The reason that ST > DST is that bedtime is largely influenced by the sun, yet wake time is largely influenced by work / school. When sunset is pushed back an hour, people get less sleep, and for kids this is massively detrimental to their education. India is doing this experiment in real time because they only have one time zone. Kids in the western half, where the sun sets later, have much worse educational outcomes, and as you move east the education outcomes get better.
The sun sets where I am at ~430pm during the winter in standard time. I don't really see how having the sun set at 530pm instead would have a substantial effect on bedtime. There is so little sunlight in the winter that work/social life are what drive wakeup and bedtime. I imagine this isn't as true in India. Is there any research that accounts for the actual length of daylight available?
