11th December, 2018, Kolkata: IMI Kolkata witnessed the augment of the inaugural session for the two-day event, the seventh Indo-China Conference on 11th of December, 2018. The motive of this International Conference is to strengthen relations between the countries by igniting an insightful discussion on the economic, social and cultural perspectives of the two nations. The Inaugural ceremony was graced by Mr. Mani Sankar Mukherji (Sankar), Prof. Arindam Banik, Prof. Tirthankar Nag, Mr. Guo Xiaoming and Mr. Chan Jixiang. All the dignitaries were welcomed to the institute followed by the lighting of the ceremonial lamp, marking the start of the International Conference.
Prof. Tirthankar Nag kick-started the day’s event by extending gracious thanks to the dignitaries present. Mr. Chan expressed his happiness to be present in there to share ideas and have discussions and deliberations to come up with future plans that would be helpful to the people belonging to both India as well as China. Prof. Arindam Banik elucidated the relationship shared between International Management Institute, Kolkata and Sichuan Academy of Social Sciences (SASS), China. Mr. Guo spoke about the relevance and significance of Kolkata in the Indo-China friendship and addressed it as the friend and sister city of Kunming. Mr. Mani Sankar Mukherji (Sankar) discussed his admiration for the Chinese policy of talking less and doing more and expressed his desire for India to follow their footsteps in this regard. He also shared anecdotes from his childhood and from the books has read and the cinema he has watched in order to emphasise the connection between India and China. He also called China the elder brother of India and hoped for a stronger bond with country by means of shared discussions and exchanged knowledge.
The session drew to a close with a vote of thanks to the dignitaries and everyone involved in the event. Mementos were presented to the guests as a parting token of gratitude and appreciation. The tone was set for the discussions henceforth and excitement was palpable among the students.
The first technical session was attended by the Chinese delegation, esteemed faculty of IMI Kolkata, and a number of students. The paper was based on ‘Buddhism, Chinese Art, Literature and fusion’ between Indian and Chinese Cultures, presented by Wang Xiapoing. He spoke about the origin of Buddhism in China and how Buddhism infused a plethora of topics such as Sanskrit, and Metaphysics into the Chinese Culture. He also emphasized on Indo-China cultural bond being the predominant force in the Asian subcontinent. Liu Xiongfeng presented a paper on ‘From Fa xian to Zhi kong: the integration and development of Indian Buddhist culture in east Asia (China and Korea peninsula)’ and enlightened us on the development of the Buddhist culture in Asia.
The second technical session began with the discussion on ‘Manufacturing Organizations in India and China where Mr. Cao Ying, Associate research fellow, Sichuan Academy of Social Sciences, China gave his valuable insights on total factor productivity of manufacturing in China and India through the use of Malmquist Index. Various factors such as GDP Growth, technical efficiency, technical progress, efficiency index and other such factors of India and China through which conclusions were made regarding the current scenario of India and China, also what can be further done in the future in order to improve the efficiency respective countries. The event witnessed eminent researcher, Chen Jixiang presenting a paper on “Comparative Study of the Impact of Intelligent Manufacturing on the Employment of Agricultural Transfer Labor Forces in China and India.” Dr. Rachana Chattopadhay presented her paper on “Gender bias in performance management system based on behavioral dimensions”, which emphasized on the improving performances in the workplace climbing the ladder of success constantly.
The technical session, Sino India Comparative Studies covered few crucial topics and well-researched notions. Yan Fuping, in her research paper, Comparison and Consideration on the Development of Film Culture Industry in China and India, explained the role of film culture industry in promoting national, economic strength, cultural inheritance and social & cultural influence. As the foundation of the global march, India and China should build on each other’s local market and help each other by winning mutually. The Comparative Study on Sino-India Traditional Medical and Health Tourism, conducted by Huang Weimin emphasized on how health tourism is usually mixed up with medical tourism despite them being distinct concepts, hence, officially defined and separated in 2011. He mentioned about the oldest medicine of India, ‘Ayurveda’ meaning, science of live and the Chinese medical system based on Yin and Yang, five elements of life and its extracts from Chinese, Tibetan and Mongolian medical practices. Both the countries, firmly believe in their medical practices which originated more than 5000 years ago. Fang Yun elaborated her research paper, A Comparative Study of the Deposit Insurance System in India and China. She began with the institutional background of the deposit insurance system in both the countries and their differences inclusive of the major governing body as RBI in India, formed in 1935, and China Bank Insurance Regulatory and Commission (CBIRC), established recently replacing the People’s bank of China. Towards the end of the session, Ms Poulami Chakraborty & Dr Rituparna Basu presented their presented their case study on Amazon Pantry: Getting the Right Positioning. The case accounted for recent developments in the digital commercialization of grocery stores.
The final technical session witnessed professors from our very own campus. First up, was Dr.Rohit Singh, assistant professor of IMI Kolkata. His case study presentation was on the topic “Flexible Supply Chain of an Indian Soap Company”. In his presentation, he spoke of the various dimensions which affect the supply chain and the performance of it. Also he emphasized on the advantages of a flexible supply chain over a rigid one. Dr. Tirthankar Nag took up the interesting topic of innovation and linkages between R&D and Information Communication Technology capabilities in today’s business environment. Dr. Nag pointed out that India as a country is oriented towards “jugaad” or innovation and is taking cue from China. He threw light on a number of Innovation surveys and the methodologies which are being adopted. To conclude the session Dr. Baidyanath Biswas spoke of changing sentiments of product reviews on an online platform and the cross cultural impact of it. His study focused on how a single product review can have a variety of impacts in different cultural domains and how can it be best tailored to customers and companies.
Day Two of the International Conference
12th December, 2018, Kolkata: The fifth technical session of the seventh Indo-China Conference was centred on the topic “Labor Market and Other Studies”. The discussion was started by Xiwei Huang, who spoke about “The Difficulty of Promoting Migrant Workers Well-being: a Comparison Study between China and India.” She gave insights about the various gaps between the lives of the migrants and the local people of the cities to which these rural folks migrate. Swapan Chakraborty gave a presentation on “Labour market regulation and manufacturing employment: A study of organized manufacturing sector across Indian states” while emphasising on the need for these regulations as a form of social security and moral boost of the workers. Soni Agrawal and Roma Puri shared their views on the ‘Role of Green Human Resource Practices on Employee pro-environmental Behaviour: A Proposed Study on Indian and Chinese Manufacturing Organizations.’ They elaborated on the effect of Human Resources on the sustainability as well as financial and non-financial operations of an organisation. The final presentation of the session was made by Ayan Ghosh on “The Relationship between Spiritual Intelligence, mindfulness and Transformational leadership among Higher Education Leaders.”
The last session of the conference revolved around the ‘Emerging Economies’. Distinguished ideas in the field were presented by scholars with an exchange of views and perspectives. ‘Identity conflict with cross border spillovers’, presented by Dripto Bakshi and Indraneel Dasgupta explained the factors behind communal clashes. The points covered in the paper were the differences in conflict in various zones, effect of conflict on the influenced and influencing country, property rights and relative productivity, and probability of winning the intra community contest by unilateral and bilateral integration. The next presenter, Rabia Khatoon discussed ‘Openness in Trade in Financial Services and Financial Development: An empirical study from BRICS economies’. The research aimed to analyze the long-term relationship between openness in trade in financial services and financial development in 5 BRICS economies. Since, hardly any study had been conducted before in this context, she had exhaustively analyzed 23 years of data from 1993 to 2012. Sarojakshya Chatterjee, presented his research paper on ‘NBFCs: Drivers of Socio Economic Development’. He emphasized upon the growth of Non-Banking Finance Companies and their differences with banks. Despite providing funds at a high interest rate and being extensively unorganized they have displayed an extraordinary growth and have significantly contributed to GDP.
The final leg of the international conference was the panel discussion on ‘India and China: The Road ahead in Trade and Development’ between Arindam Banik, Guo Xiaoming Anindya Jyoti Majumdar and Chen Jixiang as the discussants and was graciously moderated by Abhijit Banerjee. There was exchange of views in terms of the various areas of concerns in the bilateral relation between India and China and how both countries can work together in order to improve and strengthen trade cooperation, development trend, education and culture.
The two days were intertwined with intellectual networking and cultural exuberance. The Indo-China International Conference was an ideal platform for sharing of ideas and networking with leaders, researchers, professionals, academicians and students from different countries and regions to discuss the Economic, Social and Cultural Perspectives of India and China in collaboration with SASS, China.
