30 April 2019: Are Transparency and Accountability Enough? Open Corruption and Why it Exists

Ajay Shenoy
University of California, Santa Cruz

Organised by
Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Delhi Center

Abstract:
The global movement against corruption has long assumed its demise lay in transparency and accountability. We test this assumption by measuring whether highly accountable Indian village council presidents favor their own households while making observable allocations of public works jobs. We link millions of public works records to election outcomes. We find that winners of close elections receive 3 times as many days of labor as losers, earning excess wages equaling two-thirds of the median president’s salary. Using an original survey of council presidents we find suggestive evidence that corruption is “performance pay” used to attract talented candidates into office.

Date: April 30, 2019
Time: 11:30 A.M.

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

Location:

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29 April 2019: Dagmar Bernstorff Commemorative Lecture on "India and Germany: on the way to regional integration?"

Wolfgang-Peter Zingel
South Asia Institute, Heidelberg University

Organised by
Federation of Indo-German Societies in India (FIGS), Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom (FNF) and India International Centre (IIC)

Date: April 29, 2019
Time: 06:30 P.M.

Venue:
Seminar Rooms 1 & 2, 1st floor,
Kamladevi Complex
India International Centre,
40, Max Mueller Marg,
New Delhi - 110003(INDIA)

Location:

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Note:
RSVP: Mr. Anand Singh Bawa at anandsinghbawa@yahoo.com

1 May 2019: Partnerships for Developing Cities: Reflections from South Africa and India

Andrew Boraine
Western Cape Economic Development Partnership

Organised by:
Carnegie India

Abstract:
Cities are crucial to India’s socio-economic future. How well we manage urbanization, focusing on improving quality of life, economic productivity and the quality of democracy, will dictate how the country grows over the next few decades. There is growing recognition of the fact that the government alone will not be able to fix India’s cities. The kind of systems thinking required to address India’s urban challenges, along with available human and financial capital within governments alone, will not quite cut it. A coalition approach with government, academia, civil society, business and philanthropy appears to be a better way forward.

Several such global examples of partnerships aligned with local leadership are already emerging. It is now being called "New Localism." This is systems thinking in practice, across stakeholder groups, across silos or sectors, based on a realization that 21st century development problems require multi-disciplinary thinking and multi-stakeholder action. We need to envision partnerships that will work for India’s cities. We therefore intend to convene consultations to brainstorm on whether and how such partnerships can be made feasible in India.

To begin with, we envisage this as a consultation exercise where key stakeholders from government, academia, civil society, businesses, foundations and international agencies come together and spend some time trying to find answers to questions around the need for and on forging such partnerships, including mechanisms to institutionalize their creation as a process for problem solving.

The purpose of this particular convening is to learn from South Africa’s experience in governing cities and reflecting on any lessons for India.

Date: May 1, 2019
Time: 4:00 P.M.

Venue:
Conference Room,
Carnegie India,5th Floor,
C5, Edenpark,
Shaheed Jeet Singh Marg,
New Delhi-110016 (India)

Note:
Please confirm your participation to Sharanya Rajiv at srajiv@ceip.org

Location:

15 April 2019: Smallpox Eradication: Inclusive histories as meaningful roadmaps for Global Health

Sanjoy Bhattacharya
Centre for Global Health Histories and WHO Collaborating Centre for Global Health Histories, University of York

Discussants:
Devendra Khandait, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (India)
Anjali Nayyar, Global Health Strategies (GHS)

Abstract:
How was smallpox eradicated worldwide? National experiences of the development of the smallpox vaccine and eradication campaigns varied widely in structure and impact. These were brought together with the help of local actors to create an international fight against the disease. That battle was won, step-by-step with the help of relevant strategic knowledge that was collected and used to create a range of different qualitative projects. Through this endeavour, what emerged was that the knowledge of the political, social, economic and cultural factors was as important as science and technology. These learnings could have resulted in an eradication programme that could have provided democratic models for future global health initiatives. Instead, narrow sets of institutional histories that honoured the voices and actions of a small number of people were created and advocated, which distorted the past and were used as working models for the future. This presentation discusses why it is important to question and challenge these trends.

Date: April 15, 2019
Time: 04:00 P.M.

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

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

Location:

8 April 2019: Panel discussion on "Spatial Analysis of City Regions: Perspectives from France and India"

Speakers:
Eric Denis, Hadrien Commenges, Paul Chapron, Géographie-cites (Paris-Sorbonne)
Olivier Telle, Samuel Benkimoun, Rupali Pal, Centre de Sciences Humaines (CNRS-MAEE)
Milap Punia, Arvind, Nisha, Suvamoy Parmanik, Juhi Horo, Centre for the Study of Regional Development, JNU
Marie-Hélène Zérah and Shamindra Roy, Centre for Policy Research

Organised by
Centre for Policy Research (CPR) and Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH)

Abstract:
The city exists in space and in the context of its region, yet we rarely analyse the city spatially. Many crises – climate change, inequalities, old and new epidemics – are concentrated in urban areas and solutions need to be found there. Locating these issues and understanding their interconnections is the first step to begin to understand and address them. The use of geospatial data is one entry point to this understanding. This panel will present a variety of research in two Indian and two French research institutes using such data to highlight the variety of questions that can be studied using such tools.

The issues addressed will include open source tools and geo-datasets for studying urban changes, emerging epidemics and climate change in urban areas, the synthesis of socio-economic and ecological transformations in peri-urban spaces and spatial relationships between governance and inequality.

Date: April 8, 2019
Time: 02:30 P.M.

Venue:
Centre for Science and Humanities (CSH),
2, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Road,
New Delhi - 110 011

Note:
Please confirm participation to neeru.gohar@csh-delhi.com and carry valid photo ID

Location: