Recovery and Vulnerability: Divergent Paths in the Wake of the Coronavirus Pandemic As the nation hopefully begins its recovery from the Coronavirus pandemic through a massive vaccine rollout, assessing the speed of recovery in different arenas of life will require a better understanding of the overall impact of the pandemic and the level of willingness... Read More
As the world changes calendars after a grim, tumultuous year, Indians have been greeted with the welcome news of two domestically produced COVID-19 vaccines nearing emergency approval. If ever humankind needed reminding that healthcare is central to all economic and social wellbeing, 2020 certainly achieved that. Countries that had robust healthcare systems, and these were... Read More
The world is on the brink of winning the fastest vaccine race in history. As of this writing, two mRNA vaccines have been approved for emergency use in some countries and are being administered. An end to the Coronavirus pandemic appears to be in sight. But questions loom about large countries like India being able... Read More
Five investor education workshops with financial regulators Workshop I: Investor Education and Protection in the Securities Markets NCAER’s newly established Investor Education and Protection Fund (IEPF) Chair Unit’s organized the first of its series of five workshops on Investor Education and Protection with financial regulators. This session, focusing on the securities markets, was held virtually and... Read More
NCAER, the National Council of Applied Economic Research, presented the 2020-21 Mid-Year Review of the Indian Economy on December 21, 2020, in cooperation with the India International Centre (IIC), New Delhi. The NCAER Mid-Year Review (MYR) carries on the tradition started by Dr Malcolm Adisheshiah at the IIC in 1976. The NCAER macro team led... Read More
The Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2019 Global Microscope Report on Financial Inclusion ranks India as one of the most conducive countries for financial inclusion. This was made achievable by India’s commitment under the 2014 Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana that expands financial services to every unbanked household, especially to the poor and the underprivileged. On December 16, NCAER’s newly... Read More
Data-driven Research & Evidence for Land Policy in India NCAER organised its first India Land Forum 2020 (ILF 2020) during November 24-27, 2020. Subtitled “Data-driven Research & Evidence for Land Policy in India”, the four-day, virtual ILF 2020 featured original papers on India by land researchers and NCAER’s own research based on a unique, state-wise data set that... Read More
As The Economist magazine of September 12, 2020 noted, the Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto made the startling observation 20 years ago that people in poor countries are not as poor as they seem. They have assets—lots of them—but they cannot prove that they own them, so they cannot use them as collateral. A legal document is... Read More
Nearly half of India’s school-going children, some 120 million, attend private schools. Private schooling dominates how urban India learns, and it is making steady inroads into rural India. Contrary to popular belief, private schools don’t just cater to the elite. A tsunami of demand from low- and middle-income families across the country has resulted in... Read More
As India’s Covid-19 case count crosses five-million and its daily new positive cases came close to a lakh on September 11, the virus is deepening its impact on the daily lives of people and on the economy. India’s cumulative caseload has now become the world’s second-largest. At the same time, many feel that there is... Read More