Arguably, the most important questions in social science concern the causes and effects of economic development and economic growth. Why are some societies much poorer than others? Why do some communities achieve economic growth while others stagnate? What price do we pay for the economic growth of a society? How do we improve living standards within a society? These are pertinent questions which social scientists have long tried to answer, and continue to find different and sometimes, conflicting, answers to. The theme of the first day of the St. Stephen’s College Academic Conclave 2017 on 29^th March will be Growth and Development. The sessions on the day intend to cover the themes of the logic behind capital, ecological crises, doles and freebies to society, factors affecting growth and development and surveying tools to analyse growth and development.

Plenary Talk:

The Plenary Talk will be delivered by Prof. Reetika Khera on ‘Doles, Freebies and Handouts: Populism? The Right(s) Perspective’. Reetika Khera is an Associate Professor (Economics) at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. She studied at the Delhi School of Economics (MA and Ph.D.) and Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex (MPhil). She was a post-doctoral Research Associate at Princeton University. Before joining IIT-Delhi, she was a visitor at GB Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad, Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics and the Planning Unit at the Indian Statistical Institute.

 For her Ph.D., she conducted a primary study in eight villages of Rajasthan, looking at the effectiveness of public interventions (such as relief works and the public distribution system) to prevent famines. Since then, she has remained involved in various field activities in India including surveys, social audits and “research for action” related to the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), Public Distribution System and others. She is interested in public support programmes of the government, especially those related to health and nutrition, food security and employment. She has published in a wide range of outlets: international peer-reviewed journals, magazines, newspapers and online portals.

Lectures:

1. India’s Growth Story since Independence: Need for a Parsimonious Theory by Prof. Mausumi Das.

Prof. Mausumi Das is an Associate Professor at the Delhi School of Economics and completed her PhD from JNU on the Savings Behaviour in Neo – Classical Growth Models. Her research interests include growth and development, macroeconomics and development economics. She has numerous publications to her credit, on the themes of growth theory, human capital, and inequality.

2. Ecological Crisis and the Logic of Capital by Prof. Sudha Vasan.

Prof. Sudha Vasan is an Associate Professor in Sociology at the University of Delhi. She completed her PhD from Yale University and her research interests include environment and development, tribal and forest communities and environmental law. She has numerous research publications to her credit.

Workshops:

Two workshops will be conducted as part of the Growth and Development theme. A workshop on ‘Survey research in Social Sciences’ by Prof. Pranav Gupta will focus on surveying, sampling and means to collect empirical data for research in the social sciences. The second workshop on ‘Introduction to the National Sample Survey’ by Prof. P.P. Krishnapriya will focus on the large scale surveying the NSSO undertakes and its various aspects.