The Special Interest Group on Comparing Business in China and India held a guest lecture at IIM Indore Campus on July 13, 2015. Prof. Patricia Uberoi, Chairperson and Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Chinese Studies (ICS), Delhi and Prof. Rama V. Baru, Professor, Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi were the guest speakers.
Prof. Patricia Uberoi discussed on the topic – China’s ‘Belt and Road Initiative’: What’s in it for India? She discussed about the new Chinese ‘One Belt One Road’ (OBOR) or ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ (BRI) for 21st century Eurasian connectivity and economic integration from the perspective of the proposed Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic Corridor (BCIM_EC) project. She said that this is a sub-regional cooperation project that aims to link the land-locked provinces of South West China with eastern India through northern Myanmar, India’s North East region, and Bangladesh. In the concluding part she touched upon the relevance of a greater public debate and engaged discussion among policy makers to assess the impact of OBOR on India.
Prof. Rama V. Baru spoke on -Recent Trends in the Commercialization of Medical Care in China. Mentioning the various increasing trends towards the commercialization of health services in China, she said that there are discernible phase in this shift, which began with the commercialization of public hospitals and has led to the more recent growth of private for-profit hospitals in the major cities. The Chinese commercialized their health sector fairly rapidly from the mid-1980s. The rationale given by the government was the inability of the State to meet the rising costs of healthcare. Various measures were taken to garner resources for the ailing hospital sector. These ranged from the introduction of user fees to the setting up of State-owned enterprises (SOEs), which brought in organizational reforms, finally leading to the autonomisation of hospitals, she mentioned.
The event was attended by the students and faculty of IIM Indore.
About SIG: The Special Interest Group on Comparing Business in China and India at IIM Indore (CBCI SIG, referred to informally as the China SIG) comprises faculty members, doctoral students and other research scholars with interests ranging from cross-cultural phenomena (such as value systems) to economy level (comparisons of industry clusters) and extending further to industry, firm and group levels as well.