As part of its 50th Foundation Year celebrations, the Centre conducted two national seminars in which a total of 32 invited papers were presented.
(i) Seminar on “Kerala and the World Economy”
A national seminar on “Kerala and the World Economy” was conducted at the Centre during February 3-4, 2020. Professor Sunil Mani, Director, CDS welcomed the participants of the seminar which included authors of the studies, scholars with specialization on global value chains, invitees from the state government, media and the policy community, faculty and students of the Centre for Development Studies as well as students from the Government College, Nedumangad numbering a total of 100 participants.
The technical sessions covered topics on, Sustainable Development, Commercial Crops, Hi-tech Manufacturing and Modern Industries and Livestock and Fisheries, ending with a Public Lecture on “Assessing India’s Free Trade Agreements with East Asian Countries, which was delivered by Prof Biswajit Dhar, Jawaharlal Nehru University.
On the concluding day two technical sessions were held, one on Migration, Remittances and Trade Balance and the other on Health and Tourism. At the end of the sessions, a summing up of the seminar and a vote of thanks was proposed by Dr AV Jose, coordinator of the seminar.
The papers and proceedings of the seminar will be brought out as a CDS publication. The funding for the seminar came from the “Kerala and the World Economy” endowment at the seminar.
(ii) Seminar on “Indian Economy and Society”
A seminar on “Indian Economy and Society” was conducted at the Centre during February 7 and 8, 2020. The seminar was inaugurated by Professor Sunil Mani, Director. This was followed by different sessions on themes relating to Agriculture, Labour and Employment; Industry, Innovation and Technology and a panel discussion on the corporate sector. The second day started with a session on Health and Education followed by sessions on Gender; International Trade and Capital Flows; Land and Infrastructure. Two papers, titled “Caste, Courts and Business” and a paper on “Leveraging Trade Agreements to Boost Export from Indian Engineering Goods Sector” was presented through Skype. The seminar was attended by 87 participants including, speakers, faculty and students from CDS as well as 18 students for the Government College, Nedumangad. Dr T Abhilash, coordinator of the seminar proposed the vote of thanks. The Centre intends publishing the proceedings as an edited book. The funding for the seminar came from the Director’s Research Fund.