SIAS welcomed 144 students as part of the incoming cohort of 2023. Nobel Laureate for Economic Sciences in 2019, and co-founder of J-PAL, Dr Esther Duflo was the guest of honour at the orientation inauguration. In her keynote address she shared three guiding principles for the students, for their time at Krea and beyond. She encouraged students to embrace diversity, be flexible and not be overwhelmed with problems. She welcomed students to engage with J-PAL South Asia, a significant research centre within the Krea University eco-system. https://bloncampus.thehindubusinessline.com/b-school-corner/embrace-flexibility-over-single-minded-focus-on-one-goal-nobel-winning-economist/article32467153.ece
SIAS welcomes its 2nd cohort of undergraduate students
Nobel Laureate Esther Duflo delivers the keynote address
The School of Interwoven Arts and Sciences at Krea University welcomed 144 talented students into the second cohort of the undergraduate programme. The inaugural ceremony preceded the virtual five-day interactive orientation event which brought together the incoming cohort, sophomores, faculty and eminent speakers. The classes for the new cohort commenced online from the 1st of September.
The holistic admission process at Krea gauges potential beyond academic scores, ensuring a diverse set of students from varied backgrounds and interests. The students come from over 17 states of India and from various boards of education. In keeping with the University’s need blind admission and need-aware financial assistance process, over 25% of the cohort has received financial assistance.
Dr Sunder Ramaswamy, Vice Chancellor of Krea University welcomed the students with the message of FLARE — Fun, Learning, Adaptability, Resilience and Empathy, he deemed necessary for the young students to embrace, in their life at university. “As you begin the Krea journey, send out a flare into the world. I hope you will make your impact, and as you are trying to make your life better, I hope you also make it matter.” He shared Krea’s mission statement to admit high potential students and prepare humanity for an unpredictable world.
Nobel Laureate and co-founder of J-PAL, Dr Esther Duflo, was the special guest of honour and addressed the students on this momentous occasion. In her keynote address Dr Duflo extended three guiding principles for the students, for their time at Krea and beyond. She encouraged students to embrace diversity, be flexible and not be overwhelmed with problems. Tracing her own journey in life, she added, “You have the luxury of being at a very unique institution that values multi-disciplinary learning. Take this opportunity to take life chances, encounters, and let intellectual discoveries guide you. Embrace nimbleness and flexibility rather than single minded focus on one goal.”
She asked them to celebrate the diversity in their cohort, create social networks and learn from people who are different from their own selves.
“You are here because you want to be change-makers but you might be wondering where to start from. Don’t get overwhelmed. There is no problem however big it is that can’t be broken into smaller pieces. Pick one of those small pieces, apply your mind and skills to it and solve it. Then move to the next one. And don’t worry about the size of the overall challenge, before you know it you would have changed the world and changed yourselves as well.”
Dr Bishnu Mohaptra, Dean of School of Interwoven Arts and Sciences in his message to the students welcomed them to explore the idea of university. “Freedom, diversity and interconnectedness – all these ideas are debated within university and here within Krea. This is a place to debate these ideas and give them a new lease of life. It’s also a place where by giving new life to these ideas, we make them more meaningful, vibrant and useful.” He shared SIAS’s commitment to provide a space in fostering and strengthening these ideas and the ability of students to debate these ideas.
Dr Shobha Das, Dean of IFMR Graduate School of Business at Krea, welcomed the incoming cohort on behalf of the school. She added, “In weaving, two distinct sets of threads are interlaced at right angles to weave a cloth. The two schools, SIAS and GSB are distinct, and the University is woven with threads from the two schools, each distinct but both together forming parts of the woven textured cloth that is Krea.”
The ceremony included special moments from the welcome by the faculty and also the second-year students. Student Meera Trivedi on behalf of the Class of 2022 shared, “What I want to tell you today is that in all of its glory, with the beautiful campus, beyond excellent professors, unique curriculum and the intellectual culture, Krea is essentially what you make of it.”
The orientation programme was put together by the Orientation Team comprising the 2nd year cohort and was themed “Along Came ’23”. The fun and lively five-day long orientation was inspired with themes from gripping TV shows and movies. The event also witness sessions by celebrated activist Kalki Subramaniam and international artist Jacob Boehme.
Media Mentions- https://indiaeducationdiary.in/noble-laureate-esther-duflo-delivers-the-keynote-address-at-krea-university/
COVID-19: A Turning Point for Fintechs in India?
Anoushaka Chandrashekar and Fabrizio Valenti pen this final installment in the three-part blog series – ‘Beyond Health: How the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting financial services in India’. Based on discussions with founders of two fintech companies, this piece looks at implications of the COVID crisis on fintechs in India. It explores the challenges faced by fintechs in the current context, and highlights opportunities for growth.
Where Do We Go with Health Policy and Research in a Post-COVID World?
The Banyan Academy of Leadership and Mental Health organised a webinar, which will also feature Principal Economist at LEAD, Dr. Shailender Swaminathan. A collaboration with LEAD at Krea University, the webinar examined the future directions of health policy and research in India, with a focus on mental health in the current context.
Shobha Das on world post COVID-19
Dr Shobha Das, Dean at IFMR GSB shared her perspectives on the world post COVID-19 and its domino effect on organizations. The panel of experts discussed ‘COVID19 Impact on Innovation and Innovation Trajectories’ in an e-conclave hosted by IIM Sirmaur. The discourse featured thoughts on COVID-19’s impact on Innovation processes, role of technology, healthcare products, and challenges for leaders and organizations in revamping innovation trajectories.
Krea hosts dialogue sans borders- conversations with the world
Krea University hosted a series of compelling conversations between eminent subject experts from world-renowned universities and research organizations across the globe, and the academic minds at Krea — on the post-crisis future of our nations, health, families, societies, environment and the interconnected world we live in. These curated diverse global narratives redefine the world of tomorrow. With more than 20 eminent speakers from 7 nations across the globe, dialogue sans borders was a four session global event.
In the inaugural session on ‘Future of Public Health, panelists from University of Oxford, The George Institute for Global Health and Krea University imparted learnings and shared perspectives on research, trends and policies while also shedding light on critical interventions needed for public health in a world with and beyond COVID-19.
The session on ‘Future of Social Behaviour’ witnessed academic practitioners from Australia Council for the Arts , Nottingham Trent University, University of Witwatersrand, Krea University and IWWAGE unfolded the changing face of social behaviour, our attitudes towards each other and societies, mental health and new coping mechanisms and the gender-based challenges that lie ahead.
In the upcoming session on ‘Future of Sustainability’, panelists from University College Cork, Energy Policy Institute at University of Chicago (EPIC), M.S. Chadha Center for Global India, Princeton University and Krea University, brought together the emerging narrative of environment sustainability in a world that’s evolving with COVID-19.
The final and concluding session on ‘Future of Global Relations’, witnessed panelists from University of Sussex, Victoria University of Wellington and Krea University share insights into the transforming narrative of global relations, the international policies in times of crisis, and its long-term impact on global migration, trade and societies.
The sessions were moderated by Mukund Padmanabhan, the former editor of The Hindu and Visiting Professor of Practice at Krea University.
You can watch the recordings here.
IWWAGE is partnering with DAY-NRLM through SWAYAM
With over 60 million women mobilised to be part of one of India’s largest livelihoods programme, the Deendayal Antayodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM), holds great promise for advancing women’s socio-economic empowerment by organising them into self-help groups (SHGs) and institutions of the rural poor. These platforms are facilitating financial opportunities and livelihood support services for women. NRLM believes that gender sensitisation and social action should be mainstreamed in its framework, systems, institutions and processes. To this end, it devised a Gender Operational Strategy in financial year 2019-20 committing actions that recognise women’s heterogeneity and the unique socio-economic barriers faced by them.
Through SWAYAM (Strengthening Women’s institutions for Agency and Empowerment), IWWAGE is partnering with DAY-NRLM to provide technical assistance to support this strategy and institutionalise gender across all levels of the Mission. More specifically, the partnership aims to:
- Strengthen capacity of staff at all levels in the NRLM through trainings to work on gender issues;
- Redesign the existing gender training curriculum used by State Rural Livelihood Missions;
- Design and test innovative solutions for delivering the trainings;
- Design, implement and evaluate the impact of pilot Gender Resource Centres in four states as models to promote gender equality and help women claim their entitlements; and
- Build performance indicators, generate rigorous evidence and develop knowledge management mechanisms to inform programme design.
IWWAGE is partnering with SRLMs in four states including Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Odisha, and several implementing partners to test pilots and scale these institutional models for SHG federations to serve as gender resource centres. Read more on IWWAGE work with NRLM here.
Women’s Work Force Participation in Maharashtra
Women’s labourforce participation rates (LFPR) reveals some interesting trends for Maharashtra. As per the figures from the labourforce surveys, the LFPR is significantly higher than the all-India figures, largely driven by higher than average rural employment. The state also shares a decline in self-employment and casual employment and a shift towards regular wage work for both rural and urban women. In Maharashtrathe urban areas witnessed a consistent rise in regular wage work of women since 2004-05. More than 60 per cent of women are employed as regular workers – 70 per cent of which is concentrated in the services sector such as education, health and retail. In rural areas, the share of casual workers is considerably higher at around 42 per cent, followed by 52 per cent in self-employment. The incidence of unpaid family workers among self-employed women exceed 80 per cent. While the urban areas show considerable diversity of women workers across occupations and sectors, women in the rural areas remain concentrated as manual workers in agriculture or within construction work.
Initiative for What Works to Advance Women and Girls in the Economy (IWWAGE), has developed a series of factsheet that highlight the important aspects of women’s employment across the states in India. It uses secondary data provided by the National Sample Surveys’ Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), 2017-18, and the employment-unemployment surveys (EUS) as well as data from other sources to support state specific analysis. The Maharashtra factsheet is part of this series, and can be accessed here.
Krea announces Post Doctoral and Visiting Research Fellows
Krea welcomes Dr Nayantara Ramamoorthy, the awardee of the inaugural Krea Faculty Fellowship 2020 and Saloni Atal, our Visiting Research Fellow. Their strong expertise in Psychology ably propels the research vision at Krea. Krea Faculty Fellowship and Visiting Research Fellowship are set up with an aim to strengthen the research mandate at Krea.
Dr Nayantara Ramamoorthy, did her PhD in Psychology at the University of Cambridge with a research focus on attentional mechanisms in gaze perception — the underlying mechanisms that guide individuals to attentionally prioritise one gaze type (e.g., direct gaze) over the other (e.g., averted gaze) when viewing another’s gaze. She has a Masters in Developmental Psychology from Maastricht University, The Netherlands and a Bachelors in Psychology from the University of Delhi. She has also worked as a special educator at the Centre for Child Development and Disabilities, Bangalore, where she designed and implemented intervention plans for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and trained parents to be active participants in the intervention process. Nayantara’s broader research interests lie in social perception and cognition, particularly with a view to understanding underlying pathways in neuro-atypical gaze perception.
Saloni Atal, MPhil, is a PhD student and a Gates scholar at the Institute of Public Health at the University of Cambridge. Saloni is a social psychologist and works on global mental health, gender, labor and social development. Through her research, she aims to provide policy-relevant evidence that drives change on the ground. She is particularly interested in the socio-political economy of mental health and in developing contextually sensitive tools to measure women’s agency and empowerment. She uses mixed research methods and takes an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on sociocultural theories of knowledge, critical development studies and transnational feminist perspectives.
Vice-chancellor Sunder Ramaswamy shares the learning narrative
Emphasising on Krea’s mission statement ‘to help humanity prepare for an unpredictable world’, Dr Sunder Ramaswamy discussed how classes weren’t just about dispensing information, but rather about aiding students to learn, to think like a mathematician, a scientist, a philosopher.