Capacity Building on Competition Policy
A two-year project entitled “Capacity Building on Competition Policy in Select countries of Eastern and Southern Africa” codenamed the 7Up3 was undertaken jointly with the CUTS Centre for Competition, Investment & Economic Regulation (C-CIER). The project covers seven countries: Botswana, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, and Uganda.

The objective of 7Up3 project is to develop capacity of national stakeholders such as policymakers, regulators, civil society organisations (CSOs), academicians, and the media in each country through a participatory process. Also, it aims to understand and appreciate prevailing competition concerns from the national, regional, and international perspectives, and enable stakeholders to respond, appropriately. More about the project can be seen at: http://www.cuts-international.org/7up3.htm.

The 7Up3 project has made way for CUTS Institute for Regulation & Competition (CIRC) to strengthen itself as an institute dedicated to “enhancing knowledge and strengthening capacity”. CIRC works with a vision of making markets work better for people by creating an intellectual knowledge base on regulatory reforms including economic regulation, competition policy, and commercial diplomacy.

It is the first institute of its kind in India working towards filling in the major institutional gap that exists in the area of regulatory capacity building and advocacy.

The 7Up3 project offers the opportunity to run a series of training seminars to be organised in the seven countries as a capacity building measure, which would be undertaken by CIRC. Two training workshops have previously been conducted in Africa. The first was entitled “Africa Regional Training Workshop on Competition Policy and law Administration” in Pretoria, and the second, a two-day training workshop on “Competition Policy and Law” for the staff of the Ethiopian Competition Authority at Addis Ababa. The latter was a customised training workshop designed to cater to the demand of line ministry officials and competition agencies.

Capacity building, being an objective of the 7Up3 project, would be achieved by organising a series of National Training Workshops. CIRC would conduct these workshops and it has planned one workshop in each of the seven project countries for key stakeholders on competition related issues. These workshops will be organised in Mozambique, Botswana, Namibia, and Mauritius in July-August, 2007 and Ethiopia, Malawi, and Uganda during August-September, 2007.

The objectives of the training workshops include: to develop the basic understanding of national stakeholders; and to help familiarise stakeholders with the measures on how to get engaged with the process of evolving and implementing national competition regimes. The training workshops focus on the seven developing countries that are either in the process of adopting a competition law or have just adopted one.

What’s Happening An Overview

Industry-specific
Wigan & Leigh College India (WLCI), an institute in professional education across the country, launched industry-specific courses to “provide professional training to the students in a wide array of courses.The courses would open fresh avenues of employment across sectors.’’

Based on immense demand for trained professionals in the industry, WLCI has introduced the courses. There is also a provision of 15 percent free seats for under-privileged students. Apart from ongoing programmes in business, fashion, media, advertising and graphic designing, the college will now offer full-time and part-time programmes in retail, banking, hospital administration, information technology, politics, social work, and hospitality.

WLCI has tied up with organisations like Reliance Retail, Bharti Retail, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, HCL, Wipro etc., to provide paid-on-the-job-training to students. (ET, 11.05.07).

Best Standards
An institute on Corporate Governance is soon coming up at Manesar, Haryana. This institute would have think tanks from the industry, the corporate world, including government representatives, legal luminaries, and other experts on its board of directors.

The institute would receive suggestions from the corporate world to match domestic corporate governance rules with the best practising standards of the world. It would aim to impart better knowledge on corporate Governance issues.

Retail Training
NSHM Knowledge Campus, Kolkata, has joined hands with the Retailers Association of India (RAI) to cater to the training needs of the retail sector. Given the boom in the retail sector, the manpower requirement in the Indian retail sector is quite huge.

According to an estimate about two million people will be required for the retail industry in the coming two years. Besides NSHM, RAI has partnered with eight other institutes across India for offering retail management courses. These training courses are being and would be made available at subsidised rates for unemployed youth with the assistance of the state government.

Finishing Schools Project
NASSCOM is in the final stages of launching its “finishing schools” for engineering graduates with a minimum 60 percent in the degree course. The courses of six to eight weeks would be held in the seven NITs, across the country, and at IIT-Roorkee. The initiative is being taken to cater to the dearth of trained manpower in the science and technology sector.

This is aimed at creating an environment wherein soon after graduation students can join in as faculty to fill in the gaps. (BS, 25.04.07).

Promoting “Indianness”
The Indian Council of Philosophical Research (ICPR) has proposed a virtual campus to promote “Indianness” among citizens. The Indian Institute of philosophy (IIP) would be an online academic campus offering research programs on Indian identity against the backdrop of national integration.

The course would elevate the basic essence of Indian culture, which is fragmented into regions and states after Independence. IIP would have a virtual campus with continuously changing IT network and communication facilities that would interlink students and faculty.

Space Institute
A full-fledged space institute is to be set up to cater to the need of space technologists. With a thrust on training science graduates just out of school, the institute would be on the lines of the IITs, attracting the brightest and the best.

The institute would help the public sector Indian Space Industry tide over the shortage of high-quality space scientists.

Foreign University Bill
A law has been proposed to regulate the entry and functioning of foreign universities in India. The proposed Regulation of Foreign University Entry and Operation (Maintenance of Quality and Prevention of Commercialisation) Bill 2007 would restrict them by imposing certain mandates.

The mandates would include the foreign universities to invest 51 percent of the capital in India; to acquire a deemed university status; and operationally report to the University Grants Commission (UGC). But, this Bill could not be slated due to opposition from Left parties.

Reluctance to Collaborate
According to British education experts, Indian universities are reluctant to go in for research collaborations though the quality of state-run institutions in the country is better than that in Southeast Asian nations.

And, although India is an IT giant, there is also reluctance towards online education in the country, according to Robert Aylett and Mark Bickerton, London Metropolitan University educationists.

In this context, it was felt that, in India, the emphasis is still on teacher as the face to face instructor. Even in higher education the classroom continues to be a linear model.

Expert Comments

New Steel Frame for a New World

Why the training of India’s higher civil service officers is relevant to our future

– Yoginder K Alagh

The implementation of a lifetime training programme for the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) originally developed by a committee I chaired, set up by the UPSC and worked on by the General Surendra Nath Committee and others, has been commented upon by the radical left and right. These comments are valuable, since as a former vicechancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), I believe that youth and forward-looking groups are generally idealistic. And idealists of today make the leaders of tomorrow. Also, this is an issue of high importance.

Higher civil services retain high relevance to the future of the country. When you get tens of thousands of young Indians who apply and select only a few, whether in the civil services or JNU, you get extraordinary talent, and if they protest, I would rack my mind to understand what their point is.

First, the facts: the training programme is firmly located in India, including Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute and other leading institutes, with only a little help from overseas experts, as has been done in the past. There are field visits, but to a variety of destinations (the only one currently planned is to China).

On the occasion of the commencement of the IAS’ lifetime training ‘Phase V’ programme, which I called a significant day in India’s quest for powering itself into the 21st century, I pointed out that some of the most distinguished Indians in the civil and corporate sectors, including the Honourable APJ Abdul Kalam, had worked on it.

The Surendra Nath Committee was to put flesh and blood in the proposal and the present Alagh Committee was to advise and see it through. We had extensive consultations on the civil services’ future with civil society groups, the UPSC Committee and senior IAS officers. On governance trends, it was pointed out that as the state withdraws from direct delivery, there would emerge the need to establish a regulatory framework for the functioning of the economic and social sectors.

Policy would also need to lay down the institutional framework, the incentive and disincentive mechanisms and fiscal structures for civil society institutions to function, like the decentralised local government institutions, cooperatives, NGOs and newer ‘mixed’ forms of similar organisations. In discussing the future context, attention was given to nonrenewable resource scarcities—water, quality land, energy, and so on.

The emphasis on the rights of individuals and groups, including participatory forms of decision-making, is likely to increase. This, in turn, will demand greater fairness and self-restraint in the use of government power. Related to it will be demands on transparency and the right to information. Vulnerable groups would demand protection, and concern for human rights would rise. On the flip side, modern technology will be seen as providing cutting-edge knowledge based solutions to emerging problems, and the greater use of IT, biotechnology, systems networking and new materials will be part of the strategic management responses.

Security concerns will become more acute, arising from socio-economic political dichotomies and resultant tensions, as also issues of energy and food/water security, and institutional responses would be needed. The civil servant of the future would need: a) a sense of vision and direction in which the Indian socio-polity is moving in all its diverse cultural plurality; b) an appreciation of real scarcities that are emerging as also the strengths of civil society to cope with them; c) an ability to interface with modern technology, which could form the basis of several solutions; d) an ability to network with local government institutions, NGOs, cooperatives and other organisations, at higher levels; e) a sense of rugged professionalism, persistence and doggedness in pursuit of objectives, and an urge to champion beneficial change; f) energy to pursue objectives; g) a sense of fair play, honesty, political and systemic support; h) compassion for the underprivileged; and, above all i) a commitment to India as envisioned by its founding fathers.

The course I pointed out then would pursue these and other objectives. I say ‘other’ since for a poor country, albeit with big ambitions, we were paying a lot of money to IIM-A and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and would insist on value addition to our own description of this course. Urbanisation, for example, would need to be structured in a fairly decentralised manner, with the addressal of challenges in transport, energy, waste disposal and urban planning taking into account the latest in technology, system inter-relations and self-reliant decentralised institutions.

Yet, envisioning future challenges is a tricky occupation. There were international experts who once said India was headed for a food crisis and should focus on agriculture instead of devoting scarce resources to technology in other sectors, while people like me argued we should very well do both. We are entering a distinct phase in our history and the civil service has to be re-honed. That’s what the training programme does. Much has been made of attendance issues. Being a university sort, I say people should attend for the love of knowledge, but it would be silly to believe that the future prospects of a senior civil servant depend on a certificate of course attendance.

News & Views

Academic Lecture on Competition Policy & Law April 18, 2007, Mumbai, India
CUTS Institute for Regulation & Competition (CIRC) along with the Institute of Company Secretaries of India, Centre for Corporate Research & Training (ICSI-CCRT) jointly organised a half-day lecture on ‘Competition Law and Policy in India’ on, April 18, 2007, in the ICSI-CCRT Auditorium at CBD Belapur, Navi Mumbai. The lecture was addressed by Shri Surendra Kanstiya. The event was attended by 45 participants from within and outside Mumbai. The participants comprised of budding professionals like company secretaries, lawyers, and chartered accountants.

Novel Project-Capacity Building on Commercial & Economic Diplomacy
In 2006, CIRC organised a pilot training seminar on “Diplomacy in International Trade”. The seminar had representatives from various ministries and departments of the Government of India. They found it very useful and requested for a sequel.

This request prompted CIRC to initiate a three-year project with the Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Government of India. The idea was to fill the gap that exists in terms of institutional base in developing countries. In the above context the Department of Commerce has sponsored CIRC to initiate a three-year training programme to build capacity of Indian Government officials in Commercial and Economic Diplomacy.

The programme will cover crucial areas of Commercial and Economic Diplomacy, which are effective communication and negotiations in commercial diplomacy, dispute settlement in international fora, country promotion, and image building process.

The first training programme “Building Skills on Commercial and Economic Diplomacy” is scheduled for August 22-25, 2007, at Jaipur. This training programme would be beneficial for Mid-level officials such as Deputy Secretaries and Deputy Directors in Government of India and Secretaries and Directors in State Governments, Corporate Managers handling International Business, Research Officers in International Organisations and Chambers of Commerce.

The second training programme “Developing Skills on Commercial and Economic Diplomacy” is tentatively scheduled during October 24-27, 2007 for Under Secretaries, Section Officers Freshers/Probationers in Government of India and Deputy Secretaries in State Governments, Corporate Managers handling International Business, Research Officers in International Organisations and Chambers of Commerce.

The third training programme “Strengthening Skills on Commercial and Economic Diplomacy” is tentatively scheduled during January 9-12, 2008 for Joint Secretaries/Additional Secretaries in Government of India, Principal Secretaries, Additional Chief Secretaries and Corporate Managers handling International Business, Research Officers in International Organisations and Chambers of Commerce.

This being a three-year project, similar workshops are planned for the financial years 2008-2009 and 2009-2010. For further details of the training programme, please access www.circ.in/CDS02/index.htm

Calendar of Events
– Orientation Workshop on Commercial & Economic Diplomacy for Ministry of Commerce & Industry (MoCI) New Delhi, India, July, 2007.
– National Training Workshop on Competition Policy & Law Issues in Seven Eastern and Southern African Countries for Government Officials from July-August in Mozambique, Botswana, Namibia and Mauritius and from August September, 2007 in Ethiopia, Malawi and Uganda.
– Building Skills on Commercial & Economic Diplomacy – Training Programme for Mid-level Civil Servants and Executives (CDS.02) Jaipur, August 22-25, 2007.
– Training Workshop on Competition Policy & Law for Ethiopian Ministry of Trade and Industry Addis Ababa, September 2007.
– Capacity Building Training Workshop on Commercial & Economic Diplomacy for Indian Government Officials (Junior Level) Jaipur, October 2007.
– International Training Seminar on Competition Policy & Law New Delhi/Jaipur, October 2007.

Forum
In today’s scenario, there is a pressing need for finer knowledge, better-negotiating skills, and improved capacity of understanding competition laws, economic regulation and commercial aspects of diplomacy. But, there is severe shortage of institutional capacity to facilitate the spread of knowledge on regulatory matters in developing countries.

In this backdrop, CIRC takes immense pleasure in announcing the creation of its e-outreach forum, which would serve as a tool for gaining recognition and spreading awareness about CIRC and its initiatives. The CIRC e-outreach forum would be a means of creating this awareness and spreading knowledge on the three issues of Competition Policy & Law, Economic Regulation and Commercial Diplomacy.

Drawing from real life examples, the forum offers a platform to inform various stakeholders/interested parties about the relevance of the capacity-building solutions offered by CIRC.

Thoughtful Words
“Your work clearly points out that the gap between policy and implementation, due to various political economy and socio-cultural factors, is becoming more and more relevant. I am sure that CIRC is an initiative that developing countries welcome and I look forward to following the next steps”

– Anders Ahnlid