With a view to reduce high levels of maternal and neonatal mortality, the National Rural Health Mission launched the Janani Suraksha Yojana in 2005. This is an innovative conditional cash transfer programme to provide monetary incentives to women to deliver in medical facilities. This study...

The PAISA 2012 report is based on the PAISA surveys conducted through the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) that covered more than 14,000 schools across rural India in 2010, 2011 and 2012. Information was collected through citizen-led surveys making PAISA the first and only national...

Recent years have seen significant changes in the landscape of elementary education (EE) in India. Yet, updated estimates on public and private expenditure on EE are not available. This paper fills the gap by providing a methodology and estimates of per student public expenditure on children...

Trends over the last 25 years suggest that nearly 80% of the social sector spending has come from state budgets. Taken together with other policy developments in the country, the centre's role in financing social welfare, including elementary education, is likely to decline further. Analysing...