Taanya’s DPhil thesis focuses on the use of Conditional Cash Transfer schemes(CCTs) by the Indian government as a means of combating discrimination against daughters, through the use of monetary incentives and the imposition of conditionalities. Taanya’s work seeks to raise the ethical and moral debates in the use of cash as a tool to alter parental perception and treatment of daughters, especially in a patriarchal context in India. A key question for this research is understanding how welfare policies contribute to a specific construction of the category of the ‘daughter’, both in government discourse and practice, and the wider socio-cultural implications of schemes like CCTs on gendered norms and practices. The project is situated in the larger universe of the financialization of intimate lives through instruments such as cash transfers, which produce the figure of the ‘girl’ as a subject of political and social investments through governmental policies.