Australia India Institute News

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The Aii has just wrapped up its third international conference The Argumentative Indian: Critical Debates in the World's Largest Democracy and Perspectives from Australia. Over 60 speakers and 700 registered patrons attended the conference, making this the most successful Aii conference to date. The calibre of speakers was lauded by patrons and the media alike, contributing to many illuminating and extremely relevant discussions and debates. Read the full wrap-up below.

Emerging Leader Fellow Prasenjit Kundu was farewelled last week as he returned to India. Prasenjit undertook a two month program with the Institute, focussed in part on developing a low-cost model for the delivery of Australian vocational training in India. Prasenjit gave a lecture on his research, listen here.

India has been in the news again in recent weeks, with the Asian Century Report stating Hindi should be a flagship Asian language taught in schools; read Aii fellow Rory Medcalf 's views on the report's findings and the statement from the Director Amitabh Mattoo. Also in the news was Sachin Tendulkar who was awarded the Order of Australia for his service to India-Australia relations by promoting goodwill, friendship and sportsmanship through cricket.

On a sad note, the Institute regrets to inform that Dr Subhakanta Behera, Indian Consul General in Melbourne passed away last week. A great personal friend of the Institute, Dr Behera will be sadly missed and we offer our sincerest condolences to his family and loved-ones. Director Amitabh Mattoo offers a tribute and condolences below

In the news today;

Argumentative Indian Wrap-up
A tribute to Dr Subhakanta Behera, Indian Consul General and beloved friend of the Institute
Event: Security and Soft Power Intersections by Dr Nick Hill
Event: Tiffin Talk; Banks, Economic Growth, and Less-Developed Regions
Event: Tiffin Talk; Emerging Leader Fellow Report

Argumentative Indian Conference wrap-up
The Australia-India Institute’s third conference The Argumentative Indian wrapped up last week to acclaim from conference speakers, patrons, and the media alike.

Running over three days, the international conference canvassed key economic, social, political and cultural issues confronting India as it emerges as a global power.

The title of the conference came from Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen’s book of the same name, which discusses India’s history and identity. Amartya Sen opened the conference with a speech recorded at Harvard University, outlining the importance of the strong argumentative tradition in India’s past, present and future.

“I think the long argumentative tradition also has some contribution to make to having a flourishing democracy in India,” Professor Sen told delegates, a theme echoed in Vice-Chancellor Glyn Davis’ annual Australia India Institute Oration.

The conference provoked stimulating debates between Australian and Indian delegates, and a total of nearly 60 speakers and chairs. Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and Research Senator Chris Evans addressed the conference on the importance of engagement with Asia, and the Federal Member for Goldstein Mr Andrew Robb spoke about Australia and India’s political systems and the way forward.

Activist Kiran Bedi was a galvanising force in the conference, speaking passionately about her fight against corruption in India. A fearless leader from a young age, she is well known in India for being the first female police officer, and for giving the Prime Minister a parking ticket.

“India is going through a huge exposé of corruption both in Government and the private sector which has increased inequalities and weakened institutions,” Dr Bedi said.

Also making headlines was the Governor of West Bengal and former National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister of India, M.K. Narayanan, whose comment that India and China are natural rivals sparked media attention internationally. Governor Narayanan said the conference was vitally important as Australia-India relations had reached a ‘defining moment’.

Crticial discussions on the most relevant issues facing India today were held over the three days. Foreign Policy and International Relations enthusiasts were in their element, and sessions on the media in India highlighted some phenomenal facts and realities about the colossal powerhouse that is the Indian media.

Gopalkrishna Gandhi closed the conference with an inspiring and poetic valedictory speech, leaving no-one doubting that he had inherited his grandfather, Mahatma Gandhi’s capacity to inspire.

The conference attracted over 700 registrations making it the most well attended of the Institute’s three international conferences held so far. Watch the Conference videos.

"Tribute to a Dear Friend - Dr Behera" - By Amitabh Mattoo
In the passing away of Dr Subhakanta Behera, the Consul General of India in Melbourne; India has lost a great diplomat, the Academy a true scholar, the world of culture a generous patron, Victoria’s Indian community a towering leader, the Australia India Institute a fierce supporter, and I have lost one of my close friends. For Mrs Rajshree Behera, Ananya and Amrita the loss is greater than can ever be expressed in words.

But while we offer our condolences, we must also celebrate the life of a Renaissance person.

I have known Subhakanta for more than 25 years, from the days when he had left Ravenshaw College in Orissa to come to Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. His simplicity was matched by his extraordinary scholarship and talent and his friendship was one of extraordinary loyalty and commitment. The Indian civil service exam is one of the most difficult in the world and the Indian Foreign Service recruits less than 30 officers every year out of up to 80,000 applicants. It was a tribute to Subhakanta’s scholarship that he was one of them, and served subsequently with distinction in Moscow, London, Washington, and as head of policy planning in New Delhi, before taking up his position as Consul General of India in Melbourne a year and half ago.

During these years in the Indian Foreign Service, Subhakanta did not give up his scholarly pursuits, a D.Phil. from Oxford, books, short stories, poems in English and Oriya and a collection recently translated into Hindi and another historical novel in press.

In the last year and half, Subhakanta provided leadership to the Consulate General’s Office and to the Indian community more generally. Indeed, Subhakanta and Mrs Rajshree Behera almost single handedly rejuvenated the Indian cultural scene in Victoria.

The Australia India Institute has, of course, lost a great supporter who actively participated in all our programmes including our recent conference. Let me finally reproduce a poem by Subhakanta - a tribute to his extraordinary talent:

Bomb Blast

When I was still asleep

not caring for my morning tea in the balcony,

my thirteen-year-old daughter whispered to me -

a bomb has blasted in the town's busy, bustling bazaar

where she hangs out with her friends,

I turned the other side

called out to the servant to bring the morning newspaper.

He came in a stupor and had done nothing wrong,

but I still shouted at him calling him a rascal and an idiot;

my wife shouted at me for my laziness and for sleeping so late.

I was supposed to go to the bazaar,

and as for lunch her relatives

have been invited

to our two-room flat

where every day we are squeezed

trying to make space for ourselves,

and where I stealthily check my bank account

to avoid the wife nagging

about the amount left.

A bomb has blasted, my daughter confirmed,

a shadow of darkness

falling on her innocent face,

the servant rushed out to get

confirmation or some evidence

to cool me down,

but I slipped under the blanket

to escape my wife’s words and demands hurled at me. “

RIP, dear friend Subhakanta!

Australia-India: Security and Soft Power Intersections; Dr Nick Hill

Wednesday 28 November, 2012 1-2pm
As part of Melbourne's Knowledge Week, Dr Nick Hill will be presenting highlights and emerging issues from the Harvard Kennedy School Senior Executives in National and International Security programme he attended earlier this year. Topics of note will be emerging issues of relevance to the Australia India relationship, and the significance of public diplomacy and soft power in the security debate.

Dr Nick Hill is the Director, External Affairs at the Australia India Institute. For more information and free registration.

Tiffin Talk: Banks, Economic Growth and Less Developed Regions: Evidence from India by Dr Rashmi Umesh Arora

15 November 2012 12:45 am to 2:00 pm

In India, banks were professed to be the champion of balanced growth and poverty reduction. Reduction in regional disparities was one of the prime objectives behind social control and nationalisation of banks prior to the nineties. Some of the major measures taken to achieve the above objectives were opening of bank branches, far and wide, covering rural and urban areas, targeted lending to priority sectors and selected groups of people and occupations such as small borrowers, and farmers. These efforts were aimed to give boost to the less developed regions and small borrowers. Yet did the banks help in reducing regional disparities particularly since 1991? Among the different bank groups, public sector banks by their very nature are expected to help achieve economic growth in the less developed regions. In this study in a panel dataset covering 25 states of India using Generalised Methods of Moments panel estimation techniques we examine the role of banks on regional economic development in India.

Rashmi Umesh Arora is a Research Fellow in the Department of Accounting, Finance and Economics, Griffith Business School, Griffith University, Australia.

For more information and for free registration.

Tiffin Talk: Emerging Leader Fellowship Report

November 22nd 12:45-2pm
Pawan Agarwal is currently advisor education at India’s powerful Planning Commission. He earlier served as Director in the Ministry of Human Resource Development, as well as Financial Advisor and Coordinator of new initiatives of the University Grants Commission—a position in which he developed substantial expertise in higher education policy and practice, and gained a broad understanding of the issues and challenges faced by India’s universities and colleges. He has also held important positions in the West Bengal Government as Principal Secretary, Cooperation Department, Secretary, Science and Technology and Municipal Affairs Departments. Pawan will give his emerging Leader Fellowship Report as a Tiffin Talk at the Australia India Institute.

For more information and for free registration