Academic Themes

Notes on my research, book reviews and discussions on social sciences
This section contains articles on some of my main areas of academic interest including economics, development studies, collective action, social policy, governance and the right to food. A few articles look software and utilities that would be of interest to researchers. If you are interested in any of these in particular, please click on the subtopic on the menu to your right.

Some people are in a crisis and others are enjoying prosperity...who should the government help? A serious policy debate.

People without a crisis

This is a part of a series of articles on the proposal to shift from PDS to coupons or cash transfers. To see the introduction, click here. Another strong argument for coupons or cash is that the recipients will have the choice to spend it on what matters most to them.  Proponents of reform have argued that the Indian policymakers tend to be paternalistic, and often argue that if the government gives cash instead of grains, poor people may misuse it, including by drinking it away.  They have argued that it’s important to trust poor people to make choices that matter […]

Coupons and cash transfers give people a choice unlike the ...

During my last visit to India, I participated in a few meetings on questions such as strengthening the right information act, the role of the PDS, and other social issues. In all these meetings there was a vigorous debate on how mobile phones could be used on each of these issues given the rapid spread of mobiles in rural India. Despite periodic discussion about the use of technology, I did not hear viable ideas among my activist friends. I believe that this is in part because most of them are not advanced users of technology, and they have definitely not […]

Need for public service mobile application foundation for India

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This is a part of the series, diary of a doctoral student with stories on politics, emotions and other things that determine our research beyond the research methods. One challenge that I faced while writing my dissertation was that every time I started a new chapter, I had to deal with multiple ways of organising it. For example, there were times when I could have narrated my story village by village. Alternatively, I could have organized the layout based on themes or chronology of events that would cut across each village. There was merit in organising the chapter in each of these […]

Mind-maps for organising the layout of a chapter, article or ...

Unlike a lot of people, writing does not come to me naturally.  It has been a slow and difficult learning process, and I had to contend with massive writing project as I started the dissertation.  As it turned out, writing the dissertation was fun, but not always.  It took me an year and a half to write the dissertation after the fieldwork, and in the process, it helped me to know what other writers had gone through.  A lot of that advice came from the committee and from my peers at the University, and some of it came from webcasts on […]

The art & craft of academic writing: Interviews & talks

Andhra Pradesh is now experimenting with the system of authenticating cash payments in programs like NREGA and old-age pensions using a biometric device. In an example that I saw in Tirupati district, the device was installed in a post office that disburses wages and pensions. The device had a fingerprint scanner to authenticate the identity of the user, and it also had a SIM card through which the device communicates to a centralised database, from which the post office downloads a list of people and the amount that must be paid to them. When pensioner comes to the post office, […]

Biometric device or a mini computer?

This is a part of a series of articles on the proposal to shift from PDS to coupons or cash transfers. To see the introduction, click here . Some scholars have pointed out that the motivation to dissolve the PDS comes from the ideological belief that the government should not be engaged in providing public services, and of course the material appeal this has for the rich.  The quest for PDS reform started in the context of India’s liberalization and globalization.  Pushed by multilateral agencies, the PDS was converted into a targeted system in 1997.  The motivation of these reforms was not […]

The politics of PDS “reforms”

India’s Planning Commission fixed the poverty-line at Rs. 29 per person per day (around ½ USD at today’s rate) attracting severe criticism that the amount is unreasonably low. The Commission’s Vice Chairperson, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, mounted a spirited defence of the poverty-line in CNN-IBN recently. He argued that the poverty line is used only to measure the trends in poverty over time, and it does not indicate the level of poverty, and so the level of poverty-line does not really matter. In other words, this number is only a benchmark based on which we can find out whether the number of people […]

Poverty-line debate: Time for Montek to criticize Montek

After watching a news report on the appalling number of schools in India without even a building to house it in, I saw an advertisement mentioning “My classroom has no walls, I have no ceiling”.  I would have thought that it were a fundraising advertisement to build schools, but for the white smiling face in the ad.  It turns out in this strange world that classrooms without walls can also be sold as an opportunity.

Classrooms without walls

I wrote these pieces in a course on ‘creative non-fiction’ and included them in the dissertation to provide my readers a break from the formal monotony.  Sadly, most people remember sections of this from the dissertation, and little else.  Such is the life of a doctoral student. 15 Jan 2006 I should not have trusted my ethnography professor.  She convinced me today that good academic writing should make the researcher visible.  By subscribing to this, I have created an existential crisis for myself: Who am I? I would like to write about my fondness for butter scotch ice cream and […]

Making subjectivity visible: Sections from my dissertation

This is a part of a series of articles on the proposal to shift from PDS to coupons or cash transfers. To see the introduction, click here . In evaluating alternatives including cash transfers, it is first important to identify both contributions and failures of the system.  Proponents of reforms today have focused exclusively on the problems, without dwelling on the things that it has done.  There is a reason why the PDS is so popular in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra and increasingly in other states including Chhattisgarh.  In all these cases the PDS has worked and means a lot to the […]

The PDS does not work, let’s shift to coupons or ...

This is a part of a series of articles on the proposal to shift from PDS to coupons or cash transfers. To see the introduction, click here . Many have argued that half the PDS entitlements reach the “non poor”.  I believe that resources are scarce, and the government should spend the money on people who need it most.  We should thus be concerned if resources are being spent on those who do not need it.  In considering whether resources reach the right people, we should remember that we have a rather poor system of identifying the poor.  The poverty-line based on […]

PDS does not reach the right people, let’s shift to ...

This is a part of a series of articles on the proposal to shift from PDS to coupons or cash transfers. To see the introduction, click here . Please read other articles in this topic before getting here… The cost of administering the PDS is high Some economists have pointed out that the cost of administering the PDS is very high, and it is now possible to transfer cash to people at a cheaper rate.  This is one of the strongest arguments for a shift from PDS to cash transfers, in my opinion.  The amount of money that could be transferred just […]

Shifting from PDS to coupons or cash transfers: Assorted arguments

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This is a part of a series of articles on the proposal to shift from PDS to coupons or cash transfers. To see the introduction, click here . The level of corruption in the public distribution system has been one of the rallying points in the cry for change.  The following are some of the corruption related arguments for change: There is large scale corruption in the system It is undeniable that there is a lot of corruption in the PDS, and something needs to be done about it.  In arguing that we should shift from PDS to coupons or cash transfers, […]

Corruption in the PDS & will coupons or cash transfer ...