India

“Imagine a world where accessing healthcare, education, and financial services is as seamless as sending a message on your smartphone. Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) is the backbone of this vision – a transformative framework of interoperable, scalable, and inclusive digital systems that empower governments and citizens alike, driving innovation, equity, and sustainable development on an unprecedented scale.”

One model to provide sanitation in India’s slums is Suvidha (‘convenience’ in Hindi) centers: modern and large community water and sanitation complexes. The centers provide an important service to the community, provide employment, build capacity among workers and are financially sustainable.

With evolving workforce demands, the expectations from India’s education systems have expanded beyond achieving universal enrollment and basic literacy and numeracy. It now needs to equip students with 21st-century skills.

Amidst the vast societal machinery that sustains India, sanitation workers operate as the unrecognized cogs essential to the public health system, yet they remain largely invisible within policy frameworks and legislative agendas.

The gender gap looms large in financial inclusion. Across developing economies, women are six percentage points less likely than men to own bank accounts — in countries like Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Turkey, the gender gap is more than twenty percentage points. Men are more likely to report that they have saved any money in the […]

Throughout this spring of 2023, the world is witnessing a global surge in COVID cases, driven by variants of the virus such as the XBB.1.16 strain in India and the XBB.1.15 in the United States.1 The COVID crisis has glaringly underscored the need for nation states to prepare for the advent of global pandemics. Lockdowns […]

In this article, the authors explore the barriers that women face on the ground when accessing abortion, even when the procedure has been legalized. They look at the cases of Argentina and Colombia, in Latin America, and India and Nepal, in Asia, to highlight examples of barriers and how grassroots organizations are playing a key role in supporting safe access to abortions.

Police play a pivotal role in maintaining and strengthening internal security in India. To be effective, police must win and hold the trust of the people. Traditionally, Indian police forces follow Criminal Procedure Code, the Indian Penal Code, and other federal and state laws. Under this model, police faithfully register and investigate offenses reported by […]

For every 5 hours the average Indian woman spends on unpaid care work in a day, a man spends half an hour—a ratio over three times the global average.[i] Changing this ratio can dismantle entrenched gender roles and arrest the declining participation of women in India’s paid workforce. Alarmingly, between 2006 and 2021, India’s female […]

Trained in literature, dance, and music, Devdasis, or servants of God, are women and girls dedicated to temples in South India. A traditional religious practice among Hindus dating back to the 6th century, girls as young as seven are “married” to a temple deity and dedicate their lives to the performance of sacred rituals and […]

Arman Mahmoudian examines the return of great power competition in the Middle East and China’s role within the region.

While three-fourths of the world’s population has access to a basic sanitation service, only about half of the world’s population uses a safely managed sanitation service. Over the last decade, the Government of India has strived to increase access to sanitation, building 100 million additional toilets in rural India over the last five years under […]