| Role | Associate Professor of Economics |
| Institution | Central University of Karnataka (CUK), Gulbarga |
| Tenure | April 2011 – September 2012 |
| Department role | Coordinator & Chairman, Board of Studies — Department of Economic Studies & Planning |
| Highlights | 5 MA courses · ICSSR project (with Keshab Das) · 2 guest-edited journal issues · 7 articles |
Central University of Karnataka was barely two years old when I joined it in 2011 — one of the new central universities established in 2009, still building its departments from the ground up. For eighteen months I served as Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Department of Economic Studies & Planning (School of Business Studies), where much of the work was foundational: designing courses, shaping the syllabus for new MA, Integrated MA, and Ph.D. programmes, and helping put a young department’s academic and administrative machinery in place — all while keeping a full research and editorial agenda going.
Teaching and curriculum
I taught five MA Economics courses across the 2011–12 sessions:
| Course | Credits | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Microeconomics-I | 4 | 51 |
| Microeconomics-II | 4 | 54 |
| Mathematics for Economics | 4 | 50 |
| Statistics for Economic Analysis | 3 | 42 |
| Entrepreneurial Development | 3 | 31 |
Beyond teaching, a large part of the role was curriculum-building for a department still taking shape: I designed syllabi for several MA courses — Research Methodology, Regional Economics, and Econometrics I & II — and helped restructure the MA and BA programmes to bring in emerging areas of economics. In the classroom, I integrated ICT (projector and slide-based teaching), ran case discussions and interactive sessions, guided students through primary survey and data analysis, and prepared additional reading material for the core courses.
Research and editorial work
Research continued at full pace through these years. The centrepiece was a major project completed during this period:
ICSSR research project — “Regional Patterns of Internationalization of Indian Firms: Learnings for Policy,” funded by the Indian Council of Social Science Research and co-directed with Prof. Keshab Das (GIDR) — a long-running collaboration that also produced our later work on India’s manufacturing exports. The project’s findings on where and why Indian firms internationalise fed directly into a cluster of publications from this period.
Two guest-edited journal special issues, both in 2011:
- Rise of Emerging Economies — Economics, Management, & Financial Markets, 6(1), 2011 (with G. Lazaroiu)
- Foreign Direct Investment and Development in India — Transnational Corporations Review, 3(2), 2011
Seven peer-reviewed journal articles (2011):
- “R&D Strategy of Small and Medium Enterprises in India” — Science, Technology & Society, 16(3)
- “Regional Heterogeneity and Firms’ R&D in India” — Innovation and Development, 1(2)
- “Foreign Direct Investment and Development in India” — Transnational Corporations Review, 3(2) (guest-editorial — see above)
- “Non-equity Operations of Multinational Enterprises in India” — Transnational Corporations Review, 3(2)
- “Export-orientation of Foreign Manufacturing Affiliates in India” (with K. Das & M. Paul) — Eurasian Journal of Business and Economics, 4(7)
- “Rise of Emerging Economies: An Introduction” (with G. Lazaroiu) — Economics, Management, and Financial Markets, 6(1) (guest-editorial — see above)
- “Firm Performance during Global Economic Slowdown: A View from India” — Economics, Management, and Financial Markets, 6(1)
Plus a working paper with a distinctly local focus — “Regional Policies, Firm Characteristics, and Exporting in the Indian State of Karnataka” (with M. Zohair and M. V. Alagawadi), MPRA Paper No. 40717, 2012 — which later appeared in Foreign Trade Review (2013).
Institutional leadership
Building a young department meant taking on its academic and administrative coordination, alongside service on several university committees:
| Period | Role |
|---|---|
| Apr 2011 – May 2012 | Coordinator, Department of Economic Studies & Planning |
| Feb–May 2012 | Chairman & Convener, Board of Studies (Department) |
| 2011–12 | Member, Ad-hoc Board of Research Studies |
| 2011–12 | Member, Library Committee |
| Jan 2012 | Member, Selection Committee for Assistant Professor appointments |
| Oct 2011 | Member, Free-Ships Committee |
| 2011 | Convener, committees on the API format and the funding-information booklet |
Academic service
During this period I also served as External Examiner for an M.Phil. dissertation — “Migration and Urban Poverty: With Special Reference to Maharashtra” — at Central University of Gujarat.
In reflection
My time at Central University of Karnataka was short but formative — a stretch of genuinely foundational work, balancing teaching and curriculum-building for a new department with sustained research and editorial output in international business and development economics. It was, in many ways, a preview of the institution-building that would follow at Central University of Gujarat.
Related on this site
- Full academic profile — Who I Am
- The two special issues I guest-edited in this period: Rise of Emerging Economies · FDI and Development in India
- The next chapter: Contributions at Central University of Gujarat (2012–present)
