ISSN (Print) - 0012-9976 | ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

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The Making and Unmaking of Kerala’s Strongman

Pinarayi Vijayan took charge as the chief minister of Kerala with a “strongman image” after leading the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in the state with a firm hand for a record 17 years. As his government celebrates its first anniversary, this article examines the criticism his government is facing.

Governance Performance of Indian States

Building on a methodology developed in an earlier paper, the results of an exercise in ranking Indian states based on five sets of criteria--infrastructure, social services, fiscal performance, justice, law and order, and quality of the legislature--are presented to show how states have fared relative to each other between 2001-02 and 2011-12. What emerges is that five of the six best-performing states of 2001 were also the best performers in 2011. Similarly, four of the six worst performers of 2001 were also among the worst performers of 2011. A consequence of such stickiness of rankings at the top and the bottom is growing regional disparity between the more- and less-developed states.

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