XKDR Newsletter - Issue 10

Measuring financial inclusion • Health in India • Digital Data Protection Bill • Influence campaigns by state actors • How countries treat their rich

Feb 10, 2023

Financial Inclusion Measurement: Deepening the Evidence

Financial inclusion as a policy objective has been a part of the government agenda for a while now. However, in the absence of a composite framework to measure the outcomes of such policies, little can be improved. Traditional measurement indices often focus on individual-level information or only on certain inputs such as the number of bank accounts, ATMs, etc. Indradeep Ghosh and Susan Thomas have developed a new measurement framework - the DR-XKDR method - to measure financial inclusion with an input-output-outcome approach. They present evidence to support that the input-output-outcome can be more useful to both policymakers and financial service providers in identifying households that are financially less included.

Read more in their chapter in the 17th edition of the Inclusive Finance India Report.

Distribution Of Self-reported Health In India: The Role Of Income And Geography

In India, the traditional indicators used to measure the health of the population are outcome-based, such as maternal mortality rate and infant mortality rate. This measure suffers from several limitations that are widely discussed in the public discourse. Disability-adjusted life expectancy (DALE) is advocated as a more comprehensive alternative. However, this measure involves more complex resources and data.

In their paper, Ila Patnaik, Renuka Sane, Ajay Shah, and S.V. Subramanian adopt a novel approach to measure health by using the CMIE Consumer Pyramids Household Survey (CPHS) data on Self-Reported Health. They analyse the self-reported ill-health rate of India and its relationship with socio-economic parameters.

Key Findings:

The overall average ill-health rate is 3.25%.
The most important correlates are age, income, and location.
Substantial variation in health exists across the country.
Higher-income is correlated with better health in 40% of India.

The full paper is published in PLOS ONE.

Comments on the draft Digital Data Protection Bill, 2022

A law on data protection has been long due in India and it has its genesis in the Supreme Court’s 2017 judgment declaring that privacy is a fundamental right under the Indian Constitution. After multiple attempts, on 18 November 2022, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology published a draft Digital Data Protection Bill, 2022, for public comments. However, there is still room for improvement. Urvashi Aneja, Rishab Bailey, Aman Nair, K Shashidhar, and Karthik Suresh suggest some revisions to the Bill.

Read their response to the Ministry here.

Commentary

We now live in the age of information warfare where internet-based influence campaigns can reshape the behavior of a state and its political system. In his article in the Business Standard Influence operations in India by state actors, Ajay Shah lays out such past instances around the globe and emphasizes that awareness about misinformation is the first step to tackling this.

How countries treat their rich will play a crucial role in the third globalization. In this article, Ajay Shah argues that low rule-of-law countries will see capital moving away and emerging markets’ decision-makers must be wary of this.

We welcome your comments and suggestions on our work. Please write to pavithra.manivannan4@gmail.com. To know more about our work visit xkdr.org.