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Dear Friend,
September was an active month for the ICS Community with seven publications and five webinars, all of which received overwhelming support and participation. Despite functioning on remote workforce, we have created a thriving work culture and continue our tradition of encouraging young China scholars from across the country by giving them an opportunity to intern with us. In September, we were joined by four new virtual interns who have successfully begun their training with the ICS. Using the digital era to our advantage, we have increased our online presence on various social media platforms including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Additionally, we continue to nurture our vision of promoting interdisciplinary study and research on China and the rest of East Asia through our partnership and collaboration with other organisations such as Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS), The Print and The Hindustan Times Insights amongst others.
EVENTS AND ACTIVITIES
The ICS conducted five webinars this month
We conducted a panel discussion on ‘Cross- Asiatic Connections in the Late 19th and 20th Centuries’ on 1 September. The panellists included Dr. Arpita Bose, Assistant Professor, Hooghly Mohsin College; Dr. Barnali Chanda, Post-Doctoral Fellow, Ashoka University; Mr. James Gethyn Evans, Communications Officer, Harvard's Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies and Doctoral candidate, Harvard University; and Ms. Sudarshana Chanda, Doctoral candidate, Harvard University. The panel discussion was chaired by Professor Tansen Sen, Director, Centre for Global Asia, and Global Network Professor, NYU, Shanghai, China. (SoundCloud) (YouTube)
Professor Bruce J. Dickson, Professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University spoke on ‘The Party and the People: CCP and the Private Sector’ on 8 September. Professor Manoranjan Mohanty, Emeritus Fellow, ICS chaired the event. (SoundCloud) (YouTube)
We also had a book discussion on ‘China Inc.: Between State Capitalism and Economic Statecraft’ on 15 September. The panellists included the author of the book, Dr. Aravind Yelery, Senior Research Fellow, HSBC Business School, Peking University and Adjunct Fellow, ICS; Professor Santishree Pandit, Professor of Political Science, Savitribai Phule University, Pune; Mr. Jaimini Bhagwati, Distinguished Fellow, Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP), New Delhi; and Dr. Partha Mukhopadhyay, Senior Fellow, Center for Policy Research (CPR), New Delhi. The event was chaired by Professor Madhu Bhalla, Editor, India Quarterly, Indian Council of World Affairs. (SoundCloud) (YouTube)
In partnership with Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS), we organised a panel discussion on ‘China’s Position on Afghanistan’ on 22 September. The panellists included Ambassador Gautam Mukhopadhaya, Senior Visiting Fellow, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi and former Ambassador of India to Afghanistan; Mr. Andrew Small, Senior Transatlantic Fellow, Asia program, German Marshall Fund of the United States and Ms. Suhasini Haidar, Diplomatic Editor, The Hindu. Mr. Peter Rimmele, Resident Representative, KAS, India Office, Delhi gave the introductory remarks for the event and Ambassador Ashok K. Kantha, Director, ICS was in Chair. (SoundCloud) (YouTube)
Dr. Happymon Jacob, Associate Professor, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Honorary Director, Council of Strategic and Defense Research spoke on ‘India, China, Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and Regional Geopolitics’ on 29 September. Ambassador Yogendra Kumar, Author and former Ambassador/ High Commissioner to Tajikistan, Philippines and Namibia chaired the event. (SoundCloud) (YouTube)
PUBLICATIONS
This month we had seven publications in total – one Occasional Paper, one Working Paper, two ICS Analysis and three ICS Research Blogs.
ICS Occasional Paper
- Dr. Anurag Viswanath, Adjunct Fellow, ICS and Author on ‘“Loveable” China in times of COVID-19: China’s “Vaccine Diplomacy” in Southeast Asia’
ICS Working Paper
- Dr. Raviprasad Narayanan, Adjunct Fellow, ICS and Associate Professor, Centre for East Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University on ‘China and India Strategic Theatre: Case Study Sri Lanka’.
ICS Analysis
- Mrs. Sharmila Kantha, Principal Consultant, Confederation of Indian Industry on ‘China’s Recent Tech Regulatory Measures’ (The article was first published in association with Confederation of Indian Industry)
- Mr. Jelvin Jose, Research Intern, ICS on ‘Decoding the Myanmar Crisis: Domestic Factors Behind Coup, External Players Help Sustain it’
ICS Research Blogs
- Ms. Rangoli Mitra, Research Assistant, ICS on ‘China’s Rendezvous with the Taliban: An Uneasy Alliance’.
- Mr. Jelvin Jose, Research Intern, ICS on ‘Seven Months post-Coup, Decoding China’s Myanmar Policy’
- Ms. Shreha Gupta, Research Intern, ICS on ‘How Nepal Turned to China to Fill its COVID-19 Vaccine Shortfall’
IN THE MEDIA
Amb. Gautam Bambawale, former Ambassador of India to Bhutan, Pakistan and China and Distinguished Professor, Faculty of Humanities and Adjunct Fellow, ICS authored a piece titled ‘Xi is taking China away from its proven success path’ for the Times of India on 30 September. Prof. Ashwini Deshpande, Honorary Fellow, ICS and Professor of Economics, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi co-authored a piece titled ‘High Demand for MGNREGA is a Ringing Fire Alarm’ for The Wire on 17 September. Her interview titled, ‘Ashwini Deshpande on the need for Indian economists to grapple with discrimination’ was carried by the Scroll on 18 September. Prof. Amita Batra, Adjunct Fellow, ICS and Professor of Economics, Centre for South Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University penned a piece for The Business Standard on ‘India's revamped FTA strategy’ on 15 September.
Professor Prabir De, Adjunct Fellow, ICS and Professor, Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), authored a piece for Business Line on ‘A silent revolution in border trade’ on 8 September. Dr. Bhim Subba, Visiting Associate Fellow, ICS and Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, School of Social Science, University of Hyderabad authored a piece for Money Control on ‘India’s chip industry can leapfrog on Taiwan deal, but beware of China’ on 29 September. Dr. Happymon Jacob, Adjunct Fellow, ICS and Associate Professor, Centre for International Politics, Organization and Disarmament, Jawaharlal Nehru University authored two pieces for The Hindu: ‘Reaching out to the ‘undesirables’’ on 6 September and ‘The Quad could end up running out of steam’ on 28 September.
FACULTY UPDATES
Lt. Gen. Gurmit Singh (Retired), Adjunct Fellow, ICS was appointed as the Hon’ble Governor of Uttarakhand recently. Prof. Ashwini Deshpande, Honorary Fellow, ICS and Professor of Economics, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi wrote a piece for the WEDGE on, ‘Indian Women's Declining Work Participation: Evidence for a Structural Explanation’ on 23 September. Prof. Deshpande also co-authored a paper titled, ‘MGNREGA: The Rescue Act in Need of Assistance’ for the Centre for Economic Data and Analysis, Ashoka University on 10 September and participated in an event organised by the World Bank on 29 September.
Prof. Kamal Sheel, Professor (Retired) in Chinese, Department of Foreign Languages, Banaras Hindu University and Prof. Sreemati Chakrabarti, Editor, China Report spoke on ‘The First Decade of the CPC’ at a Panel discussion on ‘A Hundred Years of the Chinese Communist Party’ organised by the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) on 28 September. Prof. Alka Acharya, Honorary Fellow, ICS, and Professor, Centre for East Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, spoke at a Webinar, ‘Where does the China-India border dispute stand?’ organised by Intellisia and The Diplomat on 2 September. Prof. Prabir De, Adjunct Fellow, ICS and Professor, Research and Information System spoke on ‘Socioeconomic effects in South Asia’ at the ‘2021 WIDER Development Conference: COVID-19 and development – effects and new realities for the Global South’ organised by United Nations University from 6 to 8 September.
Prof. Rama V. Baru, Honorary Fellow, ICS and Professor, Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health, Jawaharlal Nehru University; Dr. Madhurima Nundy, Assistant Director and Fellow, ICS; and Prof. Ramila Bisht, Adjunct Fellow, ICS and Professor, Centre for Social Medicine & Community Health, Jawaharlal Nehru University authored a special article titled, ‘Integration of Health Services for Older Persons in Urban India’ for the Economic & Political Weekly, Vol. 56 Issue No. 37 dated 11 September.
Mr. Santosh Pai, Honorary Fellow, ICS, and Partner, Link Legal India Law Services, co-edited a book titled, ‘Chinese Legal System (1979-2019), Historical Development and Overview’ in September. Dr. Hemant Adlakha, Honorary Fellow, and Associate Professor, Centre for Chinese and Southeast Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, penned a piece titled ‘Japanese firms’ slow and steady exit is sounding alarm bells in Beijing’ for Modern Diplomacy on 21 September and a piece titled ‘Beijing Perceives ‘AUKUS’ as the latest US attempt to block China’s Advancement’ for Nepal Institute for International Cooperation and Engagement (NIICE) on 22 September. Dr. Sandip Mishra, Honorary Fellow, ICS, Delhi, and Associate Professor, Centre for East Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University wrote a commentary titled ‘The Futility of North Korean Propagandistic News’ for the East Asia Institute on 8 September and an article titled ‘A Change of Leadership in Japan’ for the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies on 24 September.
Dr. G Venkat Raman, Adjunct Fellow, ICS and Associate Professor, Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Management, Indore published a four part series on ‘State Vs Big Tech’ titled as ‘The three drivers of Chinese techlash’, ‘The Brussels Effect’, ‘Taming the American giants’ and ‘Splinternet and the geopolitics of tech regulation’ for Founding Fuel on 9, 13, 15 and 17 September. Dr. Rajiv Ranjan, Adjunct Fellow, ICS and Assistant Professor, Institute of Global Studies, Shanghai University, Shanghai co-edited a volume titled ‘China and South Asia: Changing Regional Dynamics, Development and Power Play’, published by Routledge, London /New York on 30 September.
Dr. Mirza Zulfiqur Rahman, Visiting Research Associate, ICS reviewed ‘Borderland infrastructures: trade, development, and control in Western China’ by Alessandro Rippa, Amsterdam University Press, for Asian Studies Review. Dr. Veda Vaidyanathan, Visiting Associate Fellow, ICS co-edited ‘The Handbook on Zimbabwe-China Economic Relations’ for the Zimbabwe Environment Law Association on 31 Aug 2021. ICS was a knowledge partner on this project, lending technical expertise and managing the project from inception to conclusion.
The ICS Website, Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter accounts are among the several ways you can get the latest on our publications and activities. You can also subscribe to our monthly newsletter to follow our events and publications as well as browse our YouTube and SoundCloud channels.
We look forward to your participation in our events and activities in the coming days and hope for your continued support. Please consider contributing to ICS. Click here to contribute.
Best regards,
Ashok K. Kantha
Director
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