Events

Swatantra Party, founded in 1959 by C. Rajagopalachari, was India’s first and only national political party to advance principles of social justice, free enterprise, personal liberty, secularism, and individual rights. Advocating a ‘politics of ethics’, the party featured the voices of prominent liberals such as Minoo Masani, N G Ranga, Piloo Mody, and offered the only substantive alternative to Nehruvian socialism and the monolithic ‘Congress Party system’ which had emerged post-Independence. After securing substantive electoral victories through 1960s—emerging as the single-largest opposition party in the fourth Lok Sabha (1967-71)—the Party disintegrated in the early seventies, following Rajagopalachari’s withdrawal from politics and demise. Through its brief but strong tenure of 15 years, the party exercised wide reach throughout India, and exerted significant pressures on issues ranging from industry to foreign policy.

 Swatantra Party was a significant and unique intervention in the larger narrative of modern Indian politics, and merits sustained engagement from scholars and intellectuals today. Upon procurement of over 27,000 pages from the defunct Swatantra Party's offices in Mumbai, Centre for Civil Society aims to store the archive at Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. The launch of the archive is marked with a day-long Conference on Saturday, 9 December, 2017 at the Auditorium, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library on the eve of C. Rajagopalachari's birth anniversary.

To know more about the panel, and conference schedule, view the Conference Concept Note.

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For details contact:
Arushi Vats (arushi@ccs.in)
+91 9811575503

We conducted iPolicy – our flagship certificate course in public policy, engaging Teach for India fellow in a dialogue on the concerns of education policy in India. With 33 participants, the interactive program grounded the elaborate field-experience of the young fellows in the extant education policy discourse in India. Our speakers included Shantanu Gupta Political Analyst and Author of ‘The Monk Who Became Chief Minister’, Parth J Shah and, Arushi Vats, Assistant Manager, CCS Academy. The course received an over-all feedback rating of 3.46 out of 4.

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On 10 December, we hosted the Student Legislative Council from IIT Madras for a policy dialogue on the ideological traditions that predominate the political and policy landscape in India. Steered by Parth Shah, President, CCS, the dialogue further addressed the continuing challenges of effective policy-making, and the role of the individual, market and the state in enabling a freer and prosperous India.

Our ‘CCS on Campus’ initiative reaches out to leading colleges across the country to engage young learners in a critical dialogue on pressing socio-economic and political concerns. Through 2-3 hour ‘Campus Talks’ and ‘Policy Dialogues’, we encourage students to contest and debate learned presumptions and to explore the foundations of a free, prosperous and just society.

If you’d like to have CCS on your campus, or collaborate with us for a policy dialogue, write to us to us at shefali@ccs.in.

Theme: Perspectives on Liberty in a Digitised India

Law and Liberty Conference (LLC) is our flagship annual academic congregation exploring the interstices of legal thought and practice, and their relation to the idea of liberty. A key component of modern social and political orders, liberty is seen as one of the founding principles of rule of law. The spheres of liberty are manifold, with implications for economic, civic, and personal practices of individuals and communities. LLC provides an opportunity for rigorous academic analyses and dialogue on issues most pertinent to the exercise of liberty, and the role of law in securing and impeding the same. The Law and Liberty Conference is a unique opportunity for academicians, scholars, practitioners, and students to interrogate the constraints and challenges to the principle and practice of liberty, and understand how these may be mitigated.

Law and Liberty Conference 2017 is being organized by Centre for Civil Society in collaboration with Law and Technology Society, National Law School of India University, Bangalore

The 2017 edition of the conference will have 3 thematic sessions:

1. Digitising Governance and Public Service Delivery: Digital modes of governance are under adaption at an unprecedented scale. The e-Kranti initiative of National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) has outlaid the digitization of over 44 public service delivery verticals at Centre and State level and development of Common Service Centres across the country. Such e-governance initiatives have developed a range of digital interfaces, from websites to mobile applications and bio-metric enabled Smart Cards. Experiments independently and in collaboration with corporate and NGOs, such as ITC’s e-Choupal, Gyandoot in Madhya Pradesh, Aksh Broadband in Rajasthan, IRCTC, and Passport Seva, have successfully developed and tested intranet portals for a range of functions, from produce procurement to facilitating Government to Citizen (G2C) digitised service delivery.
2. Regulatory Frameworks for Aggregator and Sharing Economy: The need for revisiting principles framing regulations is accentuated by the emergence of aggregators and sharing economy in India, and its exponential growth in on-demand transport, crowd-funding, and hospitality sectors. The sharing economy radically transforms the conventional definitional tenets of labour, establishments, services, and the consumer-provider relationship by developing peer-to-peer sharing, dynamic pricing, and service ownership. With the growing relevance of sharing economy in fostering skill development and micro-entrepreneurship, an agile, enabling framework that balances consumer protection with ease of doing business is requisite.
3. Regulating Data Services and Digital Payments: Support functions of expanding digital literacy and inclusion are also mapped through projects such as the National Optic Fibre Network (NOFN), and ongoing TRAI consultation on provision of Free Data in rural India without violating the bright-line principles set against zero-rating. Additionally, the impetus for a cashless economy is mandated through a separation of payments and banking, and the regulatory frameworks governing the two. This entails a complete digitization of payments and receipts within government, with an eye to increase the reach and incentivizes the usage of digital payments. From autonomy in regulation to legislative revision of Payments and Settlement Systems Act (2007) mandating open access, interoperability, competition and innovation—the role of private entities in facilitating the development and delivery of digital services in governance and exchange is growing exponentially and demanding systemic redesigning of regulatory frameworks and rethinking of the role of the state

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Registration deadline: 20th November 2017

Registration Fee: Students: INR 500/-; Others: INR 1000/-

For details contact:
Jatin Garg (jatin@ccs.in) or Arushi Vats (arushi@ccs.in)
+91-9915608674 | +91-11-2653 7456; ext.-25

THEME- Direct Benefit Transfers in Education: Policy, Politics, Parents

Registration deadline: 04th November 2017

Objectives

1. To discuss and debate various dimensions of DBT including ideation, the theory of change, identification of areas of application, implementation and various challenges at each step.
2. To explore DBT as a tool to bring greater transparency, accountability, and efficiency in the education system through empowering parents and enabling choice of access in education.

The 2017 edition of conference will have 3 thematic sessions:

1. DBT experiments & models- National and global: The session addresses the current status of Direct Benefit Transfers- across sectors and geographical boundaries. This involves examining the various DBT- centric experiments and models that have been carried out around the world on a microscopic level and framing them in an Indian context. This discussion on respective experiences would help enable the audience to understand the relevance of an alternative such as DBT.
2. DBT in Education- Impact, Incentives, Issues: The session would be exploring the issue of learning outcomes that currently plagues the education sector and the potential role that DBT can play in overcoming the same. Panelists will also be elaborating upon the supply and demand of such an alternative, as well as parents’ capacity and readiness for DBT in education. The latter half of the session would be dedicated to understanding the economic and political implications of introducing DBT, since such a scheme would essentially convert the role of the State from being the provider of education into that of being the primary financier of education.
3. DBT in Education- Implementation designs and readiness: Building upon the first two sessions, the third panel would delve into the possible scheme designs that DBT in education could manifest into. The panelists will look into the infrastructural and technological requirements of the scheme, and explore the various mechanisms using which DBT can be successfully implemented.

Registration Open: Apply Now

Registration Fee

• NGO Leaders / Research Scholars / School Principals: INR 1000/-
• Students: INR 750/-
• Others: INR 1500/-

For details contact Nitesh (scnc@ccs.in | +91-88003 44700 | +91-11-2653 7456; ext.-16)