. 60].

by Ramachandraiah C | On 17 Oct 2008

Gender Differentials in Adult Mortality in India- With Notes on Rural-Urban Contrast

This paper is preliminary exploration of the trends and spatial variation in gender differentials in adult mortality in India, as also of the related rural-urban differentials.

by N. Krishnaji | On 08 Oct 2008

Deconstructing China’s and India’s Growth: The Role of Financial Policies

This paper uses the standard one-sector neoclassical growth model to investigate why China’s consumption has been low and investment high. This paper looks into the role played by the financial sector...

by Jahangir Aziz | On 07 Oct 2008

Findings oF the Jury Independent People's Tribunal on the World Bank in India

It was considered important to undertake a broad-spectrum enquiry into the World Bank and the functioning of its allies and to review their impacts nationally. This is the origin of the Independent Pe...

by Independent People's Tribunal | On 24 Sep 2008

India's Climate Change Policy and Trade Concerns: Issues, Barriers and Solutions

This study assesses the Five Year Plans and relevant government policies adopted to garner India's climate change goals and priorities. It attempts to highlight key climate change concerns from a brie...

by Centre for Trade and Development CENTAD | On 17 Sep 2008

Banking Sector Reforms and Equity a Sub-Regional Analysis in Andhra Pradesh

In this study an attempt is made to examine the equity aspect due to reforms in the banking sector at sub-regional level in the state of Andhra Pradesh covering the period 1985 to 2004. [CESS WP 68]...

by K S Reddy | On 04 Aug 2008

The Politics of Responsibility to Protect

This occasional paper addresses three questions revolving around the IMF policy. The questions are: What are the underlying factors shaking the very foundation of one of the pillars of the internatio...

by Marc Saxer | On 29 Jul 2008

Andhra Pradesh State Policy on Organic Farming

The objectives of the policy on organic farming, the strategies of the policy are explained here.

by Centre for Sustainable Agriculture CSA | On 26 Jul 2008

Between Citizens and Institutions: The Dyamics of the Integration of Water Supply and Sanitation Services in Hyderabad

The purpose of this study is to review the changes that have taken place recently in water supply and sanitation services and examine the role of various stakeholders involved in urban governance in...

by Agnes Huchon | On 15 Jul 2008

The Unqualified Medical Practitioners Methods of Practice and Nexus with the Qualified Doctors

The presence of a large number of unqualified medical practitioners in the rural areas and urban slums indicate that they provide most of the outpatient services in the private sector. Given the huge...

by Naryana K V | On 08 Jul 2008

Sustainable Economic Growth for India

Use of Macroeconometric models has by now assumed a measure of universality as an unavoidable aid to forecasting and policy analysis; challenges and controversies spread over more than two decades not...

by V. Pandit | On 26 Jun 2008

Foreign Entry and Domestic Welfare: Can “Market Discipline” be Excessive

For most developed countries, "opening up" of the economy has meant the reduction of non-prohibitive tariffs and the easing or abolition of quantitative restrictions. For manydeveloping countries and...

by Aditya Bhattacharjea | On 20 Jun 2008

Why Education? Analyzing the Benefits for Former Child Labourers

This report engages questions and connections of considerable contention, such as typical justifications for child labor, governmental policies and their impact on child labor, M.V.F.’s strategy for t...

by David Ledet | On 11 Jun 2008

ICT and Employment Promotion Among Poor Women: How Can We Make It Happen? Some Reflections On Kerala's Experience

This paper deals with the integration of gender in policies relating to information and communication technology to empower socially excluded poor women as producers of this technology. In this contex...

by Mohanan Pillai P | On 25 Mar 2008

Inclusive Growth - The Role of Banks in Emerging Economies

Speech describes India’s experiences on ‘Inclusive Growth’ - a topic which is both current and close to the hearts of public policymakers and central bankers of emerging economies. [Independence Comme...

by Usha Thorat | On 14 Mar 2008

Debating with the Ideology of Globalisation

In this paper the authors share their experience in attempting to critically engage a set of young persons on their understanding of the present regime of globalisation through a semester-long course...

by Rahul Varman | On 13 Mar 2008

A Sugar Policy for India Comment on D R Gadgil

D.R. Gadgil, wrote at length about the need for a long-term sugar policy and its efficient implementation is needed in India. What is the current relevance of his ideas?

by Aparna Mitheel Jaikar | On 13 Mar 2008

Access and Utilisation of Health Care Services in Urban Low-income Settlements in Surat, India

This paper investigates a range of aspects including socio economic status,morality, morbidity requiring inpatient as well as outpatient care, health care-seeking behavior etc.

by Akash Acharya | On 10 Mar 2008

Introducing the Railway Budget 2008-2009

Speech of Lalu Prasad

by Lalu Prasad | On 27 Feb 2008

A Quick Look at Orissa Budget 2008-09

Quick findings for feedback as well as further analysis. [Contact Pravas Ranjan Mishra CYSD, E-1, Institutional Area, RRL PO., Bhubaneswar India - 751 013 Tel. +91-674-2300774, 2301725 Fax: +91-674-...

by Orissa Government | On 22 Feb 2008

Health and Millennium Development Goal 1: Reducing Out-of-pocket Expenditures to Reduce Income Poverty - Evidence from India

The first of the eight Millennium Development Goals is to halve extreme poverty and hunger by 2015. In India, thirty two and a half million people fall below the national poverty line by making out-of...

by Charu C. Garg | On 07 Feb 2008

Transport: Then, now, and Tomorrow

A historical survey of transport to demonstrate that transport has always been recognised as of paramount importance for the wellbeing of the whole community, that a combination of collective and indi...

by Ralph Harrington | On 01 Feb 2008

Municipal Finance in India:An Assessment

This study, entitled “Municipal Finance in India – An Assessment”, undertaken for the Development Research Group (DRG), Reserve Bank of India examines the performance of Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) in I...

by P K Mohanty | On 29 Jan 2008

An Analysis of Fertility Differentials among Caste Groups in Andhra Pradesh

The fertility differentials among caste groups in Andhra Pradesh are examined in the context of characteristics and interaction hypotheses, using the second National Family Health Survey data. Multiva...

by P Ramesh | On 21 Jan 2008

Intergrated Energy Policy

The report of the Expert Committee provides a broad overarching framework for guiding the policies governing the production and use of different forms of energy from various sources. It makes specific...

by Planning Commission, India | On 10 Jan 2008

Equitable Society : A New Concern For Social Work

Trained Social Workers must be very well aware of Equitable Society philosophy and implementation programmes. They must find opportunity of working with extremely marginalized people.

by Manish Dwivedi | On 27 Dec 2007

Urbanisation and Globalisation in the Twenty First Century: Emerging Challenges

The speech mainly gives insights into aspects like what is globalisation, urban growth in the next 30 years, new challenges of Globalisation for Cities, the poor that emerges along with the cities, th...

by Rakesh Mohan | On 06 Dec 2007

Education for All by 2015 Will We Make It?

The EFA Global Monitoring Report offers an authoritative reference for comparing the experiences of countries, understanding the positive impact of specific policies and recognizing that progress ha...

by UNESCO Publishing | On 05 Dec 2007

Vaccine Policy in India

The success of an immunisation programme in any country depends more upon local realities and national policies. This is particularly true for a huge and diverse developing country such as India, with...

by Yennapu Madhavi | On 12 Nov 2007

Newsletter on Regional Economy: A bi-monthly four-state update

A monthly compilation by IRIS.

by IRIS India IRIS | On 22 Oct 2007

Report on National Mineral Policy

Even after five years of after the liberalisation of the investment regime India has failed to attract FDI to come to the mining sector. In the last decade, many developing countries have significantl...

by Planning Commission, India | On 18 Oct 2007

Why do Indian Children Work, and is it Bad for Them?

The causes and consequences of child labour are examined theoretically and empirically within a household decision framework, with endogenous fertility and mortality. The data come from a nationally r...

by Alessandro Cigno | On 16 Oct 2007

Social Protection Transfers for Chronically Poor People

There are very large numbers of chronically and severely poor people who are not being reached by current development policies, and whose situation is often deteriorating in comparison even with other...

by Chronic Poverty Research Centre CPRC | On 12 Oct 2007

The New Mumbai: Defining Systemic Reforms for the Governance of Mumbai City and Mumbai Metropolitan Region

The 73rd and 74th Amendments to the Constitution of India were made with an express objective or purpose of restoring power back to people by legally encouraging “local self-governance”. At the same...

by A.K. Shende | On 08 Oct 2007

Model Nagara Raj Bill

Model bill to amend the laws relating to the Municipalities and to institutionalise citizens’ participation in municipal functions, e.g. setting priorities, budgeting provisions, etc. by setting up of...

by Ministry of Urban Development MoUD | On 08 Oct 2007

Periurbanisation in Tamil Nadu: A Quantitative Approach

This paper is an attempt to measure the extent of peri-urbanisation that has taken place in TamilNadu. Geographical data is used based on the 1991 census for TamilNadu and Pondicherry. A systematic e...

by Sébastien Oliveau | On 04 Oct 2007

Groundwater Management and Ownership: Report of Expert Group

It is time India recognises its dependency on groundwater resources, which is only going to increase in the coming years, partly because of growing urbanisation and industrialisation. In view of the g...

by Kirit Parikh | On 03 Oct 2007

Price Incentives, Nonprice factors, and Crop Supply Response: The Indian Cash Crops

Agriculture as a source of growth was sorely neglected in the early development strategies of the currently developing countries. Realisation of this shortcoming prompted public policy in these countr...

by Sunil Kanwar | On 06 Sep 2007

Cities, Gender Budgeting and Civic Governance

The Budget is an important tool in the hands of the state for affirmative action for improvement of gender relations through reduction of gender gap in the development process. It can help to reduce e...

by Vibhuti Patel | On 03 Aug 2007

Indian Elderly Among Marginal Sections Programmes and Policies in the Era of Globalisation

This paper is an attempt to bring out different needs of elders from different backgrounds and socio-economic groups. The main aim of the paper is to help policy makers in identifying these difference...

by Habibullah Ansari | On 02 Aug 2007

Employment and Poverty in India: 2000-2005

This paper is principally focused on the changes in the size and structure of work force and the changes in labour productivity, wages and poverty in India in the first quinquennuim of the 21st centur...

by K. Sundaram | On 30 Jul 2007

Evaluate Anti-Naxal Policies of the Chhatisgarh Government: Naxal Conflict Monitor April 11, 2007

The State has the responsibility to ensure right to life of the citizens. Involving civilians directly in armed conflicts only increases the risks to their lives and prolongs the conflicts. Common cit...

by Asian Centre for Human Rights ACHR | On 13 Jul 2007

Trade Policy and Urban-Rural Inequalities In LDCS: A Simulation Experiment With A New Economic Geography Model

This paper follows the new economic geography approach to model the relationships between trade policy and spatial agglomeration of production in the context of a small open developing economy. It c...

by Ayele Gelan | On 13 Jul 2007

Towards Affordable Universal Access to Health Care Through Social Health Protection

The global population covered by some kind of health welfare measure is miniscule. The need to expand coverage can be addressed by a pragmatic strategy rationalizing the use of health financing mechan...

by Xenia Scheil Adlung | On 19 Jun 2007

Building an International Financial Centre in Mumbai

Earlier this year, the Indian government’s High Powered Expert Committee (HPEC) put forward its recommendations on how Mumbai could be made into an International Financial Center. The HPEC’s report co...

by Sanjeev Sanyal | On 19 Jun 2007

Peri-Urban Dynamics: Case studies in Chennai, Hyderabad and Mumbai

Selected case studies of peri-urban dynamics are detailed, drawing from the experiences of Chennai (Pushpa Arabindoo), Hyderabad (Eric Leclerc and Camille Bourguignon) and Mumbai (Himanshu Burte and M...

by Veronique Dupont | On 16 May 2007

Child health inequities in developing countries: differences across urban and rural areas

The urban advantage in health masks enormous disparities between the poor and the non-poor in urban areas of Sub Saharan Africa. Specific policies geared at preferentially improving the health and nu...

by Jean-Christophe Fotso | On 23 Feb 2007

Reforming Delivery of Urban Services in Developing Countries: Evidence from a Case Study in India

Given the importance of urban public services in attracting firm location, increasing employment and facilitating economic growth, in this paper, the author examines the following questions: Is there...

by Kala Seetharam Sreedhar | On 17 Feb 2007

Singapore: The Art of Building a Global City

This article discusses the art of deliberately creating a global city for Asiain Singapore. Twnty-first century cities exist in order to allow human interaction and enhance lifestyle. Such clusters...

by Sanjeev Sanyal | On 09 Jan 2007

Emerging Megalopolis: Bangalore, From ‘Boiled Beans’ Town to Advanced IT City

Historically, Bangalore’s growth and physical spread had been dictated by the location decisions of certain important industrial, institutional and residential activities, rather than as an outcome...

by G.S. Sastry | On 04 Dec 2006

Urban Studies: An Exploration in Theory and Practices

What is the character of our cities? What are the attributes of inequalities and social exclusions in towns, metropolises and mega cities? How do urban structures and forms characteristic of pre capit...

by Sujata Patel | On 18 Nov 2006

China's Embrace of Globalisation

As China has become an increasingly important part of the global trading system over the past two decades, interest in the country and its international economic policies has increased among internati...

by Lee Branstetter | On 13 Oct 2006

Freedom of Expression, Marginality and the Right to Livelihood

By tracking adivasi protest movements on threat of eviction and loss of livelihood, since 2000 and situation of the urban slum dwellers in one city – Delhi the paper analyses legislative and judicia...

by Seema Misra | On 29 Aug 2006

Report of the third Session of the World Urban Forum

The quest for innovative ideas and practical solutions – rare for a meeting convened by the United Nations – was underscored in the six Dialogues, 13 Roundtables and more than 160 Networking Events. M...

by UN-HABITAT | On 13 Jul 2006

Our Future: Sustainable Cities--Turning Ideas into Action

In convening the third session of the World Urban Forum in Vancouver, the United Nations Human Settlements Program has asked us to focus our attention on the Sustainable City and consider critical cha...

by Patricia L. McCarney | On 13 Jul 2006

Keynote Address on Social Inclusion and Cohesion

A central challenge facing us here – how do we ensure that the issue of the urban poor, in particular, is given as much attention by the international community, beyond speaking about it?

by L.N. Sisulu | On 13 Jul 2006

Business Roundtable on Corporate Leadership for Sustainable Urbanization: Discussion Paper

The reality of urban development is that commerce and industry are two of its core drivers. Without the full participation of the private sector in efforts towards sustainable human settlements, the p...

by Rob Sinclair | On 13 Jul 2006

Mumbai/Shanghai: Prospects/Problems--Imitating Global, Failing Local

Do we aspire to be a ‘global’ city like Shanghai, with all the spit and polish to attract foreign investors by the drove? Or can we aim to be a city with a sustainable plan for its development – one t...

by Kalpana Sharma | On 13 Jul 2006

The Wealth of Cities: Towards an Assets-based Development of Newly Urbanizing Regions

The argument in this paper is in four parts: First, the author suggests that we can no longer treat cities apart from the regions surrounding them with which they are intensively entwined. Second, t...

by John Freidman | On 13 Jul 2006

Tomorrow's Cities, Today's Youth: Perspectives from UN World Youth Forum

The cities of tomorrow are in poor countries, where the largest proportion of the population is below 25 years old and where young women are becoming particularly vulnerable. It is youth who will inhe...

by Kaveri Prakash | On 09 Jul 2006

Two Kinds of Activism: Reflections on Citizenship in Globalizing Delhi

The paper examines two of the most pressing concerns in Delhi: housing and the environment. The paper reviews the activities of Resident Welfare Associations, Sajha Manch, and Delhi Janwadi Adhikar Ma...

by Sanjeev K. Routray | On 14 Jun 2013

Health Inequalities, Social Cohesion and Social Capital: An Exploration

This paper claims that the roots and remedies of health inequalities reflected in the major academic debates that culminated with full force towards the turn of the last century, have done little to u...

by Vijay Kumar Yadavendu | On 30 Mar 2006

Sri Lanka: Budget Speech by Finance Minister in Parliament

'Mahinda Chintana' : Towards a New Sri Lanka

by Ministry of Finance and Planning Sri Lanka | On 05 Mar 2006

Sri Lanka: Budget Brief, 2006: Towards a New Sri Lanka

Tax Proposals and Administration Summary of Budget 2006

by Ministry of Finance and Planning Sri Lanka | On 05 Mar 2006

Union Budget 2006-07: Speech

The bulk of the resources must go to the UPA Government’s eight flagship programmes: Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, Mid-day Meal Scheme, Rajiv Gandhi Drinking Water Mission, Total Sanitation Campaign, National...

by Ministry of Finance | On 28 Feb 2006

Institutionalising Citizen Participaion in Urban Governance

The twin concepts of a federal arrangement – a structure for a multi-tiered form of government with clearly defined roles and responsibilities, as well as active citizenship are like the two strands...

by Ramesh Ramanathan | On 12 Jan 2006

‘Urban Bias’ in the Flow of Funds and Deposit Mobilisation:Evidence from Karnataka, India

Until banking sector reforms were introduced in India in 1991, the emphasis in the credit provision through formal banking system was to meet the targets at the expense of the quality of credit and vi...

by Gagan Bihari Sahu | On 08 Dec 2005

Mental Health And Reproductive Health Of Urban Poor Women In Delhi

This study looked at the intersection of reproductive health and mental health of women among the urban poor in Delhi, India. It is part of a larger study that seeks to understand how differences in e...

by Ranendra Das | On 17 Sep 2005

Singapore: Asia's Global City?

The dynamics of a 21st century city are very different from those that created the urban agglomerations of the past. The economics of post-industrial cities are driven are driven by lifestyle, consump...

by Sanjeev Sanyal | On 27 Aug 2005

Alice Thorner: A Personal Tribute

She will always remain a role model for many of us--- a competent professional and a compassionate thinker who believed in ushering in social change that can reorganise inequalities in India.

by Sujata Patel | On 26 Aug 2005

Water Quality and Health Status In Kollam Municipality

In the context of outbreaks of a number of water borne diseases in the thickly populated district of Kollam, especially duing the monsoons, this study was undertaken to assess the quality of drinking...

by M K P Roy | On 16 Aug 2005

Towards Bank Financing of Urban Infrastructure

Provision of quality urban infrastructure is an area of major concern for the Indian Economy. The financing of this component of infrastructure may turn out to be a somewhat tractable problem, even in...

by Abhay Pethe | On 05 Aug 2005

Issues of Pricing Urban Water

With urban expansion and the growth of population, Indian cities are not able to supply water services that are adequate both quantitatively and qualitatively. Most urban water supply authorities pref...

by Rajan Padwal | On 05 Aug 2005

From Governments To Markets: Funding Urban Infrastructure

Provision of quality urban infrastructure is an area of major concern forthe Indian Economy. The environment defined by the context of globalisation and privatisation has implied fiscal compression an...

by Abhay Pethe | On 05 Aug 2005