This background paper provided a comprehensive analysis of the process of migration in India. This analysis was undertaken under three broad themes with a section covering issues such as: What was the scale and scope of talent migration both (i) within India and (ii) between India and the world?

The objective of this project was to undertake various exercises to set the baseline and for rolling out of the revised PR campaigns. It involved appraisal of the earlier programs, conducted a baseline study and prepared a long frame for the program, profiling etc. In addition Indicus also provided on an ongoing basis the following- knowledge support, maintenance of the Tier 1 dataset, operating environment analysis for priority states, evaluation and process management etc.

This study attempted to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the state, objectively using government's own data. Various aspects of Jharkhand's economy and the changes therein over time had been tracked to see the extent of progress in different indicators of growth and development. In each of the aspects, Jharkhand's status in comparison to other states had been discussed. Further, a comparative analysis of various districts of the state had also been presented.

A range of issues both qualitative and quantitative, which have a bearing upon the incidence of child labour and holistic development of the child were addressed in this study through a survey of 10,400 households in 1477 villages which were spreaded across Sant Ravidas Nagar, Mirzapur and Jaunpur of Uttar Pradesh. It was followed up with Focus Group Discussions (FGD) covering 32 groups of school teachers, Gram Pradhans, village education committee members, anganwadi workers, parents, school children, ANM and ASHA, self-help groups, carpet weavers, trade and industry representatives and banks.

This study developed an objective Index on the knowledge readiness of Indian states using information available from the states as well as from highly respected secondary sources.

This India Labour Report dealt with the urgency with which India needs to transition from a agricultural, predominantly informal, low human capital economy to one that was organized, predominantly non-farm, and whose strength lies in its large numbers of productive skilled youth. The findings stressed upon the fact that overlapping labour legislation between central and state Governments was hindering the smooth functioning of labour environment. The ideal solution suggested was to implement an ideal federal structure and transfer labour legislation from the concurrent list to state list.

Indicus undertook this study to evolve an operational and scalable model for capacity building of village level community based institutions or Village Water & Sanitation Committee to operate and maintain village water supply network in sustainable manner. The study also involved the use of a judicious mix of quantitative and qualitative tools using primary and secondary data and documentation analysis. Based on this analysis it was suggested, how to build a sustainable model for O&M of water supply, benchmarking the allocation of resources. Indicus also recommended a detailed operational and scalable model for capacity building of all identified stakeholders. The main data collection techniques applied during the field visit were a combination of literature reviews, briefings, debriefings, structured and unstructured interviews, group meetings and Focus Group discussions.

The survey aimed to find out the changing face of the individuals money life in terms of how he/she earns, saves, spends & invests his/her money. The survey had six parts to it, each aimed to find out the chance variables in key areas of his/her money life.

This report was an empirical analysis of how India compares with policies associated with success and failure internationally. It illustrated inter alia that the integrity of the legal system was one of the most important factors – perhaps the most important – associated with success.

The report provided a brief over view of the performance and structure of the Indian steel industry by analysing published secondary time series data on certain key indicators. Market structure was also analyzed using indicators such as number of players and their respective shares in total production, share of public and private players in the total production/sales, production capacity of major players, etc. Given the heterogeneous nature of the product this analysis was done for the various segments of steel that constitute the “relevant market”.

This paper aimed at generating a consensus among policymakers on the characteristics of the emerging digital payments ecosystem in India. It seeks to broaden the concept of Financial Inclusion by including digital payments as an important component. It also showed how the key characteristics of digital payments ecosystem were such that they perfectly match the needs of the masses. Also the paper discussed various regulatory hurdles that can be critical in determining success or failure of a digital payments system.

This study undertook comprehensive ratings and associated rankings of all states and UTs in India. The other important elements of the study were Constituency rating, involving estimation of socio economic conditions in all the parliamentary constituencies of the country; States performance on key indicators between last elections and the current and BPL inflation in different states.

This white paper critically examined the status of abovementioned initiatives, like the National e-governance Plan (NeGP) and the Community service centre (CSC), and discussed the various constraints faced and potential benefits that were to be realized. It also showed the way forward for both policy action and research questions. The study also assessed the creation of an ecosystem that ensures ICT applications’ development potential was realized to the highest possible extent. It also developed desirable regional ICT sector development strategies together with the analysis and recommendation for the prospective roles of the public and private sectors or ICT sector.

The paper delineated the concept of technology neutrality, its importance and how it can be implemented and sustained in both policy and regulation. The study derived the right set of characteristics what policy and regulation should have. It also looked at the essentials of a technology policy that has the characteristics of enabling growth, equity efficiency and choice. The overall objective of the study was to suggest how to create an enabling environment, which would be truly open to different technologies and enable India to achieve twin goals of equity and growth in a sustained manner.

This white paper examined the potential of cellular location based service to meet the objective of growth with equity in India. It involved assessing the relevance of mobile applications focused on location market in India, identification of specific applications/services that would be of importance and recommendations for way ahead to exploit the full potential of LBS in India

The ‘Bal Adhikar Pariyojna’, aimed at addressing the root cause of child labour has been implemented in 500 villages in Jaunpur, U.P. by UNICEF and IKEA since 2000. The expansion of the Project was proposed to be undertaken in a phased manner. With a view to enabling measurable outcomes and a meaningful evaluation of the various interventions under the expanded project, Indicus conducted a baseline (and later mid term appraisal) survey of the villages what was to be covered under the IKEA-UNICEF initiative in the proposed project districts of Mirzapur, Jaunpur and Bhadoi in Uttar Pradesh covering 1500 villages and over 10,000 households.

The exercise undertaken in this project has sought to assess the overall socio-economic conditions of the region in which BAP(Bal Adhikar Pariyojana) project was to be extended. The appraisal was designed to be both qualitative and quantitative in nature, with focused on the factors that were likely to have a bearing on project interventions and outcomes.

In this series, Indicus analysed through 5 research papers titled: 1. Gender Gap in Education Completion 2. Factors Affecting Primary School Completion 3. Millennium Development Goals in education in India 4. An Evaluation of DISE data 5. Primary School Completion in India: Assessing the impact of Incentives, Individual, Household and School Level Variables

The project involved preparation of a background and policy paper on Risk capital for SME’s in India. The objective also involved participation in and summing up the proceedings of the industry interface program organized on the subject by PMD and SIDBI at PHDCCI New Delhi in March 2008.

The MA FOI Employment Survey was a study on the Indian employment trends and opportunities. Indicus’ role in the survey was to oversee the data collection by TNS India, determination of adequate sectoral sample sizes, questionnaire designing, analysis of the received data of survey and writing of the report.