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ACTIVITIES
(1) Workshop on Teaching of Development Economics The Institute organised a workshop on the Teaching of Development Economics, in collaboration with the Department of Economics, Calcutta University on 17 and 18 October, 2003. More than 50 college and university teachers attended the workshop. The speakers at the workshop included Professor R Radhakrishna (Director, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research), Professor Prabhat Patnaik (Jawaharlal Nehru University), Professor Asim Dasgupta (Finance Minister, Government of West Bengal), Professor V K Ramachandran (Indian Statistical Institute), Professor Sudip Chaudhuri (Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta) and Professor Amiya Kumar Bagchi (Director, IDSK). A Network of Development Economics, You know, Mike is going to use forex demo account and hopes it is ok. Forum of Development Economics (FDEK) with Dr. Ishita Mukhopadhyay as co-ordinator, was launched at the workshop. ************************************************************************************************ (2) Workshop on the "Teaching of Economic History" The Institute of Development Studies Kolkata, in co-operation with the Department of History and the Centre for Social Sciences and Humanities, Calcutta University, organized a three-day workshop on the "Teaching of Economic History" during July 22-24, 2004. This workshop highlighted the economic history and its historiography beginning from the ancient period upto the most recent period i.e., India after independence. A large number of teachers from colleges and universities as well as research scholars participated in the workshop. The papers or talks of established historians and economists such as Professors Irfan Habib, Binay Bhusan Chauduri, Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, Amiya Kumar Bagchi, Shirin Moosvi, Aniruddha Ray, Ranabir Chakravarti, Basudeb Chattopadhyay, Arun Bandopadhyay, Debdas Banerjee and Sudip Chaudhuri were followed by lively discussion. The period covered stretched from the Harappan times to the 1990s, and the contents covered schools of historiography, questions of method, sources, quality of evidence and the connections between histories at different levels and of different categories such as money, commercialization, the nature of agrarian society, property relations, man-environment links and trade links. **************************************************************************************************************** (3) Training Programme on Unobtrusive Research Methods in Social Sciences and Humanities
The social sciences have a strong yet somewhat unrecognized tradition of using a range of methods of data collection / construction, which are now conceptualized as unobtrusive measures. These methods do not intrude into social settings, groups and individuals who are objects of enquiry. These works on existing texts like census, literature and cultural practices. Since intrusion by a researcher, as in questionnaire surveyor interview or participant observation, is not needed, findings do not suffer from reactions on the part of an individual or a people being investigated. To sensitize young researchers about the possibilities of understanding such methods create, a week long interdisciplinary training program on Unobtrusive Research Methods was organized by the Institute of Development Studies Kolkata in collaboration with the Center for Social Sciences and Humanities, the University of Calcutta, between 31st August and 4th September, 2004, and coordinated by Professor Prasanta Ray, Honorary Professor, IDSK. The faculty was drawn from disciplines like History, Sociology, Economics, Political Science, Demography, Women's Studies, Literature, and Film Studies. The college-level teachers and research scholars too came from different disciplinary background. Nearly 40 researchers registered their names for the training programme. The themes chosen were: Unobtrusive Methods, Reading Novel, Narrative, Discourse Analysis, Poetic Discourse, Discourse in Archive, Film as Text, Reading Painting, Metaphors, Words and their Meanings, Translation, Uses of Archives, Analysis of Existing Statistics and Triangulation. The speakers were: Bamita Bagchi , Shamita Basu , Malini Bhattacharya , Mihir Bhattacharya , Bhasakar Chakraborty, Basudeb Chatterji , Ratnabali Chatterji , Subhoranjan Dasgupta , Anjan Ghosh , Samir Guha Roy , Avijit Mitra , Anuradha Roy and Prasanta Ray. **************************************************************************************************************** (4) Course on Literature in the Social Sciences
**************************************************************************************************************** (5) Regional Workshop on Implementation of PCPNDT Act 1994
*************************************************************************************************************** (6) Interactive Session on 'The Role of Workers' Organizations in Facilitating Elementary Education and Primary Healthcare' On 1 July 2006, Professor Amartya Sen, Lamont University Professor, Harvard University and the President, Pratichi(India) Trust, formally inaugurated the Rabindranath Tagore Centre for Human Development Studies under the auspices of the Institute of Development Studies Kolkata. On the same day Pratichi (India) Trust and the Institute of Development Studies Kolkata organized an interactive session with workers' organizations in school teaching and public healthcare on 'The role of workers' organizations in facilitating elementary education and primary healthcare'. The following organizations sent their representatives: All
Bengal Teachers Association (ABTA) After the interactive session, Professor Amartya Sen and Professor Amiya Kumar Bagchi, Director, IDSK held a Press Conference. It was noted that while West Bengal had made significant progress in reducing illiteracy and advancing the health status of the people, there is still a considerable distance to go before universal literacy with advances in secondary and higher education, and a satisfactory health status of the people are attained. It was noted that workers' organizations in both the education and health sectors can play a major role in identifying outstanding problems and motivating the members to help to attain the above goals, - in association with other institutions or segments of society and polity such as governmental and non-governmental organizations, guardians and local government representatives and village level committees on health and education. The necessity of democratic movements for attaining these goals was also emphasized. In answer to a question Professor Sen stressed that workers' organizations will certainly act as political bodies. It is, however, necessary that they should not look after the narrow interest of their own members only but act as responsible constituents of the larger society and polity. ***************************************************************************************************************
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