Author: Ram Kumar

Dr Vijaya C, Assistant Professor, Finance, Accounting and Quantitative Finance, IFMR GSB recently presented a case study titled, ‘Sovereign Gold Bonds: To be or not to be’, at the IIM Nagpur IVEY Case Conference held at IIM Nagpur in December 2024. 

In November 2024, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) was in a dilemma whether to continue or stop the issue of Sovereign Gold Bond (SGB). In November 2015, RBI, in consultation with the Government of India, had introduced the SGB scheme to reduce the widening current account deficit primarily due to the import of physical gold. It also enabled investors to divert their savings to digital gold which had the advantages of safety, low risk, regular interest income and tax benefits. With stable gold prices in the past, the Government had looked at SGB as a cheaper source of financing compared to traditional bonds. However, the COVID-19 pandemic had upset the SGB cart as the significant surge in gold prices meant redemption costs much higher than what the Government had estimated. There were no issues of SGB in the financial year 2024-25 and speculation was rife among investors and analysts as to whether RBI had decided to stop any more issues of SGB. The onus was now on RBI to take the correct decision on the future of SGB and propose the same to the Government with a detailed analysis. The question remained about SGB – to be or not to be!

Dr Srajana Kaikini, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, SIAS was invited by Asia Theories Network (ATN) to present at their ‘2024 Critical Humanities Workshop on 6G: Genesis, Generativity, Gender, Genetics, Genealogy, Genocide’ held at National Taiwan University, Taipei. She presented her paper ‘Nature’s Face’ at this forum – the third articulation of her philosophical work on the face, as part of a panel on Images : [Un]natural and Supplementary. ATN is a global scholarly network functioning as a platform for exchanges and collaborations among humanities and interpretive social science scholars in Asia and other parts of the world.

Dr Suchika Chopra, Assistant Professor of Economics, SIAS presented her research paper, titled ‘Understanding the Gender Wealth Gap in Germany: Asset Value vs. Asset Ownership’ at the Winter School 2024, organised by the Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University on 11 December 2024.

Dr Sairam Moturi, Assistant Professor of Finance, Accounting and Quantitative Finance, IFMR GSB presented his paper titled ‘Auditor Familiarity and Audit Quality in Business Groups’, co-authored with Professors Vijaya Bhaskar Marisetty and Sanjay Kallapur, at India Management Research Conference 2024. The conference was organised by the Centre for Sustainability and Corporate Governance Research at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and took place from 7 to 9 December 2024.

Dr Vivek Radhakrishnan, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, SIAS was invited to participate in a symposium on ‘Why Read Kant Now?’ organised by the Goethe-Institut Mumbai and the German Department of Mumbai University on 29 and 30 November, 2024. Dr Radhakrishnan gave a talk titled, ‘How ‘Humean’ was Kant?’ at the symposium. He also moderated the inaugural keynote by Professor Rajendra Dengle (Retired Professor of German, JNU) and the special lecture by Professor Heiner Klemme (Professor of Philosophy, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle).

Dr R S Sathya Saminadan, Associate Professor of Practice, IFMR GSB presented his paper, ‘Marketing to Aliens’, at the NGSC – 2024 Conference at IIM Jammu on 22 and 23 November, 2024. The paper explores strategies for effective intergalactic marketing, combining creativity with established principles of marketing. It underscores the importance of adaptability and ethical considerations in marketing to diverse and unfamiliar segments, a concept that resonates with contemporary challenges in business strategy.