Op-Eds

Women’s childhood, adulthood, and old age have all been transformed in India’s demographic journey. The passage of World Population Day (July 11) is also a time to look at how India’s demographic journey has changed the lives of its citizens, particularly its women. India’s population grew from about 340 million at Independence to 1.4 billion....   Read More

Every year, the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) hosts the India Policy Forum (IPF), a platform where economists and policymakers dissect five research ideas for their utility to public policy. To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the conference, Ideas for India launches the Ideas@IPF2023 series, introduced in this anchor by NCAER’s Anupma Mehta....   Read More

An important step on the path to a global macro-financial risk framework. The Bank of England has raised the bar in managing the UK financial system and launched ‘system-wide exploratory scenario exercises’ to understand market behaviour. A more profound grasp of market dynamics will enhance public confidence, with other central banks likely to follow suit....   Read More

Controlling water pollution and protecting water resources in India requires comprehensive collection and monitoring of data. In this article, Pohit and Mehta describe a project undertaken by NCAER and TCD, which used automated sensors attached to boats to collect data on water quality parameters at key points along the Ganga river in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal....   Read More

For developing countries, global finance has virtually disappeared when they need to spend more on education, health and food security. As a result, climate financing has become an unaffordable luxury. In the last three years, developing countries faced unprecedented challenges, a combination of external shocks: Covid-19, the Russia Ukraine war, food and energy security risks,...   Read More

For the first time, there would be recording of the Body Mass Index of all Assam Police personnel. When India celebrates 76 years of Independence on August 15 this year, we are going to witness a health page turning for the police personnel in Assam. For the first time ever, it was decided that there...   Read More

In the interplay between emission management and monetary returns, cost-effectiveness is a critical issue in the metric of a transport system. On this World Environment Day, we revisit the imperative to balance the rising transportation needs of a growing population in the capital city of Delhi with the mandate to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) vehicular...   Read More

This involves accounting for both environmentally beneficial and harmful products, and doing the required data-gathering. Growing environmental concerns have resulted in the demand for green national accounts that highlight the stock of environmental wealth, and its use and depletion by a society in its conventional national accounts. Incorporation of green accounts in conventional GDP requires...   Read More

The country is under pressure to alter its definition of unemployment to an international benchmark. Its once-vaunted statistical system is at a low ebb. Our faith in India’s once-vaunted statistical system is at such a low ebb that it is hard to trust its judgment, even when it is based on a sound rationale. How...   Read More

Renewable power sources have several shortcomings which include lower efficiency in generating power and shorter life-span of the plants. The success of India’s net zero pledge by 2070 rests heavily on successful energy transition. In the energy sector, power contributes most to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions; roughly 50 per cent of India’s total emission emanates...   Read More