Analysis
Briefs
88 briefs · page 3 of 8
- Topic · maintained 2026-07-17 · updated 2026-07-28
India's legislature in mid-2026: a defeated constitutional amendment, an ordinance to ratify, and a Monsoon Session with 19 sittings
Parliament reconvenes on 20 July 2026 for a Monsoon Session of 19 sittings, three months after the Lok Sabha did something it had not done before in this government's tenure: it rejected a constitutional amendment.
- Topic · maintained 2026-07-28
India's urban transition and migration: the gap between city growth and municipal capacity
India is urbanising and moving, but it measures and governs the process through fragmented, ageing systems.
- Topic · maintained 2026-07-28
India's welfare state: the JAM trinity, DBT and the fiscal weight of subsidies
India's welfare state now runs on a digital plumbing layer — the JAM trinity of Jan Dhan accounts, Aadhaar identity and mobile phones — that routes benefits directly into bank accounts under the Direct Benefit Transfer system, sitting alongside the older in-kind Public Distribution System.
- Topic · maintained 2026-07-28
Jammu and Kashmir: the political economy of a demoted, transfer-fed Union Territory
Jammu and Kashmir is the only unit of the Republic demoted from statehood to Union Territory, and the only legislature-holding UT whose elected government does not control police and public order — both rest with the Union through the Lieutenant Governor.
- Topic · maintained 2026-07-28
Jharkhand: the political economy of a resource state that is not a rich state
As of 28 July 2026, Jharkhand is governed by the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-led Mahagathbandhan — the state wing of the INDIA bloc — which the November 2024 assembly election returned with 56 of 81 seats, the first back-to-back mandate for a sitting government since the state was carved out of Bihar in 2000.
- Topic · maintained 2026-07-28
Karnataka: the political economy of India's services-and-revenue state
As of 28 July 2026 Karnataka is governed by a Congress single-party majority elected in May 2023 (135 of 224 seats); the state did not vote in the 2026 round and its next assembly election is due in 2028.
- Topic · maintained 2026-07-28
Kerala: the political economy of a high-development, fiscally strained federal unit
4 million people, 20 Lok Sabha seats, near-universal literacy and a per capita output well above the national average, carried on a budget in which salaries, pensions and interest absorb about 72% of revenue receipts.
- Topic · maintained 2026-07-28
Ladakh: the political economy of a border territory governed without a legislature
As of 28 July 2026, Ladakh is the Republic's clearest case of a territory that is governed but not self-governed at its own level: a Union Territory run by a Lieutenant Governor appointed by the President, with no legislative assembly, no Chief Minister and no council of ministers, and its entire budget funded through Union grants.
- Topic · maintained 2026-07-28
Lakshadweep: the political economy of the Union's smallest, un-legislatured territory
Lakshadweep is the limiting case of the Indian federation: the Republic's smallest unit by both population and area — 64,473 people on about 32 sq km of coral atoll at the 2011 Census — and the clearest instance of a territory governed almost entirely by Union appointment.
- Topic · maintained 2026-07-28
Madhya Pradesh: the political economy of a landlocked, agrarian, tribal-weighted federal unit
Madhya Pradesh is the Republic's second-largest state by area and fifth by population, landlocked and agriculture-weighted, sending 29 members to the Lok Sabha and 11 to the Rajya Sabha and governed through a single 230-seat Vidhan Sabha at Bhopal.
- Topic · maintained 2026-07-28
Maharashtra: the political economy of the Union's largest state economy
39 lakh crore, with services at 64% of output.
- Topic · maintained 2026-07-28
Manipur: the political economy of a transfer-funded border state
As of 28 July 2026, Manipur is governed again by an elected ministry: President's Rule, imposed on 13 February 2025 after twenty months of Meitei-Kuki-Zo violence, was revoked on 4 February 2026 and a BJP-led coalition (with the NPP, NPF and JD(U)) holding a large majority of the 60-seat House took office, drawn from the twelfth Assembly elected in 2022 — the state did not go to the polls in 2026.