Archives: Event

The 16th 5-Institute Budget Seminar 2022

Unpacking the Union Budget 2022-23

The heads of the five Institutes, the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), the India Development Foundation (IDF), the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), and the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP),  came together again, as they have been doing since March 2007, to discuss and present a reform and development perspective on the 2022-23 Union Budget.

Background note: All eyes are on the Union Budget 2022-23, to be presented in Parliament on February 1, 2022, by the Union Minister of Finance, Ms. Nirmala Sitharaman. This Budget comes against the backdrop of the third COVID-19 wave fuelled by the Omicron variant, and is scheduled for release a few weeks before Assembly Elections in some key States of the country. Can the Budget help revive India’s economy, bolster consumption and investments, and put the country on an equitable growth path?

The webinar hosted presentations by Yamini Aiyar from CPR, Deepak Mishra from ICRIER, Nishant Chadha from IDF, Poonam Gupta from NCAER, and Pinaki Chakraborty from NIPFP for this landmark 16th Five-Institute Budget Seminar. Mythili Bhusnurmath, Consulting Editor, The Economic Times and Senior Adviser, NCAER, moderated this Seminar, which is organised in rotation by each of the five collaborating institutions:  this 16th Seminar was organised by CPR.


Yamini
Aiyar
CPR
Deepak
Mishra
ICRIER
Nishant
Chadha
IDF
Poonam
Gupta
NCAER
Pinaki
Chakraborty
NIPFP
Moderator
Mythili Bhusnurmath
The Economic Times and NCAER

NCAER Webinar on Issues facing small investors and what can they hope for from Budget 22-23

A webinar on Issues facing small investors and what can they hope for from Budget 2022-23 was be held virtually on Friday, January 21, 2022 with Mr Nilesh Shah, Managing Director, Kotak Mahindra Asset Management Co. Ltd and Mr N S Venkatesh, Chief Executive, Association of Mutual Funds in India. The discussion was moderated by Ms Mythili Bhusnurmath, Senior Adviser, NCAER. The webinar is part of the Investor Education and Protection Fund (IEPF) monthly webinar series. NCAER established the IEPF Chair Unit in 2020, with funding from the Investor Education and Protection Fund Authority, Ministry of Corporate Affairs. NCAER’s IEPF Chair Unit conducts research on contemporary issues related to investor education and protection, and an analysis of related economic, legal and regulatory issues. More information on NCAER’s IEPF Chair Unit is available here.

With the Union Budget 2022-23 fast approaching, wish-lists from stakeholders have started pouring in. India’s small investors are important stakeholders, who have contributed towards a baffling growth story of the stock market, despite the pandemic’s adverse impact on the economy. Although some experts are wary of this bull run, retail investors may want to stay put expecting greater returns from the market. However, some of the moot questions are: What are the challenges small investors are facing? And what are their expectations from the government? Hence, the importance of the Union Budget, wherein Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman could announce policy decisions that may impact small investors. The discussions in this webinar delved around some of these questions.

Nilesh Shah is Managing Director, Kotak Mahindra Asset Management Co. Ltd. He has over 25 years of experience in capital markets, having managed funds across equity, fixed income securities and real estate for local and global investors. In his previous assignments, he has held leadership roles with Axis Capital, ICICI Prudential Asset Management, Franklin Templeton and ICICI Securities. He was the recipient of the inaugural Business Standard Fund Manager of the Year – Debt award in 2004. He is a Chartered Accountant and a merit ranking cost accountant. Mr Shah is presently also a member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister.

N S Venkatesh is the Chief Executive of the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI). Prior to joining AMFI, a nodal association of mutual funds across India, he was Executive Director at Lakshmi Vilas Bank. He served in Industrial Development Bank of India for over 19 years. He has over three decades of experience in the banking sector, including over two decades in managing Treasury and International Banking. In addition, he has experience in matters relating to finance, risk management, information technology, accounting standards, audit and assurance as well as bank taxation. Mr Venkatesh is a Chartered Accountant by training.

Mythili Bhusnurmath is Senior Adviser, NCAER, and Consulting Editor, ET Now TV. She holds a Master’s in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics and is a Certified Associate of the Indian Institute of Bankers. She also holds a law degree from Delhi University. She worked with the State Bank of India and Reserve Bank of India before moving to journalism in 1993. She was Opinion Page Editor, The Economic Times, and Editor, The Financial Express.

‘Book Launch’ The German Chambers of Commerce and Industry

NCAER organised a launch of the book, The German Chambers of Commerce and Industry, held virtually, with the author, Prof Andrè Habisch of Catholic University Eichstaett-Ingolstadt. The discussion was moderated by Dr Poonam Munjal, Senior Fellow, NCAER. The discussants were Prof Santosh Mehrotra, Visiting Professor, Centre for Development Studies, University of Bath, U.K. and Dr Bornali Bhandari, Senior Fellow, NCAER.This book examines a key factor driving the enduring international success of German companies. Beyond industrial specialisation, peaceful labour relations, local financial markets, and the “Miracle of the Mittelstand”, it focuses on a characteristic aspect of governance within the German economy, symbolised by the Chambers of Commerce and Industry. The book emphasises important characteristics of the Chamber system, including obligatory membership for firms as well as participatory rules of their self-administration.

The book examines the institution’s self-governance, its services, and its mission regarding the general representation of interests. It also identifies the advancement of the dual system of professional education as a central element of the Chamber system. Along with an introduction about how the Chamber system works, interviews, case studies, and historical explanations help to exemplify the true spirit inherent in this form of representation. In particular, they reveal the essence of how the Chambers system contributes to the global success of German companies and fosters their corporate responsibility in a practical way.

Given its scope, the book will be of particular interest to professionals, policymakers, and researchers concerned with how an institutional organisation can support commerce and industry for the public good. The book was developed in collaboration with Laura Sasse and the Practical Wisdom Society.

Bornali Bhandari is a Senior Fellow at NCAER with a background in international economics and macroeconomics, specifically focusing on the impact of globalisation on development. Currently, she is engaged in a number of industry studies including automobiles, farm mechanisation, and technology. She is also part of the macro group at NCAER.  Her wider research interests include analysis of skilling from a 3-E perspective (education, employability and employment), e-Governance, infrastructure, particularly the roads and ICT sectors, G-20 issues like climate change financing and reserve currency, FDI and trade-related issues. She also oversees the production of the NCAER Quarterly Business Expectations Surveys.

Andrè Habisch is a Full Professor of Social Ethics at Ingolstadt Business School, Catholic University of Eichstaett-Ingolstadt. He is committed to the advancement of trans-disciplinary research, education, and application of practical wisdom in Management, Social Innovation, Applied Sustainability Management, and Catholic Social Thought for Business. His main research interests are social capital theory, social policy, and economic and corporate ethics. He received his PhD from the University of Tuebingen and holds a post-doc qualification (Habilitation) from the University of Würzburg.

Santosh Mehrotra is currently Visiting Professor, Centre for Development Studies, University of Bath, UK.
He was earlier Professor of Economics, Centre for Labour Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. He has a Master’s degree (with Honours) in Economics, from The New School for Social Research, New York, where he was taught by eminent economists Edward J. Nell, Robert Heilbroner, Ross Thomson, and Gita Sen. Thereafter he did his PhD in Economics from Cambridge University.

Poonam Munjal is a Senior Fellow at the NCAER. She has worked on a wide variety of studies, including the N-SIPI investment index, tourism satellite accounts, impact of investment in housing sector and a number of research studies based on input-output models. Previously, she worked as an Associate Director at PricewaterhouseCoopers Pvt Ltd. and as an Economist in the Economic Research Team of CRISIL Ltd. Her research work has been in the area of macro-economic analysis, tourism economy, national and regional tourism satellite accounts, input-output modelling, social accounting matrix, inter-industry linkages, labour market analysis, and analyses of large sample surveys to draw socio-economic linkages.

NCAER Public Lecture: Global Recovery from the Pandemic Policy Challenges in 2022

NCAER hosted a  lecture by Dr Gita Gopinath, Chief Economist at the International Monetary Fund. Dr Poonam Gupta, NCAER Director General,  chaired  and moderated the session. The talk by Dr Gopinath focused on the outlook for global growth in the year to come. As the global economy recovers from the pandemic, a great deal of uncertainty remains about new COVID-19 variants and increased inflation pressures in many countries. Dr Gopinath  discussed how policymakers can best deal with these challenges in an increasingly uncertain environment.

The event was held at NCAER’s T2 Conference Centre. It was also live-streamed on NCAER’s YouTube channel. A large number of eminent economists, policy-makers, academics, and mediapersons followed the conversation. The talk was chaired by Dr Poonam Gupta, Director General, NCAER. In the Q & A session following the lecture, Dr Gopinath addressed a range of questions from both the live and digital audience.

Please see the press release available on the webpage with more details on the talk.

Gita Gopinath is the IMF’s first woman Chief Economist, on leave from Harvard University where she is the John Zwaanstra Professor of International Studies and of Economics. Before joining Harvard, she was an Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. She has been the co-director of the International Finance and Macroeconomics programme at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the NBER co-lead for NCAER’s Neemrana Conference held in partnership with NBER, a member of the Economic Advisory Panel of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Economic Adviser to the Chief Minister of Kerala, and a member of the Eminent Persons Advisory Group on G-20 for India’s Ministry of Finance. The Indian Government awarded her the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, the highest honour conferred on overseas Indians.

She received her PhD in Economics from Princeton, MA degrees from the Delhi School of Economics and the University of Washington, and her BA from Lady Shri Ram College at Delhi University.

Poonam Gupta is the first woman Director General of NCAER and a member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM). Before joining NCAER, she was Lead Economist, Global Macro and Market Research, International Finance Corporation (IFC); and Lead Economist for India at the World Bank. Her prior appointments include the Reserve Bank of India Chair Professor at National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP); Professor at Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER); Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Delhi School of Economics; and, Economist at the International Monetary Fund. Her research has been published in leading scholarly journals and has featured in The Economist, Financial Times, and Wall Street Journal.

She holds a PhD in International Economics from the University of Maryland, USA, and a Masters in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi.

Conversations with NCAER’ | Recalibrating the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Third Webinar)

This webinar on Recalibrating the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code was the third of our monthly webinar series titled ‘Conversations with NCAER’, held virtually on December 14, 2021. NCAER hosted Shri Jayant Sinha, Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha, Mr M.S. Sahoo, Former Chairperson, IBBI, and Mr Pallav Mohapatra, CEO, ARCIL for this conversation. The discussion was moderated by Ms Mythili Bhusnurmath, Senior Adviser, NCAER.

The discussion in the webinar centered around the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) enshrined in the Act of 2016, which was initially seen as the answer to the long-standing woes of banks in recovering their dues, especially from corporates. By correcting the skewed relationship between corporate borrowers and banks and ensuring a more balanced relationship, IBC was meant to actualise capitalism’s famed promise of creative destruction. Instead, five years later, it is still seen as a work in progress. The panelists discussed that the progress is slow indeed, so much so that the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance, headed by Jayant Sinha has come down heavily on the working of the IBC and called for an extensive overhaul of the Code. The backgrounder note available on this webpage talks about this in detail.

Jayant Sinha is a Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha, and has served as Minister of State for Finance and Minister of State for Civil Aviation in the Government of India. He is currently the Chairperson for the Standing Committee on Finance and a member of the Public Accounts Committee for 2019-2020. He has also been an investment fund manager and management consultant. Jayant holds an MBA from Harvard, an MS in Energy Management & Policy from the University of Pennsylvania, and a BTech from IIT Delhi.

M.S. Sahoo is the former Chairperson of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India. He has four decades of professional experience, including two decades in the regulation of markets and professions, as Chairperson, IBBI, Member of the Competition Commission of India, Secretary of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India, Whole-time Member of the Securities and Exchange Board of India, and Economic Adviser with the National Stock Exchange of India Limited. As a Member of the Indian Economic Service, he has served several Ministries in the Government of India. He has a PhD in Economics from the University of Mumbai. His other academic qualifications include M.Phil, M.A. (Economics), LL.B, FCS, and PGDM.

Pallav Mohapatra is Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Asset Reconstruction Company (India) Ltd., ARCIL.  Earlier he served as the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Central Bank of India. In his four decade-long banking career, Mohapatra was also Deputy Managing Director, Stressed Assets Management Group at SBI, and handled the bank’s operations in Los Angeles, USA. He was also CEO of the bank’s credit cards business, SBI Cards & Payment Services Ltd.

Mythili Bhusnurmath is Senior Adviser, NCAER and Consulting Editor, ET Now TV. She holds a Master’s in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics and is a Certified Associate of the Indian Institute of Bankers. She also holds a law degree from Delhi University. She worked with the State Bank of India and Reserve Bank of India before moving to journalism in 1993. She was Opinion Page Editor, The Economic Times, and Editor, The Financial Express.

    Get updates from NCAER