Thursday, December 19, 2013

10-11 January 2014: Conference on Political Imaginaries: Rethinking India’s Twentieth Century

Organised by:
American Institute of Indian Studies

Conference Schedule

Abstract:
Scholarly re-evaluations of the political in India’s twentieth century have been prompted in relation both to new contemporary realities and new historical research. These have resulted in, at least, two critical re-appraisals. The first is the challenge to the still dominant nation-state imaginary that informs studies of this period. The latter has resulted in drowning out, or rendering anachronistic, other political imaginaries. Nowhere, perhaps, is this more apparent than in the equation of decolonization with the creation of the nation-state or in the subsumption of anti-colonialism in nationalism. One set of questions that we explore, therefore, is the variety of political imaginaries of the empire and nation and of citizenship and subject that animated politics in late colonial India. The second major re-appraisal comes from new appreciation of the particular post-colonial forms of democracy that sit uneasily with the genealogy of liberal democracy in the West. This challenge is best captured in Partha Chatterjee’s re-reading of democracy not as “government of the people,” as republican cliché would have it, but, rather, as “the politics of the governed.” By this token, then, squatters on public lands or illegal users of water and electricity are not tangential to the understanding of proper democratic politics; but, rather, in making use of democratic politics to make their demands heard, these groups represent examples of democratic forms in post-colonial societies. This expanded understanding of democratic politics is the second major theme of the conference.

Date: January 10-11, 2014
Time: 09:00 A.M.

Venue: January 10, 2014
Seminar Hall#3
India International Centre,
Indian International Centre
40, Max Mueller Marg,
New Delhi-110003(INDIA)

Location:

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Venue: January 11, 2014
Seminar Hall
Nehru Memorial Museum and Library,
Teen Murthi House
New Delhi-110011(INDIA)

Location:

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4-5 January 2014: Two day academic conference - Are Markets Moral? In a Free Enterprise System, Do Justice and Virtue Win or Lose?

Organised by:
Centre for Civil Society and the LeFrak Forum and the
Symposium on Science, Reason, & Modern Democracy, Michigan State University
in partnership with Friedrich Naumann Foundation

Conference Program

Registration Fees:
• INR 5000 ($ 85) for international delegates
• INR 2500 ($ 45) for Indian delegates
• INR 1500 ($ 25) for students in India

Date: January 4-5, 2014

Venue:
Gulmohar Hall,
India Habitat Centre
Lodi Road,
New Delhi – 110 003(INDIA)

Note:
For more information contact: Baishali; Email: baishali@ccs.in ; Tel: +91 85273 87708

Location:

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Tuesday, December 17, 2013

17 December 2013: Diet quality, child health and food policies in developing countries

Alok Bhargava
School of Public Policy, University of Maryland  

Abstract:
While the importance of diet quality for improving child health is widely recognized, the roles of environmental factors and absorption of nutrients for children’s physical growth and morbidity have not been adequately integrated into a policy framework. Moreover, nutrient intakes gradually affect child health so that it is helpful to use alternative tools for evaluation of short-term interventions versus long-term food policies. This article emphasizes the role of diet quality reflected in the intakes of nutrients such as protein, calcium, and iron for children’s physical growth; vitamins A and C are important for reducing morbidity that can hamper growth. Children’s growth and morbidity affect their cognitive development that is critical for future supply of skilled labor and for economic growth. Evidence on these issues from countries such as Bangladesh, India, Kenya, Philippines and Tanzania is discussed. The supply of nutritious and animal foods is appraised from the viewpoint of improving diet quality. It is suggested that Pigouvian type taxes on unhealthy processed foods consumed by the affluent in developing countries can raise revenues for subsidizing livestock production for improving diets of the poor.

Date: December 17, 2013
Time: 03:30 P.M.

Venue:
NCAER Conference Room A
National Council of Applied Economic Research
Parisila Bhawan, 11, Indraprastha Estate
New Delhi-110002(INDIA)

Location:

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Note:
Please join us for high tea after the seminar. For queries, please contact Ms Sudesh Bala at sbala@ncaer.org or on 011-2345-2669.

Monday, December 16, 2013

17 December 2013: Public Space, Territorial Breaches and Emotions: Passengers in the Metro

Martin Aranguren
EHESS, Paris

Abstract:
A basic dimension of face-to-face interaction in public places is territoriality. Drawing on ethology, anthropologist Edward T. Hall and sociologist Erving Goffman called attention to the cultural norms that govern interpersonal distance in everyday encounters, pointing out the emotional nature of territorial breaches (e.g., being vehemently jostled by a stranger). On the other hand, emotion research has become more sensitive to naturalistic studies of emotional processes in real-life situations. Emotions are not just private “feelings”, but also observable patterns of interaction with the environment that transform situations.

The workshop will present the results of a study conducted in the Paris subway metro, based on a novel methodology for studying territoriality and emotions in crowded settings. Among others, the protocol uses field observation and describes passenger’s facial behaviour with the anatomically-based Facial Action Coding System and conducts sequential analysis. The same protocol will be used in a study of the Delhi Metro, to examine the extent to which emotional patterns related to territorial violations in crowded situations vary across cultures. This includes the appraisal of a breach, i.e., the class of events that are perceived as territorial violations, as well as the consequent interactional management of perceived territorial violations. Do Delhi metro passengers respond emotionally to territorial breaches in the same way as users of the Paris subway?

Date: December 17, 2013
Time: 03:45 P.M.

Venue:
Conference Hall
Centre for Policy Research,
Dharma Marg, Chanakyapuri,
New Delhi–110021(INDIA)

Note:
For further information, please contact: Jayani Bonnerjee at jayani.bonnerjee@csh-delhi.com, Partha Mukhopadhyay at partha@cprindia.org or Marie-Hélène Zerah at marie-helene.zerah@ird.fr

Location:

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Friday, December 13, 2013

16 Decembe 2013: The Information Economy in an Internet Age: New Paradigms for Competitiveness and Economic Growth

Hal Varian
University of California at Berkeley

Abstract:
The transformative impact of technology, innovation, and increasing access to information is becoming clearer every day - particularly with respect to economies across the world. The Internet is central to these discussions, helping change the way we communicate and engage in economic activities. Economists and public policy scholars have been increasingly engaging with the impact that the Internet is having on economic behaviour and societies, uncovering increasing amounts of data and generating new insights.

Date: December 16, 2013
Time: 11:00 A.M.

Venue:
Inspire Hall,
Le Meriden Hotel,
Windsor Place, Janpath,
New Delhi- 110 001(INDIA)

Location:

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Tuesday, December 10, 2013

12 December 2013: Predicting the Present

Hal R. Varian
University of California at Berkeley

Date: December 12, 2013
Time: 04:00 P.M.

Venue:
AMEX Room
Department of Economics,
Delhi School of Economics,
New Delhi-110007(INDIA)

Location:

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13 December 2013: Intergenerational Long Term Effects of Preschool - Structural Estimates from a Discrete Dynamic Programming Model

Lakshmi K. Raut
Social Security Administration

Abstract:
This paper formulates a structural dynamic programming model of preschool investment choices of altruistic parents and then empirically estimates the structural parameters of the model using the NLSY79 data. The paper finds that preschool investment significantly boosts cognitive and non-cognitive skills, which enhance earnings and school outcomes. It also finds that a standard Mincer earnings function, by omitting measures of non-cognitive skills on the right hand side, overestimates the rate of return to schooling. From the estimated equilibrium Markov process, the paper studies the nature of within generation earnings distribution and intergenerational earnings and schooling mobility. The paper finds that a tax financed free preschool program for the children of poor socioeconomic status generates positive net gains to the society in terms of average earnings and higher intergenerational earnings and schooling mobility.

Date: December 13, 2013
Time: 11:30 A.M.

Venue:
Seminar Room 2
Indian Statistical Institute Delhi Centre,
7, S. J. S. Sansanwal Marg,
New Delhi-110016 (INDIA)

Location:

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Thursday, December 5, 2013

10 December 2013: Mapping Urban Health Facilities – A Tool for Data Based Policy Design

Tanvir Ahmed and Ruman M. Zakaria Salam
Icddr,b, Dhaka

Date: December 10, 2013
Time: 05:30 P.M.

Venue:
GIZ Conference Room,
21, Jor Bagh,
New Delhi 110 003(INDIA)

Note:
Please confirm your participation to Suchitrita Bhattacharya at igssp@giz.de until 9th December 2013.