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Recent IiT Features

  • Public Interest Litigation in India: Time for an Audit

    Public Interest Litigation (PIL), which aims to use the courts to advance social justice, began in India about thirty years ago when procedures for expanding access to justice were developed. The judiciary, aiming to recapture popular support after its complicity in Indira Gandhi’s declaration of Emergency rule, encouraged litigation concerning the interests of the poor and marginalized.

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  • India’s MMRCA Deal: Muddled Rationale, Costly Adventure?

    Although nowhere near as high profile or politically dramatic as the 2008 Indo-U.S. nuclear deal, India’s proposed $10 billion procurement of 126 medium multirole combat aircraft (MRCA) may have a much more profound impact on India’s strategic relations, particularly if a U.S. Platform – either Lockheed’s F-16 E/F or Boeing’s F/A-18 E/F – is selected as the winning bid.

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  • No Good Choices for the Indian Air Force
    In the Medium-range Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) sweepstakes, the Indian Air Force (IAF) is confronted with many choices, all of them bad. Whatever the IAF’s reasons for wanting a new aircraft, the Indian government means to use the deal to make international political capital, gain leverage in bilateral relations, and cement a strategic partnership.
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New From SAGE Publications: Power Realignments in Asia

SAGE Publications has just released Power Realignments in Asia: China, India and the United States, co-edited by Alyssa Ayres, former deputy director of CASI (now with McLarty Associates in Washington), and C. Raja Mohan, Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy at the U.S. Library of Congress. The collected essays emerged from the CASI-Observer Research Foundation (ORF) collaboration and conference held in December 2006 in New Delhi. The conference was sponsored by the Nand & Jeet Khemka Foundation. 

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CASI Foreign Policy Conference Papers Published in India Review

The papers from CASI's 2008 "Future of India's Foreign Policy" conference have just been published in the academic journal, India Review (Volume 8, Number 3, July-September 2009).

Abstracts of the papers, as well as a link to purchase the full papers are available in the "Conferences and Workshops" section of CASI's Web site.

 

Economic & Political Weekly Publishes CASI/CPR 2009 Climate Change Conference Papers 

In March 2009, CASI and the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), along with the sponsorship of the Nand & Jeet Khemka Foundation, organized a joint conference in Delhi, India on ”India’s Options in Climate Change Negotiations.” The aim of the conference was to examine the different bargains - both international and domestic - that India will have to strike if it is to meet the challenges of global climate change.

The August 1, 2009 issue of Economic & Political Weekly (Vol. 44, No. 31) has published the conference papers along with an article authored by CASI Director, Devesh Kapur, CPR President, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, and University of Chicago doctoral student, Radhika Khosla that highlights various key issues raised in the conference and offers analysis and interpretation of the main points of discussion.

The conference papers and article are available in the "Conferences and Workshops" section of CASI’s Web site.


Public Interest Litigation in India: Time for an Audit

Varun Gauri
November 9, 2009

In this issue of India in Transition, Varun Gauri, Senior Economist in the Development Research Group of the World Bank, discusses the misuse of PIL cases and the perception that judicial power in India is unchecked.

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CASI Receives Grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

The $366,000 grant, which was received through the MacArthur Foundation's Global Migration and Human Mobility program, will support research and policy efforts on the impacts of diasporas in reforming institutions in their home countries. CASI will conduct empirically-based case studies of diaspora-home country interactions as highly skilled diasporas contribute to institution-building through multiple incremental contributions to the transformation of private and public sector institutions. [ PDF ]

Welcome from the Director

Since its founding in 1992, the Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI) has continued to uphold Penn’s global reputation as a leading center of research in South Asian studies. The goals of the Center are threefold. The first goal is to engage in policy-relevant research focused on the challenges facing contemporary India and thereby improve our understanding of India's politics and society, its rapidly changing economy, and transformation as an ancient civilization and emerging major power. In doing so, we strive to create a forum in which scholars can dialogue with academic, policy, and business communities. The second goal is to nurture students’ interest in contemporary India through internships at the Center and interactions with visiting scholars who are in residence at CASI, as well as by providing them with opportunities to work and conduct research in India. And third, the Center aims to act as a public forum on contemporary India by hosting seminars, workshops and conferences year-round, and through our online publication, India in Transition, which provides scholars around the world a medium to exchange ideas about contemporary India.

As CASI continues to grow and expand, we hope to further strengthen ties throughout Penn and collaborate with leading research centers worldwide, including our counterpart organization based in India, the University of Pennsylvania Institute for the Advanced Study of India (UPIASI). In doing so, we look forward to furthering our role as an international hub for policy-relevant research on modern India.

-Devesh Kapur
Director, Madan Lal Sobti Professorship for the Study of Contemporary India