Author: cprindia

This paper examines the relationship between fiscal federalism and social policy in India through an analysis of the effects of a recent effort to increase fiscal decentralisation to state governments on the nature of social policy investment at the sub-national level. Through its analysis, this paper highlights the persistence of a strong centralisation bias in India’s fiscal architecture for social policy. We trace this centralisation bias to the political and administrative dynamics of the federal bargain. The peculiar dynamics of this bargain have created a context where the core goal of centralisation – to ensure equity – is undermined while the expectation of decentralisation – greater accountability through alignment of expenditure with local needs and preferences, fails to take root. India is thus likely to continue to witness significant regional variation in social policy outcomes, despite a centralised financing architecture.

The full journal article can be accessed here.

This paper examines the relationship between fiscal federalism and social policy in India through an analysis of the effects of a recent effort to increase fiscal decentralisation to state governments on the nature of social policy investment at the sub-national level. Through its analysis, this paper highlights the persistence of a strong centralisation bias in India’s fiscal architecture for social policy. The paper traces this centralisation bias to the political and administrative dynamics of the federal bargain. The peculiar dynamics of this bargain have created a context where the core goal of centralisation – to ensure equity – is undermined while the expectation of decentralisation – greater accountability through alignment of expenditure with local needs and preferences, fails to take root. India is thus likely to continue to witness significant regional variation in social policy outcomes, despite a centralised financing architecture

Link to the journal article can be accessed here.

Listen to episode 37 of ThoughtSpace (above) featuring Dr Christiana Iyasere, Dr Saumya Das, Dr Nim Pathy, Dr Jishnu Das and Yamini Aiyar.

While India goes into lockdown 2.0 and determines the best strategies to stop the spread of COVID-19, countries across the world have adopted myriad approaches to tackle the outbreak. In this episode, we step away from India to look at what is happening across the world, especially in the United States of America. We also delve deeper into understanding epidemiological models – what is required to build sound models and to what extent can they accurately predict the spread of disease. While the episode does not focus on India, we do probe lessons India can learn from what is happening in other parts of the world.

In the fifth episode on the Centre for Policy Research’s series on the coronavirus pandemic, co-hosts Yamini Aiyar, President & Chief Executive of CPR, and Dr Jishnu Das, Senior Fellow at CPR and Professor at Georgetown University dive into the medical, testing, and epidemiological aspects of COVID-19. They speak with Dr Christiana Iyasere and Dr Saumya Das, doctors at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and Dr Nim Pathy, an epidemiologist at Imperial College, London.

Iyasere, Das and Pathy talk to us about why the disease manifests differently in different people, speculation over aerosol versus droplet transmission, different testing mechanisms, variation in epidemiological model and whether or not comparisons between countries is justified.

This is the fifth in a series of episodes by the Centre for Policy Research on the unfolding coronavirus pandemic in India. You can follow the Centre’s work on Covid-19 on Twitter or visit www.cprindia.org. You can listen to all the episodes in the Coronavirus Conversation series here.

Listen to the 35th episode of ThoughtSpace (above) featuring Dr Rathin Roy and Yamini Aiyar.

The coronavirus pandemic and subsequent 21-day national lockdown have brought the Indian economy to a standstill. This comes at a time when India’s economy and public finances were already under considerable strain. It is with this backdrop that India must think about how it can deal with the current crisis and rebuild its economy once the immediacy of the public health crisis dissipates. How should the government generate finances and design a fiscal package to stimulate the economy? What must the government do to protect all Indians, especially the poor and vulnerable, and ensure they have income and food security?

In the third episode on the Centre for Policy Research’s series on the coronavirus pandemic, Yamini Aiyar, President & Chief Executive of CPR, speaks with Dr Rathin Roy, Director of the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP). Roy recommends thinking of the economy as a wartime economy where all resources are devoted to dealing with the pandemic medically, socially, and at the community level. He highlights that India could see a massive erosion in national wealth and national income if the proportion of the crisis reaches even a fraction of what it is in countries like the USA and China.

Roy calls for a rethinking of the social contract; increased accountability from the government to ensure that money is spent for the purposes it has been allocated for; and adequate financing to states so that they can take measures to tackle the crisis.

This is the third in a series of episodes on the unfolding coronavirus pandemic in India. The first episode looked at how prepared India’s health systems are to deal with the pandemic and the second looked at the crisis of migrant workers. You can find a link to the episode in our show notes (https://soundcloud.com/cpr_india/episode33 and https://soundcloud.com/cpr_india/episode34). Stay tuned for updates on future episodes. For more information on our work on COVID-19, follow us on Twitter @CPR_India or visit our website at www.cprindia.org.

Listen to the 33rd episode of ThoughtSpace (above) featuring Dr Jishnu Das and Yamini Aiyar, discussing the coronavirus outbreak.

As the world grapples with the coronavirus pandemic, the Indian government responded to the threat by imposing an unprecedented 21-day lockdown. The lockdown’s stated objective is to buy time to slow the spread of the disease and ‘flatten the curve’, a phrase that everyone is all too familiar with now. But what does flatten the curve mean for India? Is a complete lockdown the ideal way to go about it? And how can our already strained health systems prepare for a widespread outbreak, if we do experience one in the coming weeks?

In this podcast, Yamini Aiyar, President & Chief Executive of CPR, speaks with Dr Jishnu Das, Senior Visiting Fellow, CPR and professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy and the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Dr Jishnu Das’s work focuses on the delivery of basic services, and his in-depth research on India’s health systems makes him the ideal person to talk us through the challenges our health systems face as the Covid-19 outbreak unfolds over the next few months.

He recommends the adoption of a well thought out testing strategy along with widespread availability of testing, collaboration to get better data, and preparation of our health systems make it agile and draw on the entire gamut of health infrastructure in India – including informal providers, private doctors, and government doctors.

This is the first in a series of episodes we will be doing on the unfolding coronavirus pandemic in India. Stay tuned for updates. You can read more on Jishnu Das’s work here.

Listen to the 34th episode of ThoughtSpace (above) featuring Partha Mukhopadhyay, Mukta Naik and Yamini Aiyar, discussing the migrant worker crisis unfolding across the country.

The lockdown imposed by the Indian government last week has brought the country to a standstill. Simultaneously, it has created panic in the lives of India’s migrant workers and labourers. Videos and images of migrants walking home hundreds of kilometres have etched themselves in our minds. Over 20 migrant workers, including children, have lost their lives since the lockdown due to hunger, exhaustion, or in road accidents on highways. Who are these migrant workers and what is compelling them to make this arduous journey home on foot, in the absence of buses and trains? What are their vulnerabilities and were these taken into consideration when the state announced the lockdown? And are we now doing enough to alleviate their concerns, meet requirements, and ensure that they do not bear the disproportionate brunt of this lockdown?

In the second episode on the Centre for Policy Research’s series on the coronavirus pandemic, Yamini Aiyar, President & Chief Executive of CPR, speaks with Partha Mukhopadhyay, Senior Fellow at CPR, and Mukta Naik, Fellow at CPR, on the migrant worker crisis unfolding across the country. Mukhopadhyay and Naik talk about what makes the migrant worker invisible to India’s policymakers, how the state has failed to address their needs repeatedly, and how that has led to an inherent mistrust of the state among migrant workers. They recommend winning back this trust with open and honest communication, abstaining from coercive means of enforcing the lockdown, and ensuring safe passage home for migrants who want to go home.

This is the second in a series of episodes on the unfolding coronavirus pandemic in India. The first episode looked at how prepared India’s health systems are to deal with the pandemic.   Listen to the first episode here. You can read Mukhopadhyay and Naik’s opinion piece on the migrant crisis here.