On Day 1 of the NCAER Workshop on the Economics of AI and Digital Public Infrastructure held on 5–6 June 2026, Mr. Manish Sabharwal, Vice Chairman of the NCAER Governing Board, released the research report, “The Evolving Landscape of Digital Inclusion in India.”
The report is a collaboration between the IHDS Team at NCAER and the Women in Digital Economy Network (WiDEN) at The Quantum Hub (TQH). Drawing on NCAER’s IHDS-III data, it finds that digital participation varies substantially across age, gender, education, and socioeconomic groups, suggesting considerable scope for meaningful engagement.
Dr Sonalde Desai (Professor and Centre-Director, NCAER-NDIC), one of the authors of the report, introduced the report to the gathering. The other authors of the report, namely Dr Dibyasree Ganguly (Associate Fellow, NCAER), Ms. Garima Agarwal (Analyst, Public Policy, The Quantum Hub), Ms. Aparajita Bharati (Founding Partner, The Quantum Hub), Ms. Harshita Vadaddi (Analyst, Public Policy, The Quantum Hub), Ms. Sonakshi Chaudhry (Associate Director, Policy & Partnerships and Chief of Staff, The Quantum Hub) and Dr Pallavi Choudhuri (Senior Fellow and Deputy-Director, NCAER-NDIC) were also present during the launch of the report.
As digital technologies increasingly shape access, the findings highlight the importance of ensuring that digital transformation expands opportunities rather than reproduces existing inequalities.
Read the full report here: https://ncaer.org/publication/the-evolving-landscape-of-digital-inclusion-in-india/
From 7th to 9th May 2026, members of the India Human Development Survey (IHDS) Team participated in the Population Association of America (PAA 2026) Annual Meeting held in St. Louis, Missouri, USA.
NCAER faculty members Sonalde Desai (Professor and Centre Director, NCAER-NDIC), Pallavi Choudhuri (Senior Fellow and Deputy-Director, NCAER-NDIC), Amaresh Dubey (Senior Consultant, NCAER-NDIC), Sharan Sharma (Non-Resident Fellow, NCAER-NDIC), Debasis Barik (Senior Fellow, NCAER), Bijay Chouhan (Senior Data and Systems Specialist, NCAER), Dinesh Tiwari (Fellow, NCAER), Ruchi Jain (Associate Fellow, NCAER), Dibyasree Ganguly (Associate Fellow, NCAER), Athira Vinod (Post-Doctoral Fellow, NCAER), and Jaya Koti (Research Analyst, NCAER), presented their research based on IHDS data in oral sessions, poster presentations and paper presentations at PAA 2026.
Along with Devneel Basudev Goswami (Senior Associate, Partnerships and Communications, NCAER), the team also set up an IHDS booth to showcase the dataset’s research findings and share updates from the third round of IHDS data collection completed in 2024. Visitors to the booth explored IHDS data related publications including research briefs, issues of the IHDS Research Digest and data-related citations and opinion pieces. As an exclusive to the PAA Booth, visitors were also provided with early access to the newly designed IHDS website via QR code-enabled cards, thus allowing users to explore the platform and share their feedback.
Dr Pallavi Choudhuri, Senior Fellow and Deputy Director at NCAER-NDIC, was invited to speak on gender statistics at the “Gender Statistics and Women-led Development” panel, moderated by Dr. Pankaj Srivastava, Statistical Advisor to the Ministry of Women and Child Development.
The Capacity Building Workshop on Monitoring Frameworks of SDGs, Environment Accounts, and Gender Statistics, held on March 18 was organized by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation and the Government of Bihar, with technical support from UNDP.
Dr Pallavi Choudhuri, Senior Fellow and Deputy Director at NCAER-NDIC, served as a panelist in a session titled, “Women at Work: Understanding Barriers, Advancing Equality” at the second National Convention on Women in India (NCWI) organised on March 9, 2026 at the O. P. Jindal Global University campus. Organised as a part of the inaugural Jindal Interdisciplinary Arts and Literature Festival, the event was held on Day 2 of the festival spanning 8 to 10 March.
Dr Pallavi Choudhuri, Senior Fellow and Deputy Director at NCAER-NDIC, was invited by Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS) on 12 March 2026 to deliver a Public Lecture at the National Workshop on Quantitative Methods in Social Science Research. Dr Choudhuri examined non-sampling biases in household surveys during her discourse and highlighted the use of longitudinal panel data for multivariate analysis, including addressing endogeneity in empirical research.
