Envisioning India: Why India Is Growing Fast, But Not Creating Enough Jobs

 Thursday, October 17th, 2024
9:00 – 10:30 AM EDT / 6:30 – 8:00 PM IST
In-Person: Sigur Center Conference Room
Elliott School of International Affairs
Virtually: Join via Zoom

Register Here

India is growing fast after the recovery, but non-farm job creation is extremely slow. At least 6 million young join the labour force year, but youth unemployment is still double what it was 10 years ago. Tens of millions of unemployed, plus surplus labour in agriculture, also need to be provided non-farm jobs. Speakers Santosh Mehrotra, Gurcharan Das, and Soumya Kapoor Mehta, along with Moderator Ajay Chhibber, will explore what is the nature of the employment crisis, and how it is related to a structural reversal in the economy in the last decade, and the reasons for it. We will also briefly discuss what can be done to create more jobs, at reasonable wages, before India's demographic dividend runs out. Women's employment and participation issues, which have invited considerable debate will be examined as well.

This hybrid seminar can be attended in-person or via Zoom. Coffee and pastries will be served for in-person guests.

This event is part of IIEP's Envisioning India series, in partnership with the Sigur Center for Asian Studies. Recordings of previous events in the Envisioning India series can be viewed here. In addition to the Envisionin India series, the 4th GW India Conference was held in April 2024; recordings of presentations from the conference can be viewed here. 

Santosh Mehrotra is a Visiting Professor of Development Economics at Bath University in the UK, as well as a Research Fellow at IZA Institute of Labour Economics in Bonn, Germany and Professorial Senior Fellow at the Prime Minister Memorial Museum and Library in New Dehli, India. He was formerly a Professor of Economics and Chairperson for the Center for Informal Sector and Labour Studies at New Dehli's Jawaharlal Nehru University. He headed UNICEF’s Global Research Program at the Innocenti Research Center in Florence, worked as Chief Economist for the Global Human Development Report, and led the Development Policy Division of India’s Planning Commission before becoming the Director General of National Institute of Labour Economics Research and Development. He completed his MA in Economics from the New School for Social Research in New York and his PhD in Economics from the University of Cambridge. Additionally, he has published 13 books.

Gurcharan Das is one of India's most celebrated authors and thinkers, known for his best-selling books India Unbound—a personal account of India’s economic rise that is available in 19 languages and has been filmed by the BBC—and The Difficulty of Being Good, a philosophical book that illustrates everyday moral dilemmas. India Unbound was also declared one of the Financial Time's Best Books of 2013. Das graduated in Philosophy with honors from Harvard University, where he was later
inducted in 2013 in Phi Beta Kappa for ‘high attainments in liberal scholarship.’ He also attended Harvard Business School (AMP), where he is featured in four case studies. He was CEO of Procter & Gamble India and eventually, Managing Director of Procter & Gamble Worldwide (Strategic Planning), before retiring early to become a full-time writer. His work ranges from essays to novels to newspaper columns on current issues and philosophies that are among the most widely read in India. His most recent titles include a memoir, Another Sort of Freedom, which describes his lifelong struggle to give meaning and purpose in life, and an essay, The Dilemma of the Indian Liberal. He has also edited a 15-volume economic and business history of India for Penguin Publishing Group.

Soumya Kapoor Mehta is a Senior Social Specialist with the Social Sustainability and Inclusion (SSI) global practice at the World Bank, where she also leads the India Gender and Inclusion Platform. She has interest and analytic skills in the general areas of gender, poverty reduction strategies, and social inclusion challenges. She has worked on several of the Bank’s flagship reports and has two books to her credit. She previously worked for UNICEF, the Government of India, the Centre for Policy Research, the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA); she was also a Visiting Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. She earned an MA in Economics from the University of Cambridge.

Moderator

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Ajay Chhibber is a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Institute for International Economic Policy at the George Washington University.  He was the first Director General of the Independent Evaluation Office of India and a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy from 2015-2017. He was the Assistant Secretary General at the UN where he led the Department for Asia and the Pacific. He served over 24 years in senior positions at the World Bank as Country Director in Turkey and Vietnam and Director of the seminal 1997 World Development Report on the Role of the State. He has a Ph.D from Stanford University (1983), an MA from the Delhi School of Economics (1976), and was awarded the David Rajaram Prize for best all-rounder at St Stephen’s College, Delhi University where he received BA Hons in Economics (1971-74). He has also done advanced management courses at Harvard University and INSEAD, France. He has written six books on Economic Development and numerous published articles in major journals. He writes regularly for newspapers and business magazines. His latest book, co-authored with Salman Soz. Unshackling India: Hard Truths and Clear Choices for Economic Revival, was declared the Best New Book in Economics for 2022 in the Financial Times and was awarded the India Economic Forum Literary Award for 2022. 

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