The study examines the causal impact of adopting alternative rainfed agricultural systems on farm profits using a household survey of around 1100 farmers in Telangana, India. The study uses a multinomial endogenous switching regression (MESR) model to assess the impact of alternative agricultural crop systems (i.e., conventional vs. millets) on agricultural performance while controlling for socio-economic, market, plot level, and village level characteristics. The result shows that the decision to adopt alternative crop choices is significantly affected by soil type, access to irrigation, social category, plot ownership, livestock, and household income, distance from dwelling, and access to road in study villages. The results of the model highlight that the institutional interventions played a positive role in millet-based agriculture system practices and found that the estimated average treatment effect on treated (ATT) value of farm profit is significantly higher for farmers who received institutional interventions from DDS in the study area compared to who did not receive such interventions. Further, the results of the study indicate the potential of institutional support for the millet-based agricultural system in rainfed areas of the country.

Financial inclusion is not homogenous across India. It varies with levels of economic growth and development, geographical locations-rural and urban, and social categories of population. Labour force participation rates and types of employment also have differential implications for financial inclusion. Gender gap in financial inclusion permeates across all these categories. The type of household that women belong to also matters for financial inclusion-women from male-headed households are comparatively less financially inclusive than women from female-headed households. Financial inclusion is high in the case of educated, male, with regular employment , belonging to 'Other Caste' and residing in urban locations. Community, household and individual factors explain the gender gap in financial inclusion. Uneven financial inclusion reflects the uneven levels of socioeconomic development in India. Inclusive development is, therefore, a prerequisite for achieving universal financial inclusion.

Education being a public good calls for higher public investment. In India, there is a growing trend towards private expenditure on education. The present article examines the trends of private expenditure on education based on the NSSO-Consumer Expenditure Survey (CES) and Social Consumption on Education (SC-E) survey estimates for the period 1986–1987 to 2017–2018. The analysis reveals the rising share of private expenditure on education in GDP and total household consumption expenditure (HCE) indicating its faster growth over GDP and/or HCE. There is a positive association between income level and per capita private expenditure on education. In the case of bottom economic strata, per capita private expenditure on education and its share in their total HCE is rising faster. The ratio of per capita private expenditure on education of the top 10% to the bottom 10% is high but decreasing over time, indicating lower economic strata are spending a higher proportion of their income on education vis-à-vis upper economic strata.