31 July 2018: Indian Monetary Policy in the time of Inflation Targeting and Demonetisation

Rakesh Mohan
Brookings India and
Partha Ray
Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta

Abstract:
The period from 2009 to 2013 was dominated by a joint monetary and fiscal stimuli by the Indian authorities prompted by the North Atlantic Financial Crisis (NAFC) in mid-2008. Did these, along with other structural shocks and a hands-off attitude in forex market intervention, play a role in rising inflation and external account instability?

Date: July 31, 2018
Time: 04:00 P.M.

Venue:
Brookings India
No. 6, Second Floor,
Dr. Jose P. Rizal Marg,
Chanakyapuri,
New Delhi-110021

Note:
Please RSVP: rlaik@brookingsindia.org and contact zkazmi@brookingsindia.org for media inquiries.

Location:

27 July 2018: No Free Lunch: Using Technology to Improve the Efficacy of School Feeding Programmes

Sisir Debnath
Indian School of Business, Hyderabad

Abstract:
Malnutrition among vulnerable children is often targeted using free school feeding programmes in developing countries. Prof. Debnath studies the role of technology in improving the delivery of school feeding programmes. Using the rollout of a mobile-based monitoring mechanism (Interactive Voice Response System or IVRS) that aids in cross-tallying the number of beneficiaries in the delivery chain, he finds that increase in resulting accountability reduces leakages in school lunch provision in Bihar. He contrasts the provision of meals in districts of Bihar and its contiguous neighbouring states from an independent survey with the official state records. Independently collected data reveals that the technology reform increases the likelihood of lunch provision in a school by 20 percentage points and finds that the increase in take-up is also accompanied by an improvement in the quality and quantity of meals.

Date: July 27, 2018
Time: 04:00 P.M.

Venue:
Brookings India
No. 6, Second Floor,
Dr. Jose P. Rizal Marg,
Chanakyapuri,
New Delhi-110021

Note:
Please RSVP: psharma@brookingsindia.org and contact nmehta@brookingsindia.org for media inquiries.

Location:

16 July 2018: Book discussion on ​'Intertwined Lives: P N Haksar and Indira Gandhi'

A conversation between author Jairam Ramesh and Srinath Raghavan

Abstract:
This book is the first full-length biography of arguably India’s most influential and powerful civil servant who was Indira Gandhi’s alter ego during her period of glory. Educated in the sciences and trained in law, P N Haksar was a diplomat by experience and a communist-turned-democratic socialist by conviction. He knew Indira Gandhi from their London days in the late 1930s and in May 1967 she appointed him as the secretary in the Prime Minister’s Secretariat. He then emerged as her ideological beacon and moral compass, playing a pivotal role in her signature achievements including the nationalisation of banks, abolition of privy purses and princely privileges, the creation of an independent Bangladesh, the signing of the Indo-Soviet Treaty and the emergence of India as an agricultural, space and nuclear power, to name a few. Haksar wielded awesome power for over five years but chose to walk away from Indira Gandhi in January 1973. She persuaded him to return to the government two years later.

After 1977, he was associated with a number of academic institutions and became the patron saint of various public causes and concerns that included protection of India’s secular traditions, propagation of a scientific temper, strengthening the public sector and deepening self-reliance in economic and technological matters. In 1987 he was instrumental in triggering the reconstruction of India’s relations with China. He continued to be one of India’s leading public intellectuals till his death in November 1998.

Drawing on Haksar’s extensive archives of official papers, memos, notes and letters and using his unique personal knowledge of people and politics, Jairam Ramesh presents a compelling chronicle of the life and times of a remarkable Indian who decisively shaped India’s political and economic history in the1960s and 1970s. Written in his inimitable style this is a work of formidable scholarship that bring to life a man who is fast becoming the victim of collective amnesia.

Date: July 16, 2018
Time: 12:30 P.M.

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

Note:
Registration is mandatory to attend the event and will close at 50 on a first come first serve basis. Please register at president.cpr@cprindia.org. to reserve a seat for you.

Location:

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10 July 2018: Talk on Compulsory Development: The Ideal Model of Land Acquisition in India and China

Huang Yinghong
Sun Yat-sen University, China

Abstract:
Land acquisition in India and China since the late 1980s has been theorised into an ideal model, the compulsory development, which highlights the extremely active role of the state and its compulsory measures towards land acquisition in both countries for achieving the commitment of development. As a developmental state, either state in both cases acts as the land use planner, regulation maker in the land administration, as well as the major land developer and the monopolistic player in the land market, while at the same time it extracts high proportion of revenue from land development projects, which is realised through a compulsory land acquisition despite of the numerous flaws of the land acquisition institutions. The compulsory development as we term is a key feature in political economy of land acquisition in both countries. It provides an ideal model to penetrate through the dense fog of hybrid phenomena of land acquisition in these two largest developing societies, and to develop a systematic analysis towards land acquisition, or even development in both countries. As the beginning of this research, in this talk, we focus only on the theoretical model of this compulsory development, including its definition, characteristics, and the diverse variations.

Date: July 10, 2018
Time: 12:30 P.M.

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

Note:
Please RSVP at president.cpr@cprindia.org

Location:

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7 July 2018: Special Talk - Beyond Techno-Narcissism: Self and Other in the Internet Public Realm

Langdon Winner
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York

Chair:
Ambassador Vijay K. Nambiar, former UN Secretary General's Special Advisor on Myanmar

Abstract:
Expectations that the Internet would provide a suitable place for the flourishing of democracy have recently encountered some grave setbacks. The rise of monopoly control within platforms of communication has greatly magnified the economic and political power of oligarchies. Techniques for harvesting personal data to fuel targeted “computational propaganda” threaten to undermine the integrity of elections and to erode citizen confidence that their outcomes are fair. While both roots and possible remedies for these maladies exist within large institutions, the erosion of democracy may have origins closer to home - in the activities and experience of selfhood on the Net. After all, who are we on the Internet? Looking for connection and community, do we now encounter something entirely different?

Date: July 7, 2018
Time: 06:00 P.M.

Venue:
Seminar Rooms I to III,
Kamla Devi Complex,
India International Centre
Max Mueller Marg,
New Delhi - 110003(INDIA)

Note:
Sign up for the event at: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfDn3s4uJfR7AEGnVH8YGaUyGf8ndbFKzbSG7LRxk8w0Uvg3Q/viewform to reserve a seat for you.

Location:

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6 July 2018: Panel discussion on Interpreting the 2019 elections: Settling a research agenda

Speakers:
Ashutosh Varshney, Brown University
Pradeep Chhibber, UC Berkeley
Vandita Mishra, Indian Express
Aditi Phadnis, Business Standard

Abstract:
The run up to the general elections in 2019 have already generated heated political debate. As political activity gains momentum, researchers and observers of Indian politics face the formidable task of interpreting and analysing the implications of these activities both on the immediate elections as well as on democratic practice in the long term. In these polarised times, when debates on politics have become increasingly partisan, building a research agenda to understand the elections becomes even more critical.

This third edition of the CPR-TPCD dialogues on Indian politics will bring together a panel of formidable academics and political journalists to discuss the broad contours of the research agenda for 2019. In order for us to meaningfully contribute to understandings of the shifting dynamics of political life in India, what are the questions that we should be asking and how should we orient our research?

Date: July 6, 2018
Time: 03:30 P.M.

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

Note:
Please RSVP at president.cpr@cprindia.org to reserve a seat for you.

Location:

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