19 July 2019: Launch of Super Century: What India Must Do to Rise by 2050 by Raghav Bahl

Panelists:
Dr. Bimal Jalan, Former RBI Governor and Member of Parliament
Gurcharan Das, Author
Rajeev Gowda, Member of Parliament and Former IIM-Bangalore Professor
Praveen Swami, Journalist and National Security Expert

Moderator:
Menaka Doshi, BloombergQuint

Organised by:
Penguin Random House

Date: July 19, 2019
Time: 06:30 P.M.

Venue:
Multi-Purpose Hall,
India International Centre
Max Mueller Marg,
New Delhi - 110003(INDIA)

Note:
Please RSVP at kbehl@penguinrandomhouse.in

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26 July 2019: Formal finance, poverty and mental health: Experimental evidence from India

Rohini Pande
Yale University and
Giorgia Barboni
Warwick Business School, University of Warwick

Abstract:
We report on a nine-year long-run large-scale randomized controlled trial that evaluates the impact of Kshetriya Grameen Financial Services (KGFS), an Indian financial institution that offers rural poor a suite of financial products -- micro-credit, micro-savings and micro-insurance -- paired with financial advising. In three rural districts of Tamil Nadu, KGFS randomized choice of service area, creating 50 treatment and 50 control areas. Together, this covered 876 villages. This paper provides a set of core results based on household surveys covering a sample of 4,160 households.

Our paper shows that the arrival of a formal financial institution like KGFS in rural Tamil Nadu leads to a significant impact on poverty reduction, with income consistently improving across the entire household distribution in treated service areas. Moreover, the gains deriving from increased formal indebtedness do not come at the cost of additional mental pressure: treated women report improved decision-making as well as subjective well-being, while also showing a significant reduction in their levels of stress.

Date: July 26, 2019
Time: 04:30 P.M.

Venue:
Conference Hall, Ground Floor
R&T Building
National Institute of Public Finance and Policy,
18/2 Satsang Vihar Marg, Special Institutional Area,
New Delhi-110067(INDIA)

Note:
Those who are interested may please confirm your participation at usha.mathur@nipfp.org.in

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17 July 2019: Why does the Indian state both fail and succeed?

Devesh Kapur
Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Washington, D.C

Organised by
Centre for Policy Research (CPR)

Abstract:
The key paradox of the Indian state is its effectiveness on some complex functions amidst its woeful inadequacies on others. What explains the heterogeneity in state performance? The talk will try and explain this paradox, examining whether there is a pattern to failure and success. It attempts to explain the varying performance of the Indian state in terms of its size and structure across different levels of government and specific features of India's democracy and society.

Date: July 17, 2019
Time: 11:00 A.M.

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

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29 July 2019: Piloting Justice: A Panel Discussion on Delhi High Court's 'Zero Pendency Courts' Project

Speakers:
Justice (Retd.) Madan B. Lokur, Supreme Court
Justice R.K. Gauba, Delhi High Court
Arvind Datar, Madras High Court

Moderator:
Harish Narasappa, DAKSH

Organised by:
DAKSH

Abstract:
The High Court of Delhi ran a pilot project for two years to come up with timelines for disposal of different types of cases, and study the effects of an absence of backlog on judicial delay. 11 subordinate courts with no backlog were chosen in Delhi as ‘pilot courts’, and their functioning was compared with 11 courts with regular workload. DAKSH assisted the Delhi High Court with technology, analyses, and drafting of the project report. The report, titled ‘Zero Pendency Courts Project: Final Report on the Pilot Project by the High Court of Delhi’, was released by the High Court on 3 May 2019.

The panel discussion will focus on the findings from this project, feasibility of carrying out pilot projects to study other facets of the judicial process, and what such an approach could mean to judicial reforms in the country.

Date: July 29, 2019
Time: 06:00 P.M.

Venue:
Lecture Hall II,
India International Centre Annexe
Max Mueller Marg,
New Delhi - 110003(INDIA)

Note:
Please RSVP at surya@dakshindia.org

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17 July 2019: Launch of the policy document: 'Policy Challenges 2019-2024: The Big Policy Questions and Possible Pathways'

Speakers:
Ajay Mathur, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI)
Suhasini Haidar, The Hindu
Devesh Kapur, Asia Programs and Starr Foundation and Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies
KP Krishnan, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Government of India

Organised by
Centre for Policy Research (CPR)

Abstract:
India is at an important juncture in its development trajectory. From rapid urbanisation to declining agricultural productivity; from weak human capital to the need for creating productive jobs; from new security threats to the need to re-position itself in a changing global order; from growing energy demands to the need to address rapid environmental degradation, India today has to negotiate multiple and conflicting socio-economic challenges. Decisions and actions taken over the next five years will be likely to shape the future of our economic and political trajectory. This document is an effort to spark debate and ideas on how India can negotiate these transitions across a range of sectors.

Policy Challenges 2019-2024, is a compendium of essays written by CPR scholars articulating key policy challenges and possible solutions across a range of issues that confront India today. These include foreign policy and national security; environment, energy and climate change; the economy and welfare; regulation and resources; federalism and urbanisation. This is a multi-sectoral, multi-disciplinary document that reflects on how India can negotiate the policy challenges it confronts and build a 21st century policy environment.

Date: July 17, 2019
Time: 05:30 P.M.

Venue:
Lecture Room I
India International Centre Annexe
Max Mueller Marg,
New Delhi - 110003(INDIA)

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

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15 July 2019: Incentivizing Effort in Peer Grading

Anujit Chakraborty
UC Davis

Organised by
Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Delhi Center

Abstract:
Massive open online courses (MOOCs) pose a great challenge for grading the answer- scripts at a high accuracy. Peer grading is often viewed as a scalable solution to this challenge, which largely depends on the altruism of the peer graders. In this paper, we introduce a mechanism, TRUPEQA, that (a) uses a small, constant number of instructor-graded answer scripts to quantitatively measure the accuracies of the peer graders and corrects the scores accordingly, (b) penalizes underperforming, and (c) vastly reduces the total cost of arriving at the true grades. Our human subject experiments show that our mechanism improves the grading quality over the mechanisms currently used in standard MOOCs.

Date: July 15, 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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12 July 2019: Panel discussion on 'Regulation in India: Design, Capacity, Performance'

Moderator:
Shereen Bhan, CNBC-TV18

Speakers:
Arvind Subramanian, Harvard University
Justice Pratibha Singh, Delhi High Court
Navroz Dubash, Centre for Policy Research
Madhu Sahoo, Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India

Organised by
Centre for Policy Research (CPR) and Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University

Abstract:
The rise of the regulatory state has been a major feature of modern constitutional democracies. India, the world's largest democracy, is no exception to this trend. This panel will use the occasion of the publication of a new book – Regulation in India: Design, Capacity, Performance (edited by Devesh Kapur and Madhav Khosla, Bloomsbury/Hart 2019) – to evaluate some of challenges, promise, and limitations offered by contemporary regulatory practices, and to consider the way forward.

Date: July 12, 2019
Time: 06:00 P.M.

Venue:
Conference Room II
India International Centre (Main Complex)
Max Mueller Marg,
New Delhi - 110003(INDIA)

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

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