Thoughts on the Future, Reflections on the Past
VIEW EVENT DETAILSWith the five state elections just around the corner, the halls of the nation’s political institutions and the nation’s households are abuzz with debate over the most contentious questions of contemporary Indian affairs. What does the future of rural communities look like? What approach should India take in the management of its foreign affairs? And what will be the effect of the newly implemented, much-debated policy of demonetization? Always provocative and never timid about challenging conventional ideas and common narratives, P. Chidambaram is sure to bring fresh and challenging ideas to questions of political, strategic and economic importance for India, bringing with him the insights of several decades of personal experience and involvement in Indian government and politics. His book “Fearless in Opposition: Power and Accountability”, a thoughtful collection of essays on the most contested issues of modern India, will be the springboard for a conversation with Vikram Mehta, Chairman, Brookings India, and Ajit Ranade, Senior President & Chief Economist, Aditya Birla Group.
P. Chidambaram is a former Union Minister of Finance and Home in the Government of India. Currently, he heads the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs. He is an eminent lawyer practising in the Supreme Court. A public intellectual and author, he is the author of Standing Guard: A Year in Opposition—a collection of his essays published in 2016. He writes a weekly column on economy, politics, social issues, foreign policy and contemporary affairs in The Indian EXPRESS. A member of the Indian National Congress, the country’s oldest political party, Chidambaram is a trustee of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation.
Menaka Doshi is Managing Editor at Bloomberg Quint. Prior to this she worked at CNBC-TV18 as Executive Editor. In her 20 years at CNBC-TV18 she reported on companies, M&A, policy, law and tax. She has hosted several flagship news shows including India Business Hour, Closing Bell and Your World@10 and was host and editor of The Firm - India's first television show on law, tax and audit. In 2005-06, Menaka was awarded the first Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award in the category of Business & Economic Journalism (Broadcast)
Vikram Singh Mehta currently serves as the executive chairman of Brookings India in New Delhi and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Mehta started his career with the Indian Administrative Service in 1978. He resigned in 1980 to join Phillips Petroleum in London as their senior economist. In 1984, he returned to India to join the government company Oil India Ltd. as an advisor for strategic planning. He joined Shell International in London in 1988. He was appointed managing director of Shell Markets and Shell Chemical Companies in Egypt in 1991, and chairman of the Shell Group of Companies in India in 1994.
Dr. Ajit Ranade is Senior President and Chief Economist with the Aditya Birla Group. Ranade was earlier with ABN Amro Bank. He was a member of the Capital Account Convertibility Committee and the FEMA Review committee of the Reserve Bank of India. He was a member of the Governing Council of the Banking Codes and Supervisory Board of India. He is an engineer and MBA and received a PhD in Economics from Brown University, USA. . He writes regularly in newspapers on economic, social and political topics. He is a co-founder and Trustee of the Association for Democratic Reforms, an NGO working in area of electoral and political reforms.
This programme falls under our Meet the Author series, which aims to bring together the freshest perspectives from writers across Asia as they engage in dialogue about their recent publications and the art of writing.