Montek Singh Ahluwalia inaugurates TAPMI Knowledge Center

Manipal:  Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Chairman, Planning Commission, Government of India, inaugurated the Knowledge Center on Oct 3rd in T A Pai Management Institute (TAPMI).

TAPMI also played a host to Dr. Isher Judge Ahluwalia , Chairperson, Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER).The seminar conducted focused mainly on the global economic showdown which shook the bedrock of  most countries.

After the inauguration, Montek Singh Ahluwalia spoke about the fact that India had witnessed nine per cent growth in the economy before the slowdown, testifying to the success of economic reforms. He said, ''our growth slowed down to 6.7 per cent in 2008-09 which was the first year of this crisis. In the current year 2009-10, we are battling the combined effect of the continuing global slowdown and a truly unusual drought. We expect the growth in the current year will be around 6.5 per cent. We hope to do much better in 2010-11 when the world will be on a path to recovery and we will have the beneficial impact of a normal monsoon. Our growth rate should be back somewhere in the range of seven and eight per cent by 2010-11.”

Montek Singh Ahluwalia laid stress on importance of infrastructure development and the need to invite investment in various sectors including power, roads and urban infrastructure

The students of TAPMI witnessed an evening filled with a galaxy of intellectuals, bankers and economists. They got the opportunity to interact with them and discuss future prospects of the Indian Economy.

“The past two decades have seen a great deal of financial innovations world over. New financial products, complex derivatives, securitization etc were the ways in which the banks attempted to spread their risks on loans that originated in their balance sheets. Asset price mismatches and irresponsible ratings provided by the credit rating agencies meant that risk rather than being distributed was actually accelerated”, said Dr. Isher Judge Ahluwalia at the inauguration.

Among the other dignitaries present on this occasion were Dr. Ramdas Pai Chancellor - Manipal University, Dr. H S Ballal, Pro Chancellor- Manipal University, Dr. Saji Gopinath, Director - TAPMI.

Sub-edited by: Ami Misra