https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/ Evidence-led essays by Pritiraj Brahma on Indian governance, state capacity, institutional design and fiscal federalism. en-IN © 2026 Pritiraj & Partners pritirajb18@gmail.com (Pritiraj Brahma) Sat, 08 Aug 2026 03:30:00 GMT https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/eight-hundred-and-fifty-seats-what-delimitation-actually-decides/ https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/eight-hundred-and-fifty-seats-what-delimitation-actually-decides/ Sat, 08 Aug 2026 03:30:00 GMT Institutions & Reform Pritiraj Brahma The Delimitation Bill, 2026 proposes a 850-member Lok Sabha with 272 seats reserved for women. The seat count is the least consequential thing about it. https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-arithmetic-of-absence-why-air-india-is-losing-a-market-it-was-built-to-lead/ https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-arithmetic-of-absence-why-air-india-is-losing-a-market-it-was-built-to-lead/ Thu, 06 Aug 2026 03:30:00 GMT Political Economy Pritiraj Brahma Air India's FY26 loss hit ₹22,238 crore as domestic share fell to 23.9%. A structured analysis of why the turnaround is stalling — and the correction required. https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/india-learning-crisis-the-arithmetic-that-should-alarm-us/ https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/india-learning-crisis-the-arithmetic-that-should-alarm-us/ Thu, 30 Jul 2026 03:30:00 GMT Governance & Delivery Pritiraj Brahma India enrols nearly every child and half leave unable to do grade-level mathematics. Why the learning crisis is now a fiscal question — and the five structural corrections it requires. https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-quiet-part-of-a-loud-victory-dharmendra-pradhan-resignation/ https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-quiet-part-of-a-loud-victory-dharmendra-pradhan-resignation/ Sun, 26 Jul 2026 03:30:00 GMT Institutions & Reform Pritiraj Brahma The street took a scalp; the State had already rebuilt the system. Why the resignation of the Union Education Minister matters less than the five corrections that preceded it. https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-dashboard-problem/ https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-dashboard-problem/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 03:30:00 GMT Governance & Delivery Pritiraj Brahma India has more real-time government dashboards than any comparable state. Pendency, learning outcomes and delivery gaps have not moved with them. Visibility is not accountability. https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-district-is-where-the-state-lives/ https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-district-is-where-the-state-lives/ Thu, 16 Jul 2026 03:30:00 GMT State Capacity Pritiraj Brahma India debates the Centre and the states endlessly and ignores the tier where governance actually succeeds or fails. The district runs at 19% IAS vacancy against a mandate that expands every year. https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/cjp-protest-unwinnable-demand/ https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/cjp-protest-unwinnable-demand/ Thu, 09 Jul 2026 03:30:00 GMT Institutions & Reform Pritiraj Brahma Ten million followers in five days, and no institutional outcome. A strategist's diagnosis of five design errors — and the pivot that could still convert pressure into text. https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-forty-one-percent-illusion-state-finances-after-the-sixteenth-finance-commission/ https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-forty-one-percent-illusion-state-finances-after-the-sixteenth-finance-commission/ Thu, 02 Jul 2026 03:30:00 GMT Political Economy Pritiraj Brahma The 16th Finance Commission held devolution at 41% and discontinued revenue deficit grants. Why a headline of continuity conceals the tightest state fiscal settlement in a decade. https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-certificate-is-not-the-job/ https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-certificate-is-not-the-job/ Thu, 25 Jun 2026 03:30:00 GMT Governance & Delivery Pritiraj Brahma PMKVY trained 13.7 million people in seven years and placed 18 per cent of them. The failure is not effort; it is a system built to count certificates instead of livelihoods. https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-campus-economy-india-s-quietest-special-economic-zones/ https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-campus-economy-india-s-quietest-special-economic-zones/ Thu, 18 Jun 2026 03:30:00 GMT Political Economy Pritiraj Brahma Roughly 37% of notified SEZ land is in use. Meanwhile four university gates have built the concentrated capital, talent and IP pools that SEZ policy spent twenty years trying to engineer. https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/india-s-demographic-clock/ https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/india-s-demographic-clock/ Thu, 11 Jun 2026 03:30:00 GMT Political Economy Pritiraj Brahma A median age of 28 in an ageing world is India's greatest advantage and its deadline. The working-age share peaks in the 2040s; everything else is a question of what gets delivered before then. https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/four-codes-thirty-six-rulebooks-the-labour-reform-that-is-not-yet-a-reform/ https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/four-codes-thirty-six-rulebooks-the-labour-reform-that-is-not-yet-a-reform/ Thu, 04 Jun 2026 03:30:00 GMT Governance & Delivery Pritiraj Brahma Twenty-nine central labour laws were repealed on 21 November 2025. The central rules arrived on 8 May 2026. The states are where the reform is now decided. https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-northeast-india-is-not-the-periphery/ https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-northeast-india-is-not-the-periphery/ Thu, 28 May 2026 03:30:00 GMT Federalism & the Northeast Pritiraj Brahma Over ₹6 lakh crore committed in a decade, and the region's exports fell from $50.8m to $47.6m. The gateway framing is right; the execution gap is the whole problem. https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-last-mile-is-the-whole-journey/ https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-last-mile-is-the-whole-journey/ Thu, 21 May 2026 03:30:00 GMT Governance & Delivery Pritiraj Brahma Meghalaya imports 18,000 tonnes of pork a year while almost every household keeps pigs. The gap between those two facts is where Indian governance is actually decided. https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-tariff-that-was-never-lawful-what-india-conceded-and-what-it-learned/ https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-tariff-that-was-never-lawful-what-india-conceded-and-what-it-learned/ Thu, 14 May 2026 03:30:00 GMT Political Economy Pritiraj Brahma India negotiated relief from a 50% US tariff in February 2026. Three weeks later the US Supreme Court held the instrument behind it was never authorised. A lesson in negotiating against legal durability. https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/cities-without-money-the-third-tier-and-the-capacity-it-lacks/ https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/cities-without-money-the-third-tier-and-the-capacity-it-lacks/ Thu, 07 May 2026 03:30:00 GMT State Capacity Pritiraj Brahma India's cities produce roughly 60% of GDP and raise 0.6% of it. The Sixteenth Commission has now sent them ₹3.6 lakh crore against conditions most cannot yet meet. https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-thirty-nine-percent-question-health-spending-and-what-it-buys/ https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-thirty-nine-percent-question-health-spending-and-what-it-buys/ Thu, 30 Apr 2026 03:30:00 GMT Governance & Delivery Pritiraj Brahma Out-of-pocket health spending has fallen from 62.6% to around 39%. Public health spending sits at 1.8% of GDP against a 2.5% target. Both numbers describe the same unfinished settlement. https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/who-regulates-the-regulators/ https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/who-regulates-the-regulators/ Thu, 23 Apr 2026 03:30:00 GMT Institutions & Reform Pritiraj Brahma India built independent regulators for its most important sectors and then left their appointments, budgets and accountability inside the ministries they were meant to check. https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/airsheds-do-not-respect-district-lines/ https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/airsheds-do-not-respect-district-lines/ Thu, 16 Apr 2026 03:30:00 GMT Resources & Climate Pritiraj Brahma India measures air pollution by city and manages it by municipality. The pollution arrives from a region several hundred kilometres wide. The mismatch is the whole problem. https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-missing-middle-of-indian-enterprise/ https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-missing-middle-of-indian-enterprise/ Thu, 09 Apr 2026 03:30:00 GMT Political Economy Pritiraj Brahma Only 14% of India's MSMEs have formal credit, against a gap estimated between ₹25 and ₹30 lakh crore. Indian firms stay small because staying small is the rational response to the system around them. https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-discom-turnaround-and-what-it-does-not-yet-prove/ https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-discom-turnaround-and-what-it-does-not-yet-prove/ Thu, 02 Apr 2026 03:30:00 GMT State Capacity Pritiraj Brahma India's power distributors posted a collective profit of ₹2,701 crore in FY25 against accumulated losses of ₹6.47 lakh crore. A real turnaround, and a small one. https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-aquifer-is-the-real-budget-constraint/ https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-aquifer-is-the-real-budget-constraint/ Thu, 26 Mar 2026 03:30:00 GMT Resources & Climate Pritiraj Brahma India extracts 247.22 BCM of groundwater a year — a quarter of the world's total. 730 assessment units are over-exploited. The binding constraint on Indian agriculture is not credit or price. https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/five-crore-cases-and-the-arithmetic-of-delay/ https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/five-crore-cases-and-the-arithmetic-of-delay/ Thu, 19 Mar 2026 03:30:00 GMT Institutions & Reform Pritiraj Brahma India's courts carry more than 5 crore pending cases with roughly 14 judges per million people against a recommended 50. The backlog is not a moral failing; it is a capacity equation. https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/citizens-who-move-entitlements-that-do-not/ https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/citizens-who-move-entitlements-that-do-not/ Thu, 12 Mar 2026 03:30:00 GMT Governance & Delivery Pritiraj Brahma India built a portable ration card and stopped there. A migrant worker still cannot vote, see a doctor, enrol a child or claim a pension where they actually live. https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-half-that-does-not-show-up/ https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-half-that-does-not-show-up/ Thu, 05 Mar 2026 03:30:00 GMT Work & Livelihoods Pritiraj Brahma Female labour force participation has risen to 40%. Urban female participation sits near 25%, and 44.4% of women outside the workforce name care work as the reason. The constraint is not ambition. https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-title-is-the-asset/ https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-title-is-the-asset/ Thu, 26 Feb 2026 03:30:00 GMT Political Economy Pritiraj Brahma India's land records are presumptive, not conclusive. A landholding you cannot prove you own is a landholding you cannot borrow against, sell cleanly, or defend in court. https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/twenty-years-after-prakash-singh/ https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/twenty-years-after-prakash-singh/ Thu, 19 Feb 2026 03:30:00 GMT State Capacity Pritiraj Brahma The Supreme Court directed seven police reforms in 2006. Two decades on, forces run at roughly a fifth understrength and 86% of the state police is constabulary with one promotion in a career. https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-country-that-stopped-counting-itself/ https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-country-that-stopped-counting-itself/ Thu, 12 Feb 2026 03:30:00 GMT Institutions & Reform Pritiraj Brahma India's last census was in 2011. Every welfare list, every seat allocation and every per-capita figure in public use rests on a population that no longer exists. https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-capex-budget-and-the-capacity-to-spend-it/ https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-capex-budget-and-the-capacity-to-spend-it/ Thu, 05 Feb 2026 03:30:00 GMT Political Economy Pritiraj Brahma ₹12.22 lakh crore of capital expenditure against a 4.3% deficit. The Union Budget 2026-27 makes a coherent bet — and hands the binding constraint to the states. https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-largest-thing-india-does-well/ https://www.pritirajbrahma.in/review/the-largest-thing-india-does-well/ Sun, 01 Feb 2026 03:30:00 GMT Institutions & Reform Pritiraj Brahma India moves 64 crore people through a voting booth in six weeks without serious incident — the most impressive administrative act on earth. Everything surrounding that act is weaker than the act itself.