Analysis
Briefs
88 briefs · page 2 of 8
- Topic · maintained 2026-07-28
Goa: the political economy of India's smallest, richest-per-head state
Goa is the Republic's smallest state by area and among its smallest by population, yet it carries a per-capita output roughly double the national average and funds about seven-tenths of its revenue from its own resources — an economy that is, on the state's own budget numbers, manufacturing-weighted rather than tourism-weighted.
- Topic · maintained 2026-07-28
Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu: the political economy of a Union Territory that is a fiscal instrument
Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu is one of the smallest units of the Union and one of the few with no legislature at all: no assembly, no council of ministers, no Chief Minister.
- Topic · maintained 2026-07-28
Gujarat: the political economy of an industrial, maritime and border state
As of 28 July 2026, Gujarat is governed by the BJP, which has held office in Gandhinagar continuously since 1998 and returned the largest majority in the state's history — 156 of 182 seats — at the December 2022 election, leaving no party with the numbers to be recognised as the official opposition; the 15th Assembly's term runs to 2027, so the state did not vote in the 2026 round.
- Topic · maintained 2026-07-28
Himachal Pradesh: the political economy of a special-category hill state
Himachal Pradesh did not vote in 2026; its standing government is the one the Indian National Congress won in the November 2022 Vidhan Sabha election, 40 seats to the Bharatiya Janata Party's 28, and which survived a February 2024 defection crisis before by-elections restored its 40-seat count.
- Topic · maintained 2026-07-28
Haryana: the political economy of the state that wraps around Delhi
18 lakh crore and a per-capita income among the highest of the large states, concentrated in a National Capital Region services-and-manufacturing belt led by Gurugram.
- Topic · maintained 2026-07-28
Caste and reservation: India's quota architecture, its 50% ceiling and the count that reopens it
5% for Scheduled Tribes, 27% for Other Backward Classes and, since 2019, 10% for economically weaker sections, against a Supreme Court ceiling of 50% that the EWS quota already crosses.
- Topic · maintained 2026-07-28
Delhi (NCT): the political economy of the capital that is governed twice
Delhi is India's constitutional exception: a Union Territory carrying a directly elected 70-seat Assembly, whose per-capita output runs at more than twice the national figure but whose elected government does not command its police, its land or its public order — those sit with the Union through the Lieutenant Governor under Article 239AA.
- Topic · maintained 2026-07-28
India's demographics: the world's largest population, a below-replacement birth rate, and a census overdue
1 replacement level — so its continued growth now runs on demographic momentum rather than high birth rates. 8% by 2050. The measurement system that underpins all of this is strained: the decennial census had not been completed since 2011.
- Topic · maintained 2026-07-28
India's human development: the outcomes and the instruments that measure them
India's human development runs on broad improvement and persistent gaps at once. 685 in 2023, ranked 130th of 193 countries.
- Topic · maintained 2026-07-28
India's informal economy: measuring it, covering it, and the drive to formalise it
Around nine-tenths of India's workforce earns a living outside formal, regular, salaried employment — the self-employed, casual labourers and unregistered micro-enterprises that the Economic Survey has put at roughly half of GDP.
- Topic · maintained 2026-07-28
India's employment question: participation, jobless growth, and what PLFS measures
9% in 2025. The dispute is not about the headline rate but about what sits beneath it.
- Topic · maintained 2026-07-28
Religion and the law: India's secular framework and its live legal fronts
India is a constitutionally secular state that leaves family life to religion-specific personal laws — a settlement built on Articles 25-28 (freedom of religion), Articles 29-30 (minority rights) and the unenforced Article 44 directive toward a Uniform Civil Code.