TIF Collection

Energy Transitions

The Disruptive Politics of Renewable Energy

In making the shift to renewable energy, India has to manage the disruption of long-standing institutional and political arrangements in ways that enable clean energy in a sustainable manner.
▶22-May-2019
Navroz K Dubash, Ashwini K Swain, Parth Bhatia

A Hesitant Transition

Renewable energy capacity has expanded globally but this does not as yet mark a shift away from fossil fuels. On current trends, energy use from CO2-emitting fuels will continue to rise in the future…
▶25-Jul-2019
Nagraj Adve

Is India Concerned about its Energy Security?

India's overambitious targets for solar energy could destabilize its power sector and threaten energy security. Rather than 'green' political posturing, the country must plan an energy…
▶22-Sep-2020
Tejal Kanitkar

Intergenerational Labour and Just Transition in Coalfields

In coal mining districts, the nature of labour dependence on working coal may change over time, but generations will continue to rely on the industry for their livelihoods. This leaves coal…
▶01-Jun-2023
Suravee Nayak

Gig Work

‘Twenty Rupees for Twenty Minutes’: What I Learned Working in India’s Gig Economy

A researcher becomes a ‘partner’ in a food delivery app for two months. What he experiences and learns from his fellow workers is that in the underbelly of India’s vaunted gig economy are low and…
▶28-Jul-2025
Kasim Saiyyad

Confronting Precarious Work

The precarisation of labour is written into the very logic of platform business models. Ignoring this, and focusing only on social security measures to protect workers, normalises exploitative labour…
▶07-Oct-2020
Kaveri Medappa, Rajorshi Ray, Mohammad Sajjad Hussain

Perils of the Gig Economy

The uncritical tone of the NITI Aayog’s recent report on the gig economy in India and its belief that platformisation will create an inclusive working environment is, at best, credulous, and, at…
▶25-Oct-2022
Asiya Islam, Damni Kain

Big Problems, Small Wins

Despite good intentions, much in the new Rajasthan gig workers act is built on weak foundations, which will make it difficult to implement. This makes it unlikely that the workers will actually get…
▶22-Aug-2023
Sabina Dewan

War

Modi Government's Ill-Conceived Policy on West Asia Jeopardises India’s Interests and Credibility

‘The strategic geometry and security architecture of West Asia will undergo important changes after this war as countries look for new partners. By our unseemly embrace of Israel and post-haste…
▶06-Mar-2026
Srinath Raghavan

Twenty Years of the ‘Global War on Terror’

Matters have come full circle in Afghanistan, the main theatre of the ‘war on terror’. Chaos is festering in Syria, Libya, Yemen & Iraq. The failure of U.S. justice presages an unravelling of the…
▶25-Aug-2021
Sukumar Muralidharan

Strategic Thinking and the Nuclear Garden Path

The recent conflagration between India and Pakistan urges us to reflect once again on the logic of nuclear deterrence and its false assurances of safety. Taking off from the movie “Dr. Strangelove”,…
▶15-May-2025
Jean Drèze

Another Chapter in Afghanistan

Afghanistan is not the exhausted, impoverished, war-weary country the Taliban took over in 1996. Nor are the Taliban the same cohesive force. New aspirations, and pressures from the ground and…
▶01-Sep-2021
Kesava Menon

(Formerly known as) MGNREGA

Essay

The Continuing Relevance of MGNREGA

For more than five years the Government has been lukewarm towards the MGNREGA. Yet, in the midst of the ongoing slowdown this very programme is a potentially effective instrument that it can and…
▶17-Mar-2020
Sudha Narayanan

Costs of Centralisation in MGNREGA

The union government’s desire to ensure uniformity of the Management Information System across the country in overseeing MGNREGA has resulted in workers losing income, employment, and access to…
▶12-Jun-2023
Chakradhar Buddha, Venkata Krishna Kagga

Staking Claim to Entitlements under MGNREGA

There are internal constraints and structural barriers to women’s claim-making under MGNREGA. Supporting more egalitarian decision-making within the village, designing interventions that can help…
▶28-Aug-2024
Kalyani Raghunathan, Katrina Kosec, Jordan Kyle, Sudha Narayanan, Soumyajit Ray

Undermining the Legal Guarantee of MGNREGA: Right, Left, and Centre

Governments of every political dispensation have sought to hollow out India’s rural employment guarantee scheme. Only a mass movement that keeps the vulnerable at its centre can make the MGNREGA what…
▶07-Mar-2022
Sowmya Sivakumar