The Pritiraj Review · Pritiraj & PartnersP&P →

The firm's journal · published most weeks

The record,
published.

The Pritiraj Review is the journal of Pritiraj & Partners — long-form, evidence-led analysis of how India is governed, how it delivers, and what its next decades demand. Written in the gap between what the state announces and what reaches its people, for those who carry responsibility rather than only opinion.

Politics is the promise. Governance is the delivery.

Browse all 42 essays →About the author

01

Evidence over assertion

Every figure is attributed to a named source — PIB, RBI, CAG, NJDG, the Economic Survey, a parliamentary reply. Where sources conflict, the essay says so rather than picking one silently. No number is ever invented.

NEVER AN UNSOURCED FIGURE

02

The structural over the sensational

Each essay takes one architecture at a time — tasks without owners, targets without deadlines, results nobody is required to publish. An honest counter-case runs where one exists, and every piece closes on what we would do.

11 CATEGORIES · 2 SERIES

03

A practitioner's eye

Written by Pritiraj Brahma, from a decade spent inside campaigns and inside government programmes. The aim is not to be first, but to be worth reading a year later.

READ IT BEFORE YOU RETAIN US

All essays

Filter by category, or search the corpus.

The Fiscal SettlementThe Degree Settlement

01Education & SkillsThirty Thousand Crore, One Line — Who Creates Knowledge in Indian Higher EducationIndia’s higher education institutions spent ₹30,909 crore on research in 2023-24, up from ₹9,942 crore four years earlier — the fastest-growing segment of national R&D. That line covers public and private institutions together, with no published split. The state opened its research funding to private universities, withdrew the UGC-CARE list, and never built the register that would show which institutions create knowledge and which only count it.Education & Skills13 min28 AUGUST 202613 min02Education & SkillsThe Degree and the Job — What the Apprenticeship Numbers Actually SayApprentices engaged under NAPS rose from 3.08 lakh in 2020-21 to 9.85 lakh in 2024-25 — real growth, set against 4.33 crore students in higher education. Two ministries run one statute, two evaluations report employment on incompatible definitions, and nobody publishes the number that matters: how many apprentices hold a job a year later.Education & Skills10 min28 AUGUST 202610 min03Education & SkillsThe Students Who Leave — The Outflow, Its Measurement, and the Campuses Built to Answer ItDepartures for study abroad fell from about 8.94 lakh in 2023 to 6.26 lakh in 2025 — a fall produced by visa policy in four other countries, not by anything India did. Asked what these students spend, the government told Parliament it does not maintain the information. Four foreign campuses now operate here under two regulators, and neither publishes what any of them enrolled.Education & Skills10 min27 AUGUST 202610 min04Education & SkillsWho Grades the Grader — Accreditation After the ArrestsOn 1 February 2025 the CBI arrested the chairman and six members of a NAAC inspection committee. The FIR describes ₹1.8 crore sought for a score above 3.65 and an A++ grade. Nearly 900 assessors were then removed. The response treated the assessors as the fault. The fault is in a design that makes a grade worth buying and cheap to sell.Education & Skills9 min25 AUGUST 20269 min05Education & SkillsThe Post Nobody Filled — Faculty Vacancy as the Binding ConstraintAs on 31 January 2025, 56.18 per cent of professor posts across India's central higher education institutions were vacant, on the Parliamentary Standing Committee's own figures. The shortage inverts the academic pyramid — worst at the top, worst again in reserved categories — and the ministry's position is that recruitment is not its responsibility.Education & Skills11 min23 AUGUST 202611 min06Education & SkillsWhere the Seats Came From — Private Supply and the Regulator That Did Not FollowBetween 2014-15 and 2021-22 India added 408 universities and about 7,000 colleges. On the Ministry of Education's own returns, 65.3 per cent of responding colleges are private un-aided. The expansion was overwhelmingly private. The architecture built to supervise it was designed for a public system.Education & Skills10 min21 AUGUST 202610 min07National SecurityFifty-Eight Thousand, Eight Hundred and Eighty-One — Manipur’s Displaced and the Border Policy Above ThemManipur’s Home Department puts the displaced at 58,881 and the relief camps still open at 174. Above them, India has scrapped a working border rule and replaced it with a fence less than two per cent built and a pass system two neighbouring states administer differently.National Security10 min19 AUGUST 202610 min08National SecurityTen Lakh Uniforms and Three Different Answers — India's Internal Security Manpower ProblemParliament was told this year that the central armed police forces are short of 93,139 people, and also that they are short of 61,738. The same reply implies 69,246. A state that cannot state its own vacancy cannot plan its own recruitment.National Security10 min19 AUGUST 202610 min09National SecurityThe Village Is the Claim — India Is Building Its Northern Border and Not Counting Who Lives ThereThe Vibrant Villages Programme exists to reverse outmigration from the villages along the China frontier. Four years in, the state publishes roads sanctioned, bridges approved and activities held. It does not publish how many people live in those villages.National Security10 min16 AUGUST 202610 min10National SecurityThe Sanction Is Not the Squadron — India's Defence Money Now Moves; Its Timelines Do NotIndia's defence budget has crossed ₹7.84 lakh crore and, for the first time in years, the capital account was spent almost in full. The binding constraint has moved from money to time — and time is the one variable the system does not publish.National Security10 min16 AUGUST 202610 min11Health & Human DevelopmentTwo Surveys, One CountryIndia’s two official sources on child undernutrition disagree about wasting by fourteen percentage points. One of them is now used to report progress, and it is not the one designed to measure it.Health & Human Development9 min9 AUGUST 20269 min12Institutions & ReformEight Hundred and Fifty Seats — What Delimitation Actually DecidesThe 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.Institutions & Reform11 min8 AUGUST 202611 min13Governance & DeliveryThe Arithmetic That Should Alarm Us — India's Learning Crisis as a Solvency ProblemIndia 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.Governance & Delivery10 min30 JULY 202610 min14Institutions & ReformWho Owns an ExaminationA minister resigned over an exam leak. The architecture that produced the leak — an agency with no statutory parent, no published error rate and no owner of record — was left exactly as it was.Institutions & Reform8 min26 JULY 20268 min15Governance & DeliveryThe Dashboard Problem — When Measurement Replaces DeliveryIndia 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.Governance & Delivery9 min23 JULY 20269 min16State CapacityThe District Is Where the State Lives — The Tier India Refuses to StaffIndia 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.State Capacity10 min16 JULY 202610 min17Political EconomyThe Forty-One Percent Illusion — State Finances After the Sixteenth CommissionThe 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.Political Economy10 min2 JULY 202610 min18Governance & DeliveryThe Certificate Is Not the Job — Why India Skills Millions and Employs FewPMKVY 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.Governance & Delivery11 min25 JUNE 202611 min19Political EconomyThe Campus Economy — India's Quietest Special Economic ZonesRoughly 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.Political Economy13 min18 JUNE 202613 min20Political EconomyIndia's Demographic Clock — The Deadline Beneath Every Other DebateA 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.Political Economy9 min11 JUNE 20269 min21Governance & DeliveryFour Codes, Thirty-Six Rulebooks — The Labour Reform That Is Not Yet a ReformTwenty-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.Governance & Delivery9 min4 JUNE 20269 min22Federalism & the NortheastThe Northeast Is Not the Periphery — A Gateway That Is Not Yet OpenOver ₹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.Federalism & the Northeast10 min28 MAY 202610 min23Political EconomyThe Tariff That Was Never Lawful — What India Conceded, and What It Should LearnIndia negotiated relief from a 50 per cent US tariff in February 2026. Thirteen days later the US Supreme Court held the instrument behind it was never authorised. On the narrow question of the additional duty, the settlement bought seventeen days — and the refunds accrue to American importers, not Indian exporters. A lesson in negotiating against legal durability.Political Economy10 min14 MAY 202610 min24State CapacityThe Specialist Who Was Never SanctionedThe specialist shortfall at India’s rural community health centres appeared to shrink by a third this year. The number of specialists barely moved. The requirement was rewritten.State Capacity9 min10 MAY 20269 min25State CapacityCities Without Money — The Third Tier and the Capacity It LacksIndia'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.State Capacity10 min7 MAY 202610 min26Governance & DeliveryThe Thirty-Nine Percent Question — Health Spending and What It BuysOut-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.Governance & Delivery9 min30 APRIL 20269 min27Institutions & ReformWho Regulates the RegulatorsIndia built independent regulators for its most important sectors and then left their appointments, budgets and accountability inside the ministries they were meant to check.Institutions & Reform11 min23 APRIL 202611 min28Resources & ClimateAirsheds Do Not Respect District LinesIndia 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.Resources & Climate8 min16 APRIL 20268 min29Justice & LibertyThree in FourIndia’s prison population fell in 2023 and overcrowding eased by ten points. Nearly three-quarters of those inside have still not been convicted of anything.Justice & Liberty8 min12 APRIL 20268 min30Political EconomyThe Missing Middle of Indian EnterpriseOnly 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.Political Economy13 min9 APRIL 202613 min31State CapacityThe Discom Turnaround — and What It Does Not Yet ProveIndia’s power distributors posted a collective profit of ₹2,701 crore in FY25 — the first in over a decade — and closed the gap between what a unit costs and what it earns from ₹0.69 to ₹0.06. A real turnaround, achieved by conditioning money on verified administrative acts. Whether the design or the cycle did the work is a question the sector’s own data could answer and does not.State Capacity10 min2 APRIL 202610 min32Resources & ClimateThe Aquifer Is the Real Budget ConstraintIndia extracts 247.22 billion cubic metres of groundwater a year — a quarter of the world’s total — and 730 assessment units take out more than comes in. The national trend is improving genuinely. Neither fact helps a farmer in one of those 730 blocks, because the state subsidises the electricity that pumps the water and procures the crops that require it.Resources & Climate9 min26 MARCH 20269 min33Institutions & ReformFive Crore Cases and the Arithmetic of DelayIndia’s courts carry 5.05 crore pending cases across 20,580 judges. But the number that identifies the remedy is different: of 4.4 crore cases in the district courts, 1.8 crore are recorded at appearance or service. Two in five have not passed the first step — and the first step is not the court’s work.Institutions & Reform11 min19 MARCH 202611 min34Governance & DeliveryCitizens Who Move, Entitlements That Do NotIndia 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 — and for roughly eight crore people, on the Union’s own submission to the Supreme Court, there is no card to make portable at all.Governance & Delivery9 min12 MARCH 20269 min35Federalism & the NortheastSixty-Eight Paise in the RupeeNorth-eastern and Himalayan states will draw 68 per cent of their revenue receipts from Delhi in 2025-26. The problem is not the dependence — it is that most of the money arrives with someone else’s conditions attached, and the most variable part is the part a state learns about latest.Federalism & the Northeast9 min8 MARCH 20269 min36Work & LivelihoodsThe Half That Does Not Show Up — India's Female Participation ProblemFemale labour force participation has reached 40 per cent, urban female participation sits at 25.3 per cent, and 44.4 per cent of women outside the workforce name care work as the reason. The Time Use Survey puts a figure on it: 289 minutes a day of unpaid domestic work against 88 for men — a gap that closed by one minute in five years. The constraint is not ambition.Work & Livelihoods9 min5 MARCH 20269 min37Political EconomyThe Title Is the Asset — Why Indian Land Cannot Be Used as CapitalIndia’s land records are presumptive, not conclusive. Fifteen years and ₹875 crore have produced 2.25 crore property documents and 168 districts at platinum grading — and the map that actually settles a boundary is 49 per cent complete against a textual record at 95 per cent. Every document produced remains rebuttable in court.Political Economy12 min26 FEBRUARY 202612 min38State CapacityTwenty Years After Prakash Singh — The Reform That Was Ordered and Never DeliveredThe Supreme Court ordered seven police reforms in 2006 and held three of them to require no legislation at all. Two decades on no state is in full compliance, around 5.3 lakh sanctioned posts stand vacant, and two-thirds of the shortfall is in the constabulary — the rank that is 86 per cent of the force and offers one promotion in a career. The reform was not refused; it was routed around.State Capacity11 min19 FEBRUARY 202611 min39Institutions & ReformThe Country That Stopped Counting ItselfIndia’s last completed census was in 2011; the next counts its population against a reference date of 1 March 2027. Sixteen years, and almost every consequential decision inside them taken on the old denominator. The food security ceiling is still 81.35 crore, and estimates of who that leaves out range across five crore human beings.Institutions & Reform11 min12 FEBRUARY 202611 min40Work & LivelihoodsThe Participation That Is Not Yet EmploymentIndia’s female labour force participation rose eighteen percentage points in six years — and two-thirds of employed women were self-employed, in a category that requires nobody to pay them. Then the survey was rebuilt, and in its first year the composition finally moved: self-employment down 2.3 points, regular salaried work up 1.6. The number that matters has started to move. It is not the number the country quotes.Work & Livelihoods12 min8 FEBRUARY 202612 min41Political EconomyThe Capex Budget and the Capacity to Spend It₹12.22 lakh crore of capital expenditure against a 4.3 per cent deficit. The Union missed its own capital target by ₹93,000 crore in 2024-25 and by roughly ₹33,000 crore in 2025-26 — a gap that is real, measurable and narrowing. This budget makes a coherent bet and hands the binding constraint to the states.Political Economy11 min5 FEBRUARY 202611 min42Institutions & ReformThe Largest Thing India Does WellIndia moves 64.2 crore people through a polling booth in six weeks with 39 repolls — the most impressive administrative act on earth. In the year that followed, one state’s roll lost 47 lakh names, the reasons were published only under court order, and 9,968 deletions carried no reason at all. The machine that collects the vote is superb. The institutions that decide what it is worth have not been rebuilt in decades.Institutions & Reform12 min1 FEBRUARY 202612 min
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