April 2020

The Indian School of Public Policy (ISPP) is organizing a policy webinar by Gautam Chikermane, Vice President, Observer Research Foundation (ORF) on “Why Huawei must not be allowed into India's 5G Infrastructure: 6 Policy Contexts”. Registration is FREE of cost. However, we have limited seats. Therefore, pre-registration is mandatory.

Session Brief: China’s Huawei, a global leader in providing equipment for fifth-generation (5G) mobile technology, is attempting to enter the Indian market. However, in light of China’s proclivity for state interference in corporate operations and the critical infrastructure Huawei deals in, the firm poses a security threat for countries with its presence. This threat gets amplified for India when seen in the context of China’s anti-India stance on a range of issues, a Chinese law that binds corporations to collect and share intelligence, and the 3,488-km-long volatile India–China border. Leaning on a recent paper by the author, this webinar analyses the legal, geopolitical, strategic and technological risks of allowing Chinese firms such as Huawei into India’s critical infrastructure. Weighing the transformative force of 5G against India’s national security requirements, it provides six policy contexts within which to examine this complex issue.


About the Speaker: Gautam Chikermane is Vice President at ORF. His area of research is international and Indian economic policy.

 A Jefferson Fellow (Fall 2001) at the East-West Center, Honolulu, Gautam has written four books:70 Policies that Built India: 1947 to 2017, Independence to $2.5 Trillion (ORF, 2018), Tunnel of Varanavat (Rupa, 2016), The Disrupter: Arvind Kejriwal and the Audacious Rise of the Aam Aadmi (Rupa, 2014), Five Decades of Decay (Rupa, 1997)

Date: 25 April, 2020
Time: 4 PM – 5.30 PM
Register: https://bit.ly/34NVn3f

This event is exclusively online. The link for attending the webinar will be shared with you 1 day before the event.

The Indian School of Public Policy (ISPP) is organizing a policy webinar by Tanya Spisbah, Director, Australia India Institute, New Delhi on ” The Strategically Autonomous Superpower – India in a Multipolar 2020″. Registration is FREE of cost. However, we have limited seats. Therefore, pre-registration is mandatory.

Session Brief: Coronavirus has helped to sharpen the image of the world and its nations through a new lens – that of capability. This webinar session will provide an overview of:

• India’s strategic choices in economic liberalisation
• India’s engagement in multilateral institutions
• India’s domestic economic agenda – Make In India
• Crisis management and capability – relativity on a global stage.


About the Speaker: Tanya Spisbah is a strategist, negotiator and advocator, passionate about impact for a sustainable planet. She is renowned for her work on Australia-India relations, particularly with respect to inclusive sustainable development. As director of the Australia India Institute in New Delhi, she promotes bilateral research collaboration for sustainable development and sheds light on contemporary Indian foreign and public policy in a multipolar world. A former career diplomat with the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for more than a decade, Ms Spisbah served from 2014-17 at the Australian High Commission, New Delhi, specialising in health and technology diplomacy and sustainable economic growth. She developed and led the health agenda culminating in the Australian and Indian Prime Ministers exchanging an MoU for Health and Medicine. Other areas of policy leadership include climate policy, sustainable infrastructure, governance and education. Previous roles in the Department include placements in Moscow and Baghdad. Ms Spisbah has negotiated free trade agreements with a number of economic partners, including China, South Korea and ASEAN. She led Australia’s intellectual property agenda and environmental goods agenda in the World Trade Organization. Ms Spisbah was formerly a lawyer with Minter Ellison, specializing in IP and technology.

Ms Spisbah holds tertiary qualifications in philosophy, economics and law (LLB (Hons) ANU, LLM from UniMelb) and was awarded the prize for ethics in her Graduate Certificate of Legal Practice, Griffith University. In 2018 Ms Spisbah was selected as a guest of the French Government (the esteemed PIPA Program) to engage on climate, health and renewable energy. She has published a number of articles and opinion pieces and has spoken in a wide array of fora about climate, health, education and good governance.

Date: 22 April, 2020
Time: 11 AM – 12.30 PM
Register: https://bit.ly/2K8NNGM

This event is exclusively online. The link for attending the webinar will be shared with you 1 day before the event.

The Indian School of Public Policy (ISPP) is organizing a policy webinar by Shiben Banerji, Assistant Professor at the Art Institute of Chicago on “Why Public Policy Matters: Reflections from the COVID-19 Emergency”. Registration is FREE of cost. However, we have limited seats. Therefore, pre-registration is mandatory.

Session Brief: Every society has economic and social goals, but how are they to be implemented? And who pays for the implementation? This is where public policy steps in. In this webinar, Shiben Banerji highlights three techniques of public policy: institutional analysis; legal history; and comparative study. These techniques uncover cases of policy innovation that can be strengthened and replicated. They also reveal facets of cultural life that offer hope in the darkest of circumstances. Focusing on responses to the COVID-19 emergency in India and the United States, the webinar will delineate an agenda for public policy.


About the Speaker: Shiben Banerji is an Urban Designer, historian, and author of Lineages of the Global City. Recognized for his contributions to the study and practice of equitable urban development, Shiben received a Mellon Junior Fellowship in the Humanities, Urbanism, and Design from the University of Pennsylvania, and is presently a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for the Humanities at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is a former Associate Director of the Urban Design Research Institute in Mumbai, a Research Fellow at the Urbanization Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Short-Term Consultant to the World Bank. Shiben earned a PhD in Architecture and a Master in City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and his BA from Columbia University. He is an Assistant Professor at the Art Institute of Chicago, and is also a Visiting Faculty at the Indian School of Public Policy.

Date: 16 April, 2020
Time: 4 PM – 5.30 PM
Register: https://bit.ly/3c6lLHV

This event is exclusively online and will be facilitated via the Zoom. The link for attending the webinar will be shared with you 1 day before the event.

The Indian School of Public Policy (ISPP) is organizing a webinar (online session) with Shubhashis Gangopadhyay, Dean ISPP & Parth Shah, Co-Founder ISPP. Registration is FREE of cost. However, we have limited seats. Therefore, pre-registration is mandatory.

Session Brief: ISPP’s leadership team will walk you through the tenets of India’s first one-year, full-time programme in public policy and answer all your questions around it. The session will cover the history of ISPP, its unique proposition along with details on academics, placements & admissions.

Date: 08 April, 2020
Time: 5 PM – 6 PM
Register: https://bit.ly/2WZxjZi

This event is exclusively online and will be facilitated via the Zoom.