The three-day event, themed around ‘Inclusion and Exclusion: Policy and Practice’, featured a hackathon, topical policy debates, workshops and practitioner-oriented discussions
09 August, 2017: The closing address for the XII Annual International Conference on Public Policy and Management was delivered today by Professor G. Raghuram, Director, IIM Bangalore, on ways forward in engaging with policy research, curating public policy debates and influencing public policy.
“Impact is difficult to measure. However, to make meaningful impact, we need presence. While we talk of Public Policy, we need to focus on common issues across sectors. We also have to acknowledge that it is a multi-person output. IIMB as an academic institute is focused on the cause of contributing to Public Policy through publications, long-duration programmes, international immersion programmes, etc. However, with a bigger pool of content and ability to debate issues, we can maximize our impact. So we need to be present in many more committees and engage even more in related projects and consulting assignments.”
On how we can best influence Public Policy, he said: “As academics, we need to engage in policy research and weave together – domains, issues and methods, to come up with meaningful output. Other than academics, activism is also vital – whether it is extension or the challenging form of activism.”
Professor Raghuram, who specializes in infrastructure and transport systems, and logistics and supply chain management, and conducts research on the railway, port, shipping, aviation and road sectors, also suggested that while engaging with policy research, issues of subsequent regulation should be kept in mind, institutional mechanism should be in place and technology should be utilized to the fullest. “Going forward, we should proceed with the PM’s agenda of less government and more governance as a broad theme, where Government should do the visioning and monitoring, but actual design, development and delivery should be left to parties with appropriate incentive framework,” he added.
Congratulating the organizers on the success of this conference, he also shared his vision about the future of such meets. “In terms of curating Public Policy debates and selection of topics, this conference, which is a wonderful initiative of CPP, has been very effective – in-depth discussions happened and ideas were contributed. In the future, however, I suggest that we have this conference every alternate year in Delhi, so that we can invite secretaries and joint secretaries and other influential people. We should also think of publication of monographs.
“At IIMB, papers are being written on health, microfinance, social exclusion, inclusion. There has been a lot of academic energy at IIMB around the health sector. In the future, I hope that we are able to set up a Centre for Health Management, which will provide continuity in dealing with this sector,” he said.
The Centre for Public Policy (CPP) at IIM Bangalore welcomed academicians, public policy makers and people from voluntary organizations to the XII International Conference on Public Policy & Management on August 7. The theme of this year’s conference was ‘Inclusion and Exclusion: Policy and Practice’. The three-day annual international event brought together scholars, practitioners, experts, researchers and policy makers of different disciplines to discuss diverse policy-related issues.
The Conference on Public Policy & Management provides an avenue for disseminating contemporary public policy research and emerging practices across a wide set of domains. This year saw 200 paper submissions, which explored different ways by which policy processes impact social outcomes using both theoretical and empirical lenses spanning research and practitioner pieces that cover academia, industry, and the government. These were actively peer-reviewed by faculty from the Centre for Public Policy, to select the final set of papers.
This year’s conference had a broad mix of academic sessions, topical policy debates, workshops, panel discussions and practitioner-oriented discussions around key topics in public policy and management and ongoing contemporary policy research in India. These included tracks on Political Economy, Right to Education, Health, and specially organized sessions around Argumentative Policy Analysis, Conflict, Security and Policy, Role of Agricultural Information Delivery in Sustainably Increasing Farm Incomes in India, Role of Technology in Enabling Educational Inclusion, Peri-urban Areas: Dynamics of Change, Ecosystems and Governance, and more.
The conference began on August 5 with a Public Policy Hackathon, which revolved around ways to develop apps focussed on exploiting fragmented data repositories to create a policy tool that can help improve program and policy outreach, enrolment and outcomes. It was in partnership with a non-profit that was incubated at the entrepreneurship and innovation hub of IIM Bangalore NSRCEL – MapUnity. This was followed by presentations of short-listed submissions from the Policy Hackathon where policy makers participated in identifying the final winners of the Hackathon.
On August 07 (Monday), Prof. Anjan Mukherji, Professor Emeritus, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, delivered the keynote address on ‘The Role of Government or the Size of Government?’
Talking about the size of governments, of which size of government spending and bureaucratic structure are indicators, he pointed out that more than desirable size of governments, what governments should do is the more important question. “Governments could be large or small but they should work for the wellbeing and prosperity of the citizens,” he added.
Quoting eminent economists, social scientists and thinkers down the ages like Buchanan, Musgrave, Chanakya, Adam Smith, Milton Friedman and Mancur Olson, he said from ‘Arthashastra’ down to modern times, there was no difference of opinion about the government’s role – which is to ensure best possible governance. This can be achieved by removing obstructions to economic activity, enforcing private contracts to foster competitive markets, maintaining peace and tranquillity, maintaining law and order, providing public goods of high quality, raising adequate taxes, maintaining a court system and ensuring administration of (prompt) justice, and upholding democracy.
About the way forward, he said that governments need to engage with a set of functions based on the current economic paradigm. “There should be an SLP (Stabilize, Liberalize and Privatize) regime, and the size of government activities should shrink. However, in ensuring these, certain things can go wrong – such as asymmetric information, externalities market failure, and contractual obligation. If free trade is better than no trade, you need courts and other corrective steps to back you up. Hence, the recommended solutions are implementing taxes, assigning property rights, certifying quality. Moreover, contractual agreements should be protected by courts of law. The government has to ensure all this. Incentives of government officials to carry these out may be minimal, so scams and frauds occur. That is why people say governments should be kept small.”
Earlier that day, Dr. Arnab Mukherji, Chairperson, Centre for Public Policy, introduced the theme of the conference and hoped it would provide a platform for useful conversations between academicians, public policy makers and NGOs.
A panel led by Dr. Ashutosh Varshney, from Brown University, on ‘Electoral Practices in India’, featured policy makers, politicians and academics, including Prof. Rajeev Gowda, MP, Rajya Sabha.
The plenary on August 8 explored the status and current practice of Decentralization of Public Policy in India after the 73rd and 74th Amendments to the Constitution in the early 1990s.
Dr. M. Govinda Rao, Emeritus Professor, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP), led the panel discussion with insights from T. Raghunandan, former Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, Prof. Sandeep Shastri, Pro Vice Chancellor, Jain University, and V. M. Ghordpade, Vice President, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee.
The sessions on August 9 also included a plenary which aimed to push the discourse on how the fragmented healthcare system can be brought within a common framework to achieve integrated pathways for care at multiple levels and at multiple geographies in a country like India where informality drives the economy. The participants were B. S. Ajaikumar, CEO and Chairman, HCG Hospitals, Shalini Rajneesh, Principal Secretary, Ministry of Health, GoK, Srinivas Prasad, CEO, Philips Innovation Center and K. Sujatha Rao, former Secretary for Health and Family Welfare, GoI and author of ‘Do We Care?’ Dr. Arnab Mukherji, Chairperson, Centre for Public Policy, IIM Bangalore and Prof. Chirantan Chatterjee from ISB anchored this track in an effort to drive forward policy conversations in the health sector.
The three-day event, themed around ‘Inclusion and Exclusion: Policy and Practice’, featured a hackathon, topical policy debates, workshops and practitioner-oriented discussions
09 August, 2017: The closing address for the XII Annual International Conference on Public Policy and Management was delivered today by Professor G. Raghuram, Director, IIM Bangalore, on ways forward in engaging with policy research, curating public policy debates and influencing public policy.
“Impact is difficult to measure. However, to make meaningful impact, we need presence. While we talk of Public Policy, we need to focus on common issues across sectors. We also have to acknowledge that it is a multi-person output. IIMB as an academic institute is focused on the cause of contributing to Public Policy through publications, long-duration programmes, international immersion programmes, etc. However, with a bigger pool of content and ability to debate issues, we can maximize our impact. So we need to be present in many more committees and engage even more in related projects and consulting assignments.”
On how we can best influence Public Policy, he said: “As academics, we need to engage in policy research and weave together – domains, issues and methods, to come up with meaningful output. Other than academics, activism is also vital – whether it is extension or the challenging form of activism.”
Professor Raghuram, who specializes in infrastructure and transport systems, and logistics and supply chain management, and conducts research on the railway, port, shipping, aviation and road sectors, also suggested that while engaging with policy research, issues of subsequent regulation should be kept in mind, institutional mechanism should be in place and technology should be utilized to the fullest. “Going forward, we should proceed with the PM’s agenda of less government and more governance as a broad theme, where Government should do the visioning and monitoring, but actual design, development and delivery should be left to parties with appropriate incentive framework,” he added.
Congratulating the organizers on the success of this conference, he also shared his vision about the future of such meets. “In terms of curating Public Policy debates and selection of topics, this conference, which is a wonderful initiative of CPP, has been very effective – in-depth discussions happened and ideas were contributed. In the future, however, I suggest that we have this conference every alternate year in Delhi, so that we can invite secretaries and joint secretaries and other influential people. We should also think of publication of monographs.
“At IIMB, papers are being written on health, microfinance, social exclusion, inclusion. There has been a lot of academic energy at IIMB around the health sector. In the future, I hope that we are able to set up a Centre for Health Management, which will provide continuity in dealing with this sector,” he said.
The Centre for Public Policy (CPP) at IIM Bangalore welcomed academicians, public policy makers and people from voluntary organizations to the XII International Conference on Public Policy & Management on August 7. The theme of this year’s conference was ‘Inclusion and Exclusion: Policy and Practice’. The three-day annual international event brought together scholars, practitioners, experts, researchers and policy makers of different disciplines to discuss diverse policy-related issues.
The Conference on Public Policy & Management provides an avenue for disseminating contemporary public policy research and emerging practices across a wide set of domains. This year saw 200 paper submissions, which explored different ways by which policy processes impact social outcomes using both theoretical and empirical lenses spanning research and practitioner pieces that cover academia, industry, and the government. These were actively peer-reviewed by faculty from the Centre for Public Policy, to select the final set of papers.
This year’s conference had a broad mix of academic sessions, topical policy debates, workshops, panel discussions and practitioner-oriented discussions around key topics in public policy and management and ongoing contemporary policy research in India. These included tracks on Political Economy, Right to Education, Health, and specially organized sessions around Argumentative Policy Analysis, Conflict, Security and Policy, Role of Agricultural Information Delivery in Sustainably Increasing Farm Incomes in India, Role of Technology in Enabling Educational Inclusion, Peri-urban Areas: Dynamics of Change, Ecosystems and Governance, and more.
The conference began on August 5 with a Public Policy Hackathon, which revolved around ways to develop apps focussed on exploiting fragmented data repositories to create a policy tool that can help improve program and policy outreach, enrolment and outcomes. It was in partnership with a non-profit that was incubated at the entrepreneurship and innovation hub of IIM Bangalore NSRCEL – MapUnity. This was followed by presentations of short-listed submissions from the Policy Hackathon where policy makers participated in identifying the final winners of the Hackathon.
On August 07 (Monday), Prof. Anjan Mukherji, Professor Emeritus, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, delivered the keynote address on ‘The Role of Government or the Size of Government?’
Talking about the size of governments, of which size of government spending and bureaucratic structure are indicators, he pointed out that more than desirable size of governments, what governments should do is the more important question. “Governments could be large or small but they should work for the wellbeing and prosperity of the citizens,” he added.
Quoting eminent economists, social scientists and thinkers down the ages like Buchanan, Musgrave, Chanakya, Adam Smith, Milton Friedman and Mancur Olson, he said from ‘Arthashastra’ down to modern times, there was no difference of opinion about the government’s role – which is to ensure best possible governance. This can be achieved by removing obstructions to economic activity, enforcing private contracts to foster competitive markets, maintaining peace and tranquillity, maintaining law and order, providing public goods of high quality, raising adequate taxes, maintaining a court system and ensuring administration of (prompt) justice, and upholding democracy.
About the way forward, he said that governments need to engage with a set of functions based on the current economic paradigm. “There should be an SLP (Stabilize, Liberalize and Privatize) regime, and the size of government activities should shrink. However, in ensuring these, certain things can go wrong – such as asymmetric information, externalities market failure, and contractual obligation. If free trade is better than no trade, you need courts and other corrective steps to back you up. Hence, the recommended solutions are implementing taxes, assigning property rights, certifying quality. Moreover, contractual agreements should be protected by courts of law. The government has to ensure all this. Incentives of government officials to carry these out may be minimal, so scams and frauds occur. That is why people say governments should be kept small.”
Earlier that day, Dr. Arnab Mukherji, Chairperson, Centre for Public Policy, introduced the theme of the conference and hoped it would provide a platform for useful conversations between academicians, public policy makers and NGOs.
A panel led by Dr. Ashutosh Varshney, from Brown University, on ‘Electoral Practices in India’, featured policy makers, politicians and academics, including Prof. Rajeev Gowda, MP, Rajya Sabha.
The plenary on August 8 explored the status and current practice of Decentralization of Public Policy in India after the 73rd and 74th Amendments to the Constitution in the early 1990s.
Dr. M. Govinda Rao, Emeritus Professor, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP), led the panel discussion with insights from T. Raghunandan, former Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, Prof. Sandeep Shastri, Pro Vice Chancellor, Jain University, and V. M. Ghordpade, Vice President, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee.
The sessions on August 9 also included a plenary which aimed to push the discourse on how the fragmented healthcare system can be brought within a common framework to achieve integrated pathways for care at multiple levels and at multiple geographies in a country like India where informality drives the economy. The participants were B. S. Ajaikumar, CEO and Chairman, HCG Hospitals, Shalini Rajneesh, Principal Secretary, Ministry of Health, GoK, Srinivas Prasad, CEO, Philips Innovation Center and K. Sujatha Rao, former Secretary for Health and Family Welfare, GoI and author of ‘Do We Care?’ Dr. Arnab Mukherji, Chairperson, Centre for Public Policy, IIM Bangalore and Prof. Chirantan Chatterjee from ISB anchored this track in an effort to drive forward policy conversations in the health sector.