Publications : Opinion & Commentary
Topic
Getting India’s Growth Priority Right
Janak Raj underscores India's imperative to prioritise human development hand in hand with economic growth.Interview | ‘Developing Just a Small Part of City as Smart...
Om Prakash Mathur talks about how India needs to manage its urban growth much faster, how the programme to develop smart cities has not helped and how, despite successive Finance Commissions recommending increasing the grant-in-aid to our municipalities.Interview | Navigating India’s Urban Challenges
India's leading urban scholar and the author of "Changing Paradigms of Urbanisation: India and Beyond" Om Prakash Mathur reveals how rigid urban land and labour markets have actually slowed down the rate of India's urbanisation.The Dip in Private Medical Colleges
Apart from being churned frequently, the regulatory norms entail high capital and operating costs.Podcast | Why are house prices so high in India?
In this episode, Shishir Gupta discusses the factors behind the high cost of housing in India and suggests possible solutions.The Real Reason Middle Class Indians Can’t Afford to Buy Homes — and...
The first step in improving affordability is to release land supply in a planned and transparent manner. This will increase competition and put pressure on prices.Improving Healthcare Access to Address the Rise in Non-communicable...
The authors outline the incidence of diseases in Indian states over the last two decades, and the role that the PMJAY programme plays to alleviate constraints to healthcare accessCuring the States’ Doctor Deficiency
The challenge is the production and distribution of doctors. The doctor availability across states is very variable, and there are numerous factors driving this: state’s economic status, public health expenditure, expenditure on medical education.India Needs More Doctors — and How It Can Happen
The goal of equity requires attention to incentives and encouraging migration to low-availability areas rather than restricting production. The policy focus, therefore, should be on addressing the barriers to scale.G20’s Inclusive Thrust Should Extend to Global Governance on Health...
The inability of global governance to impose checks and balances to ensure that the health needs of less endowed countries are served is worrying, writes Sandhya Venkateswaran.Out-of-pocket Health Expenditure in India: Inter-state Variations
In this op-ed, Janak Raj and Harshini Kumari explain the large inter-state variations in out-of-pocket expenditure (OOPE) on health in India.Voluntary Health Insurance and its Expansion
Madhurima Nundy and Pankhuri Bhatt write about the challenges to voluntary health insurance and its expansion.Are We Ready for HPV Vaccines?
India cannot afford to let women suffer and then perhaps die of the most curable cancer. Important here is to also strategize vaccination with regular screening for women aged 30 and above.Ban Pan-masala Promotions
Jaimini Bhagwati writes about the dangers of celebrities advertising pan masala and how it can impact the youth.Assessing the Potential of Telemedicine in Health Care Services
Addressing concerns such as differences in data-sharing rules and guidelines, building a robust digital infrastructure, streamlining accreditation and qualification of doctors etc. can aid in telemedicine gaining widespread acceptance.Health Among Top Three Priorities for Indian Voters After Jobs and...
This suggests that political leaders may gain electoral capital from prioritising health in their election campaigns and during their terms in office.Health and democracy in India: Do voters care about health?
Oliver Heath, Jyoti Mishra, Louise Tillin & Sandhya Venkateswaran examine how Indian citizens view health through a five-state survey on electoral perceptions around health in IndiaUniversal Health Coverage – The Goal’s Nowhere in Sight
With the National Health Accounts suggesting poor expenditure on health, it is hard to assess when and how the Universal Health Coverage goal will be achieved, writes Janak RajGovt’s Increase in Health Expenditure a Welcome Step. But Indians are...
Analysing the GHE and OOPE data at national and state levels shows the need for deeper inquiry. The attribution of increased govt spending to declining out-of-pocket expenditure isn't apparent, write Alok Kumar Singh and Sandhya Venkateswaran.UHC in India: Insights from Indonesia and China
Benefit coverage has to be comprehensive to include preventive, curative, rehabilitative services to ensure continuity in care, rational practices and a cost-efficient system, write Madhurima Nundy and Pankhuri Bhatt.Towards A More Equal Society
Anchoring Change: lessons from seventy-five years of successful grassroots intervention.Using construction technologies to solve mass housing woes
A reflection on the challenges to adoption of alternative technologies in mass housing projects and the way forward for the Global Housing Technology Challenge program.Naysayers are Wrong, India Does have Success Stories
Too many people believe that India cannot fulfil the promise of its founding fathers. There are stories and examples that show it is possible, writes Vikram Singh Mehta.Dismal Realities about Healthcare in the National Capital Region
"It is surprising that the Indian insurance regulator allows so many exceptions under private health insurance."International Day of Women in Diplomacy
Ramu Damodaran reflects upon the journey of women's representation at the United Nations on the ocassion of International Day of Women in Diplomacy.Right to Health Laws Need Political Support
Realising the right to health requires a system that enables quality and affordable access to health services for citizens, writes Sandhya Venkateswaran and Nikhil Iyer.Why AI Failed to Live Up to Its Potential During the Pandemic
The pandemic could have been the moment when AI made good on its promising potential. There was an unprecedented convergence of the need for fast, evidence-based decisions and large-scale problem-solving with datasets spilling out of every country in the world.Does India’s Development Model Need an Overhaul?
While the effects of the recent pandemic have indeed set India’s economy back several years, it is not clear if, prior to it, the development model that we were pursuing was the one best suited to ensuring that we realise our full potential as a country and as a people.The Good, Bad, and Sober News that the NFHS Data Presents
As always, national averages belie inter-state differentials. Of note is the change in such differentials over the 2005-20 period.Recognising The Role of Health in India’s Social and Economic Growth
When we focus on health, there has been progress, but India remains well below peer countries — and where it needs to be — in terms of the well being of citizens. This stems from multiple reasons.One Nation One Ration Card will increase India’s food security
The One Nation One Ration Card scheme will create a central repository and help in the deduplication of ration cards, which in turn help in removing leakages from the system.Higher Funding Alone Doesn’t Improve Urban Services
Adequate expenditure alone is not enough to improve public services and other outcomes, write Shishir Gupta and Rishita Sachdeva.Lessons on expenditure and performance on cleanliness on Indian cities
HT Insight features CSEP's recent study on mapping expenditure and outcomes for improved service delivery across Indian cities.Bringing Farming To Private Markets Is A Good Idea
Montek Singh Ahluwalia says he wishes the idea of agriculture reforms was communicated more effectively to farmers.Biden’s ‘Antitrust Revolution’ Overlooks AI—at Americans’ Peril
A handful of companies have outsize influence on the world’s artificial intelligence. Policymakers must act now.Revisiting the role of funding for improved urban services
Stable city leadership, effective PPP, and citizen engagement play a key role in providing better SWM servicesWomen leaders, and women voters, matter
Increasing Indian women's political participation has significant impacts on social policy and development prioritiesThere is still hope for a more compassionate, united world
There is still hope that binding commonalities of humanity – trust, compassion, friendship, conversation – can usher change.Why India shows the need for democracies to prioritise healthcare
The Covid-19 pandemic offers the opportunity to reimagine the political foundations of health in India.Implications for income generated through crypto trading
Levying tax on cryptocurrency cannot be avoided solely because of the form of income in which it is collected.Ramping up vaccinations should be accorded top priority by India
The command-and-control structure has let us down and we must soon let markets and the private sector play a larger role.A moment 30 years ago that had been a year and a half in the making:...
Rakesh Mohan narrates how the logic-defying system of industrial controls was dismantled, and discusses policies required to deal with the emerging challenges of redeploying labour.There is a need for high taxes uniformly across all tobacco products
Higher taxes will work in tandem with greater controls, and will help GoI pay for all the direct and indirect costs it incurs due to tobacco consumption.Pandemic exposed the existing societal framework as unsustainable
We must ask what from 2020 should we reinforce, what must we rebuild and what should we tear down and build again?Post-COVID, lack of social security has made many migrants consider...
A stark manifestation of the two-track development of our socio-economic polity is the ubiquitous spread of digital technology.India’s biggest challenge: The future of farming
India has enough food; does it have too many people working in agriculture? The country needs a different set of solutions for agriculture and for those working the land.Why health doesn’t get the media attention it deserves
Shamika Ravi spoke at The Media Rumble about making health political and democratised. “No country can develop on the back of poor human capital.”What India can do to build, bridge and bolster digital trust
There are more mobile phones than people on this planet, Facebook now has 2 billion monthly users, and over 93 per cent of India’s adult population now has access to a unique Aadhaar identity. With critical data pools lying with governments and social media networking sites, building, bridging and bolstering trust in ...Is the National Health Protection Scheme good public policy?
India recently announced an ambitious plan called the National Health Protection Scheme (NHPS) to provide government-sponsored insurance to roughly 500 million people or nearly 40% of India’s population. Since the announcement, there has been much debate about two issues. First, does this plan make sense? Second, if it is a good idea, ...With the incursion of fake news, here’s what Facebook could do to...
Facebook has a world of problems. Beyond charges of Russian manipulation and promoting fake news, the company’s signature social media platform is under fire for being addictive, causing anxiety and depression, and even instigating human rights abuses. Company founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he wants to win back users’ trust. But ...Here’s how opening up the gender gap in internet usage would create...
We have all heard about a gap when it comes to participation of women in the tech industry. Facebook, Google, and Apple have 17%, 19% and 23% women in their technology staffs, respectively. Multiple surveys, such as the “The Elephant in the Valley,” have documented systematic discrimination against women. And there’s a ...Even Nobel economists make ignoble mistakes
I try to teach people to make fewer mistakes,” said the newly-minted economics Nobel laureate, Richard Thaler, in an interview earlier this week. “We need to take full account of the fact that people are busy, they’re absent-minded, they’re lazy.” Congratulations to Professor Thaler; I think his brilliantly accessible work is part ...India reforms health: A compendium of writings
Restructuring the Medical Council of India to eliminate corruption By Shamika Ravi NITI Aayog has proposed replacing the compromised Medical Council of India with a new National Medical Commission (NMC), outlined in a draft Bill known as the National Medical Commission Bill of 2016. We look into this proposed Bill, refer to ...The need for reforms in healthcare finance
The Centre and state governments are experimenting with several new and exciting ideas in healthcare reforms. What is missing, however, is a serious reform agenda for health financing. The last big reform was expanding the coverage of the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) from Rs30,000 to Rs1 lakh, reinforcing insurance as the ...Who knew healthcare was so complex
The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.” F.A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors Of Socialism. NITI Aayog’s recommendation to improve access, reduce out-of-pocket expenditure, create infrastructure and augment capacity at district hospitals for non-communicable diseases (NCDs), ...What Uttar Pradesh tells us about health infrastructure
The death of children in the recent Gorakhpur tragedy has drawn significant attention towards the state of public health institutions in Uttar Pradesh (UP). While much of the focus remained only on Gorakhpur, our analysis shows that within the state, the public health infrastructure is far worse than Gorakhpur in most districts. ...Restructuring the Medical Council of India to eliminate corruption
The Medical Council of India (MCI) has been repeatedly criticized for providing opaque accreditation to aspiring medical colleges in India. Many of its members have been accused of taking bribes in order to fast-track accreditation. Bribes reduce the legitimacy of all accredited colleges and thereby compromise medical college quality overall in the ...Important lessons for the Smart Cities Mission
With the 26th UN-Habitat governing council conference (GC26) held last month, the new urban agenda (NUA) has once again come to the fore. As the world moves towards a globalized policy discourse, one wonders if the NUA is an improvement on the existing unratifiable global documents. India’s minister for urban development, Venkaiah ...Better data needed on job scenario
“There are lies, damned lies, and statistics,” the 19th century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli famously said. Today, his description of questionable data may be applied, somewhat facetiously, to Indian labour statistics. The problem is not that they are “fake”, but rather that they give only a partial and sometimes inaccurate view ...Advancing cooperation in higher education
It is that time of the year when India struggles to meet the educational expectations of its youth. An increasing number of school graduates are enrolling in college but the shortage of quality institutions has led to unreasonable entrance requirements. Despite recent visa restrictions, the US remains a favoured destination for resourceful ...Why EVMs are win-win
Free and fair elections to choose political representatives are a cornerstone of a democracy, and a fundamental human right of people. Voting procedures play a significant role in the conduct of free and fair elections in a democracy: These convert voters’ preferences into a political mandate, which forms the basis for policy ...A tradeoff between growth and social objectives exists for microfinance...
Senior Fellow Shamika Ravi was a panellist at the 5th Plenary of Day 2 at the Inclusive Finance India Summit 2016, held on December 6, 2016. Shamika Ravi described why most microcredit borrowers are women. She shared a story of the Grameen Bank from a gender perspective. When Grameen Bank started, 40 ...The fight against hidden hunger: targeting the first 1000 days of a...
India faces an invisible public health crisis in the form of widespread maternal and child undernutrition. One-third of Indian women (of reproductive age) are undernourished, and close to 60 million children (under five years of age) are at risk, that is, they are either stunted (low height-for-age) or wasted (low weight-for-height). Women ...Demonetisation push to labour reforms: molding the future of the markets
Demonetisation has the potential to facilitate an environment that will develop a formal culture in India’s labour markets Among the loudest critics of the demonetisation policy are those who predict doom for India’s informal sector as a result of this exogenous shock. Numerous anecdotes are being forwarded to highlight the suffering of ...The government’s ‘little mistakes’ can have a high cost
A relative passed away recently… or should I say in the future? See the official government death certificate issued, which shows a particular date. What do you interpret that date as? In India, as we follow the British system, most people would interpret this as 9 December, 2016 (09/12/16). But she passed ...Municipal bond market could be the answer to financing woes of Smart...
As India considers more flexible and reliable ways of paying for the improvement of smart cities, the largely untapped municipal bond market can serve as a significant source of financial capital. As India continues to experience rapid urban expansion, public and private leaders at the national, state and local level are looking at ...For smart cities to succeed, strengthening local governance is a must
The lack of effective devolution of power to local governments is a major bottleneck in the essential transformation of urban India. India is in the midst of an ‘urban revolution,’ but the current state of municipal services across the country is found wanting. According to Census 2011, 31.16 per cent of the Indian population (377 ...India-US relations: Higher education
Over the past decade, college tuition fees in the United States have skyrocketed, making it extremely difficult for average Americans to invest in higher education. Within the same time frame, the country has fallen from being ranked number one in college degree attainment to number 12 globally. The rising costs of higher ...The Urgent Need For India To Build A Design Economy
The “Make in India” initiative aims to create 100 million new jobs in the coming 10 years in the manufacturing sector and boost its contribution to GDP from 15% to 25%. (Globally, manufacturing accounts for 34% in Thailand, 32% in China, 31% in the Philippines, and 24% in Malaysia and Indonesia.) Yet, ...Updating Aadhaar for better privacy
Privacy with Aadhaar isn’t just an abstract issue, but related to the fundamental view of how data are to be accessed and used writes Rahul Tongia To its proponents, Unique Identification (UID, branded Aadhaar) is the solution to citizen empowerment. To its opponents, UID is a violation of not only citizen privacy ...Next step in PM Jan Dhan Yojana is to help people start using their new...
A recent article in Global Government Forum quotes a Brookings India research paper on financial inclusion which calls for a model of financial inclusion which specifically caters to the need of the poor. (Global Government Forum is a publishing, events and research business that helps civil servants around the world to meet global challenges by building their expertise, ...Tie women’s reservation bill to sex ratio of constituency
Our existing political system is unlikely to throw up solutions for deep rooted gender inequality. The Women’s Reservation Bill has been doing rounds of the Indian Parliament in various forms since 1996 failing each time to pass. While we celebrate International Women’s Day, as a stroke of remarkable irony there is yet another 15-year-old girl, raped ...Women who rose to the top and shattered stereotypes
Skard harbours the belief that it is women at the very top who make any sort of substantial change, but in India women have performed leadership roles even at the panchayat level writes Shamika Ravi In Women of Power, Skard examines ‘Half a century of female presidents and prime ministers worldwide’, and ...The Data Is Unambiguous: The Odd-Even Policy Failed To Lower Pollution In...
The Delhi government’s two-week-long odd-even rule ended on 15 January, with Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal announcing that the plan will return in a revised form in the near future. There have been several commentaries and opinions on this policy in the national and local media, while ordinary citizens have enjoyed some side ...Support research as corporate social responsibility in India
India must build a culture of knowledge creation by fostering public support for research. Research is like defence, a pure public good which the private sector can directly support only in limited ways. There are no sustainable market solutions for research, the government therefore should provide the necessary support for this. Research is ...Delhi’s odd-even policy unsustainable
There is tremendous interest in the new experiment that Delhi government is running on the roads of the national capital. To complement efforts at curbing the number of cars, there is a barrage of advertisements on local radio extolling the virtue of sharing rides. It immediately makes you wonder: Why aren’t the ...Chennai floods: A ‘Smart City’ must also be a ‘Resilient...
One of the most important ambitions of modern India is the 100 smart cities project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. We want to make our cities smarter by using IT and digital infrastructure, by managing our energy and water use and by creating an intelligent transport network. In the midst of all ...Smart city initiatives should recognise differences between Indian cities
Indian smart city efforts need to recognise the economic differences between its cities. Off-the-shelf technology solutions are not viable Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s bold commitment to build 100 smart cities throughout India is a worthy centrepiece of his urban agenda. The promise of this tech-savvy approach is greater livability, sustainability and improved ...Over the past two decades, every fifth suicide in India is by a housewife
The most disturbing trend to emerge out of the National Crime Record Bureau data is that consistently for over 2 decades, every fifth suicide in India is by a housewife. And though significant in numbers, farmer suicides, in comparison are a much smaller fraction. But more encouragingly, while farmer suicides have witnessed ...Depression drives maximum farmers to suicide, not debt, finds Brookings...
Depression, and not debts, is responsible for the decades-long tragedy of farmer suicides in Maharashtra, said a paper by an American think-tank after analysing suicide-related information provided by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). The paper, written by Brookings Institution India fellow and Indian School of Business Professor Shamika Ravi, held illnesses ...Why inequality needs a radical agenda
INEQUALITY: WHAT CAN BE DONE? Anthony B Atkinson HARVARD BUSINESS; Pages 400, Rs 1,250 Inequality is back in fashion, thanks to Thomas Piketty. Yet, before Mr Piketty, there was Tony Atkinson, his teacher, who has been at the forefront of research on the topic since the 1960s. Over the last few years, ...Narendra Modi’s class act on Teachers’ Day
But the challenge in education lies in enabling teachers to innovate and individualise pedagogy. Key takeaways from the Brookings India publication, Accelerating Access to Education If you would like to request a copy of the book please email us on info@brookingsindia.org In his second address to students around the country, Prime Minister Narendra ...Health care – how, where & how much?
In my previous column, I wrote about some patterns emerging from the National Sample Survey Office’s (NSSO’s) household survey on expenditure on education. The same round also queried expenditure on health by households. This column explores some findings from the 71st Round survey of social expenditures by households, carried out between January ...CSR: Corporates Should Reach out
India Inc can no longer limit its CSR involvement to the new Companies Act. It has to forge partnerships with the beneficiary community. Corporates have scrambled to meet their corporate social responsibility (CSR) obligations under the new Companies Act, 2013. This is not a surprise, as most companies have not regarded CSR ...Women voters can tip the scales in Bihar
This column first appeared in The Hindu, on July 28, 2015. Like other products of the Brookings Institution India Center, this is intended to contribute to discussion and stimulate debate on important issues. The views are those of the author. As all political parties pull up their socks before the Bihar elections, they must recognise ...Educational reach and grasp
This column first appeared in Business Standard, on July 26, 2015. Like other products of the Brookings Institution India Center, this is intended to contribute to discussion and stimulate debate on important issues. The views are those of the author. Over the past few weeks, new data releases have provided a wealth of information about ...India’s Suicide Problem
For over a decade, farmer suicides in India has been a serious public policy concern. More recently, this has led to a shrill media outcry and much politicking. The government response to the crisis of farmer suicide has mostly been simplistic and sometimes aggravating. The main issue with offering “special packages” to ...Think Beyond Health Insurance
Budget 2015 was creative on several dimensions but fresh thinking was completely missing in health financing. This budget, like several in the past, reinforced insurance as the strategy for health financing in India. As the experience of many countries has revealed, this is a perilous path which will take India towards an ...The inclusion project
A little more than a week ago, World Bank chief Jim Yong Kim praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for launching the Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), which he called an “extraordinary effort” at financial inclusion. According to the Union finance ministry, India has attained 99 per cent financial inclusion, measured as households’ ...Band-aid solutions for health problems
The Draft National Health Policy of 2015 released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, is a comprehensive document. So comprehensive, in fact, that it says too little by saying too much. A National Heath Policy is commonly read as a political statement which is meant to provide ...Workfare as an effective way to fight poverty: The MNREGA
This article first appeared in Ideas for India, on December 11, 2014. Like other products of the Brookings Institution India Center, this is intended to contribute to discussion and stimulate debate on important issues. The views are those of the author. While developed countries are increasingly leaning on workfare programmes as a means to reduce ...Making it work
The MGNREGS stands out as one of the Indian government’s most ambitious social schemes, with far-reaching consequences throughout the economy. The only known recipe for poverty eradication is a combination of high growth and high development spending. Neither is sufficient. A recent study (Kapoor and Ahluwalia, 2012) has shown that post-liberalisation, one ...For new ideas, a clean break with the past
The Planning Commission is neither a constitutional nor a statutory body, but over the years it has acquired tremendous power of distant planning which is unsuitable to a country as diverse and complex as India. Let us neither reinvent nor restructure such a body. Let us, instead, make a clean break and ...Missing women leaders
Women constitute a quarter of Narendra Modi’s cabinet, even though they make up only a little over 11 per cent of the 16th Lok Sabha. This is significant, even internationally. In South America, for instance, women hold the same proportion of Cabinet positions, but the proportion of women in the lower houses ...Beginning a new conversation on women
A focus on women citizens Riding on the aspirations of an electorate, Modi’s arrival into Delhi is commonly seen as a vote for development. Women are a significant share of that electorate with fundamentally distinct concerns. The last few weeks’ horrific reminder of how India publically consumes violence against women, in conjunction ...A potential jobs breakthrough
The announcement by the Rajasthan government that it would amend the state’s labour laws to give employers in the manufacturing sector the flexibility to lay off workers without prior government approval is an extremely significant development. The plan is to raise the ceiling under which such approval is not needed from 100 workers to 300. This ...Why less ladies in the Lok Sabha
Gender inequality is a serious concern in most sectors but the gap between men and women has narrowed the least in political representation. Women make up merely 22% of lower houses in parliaments around the world and in India, this number is less than half at 10.8% in the outgoing Lok Sabha. ...Slippery Slope for Infrastructure
By now, all of us are used to global rankings of various kinds placing India close to the bottom of a large set of countries. Whether it is ease of doing business or corruption or transparency or human development or infrastructure quality, whenever a new ranking is announced, one instinctively begins searching ...India’s Missing Women
Even though fair elections are held at regular intervals for State Assemblies and Parliament, they do not reflect the true consent of the people because a large number of women are missing from the electorate On her arrival in India recently, the words of Gloria Steinem, American feminist and leader of the ...The alpha male syndrome
Behaviour traits of primates can be positive or negative for governance The institution of the alpha male is common to several species, including virtually all primates. At any given time, one male dominates the group, which, among other things, gives him the exclusive right to reproduce. When an incumbent alpha shows signs of weakening, ...Slow burn
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is in the process of putting out its fifth series of assessment reports. There are three components in this series. The report on the first component – science – was released at the end of September. The other two – impacts and mitigation – will be ...