Speakers
This panel discussion explores India’s critical challenges to growing self-sufficient and rich before it grows old, as examined in the book India Out of Work by Santosh Mehrotra and Jajati K. Parida. Following the discussion will be an audience Q&A.
With only fifteen years left of its demographic dividend, India is staring at a stark future – it may age into a poorer nation. Millions remain unemployed, underemployed or trapped in precarious work. From sluggish economic expansion to widening inequality as well as the disturbingly small presence of women in India’s workforce, they unpack the paradox of jobless growth, debunk the myth of significant poverty alleviation and reveal the systemic barriers holding millions back from a good life. Without urgent reform, India faces a future of deepening inequality, stagnant wages and sacrificed potential.
The race against time has begun, and India is already alarmingly behind!
Speakers
Santosh Mehrotra
Santosh Mehrotra, a human development economist, was Professor of Economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University and Chairperson of its Centre for Labour. He earned an MA from the New School for Social Research and a PhD from Cambridge University (1985). He spent fifteen years with the UN (1991–2006), heading UNICEF’s global research programme on social policy for developing countries at the Innocenti Research Centre, and serving as chief economist of the Human Development Report. Returning to India, he headed divisions of the Planning Commission (2006–09), lead-authoring chapters of the 11th and 12th Five Year Plans, and directed the National Institute of Labour Economics Research (2009–14). He was lead author of the second India Human Development Report (2011), and has authored fourteen books. His writings have been translated into Hindi, Spanish, French, Italian, Russian, German, and Portuguese. He consults regularly with the ILO, ADB, UNDP, UNESCO, and UNEVOC.
Rituparna Chakraborty
Rituparna Chakravarty is a partner and India lead at True, an executive search firm. Earlier, as co-founder of TeamLease Services, Rituparna played a key role in transforming the hiring landscape in India. She scaled the company from startup to publicly listed enterprise. She serves on the board of multiple corporations and has been featured among Business Today’s Most Powerful Women in Business and CII’s Business Woman of the Year.
G Manjunath
Dr Manjunath is Additional Labour Commissioner (Industrial Relations), Government of Karnataka. He is a distinguished labour administrator with over 25 years of experience in industrial relations. He has pioneered legislative innovation and social protection frameworks for emerging workforce segments.
Sridhar Krishna
Sridhar Krishna is a Senior Scholar at the Takshashila Institution where he led the 20 million jobs project before joining the group researching on AI Governance. His specific area of interest is AI and Jobs. Till recently, he was a Managing Director at Accenture where he worked on analytics and AI. Prior to Accenture, Sridhar ran an IT services company in Chennai after having spent a decade manufacturing industrial rubber products.
Rajeev Gowda
Prof. Rajeev Gowda is a former Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha (2014-20) and a former Professor at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (2000-14). He is Chairman of the Research Department of the Indian National Congress and one of the party’s national spokespersons. He has been Vice Chairman of the Karnataka Policy and Planning Commission (2023-24) and Director, Central Board, Reserve Bank of India (2011-14).
You might also like
Being Brutally Frank: Human Instincts and the Law
2nd Justice AM Ahmadi Distinguished Lecture
RSVP here
