Countering Corruption by Fixing the Flaws in Financing Elections

Professor M. V. Rajeev Gowda was an Indian Member of Parliament from 2014-20. He represented Karnataka state and the Indian National Congress party in the upper house, the Rajya Sabha. He is Chairman of the Congress party's Research Department, was Convener of its Manifesto Committee for the 2019 election, and is also a National Spokesperson. Earlier, he was a Professor of Economics and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, where he also served as Chairperson, Centre for Public Policy. He has been a Director on the Central Board of the Reserve Bank of India and a Carnegie Council Global Ethics Fellow. His most recent co-edited book is ‘India’s Risks’. He has a BA from St. Joseph’s College, Bangalore, an MA in Economics from Fordham University and a PhD in Public Policy and Management from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He has been a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley and an Associate Professor at the University of Oklahoma. Professor Rajeev Gowda founded the Resurgent India Trust, has mentored start-up companies and works on youth empowerment, among other areas of interest.

He will be in conversation with Professor Pallavi Vyas, Associate Professor at Ahmedabad University. Professor Pallavi Vyas holds a PhD in Public Policy from the Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago. Her fields of interest are Labor Economics, Human Capital Theory, Public Health and Development Economics. She is currently a consultant to the World Bank where her projects involve calculating poverty rates for India.