Researchers Publication

It is a national tragedy that women unable to find work are dropping out of the labour force If labour force survey data are to be believed rural India is in the midst of a gender revolution in which nearly half the women who were in the workforce in 2004-5 had dropped out in 2017-18....   Read More

Rising unemployment must also be seen as a function of rising education and aspirations The report from the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) is finally out garnering a lot of attention based on selective reading of tables and spurring partisan debates. In particular the staggering increase in the unemployment rate from 1.7% in 2011-12 to...   Read More

Asia Society JPMorgan to hold forum on future of work A FORUM on “Rethinking the Future of Work to Promote Inclusive Growth in Asia Pacific” will hold on June 4 at The Peninsula Manila. Organized by Asia Society and multinational investment bank JPMorgan the event will form the last leg of the One Step Ahead...   Read More

The value of a river will depend on a unique data-set to construct the water poverty profile and experts who can suggest future correctives say Soumi Roy Chowdhury Devendra B Gupta and Sanjib Pohit In India the discourse about  new pathways for development hardly focusses on water. The narrative generally centres on two things: First...   Read More

In comparison to the rest of India, Rajasthan continues to suffer from disturbingly low female literacy rate, poor enrolment and retention rates of girls in schools mostly the in rural areas, but also in the small urban towns. This research informs the design of a cash transfer policy intended to improve enrolment levels of 13-15-year-old...   Read More

Revoking MFN and imposing punitive duties on Pakistan would hit the Kashmiri traders hard  Following terrorist attack on CRPF convoy in Kashmir Indian government has taken several steps to isolate Pakistan in international forum. Hitting Pakistan economically is of course a reasonable approach. On this front India has taken two steps: (b) abolish MFN status...   Read More

What’s the use of India’s track record of holding regular polls if voting rights of half its population mostly women are compromised at the altar of an inefficient registration system? The over-riding discussion during this electoral season in India is obviously focussed on who will occupy 7 Lok Kalyan Marg in the capital and the...   Read More

Forget the streets women are not even safe at home. Gender violence indoors is akin to an elephant in the room. Still we lack a uniform redressal mechanism Recently the streets of Delhi witnessed an intriguing sight — hundreds of women marched on the roads brandishing huge replicas of belans (rolling pins) to protest against...   Read More

Even as the Government is hastily drafting the quota Bill for the EWS section like most predecessors it has orphaned the Women’s Reservation Bill The recent Bill reserving 10 per cent quota for the economically weaker sections (EWS) among the upper castes has been intensively debated over its utility propriety and Constitutionality but discussions have...   Read More

There needs to be robust infrastructure for official statistics so that governments do not suppress inconvenient truths. Over the past two weeks headlines have focussed on declining employment between 2011-12 and 2016-17; loss of jobs under the National Democratic Alliance government particularly post-demonetisation; and the government’s refusal to release a report using the Periodic Labour...   Read More

In a market economy like India a strong judiciary is required for quick settlement of disputes Since the 1991 economic reforms India has improved tremendously in almost all economic indicators and is now one of the fastest growing nations in the world. Various economic policies of the current government have enabled the economy to move...   Read More

It may be difficult to imagine that the humble “anganwadi" the grassroots institution at the base of the Integrated Child Development Services scheme (ICDS) could have any role in addressing India’s formidable challenge of unemployment. However two recent studies Employment In India (Oxford University Press 2019) by Ajit Ghosh and the Annual Status Of Employment...   Read More