President to open The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy

NEW DELHI, January 30, 2013





President Pranab Mukherjee will on Thursday inaugurate The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy, to be located in Chennai. The event will be held at Rashtrapati Bhavan.



"The founding spirit of The Hindu Centre is the firm conviction that the publishers of The Hindu, a major force for public good and which has had a stellar role in building India's democratic life, can help revive ebbing public confidence in parliamentary democracy," a statement said.



"Public confidence in India's democratic institutions and political processes are at an all-time low and there is a rising danger of the Indian public becoming alienated from the electoral process, angered by the failure of politicians to deliver on basic expectations."



The Centre will function as an independent platform to explore ideas and public policies. It will contribute to rebuilding public faith in India's democratic process.



It will seek to establish stronger and credible roots for parliamentary democracy, pluralism and economic betterment, and seek to increase understanding of the challenges of the day. It will be involved in research that will revisit key constitutional concepts and examine the validity of the post-Independence set of political values to assess their relevance and utility in terms of the crisis of confidence besetting the system.



Malini Parthasarathy, the former Executive Editor of The Hindu, will be the Director of the Centre. Dr. Parthasarathy, along with N. Ram and N. Ravi, will comprise the Centre's board of management. Mr. Ram is former Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of The Hindu, Frontline, Business Line, and Sportstar, all group publications. Mr. Ravi is a former Editor of The Hindu.



The advisory board will comprise scholars and public intellectuals: Zoya Hasan, Dean of the School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University; Pratap Bhanu Mehta, President and CEO, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi; Sunil Khilnani, Director, King's India Institute, London; and Martha Nussbaum, Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics, University of Chicago.



Other members will be Yogendra Yadav, Senior Fellow, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi; Navin Chawla, former Chief Election Commissioner and Gurcharan Das, management expert, author, and commentator.
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