Why Attend?
Public Policy Forum
Good policy making is a prerequisite for inclusive growth and development. For India, this has been a big constraint. The biggest problem with policy making in India has been its disconnect with ground realities. Insufficient and unreliable data and statistics also hamper the process of good policy making. In order to achieve the desired result it is pertinent that policy making comes out of its comfort zone and is devised on the basis of ground realities. SKOCH Public Policy Forum will identify policy areas in need of urgent attention, zero in on the appropriate policy tools applicable to each of the identified areas and then complete the package with practical pragmatic solutions.
Public Policy LITFest
Public policy does not make for popular literature. However, it is invaluable for a country’s growth and development. Almost 30-40 books on public policy are published every year. Literature festivals in the country are mostly Page 3 events, serious public policy issues hardly get any place at such events. SKOCH Public Policy LITFest is an endeavour to bring public policy literature to the forefront of public discourse and decision making.
Eminent public policy writers, policymakers and practitioners come together to brainstorm on how to make the public policy literature contribute towards decision making for New India.
MyTake
Public Policy Literature Festival (LitFest) brings to you myTake, which is a mentorship platform for thinkers and writers. myTake provides an opportunity to such thinkers and writers to make their work reach a national audience as well as policymakers. You may have an idea or suggestion which has been penned down towards making Indian policy better but haven’t had an opportunity to be published. myTake invites you to submit your unpublished paper on public policy for a national contest and the recognition. Top fifteen per cent papers will be published online on Public Policy Forum website and promoted as a rich resource for policymakers. Details at mytake.skoch.in
Amitabh Kant
Chief Executive Officer, NITI Aayog
Mr. Amitabh Kant is presently CEO of National Institution for Transforming India (NITI). He is a member of the Indian Administrative Service, IAS (Kerala Cadre: 1980 batch). He is the author of Branding India – An Incredible Story. Mr. Kant has been a key driver of the “Make in India”, Startup India, “Incredible India” and God’s Own Country” initiatives that positioned India and Kerala State as leading manufacturing and tourism destinations. These campaigns have won several international awards and embraced a host of activities – infrastructure development, product enhancement, private-public partnership and positioning and branding based on extensive market research. Mr. Kant also conceptualized the “Atithi Devo Bhavah” – “Guest is God” campaign to train Taxi Drivers, Guides, immigration officials and make them stake holders in the tourism development process. Mr. Amitabh Kant was also the National Project Director of the Rural Tourism Project of UNDP which made a paradigm shift in spreading tourism to Indian villages which had core-competency in handicrafts, handloom and culture.
Bibek Debroy
Chairman, PM-EAC
Dr Bibek Debroy is an economist and has made significant contributions to game theory, economic theory, income and social inequalities, poverty, law reforms, railway reforms and Indology among others.
He was educated in Ramakrishna Mission School, Narendrapur; Presidency College, Kolkata; Delhi School of Economics and Trinity College, Cambridge. Presently, he is Chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM).
Dr Debroy has authored several books, papers and popular articles, has been the Consulting Editor of Indian financial and other newspapers. He has been a member of the National Manufacturing Competitive Council from November 2004 to December 2009. He was the Chairman of a Committee set up by the Chief Minister of Jharkhand to recommend a development plan for the State. He has been a Member of the Chief Minister’s Economic Advisory Council in Rajasthan.
He has worked in Presidency College, Kolkata (1979-83), Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune (1983-87); Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Delhi (1987-93); as the Director of a Ministry of Finance/UNDP project on legal reforms (1993-98); Department of Economic Affairs (1994-95); National Council of Applied Economic Research (1995-96); Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies (1997-2005); PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry (2005-06); and Centre for Policy Research (2007-2015). He has authored/edited several books, papers and popular articles and has also been a Consulting/Contributing Editor with several newspapers.
Gulshan Rai
Former Chairman, SEBI
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Sameer Kochhar
Secretary General, CAII and Chairman, SKOCH Group & SKOCH Foundation
Mr Sameer Kochhar is a social scientist, leading reforms historian in India and an acclaimed author. His domain expertise on socio-economic issues has been used by the government and private sector alike for consultancy on public policy and strategy. He has published 16 books including Defeating Poverty, ModiNomics and The Untold Story of Indian Reforms. He is privileged to have his books released by Dr Manmohan Singh, Mr Narendra Modi, Mr Arun Jaitley and Mr P. Chidambaram, among several other luminaries. His mantra is growth, livelihoods and equity.
He is an industry veteran with a multifaceted career spanning over 37 years with extensive experience in using action research to bring felt-needs to policy and strategy. He is credited with several well-performing public policy interventions in areas of digital, financial and social inclusion. Considered fearless, he is often seen standing up to be counted on issues of national importance, asking difficult questions and offering seasoned advice. He has assessed first-hand a large number of projects in India and has also created one of the biggest independent knowledge repositories on what works/ This also serves as perhaps the only institutional memory of reforms in India.
He has been a member of several expert groups and committees constituted by the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Government of India, advocating a case for a strengthening of local self-governance through use of technology; and, the Ministry of Communications and IT on the evaluation of National e-Governance Plan. He was on the advisory committee of College of Agricultural Banking of Reserve Bank of India for nearly 6 years. He has represented India in inter-governmental conferences.
Ajay Shah
Independent Scholar
Dr. Ajay Shah studied at IIT, Bombay and USC, Los Angeles. He has held positions at Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), Indira Gandhi Institute for Development Research (IGIDR), Department of Economic Affairs at the Ministry of Finance and National Institute for Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP). He does academic and policy-oriented research on India, at the intersection of economics, law and public administration. His second book, co-authored with Vijay Kelkar, is “In service of the republic: The art and science of economic policy”, and was published in 2019 by Penguin Allen Lane. His areas of focus are macroeconomics, finance, health, and technology policy.
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Academic Partners
PDP BILL AND ITS IMPLICATIONS
‘Data’ has emerged as the essence of most modern-day economies. In this era of big data many firms derive their value from exclusive data access and other intangible assets, as opposed to machinery and other physical assets. The innate characteristics of ‘data’ raise several policy questions related to its value, ownership, regulation and sovereignty. Often to achieve national objectives, conflicts get created and need resolution-in the data space the potential policy conflicts are just more profound. Consequently, only a few countries have enacted data protection regulations while others have started the process. The Indian Government constituted a Data Protection Committee (DPC) in 2017 which proposed a comprehensive law on data protection. The Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 was introduced in the Parliament on 11 December 2019 and the proposed legislation is currently being analysed by a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC). The proposed legislation seeks to provide for the protection of personal data of individuals and proposes a framework for processing of such data by other entities. The overarching goal of this discussion would be to highlight the effectiveness of the proposed legislation in striking a balance between protecting a nascent but fast-growing digital economy in India and the rights of over a billion users.
The panel discussion will deliberate the following questions:
- What are the implementation gaps and challenges in the proposed Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 including institutionalising and functioning of the Data Protection Authority (DPA)?
- What will be the economic implications of the proposed legislation? How would the compliance requirements impact firms in the long and short run? Will the legislation impact India’s trade competitiveness, especially in the services sector?
- Has privacy emerged as an important form of non-price competition? Do existing/ proposed legislations allow for institutional collaborations to assess and regulate this aspect of privacy? If not, is this necessary?
Beyond Ease of Doing Business Rankings
The Government of India has wholeheartedly adopted the World Bank’s approach to rank countries on its Ease of Doing Business indicators. It has aimed improvements on rankings with a single-minded pursuit. The Government has even launched the Business Reform Action Plan to rank states on business reforms they claim to have implemented, and promoted competitive federalism.
Despite benefits and shortcomings of rankings, it is becoming evident that climbing charts cannot become an end in itself and much more efforts are required on the ground to make life easier for entrepreneurs, both small and large, each facing their unique sets of challenges.
These challenges can be broadly categorised into stock and flow of regulatory requirements. The former relates to existing requirements, and their implementation and the latter with the manner in which such requirements are changed.
Subjecting the existing requirements to a three-step test of legality, necessity and proportionality, and the proposals to a cost-benefit analysis would be necessary to address such challenges. This will require institutionalising reforms such as regulatory impact assessment. The panel discusses the following:
- Is the government right in spending and capacity on ease of doing business rankings or such rankings should be discarded in favour of other result-oriented measures?
- What reforms should government adopt to take its ease of doing business efforts to the next level and is there something we can learn from other successful countries?
- How to overcome bureaucratic preference to status-quoism and apathy to change and what incentives are needed to ensure effective adoption and implementation of such new sets of reforms?
India & Emerging Global Trade Imperatives
In the post-COVID world, with key economies raising barriers to international trade it could seem that the era of large regional trade agreements are over. Two contradictory events recently; the first was that ASEAN+5 made operational the Regional Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement. India as it decided in 2019, stayed away. the other is UK walked away from what was essentially a regional trading agreement—the European Union as Brexit. Meanwhile a new US administration takes over, which is far less hostile to the idea of trade agreements.
The world is divided between the need for ensuring safety in their supply networks and so bringing manufacturing closer home, yet realising that growth is only possible to give a fillip to with deeper trade networks. The panel discusses the following:
- Will this then move the needle away from regional trading blocs to bilateral free trade agreements?
- Will countries like India and UK be more keen to enter such agreements?
- What then happens to the 18 odd 18 regional trade agreements India is a signatory to?
Contextualising New Education Policy
India has recently come up with its New Education Policy (NEP). Given the history of policymaking for the education sector in India, since independence, this is the fourth document to have been introduced by the government, the last one being developed in 1992. The promulgation of the new policy raises a fundamental question about the need of having a new policy. One may also ask how new the latest policy document is compared to its predecessors. The Panel Discussion aims at contextualising the policy vis-à-vis the ground level reality. It discusses the following:
- What perceptible changes are observed in the recent policy document in terms of objectives, intent and operational details compared to the earlier ones?
- What were the felt-needs of introducing the new policy?
- How well does this policy document capture in a seamless way the interactions among primary, secondary and higher education systems?
- How to take care of the resource constraints that may come in the way of achieving the policy objectives?
Private vs Public: Policy Direction for Public Health
Health policy is a tough call. Thinking about market failure and state capacity from first principles is required in public health and in healthcare. There are market failures in public goods and externalities that essentially constitute ‘public health’. Equally, there are market failures in asymmetric information and market power that shape healthcare. The debate then is whether we need more state or less in public health and healthcare. There is a lot of interest in technological fixes, all the way from National Digital Health Blueprint to Artificial Intelligence to replace doctors. This panel tries to put the role of state, private sector and digital technologies in context such that India may finally get a winning policy prescription for health that is widely acceptable.
Channeling Research into Public Policy
This panel focuses on the role that research institutions, academia, and Universities can play in times when reactions to public policy and governance challenges are increasingly becoming polarised along political lines, mainstream media is largely seen to be biased, and effective and deep research and analysis into questions of public policy is lacking. It focuses largely on four themes:
- In light of the quivering pillars of the fourth estate, is the onus of creating an informed civil society on academia?
- How do we make specialised academic research more mainstream and help create informed debate in light of recent global events?
- How should academia break free from the echo chamber of academic journals?
- What is the role that students and policy professionals could play in catalysing this change?
Arjun Munda
Hon’ble Minister of Tribal Affairs
Arjun Munda is the current Minister of Tribal Affairs in the Second Modi ministry. He was also Chief Minister of Indian state of Jharkhand. He has also served as a member of parliament having been elected to the 15th Lok Sabha from the Jamshedpur constituency in the 2009 parliamentary elections. BJP’s central leadership also appointed him a National General Secretary of the party recognising his strong credentials as a popular mass leader and his significant contributions in strengthening the party in his state.
During his tenure, Jharkhand got the 1st Lokayukta and the State successfully conducted the 34th National Games in 2011. His government introduced an e-tender system in government contracts to bring transparency and efficiency and to provide equal opportunity in the procurement process. He also took initiatives for setting up of new power plants with a view to making Jharkhand a power surplus state.
Arjun Munda was born on 3 May 1968 in Khrangajhar, Jamshedpur to a religious family of Ganesh and Saira Munda. After completing high school education in the Jamshedpur area, he graduated from Ranchi University and went on to earn a PG Diploma in Social Sciences from Indira Gandhi National Open University.
Meenakshi Lekhi
Chairperson, Joint Parliamentary Committee on PDP Act
A second-term elected Parliamentarian and distinguished lawyer of the Supreme Court with a career spanning over three decades. She is a renowned socio-political activist who has been associated with institutions including the National Commission of Women, Sakshi, NIPCD amongst several others. In addition to having worked extensively with several not-for-profits, she has served as a member of the drafting committee of “Women Reservation Bill” & “Problem of Sexual Harassment at Workplace”; the latter being passed by the Parliament of India. She even represented the media in court to get the ban on media coverage of the case proceedings revoked and she was successful in this effort.
She has been actively involved in women empowerment, she took up the case of the permanent commissioning of women in the Indian armed forces with the Supreme Court. She was the lawyer of the victim in the Shanti Mukund Hospital rape case; took up the case of Promotion Policy for Army Officer and the Permanent Commission of women in the Indian armed forces in the Supreme Court. The judgement has paved the way for women officers to hold command posts.
Most recently, as the Chairperson of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 she has been entrusted with ideating on a legislation which has the potential to shape and protect the privacy, personal dignity and security of India and its citizens. The committee has recently asked some very pertinent and tough questions to several of the world’s leading social media, technology and e-commerce companies operating in India about their policies and practices with regards to the safety and security of the privacy of Indian citizens and their personal data.
Positions Held
- 2010: National Vice President, BJP Mahila Morcha
- May 2014: Elected to 16th Lok Sabha
- June 2014 – May 2019: Member, House Committee
- Sep 2014 – Jul 2016: Member, Committee on Privileges; Member, Press Council of India; Member, Standing Committee on Urban Development
- Dec 2014 – May 2019: Member, Joint Committee on Offices of Profit
- Jul 2016 – May 2019: Chairperson, Committee on Privileges
- Nov 2017: Member, Press Council of India
- June 2019 onwards: Member, Panel of Chairpersons, Lok Sabha
- July 2019 onwards: Chairperson, Committee on Public Undertakings
- September 2019 onwards: Member, Standing Committee on External Affairs
- October 2019 onwards: Member, Committee on Privileges
- December 2019 onwards: Chairperson, Joint Committee on the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019
- Nov 2019 onwards: Member, General Purposes Committee, Lok Sabha; Member, Consultative Committee, Ministry of Defence
Amitabh Kant
Chief Executive Officer, NITI Aayog
Mr. Amitabh Kant is presently CEO of National Institution for Transforming India (NITI). He is a member of the Indian Administrative Service, IAS (Kerala Cadre: 1980 batch). He is the author of Branding India – An Incredible Story. Mr. Kant has been a key driver of the “Make in India”, Startup India, “Incredible India” and God’s Own Country” initiatives that positioned India and Kerala State as leading manufacturing and tourism destinations. These campaigns have won several international awards and embraced a host of activities – infrastructure development, product enhancement, private-public partnership and positioning and branding based on extensive market research. Mr. Kant also conceptualized the “Atithi Devo Bhavah” – “Guest is God” campaign to train Taxi Drivers, Guides, immigration officials and make them stake holders in the tourism development process. Mr. Amitabh Kant was also the National Project Director of the Rural Tourism Project of UNDP which made a paradigm shift in spreading tourism to Indian villages which had core-competency in handicrafts, handloom and culture.
Sameer Kochhar
Secretary General, CAII and Chairman, SKOCH Group & SKOCH Foundation
Mr Sameer Kochhar is a social scientist, leading reforms historian in India and an acclaimed author. His domain expertise on socio-economic issues has been used by the government and private sector alike for consultancy on public policy and strategy. He has published 16 books including Defeating Poverty, ModiNomics and The Untold Story of Indian Reforms. He is privileged to have his books released by Dr Manmohan Singh, Mr Narendra Modi, Mr Arun Jaitley and Mr P. Chidambaram, among several other luminaries. His mantra is growth, livelihoods and equity.
He is an industry veteran with a multifaceted career spanning over 37 years with extensive experience in using action research to bring felt-needs to policy and strategy. He is credited with several well-performing public policy interventions in areas of digital, financial and social inclusion. Considered fearless, he is often seen standing up to be counted on issues of national importance, asking difficult questions and offering seasoned advice. He has assessed first-hand a large number of projects in India and has also created one of the biggest independent knowledge repositories on what works/ This also serves as perhaps the only institutional memory of reforms in India.
He has been a member of several expert groups and committees constituted by the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Government of India, advocating a case for a strengthening of local self-governance through use of technology; and, the Ministry of Communications and IT on the evaluation of National e-Governance Plan. He was on the advisory committee of College of Agricultural Banking of Reserve Bank of India for nearly 6 years. He has represented India in inter-governmental conferences.
Suresh Prabhu
Member, Rajya Sabha & G20 and G7 Sherpa
In my considered belief, commitment unlocks the doors of imagination, allows vision that serves us with an opportunity to turn dreams into reality. With a firm focus on achieving desired results, I have always been a strong votary of reforms and turnarounds in my endeavors to bring about a positive transformation in the society. My credentials have propelled me into the league of top three Indian leaders by Asia Week magazine in its lead story “Giant on the Move”, further strengthening my resolve to strike a healthy balance between human development and fragile ecosystem.
Before taking over as the Minister of Commerce and Industry and Civil Aviation, Government of India, he handled several other ministries like the Railways to Environment and Power and Heavy Industries. As Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s Sherpa at the G 20 Summit, he had the good fortune of being a personal representative of the head of a state and Chairman of the Task Force on Interlinking of Rivers Project. He staunchly believed that all projects can be taken to their logical fruition with a clear blueprint and stipulated deadlines.
As a Rajya Sabha MP from Andhra Pradesh and Haryana and, four-time Lok Sabha MP from Rajapur in Maharashtra, his doors have always been open to people in his perception that it eliminates red tape and promotes inclusive thinking.
Amarjeet Sinha
Advisor to the Prime Minister
Amarjeet Sinha is currently serving as Advisor to the Prime Minister of India.
Some of the other distinguished roles played by Amarjeet Sinha during his career include Principal Secretary – Education, Additional Secretary – Ministry of Human Resources Development, Additional Secretary – Ministry of Rural Development, and Secretary – Ministry of Panchayat Raj. As an in-charge of administrative reforms and personnel and general administration in the central government during 2018 – 2019, he played a significant role in contributing to nation building.
Amarjeet Sinha has over three decades of experience in the social sector. Some of his notable contributions occurred within the realms of the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan and the National Rural Health Mission. He has also trained several young IAS Officers at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie.
Sudhir Nayar
MD, Commercial Sales, Cisco India and SAARC
Sudhir Nayar is Managing Director for Commercial Sales for Cisco India & SAARC where he leads a high performing team to drive sales and increase adoption of Cisco’s products and solutions across the Commercial segment.
Sudhir has 27 years of extensive experience in business management, sales/partner management and leadership in the Technology industry. Prior to joining Cisco, Sudhir worked with Microsoft where he led Sales and Marketing for the SMB segment in India. His role included formulating and executing strategies to establish Microsoft as a thought leader for 51 million SMBs and leveraging India’s largest IT network of 3,000+ partners. He was responsible for transforming India’s largest partner ecosystem to enable the digital transformation of Indian businesses.
Earlier at Oracle, Sudhir lead the Corporate Strategy & Business Development function where he was responsible for developing and executing Oracle’s growth plan in India. Sudhir also worked in Sun Microsystems for 10+ years, where he held leadership roles for BFSI, ITS, and the Partner Sales organization.
Sudhir has a B.Tech in Electronics and Communications from REC, Warangal.
Nagendra Nath Sinha
Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development
Shri Nagendra Nath Sinha, is a 1987 batch IAS Officer of Jharkhand cadre and is currently serving as Secretary, Department of Rural Development, Government of India. Born on 29 July 1964, Shri Sinha holds a degree in Electrical Engineering and also Master of Health Science (Population & Family Health).
Prior to this, Shri Nagendra Nath Sinha was working as Additional Chief Secretary, Rural Development, Govt. of Jharkhand where he played a pivotal role in organizing rural poor, creating sustainable livelihood & employment opportunities & NRM based development.
He has served in the state of Jharkhand in major departments including PWD, Mines, Industry , IT among others. He has to his credit several landmark projects in Jharkhand including Mega Sports Complex & Games Village at Ranchi, Ranchi Ring Road, State Data Center. He has also been instrumental in development of several policies and documents viz. PWD Code 2012, public private partnership policy etc.
His major interests are in the fields of sustainable development, IT, Infrastructure, Health and Institution Building.
Sunil Kumar
Secretary, Ministry of Panchayati Raj
Sunil Kumar, is a 1987 batch IAS Officer of Uttar Pradesh Cadre and is currently serving as Secretary, Ministry of Panchayati Raj. Born on 15th October 1963, Mr Kumar holds a degree in Political Science and also Master in Sociology.
Prior to this, Mr Sunil Kumar was working as special secretary in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. He has served in the state of Uttar Pradesh in major departments including Information & Broadcasting, Planning & Prog Implementation, Finance, Rural Development among others. His major interests are in the fields of Agriculture, Rural Development and Information Technology.
Bhaskar Pramanik
Former Chairman, Microsoft India
Mr. Bhaskar Pramanik is an accomplished management leader and professional from the Technology Industry. He has held National and Global Leadership positions in leading Multinational Technology Companies. He has worked in India, Singapore, and the US.
He was on the Executive Committee of NASSCOM, the National Committee of CII and AMCHAM
He recently retired from the Board of SBI, India’s largest Bank. He retired as Chairman of Microsoft India in September 2017 after a successful 45 years career in the technology industry. Before this, he was the Managing Director of Oracle Corporation and Sun Microsystems in India. He was also the Global VP for Commercial Systems at Sun Microsystems Inc based out of Menlo Park, CA.
He is currently an Independent Board member and Advisor to companies. He advises startups and has also invested in a number of them. He is also on the Advisory Board of Schulich University, Toronto, Canada, and Bennet University, Noida, India. He speaks regularly at Industry and Leadership forums.
His major interests are in areas of Culture and Strategy; Leadership and Organization Excellence; Corporate Governance; Innovation and Transformation; and the future social and economic impact of Advanced Technologies.
Karuna Gopal
President, Foundation for Futuristic Cities
Ms Karuna Gopal is an internationally acclaimed Thought leader, Innovator and Advisor on Smart Cities. She is the Founder President of Foundation for Futuristic Cities, a think tank that has influenced Urban Transformation in India for over a decade.
Ms Gopal contributed to the design of the ‘100 Smart Cities Mission‘ of India and has been invited to speak at the launch of the Mission by the Prime Minister. Her innovation SCULPT your CITY -2009 has shaped the Mission guidelines and has been declared a National Best Practice.
Governments of Singapore, Sweden, UK, Philippines, UAE, Turkey, Israel and USA have invited her for inputs on Smart Governance.
In the past, she served as an Urban Expert for The WORLD BANK, DFID (Department for International Development, UK), USAID (United States Agency for International Development) & ADB (Asian Development Bank).
In 2015, Ms Gopal was senior advisor, Union Ministry for Housing and Urban Affairs on behalf of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She was also one of the urban experts to have carried out a mid-course evaluation of the National Mission Program ‘ Clean India – Swacch Bharat Abhiyan on behalf of Asian Development Bank (ADB).
Ajay Shah
Independent Scholar
Dr. Ajay Shah studied at IIT, Bombay and USC, Los Angeles. He has held positions at Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), Indira Gandhi Institute for Development Research (IGIDR), Department of Economic Affairs at the Ministry of Finance and National Institute for Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP). He does academic and policy-oriented research on India, at the intersection of economics, law and public administration. His second book, co-authored with Vijay Kelkar, is “In service of the republic: The art and science of economic policy”, and was published in 2019 by Penguin Allen Lane. His areas of focus are macroeconomics, finance, health, and technology policy.
Pradeep S Mehta
Secretary General, CUTS International
Mr. Pradeep S Mehta (72) is the founder Secretary General of the Jaipur-based Consumer Unity & Trust Society (CUTS International), a leading economic policy research, advocacy and networking, non-governmental group in India, with offices in Nairobi, Lusaka, Hanoi, Accra, Geneva and Washington DC. CUTS was established in 1983 and has completed 35 glorious years.
Currently he is a Member of the CII’s International Trade Policy Council. He has served as: Member of the Board of Trade; Better Regulatory Advisory Group; and Steering Committee on Ecomark; Think Tank on “Framework for a National Policy on E-commerce” of the Government of India. Among several advisory positions, he has been and/or is honorary Adviser to the Commerce and Industries Minister of India, Trade, Commerce & Industry Minister of Zambia and to the Director General of the WTO.
A prolific writer, gifted speaker, skilled trainer and organizer in the social science field, Mehta has been named as one of the 30 most famous columnists in India by a leading newspaper in India. He has published/edited several books and papers on trade, investment, competition and development.
Ashwani Mahajan
National Coordinator, Swadeshi Jagran Manch
Dr. Ashwani Mahajan is the National Co-Convener of Swadeshi Jagaran Manch (SJM), an Indian political and cultural organisation. SJM is affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Dr. Mahajan is an author and columnist. He is an Associate Professor at PGDAV College, Delhi and has also been the Chief Editor of the Journal of Contemporary Indian Polity and Economy since 2011. He is also a Visiting Professor and Research Guide at Pacific University, Udaipur and Mewar University. He works as a researcher and activist on the World Trade Organization (WTO) and other international trade agreements.
As National Co-Convener of Swadeshi Jagran Manch, he has been instrumental in advocating for the evolution of economic policies. His policy interventions include withdrawal of controversial ordinance on land acquisition, getting field trials of GM crops policy revisited, FDI policy of the government especially retail trade and e-commerce.
Mike Seiferling
MPA Programme Director, School of Public Policy, University College London (UCL)
Mike is MPA Programme Director and Assistant Professor of Public Finance at the School of Public Policy, University College London (UCL) with research focused on the links between macroeconomics, finance, accounting, and political science. Specifically, these include taxation, budgeting, fiscal performance, public sector accounting and accountability, balance sheet analysis, statistics, and technological innovations in the public sector (cryptocurrency and democratic/collective choice mechanisms).
For the past ten years, Mike has worked as an expert for several international organizations (currently a short-term expert at the IMF, World Bank and UN) and private sector firms to improve financial literacy, debt management, fiscal transparency, and compliance with international standards in central banks, ministries of finance and commercial banks in over sixty countries worldwide. Previously, Mike worked as an economist at the International Monetary Fund (2011-2015) and completed his PhD from the London School of Economics in 2012.
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