2 September 2019: Hate Speech or the Speech we Hate

Salil Tripathi
PEN International

Organised by
Centre for Policy Research (CPR)

Abstract:
What constitutes hate speech and what makes it dangerous? The term hate speech has been defined loosely and takes different interpretations for the speaker and the listener. The speakers who express views forcefully believe they are expressing their right to speak freely. The listeners consider the speech they don't like or agree with as hate speech. Laws impose restrictions on free speech in most jurisdictions, and litigation can restrict free expression of ideas. But sustained hate speech can kill - genocides begin with normalisation of hatred through speech - action follows later, as examples from Rwanda and Bosnia show. A new framework, which distinguishes between hate speech and dangerous speech can provide clarity to distinguish between speech that promotes hate and violence and the ideas we hate but are merely controversial, provocative, hurtful, shocking, and disgusting for some. Negotiating that space is the challenge for democracies in the age of the Internet.

Date: September 2, 2019
Time: 11:00 A.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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30 August 2019: Talk on 'Understanding Centrally Sponsored Schemes: An Instrument for Financing Development'

Mridusmita Bordoloi
Accountability Initiative

Organised by
Centre for Policy Research (CPR)

Abstract:
This talk draws on Accountability Initiative’s work, and will provide a detailed overview of CSSs. In specific, it will focus on the following:
* Why were CSSs conceptualised as a federal intervention tool to bring about development in all states post-independence? What is their present
status?
* What are the funding and institutional architecture of CSSs? What are some key challenges and bottlenecks in the implementation of the CSSs?
* How can the policy of convergence (combining of CSS programmes) play a role in addressing bottlenecks?

Date: August 30, 2019
Time: 03:30 P.M.

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

Note:
Please RSVP at csood@accountabilityindia.org

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26 August 2019: Seminar on 'Where is India's Growth Happening? Tales of Cities, Small Towns and Villages'

Ejaz Syed Ghani
The World Bank

Organised by
Centre for Policy Research (CPR)

Abstract:
The Indian Growth Story, it's causes and reasons, prompts a spur of questions - Is India one of the fastest urbanising countries in the world? Has it kept pace with its youth bulge and job creation? Are industries de-urbanising? What has constrained growth of secondary cities and small towns and districts? Is India’s spatial development lopsided? Will inclusive spatial development solve rural distress?

This seminar will attempt to address these questions based on evidence gathered from millions of enterprises in 550 districts in India over the last two decades and also show how urbanisation can scale up entrepreneurship and job creation.

Date: August 26, 2019
Time: 12:00 P.M.

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

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

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20 August 2019: Lecture on 'Beyond Making Spaces for Nature? Engaging ecology as if democracy mattered'

Mahesh Rangarajan
Ashoka University

Organised by
Centre for Policy Research (CPR)

Abstract:
Making spaces for nature has been one of the accomplishments of Indian democracy most so in the half century since 1969. These executive and legislative measures complement efforts of extensive social movements that have made various dimensions of the environment critical in public life. But few would today demur if told that statist and market led efforts as also community led initiatives often fall far short of the level, extent, scale and depth of the environmental challenges especially so after the pace of economic change quickened over the last four decades. The explosive expansion of the mega city and the ability of market forces to undercut not only protective rings around resources or spaces is matched by other developments. These include environmental emergency in parts of urban India as in acute drought in Bengaluru or floods in Chennai and the pall of smog over north India's plains.

Despite many bright spots, there are serious doubts if things can simply go on the old way. The ability of movements to halt haphazard and ill-planned development or enable their realignment is also uneven with the cases of Niyamgiri, Silent Valley or Subansiri set against the lure of rapid big infrastructure often with little care for the land or waterscape. Conversely, many issues such as glacier meltdown or oceanic pollution defy environmentalism in only one country.

Yet the green shoots of democratic dialogue and action beckon. Even in the past as in the US or Japan or India itself, the right to a habitable and safe environment was always about much more than making spaces for nature. The latter too matters. A democracy in the 21st century is about peace with nature as much as among ourselves: to begin on that journey needs us to look afresh at the present and trace out footsteps to a better future.

Date: August 20, 2019
Time: 04:00 P.M.

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

Note:
Please RSVP at climate.initiative.cpr@cprindia.org.

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14 August 2019: Public lecture on 'Is Electoral Democracy still a good tool for Social Justice?'

Philippe Van Parijs
University of Louvain

Organised by
Centre for Policy Research (CPR) and Trivedi Centre for Political Data, Ashoka University

Abstract:
Electoral democracy possesses virtues that arguably makes it an indispensable tool in the pursuit of social justice. These virtues include the educational force of vote fetching, the disciplining force of self-infliction and above all the civilising force of hypocrisy. But this tool is very imperfect and for a number of reasons — among them, the growing impact of our local decisions on people living elsewhere or not yet born and the growing role of the internet — increasingly so.

To address its imperfections, it is worth exploring unorthodox strategies whose relevance will vary greatly from place to place. These strategies include the democratisation of a lingua franca (as a complement to local languages), the creation of global constituencies (as a complement to local ones), the development of randomly composed citizens’ assemblies (as a complement to elected assemblies) and listening to the street (as a complement to the ballot box). They will be illustrated by recent proposals and debates in the European context.

Date: August 14, 2019
Time: 06:00 P.M.

Venue:
Auditorium,
The Nehru Memorial Museum & Library (NMML)
Teen Murti Marg,
New Delhi-110011(INDIA)

Location:

9 August 2019: Overconfident Directors, CEO compensation and turnover

Jaideep Chowdhury
James Madison University, USA

Organised by
Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Delhi Center

Abstract:
In this paper, we examine the impact of overconfident directors on the board on CEO compensation, turnover and the firm performance. We find that overconfident boards reward the CEOs with higher option based and equity-based compensation, and these CEOs’ remuneration exhibit higher pay-performance sensitivity (i.e., delta). We utilize two natural experiments, namely, SOX and FAS123R, and establish a causal relationship between overconfident boards and option and equity-based compensation of the CEO. There is empirical evidence about how overconfident CEOs are rewarded with higher option and equity intensive compensation. We establish another channel through which the CEOs are offered higher equity and option intensive compensation. This channel is the channel of overconfident directors. Even if the CEOs are not themselves overconfident, they may still be offered higher option and equity intensive compensation if the directors are overconfident about the future prospects of the firms. We report that overconfident boards are less likely to remove the CEOs. More importantly, these firms exhibit lower turnover sensitivity to stock return performance. Lastly, we provide evidence that firms with overconfident directors on the board tend to perform better as measured by the operating profits, ROA and the Tobin’s Q. To the best of our knowledge, our paper is the first that develops a measure of board of directors’ overconfidence using the BoardEx dataset.

Date: August 9, 2019
Time: 11:30 A.M.

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

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8 August 2019: Does Inflation Targeting Anchor Inflation Expectations? Evidence from India

Shekhar Tomar
Indian school of Business (ISB), Hyderabad

Organised by
Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Delhi Center

Abstract:
We use a novel survey data on inflation expectations of households to evaluate the role of inflation targeting (IT) regime in achieving anchored inflation expectations. This data is available both before and after the adoption of IT by India in 2015 and allows comparison of inflation expectations between the two periods. We find evidence for anchored inflation expectations in every component of consumer price inflation, headline, food and non-food, only during the IT period. More importantly, we find a muted spillover from food inflation to both food and non-food inflation expectations in this period. The lack of spillover from food inflation, which remained equally volatile in both periods, explains the anchored expectations and improved inflation performance under the IT regime.

Date: August 8, 2019
Time: 03:30 P.M.

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

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7 August 2019: Corruption and stock price volatility: Firm-level evidence

Chandan Kumar Jha
Le Moyne College, USA

Organised by
Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Delhi Center

Abstract:
This paper assesses the effects of corruption on firm-level equity price volatility using a sample of over 3,000 firms from 31 countries around the world over the period of 2003–2014. We find that corruption, constructed using the responses from the World Bank Enterprise Survey to match the firm’s size, industry, location, and country, is positively associated with equity price volatility. We further find that equity price volatility decreases with the asset size in the presence of corruption, indicating that smaller firms are disproportionately affected by corruption. We also find evidence of a positive association between corruption measured at the country level and stock price volatility, however, the effect of country-level corruption is found to be worse for firms with larger asset sizes.

Date: August 7, 2019
Time: 03:30 P.M.

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

Location:

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9 August 2019: Lecture on 'US-China trade/ technology war'

Dingding Chen
School of International Studies at Jinan University, China

Organised by
Centre for Policy Research (CPR)

Abstract:
China and the United States have been engaged in a trade war through increasing tariffs and other measures since 2018. The trade war can be attributed to trade imbalances, the US midterm elections and rivalry for global economic dominance. The current US-China trade conflict concerns two major set of issues. The first is the lack of reciprocity in terms of tariffs, market access, and investment. The problem is that there is a second set of issues, which concern technology transfer and high-tech industrial policy, including the Made in China 2025 initiative. The US has demanded that these programs be dismantled because they unfairly disadvantage foreign firms, but China views them as critical to its plans to transform the country into a high-tech power. Definitely, the US and China are competing for supremacy in the suite of advanced technologies that will affect the means of future economic production. US efforts to curtail China's access to American technology are threatening to unravel decades of globalisation and interdependent supply chains and raising the risk of a confrontation that has been likened to a new cold war. What is Trump's next move in the trade/technology war? How the US-China trade/technology could end?

Date: August 9, 2019
Time: 11:30 A.M.

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

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

Location:

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