Asia and the Changing Global Economy
Webinar Link
Meeting No: 2518 169 2997
password: economy
Abstract
With the global economy experiencing an uneven recovery from the pandemic, what are the complexities of the policy tradeoffs ahead? What are the drivers of sharp divergences across different countries’ economic prospects? In contrast to the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis, why are emerging markets not leading the post-pandemic recovery? Will Asia be able to rebuild its growth potential in a post pandemic world, especially India and China? In doing so, how will Asia address the weaknesses in growth and productivity fundamentals that became apparent before the pandemic? Are there lessons to be learned from this experience, as well as from previous crises, and their relevance to countries now facing financial and debt-driven crises in the emerging post-pandemic landscape?
About the Speakers
Arvind Virmani
Arvind Virmani is Chairman of the Foundation for Economic Growth and Welfare (EGROW) and President of the Forum For Strategic Initiatives (FSI, Delhi). He has been a Mentor (economic policy) to FICCI & a member of RBI Technical Advisory Committee on Monetary policy He was earlier Executive Director, IMF and Chief Economic Advisor, Ministry of Finance and Principal Advisor, Planning Commission. During his tenure he advised on a host of economic policy reforms, through 100s of policy papers, notes and committees. He has served as Member, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and as Director & Chief executive of the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER). He has published 35 journal articles and 20 book chapters and written over 50 other working papers in the areas of Macroeconomics, growth and finance, tax reform, International trade & Tariffs, International relations, and national security strategy.
Anoop Singh
Anoop Singh has been Member, 15th Finance Commission of India, in the rank of Union Minister of State. The Finance Commission is a constitutional body that recommended tax sharing and grant transfers between the Union and the States for the period 2021-2026.
He is Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP, the Brookings India successor) in New Delhi, and has recently been adjunct Professor at Georgetown University,Washington DC.
Before that, at the International Monetary Fund, he was Director of the Asia and Pacific Department, Director of the Western Hemisphere Department, and Director of Special Operations.
His additional work experience includes being Special Advisor to the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. He has also been Managing Director and Head of Regulatory Affairs, Asia Pacific, for JP Morgan. Mr. Singh holds degrees from the universities of Bombay, Cambridge, and the London School of Economics.
Dr. Aruna Sharma
Dr. Aruna Sharma an Indian Administrative Officer of 1982 batch Madhya Pradesh Cadre retired after her work in Steel and Information Technology in government of India. She has always focused to have holistic approach and establish system in all her postings for ensuring sustainable quality outcomes. She has two books reaching the Last Beneficiary: Resource Convergence Mantra Model (2008) and Impact of Recourse Convergence in Policy Making, Program Design and Execution (2014) released by UNDP. FAO has also published her work on food security. Her latest work is the book U@Game Changer for Inclusive Growth for public representatives.
At State and Center she has visualized, worked and implemented successful software’s like SAMAGRA ( a household wise common data base) used by all the individual and family benefit schemes, now implemented in 8 states, Panch Parmeshwar has made entire working of Panchayat, Block and district for all works executed cash less. This graduated to Priya Soft. The soft ware is real time data of all the receipts and expenditure by the Panchayat irrespective of source of funding. Besides; all receipts and payments are cashless. It generates all the statutory 8 reports required by CAG in auto mode. The Panchayat only has to enter the project estimates, cash book and upload bills and photographs of status of work. It is on line on web and any Panchayat can be viewed and monitored. The financial inclusion model involving all kinds of financial institutions to ensure access in 5km radius was developed along with popularizing RuPay card. Besides, envisaged and by coordination developed to have common National Scholarship portal and GeM portal for procurement to list few.
She was Secretary Information Technology and later Secretary Steel in government of India. She was instrumental to bring in holistic approach has visualized and drafted the National Steel Policy and also clear policy on preference to local manufacture that has enabled complete revival of sector. The amendment to GFR rules by adding the life cycle cost has been the game changer. She was also Director General Doordarshan where she gave world class coverage to Common Wealth Games 2010 and that sent bench mark. Doordarshan channels went up in TRP and revenue generation in her tenure. Her focus of work is also in area of Water Security and enhancing local jobs. She is in 5 member High Level RBI committee on Deepening of Digital Payments constituted by Reserve Bank of India- a report that had immediate execution.
Access to preventive health care has been the focus when she worked as Secretary Health and Family Welfare. The focus has been on holistic care in terms of drinking water, sanitation, preventive hygiene and vaccination and access to inpatient. She has been member of National Knowledge Commission on health care and education. Her doctoral work is on psycho-barriers in access to public health care.
She is Fellow with University of Bath in UK, and working on accelerating the success and sustainability of SDGs by resorting to common household data base. She is alumni of Harvard Kennedy School. Her forte is development, core sectors and environment issues. She regularly writes for Financial Express, Economic Times and CNBC 18 .
She is independent director with MFin, Welspun Infra and Jindal Steel and Power Ltd, besides lot of pro bono work in field of development, core sector and environment.
Prof. Ramesh G
Professor G Ramesh retired recently from IIMB Bangalore as Professor at the Center for Public Policy. He is a Fellow of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (1990) with specialization in Finance and Accounts. He was Member of the Indian Economic Service (1980) for a brief period.
His research interests are in the areas of Public Policy, Governance, and Public System Reform; with domain interests in Urban Infrastructure, Technology, and Banking. He has offered several mid-career
training programmes for senior civil servants of Government of India from various services such as IAS, IRS, IFS, etc. He has also been Member in various Committees of Central and State Governments.
He has published books and has several publications to his credit. He likes mentoring technology startups and is currently writing a book on entrepreneurship. He is editor of a digital magazine, indiachapter.in and is active in social media.