Annual Report - icrier

Annual Report, 2010-11
The conference also suggested that a track II dialogue process to discuss issues of mutual interest between India,
Japan and China be initiated to move towards the long-term goal of establishing an East Asian Community. However,
there was apprehension that India’s entering into a trilateral agreement with China and Japan could distance it from
the South Asian and South East Asian markets.
Emerging Economies in the New World Order: Promises, Pitfalls and Priorities
April 12-13, 2010
ICRIER held the first conference under an IDRC-funded initiative to organise, promote and facilitate a research
dialogue among emerging economy scholars to enhance the knowledge content of policy making at both the
domestic and the global level on April 12 and 13, 2010. The objective was to help large emerging economies to
learn from each other’s experiences, successes and failures and discover commonalities and complementarities
under a thematic framework to better understand their priorities and put forward their concerns, ideas and vision
as they take the centre-stage of global governance. This research dialogue saw participation from China, Brazil,
Chile, Mexico, South Africa, Kenya, Egypt, Malaysia, Indonesia and India. The conference was inaugurated by
Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission. The two-day conference, split into
four plenary sessions, discussed key developmental themes of the emerging world in the form of a dialogue. The
themes were a) agriculture, food security and livelihood b) technology and innovation c) energy, environment and
climate change and d) health. Eminent scholars from participating countries presented the key messages and country
experiences through background papers before engaging in a dialogue. Eminent Indian scholars with policy-making
and administrative experience in the respective field chaired each of the dialogues. Selected Indian experts also joined
the deliberations. The conference concluded by identifying priorities that emerged from the four, theme-specific
dialogues to set the stage for sustained engagements, research collaborations and dissemination activities to propose
alternative approaches to global financial and economic governance.
Participants of Multi-Country Research
Dialogue on ‘Emerging Economies in the
New World Order: Promises, Pitfalls and
Priorities’
Research and Action Agenda for a National Broadband Initiative
April 16, 2010
The Idea Telecom Centre of Excellence of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and ICRIER jointly
organised a workshop on the research and action agenda for a national broadband initiative. The focus of the
workshop was to determine the factors affecting broadband deployment and develop a medium-term action plan to
increase broadband penetration. This included defining the role the government would play in increasing broadband
deployment and the institutional and other systemic requirements needed to do so. The workshop examined the
experiences of other countries, technological developments in the field, factors driving demand, state level factors
that have resulted in the asymmetric diffusion of broadband penetration and the needs of rural and semi-urban lowability-to-pay
customers. It was pointed out during the workshop that the government had a significant role to play
in increasing broadband penetration since broadband exhibits characteristics of a public good. Other issues affecting
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