Recognising the importance of soft skills in ensuring meaningful employment for youth in India, the National Council for Vocational Education and Training revamped the “employability skills” course in Industrial Training Institutes in 2022. In this note, Aditya Kumar shares insights from a field study on the various implementation challenges of the initiative, as well as a roadmap to harness the full potential of the new curriculum without undermining technical education.

Read here: https://www.ideasforindia.in/topics/productivity-innovation/soft-skills-for-hard-times-enhancing-employability-of-indian-youth

As we close for the holidays here's a look back on some content highlights from 2025. We'll be back in the New Year w/ new Articles, Perspectives, Notes from the Field, Policy Roundups, Symposia, Syntheses, Conversations & more

https://www.ideasforindia.in/topics/miscellany/i4i-2025-highlights

In November 2025, India’s national accounts data received a “C” grade from the International Monetary Fund, reflecting concerns around coverage gaps. Meanwhile, the Indian government is planning to release a new GDP (gross domestic product) series this year as part of a routine base-year revision. In this post, Santanu Pramanik and Rajeswari Sengupta discuss two key changes being planned, as well as the implications for state-level GDP estimates.


Read here: https://www.ideasforindia.in/topics/macroeconomics/indias-gdp-makeover-what-is-changing

Government of India has recently proposed to replace the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), 2005, with the “Viksit Bharat—Guarantee For Rozgar And Ajeevika Mission (Gramin)” Bill (VB—G Ram G). In this post, Ashwini Kulkarni argues that while the new scheme offers an increase in available workdays, it simultaneously dilutes the financial participation of the Centre, restricts the period of work availability, and centralises planning

Read here: https://www.ideasforindia.in/topics/poverty-inequality/vb--g-ram-g-bill-2025-decoding-the-new-rural-employment-scheme

In Karnataka, the Shakti scheme has made state-run buses free for women since June 2023. In this note, based on a survey of about 250 women, Madhusree Jana and Jehosh Paul assess the impact of the intervention on women’s mobility and work in the smaller towns and villages of the state. They find that the scheme enhanced women’s ease in reaching work locations or accessing labour markets farther from home.

Read here:https://www.ideasforindia.in/topics/social-identity/fare-play-how-karnatakas-shakti-is-changing-womens-work

While global innovation leaders invest 2-4.5% of their GDP in R&D, the figure stands at 0.64% for India. In this post, Sovini Mondal & Sanjib Pohit contend that the country ought to recognise R&D as an economic engine, raising public investment and the contribution of the private sector. Further, instead of only playing catch-up, there is a need to proactively develop a technology forecasting strategy.

https://www.ideasforindia.in/topics/productivity-innovation/innovation-as-national-strategy-can-india-invest-its-way-to-viksit-bharat

Digital payments are transforming household financial behaviour in India. Who adopts digital payments, and do these adopters have a greater propensity to engage with health insurance? Analysing nationally representative data from 2019, this article shows that e-wallet users are significantly more likely to purchase voluntary health insurance. Yet, inequalities in adoption persist and bridging digital divides can contribute towards reducing disparities in healthcare access.

Read here: https://www.ideasforindia.in/topics/money-finance/digital-payments-and-health-insurance-uptake

Between the mid-2000s and 2013, India legislated rights-based entitlements – across domains including employment, food, education, and health – alongside developing biometric identification for efficient delivery of welfare. In this post, Veena Naregal contends that in the years that followed, policy authority migrated from legislatures and population registers towards digital systems – with the latter determining who is recognised for receiving welfare.

Read here: https://www.ideasforindia.in/topics/governance/how-technology-and-fiscal-rules-reshaped-indias-welfare-state-without-repeal

Philippe Aghion – jointly with Peter Howitt and Joel Mokyr – has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics 2025, for explaining “innovation-driven economic growth”. Speaking at the India Sustainable Growth Hub Environment Day, Aghion discusses some of his work pertaining to innovation in the context of green growth. In conversation with Suman Bery, Vice Chairman of NITI Aayog, Aghion deliberates upon the implications of his research for emerging economics such as India.


https://www.ideasforindia.in/topics/environment/green-growth-and-innovation

The Indian Forest Act, 1927 empowers the State to declare large tracts of land as “reserved forests”. While from the government’s perspective, this is an attempt to safeguard national ecological assets, the legal framework adversely impacts traditional forest dwellers through the loss of homes and livelihoods. In this post, Rishabh Jain(P.P. Jindal Global University) seeks to balance the two perspectives and proposes a way forward that is rooted in coexistence.

Read here: https://www.ideasforindia.in/topics/environment/paradox-of-protection-ecological-preservation-and-human-rights-in-reserved-forests

Despite rising incomes, smaller families, and significant gains in education, sex ratios in India remain skewed. Based on new evidence, this article locates the explanation in institutional features of the marriage market that shape economic behaviour – even when parents genuinely care about their children, irrespective of their sex. Transfers that go directly to women after marriage can make them less costly to parents and reduce sex selection.

Read here: https://www.ideasforindia.in/topics/social-identity/why-are-richer-families-in-india-still-choosing-sons

India’s clean energy transition depends not only on expanding renewable energy generation, but on how households and firms use electricity. In this post, Shefali Khanna draws insights from existing evidence on consumer behaviour, and highlights areas where further work is needed. Within this context, she describes the approach of the newly launched Energy Insights and Innovation Lab – a partnership between the IGC and Tata Power – which aims to translate research into practice by identifying scalable strategies to support India’s energy transition.

Read here: https://www.ideasforindia.in/topics/environment/understanding-consumer-behaviour-to-accelerate-indias-clean-energy-transition

January Policy Roundup is here!

This post presents our monthly curation of developments in the Indian policy landscape – highlighting I4I content pertaining to labour laws and the recent reforms therein; the methodology changes being planned by the Ministry of Statistics for the upcoming release of the GDP series; and the replacement of MNREGA with a new rural employment programme.

Read here: https://www.ideasforindia.in/topics/miscellany/policy-roundup-labour-laws-gdp-data-mnrega

Despite increasing digitisation in the implementation of MNREGA, corruption continues to take place in different ways. Based on fieldwork in Rajasthan, Sandhya and Rajeev estimate the mismatch between workers’ reported engagement with the programme and official records. Noting the limitations of this conventional method to measuring corruption under MNREGA, they propose a new approach to capture irregularities in wage payments within a context of technology-based monitoring.

Read here: https://www.ideasforindia.in/topics/governance/estimating-wage-corruption-in-mnrega

Women in India disproportionately bear the burden of care work, restricting their ability to pursue economic empowerment. This article explores the structure and impact of the care economy, by analysing related posts on a digital platform. Noting a rise in conversations around stress, unpaid work, and work-life imbalance in the post-Covid era, it calls for investments in care infrastructure and recognition of the emotional and economic toll of care work.


Read here:https://www.ideasforindia.in/topics/social-identity/examining-online-discourse-on-unpaid-care-work-in-urban-india

Even as the Indian economy grows in the aggregate, extreme spatial divergence exists within the country. In this post, Ejaz Ghani and Saurabh Mishra show that prosperity is not merely concentrated in rich states; it is hyper-concentrated in a microscopic archipelago of just 13 districts that generate half the national GDP. Noting that physical infrastructure is necessary but insufficient to break this path dependence, they recommend a shift towards AI-based “cognitive infrastructure”.

Read here: https://www.ideasforindia.in/topics/poverty-inequality/islands-of-gold-in-a-sea-of-shadow-breaking-indias-geographic-inequality-trap

India adopted the Flexible Inflation Targeting framework a decade ago, and the statutory renewal date is in March 2026. Analysing the effectiveness of the framework, Apica Sharma contends that it has delivered on its primary promise of lower and more stable inflation with clearer accountability. She recommends refining the framework via better forecasting, communication, and coordination.


Read here: https://www.ideasforindia.in/topics/macroeconomics/indias-inflation-targeting-framework-refine-not-reinvent

Emerging research from advanced economies shows that broad measures of health often persist across generations, but evidence from less developed settings remains scarce. Analysing Indian data, this article finds that poor health passes from parents to children and shapes long-run physiological and disease risks – with persistence being strongest among poor households, backward castes, and laggard regions. Hence, targeted health policy has the potential to break long-standing cycles of disadvantage.

Read here: https://www.ideasforindia.in/topics/human-development/cycles-of-malnutrition-intergenerational-transmission-in-india

The state government of Kerala has recently claimed to have eradicated extreme poverty, with the poverty rate declining from 60% in 1973 to 11% in 2011-12. In this post, Pulapre Balakrishnan (Centre for Development Studies) contends that the growth of income in the state economy was driven by a combination of labour demand created by the ‘Gulf Boom’ and the government enabling the population to take advantage of these opportunities.

Read Here: https://www.ideasforindia.in/topics/poverty-inequality/state-and-market-in-poverty-reduction-the-lesson-from-kerala