Gender and Mental Health- Cohort 4.0 | An Online International Winter School Program | A Three-Day Immersive Online Certificate Training Course | October 2026 | IMPRI #WebPolicyLearning Participants’ List & Details Participants’ List & Details Gender and Mental Health- Cohort 4.0 Theme:…
Two families may live in the same forest landscape. Both may have land, family labour, livestock, traditional knowledge and community networks. Yet after the same crop failure, wildlife loss or employment shock, one household manages to recover while the other slips deeper into insecurity. Why?
In 2020, India rolled out the Production Linked Incentive scheme with a simple pitch: pay manufacturers for every additional unit produced above a baseline, and watch domestic industry grow. That logic was later extended to some of the country's most climate relevant sectors, including solar photovoltaic modules and advanced chemistry cell batteries, tying manufacturing growth directly to India's energy transition and its broader push for self reliance under the Atmanirbhar Bharat banner.
An average can hide a great deal. According to the 2011 Census, 70.6 per cent of urban households in India had access to piped water [1]; but only around 62 per cent of those used treated piped water [2]; and almost 13 per cent of urban households continued to practice open defecation [3]. Such statistics give a comforting impression of progress at the national level. But they tell us nothing about where such progress is lacking. This policy approach views such deficiencies as shortages in pipes, toilets, and wastewater facilities. In this blog post, I will try to demonstrate why such framing is inadequate. It becomes clear from research that in addition to the physical deficiency, there exists an institutional issue as well. Municipalities differ widely in terms of the things they can do in a legal sense, the amount of resources available for spending, and even in the availability of personnel to manage constructed infrastructure. Such inequality is just inequality of capabilities at the household level.
Everything is possible at the tap of a screen these days, whether it's ordering groceries, booking a cab, or hiring someone for personal care services. The promise of delivery in minutes has made life smoother and more dependable. But we often overlook the human effort running through the city behind every order. These jobs are among the fastest-growing in recent years, yet they are marked by odd hours, a lack of basic amenities, occupational risks, and a lack of proper grievance redressal mechanisms. India's gig workforce was estimated at 7.7 million in 2020-21 and is projected to reach 23.5 million by 2029-30 (NITI Aayog, 2022).
Women’s entrepreneurship can contribute to employment generation, household income and local economic development. However, women from economically disadvantaged backgrounds may face difficulties in obtaining institutional credit, preparing business plans, acquiring entrepreneurial skills and accessing markets. Limited access to finance can force aspiring entrepreneurs to depend on informal lenders or abandon business ideas before they become viable enterprises.
Exporters compete on price, and part of that price is made up of domestic taxes that no other mechanism returns to them.