India’s top think tanks
Education World, March 06,
2013
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In its latest annual survey of
the world’s top 6,603 think tanks, the University of
Pennsylvania has ranked the Delhi-based Centre for Civil
Society India’s No.1 in its Global Go-To Think Tank league
table headed by the Brookings Institution (USA), Chatham
House (UK), and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
(USA). K.V. Priya with Dilip Thakore
Even
as the year 2013 got off to a gloomy and despondent start
with the national debate on gender crimes and second class
status of women in Indian society generating considerable
anguish and anxiety following the vicious gangrape of a
23-year-old physiotherapy intern in a moving bus coursing
through busy streets of the national capital, the outcome of
a largely unnoticed global survey conducted by the
University of Pennsylvania has created a buzz within the
small minority of globally-connected intellectuals and the
social sciences research community.
In its latest (2012) annual survey of the world’s top 6,603
think tanks conducted under its Think Tanks and Civil
Societies Program (TTCSP), U Penn ranked the Delhi-based
Centre for Civil Society (estb. 1997) India’s No.1 (51
worldwide) in its Global Go-To Think Tank league table
headed by the Brookings Institution (USA), Chatham House
(UK), Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (USA),
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Sweden (4)
and Centre for Strategic and Int. Studies, USA (5). Among
the other Indian think tanks ranked in the survey are the
Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, Delhi (105),
Indian Council for Research on International Economic
Relations, Delhi (109), The Energy and Resources Institute,
Delhi (110), Observer Res-earch Foundation, Mumbai (115) and
Development Alternatives, Delhi (141).
Inevitably, U Penn’s sixth annual survey released on January
28, has been conducted with the thoroughness for which US
academia is globally reno-wned. Over 6,600 think tanks from
182 countries were invited to participate in the rankings
and were ranked in 38 categories by 1,950 experts and peer
institutions including 793 expert panel-ists, 55 current and
former directors of think tanks, 150 journalists and
scho-lars, 40 public and private donors, 150 civil society
representatives and 120 academic institutions worldwide. Of
the 6,603 think tanks invited for assessment and rankings,
171 were nominated for inclusion in the list of the global
150.
Unlike high profile American think tanks such as the
Brookings Institution, the Carnegie Endowment and other
well-funded institutes which attract highly respected
authors, professors and elder statesmen as scholars and
researchers and convene global conferences, the role and
value of think tanks which conduct policy-oriented research
and analyses and provide advice on domestic and
international issues to governments and policy formulators
to make informed decisions and build media and public
opinion, is largely unappreciated in India.
The role of think tanks in society is elaborated by James G.
McGann, assistant director of the international relations
program and director of TTCSP at U Penn. “The world we live
in can be characterised by what has been described as the
‘four mores’: more issues, more actors, more competition,
and more conflict. Over the past 10-15 years, governments
and civil society groups have become reliant on think tanks
for ideas and advice. Today policymakers and civil society
throu-ghout the developed and developing world face the
common problem of bringing expert knowledge to bear on
government decision-making. The chall-enge is to harness the
vast reservoir of knowledge, information and associat-ional
energy that exists in public policy research organisations
in every region of the world for the public good,” says
McGann.
Against this backdrop of the expand-ing role of think tanks
in shaping legislation and public policy, it’s hardly
surprising that Dr. Parth J. Shah, an alumnus of Maharajah
Sayajirao, Baroda and Auburn (USA) universities and former
professor of economics at Michigan University who returned
to India to promote the Centre for Civil Society (CCS) in
1997, is pleased that U Penn’s survey has ranked CCS the
country’s premier think tank. “Think tanks are playing an
increasingly impo-rtant role in all societies by regularly
publishing well-researched and reasoned position papers on
complex issues impacting the public and society, and by
offering independent advice to govern-ments. Therefore I’m
delighted that CCS’ high quality multi-sectoral,
multi-disciplinary research studies sugges-ting policy
initiatives for reforms in education, livelihoods,
governance and rule of law have been acknowledged by the U
Penn study. However this delight has been tempered by the
awareness that although we are ranked first in India, our
global ranking is 51,’’ says Shah.
Nevertheless it’s an entirely socially beneficial
development that the idea of promoting, nurturing and
developing specialist think tanks has struck root in India.
According to the U Penn survey, currently India hosts 292
think tanks — the third largest number after the US (1,832)
and China (425). And new think tanks with specialised
agendas are springing up regularly. Among them, the
Delhi-based Indian Institute of Dalit Studies (estb. 2001)
has contributed significantly to shaping the affirmative
action policies of the Central and state governments. More
recently, early this year the Indian Software Product
Industry Round Table, or iSprit, a think tank promoted with
the objective of providing policy prescriptions to
government to expand and nurture the high potential IT and
ITES (information technology and information technologies
enabled services) sectors in coordination with industry
representative organisations including NASS-COM (National
Association of Software Services Companies), went on stream.
That new think tanks have sprung up countrywide is a welcome
albeit surp-rising development because govern-ment,
corporate and philanthropic grants and research funding tend
to be grudging. Whereas the endowment/assets of the
Brookings Institution aggregates a handsome $437 million
(Rs.2,360 crore), and revenue in 2012 aggregated $132
million (Rs.713 crore), CCS hasn’t been able to build a
corpus and raises funds from year-to-year. In 2012-13, the
society which employs 30 research and advocacy
professionals, raised Rs.2 crore with the Dorabji Tata Trust
and Templeton and Atlas Foundations being the main donors.
“Successful fundraising is a major problem, particularly
since as a matter of policy we diversify our funding sources
to avoid dependence on single or dual source funding to
preserve our independence. Moreover apart from research we
also spend money on advocacy, i.e. educating the public
including MPs, on matters of public interest and
legislation,’’ says Parth Shah.
Dr. Samar Verma, senior programme officer of the
International Development Research Centre, Delhi — a
Canadian government initiative which supports 16 think tanks
in South Asia (including nine in India) — confirms that
funding and government support for policy research
institutes is minimal. According to him, the Union
government’s allocation for policy research institutes
aggregates a mere 8 percent of the national science and
technology research budget, and is steadily declining.
“Policy research is at the heart of realising Nehru’s vision
of devel-oping a scientific temper, and think tanks are its
key drivers. Funding is abysmally low, and declining. This
needs to be reversed and funding increased multi-fold,’’ he
advises.
Sources within the Indian Council for Social Science
Research (ICSSR), the premier government agency promoting
social science research, confirm that the council’s meagre
annual budget actually declined by 7 percent during the
period 2005-10. Currently, Indian industry and government
together spend the equi-valent of a mere 0.9 percent of GDP
on R&D as against the US (2.7 percent), China (1.87
percent), Japan (3.67 percent) and South Korea (3.74
percent). It should also be borne in mind that the GDP of
America and China is three fold and twice larger than of
India. More-over according to Unesco’s World Social Science
Report 2010, during the period 1995-2007, India’s output in
terms of social science research papers was significantly
lower than of China and Brazil.
Likewise India Inc’s enthusiasm for funding research and
development — especially policy research — has always been
lukewarm. With the exception of the Tata Group and Mukesh
Ambani who promoted the Observer Research Foundation in
1990, and venture capitalist turned social entrepreneur
Ashish Dhawan, few leaders of industry have shown interest
in funding think tanks. In 2009 telecom czar Sunil Mittal
preferred to endow the Indian School of Business and the
US-based Carnegie Endowment rather than any think tank in
India. Consequently, Indian think tanks are heavily reliant
for project funding on western voluntary organisations and
progressive found-ations such as the Ford Foundation, the
Canada-based IDRC, private trusts constituted by American
philanthropists such as Bill Gates, and multilateral
financial institutions like the World Bank, the Asian
Development Bank, Rockefeller, McCarthy and Sasakawa
foundations.
Ashish Dhawan, former CEO of ChrysCapital, India’s largest
($2.5 billion) and arguably most successful venture capital
fund and promoter of the Central Square Foundation, a
philanthropy fund established to finance “exceptional social
entrepreneurs with powerful ideas” (with a reported initial
endowment of Rs.50 crore), believes that in its own interest
India Inc. should be more supportive of India’s under-funded
think tanks. “For the country to progress, we need fresh
ideas and a culture of making policy decisions based on
evidence. Think tanks play a valuable role in conducting
independent research studies which can — and should — be
used to enrich public debates and policy formulation.
Industry leaders and philanthropists would allocate
philanth-ropic resources more optimally by donating 10-20
percent to think tanks of their choice and the rest for
direct projects,” advises Dhawan.
Even though India’s best think tanks are minuscule by
foreign — especially US — standards, the fact that they have
survived and multiplied and attract high quality faculty and
research scholars, indicates that there’s growing
apprec-iation of the valuable role they play in shaping
public opinion and aiding policy formulation processes. That
the ground has been prepared by India’s pioneer think tanks
is indicated by a January 29 announcement that the US-based
Brookings Institution which has topped U Penn’s Global Go-To
Think Tank league table for the past four years, is set to
establish a policy research centre in Delhi this year headed
by Cambridge-educated Vikram Mehta, hitherto chairman of the
Shell Group of petroleum companies. “Brookings India will
utilise Brookings’ time-tested meth-ods as the world’s
leading think tank while providing an Indian perspective in
the policy debate,” says Mehta.
In the pages following, we offer snapshot profiles of
India’s Top 10 think tanks engaged in valuable research on
issues of national importance which need support and
involvement with industry and the public.
Centre for Civil Society
Promoted in 1997 by Dr. Parth J. Shah, an alumnus of MS
University, Baroda and Auburn University, USA, and former
professor of economics at Michigan University, the Centre
for Civil Society, Delhi describes itself as “an
independent, non-profit, research and educational
organisation devoted to improving the quality of life for
all citizens of India by reviving and reinvigorating civil
society’’.
“Civil society is an evolving network of associations and
institutions of family and community, of production and
trade, and of piety and compassion. Individuals enter into
these relationships as much by consent, as by obligation,
but never under coercion. Civil society is premised on
individual freedom and responsibility, and on limited and
accountable government. It protects the individual from the
intrusive state and connects the individual to the larger
social and economic order,’’ says Shah, explaining the name
chosen for this social sciences research and advocacy
organisation, which has been ranked India’s top think tank
for the fourth year in a row in the University of
Pennsy-lvania’s Global Go-To Think Tank Rankings. In U
Penn’s latest (2012) league table of 171 think tanks
published on January 28, CCS is ranked 51 and is the only
Indian one in the list of the top 100.
Focus areas.
A quintessentially liberal ideology-driven organisation,
CCS’ research, advocacy and outreach programmes driven by
the “dream of a free society”, focus on education for all,
law, liberty and livelihood, good governance and
communities, markets and environment. The CCS board includes
17 liberal ideologues and economists including Jagdish
Bhagwati, Lord Meghnad Desai, Gurcharan Das, Swaminathan
Aiyar and social entre-preneur Ashish Dhawan.
“The distinguishing feature of CCS is that we are not a mere
research and publishing institute but an advocacy
organisation, which takes positions on public policy issues
and educates the public and policy formulators, rather than
merely holding closed door meetings with ministers and
officials,’’ says Shah.
Centre for Policy Research
Domestically India’s most well-known think tank with a
formidable faculty and high media profile, the Centre for
Policy Research (CPR), Delhi is conspicuously absent
from the University of Pennsylvania’s Global Go-To Think
Tank league table compiled under its Think Tanks and Civil
Societies Program (TTCSP) 2012. Established in 1973, CPR is
an independent and non-partisan research institute promoted
to “provide thought leadership and creative solutions to
address pressing intellectual and policy issues”. It is one
of the 27 national social science research institutes
recognised by the Indian Council of Social Science Research
(ICSSR), from which it receives a modest annual grant (Rs.53
lakh in 2011-12). According to Dr. James McGann, director of
U Penn’s TTCSP, although CPR was ranked in their previous
league tables, the centre “didn’t participate in the 2012
Global Go-To Think Tank peer nomination and ranking process
despite our attempts to reach them”.
Focus areas.
Nevertheless within India’s academic and intellectual
fraternities, CPR, which has a corpus fund of Rs.7.20 crore
and incurred a total expenditure of Rs.11.91 crore (receipts
Rs.15 crore) in fiscal 2011-12 is highly respected for its
excellent faculty and researchers, and great influence
within government, academia and the media. The centre’s main
focus areas are economic policy analysis, environmental law
and governance, law, regulation and the state, urbanisation
and international relations and security.
CPR’s high-profile three dozen-strong faculty includes
economist Bibek Debroy, defence strategists Brahma Chellaney
and Bharat Karnad, environ-mentalist Navroz K. Dubash and
former foreign secretary G. Parthasarathy, among other
stellar intellectuals. The president and chief executive of
CPR is Dr. Pratap Bhanu Mehta, an alumnus of Oxford and
Princeton universities and former visiting professor of
government at Harvard University, and also former professor
of philosophy, law and governance at Jawaharlal Nehru
University. The author of several scholarly tomes including
Liberalism, Nation and Empire: The Case of J.S. Mill; The
Oxford Companion to Politics in India; Public Institutions
in India: Perfor-mance and Design and The Burden of
Democracy, Mehta is also a prolific columnist and awardee of
the Infosys Prize 2011 for social sciences — political
science and international relations.
“It’s awkward to judge one’s own institution. But I will
state that we have an excellent faculty which is doing
exciting work in the areas of inter-national relations,
environment, urbanisation and law. But we are aware that CPR
needs to be scaled up and estab-lish a greater international
presence,’’ says Mehta.
IDSA, Delhi
Established in 1965 after the second Indo-Pak war of that
year, the Delhi-based Institute for Defence Studies and
Analyses (IDSA) describes itself as “a non-partisan,
autonomous body dedicated to objective research and policy
relevant studies on all aspects of defence and security. Its
mission is to promote national and international security
through the generation and dissemination of know-ledge on
defence and security-related issues”. The faculty and
members of the institute pride themselves for having “played
a crucial role in shaping India’s foreign and security
policies, including with respect to nuclear weapons,
military expenditure, and conventional and non-conventional
threats to India”.
Focus areas.
Wholly funded by the Central government with an annual
budget of Rs.10-11 crore, IDSA has a well-qualified
multi-disciplinary research faculty drawn from academia, the
defence and civil services. Although the institute is fully
funded by the Union government, and its executive council
chaired by the Union defence minister ex-officio, it also
shapes public opinion on defence and security matters of
national importance through IDSA’s journals, monographs,
briefs, and books through which it provides analyses and
policy recommendations. In addition, the institute’s faculty
and experts are encouraged to write op-ed columns and essays
in the media, give interviews and participate in public and
media debates.
Credit for the nurturance and development of IDSA into a
globally respected defence and security strategies think
tank is unanimously given to the late K. Subrahmanyam
(1929-2011) who served as the high-profile second director
of the institute for nine years from 1966-75. Although he
moved on to other senior assign-ments in the Central
government after the end of his term in IDSA, Subrahmanyam
remained an influential member of the executive council and
played a major role in shaping India’s nuclear deterrent
policy, including its ‘no first use’ declaration. Moreover,
he was a major advocate of the Indo-US civilian nuclear
accord of 2007.
“Although we are government-fund-ed, IDSA is an autonomous
institute which not only studies and researches government
proposed subjects, but also independently commissions
studies and disseminates our views on matters of national
security and defence for public information and debate. We
also believe it is our role to publish papers by scholars
who are constructively critical of government policy,” says
Brig. (Retd) Rumel Dahiya, deputy director-general of IDSA.
The incumbent director of IDSA is Arvind Gupta, IFS, a
ministry of external affairs bureaucrat on deputation to
IDSA, who also held the Lal Bahadur Shastri Chair on
National Security at IDSA (2008-11) before being appointed
director of the institute in January last year.
ICRIER, Delhi
Indian Council for Research on International Economic
Relations
(ICRIER, estb. 1981) is a policy-oriented, not-for-profit,
economic policy think tank. ICRIER’s main objective is to
enhance the knowledge content of policy-making by
undertaking analytical research targeted at informing
India’s policy makers, and also at improving the country’s
interface with the global economy. Promoted by the late
distin-guished civil servant K.B. Lall (1917-2005), by
propagating the virtues of free trade internationally, this
Delhi-based think tank played a major role in preparing the
ground for economic liberalisation and deregulation of the
Indian economy in 1991.
Focus areas.
With over 80 personnel including 60 research professionals
and an annual budget of Rs.12 crore, the institute’s focus
areas are macro-economic management in an open economy;
trade openness, financial sector liberalisation and
regulation; WTO-related issues; regional economic
cooperation in South Asia; and climate change. The institute
derives its income by way of sponsored research assign-ments
from the Union ministries of finance, commerce, urban
development, external affairs, industry representative
organisations and multilateral aid agencies.
The chairperson of ICRIER is well-known economist Dr. Isher
Judge Ahluwalia and the board of governors includes Dr.
Vijay Kelkar, Chanda Kochhar, Uday S. Kotak, and Anand
Mahindra, with Dr. Shankar Acharya and Nitin Desai serving
as honorary professors.
“All of the research we do is in the public domain and can
be utilised by all, including Union and state governments
for policy formulation. However, some of our research is
sponsored by the government and directly feeds into
policy-making. Generally, we provide analyses on crucial
issues relating to the impact of global economic trends on
India, the impact of fiscal consolidation, and impact of
economic changes in the US and Europe on India. These
research studies ultimately shape policies of the Union
government,’’ says Dr. Rajat Kathuria, former professor of
economics at the University of Maryland (USA) and the
International Management Institute, Delhi who was appointed
director of ICRIER in September 2012.
CSDS, Delhi
A pioneer think tank of India promoted in 1964 by Prof.
Rajni Kothari, one of India’s top political scientists in
his time, the Delhi-based Centre for the Study of
Developing Societies (CSDS) is a highly respected
institute for study of social sciences and the humanities.
It prides itself on providing “a unique institutional space
which seeks to nurture intellectual interests outside the
entrenched boun-daries of academic disciplines… to support
and nurture interdisciplinary modes of enquiry”. Moreover,
as implicit in its nomenclature, ab initio the centre, which
is fully funded by ICSSR (Indian Council for Social Sciences
Research), has encouraged exchanges with scholars in third
world countries and South Asia in particular.
Focus areas.
Over the past 48 years since it was founded, CSDS has
developed research and study expertise across a broad
spectrum of activities. Among them: empirical political
studies; social and political theory; media and modernity;
anthropology, cultural history and psychology of modern
forms of power and violence; alternative futures, critical
debates on modernity and secularism; urban history; old and
new media history; globalisation and contemporary lives; law
and legal practices; gender studies; and the Indian language
programme in translation.
Current on-going study and research programmes at CSDS
include the Lokniti Programme for Comparative Democracy; the
Sarai Programme: Media, City, Public Domain; the Institute
for Chinese Studies; the Programme in Social and Political
Theory and the Indian Language Programme.
To study and research this broad spectrum of programmes, the
centre has attracted a faculty of highly articulate and
respected intellectuals including sociologist/psychologist
Ashis Nandy; feminist author and journalist Madhu Kishwar,
and psephologist and social scientist Yogendra Yadav, among
others. “We contest the popular belief that the function of
think tanks is to merely produce information, studies and
reports for the government and public to make the best of
them. We classify ourselves as a research institution with
public relevance, and as such we regard it our duty to shape
and influence public debate on matters of national interest,
and to enrich the quality of public discourse by bringing in
more voices, especially voices of the traditionally
excluded,” says Dr. Rajeev Bhargava, an economics alumnus of
Delhi University with a doctorate from Oxford, former head
of the faculty of political science at Delhi University and
currently director of CSDS. Also author of eight books on
the social and political sciences, Bhargava’s latest titles
are Political Theory: An Introduction and Why do we Need
Political Theory? (2010) and The Promise of India’s Secular
Democracy (2010).
Observer Research Foundation
The timing of the establishment of the Observer Research
Foundation (September 5, 1990), founded by the Ambani
family, promoters of Reliance Industries Ltd, India’s
largest private sector company (revenue: Rs.339,792 crore in
2011-12), to aid India’s transition from “a protected
economy to a new engagement with the international economic
order” after the collapse of communism and the Soviet Union,
suggests that this resources-rich think-tank played a major
and hitherto unknown role in India’s historic economic
liberalisation and deregulation policy about-turn of July
1991. Quite obviously the policy papers and detailed
documents which underpinned the watershed liberalisation
initiative had to be researched and prepared and according
to usually reliable sources, ORF made a valuable
contribution in enabling this momentous about-turn which
transformed the Indian economy into one of the fastest
growing world-wide during the next two decades.
Since then, ORF which was promoted by veteran journalist R.K.
Mishra (1932-2009) after he failed to turnaround the Sunday
Observer and the Business and Political Observer — an
economic daily for Reliance Industries — has won encomiums
from academics and industry for successfully undertaking
challen-ging social research and economic development
projects. The foundation’s number of employees, including
87-strong faculty has risen to 102 (72 in Delhi and 30
spread over its three centres in Mumbai, Chennai and
Kolkata) with its publications including books, occasional
and seminar papers aggregating 88 over the past two years.
ORF’s annual expenditure for the foundation’s activities
aggregated Rs.12 crore last year and is expected to cross
Rs.16 crore this fiscal.
Focus areas.
ORF’s stated objectives are to aid the formulation of
government policies and evolve alternatives; stren-gthen
India’s democratic institutions to enable coherent, reasoned
and consistent policy formulation; provide reasoned inputs
representing a broad section of opinion to improve govern-ance,
accelerate economic development and deliver a better quality
of life for all Indian citizens, and provide direction to
India’s long-term foreign policy objectives.
To attain these objectives the foundation has recruited an
array of impressive faculty and researchers including
defence strategist Dr. C. Raja Mohan; economic and financial
analyst Mohan Guruswamy; international relations and
intelligence expert Vikram Sood; defence studies strategist
Gen. (Retd) Nirbhay Sharma; aerospace expert Dr. Vivek Lall
and physicist Dr. Rajan Gupta, among others. “As a serious
and purposive think tank we believe it is our duty to
encourage articulation of numerous points of view and open
up the discursive space. In the ORF faculty we include
scholars from across the ideological spectrum and encourage
them to discuss and debate national development issues and
government policies. That’s how the foundation played an
important role in building a national consensus over the
historic economic liberalisation and deregulation policy
initiative of 1991. As a foundation promoted by an
experienced and successful corporation, we believe we can
infuse valuable pragmatism into policy formulation debates,”
says Sunjoy Joshi, director of ORF. An alumnus of Allahabad
and East Anglia (UK) universities who served the Union
government as an IAS officer in various capacities for over
25 years, Joshi quit the civil service after he was
appointed director of the foundation in 2007.
CUTS-International
The
Jaipur-based Consumer Unity & Trust Society (aka
CUTS-International) traces its origins to a monthly wall
newspaper Gram Gadar (‘village revolution) which began
circulation in 1983, to apprise rural citizens in the
north-western state of Rajasthan (pop. 68 million) about
various schemes of the Central and state governments
promoted for their welfare and upliftment. Currently Gram
Gadar is being displayed in 27,000 villages countrywide.
However, in the mid-1980s following the prom-ulgation of the
United Nations Guidelines for Consumer Protection, 1985 and
enactment of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 in India, the
trust became a pioneer champion of consumer rights, active
in resolving individual consumer griev-ances by way of
filing class action suits and PILs (public interest
litigation) in the courts. In 1991, CUTS became a member of
the International Organis-ations of Consumer Unions (later
renamed Consumers International) to make common cause with
the global movement for consumer rights.
Focus areas.
Driven by the vision statement, “consumer sovereignty in the
framework of social justice and equality within and across
borders”, the institutional focus of CUTS-International is
consumer protection; international trade and development;
competition, investment and economic regulation; human
development and consumer safety. The society which has a
headcount of 140 employees and an assets base of Rs.3.42
crore and spent Rs.11.75 crore on its activities in 2011-12,
is actively involved with the framing of a national
competition policy, and recently submitted a policy draft
and strategy to the National Competition Policy (NCP) panel
headed by Dhanendra Kumar which is finalising the policy
document.
“The NCP will trigger a second wave of reforms once it
becomes law. The good news is that there is an all-party
consensus in favour of this policy,’’ says Pradeep S. Mehta,
a relent-less consumer rights champion and founder
secretary-general of CUTS-International, which he has
nurtured into a formidable policy development and advocacy
institution for consumer rights.
Indian Institute of Dalit Studies
The social immobility and still pathetic condition of the
vast majority of the country’s scheduled castes and
scheduled tribes (Dalits), who constitute 25 percent of the
population, prompted human rights activist Martin Macwan,
the Nadiad (Gujarat)-born founder-director of the
Ahmedabad-based Navsarjan Trust and Dalit Shakti Kendra, and
Dr. Sukhadeo Thorat, professor of economics at Jawaharlal
Nehru University, Delhi and former chairman of the
University Grants Commission, to promote the Delhi-based
Indian Institute of Dalit Studies (IIDS) in 2003.
Focus areas.
The primary focus of IIDS is research and generation of
information on issues of social exclusion and caste, gender
and religious discrimination. More specifically, the
institute which has a faculty of 14 research scholars and a
stellar visiting faculty from reputed academic institutions
and universities in the US, UK, Ireland, Bangladesh and
Nepal, is focused upon undertaking and commissioning
research on theoretical concepts of social exclusion and
discri-mination in social, cultural, political and economic
spheres; empirical research on measuring the forms,
magnitude and nature of discrimination in social, cultural,
political, economic and other spheres; and enabling the
development of policies for social inclusion and empowerment
of socially excluded groups in various areas. To this end,
the institute has published an impressive number of books
and working papers and convenes seminars and workshops
across the country.
“Over the past ten years since IIDS was founded, we have
researched discrimination in the employment market, access
to capital markets, and non-market institutions and schemes
such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment
Guarantee progra-mme, primary health centres and the
national mid-day meals programme for primary children. All
our research studies include policy prescriptions and are
policy advocacy documents and studies,” says Dr. Thorat,
currently chairman of the Indian Council of Social Sciences
Research, author of over a dozen books, and an expert on
caste politics, social discrimination and exclusion.
RIS, Delhi
Established in 1983 following the summit of the Non-Aligned
Movement of 137 nations which was convened in New Delhi, the
Research and Information System for Developing Countries
(RIS) is a New Delhi-based think tank promoted by the
Union ministry of external affairs.
Focus areas.
Currently the prime activity of RIS is to promote
South-South Cooperation and assist developing countries in
multilateral negotiations in the WTO (World Trade
Organisation) and other international forums. More-over, the
think tank provides the external affairs ministry with
research and policy formulation support for Track II
negotiations with India’s neighbour nations, especially
Pakistan. However over the years its focus has shifted to
providing analytical support to the Union government in
negotiations for concluding comprehensive economic
cooperation agreements with partner countries.
Over the past three decades since it was established by
Indian diplomat G. Parthasarathy (1912-95) and economist Dr.
Sukhamay Chakravarty (1934-90) with the support of prime
minister Indira Gandhi, RIS has been actively engaged in
international trade diplomacy and negotiations.
“When the institute was first established, economic
diplomacy was a nascent issue. But through the 1980s and
particularly after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and
end of the Cold War, RIS has become actively engaged with
trade and economic diplomacy and negotiations issues.
Therefore, altho-ugh we are funded by the ministry of
external affairs, we have a greater engagement with the
Union commerce ministry,” says Dr. Biswajit Dhar,
director-general of the organisation.
The former head of the Centre for WTO Studies at the Indian
Institute of Foreign Trade, Dhar has been involved with
India’s economic diplomacy and trade negotiations for almost
two decades and is highly respected in India and abroad for
his knowledge of international trade and development,
international finance, intellectual pro-perty rights,
agriculture, technical standards and food safety regulations
apart from environment issues.
Moreover RIS’ heavyweight gover-ning council chaired by
former foreign secretary Shyam Saran comprises the
secretaries (ex officio) of the ministries of external
affairs, commerce, finance and department of science and
technology, as also Prof. B.B. Bhattacharya, former vice
chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi.
CBGA, Delhi
Originally promoted as a wing of the Pune-based National
Centre for Advocacy Studies in 2002, three years later the
Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability was
spun off and registered as an independent Delhi-based
not-for-profit think tank to promote transparency,
participatory and accountable governance, and people-centred
perspectives in policies shaping government budgets.
Focus areas.
The specific objectives of CBGA are to assess the priorities
underlying government budgets and their implications for
underprivileged sections of the population; demystifying the
discourse on budgets and governance and facilitating public
understanding of these issues; encouraging people’s
participation in the discourse and processes relating to
budgets and governance; enhancing the capacity of social
action groups for using budget data in efforts pertaining to
governance accountability; advocating pro-poor and
pro-marginalised perspectives in budgetary policies, and
strengthening the advocacy efforts of civil society for
transparent, accountable and pro-people governance.
In particular this low-profile think tank provides useful
and valuable analyses of the annual Union Budget which is a
bewildering statement of government revenue and expenditure,
as well as a policy document and statement of intent. For
instance, “a reasonably comprehensive” analysis of the Union
Budget is quickly published by the centre. The draft version
of Response to Union Budget is brought out within 24 hours
of presentation of the Union Budget in Parliament.
CBGA is governed by a board of directors headed by Dr.
Shantha Sinha, chairperson, National Commission for
Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) and 2003 Mag-saysay award
winner. Its members are drawn from civil society and
acad-emia and include Dr. Jayati Ghosh, professor, Centre
for Economic Studies and Planning, JNU; Fr. Manu Alphonse,
founder, Social Watch Tamil Nadu; Amitabh Behar, executive
director, National Foundation for India, among others.
The centre is served by a core faculty of 21 research
scholars and writers and its budget (Rs.3 crore in 2011-12)
is funded by the Ford Foundation, the Canadian development
agency IDRC, Christian Aid, Oxfam and Shakti Foundation, the
Indian affiliate of the Climate Foundation, The Hague. “Our
prime objective is to demystify government finances and
assess and analyse the budgets of the Union and state
governments from the perspective of their impact upon the
marginalised, oppressed and excluded groups within Indian
society. Through our numerous in-house publications and
interactions with the media, we have been fairly successful
in demystifying government finances and promoting the cause
of neglected sections of Indian society,” says Subrat Das,
an economics alum of Jawaharlal Nehru University and
research scholar at CBGA since 2002, who was appointed
executive director of the centre in 2010.
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