The Centre for Public Policy at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore hosted the Tenth Annual International Conference on Public Policy and Management from August 3 to 5, 2015.
The three-day international event was inaugurated by Shri. Ajit Seth, Ex-Cabinet Secretary, Government of India. The Keynote Address was delivered by Shri Ajit Seth on August 3, 2015 and the Keynote Address on the second day, August 4, 2015 was delivered by Prof. Ashutosh Varshney, Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences, and the Director of the Brown-India Initiative.
The Conference saw a submission of 436 abstracts from India and abroad. Of this, 260 abstracts were accepted for full paper submission. A team of faculty members/reviewers selected about 94 papers for presentation at the conference. Apart from this there were about 6 invited papers that were presented at the conference.
For the decadal conference, the sessions were diversified. There were 18 ‘Single Panel Tracks’ organised during the conference. We also had 9 Special Tracks of which 5 were organised by external institutions. The track on Technology in Policy: Diffusion in Innovation was organised and chaired by Dr Jessica Seddon of IIT-Madras, the track on The Promise and Performance of Financial Inclusion: One Year of the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojna was organised and chaired by Amy Mowl of the Institute of Financial Management and Research (IFMR), the track on Land Policy and Development was organised by Prof. Suraj Jacob and chaired by Prof. Ashok Sircar of Azim Premji University, the track on Public Transport Policy and Management in Urban India was organised and chaired by Prof. Govind Gopakumar of Concordia University, and the track on Digital Governance was organised and chaired by Prof. Amit Prakash of IIIT-Bangalore.
The other four Special tracks were organised by professors of IIMB. The track on Experiments in Public Policy was organised and chaired by Prof. Manaswini Bhalla, the track on Targeted Public policy and Political Preference was organised and chaired by Prof. Shabana Mitra, the track on Public Debt – Sustainability and Interest Payment was chaired by Sumit Bose, the Former Union Finance Secretary and current Member of Expenditure Management Commission. The track on Expenditure Effectiveness and Productivity was chaired by Subir Gokarn the Former Deputy Governor of RBI and current Director-Research at Brookings India - an independent think-tank. Both these tracks were organized by Prof. Charan Singh.
CPP organised a talk by Prof. Karl Ove Moene of University of Oslo who spoke on ‘The Nordic Model and its Implication for the Developing Countries’. We also had a film screening and discussion on the movie ‘Social Life of a Bus’. This panel was organised by Prof. Govind Gopakumar. The panellists were Dr. Sudarshanam Padam, Advisor and Former Dean of Studies, Administrative Staff College, Hyderabad and Dr. Ashish Verma, of CiSTUP, IISc, Bangalore.
We had also invited eminent speakers for two Round Table Discussions on ‘Expenditure Management Issues' Chaired by Dr.Govind Rao, Former Member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, organised by Prof. Charan Singh and 'Manufacturing Policy' organised by Professor G. Ramesh and chaired by Prof. Toshiro Nishizawa of the University of Tokyo.
The Conference ended with a Valedictory Ceremony on 5 August, 2015. This intellectually stimulating event was attended by scholars, practitioners, policy makers, NGOs and experts. The conference was on the whole attended by 302 participants, including paper presenters and invited speakers during the three days.
More details are available on the conference website: