Sonipat 14th October, 2015<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jindal School of Government and Public Policy and the\nOpen Society Foundations organized a Joint conference on \u201cReimagining &\nReinvigorating Rural India\u201d. The daylong conference was aimed at understanding\nthe current state and challenges of rural governance in India, highlighting\ninnovations and policy approaches from vantage points. Rural Governance\nand Public Policy, Empowering Rural Citizens and Rural Growth and Development\nwere some of the themes, taking into consideration food insecurity, poverty,\nlack of employment opportunities, insecure access to credit and financial\nservices, poor infrastructure services, rapid urbanization, internal migration\nand the dismal state of agriculture, resulting in rural India plunging into a\ncrisis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Professor C Raj Kumar Vice Chancellor O. P. Jindal\nGlobal University and Director Iced (International Institute of Higher Education\nResearch and Capacity Building) called for a more a nuanced understanding of\nthe issues and challenges, not only in rural India but also in other sectors,\nespecially higher education. He announced the university\u2019s\ncollaboration with the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, he\nsaid, \u201cI am proud and most delighted to share with you, that the BRICS &\nEmerging Economies Universities Summit, is being jointly organized by the Times\nHigher Education (THE), 91̽»¨ (JGU) and the\nInternational Institute for Higher Education Research & Capacity Building\n(IIHEd) to be held in India for the first time during 2-4 December 2015. The\nHonorable President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee, will inaugurate the\nconference\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Professor R. Sudarshan, Dean,\nJindal School of Government and Public Policy (JSGP) said, \u201cWe deeply\nvalue our relationship with the Open Society Foundations and are hopeful that\nthis collaboration would help us embark on a variety of joint exercises,\nwherein we collectively can pursue development goals that are important from\nthe standpoint of people, not merely of interest to governments and\nadministrative institutions.\u201d Dean Sudarshan also announced that JSGP\nwill host in Nov. 2015 a conference of the International Development and Public\nPolicy Alliance (IDPPA), a consortium of nine public policy schools in the\nBRICS countries and also Egypt and Turkey. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking on how independent social audits have proved\nto be an effective tool in monitoring government schemes, reviewing how\npublic-sector funds have been spent on the ground, Sowmya Kidambi, Director,\nSociety for Social Audit, Accountability and Transparency, Department of\nDevelopment, Govt. of Andhra Pradesh said, \u201cIn a growing scenario where you\nhave deficit of trust between citizens and government, a concerted effort is\nrequired to ensure that citizens are able to reach out to the government and\nare responded to. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Prof. Shiv Viswanathan, Vice Dean ( Institution\nBuilding) and Executive Director, Centre for the Study of Sciences, Society and\nSustainability, JSGP spoke of the need to rethink the notion of\nsustainability. He said, \u201cThe urban-rural dichotomy has to be broken down. We\nmisunderstand the innocence of social science. We need an exorcism of concepts\nas a part of creativity of democracy. My focus is on the relationship between\nknowledge and democracy.\u201d Referring to the Constitution\u2019s directive principles\nof state policy as a new imaginary, Prof. Viswanathan said, \u201cWhen you to\nrethink the notion of sustainability, the urban rural dichotomy would have to\nbreak, to rethink the notion of sustainability, the constitution has to exist\nin multiple kinds of time, incorporating rights of future generations and the\nrights of nature.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking\non India\u2019s rural crisis, the opportunities ahead and the developmental\nchallenges faced by the country, Rajeev Malhotra, Professor, JSGP, Executive Director, Centre for Development and Finance highlighted\n that 91% of the rural population in India is either self-employed or works\nas casual labour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Prof. Malhotra , Lead Author & Chief Editor, India Public\nPolicy Report,\nemphasised that 2\/3rd<\/sup> of India\u2019s population earn their\nsustenance from agriculture, over 70% of Indians live in rural india\namounting to over 850 million people residing in villages. At current growth\nestimates of over 800 million, 45% of India\u2019s population is still expected to\nreside in rural areas in the year 2050. He said, \u201cWe have come a long way from\nthe days of PL-480 and are now a major exporter of numerous food items, though\nwe have a semblance of food security at national level, the notion of household\nfood security is some distance away, the challenge is not only to keep food\nproduction in tandem with the growing needs of the population, but to create a\ndiversified food basket that can address the growing need of nutrition\nsecurity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dr. Suman Sahai, Chairperson, Gene Campaign while\nspeaking at the session on Rural Growth and Development said, \u201cWhile 70% of our\npopulation depends on agriculture and while we are one the largest agrarian\neconomies in the world, we should also remember India is still home to the\nlargest number of hungry and under nourished people in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Professors Shekhar Singh, Swagato Sarkar, Rajesh\nTandon and Dr. Kiran Bhatty critically examined challenges of local governance,\nland acquisition, causes of farmers\u2019 suicides, and parlous state of primary\neducation in rural India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n OSF Representatives from over 9 different countries,\nJindal University faculty, students and external experts had a unique\nopportunity to gauge the dynamics, challenges and realities of rural India at\nthe conference held at O. P. Jindal Global University <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sonipat 14th October, 2015 Jindal School of Government and Public Policy and the Open Society Foundations organized a Joint conference on \u201cReimagining & Reinvigorating Rural India\u201d. The daylong conference was aimed at understanding the current state and challenges of rural governance in India, highlighting innovations and policy approaches from vantage Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1079,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsroom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jgu.edu.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jgu.edu.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jgu.edu.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jgu.edu.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jgu.edu.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1078"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jgu.edu.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1080,"href":"https:\/\/jgu.edu.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1078\/revisions\/1080"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jgu.edu.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jgu.edu.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jgu.edu.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jgu.edu.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}