The Centre for Social and Economic Progress hosted the launch of the book Changing Paradigms of Urbanisation: India and Beyond by Om Prakash Mathur on Tuesday, March 12, 2024, 4:00 – 5:30 PM IST. Attendees joined in-person at the Silver Oak Hall, India Habitat Centre, Lodi Road, New Delhi – 110003 and via Zoom. The seminar was streamed live on YouTube.

About the book:

The book is a collection of papers written by Om Prakash Mathur over several decades. It is a repository of insights into how urbanisation has unfolded itself and how perceptions about urbanisation have changed over time from being indifferent, often even negative, to it becoming an integral feature of growth and economic transformation. Using formal datasets comparable over time, the papers in the book look at the impact of globalisation on India’s urban system and explore the linkages between urbanisation and economic growth. 

Efficacy of Asian governments’ approaches to countering spatial inequalities that included the establishment of counter-magnets, growth poles and growth centres, and the development of small towns is the theme of one of the papers prepared for the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (UN-HABITAT). Decentralisation as encapsulated in the 74th Constitutional Amendment and the finances of India’s municipalities are examined in a paper commissioned by the World Bank. The papers also dig into issues of the urban informal sector and rising urban poverty in world’s mega-cities. 

Introductory Remarks

Rakesh Mohan is President Emeritus and Distinguished Fellow at CSEP. Previously, he was Senior Fellow at the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, Yale University, Professor at Yale’s School of Management, and a Distinguished Consulting Professor at Stanford University. Closely associated with the Indian economic reforms process since the late 1980s, he has served in senior roles including as the Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, Secretary, Economic Affairs and Chief Economic Adviser, Ministry of Finance. 

Author’s Address

Om Prakash Mathur is Visiting Senior Fellow, Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) Research Foundation and Senior Fellow, Global Cities Institute, University of Toronto, Toronto. He served from 2014-19 as a Senior Fellow and Chair, Urban Studies, at the Institute of Social Sciences and held from 1992-2011, the position of IDFC Chair at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, New Delhi. From 1984-1992, Om Prakash Mathur was Director, National Institute of Urban Affairs, and a Distinguished Professor from 2011-2014.

Chief Guest

Nitin Desai is a former national and international civil servant and a global advocate for sustainable development. After teaching at two UK universities and serving briefly as an economic consultant, he began his public service career with the Planning Commission in 1973. He served as Secretary of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister and became Secretary and Chief Economic Adviser in the Ministry of Finance in 1988.  

At the international level, he was a Senior Adviser to the Brundtland Commission, where he introduced the concept of sustainable development. He joined the UN in 1990 as Deputy Secretary General of Development (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1992), was appointed Under Secretary General at the UN in New York in 1993, and stayed in that post till 2003. During this period, he led the work on sustainable development and in other economic and social areas.  

After his retirement, Nitin Desai was appointed as a Special Adviser to the Secretary General on Internet Governance, and in that capacity, he chaired the group that organised the annual Intent Governance Forum, a position he occupied until 2010. In July 2004, he was inducted as an Honorary Fellow of the London School of Economics and Political Science. 

He has been involved in various public policy activities nationally and internationally dealing with economic policy, climate change, energy, environment, internet governance and security. He writes a monthly column in Business Standard. 

Discussants

• Dinesh Mehta is a Professor Emeritus and Head of the Center for Water and Sanitation. He has over four decades of experience in urban policy, urban planning and management, in Asia and Africa. He was involved in global urban policy and dialogue as the head of the Urban Management Programme at the UN-Habitat headquarters in Nairobi. He also significantly contributed to urban policy formulation by the Government of India while he was a Director of the National Institute of Urban Affairs, New Delhi, India. He was also the Director of the School of Planning at CEPT University, Ahmedabad, India, from 1986-1992. In 2013, he was awarded the International Water Association’s Development Solutions Award in recognition of his contribution to research and practice in water. In 2017, he became a fellow of IWA and Chair of their specialist group on water and sanitation in developing countries. He has a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, a Master’s in City and Regional Planning from Harvard University, and a Bachelor of Technology in Civil Engineering, IIT, Madras, India.
• Kala Seetharam Sridhar is Professor and Head, Centre for Research in Urban Affairs, Institute for Social and Economic Change. She has authored and edited books published by Routledge, Oxford University Press, Palgrave Macmillan, Springer, and Sage, and has published papers in journals like Regional Science and Urban Economics, Urban Studies, Applied Economics, Area Development & Policy and Environment and Urbanization Asia, among others. She was a Visiting Scholar at the United Nations University’s World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER). She is a recipient of the Fulbright Nehru Fellowship. She was hosted by the University of California, Los Angeles, Luskin School of Public Affairs, Dept of Urban Planning, in 2021 and 2022. She was a Visiting Scholar at George Mason University from June-July 2023. She has done extensive research for the Asian Development Bank (ADB). She is Managing Editor of the Journal of Social and Economic Development (Springer). She is on the editorial advisory board of journals like Area Development and Policy (Taylor & Francis), Urban India, and Frontiers in Built Environment-Urban Science. She is presently guiding five Ph.D. students on various topics, including urban poverty, urban finances, start-ups, housing affordability, and land use regulations. Two students have graduated with PhD under her guidance. She was empanelled to be the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) Chair Professor of Indian Studies (Economics) in Foreign Universities (2015). She has won several international awards for her research on urbanisation, including the highly competitive Global Development Network medal for outstanding research on development and national awards such as the VKRV Rao prize for her contribution to the social sciences. She is among the top 10% of authors globally on the Social Science Research Network. She has a Ph.D. from Ohio State University and M.S. from the University of Iowa, USA.

Moderator

Laveesh Bhandari is President and a Senior Fellow at CSEP. He has been leading climate change and sustainability research at CSEP, and has published widely on subjects related to sustainable livelihoods, industrial, economic and social reforms in India, economic geography and financial inclusion. He has taught economics at Boston University and IIT Delhi. He has been the managing editor of the Journal of Emerging Market Finance and worked at the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), New Delhi.

All content reflects the individual views of the speakers. The Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) does not hold an institutional view on any subject.