The Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) — the largest food subsidy programme in India — has been a dismal failure in targeting the poor. The present paper examines its performance in three Indian states — Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan, based on primary data collected for...

Using Vulnerability as Expected Utility (VEU) analysis that permits the decomposition of household vulnerability into its components on a unique data set this paper demonstrates that in rural India household vulnerability is most explained by poverty and idiosyncratic components. So far as risk...

Using a unique panel data for rural India for the periods 1999 and 2006, this paper models vulnerability to poverty. We quantify household vulnerability in rural India in 1999 and 2006, investigate the determinants of ex post poverty as well as ex ante vulnerability, assess the role of ex ante...

India's National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) has been hailed as one of the country's most creative social initiatives. Since the program was begun only recently (in 2004-05) there is a need to assess its impact on households not just in one year but over time. To the best of our...

Despite its evident importance relatively little is known about links between Body Mass Index (BMI) and participation in workfare programs, particularly in India. Using a unique data set for the Indian state of Rajasthan for 2009-10, this paper attempts to fill this void and examines the...

Using NSS data for 1993-94 and 2004-05 this paper highlights the impact of growing incomes, social and household decisions of households, and regional and ethnic factors on patterns of household level fertility in India. These have helped determine the composition of India’s young (aged 9 to...

This paper examines whether the resource positions of the developing counties in the Asia Pacific region and the support they are receiving from donor countries are adequate to ensure that the MDG will be attained by 2015. It begins by examining the extant record of economic growth and...

This paper reviews the sluggishness of manufacturing sector growth in India in comparative and historical perspective and argues that without accelerated growth in this sector India’s industrial transition will be incomplete. We argue that, India faces multi-faceted threats to its security,...