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 Indian Parliament is expected to pass this month alleviate the country’s food...

Unpredictable rainfall is an important risk for agricultural activity, and farmers in developing countries often receive incomplete insurance from informal risk-sharing networks. The demand for, and effects of, offering formal index-based rainfall insurance is studied through a randomized...

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 paper tries to engage with three questions: a) what are the national and state-level responses...

Information plays a vital role in lives of individuals/groups for development and growth. Just information does not serve the purpose, but accurate information does. The sources/tools/techniques used to get the desired information have evolved from the foremost person-to-person interaction to...

The objective of the paper is to i) understand and document the morbidity profile, ii) examine utilisation of health services, and iii) estimate approximate expenses on health care by the rural households. [WP No. 8]

Part I of the Budget speech by Finance Minister

Notwithstanding its impressive economic growth, food insecurity in South Asia continues to be a stark reality for a large number of households. Despite several successful policy interventions by Governments, the number of mal-nourished children and adults remain alarmingly high in the region...

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.

A price rise signifies a fall in purchasing power, if there is no commensurate increase in income. Thus the pertinent question in the face of the phenomenal rise during the 1990s in the prices of the food articles, which account for a major chunk of the total expenditure of the poor, is whether...

It is puzzling how much the discourse of development has backed away from the seemingly central question of rural poverty: land. Elaborate rules concerning its distribution, rights, regulation, protection, utilities have multiple development objectives, but poverty alleviation, individual...