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Economics Society
Yearbook
Report 2008-2009
The Economics
Society took some new initiatives this year, principal amongst them
being The Annual Vinod Chowdhury Memorial debate. It was organized
jointly with the Alumni Cell, in memory of our very own VC, a true
Stephanian, a brilliant orator, an academician and an amazing
lecturer, who left for his heavenly abode this year leaving behind
an array of admirers. The event was a great success, seeing huge
participation from across Delhi University. The event was widely
appreciated and saw a nice exchange of thoughts, beliefs and
knowledge reminding one of Mr. Chowdhury’s classes and him being
very particular about the language.
The Society
collaborated with the Central Information Commission and provided
for summer internships for students. The Economics Research Group
started a lecture series to help students gain better knowledge
about economic research. The academic year started with Dr. Arunava
Sen from ISI, Delhi speaking on mechanism design theory and later
Dr. Abhirup Mukherji spoke on
‘ Empirical Research
in Economics : Let’s Get the facts straight’.
The Society
continued its journey on its informal motto of “Taking Economics
beyond classrooms...” through various activities throughout the
year. The talks this year had an academic & political bias starting
with Magsaysay award winner, Mrs. Aruna Roy speaking on the NREGA.
She was accompanied by the members
of the Mazdoor Kishan
Sangathan who interacted on a one-to-one basis with the audience and
stressed on the importance of creating useful employment in public
works rather than construction for the sake of employment. The U.S
Financial Crisis was widely covered in the talks by Paranjoy Guha
Thakurta, Journalist and Dr. Anjan Mukherji Centre of Economic
Studies & Planning J.N.U who spoke on the merits and demerits of
free trade.
Issues concerning aspects of providing financial services to
low-income households, issues plaguing the health sector reforms,
macro-level research on the empirics of the black economy and the
informal sector were discussed in lectures by Dr.Nachiket Mor
(Director, I.C.I.C.I Foundation for Inclusive Growth), Dr. T.A.
Shiva Kumar, Dr. Arun Kumar and Dr. Arup Mitra respectively. Mr.
Mani Shanker Aiyer , spoke at length on the pitfalls of a burgeoning
bureaucracy as a proxy for socialism in India and how Panchayati Raj
offers a solution to this problem.
The Society’s events peppered with a liberal dose of heavy
economics also saw some light fun-filled events namely the launch of
a brand new game Campaign Trail inspired by the election frenzy in
the U.S it investigated optimum election-winning strategy mixes and
was hugely popular.
There was a book-club discussion on the book ‘How
Rich Countries got Richer and Poor Countries got Poorer? by Erik S
Reinert’. The Circle organized a discussion on Right to information
and Governance.
The National Economics Festival saw the participation of
teams from St.Xavier’s, Loyola College, I.I.T Chennai, Christ
College, Bangalore and also colleges from Delhi University. The
Inaugural Lecture was delivered by Mr. Yashwant Sinha, Former
Finance Minister. He talked about the allocation of funds in sectors
like rural development, inflation and issues about reigning the
fiscal deficit in India. The paper presentation had primary research
by students on topics ranging from Delhi Transport Corporation to
Grameen Banking and synergies of mergers and acquisitions. The other
event was the new game ‘Wealth Of Nations’ which had participants
mulling over meeting the consumption demands of various countries
based on restrictions like the natural resource endowment and human
capital endowment. Mockstocks, the virtual stock exchange game, as
always was the biggest hit. The Debate, Young Managers and the quiz
were also widely contested.
The year thus a success incorporated events from various
facets of economics having a mix of fun, knowledge, celebration,
intellect and all of them were highly loved and appreciated.
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