Rich India: Will India become a wealthy nation by 2047? In this session at The Hindu Litfest 2024, moderated by Raghuvir Srinivasan, economists Jayati Ghosh, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, and journalists N. Ravi and T.N. Ninan discuss the economic growth of India when the country celebrates its 100 years of Independence.
Jayati Ghosh is a noted economist, author and professor. She is currently a Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and has taught the subject at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, for nearly 35 years. She has authored and/or edited 20 books and more than 200 scholarly articles. She regularly writes for popular media, including newspapers, journals and blogs.
She has advised governments in India and other countries and consulted for various international organizations,. She has served as a member of several international boards and commissions, including the UN High-Level Advisory Board on Economic and Social Affairs, the WHO Council on the Economics of Health for All, and the UN Secretary General’s High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism. She is the recipient of several awards, including the International Labour Organisation’s Decent Work Research Prize for 2011; and the Galbraith Award of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, “in recognition of breakthrough discoveries in economics and outstanding contributions to humanity through leadership, research and service.”
Montek Singh Ahluwalia is a renowned economist and key figure in India’s economic reforms since the mid-1980s. He served in various key roles in the government during this transformative phase of India’s economy. From 1979 to 2001, he was the Economic Advisor in the Ministry of Finance, after which he held a series of positions in the government, including Special Secretary to Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, Commerce Secretary, Secretary in the Department of Economic Affairs, Finance Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, Member of the Planning Commission and Member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister.
In 2001, he was appointed as the first Director of the International Monetary Fund’s newly created Independent Evaluation Office. He resigned from the position after three years to return to India to become Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, a Cabinet-level position, in 2004. He held the position till May 2014. In 2011, he was awarded the prestigious Padma Vibhushan, India’s second highest civilian honour, by the President of India for his outstanding contribution to economic policy and public service. In 2019 he published Backstage: The Story of India’s high growth years.
N. Ravi is the Chairman of Kasturi & Sons Ltd, the holding company of The Hindu Group, and was earlier the Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu. He was Chairman of the Board of the Press Trust of India and the President of the Editors’ Guild of India. He is the Chairman of the India Chapter of the International Press Institute and has been a member of the Executive Board of the International Press Institute, Vienna. He is presently Chairman of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan’s Chennai Kendra. He was a member of the National Integration Council, Government of India, and from 2006 to 2008 of the National Security Advisory Board. He has a Master’s degree in Economics, and a degree in Law, and has won several academic awards including a gold medal in Constitutional and International Law. He was a Fellow at the Harvard Law School in 2000, and Shorenstein Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University in 2004. In 2013, he was a Visiting Fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, and St. Anthony’s College, Oxford University.
Sanjay Kaul is an author, development policy analyst, and former IAS officer. He worked in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) for 28 years and, thereafter, headed the National Commodity Management Services Limited (NCML) first as the MD and CEO between 2008-19 and then as the company’s Chairman, from 2019 till 2021.
He is a Member of the Karnataka Government’s Education Commission and Chairperson of the Government of India’s Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Task Force. He serves on the boards of several not-for-profit organisations including Mobile Creches, SEWA GRIH RIN Ltd., the World Food Programme Trust in India and the Karnataka Health Promotion Trust. His book, An Alternative Development Agenda for India, was recently published by Routledge.
T.N. Ninan is an eminent journalist. He is an award-winning editor, commentator, author and the board chairman of Business Standard Pvt Ltd. He has edited Business Standard, The Economic Times and Business World, leading transformational change and achieving rapid growth in all of them. He was also the executive editor at India Today in the 1980s. He serves as Chairman of the Independent and Public Spirited Media Foundation and is a past president of the Editors Guild of India.
Raghuvir Srinivasan is a chartered accountant and cost accountant with 30 years of experience in journalism, all of them in The Hindu Group. He is the Editor, businessline, and he is a founding member of the newspaper, having joined the team when it was launched in 1994 as a Research Analyst. Over the years, he has written several editorials on a wide range of economic issues, analytical articles and comment pieces in the editorial pages of businessline and The Hindu. He won the Thomas Jefferson Fellowship of the East-West Center, Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.A. in 2010. He is a Chevening Scholar and is a Fellow of the Foreign Press Center, Tokyo, Japan.
To find out more about the The Hindu Litfest 2024 visit: https://www.thehindu.com/litfest/
Watch the event live, click here.
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