What is CIRC?
CUTS Institute for Regulation & Competition (CIRC) is an initiative towards capacity building and enhancing knowledge. The inception of CIRC by CUTS has been done to bridge the prevailing gap in the understanding of regulatory issues, negotiating skills, and issues of competition policy and law. Three streams have been taken up by CIRC:
– Competition Policy & Law
– Economic Regulation
– Commercial Diplomacy

The product range offered by CIRC has training workshops and seminars, public lectures, short-term online courses, certificate courses, Master’s Degree, and Doctoral Programmes. The last two master’s degree and doctoral programmes will be offered gradually in the future.

CIRC has become operational and has conducted various training workshops and public lectures in the three streams. It has successfully organised three training workshops and three public lectures on Competition Policy & Law targeting corporates, lawyers and academics, NGOs and regulatory agencies. The training workshops spanned a period of two to five days. A rich tapestry of intellectual resources was an integral part, providing quality and novelty to these workshops and public lectures.

CIRC plans a training workshop at Bangkok on Competition Policy & Law targeting Chief Executives and Directors of Board of Trade, Thailand, business and industry, lawyers and academics, NGOs, government officials and regulatory agencies. Two workshops and one public lecture on Commercial Diplomacy focusing on officials in government departments dealing with international trade, officials in foreign missions, corporate strategists and negotiators are also scheduled to be held in New Delhi.

The Institute already has four affiliations and is negotiating with several others to render this new concept a strong spinal support. Institute for Trade and Commercial Diplomacy (ITCD), USA; British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL), United Kingdom; American Antitrust Institute (AAI), Washington DC; and Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), New Delhi are the four institutes with which CIRC has joined hands and is planning to organise several events. It is collaborating with other renowned institutes and organisations on an event-based approach.

What’s Happening An Overview

Towards Self-reliance
Higher education institutes may have to dig their own pockets to meet their expenditures, as the HRD ministry is planning to reduce the number of state universities and state colleges from the central funding list by almost one-third.

The idea behind the proposed move is to bring central government funding to zero in two to three years time. The ministry has suggested that state universities and colleges generate their own resources to meet the demand.

In the light of the above recommendation, it seems that complete state funding of universities and colleges may soon be a thing of the past. (HT, 18.02.06)

Co-sharing
An increasing number of foreign and Indian schools are going in for association and collaboration with each other in order to bring in not only a good brand image, but also to provide improved and better quality education.

Recently, Karolinska Institute (KI) of Stockholm has joined hands with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore to collaborate in areas of research, research education, and academy industry initiatives.

The coming together of institutes, centres or universities across the globe will result in refined and modified quality of education bearing long term implications. (TH, 06.04.06)

Striking a Balance
Institutes and educational centres are cropping up at a very rapid pace consequent to increasing requirement of such learning seats.

To address the growing demand for international business education, the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) has come up with a centre in Kolkata for management degree courses. The Institute further intends to set up a SME centre for small and medium enterprises.

This move would not only fulfil the requirement of more technical centres, but would also help pass outs from IIFT gain better opportunities in terms of both job and emoluments. (BL, 02.04.06)

Centre of Excellence
With the Indian technology industry booming like never before, the government has approved the proposal to introduce the National Institutes of Technology Bill, 2006, in Parliament. The Bill aims to fulfil the need for quality manpower in areas like science, engineering and technology. It will help the 19 national institutes of technology to become centres of excellence, like the IITs.

The government has also come up with a scheme for upgrading the infrastructure of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) at Bangalore. The scheme includes up-gradation of IISc laboratory infrastructure and introduction of programmes for attracting and retaining high-quality faculty and students. (FE, 23.03.06 & TH, 11.03.06)

Cost Effective Education
The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA, affiliated to IIA, Inc., Florida) is working on designing a Certified Internal Auditor course for Indians at lower, affordable cost.

The Institute plans to carry out the process of examination in India under its guidance. If the process of examination is carried out in India fully, it will make the process much easier and less time consuming, thus making it more affordable to Indian students aspiring to take up internal audit as a career.

The institute further intends to establish a permanent secretariat of the international body in India. (BS, 03.03.06)

Diversifying
Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur is in the process of opening the first Intellectual Property (IP) Law School. In an effort towards the same, it has signed a technical collaboration with George Washington University for exchange of faculty and students.

The agreement would also facilitate the exchange of curriculum through the Universities’ law school, which has one of the oldest IP law course.

Once established, the school would offer a three-year residential post-graduate bachelor’s course for engineers, MBA’s and M.Scs. In recent times, confluence between IP law and business has become a common practice and hence more such endeavours could be expected in the coming future. (BL, 01.03.06)

Tapping Multi-taskers
Prompted by an acute manpower crunch, organisations are on the lookout for more and more expert and qualified people. Increasing numbers of companies are now entering into partnerships with the professional colleges and universities.

In this context, the Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India has been looking forward to tying up with US Universities to train its students in intellectual property right and patent in the pharma sector.

Today, corporates require manpower with a right mix of talent and many pharma companies are seeking skilled personnel not only in the field of science but also in the field of marketing. It seems that multitasking has become the trend of the day. (FT, 09.03.06).

Expert Comments

WHAT they don’t teach you at B-school ‘What about deal-making and negotiations?’
After working for two years in India and five years in the US, I decided to do my MBA. After the rigorous curriculum and project work at Stern, I can say that there are a few key learnings that surely impacted the way I operate in business life.

I developed a comprehensive understanding of the history of various industries in the US, the process of converting an idea into a potential business as an entrepreneur, the dynamics of a multi-discipline team involved in solving a problem or completing a project, and so on. But, of course, there are a few things that B-schools don’t teach.

Understanding 'deal-making' is one of them. Deal-making is one of the most important aspects of business. Most of the time, making a deal is associated with the selling or buying process. But in my experience, it goes beyond that and affects all functions in an organisation. It’s something one encounters across various functions in an organisation, irrespective of his role or position.

For instance, an HR executive negotiates employment terms with a prospective employee or a customer support representative convinces a customer of a solution resulting in raised customer satisfaction. Learning how to negotiate is the key characteristic of deal-making.

The goal of negotiation is not necessarily that you win every time; a compromise should be considered a success at times. One should proactively try to understand the various parameters of a deal, such as pre-assessment of the impact of the result, both to you and the other party, the background of the people involved in discussions, potential give and takes in a deal and how one would define a ‘deal’ as a success.

In my experience, successful deal-makers climb the corporate ladder much faster than others. I have observed and learnt some of these traits while directly working for two CEOs who I consider to be astute and successful deal-makers. (BS, 23.05.06)

Classroom to Online Education
In today’s scenario, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has completely redefined the terms teaching and learning. Internet has made education simple and readily available to all with its smooth and fast connectivity.

E-learning is not just limited to some modules or course material which students go through and then write papers; it has become interactive and communicative not only with experts but also with students across the world.

Students of remote colleges and universities can look forward to being online with experts and renowned faculties. Busy working class people in a bid to gain more degrees and sharpen their skills also find e-learning the best available alternative.

It has helped improve the educational system in terms of both quality and quantity. Initially, e-learning implied a classroom on a CD ROM, which was a very rigid format. But today it has moved from formal information towards more informal and integrated learning.

Today, the flexibility of ICT offers synchronous and asynchronous video conferencing to blogs and instant messaging. The programmes designed can be followed from anywhere in the world. So geographical constraints has also gradually disappeared with e-learning.

Learning via ICT is a new concept in education and has helped in breaking down the barriers education has been facing since a long time. The concept evolved is expected to bear significant long-term implications upon students of all age groups and geographical vicinity.

News & Views

Feedback
This is a very important initiative. CIRC will definitely address the problems of capacity building on independent regulation, competition policy and commercial diplomacy.

–Hussein Abaza
–Chief, Economics and Trade Branch
–United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

The provision of technical assistance and capacity building to the various types of stakeholders is certainly a very valuable activity.

–Pascal Lamy
–Director-General
–World Trade Organisation

I am confident that this important initiative will fulfil its goals by providing training, research and educational facilities for independent regulation, competition policy and commercial diplomacy.

–Santiago Roca Tavella
–President of the Board of Directors of INDECOPI

Its an immense pleasure to know that under the able guidance of CUTS, CIRC has been established with a view to offer learning on independent regulation, competition policy and commercial diplomacy.

–Ashok Gehlot
–General Secretary
–All India Congress Committee

First Training Seminar on Competition Policy & Law (CPS.01)
The five-day training seminar on 'Competition Policy and Law', at New Delhi, India, on March 20-24, 2006 kick-started the activities of CIRC that aimed to develop analytical capabilities to comprehend issues related to competition policy and law, including their perspectives and linkages with the industry and economy. Participants from Singapore, Thailand, Mauritius, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Oman, including representatives from the central government, many multinational corporations (MNCs), regulators, civil society organisations (CSOs) and academia attended the seminar.

Jean-Pierre Lehman, Professor, International Institute for Management Development (IMD), Lausanne and Founding Director, The Evian Group, speaking at the closing session lauded CUT’s efforts in forming a base for furthering such issues in government and industry.

Second Training Seminar on Competition Policy & Law (CPS.02)
The training seminar on Competition Policy & Law was held at Hilton, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on March 29-30, 2006. It was a joint effort with the Ethiopian competition authority; the Trade Practices Investigation Commission, and was meant primarily for the officials from related government departments and agencies along with consumer activists.

It aimed at understanding the expected role of different stakeholders and groups in order to ensure competitiveness of the markets and accelerate economic growth along with developing analytical capacities to comprehend competition policy and law.

The training was conducted by experts like John Preston, Competition Policy Consultant, DFID, London, Zablon Kahura, Deputy Commissioner, Monopolies and Prices Commission, Kenya, Thulasoni Kaira, Director (Mergers & Acquisitions), Zambia Competition Commission, Zambia, Cezley Sampson, National Director, Energy Efficiency, Jamaica and Nitya Nanda, Policy Analyst, CUTS.