Webinar organized by the Department of Economics on July 23, 2020

The Department of Economics had organized a webinar, ‘Sino-Indian face off: Changing Dynamics of International Relations and India’s Potential Realignments’ on July 23, 2020 on Google Meet. The session was chaired by Prof. Samir Kumar Das of Department of Political Science, University of Calcutta. The honorable speakers were Prof. Sugata Marjit, Distinguished Professor of Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Ministry of Commerce and Industries, Government of India and Prof. Saibal Kar, Professor of Economics, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata.

The target audience for the webinar was college teachers, research scholars, professionals and post graduate and undergraduate students. 138 candidates had registered for the session. The number of respondents was 87. The webinar was informative and thought-provoking.

Prof. Marjit discussed the economic aspects of the relationship between India and China. China has helped in the growth and economic prosperity of India. Curtailing import of goods and services produced by China will not help India. The trade policies of the Government of India camouflage the successive failures of Indian Government for a long- term vision for Indian economy. He emphasized on the importance of R & D for India to increase her competitiveness in the global economy which India lacked in comparison to China.

Prof. Saibal Kar in his presentation ‘A Passage to War: Explaining International Conflicts’ presented a game-theoretic quantitative model based on dynamic games with incomplete information expounding how cross-border clashes are potentially motivated by the need for the realignment or reallocation of resources. The model primordially comes as an explanation for the empirically significant correlation between military expenditure and economic growth, so much so in terms of the domino effect.

Prof, Samir Kumar Das moderated the session very effectively and analyzed the face-off by adding a political dimension to the economic perspectives put forward by the two speakers. The question session was also enriching. The webinar has been rated as excellent by most participants and many have expressed their interest to participate in more informative and insightful sessions in future.