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print versionThe Centre for Financial Accountability
The Centre for Financial Accountability, a New-Delhi based organisation working to strengthen and improve financial accountability within India, invites applications for the inaugural Smitu Kothari Fellowship.
The Indian government, for past few decades, has stressed the need for large infrastructural projects for the country’s development. These large infrastructural projects, which are seen as a stimulus to the GDP growth, mainly include power projects, dams, roads, urban projects, industrial zones/corridors, smart cities and other mega projects. However, these projects, due to their large size, have severe impacts on the environment and livelihood of the locals among other things.
Moreover, while the ‘impacts’ of these large projects on GDP growth are still debatable, what is beyond doubt is that the government takes the loan from the development financial institutions to finance these projects. The citizens repay the loans for the next few decades.
The Fellowship is aimed towards encouraging young writers to critically look at the world of development finance beyond the lending and ‘development’.
This year, we would be awarding four fellowships, with a fellowship amount of Rs 25,000 each.
The three-month-long Fellowship, between mid-September and mid-November 2018, entails writing comprehensive, well-researched, and investigative articles on the specific area/projects related to the themes mentioned below.
Proposed themes:
- Financing of Smart cities and Industrial corridors: Agenda and impact on urban finance, environment, and services.
- International finance on climate change and its investments in India.
- Coal power plants near Sundarbans: Impact on the world heritage site and the local community.
- The progress of the strategies adopted to contain the rising NPAs in the thermal power sector.
- Solar power parks and their impact on the local population.
The Fellowship, on the themes mentioned above, is open to the writers in English and vernacular languages. However, the CFA reserves the right not to award any fellowship if the applications do not meet a minimum standard.
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