Events

ARI will be hosting two Asian luminaries in the fields of policy-making and implementation of rural reforms, Mr Jairam Ramesh (ex-Minister of Rural Development and also of Environment Ministry, Government of India) and Professor Wen Tiejun. Together they represent the two giant nations of China and India and can provide us with a close up view of the most pressing issues of livelihood in Asia.

We will take the opportunity of their visit to learn about the relationship between rural development and interactions with the environmental crisis of land degradation, deforestation, and water scarcity in these societies.

Some initial questions that strike us are:
• Is the present pattern of rural land use and property system sustainable?
• To what extent is poverty alleviation and increased productivity in rural areas a zero-sum game in relation to the environment?
• How do externalities—urban and global capital, technology and power—affect this relationship?

PROGRAMME

Moderator | Prof Prasenjit Duara | Asia Research Institute, NUS

ABOUT THE PRESENTERS

Prasenjit Duara is Raffles Professor of Humanities, and Director of Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore. He is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Chicago. Author of Culture, Power and the State: Rural North China, 1900-1942, winner of the Fairbank Prize of the AHA and the Levenson Prize of the AAS. Duara also wrote Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China (1995) and Sovereignty and Authenticity: Manchukuo and the East Asian Modern (2003). He has edited a volume on Decolonization (Routledge, 2004) as well as a selection of his writings, The Global and Regional in China’s Nation Formation(Routledge, 2009). Duara has also contributed to volumes on historiography and historical thought. His work has been widely translated into Chinese, Korean and Japanese.

Wen Tiejun is Vice Chairman of the Renmin University Committee of Academics; Executive Dean of The Institute of Advanced Studies for Sustainability; and, Director of the Institute of Rural Finance; and the Centre of Rural Reconstruction; at Renmin University of China. He is a renowned expert on social-economic sustainable development and rural issues, especially in policy studies, regional comparative studies, macro-economic and geo-strategy of south-south cooperatives, inclusive growth; and also a remarkable revivalist on rural reconstruction movement in China.

Jairam Ramesh is a Fisher Family Fellow with the Future of Diplomacy Project and a leader in international climate negotiations. A Member of Parliament from Andhra Pradesh, Ramesh was chief negotiator for India at the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Copenhagen, Denmark, between 7 to 18 December 2009. He has been a leading figure in international climate diplomacy for years. Ramesh was the Union Cabinet Minister for Rural Development under Prime Minister Singh from 2011-2014. Previously, he was named Union Cabinet Minister for Rural Development, Drinking Water and Sanitation in 2011. He held numerous high-level government posts, including the Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests from 2009-2011; Union Minister of State for Commerce and Power from 2008-2009 and Union Minister of State for Commerce from 2006-2009. In the 1980s and 1990s, he served in a number of high-ranking advisory roles in various government ministries, including as Adviser to the Finance Minister and Economic Adviser in the Ministry of Industry. In this Project on Managing the Atom Seminar, Ramesh will examine India’s Nuclear Energy Policy and Climate Change.

Zheng Yongnian is Professor and Director of East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore. He is Editor of Series on Contemporary China (World Scientific Publishing) and Editor of China Policy Series (Routledge). He is also a co-editor of China: An International Journal. He has studied both China’s transformation and its external relations. His papers have appeared in journals such as Comparative Political Studies, Political Science Quarterly, Third World Quarterly and China Quarterly. He is the author of 13 books, including Technological Empowerment, De Facto Federalism in China, Discovering Chinese Nationalism in China and Globalization and State Transformation in China, and co-editor of 11 books on China’s politics and society including the latest volume China and the New International Order (2008).

Jonathan Rigg is Professor at the Department of Geography at the National University of Singapore. He has been working in Southeast Asia, and more recently in South Asia, since the early 1980s, mainly on issues of agrarian change. He is interested in understanding how individuals and households deal with, contribute to, and are affected by processes of economic and social transformation. His most recent book is Challenging Southeast Asian development: the shadows of success, due for publication by Routledge later this year. He is also the author of Unplanned Development: Tracking Change in South-East Asia (Zed Books 2012), and co-editor (with Peter Vandergeest) of Revisiting Rural Places: Pathways to Poverty and Prosperity in Southeast Asia (NUS and Hawaii University Press, 2012), which includes 16 longitudinal studies from across Southeast Asia.

Teresita Cruz-del Rosario has a background in Sociology, Social Anthropology and Public Policy from Boston College, Harvard University and New York University. Her research interests are on social movements; comparative political transitions between Southeast Asia and the Middle East; and development policy. She has recently published a book entitled The State and the Advocate (Routledge UK 2014) and its major focus is on the roles of the state and social movements in policy reform. A book entitled Scripted Clashes: A Dramaturgical Approach to Philippine Uprisings (Springer Verlag 2009) employs a Goffmanian perspective in analysing the quasi-religious and quasi-festive character of three “people power” uprisings in the Philippines over a period of 15 years. She is currently a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore.

REGISTRATION

Admission is free. We would greatly appreciate if you RSVP to Ms Tay Minghua via email: minghua.tay@nus.edu.sg.