Blog >> Social inequalities

I’m writing mainly to post a link to Gardiner Harris’s NYT story today: Coal rush in India could tip balance on climate change.  Getting energy from coal has truly awful health consequences — I sometimes think that if I weren’t...Read More..

A recent article in the Times of India by Dilip Abreu, Pranab Bardhan, Maitreesh Ghatak, Ashok Kotwal, Dilip Mookherjee and Debraj Ray poses a rational argument against phasing out the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. Here are some of the excerpts from...Read More..

Rukmini S. of The Hindu published an article today about Aashish’s new studyon how so few violent crimes against women are actually reported to the police in India.  Part of the article is below, but read the full text here. Husbands commit...Read More..

Written by Aashish Gupta on October 18th, 2014 Sanitation has dominated the r.i.c.e blog for sometime, but this paper on violence against women has been pending for an equally long time too. I finally revised it, and its online now. The paper,...Read More..

We just concluded a great week at the Water and Health Conference at UNC! Between the 4 of us attending, we had 6 verbal presentations and 6 poster presentations over the course of the week. We were so thrilled to...Read More..

This week I’m in Sitapur, and it’s nice to be back after a long time.   I learn so much here.  Today, I was having a conversation about rural sanitation with Baby, a woman who long-time readers of our blog will...Read More..

A shorter version of the squat working paper 1 was just published by the EPW. Check it out on the EPW website! The paper will be available for free download starting tomorrow, but we are linking a copy for you! Don’t miss it. See ithere....Read More..

The recent rape case of two minor girls in Badaun district of Uttar Pradesh has called forth a need for toilet construction for women. Perhaps, there is an urgent need for toilets (for men as well as women) but more...Read More..

Different places in India are voting in national elections on different days. Diane and I wrote these thoughts about the election together. Today, India is preparing for an election which will shape the lives of more people than any election...Read More..

Editor's Note: Nicholas Lawson is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Aix-Marseille School of Economics, and is the newest member of the r.i.c.e. extended family. Nicholas is a labour economist who has been studying the effect of early life health and...Read More..

Sitting at the Delhi airport at 5:30 am, I noticed a pair of signs. The first was the official, plastic government-sponsored sign for the family restroom: "Baby Care," illustrated with a diaper. The second, printed on what we used to...Read More..

Lant Pritchett wrote a blog for the Center for Global Development website last week on how development, including the decade-long RCT movement, is a faith-based activity. He says, "The delightfully quirky aspect of the success of the randomista movement is...Read More..

This post is a little deeper in the scientific details than r.i.c.e. readers may be used to, but I hope you will stick with us, because it is important. Evidence is building up that enteropathy may matter a great deal....Read More..

The rice team is busy preparing for the coming months of field research: surveyor training starts this weekend, and Aashish, Diane, and Sangita are talking through last weekend’s pilot qualitative interviews as I write. Yesterday, I presented work in progress...Read More..

Check out the new photos of life in rural Sitapur posted on the photos tab! Many thanks to Aashish, who among many others things, takes wonderful pictures for rice! He rode around the villages near our house early one morning...Read More..

Psychologists and behavioral economists have long identified an "identifiable victim effect": people are much more likely to donate to help if an appeal mentions one needy person than if millions of people in need are invoked. This may be paradoxical...Read More..