Faculty Research

India Has Its Work Cut Out

January 2nd, 2023 | 1192

Year 2022 saw the gradual dislodging of the Covid-19 pandemic from the No. 1 public health emergency spot, as the usual suspects (dengue, pollution and so on) regained their prime positions. On the health front, we seem to be heading back to business as usual, which simply means that we are back to battling old enemies, instead of dealing with the horrible new ogre that had engulfed us like a tsunami. But those who survived a severe infection of Covid-19 are battling its shadow: Long Covid.

What the middle-class wants: Jobs, tax breaks, health and education spend

January 29th, 2022 | 1192

Ashwini Deshpande, Professor of Economics at Ashoka University said that as the rich grew richer in the pandemic, the number of poor increased. “India’s poverty headcount was steadily declining (from 340 million in 2011 to 78 million in 2019), but the pandemic increased the number of poor to 134 million in 2020 in a massive reversal of India’s fight against extreme poverty,” she said.

Podcast: Why Does It Matter Whether Women “Work”? ft Ashwini Deshpande

January 27th, 2022 | 1253

For the Union Budget, the priorities and challenges

January 24th, 2022 | 1265

No Time To Lose: Bringing Women Into The Workforce In India

October 6th, 2021 | 2112

In this edition of CNED Development Dialogues, Sunaina Kumar, Senior Fellow, ORF is in-conversation with Ashwini Deshpande, Professor of Economics, Ashoka University.

Social discrimination key factor in stunting among children, study shows

September 2nd, 2021 | 1112

Caste data needed for targeted affirmative action: Scholars, activists

August 25th, 2021 | 1112

Without precise caste data, the new central law that will restore to states and Union territories the power to notify social and educationally backward classes (SEBC/OBC) will not result in targeted affirmative action, say researchers and students bodies. Caste data, not disclosed in India since 1931 on the grounds that they encourage the idea of discrimination, are critical for a nuanced understanding of where each caste sits on the spectrum of advantage and disadvantage, they say.

Patralekha Chatterjee | Covid’s impact, WFH has hit India’s women harder

July 18th, 2021 | 1130

What does being a homemaker and a mother really mean for the vast majority of Indian women? In an essay in The Atlantic last year, Helen Lewis, journalist and author of Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights, pointed out some home truths which resonate with millions of women across the world.

Barking up the wrong tree

July 13th, 2021 | 1225

The Uttar Pradesh (UP) government’s new population policy for 2021-30 rekindles the obsolete belief that families with too many children are keeping the population poor and backward. Is it really the case that too many families have too many children?

Urban joblessness at 17.88%, rural rate falls 9.58%

June 1st, 2021 | 1225

Unemployment in the urban areas stood at a worrisome 17.88% for the week ended May 30. The rate has risen for the seventh straight week and 47 basis points (bps) over the previous week. While worse is yet to come, the jury is still out on whether the rate will rise to the highest level ever of 27.1% seen in the aftermath of last year’s lockdown.

The fault line of poor health infrastructure

May 21st, 2021 | 1188

As and when India emerges on the other side of the pandemic, bolstering public care systems has to be the top priority.

A normalisation of WFH is unlikely to raise women’s participation in the labour force

November 6th, 2020 | 1185

Is the COVID-19 pandemic unwittingly turning the tide on the sticky issue of the low labour force participation (LFP) of Indian women that decades of policy and research efforts have been trying to achieve without success?