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Representing Theme: Equity and Access

CPR is one of India’s leading think tanks. Founded in 1973, CPR is a non-profit, independent institution that conducts rigorous research and contributes to generating new ideas and a more robust public debate about the structures and processes that shape contemporary life in India today.

CPR is an independent, research driven policy think tank. As an institution, we are driven by a deep commitment to academic freedom and intellectual pluralism. Through our work we provide technical expert advice to the policy-making community; generate new policy ideas and bring intellectual order to public debate through an evidence-based public conversation.

In 2019, CPR launched the State Capacity Initiative, a new interdisciplinary research and practice programme focused on addressing the challenges of the Indian state in the 21st century. Through the Initiative, CPR aims to place the critical challenges of building state capacity at the heart of the field of policy research in India, where it has always belonged but remains surprisingly marginalised. We therefore start with first principles and ground ourselves in existing realities to deepen and expand the understanding of the challenges and possibilities of building state capacity in democratic and federal India. Our programme of work focuses on the changing roles of the Indian state; institutional design, implementation and administrative capacity especially at the state-level; the particular challenges of regulatory and fiscal capacity; and the complex and changing relations between society, politics and state capacity in India.

The Initiative works across sectors and states to identify and address a number of critical, cross-cutting/ transversal issues and it will be both interdisciplinary and comparative in its approach, learning as deeply, broadly, rigorously and responsively as required.