Author: cprindia

CPR ranked highest in India in the 2014 ICCG climate think tank rankings
RANKED 14TH GLOBALLY
CLIMATE RESEARCH

We are pleased to let you know that the Centre for Policy Research has been ranked highest in India, highest among developing country think tanks, and 14th globally by the International Centre for Climate Governance (ICCG) in its standardized global climate think tank ranking for 2014.

The ICCG produces a ‘standardized’ ranking of climate think tanks every year, adjusted for the number of researchers. They also produce an ‘absolute’ ranking, which ranks think tanks independent of size. In both rankings, ICCG uses 15 indicators organized around three categories: Activities, Publications and Dissemination. For the full rankings click ICCG ranking.

CPR’s ranking of 14th globally, and highest among developing country think tanks in the standardized ranking, is based on the output of the 11 researchers at CPR working only on environment and climate related areas among our total staff of about 100. In the absolute ranking, which is not adjusted for size of the environment/climate-related team, we are the second highest rated Indian think tank and in the top 100 (74th) globally.

We are pleased to receive this high ranking, which recognizes the quality of the work done by our relatively small team. At the same time, we recognize any such ranking effort necessarily has to simplify a complex research and policy landscape to arrive at quantitative scores. This involves methodological issues, such as how to draw boundaries around environment/climate work, and substantive issues, such as providing equal emphasis to both national and international work, and mitigation and adaptation. The challenges of developing a ranking system that accounts for all these complexities should be kept in mind when reading ranking results.

We wish to acknowledge and thank our funders, partners at think tanks and academic institutions, and interlocutors in government, private sector and civil society who have enriched our work.

Navroz K Dubash
Coordinator, CPR Climate Initiative

CPR RANKED 11TH GLOBALLY, AND HIGHEST AMONG DEVELOPING COUNTRIES IN 2015
CLIMATE RESEARCH

We are pleased to let you know that the Centre for Policy Research has been ranked as the leading climate think tank in India, highest among developing country think tanks, and 11th globally by the International Centre for Climate Governance (ICCG) in its standardised global climate think tank ranking for 2015.

The ICCG produces a ‘standardised’ ranking of climate think tanks every year, adjusted for the number of researchers. They also produce an ‘absolute’ ranking, which ranks think tanks independent of size. In both rankings, ICCG uses 15 indicators organised around three categories: Activities, Publications and Dissemination. For details on the rankings for 2015 and methodology used, click here.

CPR’s ranking of 11th globally, and highest among developing country think tanks in the standardised ranking, is based on the output of the 11 researchers at CPR working only on environment and climate related areas among a total staff of about 100. In the absolute ranking, which is not adjusted for size of the environment/climate-related team, CPR is the second highest rated Indian think tank and in the top 100 (34th) globally.

We are pleased to receive this high ranking, which recognises the quality of the work done by our relatively small team. We wish to acknowledge and thank our funders, partners at think tanks and academic institutions, and interlocutors in government, private sector and civil society who have enriched our work.

Navroz K. Dubash
Senior Fellow and Coordinator, Climate Initiative

CPR RANKED 3RD IN THE REST OF THE WORLD CATEGORY, AND 15TH GLOBALLY
CLIMATE RESEARCH CPR

We are pleased to announce that the Centre for Policy Research has been ranked highest in India, 3rd in the Rest of the World category (non-US/Europe), and 15th globally by the International Centre for Climate Governance (ICCG) in its standardized global climate think tank ranking for 2016.

CPR’s ranking is based on the output of the 19 researchers at CPR working only on environment and climate related areas under the Environmental Law and Governance focus area, which includes the Initiative on Climate, Energy and Environment, among our total staff of about 100. In the absolute ranking, which is not adjusted for size of the environment/climate-related team, we are the second highest rated Indian think tank, and in the top 50 (33rd) globally.

The ICCG produces a ‘standardized’ ranking of climate think tanks every year, adjusted for the number of researchers. They also produce an ‘absolute’ ranking, which ranks think tanks independent of size. In both rankings, ICCG uses 15 indicators organized around three categories: Activities, Publications and Dissemination. For the full rankings, see ICCG ranking.

We are pleased to receive this high ranking, which recognizes the quality of the work done by our relatively small team. At the same time, we recognize any such ranking effort necessarily has to simplify a complex research and policy landscape to arrive at quantitative scores. This involves methodological issues, such as how to draw boundaries around environment/climate work, and substantive issues, such as providing equal emphasis to both national and international work, and mitigation and adaptation. The challenges of developing a ranking system that accounts for all these complexities should be kept in mind when reading ranking results.

We wish to acknowledge and thank our funders, partners at think tanks and academic institutions, and interlocutors in government, private sector and civil society who have enriched our work.

A full range of our work can be accessed here.

WATCH THE FULL VIDEO
CPR POLITICS

Watch the full video (above) of the panel discussion on ‘The Role of Ideas in Shaping Policy’ featuring Lant Pritchett (Senior Visiting Fellow, CPR); Navroz K Dubash (Professor, CPR); Partha Mukhopadhyay (Senior Fellow, CPR) and moderated by Yamini Aiyar (President & Chief Executive, CPR).

What is the role of ideas in public policy? Policy-making is often thought of as an art of balancing trade-offs and negotiating compromises. But underlying these trade-offs are normative assumptions about the state of the world and the consequences of our actions. In recent times, we have tended to focus our debates on policy much more in the realm of design, action and impact than on these underlying questions about the state of the world. Yet, it is ideas that shape our understanding of the state of the world and the possibilities for policy. This session was an invitation to reclaim the space for ideas in our debates on public policy and consider the role of think tanks in driving and shaping the world of policy through ideas.

The panel was organised as part of the second edition of CPR Dialogues, held on 2nd and 3rd March 2020 at the India Habitat Centre. Addressing the theme of Policy Perspectives for 21st-century India, CPR Dialogues 2020 provided a window to the India of the future. Experts from around the country and the world engaged with and debated these very significant development and policy challenges that India faces in the coming decade.

ThePrint India was the digital partner for the event.

An article on India’s regulatory reform, written by Partha Mukhupadhyay in ThePrint can be read here.

Videos of other panel discussions organised as part of CPR Dialogues 2020 can be found below:

CPR Dialogues 2020- Inaugural Address by Hon’ble Subrahmanyam Jaishankar
CPR Dialogues 2020- At the Threshold of a New Decade: Navigating the Emerging Geopolitical Landscape
CPR Dialogues 2020- Rights in Times of AI: Emerging Technologies and the Public Law Framework
CPR Dialogues 2020- What Would Happen if We Were to Believe in Indian Agriculture?
CPR Dialogues 2020- Creating an Inclusive Economy in a Digital World
CPR Dialogues 2020- What Would it Take to Build a 21st-century State for India? Launch of CPR’s State Capacity Initiative
CPR Dialogues 2020- Technology and Administrative Reform: Experience from India and the World
CPR Dialogues 2020- Tracking Government Spending: Challenges in Social Policy Financing
CPR Dialogues 2020- The Air Pollution Crisis: Making Political Salience Count
CPR Dialogues 2020- Article 21 and India’s Social and Economic Rights
CPR Dialogues 2020- Challenges in Public Education: Balancing State and Non-State Actors
CPR Dialogues 2020- Emerging Trends in Indian Politics
CPR Dialogues 2020- Are India’s Financial Institutions in Crisis? Understanding India’s Economic Slowdown
CPR Dialogues 2020- Indo-US Relations
CPR Dialogues 2020- Land and the Constitution: Solving Land Conflict in India
CPR Dialogues 2020- Political Elites and Local Bureaucratic Capacity

WATCH THE FULL VIDEO
CPR BUDGET SOCIAL SECTOR SCHEMES

Watch the full video (above) of the panel discussion on ‘Tracking Government Spending: Challenges in Social Policy Financing’ featuring Rathin Roy (Director, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy); Alok Kumar (Adviser, NITI Aayog); Jeffrey Hammer (Senior Visiting Fellow, CPR); TR Raghunandan (Adviser, Accountability Initiative & Former Indian Administrative Service Officer) and moderated by Avani Kapur (Fellow & Director, Accountability Initiative, CPR). The panel marked the completion of ten years of the Accountability Initiative at CPR since it’s founding.

Despite significant investments in social welfare programmes, it is widely acknowledged that implementation is India’s Achilles heel and public service delivery is often plagued by inadequate quality, corruption and accountability failures. Yet, a discussion on the links between design and implementation is often constrained by the lack of evidence on the processes through which policies are translated on the ground.

What are the emerging trends of social policy financing in India? What should be the role of the Union Government in social policy financing in an era of more cooperative federalism? What is the role of technology in enabling a more efficient public finance management system? What is the optimal allocation of functions and capacities required across all levels of government to ensure an outcome-focussed financing system? By placing the current evidence on the processes involved in the delivery of social policies at the front and centre, this session aimed to revisit the current design of social policy financing given the recent changes in India’s fiscal architecture.

The panel was organised as part of the second edition of CPR Dialogues, held on 2nd and 3rd March 2020 at the India Habitat Centre. Addressing the theme of Policy Perspectives for 21st-century India, CPR Dialogues 2020 provided a window to the India of the future. Experts from around the country and the world engaged with and debated these very significant development and policy challenges that India faces in the coming decade.

ThePrint India was the digital partner for the event.

Media coverage of the session can be found below:

Civil servants and politicians aren’t worried about outcomes of govt spending: Experts by ThePrint
Videos of other panel discussions organised as part of CPR Dialogues 2020 can be found below:

CPR Dialogues 2020- Inaugural Address by Hon’ble Subrahmanyam Jaishankar
CPR Dialogues 2020- At the Threshold of a New Decade: Navigating the Emerging Geopolitical Landscape
CPR Dialogues 2020- Rights in Times of AI: Emerging Technologies and the Public Law Framework
CPR Dialogues 2020- What Would Happen if We Were to Believe in Indian Agriculture?
CPR Dialogues 2020- Creating an Inclusive Economy in a Digital World
CPR Dialogues 2020- What Would it Take to Build a 21st-century State for India? Launch of CPR’s State Capacity Initiative
CPR Dialogues 2020- Technology and Administrative Reform: Experience from India and the World
CPR Dialogues 2020- The Air Pollution Crisis: Making Political Salience Count
CPR Dialogues 2020- Article 21 and India’s Social and Economic Rights
CPR Dialogues 2020- Challenges in Public Education: Balancing State and Non-State Actors
CPR Dialogues 2020- Emerging Trends in Indian Politics
CPR Dialogues 2020- Are India’s Financial Institutions in Crisis? Understanding India’s Economic Slowdown
CPR Dialogues 2020- The Role of Ideas in Shaping Policy
CPR Dialogues 2020- Indo-US Relations
CPR Dialogues 2020- Land and the Constitution: Solving Land Conflict in India
CPR Dialogues 2020- Political Elites and Local Bureaucratic Capacity

WATCH THE FULL VIDEO
CPR ECONOMY SOCIAL SECTOR SCHEMES

Watch the full video (above) of the panel discussion on ‘What Would Happen if We Were to Believe in Indian Agriculture?’ featuring Saurabh Garg (Principal Secretary, Department of Agriculture & Farmers Empowerment, Government of Odisha); Harish Damodaran (Rural Affairs and Agriculture Editor, The Indian Express); Ajay Vir Jakhar (Chairperson, Bharat Krishak Samaj); Ramesh Chand, (Member, NITI Aayog) and moderated by Mekhala Krishnamurthy (Senior Fellow, CPR).

What would happen if we were to actually believe in Indian agriculture? This panel was an invitation to revisit and revise our assumptions about the vast potential of Indian agriculture, instead of treating it as a residue, a stalled structural transformation, a subsistence industry that requires only income support, or a buffer stock strategy for foodgrains. Here, we seek to place agriculture, its linkages and its multiplier effects at the centre of India’s economic development and to consider therefore the nature and scale of public investment, institutional support, knowledge resources and partnerships needed to transform agricultural outcomes and impact in India.

The panel was organised as part of the second edition of CPR Dialogues, held on 2nd and 3rd March 2020 at the India Habitat Centre. Addressing the theme of Policy Perspectives for 21st-century India, CPR Dialogues 2020 provided a window to the India of the future. Experts from around the country and the world engaged with and debated these very significant development and policy challenges that India faces in the coming decade.

ThePrint India was the digital partner for the event.

An article on the state of Indian agriculture, written by Mekhala Krishnamurthy in ThePrint can be read here.

Media coverage of the panel discussion can be found below:

Link Indian agriculture with global chains, liberalise agro-commodity markets: Experts by ThePrint
Videos of other panel discussions organised as part of CPR Dialogues 2020 can be found below:

CPR Dialogues 2020- Inaugural Address by Hon’ble Subrahmanyam Jaishankar
CPR Dialogues 2020- At the Threshold of a New Decade: Navigating the Emerging Geopolitical Landscape
CPR Dialogues 2020- Rights in Times of AI: Emerging Technologies and the Public Law Framework
CPR Dialogues 2020- Creating an Inclusive Economy in a Digital World
CPR Dialogues 2020- What Would it Take to Build a 21st-century State for India? Launch of CPR’s State Capacity Initiative
CPR Dialogues 2020- Technology and Administrative Reform: Experience from India and the World
CPR Dialogues 2020- Tracking Government Spending: Challenges in Social Policy Financing
CPR Dialogues 2020- The Air Pollution Crisis: Making Political Salience Count
CPR Dialogues 2020- Article 21 and India’s Social and Economic Rights
CPR Dialogues 2020- Challenges in Public Education: Balancing State and Non-State Actors
CPR Dialogues 2020- Emerging Trends in Indian Politics
CPR Dialogues 2020- Are India’s Financial Institutions in Crisis? Understanding India’s Economic Slowdown
CPR Dialogues 2020- The Role of Ideas in Shaping Policy
CPR Dialogues 2020- Indo-US Relations
CPR Dialogues 2020- Land and the Constitution: Solving Land Conflict in India
CPR Dialogues 2020- Political Elites and Local Bureaucratic Capacity

WATCH THE FULL VIDEO
CPR BUREAUCRACY

Watch the full video (above) of the panel discussion on ‘What Would it Take to Build a 21st-century State for India?’ to mark the launch of CPR’s new State Capacity Initiative featuring Sanjay Mitra (Former Chief Secretary, West Bengal); T V Somanathan (Secretary, Department of Expenditure, Government of India); Junaid Ahmad, Country Director (World Bank in India) with a presentation by Mekhala Krishnamurthy (Senior Fellow, CPR) and moderated by Yamini Aiyar (President & Chief Executive, CPR).

To mark the launch of CPR’s new State Capacity Initiative, we asked, what will it take for India to build a state that can credibly address the complex, competing and multi-generational challenges that we face in the 21st-century? In particular, we explored the changing roles of the Indian state and how we might balance some of the critical tensions of administrative reform and institutional change. This includes the tension between generalists vs. specialists and the question of knowledge and skills; the tensions between discretion, administrative flexibility, and public accountability; the evolving nature of citizen-state relations, and the tensions and dynamics between the Centre and States in shaping state capacity in democratic and federal India.

At a time of widespread disenchantment with the state, this panel was an effort to collectively re-imagine and re-invest in the possibility of building a genuinely capable, responsive, and accountable Indian state.

More information about the State Capacity Initiative can be found here.

The panel was organised as part of the second edition of CPR Dialogues, held on 2nd and 3rd March 2020 at the India Habitat Centre. Addressing the theme of Policy Perspectives for 21st-century India, CPR Dialogues 2020 provided a window to the India of the future. Experts from around the country and the world engaged with and debated these very significant development and policy challenges that India faces in the coming decade.

ThePrint India was the digital partner for the event.

An article on Indian state capacity, written by Yamini Aiyar and Mekhala Krishnamurthy in ThePrint can be read here.

Media coverage of the panel discussion can be found below:

‘Lateral entry in civil services vital to state’s ability to deliver to citizens’ by ThePrint
Videos of other panel discussions organised as part of CPR Dialogues 2020 can be found below:

CPR Dialogues 2020- Inaugural Address by Hon’ble Subrahmanyam Jaishankar
CPR Dialogues 2020- At the Threshold of a New Decade: Navigating the Emerging Geopolitical Landscape
CPR Dialogues 2020- Rights in Times of AI: Emerging Technologies and the Public Law Framework
CPR Dialogues 2020- What Would Happen if We Were to Believe in Indian Agriculture?
CPR Dialogues 2020- Creating an Inclusive Economy in a Digital World
CPR Dialogues 2020- Technology and Administrative Reform: Experience from India and the World
CPR Dialogues 2020- Tracking Government Spending: Challenges in Social Policy Financing
CPR Dialogues 2020- The Air Pollution Crisis: Making Political Salience Count
CPR Dialogues 2020- Article 21 and India’s Social and Economic Rights
CPR Dialogues 2020- Challenges in Public Education: Balancing State and Non-State Actors
CPR Dialogues 2020- Emerging Trends in Indian Politics
CPR Dialogues 2020- Are India’s Financial Institutions in Crisis? Understanding India’s Economic Slowdown
CPR Dialogues 2020- The Role of Ideas in Shaping Policy
CPR Dialogues 2020- Indo-US Relations
CPR Dialogues 2020- Land and the Constitution: Solving Land Conflict in India
CPR Dialogues 2020- Political Elites and Local Bureaucratic Capacity

FULL VIDEO OF THE DISCUSSION
ELECTION STUDIES POLITICS

Watch the full video of the second CPR Election Adda discussion on ‘How to Win an Election’ featuring Abeer Kapoor and Oshin Lakhani, moderated by Rahul Verma.

The strategies and games that govern Indian politics have often been discussed but only very recently have they been ‘gamified’. Abeer Kapoor sheds light on how he modelled his board game ‘The Poll’ on the real life twists and turns that follow an election in India as well as his experience taking the game across India to play in colleges.

Abeer Kapoor is the creator of ‘The Poll: The Great Indian Election Game’. Oshin Lakhani is an Intern at CPR. Rahul Verma is a Fellow at CPR.

FULL VIDEO OF THE DISCUSSION
POLITICS ELECTION STUDIES

Watch the full video (above) of the fifth CPR Election Adda discussion on ‘Taking Stock: A Mid Poll Evaluation of the 2019 Elections’, featuring Surjit Bhalla, Sunetra Choudhury, Dhananjai Joshi, Philip K Oldenburg and moderated by Rahul Verma.

It has been a long campaign, political parties and their leaders have spent tremendous energies so far to win the confidence of Indian voters and form the next government in Delhi. More than three-fourth of India has voted, and it seems we are in the midst of an election, which has undoubtedly been one of the most polarised so far. The discussion reflected on the 2019 election story, the emerging scenarios possible post-May 23, and what the country has gained or lost in this electoral battle.

Surjit Bhalla is a Contributing Editor at The Indian Express, and Consulting Editor at Network 18. Sunetra Choudhury is the National Political Editor at Hindustan Times. Dhananjai Joshi is the Managing Director at Cicero Associates and Consultants Private Limited. Philip K Oldenburg is a Research Scholar at the South Asia Institute, Columbia University. Rahul Verma is a Fellow at CPR.

The question and answer session that followed can be accessed here.

FULL VIDEO OF THE DISCUSSION
ELECTION STUDIES POLITICS

Watch the full video (above) of the fourth CPR Election Adda discussion on ‘Elections 2019 & the Future of the Indian Party System’ featuring Yamini Aiyar and Rahul Verma.

When can an election be declared a ‘wave’? Is the status quo of politics in India a ‘new normal’ or will we see the political landscape evolve further post the 2019 election result. Watch Rahul Verma and Yamini Aiyar debate these issues and many more in the fourth CPR Election Adda.

Yamini Aiyar is the President and Chief Executive at CPR. Rahul Verma is a Fellow at CPR.