The effect of randomized reservations of Pradhan (chief executive) positions in West Bengal local governments (panchayats) for women and members of Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST) following the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments of 1993 are examined. Sample consists of 89 villages...

Despite the importance of this issue for the design of institutions around the world, little is known about the relative performance of women as policy makers, about their impact on child development and about how their performance is evaluated by voters. This paper exploits the fact that in...

A commonly alleged pitfall of decentralization is that poverty, socio-economic inequality and lack of political competition allow local elites to capture local governments. This hypothesis is empirically examined using a longitudinal sample of 80 West Bengal villages concerning targeting of...

The Minister of Finance, K.M Mani , presented the General Budget 2013 to the State Assembly on March 15, 2013. In his address, he commented on the fiscal performance of the State in 2012-13 and laid out his budget proposals for 2013-14. This document presents a brief analysis covering important...

An attempt has been made to understand the paradoxes of Kerala's development like the state's per capita consumer expenditure is more than the per capita state domestic product. But the nutritional intake is low. [CSES working paper 2]....

The paper examines the urbanization pattern with context of India. The paper deals with various demographic aspects of urbanization. Also the paper focuses on characteristics and classes of cities, and poverty and slums. [Working Paper 141]. URL: [http://fgks.in/IndexServer/tifac/article/141.pdf]

Political will, imaginative and collaborative solutions from across the spectrum of health and social care providers are needed to address the needs of homeless individuals.