CO-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES 2022-23

Ka-Ching x EJCon'23: Report

The 13^th edition of Ka-Ching x EJCon was conducted in an offline format on the 23^rd and 24^th of January, 2023, after two years of conducting the fest online owing to the Covid -19 pandemic. Over 200 participants from Indian and international universities participated in events designed along the principles of economics, management, and policy discussions.

From the classic flagship ‘Bull Run’ (the mock stock event), ‘War of Westeros’ (the strategy board game), to finance-based ‘Pennywise’, ‘Emissions Impossible’ (carbon credit trading), ‘Whizdom’ (Quiz), ‘Jumanji’ (crisis), ‘Siyasat’ (politics), ‘Zero to One’ (entrepreneurship) and ‘Go MAd!’ (Advertising) – events in the fest were designed to cover a diverse range of domains in Economics.

The theme of the 4^th edition of EJCon, the Economic Justice Conclave, was ‘The Urban E.R.A. - Equity, Reallocation and Accessibility’, with the aim of discussing and deliberating over various urban challenges we face today. In November 2022, EJCon hosted Ms. Pankhuri Dutt, an experienced public policy consultant who has worked at the IMF, World Bank and NITI Aayog and currently is an ESG Research Manager at Sustainalytics. The team conducted a speaker session focused on the social resilience of cities and also organized a student-led session - ‘Press Conference’ to explore urban social issues and potential solutions. In December 2022, Dr. Jan Nijman, Director and Distinguished University Professor at Urban Studies Institute at Georgia State University and Emeritus Professor, Department of Geography, Planning and International Development Studies at University of Amsterdam, gave a talk on ‘Urbanization and Development in India in the 21st century’. He has also been affiliated with National Geographic for over 15 years.

Over the past few months various social outreach activities were also organized –

‘Miles to go’: A Walkathon fundraiser in collaboration with GiveIndia, a trusted platform that enables individuals and organizations to raise and donate funds. They are mainly focused on poverty alleviation.
Nukkad Natak: A street play held at ‘Sunday Street’ in Marine Lines to raise awareness on health inequality, gender disparity, sustainability as well as mundane problems of urbanization like congestion and pollution.
‘Project Kintsugi’: Based on the Japanese art of upcycling, tote bags were manufactured out of old clothes that were donated for the cause by students of the School.

Furthermore, with the concurrent policy flagship events - The National Policy Challenge and the Youth Conference - the fest aimed to inculcate a conversation amongst young minds about ways to help structurally rebuild our cities. The team received several detailed policy suggestions to tackle urban challenges. A panel discussion was additionally organized on 23^rd January 2023 on the economic, social, environmental and institutional resilience of cities. The panelists included -

Anusha Gavankar, a Senior Fellow at ORF’s Center for Economy and Growth;
Dr Debasis Barik, a Fellow at the National Council of Applied Economic Research;
Pavan Srinath, a public policy researcher, educator & communicator, as well as a bilingual podcaster based in Bangalore;
Sreeja Nair, a senior consultant at the International Framework at National Disaster Management Authority;
Ankita Kapoor, who is the Assistant Program Manager at Safetipin. Her work focuses on building gender responsive, safe,accessible and sustainable environments.

The Moderator for the discussion was Mr. Swapnil Karkare, a post-graduate in Economics, public policy and data analysis from Meghnad Desai Academy of Economics. Currently, he is a freelance research writer and has a blog named ‘Econgully’.

The fest ended with a closing ceremony held in the Mukesh Patel auditorium on the 24^th of January 2023. Mr. Dharmakirti Joshi, Chief Economist at CRISIL, graced the event as the Chief guest and shared his insights on the Macroeconomic outlook for the Indian economy. The first prize at Ka-Ching x EJCon 2023 was won by H.R. College of Commerce and Economics, Mumbai. Sarla Anil Modi School of Economics won the second prize, which was then rolled over to Christ College, Bengaluru.

Shastrarth- 2022 an Inter-Collegiate Debate Competition

The Sarla Anil Modi School of Economics, NMIMS Mumbai organized the 12th Edition of their Annual Inter-Collegiate Debating Fest - Shastrarth ’22- on Saturday, 5^th November 2022. Shastrarth’22 started with the preliminary round based on Modified Oxford style of debating. The semi-finals and finals had a combination of modified Public Forum & modified Lincoln Douglas. This debating event provided an excellent platform for budding speakers as well as seasoned debaters to put their articulating, debating and critical thinking skills to a meticulous test. The event saw round about 200 team registrations pan India from prestigious universities. The topic for the finals was – "This house believes that money manufactures power.” The event thus lived up to its motto: Convince. Confuse. Confute.

The judges for Semi-Finals and Finals were:

Ms. Indrani Banerjee- Former executive director of the Reserve Bank of India,

Currently Additional Director of CAFRAL

Dr. Shrikant Kamat- Legal Counsel, Indian Commercial Laws, ISDA&CSA Counsel

Mr. K.V. Premraj- Banking Professional and a Best Selling Author

Adit Seth and Jai Gurnasinghani of Sarla Anil Modi School of Economics, SVKM’s NMIMS emerged as the winner of Shastrarth ’22 winning INR 10,000/-, Amber Goel and Prakriti Tiwari from School of Business Management, SVKM’s NMIMS won INR 6,000/- as the Runner Up.

The success of Shastrarth was a result of the indomitable spirit of the committee members who worked hard to make this a bigger event, enthusiastic participants who displayed commendable debating spirit and the college administration who backed the students at every stage. constant support and guidance. Entire team consisting of chairperson, convenors, co-convenors and HoDs worked tirelessly under the able guidance of Dr. Esha Khanna and Dr. Pulkit Nigam to make Shastrath’22 a huge success.

Information Session Stony Brook University , USA

Students of SAMSOE attended an information session on September 09, 2022 conducted Campus France, The Embassy of France in India on Studying in France - Campus France. Session was hold by Ms Aayushi Nagpal, Campus France Manager, Mumbai

Book Talk on "Human Evolution, Economic Progress and Evolutionary Failure

SVKM's NMIMS’ Sarla Anil Modi School of Economics organised a book talk on the 26th August 2022 on "Human Evolution, Economic Progress and Evolutionary Failure” with the author Dr. Bhanoji Rao, Former Professor, National University of Singapore and Economist, World Bank and presently the member of the Governing Body, GITAM and IFHE Universities. The session was moderated by Dr Kiran Limaye, Assistant Professor, Sarla Anil Modi School of Economics, NMIMS.

Dr. Bhanoji Rao accentuated that if we have to move away from evolutionary failure, we have to work on policies for housing, medical and educational sectors. Concluding the session, he argued that closed-door discussions, which are more honest since there is no media spotlight, with policymakers and industry-leaders will bring out fantastic results.

Summer School 2022

Sarla Anil Modi School of Economics (SAMSOE), Mumbai has organised an online Summer School ‘Introduction to Data Science’ from 27^th June to 1^st July 2022. The participants include students who have completed class 12^th, undergraduates, post-graduates, researchers pursuing M.Phil./Ph.D., freelance researchers and professionals who wish to get started with data science.

Course offered was: Fun with Data using MS-Excel and SPSS, by Prof. Sneha Kotian, Adjunct faculty, SAMSOE