The Forum, which honoured the late IG Patel, former governor of the Reserve Bank of India and former director of LSE, focused on 'Challenging Globalisation - Reform, Governance and Society'. It aimed to investigate the challenges of configuring organisations, public policies and social institutions so as to achieve a sustainable balance between the social, political and economic opportunities offered by globalisation. An honorary fellow of LSE, Dr IG Patel was LSE's ninth director from 1984-90.
The Forum in New Delhi was opened by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who addressed the overall conference theme in his keynote speech. This was followed by three sessions, each investigating one of the three core themes of the Forum: reform, governance and society.
Each session was led by an LSE academic speaker and included contributions from Lord Meghnad Desai, professor emeritus of economics, LSE; Sheila Dikshit, chief minister of Delhi; and Sir Nicholas Stern, second permanent secretary to the UK Treasury and former chief economist and senior vice-president of the World Bank.
Dr Razeen Sally, head of LSE's International Trade Policy Unit, Professor Danny Quah, head of LSE's Department of Economics, and Professor Robert Wade, DESTIN, also led and contributed to the discussions. Howard Davies, Director of LSE, also spoke at the opening.
Each of the three panel sessions addressed a core theme of the Forum:
-Session I - Reforming Infrastructure - Private Entrepreneurship and Public Goods
-Session II - Governing Trade - International Trade Policy and Local Development
-Session III - Moderating Society - International Relations and Global Crises.
This year's Forum was held in India to renew and develop LSE's strong links with Indian academic institutions, government and corporate bodies, as well as to exchange knowledge and contribute to broader policy issues. LSE hopes to build strong relationships with the corporate sector in order to benefit from their knowledge and expertise of India and regional markets and to collaborate on joint research and policy development.
Prior to this event, there was also a roundtable forum for Indian media leaders hosted by LSE's new journalism and society think-tank, POLIS, in New Delhi on Wednesday 6 December.
LSE hosted the Forum in association with a number of long term institutional LSE partners including the Reserve Bank of India, Tata Sons Ltd, Standard Chartered Bank, and the Confederation of Indian Industry.
By Londond School of Economics
Posted December 18th, 2006 by Dinka
