Rajni Bakshi was the Gandhi Peace Fellow at Gateway House from 2011 till 2017. A Mumbai-based author, she published a Research paper in October 2012 titled Civilizational Gandhi. Rajni has a BA from George Washington University and an MA from the University of Rajasthan. She is the author of Bazaars, Conversations and Freedom: for a market culture beyond greed and fear (Penguin, 2009), which won two Vodafone-Crossword Awards. Her earlier book, Bapu Kuti: Journeys in Rediscovery of Gandhi (Penguin, 1998) inspired the Hindi film Swades starring Shah Rukh Khan. Her other books include: Long Haul: the Bombay Textile Workers Strike 1982-83 (1986), A Warning and an Opportunity: the Dispute over Swami Vivekananda’s Legacy (1994), Lets Make it Happen: a backgrounder on New Economics (2003) and An Economics for Well-Being (2007).
Rajni serves on the Boards of Child Rights and You (CRY) and Citizens for Peace. She is also a member of the Executive Committee of the Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti, an autonomous body under the Ministry of Culture and a long term associate of Centre of Education and Documentation (Mumbai & Bangalore). Download high-res bio image
Expertise
Peace, Economic democracy, electoral politics, social protests, climate change and sustainable development
Two unrelated events in Mumbai highlighted the promise of India being able to attract capital from Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) funds. A combination of supportive regulatory measures and awareness-building among investors could finally put India on the SRI map of the world.
The World Happiness Report 2016 has listed India at 118th place – the lowest rank among BRICS. While there is a strong case for holistic metrics that map actual well-being, research in happiness needs to be taken with a pinch of scepticism.
In the ruckus raised by a growing number of caste-based groups, not earlier regarded as backward, for reservation quotas in government jobs and educational institutions, what is not being highlighted is the increasing success of how caste based discrimination is being reduced, even eliminated in some contexts. This must be mapped by social science researchers and policy makers, to help change the discourse of grievance.
Courtesy: Research and Information System for Developing Countries
Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), hosted a Conference on South-South Cooperation in New Delhi on 10-11 March, 2016. The conference, represented by about 350 delegates representing 62 countries, demonstrated both the maturity of South-South Cooperation and the creative challenges that lie ahead.
The controversy surrounding Facebook’s Free Basics in India highlights a key dilemma currently faced by policy makers and private entrepreneurs who wish to foster, not just ‘inclusion’, but business models which foster economic democracy.
COP21 is a reality check for those who like to believe that geopolitical power is shifting from West to East. The just-concluded Paris Climate Summit was essentially about the early-to-develop Western powers continuing to exercise almost complete control over global governance structures, largely through the dominance of markets.
An unspoken war has been waged between India and the U.S. at the COP21 Summit in Paris. If the West wants India to opt for more expensive energy options, then they must also reciprocate by sharing technology.
The first week of Paris climate talks came to an end on Friday 4 December, 2015. The road ahead to reach an agreement seems difficult as multinational companies have aligned themselves more with the agenda of the developed world. Is sense going to prevail in the coming week and 'differentiated nature of responsibility' find acceptance?
If COP 21 Summit in Paris is to play a decisive role in warding off climate havoc, it must strengthen efforts to resolve the greatest market failure in history. Efforts to reconfigure market culture are part of a larger civilizational process of treating profit as the means not the goal of business.
As the discussions at a recent meeting on sustainable infrastructure hosted by the Economic Policy Forum showed, many of the building blocks are already in place. The challenge now is to focus on macro public policy issues, and ask if the short-term compulsions of governments and the private sector will continue to create infrastructure that is unsustainable.
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