Students from Post Graduate Programme in Management (PGPM), Food and Agri-Business Management (FABM) and Post Graduate Programme in Management for Executives (PGPX) at Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad will be attending a course called ‘Public policy for inclusive development of India’. This new course is housed within the JSW School of Public Policy at IIM-A and Pranab Mukherjee, former President of India, will be the faculty for at least 12 out of the 22 sessions. Prof Vijaya Sherry Chand, Chairperson of JSW School of Public Policy, and Prof Anil Gupta will handle the other sessions.
The course provides a broad overview of the interplay between the desired end of inclusive development and the system of parliamentary democracy in India. The pedagogy draws on the experiences of Mukherjee to reflect on the theory and practice of public policy for the inclusive development of India. During the last five decades, Mukherjee has not only had a ringside view of Indian politics and governance, but has shaped many public policies and triggered institutional innovations to execute many of these. The course provides a unique opportunity for students to learn from him.
Specifically, Mukherjee will deliver lectures on the following themes:
* Constitutional provisions for socio-economic inclusivity: theory and parliamentary practice
* Policy and institutional intervention for financial inclusion: a legacy to be built upon
* Articulating policy and institutional agenda for future transformation of India
Student perspective
Out of these, certain sessions will include presentations of selected student projects that address developmental and institutional challenges identified in the beginning of the course.
Talking about this course, Prof Chand said, “Listening to Pranab Mukherjee, our students should develop a better understanding of the politics of inclusive development. In a complex democratic society such as ours, technically ideal solutions to public problems have to be balanced by the management of conflicts that are inevitable when there are multiple and contradictory pulls. This should also help in understanding why the idea of inclusion goes beyond narrow economic perspectives on poverty and its alleviation.”