November 11

1. Topic: Restructuring Urban Transportation in India
Speaker: Dr. S. Sriraman

About the resource person - Dr S.Sriraman  -  Dr.Sriraman is presently Walchand Hirachand professor of Transport Economics, at the department of Economics University of Mumbai, and has been actively involved in teaching transportation economics, microeconomics, industrial economics, quantitative economics to post graduate students. Besides teaching, he has a number of research projects to his credit in the field of transportation for central and state governments. He did his Bachelors of Arts in Economics from Loyola College, Madras University, Masters of Arts in Economics from Delhi School of Economics and completed his in Transport Systems from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. He has published nearly fifty papers professional journals and numerous articles for business weeklies and dailies. He visited the Pennsylvania Transportation Institute, USA as a Ford foundation fellow in 1990-91, the University of Ulster, Jordanstown as a British Council fellow in 1997 and is currently visiting professor at TERI University.

About the talk – The talk on “Restructuring Urban Transportation in India” by Dr. Sriraman was quite informative and interesting. He discussed at length the various challenges and opportunities that Indian cities face today in terms of transport. The public transport system is weak and ineffective, it lacks indigenous research and innovation. We still emulate the age old and obsolete technologies which were being used by other nations decades ago, for example – the Sweden model of multi axle buses which were introduced in 1970s there, are now getting imported to India. The quantity and quality of urban transport system are both inefficient and unsustainable. The only option left with general public is to have private vehicles, leading to more traffic congestion, pollution, poor traffic speed and loss of time and resources. The government policy towards urban planning and management is poor and shortsighted and lacks long term endeavor. The capacity building usually follows the demand and does not precede it, leaving a demand-supply lag every time. In the given scenario of rapid urbanization, Government should work with Private sector, NGOs and civil society to monitor and tackle the current problems and to build capacity for future.
The talk was followed by a question and answer round, where students put forward their queries and concerns regarding the urban transport system in India. The common consent was on the existence of huge scope of improvement in the urban transport system. Many students also made up their minds to conduct research on the topic to find constructive solutions.

August 11

1. Topic: Capital Market
Speaker: Nisha Dhawan

On August 4th 2011, a guest lecture on “Capital Market” was organized for Third year BSc students and First year MSc students. The lecture was delivered by Nisha Dhawan, who was directly associated with the capital market functioning in London through Barclays Capital Securities Ltd. The main aim of this lecture was to make students understand the JARGON, FRAMEWORKS and REAL WORLD OPERATIONS of Equity Trading. She explained in detail the structure of an investment bank, functioning of institutional equities and terminologies used therein.
Her direct association with the day to day functioning of the capital market facilitated students to understand the real financial crisis happened in New York Stock exchange around 1980 and 2008. The session ended with the promise to her by students to watch The Wall Street Movies I and II till her next visit to SSE to understand the actual financial crisis in a more entertaining way.

September 10

1. Topic: Human Capital as a tool for Globalization
Speaker: Professor P.N.N. Iyer

When we walked back after the workshop by Professor P.N.N. Iyer, we were left surprised if he was a musician, academician or a polyglot. Rated unanimously as one of the best workshops held at SSE, Prof. Iyer swayed the students by exuberance and wit.
His approach towards Human Capital and Globalization came as a surprise to all the participants. Never before had we realized human capital had something to do with why Punjab owned maximum Mercs or why there were more Malayalis in the middle-east than there are in Kerala itself!
He connected how Human Capital was connected directly to development in view of the changing global scenario.

June 09

1. Topic: Financial System
Speaker:Dr. Arvind Jadhav, Scholar-in-Residence.

As budding economists, students of SSE had the opportunity to listen to Dr. Arvind Jadhav on the 27th June, 2009. Dr. Jadhav who is a professor at the University of Dallas and a Scholar- in- Residence at SSE delivered a lecture on the Financial System. He started with an introduction of money and how money flows in the economy. He discussed the concepts that are related to the supply of money and Cash Reserve Ratio. He outlined the Financial System framework as in USA and simultaneously elaborated the intricacies that clearly differentiated the US system from the Indian Financial System. Dr. Jadhav discussed the subprime crisis that affected the US Economy and set in the recessionary trend in USA and subsequently other countries of the world. In the brainstorming session that stretched over an hour, students were left spellbound.

2. Topic: Cumulative Grade Point Average
Speaker: Mr. Rajesh Panda.

On 20th June, 2009 Mr. Rajesh Panda, Faculty SIBM, delivered a lecture to the students of Symbiosis School of Economics on the topic ‘Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA)’ system of evaluation introduced by Symbiosis International University. The lecture was organized to clarify the doubts of students regarding the CGPA system which is a credit system introduced at SIU. Students are awarded Grade points instead of absolute marks. Every course is allotted a specific number of credits. At the end of the programme the consolidated mark sheet will carry a CGPA. The CGPA for the programme will be calculated by taking the weighted average of the semester grade points where the total credit for the semester will act as the weight. This Relative Grading in Credit System encourages healthy competition among students and build academic rigor. It becomes easier for comparison of performance across all academic institutions in India and abroad. It facilitates students’ exchange abroad and differentiates the top performers from the free riders.

February 09

1. Topic: Budget
Speaker:Dr. Rajas Parchure

Dr. Rajas Parchure (Dty. Director, Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics) was invited to conduct a seminar on“Budget”. Dr. Parchure commenced the session by elucidating to the students what exactly is budget and the work that goes on behind its estimation. A very lucid language and an explanation from the scratch did not let the students attention to deviate even for a minute.
He gave a brief on the initial budgetary conditions in India after Independence and coming up till the present interim budget of 2009, thereby broadening our horizon of analysing various components which form an important part of the budget.
It was an enriching experience with a session of pure learning and expanding our knowledge realm.

2. Topic: India and WTO
Speaker: Mr. Pradeep Apte

Mr. Pradeep Apte (Professor, Fergusson College, BMCC, Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics) was invited to conduct a seminar on “India and WTO”. Mr. Apte is a consultant at the World bank and the World Trade Centre, India. He is also a member of Expert Group on State Finance Commissions for 13th Finance Commission Government of India. Sir is author of many Research Papers and publications.
The world trade organization (WTO), successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), is an international organization designed to supervise and liberalize international trade. Ever since its existence i.e. on 1 January 1995, India has been its member.
Dr. Apte set the environment with introduction of WTO and explaining its various model designing. Its basic functioning was the next on the list. It was quite interesting to know as to how WTO, being a forum for governments to negotiate trade agreements manages trade between its member nations with different tools like single undertaking approach, restrictions and barriers among others. Furthermore, Dr. Apte went about ameliorating student knowledge about General Agreement on Tariffs and Services (GATS) whereby emphasising on subsidies given by governments and its effect on equivalent tariffs basically in agricultural sector of the country. Also talking about Indian acceptance to all this at different stages.
He was extremely impressive in analysing India’s stand on WTO ever since its existence and was largely successful in proving Indian ministers failure in the past which they attributed to be achievements. He gave a clear idea about the non-applicability of theories and convictions holding true within this fast changing economies around the world, thereby giving an extremely important lesson of understanding what international bodies’ means when they say something else.

January 09

Topic : Outsourcing in India
Speaker : Mr. Milind Patwardhan

Mr. Milind Patwardhan who is the account manager of Geometrics software solutions Ltd, Germany.He has worked with Siemens Information Systems at New Delhi, TATA Motors etc. A graduate in mechanical engineering from the University of Pune. He has also presented a paper at long beach , CA.

The lecture by Mr.Patwardhan was very informative and it dealt with the current scenario worldwide. ‘Outsourcing’ refers to recruiting people from one country to work for a company located elsewhere. This process has been continued for more than a decade, this was the reason why the BPO and KPO was a big hit in India. But due to the current recessionary pressure prevailing in the world economy, the magnitude of outsourcing has been decreasing.
The session was very interactive and participative. Although the students were aware about the topic, the discussion  gave clarity to the students about Outsourcing in India.. Mr. Patwardhan was very impressed and he appreciated the participation by the students.