An index of how India actually works
India has digitised an extraordinary amount of government in fifteen years and explained almost none of it. The information exists — on uidai.gov.in, incometax.gov.in, epfindia.gov.in, parivahan.gov.in, and thirty-six state portals — but it is written for the clerk rather than for the person holding the rejection SMS, and it rarely says which government, which portal, or which state rule applies to you.
The site exists because the searches exist. “Aadhaar address change kaise kare.” “Old regime or new regime which is better.” “PF withdrawal claim rejected.” “Police FIR nahi likh rahe.” “Landlord not returning deposit.” These are ordinary, answerable questions, and the results people get back are usually one of three things: a department page written in circular officialese, a YouTube tutorial for a portal that has since been redesigned, or content-farm filler confidently describing Maharashtra’s stamp duty to somebody in Assam.
Our answer to that is boring and structural. One question per page. A direct answer in the first screen. The full explanation underneath. The state-by-state differences spelled out rather than averaged. A source list you can click. A date so you know how stale the numbers are. And a visible line between what a department said and what we concluded.
- Long-form pages
- 33
- Quick answers
- 15
- Citations
- 216
- Topics
- 12
No sponsored answers
No page on this site recommends a commercial product in exchange for payment. This matters particularly in India, where the highest-traffic personal finance content is overwhelmingly lead-generation — insurance aggregators, loan marketplaces, demat account referrals and paid “ITR filing services” all pay substantial commissions, and that money decides what gets recommended.
It matters twice over here because so many of these processes are free and are widely sold anyway. PAN, Aadhaar updates, EPF withdrawal, ITR filing, driving licence applications and RTI requests are all things you can do yourself on a government portal for a statutory fee or for nothing. Where a page names an agent or an intermediary, it is to explain what they charge for something you could have done free.
Where a comparison is needed, we point at the government-run tools — the Income Tax e-filing portal, UMANG, DigiLocker, Parivahan, the National Consumer Helpline, the RBI’s own complaint portal — because they are free, authoritative, and not paid to rank anyone.
India Impulse is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or a publication of the Government of India or any state government. Where a page describes a government process, it links to that government’s own page.
Three ways in
Corrections
If something here is wrong, out of date, or true in one state and stated as if it were true across India, we want to know. Corrections are made against the source and the page’s verified date is moved forward. The method behind all of this is set out in full on Sources & method.