Research

2025

Digital Public Infrastructures (DPIs) are at the heart of India’s development strategy, promising efficiency, scalability, and innovation in public service delivery. However, as DPIs gain prominence, it is crucial to ensure that they remain truly public—rooted in equity, inclusivity, and ethical governance.

On January 10, 2025, IT for…

2025

The rapid expansion of algorithmic management in the workplace aligns with capital’s imperative to enhance productivity and profit through the close monitoring of labor. However, contemporary algorithmic management is reshaping power asymmetries between labor and capital in new ways. This report by Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung (RLS) and the Fair,…

2025

Digital infrastructure-led development has occupied centre stage in the global policy circles. The discourse in India focuses on leapfrogging the traditional stages of development with the use of Digital Public Infrastructures (DPIs). The vision is to build efficient, rapid and scalable  DPIs for public service delivery while paving the way for…

2024

Instead of flexi-work and increased labor participation for women, the platform economy has deepened intersectional inequalities—of gender, class, geography, and race—making women workers more vulnerable. At the Beijing+30 conjuncture, we urgently need multi-scalar policy responses that can get our institutions…

2024

The starting point of this paper is that the value extraction apparatus of digital labor platforms can be understood only by deploying a ‘reproductive lens’ and not through a exclusive focus on their algorithmic optimization strategies in mediating the labor marketplace. Rooted in an in-depth empirical exploration of the experiences of 19 women…

2024

Why do micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) struggle with using digital marketplaces such as Amazon or Facebook for their operations? How can we make digital marketplaces more advantageous for smaller players? In this blogpost, I reflect on some of the key findings of a study that I conducted titled “Beyond platform integration –…

2024

As part of the second edition of the National Gender Fellowship, the Bengaluru Institute facilitated an opportunity for all the Fellows to come together and learn from prominent practitioners on issues of gender in the digital economy. Over two days, the participants had the chance to refine their research projects and receive vital mentorship…

2024

IT for Change wrote a chapter - "RTE in Karnataka: Pursuit of Equitable and Inclusive Education through RTE", for the publication, "Implementation of the right of children to Free and Compulsory Education act, 2009: Where do we stand? Status report 2024" of the Right to Education Cell (RTE CELL) of The Council for Social Development (CSD).…

2024

This report explores the digitalization of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in India's agriculture and allied sectors, focusing on how these enterprises are navigating the evolving digital landscape. MSMEs are a critical part of the Indian economy, contributing significantly to employment, industrial production, and exports. However…

2024

In this project, IT for Change, the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), and country partners unpack how micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) participation in the global economy is increasingly shaped by the rapid deployment of digital technologies, as well as the mediating impact of regulatory frameworks around digitalization, data…