Takshashila Academic Conference - October 2022

The Takshashila Institution conducted a two-day online Academic Conference for its current and 33rd cohort of Graduate Certificate in Public Policy (GCPP) students on the 8th and 9th of October 2022. The Conference had a total of 20 expert speakers from various domains of public policy and saw attendance by around 200 students (including the current PGP cohort) and staff of Takshashila.

Takshashila’s Virtual Campus

A part of the conference was held on Takshashila’s Virtual Campus, hosted on the futuristic proximity A/V platform: Gather Town. This is the 5th edition of the event conducted on this digital space, with the intention to recreate a real ‘conference’ like setup, where sessions ran in parallel and students (in their customised Avatars), could choose to walk in or out of rooms to listen to topics of their interest.

Takshashila’s Virtual Campus on Gather Town

The campus was tastefully decorated, and had its own lobby, helpdesk, lounge, faculty spaces, breakouts and a large auditorium. Students could meet and hang out with each other, making ‘virtual’ meetings, human, fun and interactive!

The Academic Conference was divided into keynote, breakout and spontaneous order sessions. The keynote addresses delivered by the 8 keynote speakers pertained to broad areas of public policy and were open to all students to attend. The multiple breakout sessions on specific topics in particular domains of public policy were conducted in parallel on the Virtual Campus and the students were free to pick which ones to attend by simply walking into different halls. The conference also had spontaneous order sessions where the GCPP students had to suggest, vote on and discuss topics they found of interest.

Keynote Sessions

The keynote speakers were Jayraj Pandya, Amb. P.S. Raghavan, Lt. Gen. Prakash Menon, Rahul Matthan, Dr. Gagandeep Kang, Dr. Kajari Kamal, Prof. Johanna Weaver, and Nitin Pai. The topics of keynote sessions ranged from the functioning of parliamentary democracy, foreign policy, national security decision-making, data and cyberspace governance, lessons for public health from Covid-19 to Arthashastra and ethical reasoning in public policy.

Jayraj Pandya

Jayraj Pandya, Manager at PRS Legislative Research’s LAMP Fellowship, kicked off the keynote sessions with a talk on ‘Parliament as India Turns 75’ and discussed the role of Parliaments in representative democracies, Parliamentary procedures in India and key events in the Parliament which has shaped India’s journey as a democracy. He concluded the talk with a discussion on Parliamentary reforms, especially in the area of anti-defection laws, and the ways of strengthening the Indian Parliament to make our democracy more robust.

Ambassador P S Raghavan

Amb. P S Raghavan spoke on the ‘Challenges in National Security’ with an emphasis on incorporating security threats arising from terrorism, military, technology, and economics into India’s foreign policy. He concluded his presentation with the need for a new national security architecture which is adapted to modern-day realities and national security strategy for India.

Lt. Gen. Prakash Menon

In his keynote address on ‘National Security Decision Making’, Lt. Gen. Prakash Menon elucidated the various internal, technological, economic, foreign policy, and environment-related aspects of national security. Further, he guided the students through the national security decision-making process consisting of institutions such as the PMO, cabinet committee on security, NSA, national security council, strategic policy group, national information board, internal coordination group and tech coordination group.

Rahul Matthan

Rahul Matthan, Partner at Trilegal, delivered a keynote address on ‘Digital Public Infrastructure’ where India has achieved considerable success with UPI, account aggregators and now, ONDC. He discussed the need for data governance infrastructure based on a techno-legal regulatory framework which will address concerns ranging from privacy to autonomy to safety in the digital world.

Prof. Gagandeep Kang

The second day of the conference was kicked off by Prof. Gagandeep Kang who delivered a talk on ‘Lessons from Covid’. She conducted an interactive exercise with students where various hypothetical scenarios on vaccines, disease outbreaks, and public health were discussed and students were encouraged to apply the lessons from Covid to come up with effective solutions.

Dr. Kajari Kamal

In ‘Introduction to Arthashastra’, Dr. Kajari Kamal gave a whirlwind tour of the seminal text in strategic thinking, right from its origins to modern-day applications. She stressed the interdisciplinary approach adopted in the ancient work on statecraft which insists that rulers use insights from economics, trade, politics and religions in governance and foreign policy.

Prof. Johanna Weaver

Prof. Johanna Weaver delivered a talk on ‘Evolving Tech Landscape and the Need for Regulation’ which explored the application of international humanitarian law to cyberspace and the contentions surrounding the issue between different member-States at the United Nations. Stressing the need to develop tech policy as a discipline, she argued for effective tech policy and public interest technology as alternatives to regulating cyberspace behaviour.

Nitin Pai

Nitin Pai delivered the final keynote session on ‘Ethical Reasoning in Public Policy’ where he exhorted the need to bring in an ethical lens to any public policy problem. Elaborating on virtue, deontological, utilitarian and dharmic approaches to ethical reasoning, he spoke on the Reflect, Educate and Discuss (RED) framework to help make better public choices.

Breakout Sessions

The breakout sessions were addressed by Krishna Hegde, Prof. Sabyasachi Kar, Kadambari Shah, Yashraj Bhardwaj, Mihir Mahajan, and Prof. Ashish Kulkarni. Sachin Kalbag, Pranay Kotasthane, Sarthak Pradhan, Dr. Shambhavi Naik, Dr. Harshit Kukreja, and Aditya Ramanathan from Takshashila also conducted breakout sessions. Issues in public policy such as crypto regulation, central bank digital currencies, bioweapons, nudging, semiconductor geopolitics, newsroom economics & free media, and foreign policy were discussed in the breakout sessions.

Krishna Hegde

Krishna Hegde, the co-founder of PYOR - a web3 start-up, spoke on the ‘Current State of Crypto Regulation’ and discussed how different countries are approaching the complex issue of regulating crypto. A unified approach to crypto regulation is likely to take time and until then, crypto businesses live under substantial ambiguity.

Sabyasachi Kar

As more and more central banks are deliberating on digital currencies, Prof. Sabyasachi Kar spoke on the ‘Viability of Indian CBDC’ which the RBI has already initiated. He discussed concerns relating to monetary policy, public policy and underdevelopment vis-a-vis Indian digital currency, especially in the Indian context.

Sarthak Pradhan

In his session on ‘How to Read a Budget’, Sarthak Pradhan conducted a tutorial on the nuances of budget documents. He discussed concepts like budget estimates, meaningful comparisons and outlays-outputs-outcomes framework, understanding which can help one gain the maximum from reading a budget document.

Sachin Kalbag

In the session on ‘Economics of Running a Newsroom and Why It Matters to Our Democracy’, Sachin Kalbag presented an overview of the challenges faced by Indian newsrooms today. He explained why sound economics management and user-driven revenue are imperative for the success of media houses and for upholding media freedom in the country.

Dr. Shambhavi Naik

Dr. Shambhavi Naik spoke on the ‘Role of International Organisations in Preventing Bioterrorism/Protecting Biosecurity’ in which she discussed the evolving nature of bioweapons, international instruments meant to curb their spread and what India can do to improve biosecurity.

Kadambari Shah

In the session on ‘Women in the Indian Economy, Kadambari Shah discussed the issue of low female participation in economic activities in India and the losses emanating from that to both women and the economy.

Mihir Mahajan

In a session on ‘Covid-19 death estimates - Data Sets, Methods and Results’, Mihir Mahajan spoke on the methods of estimating Covid-19 deaths across the world, with a focus on India. He discussed the datasets utilised and the modelling techniques used to arrive at the estimates.

Yashraj Bhardwaj

Yashraj Bhardwaj, the co-founder of Petonic Infotech, conducted a session on ‘Making Innovation Accessible’ where he spoke of his entrepreneurial journey and shared his experience on Open Innovations in India and market challenges.

Pranay Kotasthane

Taking inspiration from certain Bollywood songs, Pranay Kotasthane in his session on ‘Siliconpolitik: The Geopolitics of Semiconductors’ broke down the complex technicalities and geopolitics of semiconductors. He discussed the magic of transistors and chips, the diversified global supply chain, and the geopolitical significance of semiconductors which makes them ‘meta-critical’ today.

Prof. Ashish Kulkarni

Prof. Ashish Kulkarni spoke on the ‘Use of Behavioural Economics in Public Policy’ by drawing from the works of behavioural economists such as Richard Thaler to drive home the point of how nudges can operate to change human behaviour for the better. He also discussed the ethical dimensions of nudging as a policy tool and the Bill of Rights for nudging.

Dr. Harshit Kukreja

Dr. Harshit Kukreja presented Takshashila’s ‘Biological Reasoning Approach’ to public policy making. While economics has long dominated the field of public policy, he made a case for using biological reasoning from diverse fields such as evolutionary biology, sociology and genetics to augment public policy.

Aditya Ramanathan

Aditya Ramanathan, in his session on ‘Evolution of India’s Foreign Policy’ gave a detailed overview of goals, drivers and institutions behind India’s foreign policy making. He also put forth India's prickly 'stance', where the policy is to prioritise stability over other things.

Spontaneous Order Sessions

The ‘spontaneous order’ sessions were student-led with minimal moderation. The topics were based on open polling by the students. There were a total of 5 spontaneous order sessions.

During the sessions, the students engaged in stimulating discussions on topics like whether UPI should be free, internet shutdown as a law & order measure, reparations to colonies by former colonial powers, consequences of raising women’s marriage age and feasibility of social and cultural reform through legislation.

The Takshashila Institution is a pioneer in public policy education. To prepare our students to tackle the complex policy challenges, we bring together academic experts and policy practitioners from across the world. Takshashila’s unique pedagogy allows individuals to study from anywhere and while pursuing their current occupations.

For more details, check out our 12-week Graduate Certificate in Public Policy (GCPP), year-long Post Graduate Programme (PGP) and short-term Special Credit Courses (SCC).