Political India: Engaging America

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From The Hindu

CHENNAI: Front office functions will now be included within the gamut of services to be housed in the financial city planned here, sources close to the project authority have said.

With recent behind-the-scenes discussions suggesting it will be more than a back office hub, the financial services being considered for inclusion are a commodity exchange, a stock exchange, asset management, risk assessment services, banking services and insurance and reinsurance services.

Speaking to The Hindu, a State Industries Department senior official said: “Mumbai is a financial centre, Gujarat has announced GIFT, the Gujarat International Financial Tech-City, and Hyderabad is also making similar plans. So where do we position ourselves?”

While clearly ruling out direct competition with Mumbai as a financial hub, the official pointed out that the Chennai financial city would meet companies’ need for additional facilities given that concentrating major resources in one place was no longer an option for large financial institutions.

“Your nerve centre cannot be in only one place; this is basically risk management. So we would try to project the financial city essentially in terms of the following concept: whatever Mumbai can offer, we will also be able to offer,” the official said.

Attracting talent

However, to effectively provide an alternative to sophisticated financial hubs such as Mumbai by attracting world class talent, education services offered in Tamil Nadu would have to be ramped up.

The Ministry official explained: “While we have a strong presence in terms of number of Chartered Accountants, in some other areas we really need to improve. For example we need better management institutions, we need to have better risk assessing capabilities built into the system. In areas such as risk assessment, risk allocation and risk management there will be, in parallel, a need to improve the educational set-up as well.”

Among the options being considered is the possibility of bringing in business schools of repute through a tie-up with the University of Madras or Anna University. “Some of these universities can sign an MoU for creating such institutions. We don’t really need to bring an institution here if you can simply provide limited courses of three to six months for CAs and MBAs, tailored to a specific kind of role,” the official said.

While risk diversification would be an important differentiating factor for the Chennai financial city, cost competitiveness and overall product quality would be important for attracting global players.

There may be certain services for which it is possible to be equally effective whether you are in Mumbai or in Chennai and some things are location-neutral, the official explained.

“Suppose that you are in a particular niche where traders are important. You can have all the facilities, but if the traders are all elsewhere, then it will not click. That is the thinking that needs to go into our initial planning on what are the two or three things that we are going to do first,” he said.

However, in some areas the presence of traders can be neutralised by technology: “Today even in the stock exchanges technology can actually neutralise the presence of a trader and everybody is only sitting on his own terminal, isn’t he?”

Knowledge economy

The move to include front office functions and systemic improvements in education and healthcare services reflects a “bigger issue”: Tamil Nadu would be making a big leap in establishing the financial city, having already achieved a similar goal in the IT space. In the announcement made by the Deputy Chief Minister earlier, there was also a mention of an information and media city.

“The point we are trying to make is that Tamil Nadu should get into the knowledge-based economy more. We should stake a claim for everything that is based on that,” the Ministry official said.

Labels: asset management, banking, Chennai, commodity exchange, financial city, front office, GIFT, Gujarat, insurance, knowledge-based economy, Mumbai, risk management, stock exchange

From Education Plus, The Hindu

What’s the link between ethnographic women’s studies and macro-econometric modelling? Sounds like a joke? It’s not. The answer is Development Studies, a subject in which interest is soaring as numerous opportunities rapidly open up infrastructure development, NGO-related work, media and public policy.

Last week, Education Plus reported on the new M.A in Inclusive Development Studies introduced by the Ethiraj College for Women, Chennai, this year. This week, we consider other courses on offer in this field, as well as popular themes in development and the opportunities that are up for grabs by aspiring development practitioners.

In India, a macroeconomic theme that will remain a policy priority for years to come is infrastructure development. It has witnessed an unprecedented boom since 2003 and even received a shot in the arm in this year’s Union budget. The opportunities for students of development studies, development economics and related disciplines are immense, according to K. Rajivan, a World Bank development economist, based in India.

Dr. Rajivan explains that “managerial positions at international financial institutions (IFIs) such as the World Bank usually require a Ph.D. or a master’s degree from abroad. However, given the investment boom in areas such as infrastructure finance, urban development, and small and medium enterprises, a range of new jobs is becoming available. These projects, often run with IFI participation as public-private partnerships, are based on public leverage and deployment of private capital on a large scale. They require people qualified in areas such as public finance, cost-benefit analysis, environmental, regulatory and competition economics, contract law and also ‘soft skills’ like negotiation and stakeholder consultations.”

New Vistas

Another macro area in which new vistas have opened to development studies graduates is public policy. “Many of our graduates are manning key positions in major public policy institutions such as the RBI and the Planning Commission,” says Professor Narayanan Nair of the Centre for Development Studies (CDS) at Thiruvananthapuram.

In the wake of the global recession and financial crisis, it is widely expected that regulatory functions and economic planning will be prioritised. Consequently, institutions such as the RBI and Planning Commission will be on the lookout for qualified candidates.

For those who delve deeply into the subject to the doctoral level, it becomes possible to straddle multiple roles within the broad ambit of development. For example, Prof. Nair points out that graduates of CDS such as Tirthankar Roy, C.R. Rammanohar Reddy, Narendra Pani and Ashoka Mody work alternatively in academia, media, IFIs and policymaking.

Development journalism

Journalism can be a rewarding line of work for those with strong writing skills. P. Sainath, an award-winning journalist covering issues relating to rural poverty, argues that “development is ultimately about people and their rights, how these are articulated and conflicts resolved.” He teaches a course on ‘covering deprivation’ at the Asian College of Journalism, and cautions that an excessive focus on “managing development ” or on “technical knowledge” detracts from the more people-centric and politics-centric understanding of development, say in terms of caste issues and land distribution in a particular Indian village.

As these examples suggest, development studies education and career paths can be widely varied. There is a choice to be made between quantitative and qualitative skills, between research and practical experience and from among the bewilderingly large number of sub-disciplines under the umbrella of development studies.

Charting a course that most closely matches your strongest abilities and interests is the most important step you could take as you contemplate entering this exciting area.

Labels: Chennai, development studies, Planning Commission, RBI, World Bank

From Education Plus, The Hindu

You've been watching the trends in the economy. You've realised that given your passion to work on Indian development issues, development studies is the subject for you. Now you cannot pick from the wide range of options available and ask yourself - what should I do?

If you're just finishing or have finished school, note that colleges offering undergraduate courses labelled `Development Studies' are rare. Development studies as a discipline can encompass any subject from human rights to financial modelling for project finance. Jobs in development usually require, therefore, a skill set that is technical and specialised; in addition they require integration of a broader understanding of development theory, for example, Amartya Sen's capabilities approach or the political theory of `late industrialisation'.

Most institutions thus prefer that students obtain a first degree in one social science subject, "ideally in economics", says K. Nagaraj, Professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS). Technical specialisations can follow in more advanced degrees.

At the master's level and above, the options are plentiful. Institutions offering M.A., M.Phil. or Ph.D. degrees in development studies include: The Tata Institute of Social Science (TISS), Centre for Development Studies (CDS), Indira Gandhi Institute for Development Research (IGIDR), MIDS, IIT-Madras, the Delhi School of Economics and the Institute of Development Studies, Kolkata (IDS).

For M.A. courses, such as the one offered by TISS, candidates are expected to possess a strong (usually first-class) B.A. degree. For M.Phil. degrees, an M.A. in social sciences such as economics or quantitative subjects such as physics or statistics is preferred - IDS is an example.

"One of the best courses in development studies in the country," according to Dr. Nagaraj, is the M.Phil./Ph.D programme at CDS. Admission to the course is based on prior performance in M.A., a research proposal that demonstrates the candidate's understanding of theory, empirics and methodology and teaching qualifications (such as UGC), if any.

Research Methods, Economic Theory and Indian Economic Development are the core courses and account for 16 credits; a dissertation is awarded 8 credits. The blend of courses offered reflects "the parallel focus of our rigorous two-year programme: first, acquiring empirical tools for research, and second, understanding the theoretical framework of development issues," says K. Narayanan Nair, Professor at CDS.

Another course that experts like Dr. Nagaraj would recommend is the M.A. and Ph.D. programmes at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras. IIT-Madras offer a "unique five-year integrated programme, launched in 2006, [which] leads to Master of Arts (M.A.) degree in three major disciplines - Development Studies, Economics and English Studies."

Students enrolled in this premier institution could also expect to benefit from close contact with the rigours of the Engineering, Sciences and Management departments.

For M.A. degrees, the curriculum allows more flexibility. At TISS, for example, students have a wide range of concentration options in disciplines such as economics, sociology, political science, psychology, and women's, cultural and media studies.

Another option, often conditional on obtaining scholarships, is enrolling in the many development studies courses that are offered abroad, for example in the U.K. Oxford and the London School of Economics (LSE), in particular, have master's degrees that are popular.

Scholarships that support such study include, to name a few, the British Chevening, Rhodes (for those with strong extracurricular achievements as well) and Commonwealth scholarships.

Kaveri Kumar studied development at the LSE and now works in development in London. She says, "What I enjoyed most about the course was the freedom to explore various aspects of development theory; though working in development has been more about learning on the job rather than applying any principles I studied at university." As with the numerous options available within India, it is important to do your `due diligence' on foreign degrees and make an informed decision about applying.

Labels: Chennai, Chevening, Commonwealth, development studies, IIT-Madras, London School of Economics, M.A., M.Phil, Madras Institute of Development Studies, Oxford University, Ph.D., Rhodes, scholarships

From The Hindu

CHENNAI: Plans for a financial city announced recently by Deputy Chief Minister M.K.Stalin will initially focus on back office functions, sources close to the project authority said.

The idea of a financial city is based on the fact that workforce in the State has a high level of skill in IT and accounting sectors, with some financial back office functions such as risk analysis for banks and hedge funds already being carried out here.

Speaking to The Hindu, a senior official of the State Industries Department explained that the financial city was initially planned keeping in mind the reforms roadmap for the banking sector that the Reserve Bank of India announced over three years ago. If these reforms progress, Tamil Nadu should be in a position to take advantage of the opportunities that emerge in this sector. While it was expected that the reforms would be revisited in March 2009, “due to the recession that has been put on hold,” the official said.

The official confirmed that the financial city project would nevertheless be taken forward in a “modular, gradual way.” In the first of several phases to be implemented, between 4 and 5 million square feet of workspace will be developed. In addition, work will commence on setting up 2000-3000 housing units. The first phase would also require the construction of “a convention centre, hotels, hospitals and a high-quality school, and subsequent phases would target scaling the project up 4-5 times,” according to the official.

The official suggested that South Chennai would be a likely site for the financial city. “The trade-off between the amount of land available for this project and the distance from the city is an issue,” the official said. The land required has not yet been acquired.

The next step in the project, to be implemented over 2-3 months, will be to conduct discussions with the relevant stakeholders, including banks, mutual funds and insurance companies. If government-owned land is available, then subsequent 3-4 months could see the implementing authority, the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO), bring on board a consultant to define the requirements and design of the financial city. A “networked” consultant such as Ernst and Young or KPMG may be hired, as this may lead to subsequent benefits in terms of the occupancy of the city.

The project would be structured as a public-private partnership similar to the Tidel Park venture, in which TIDCO owns 25%, the Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu owns 4% and banks and other financial institutions own around 50%.

Regarding the broader vision for this project the senior Industries Department officer said, “In the long term we want to position ourselves tactically as being strong in both the manufacturing and services sectors. We will certainly be in competition with other States that are promoting financial centres, but Tamil Nadu is well positioned to overtake states like Karnataka in this area.”

Labels: Chennai, Ernst and Young, financial city, Industries Department, KPMG, Tidel Park