Chamber Consultation Hour with Dr. Sudatta Banerjee

Prof. Sudatta Bannerjee is an Assistant Professor the current Head of the Department of Economics & Finance. She teaches all courses related to Development Economics. The courses might appear boring at first – voluminous books, plethora of text, and matter-of-fact content. But does it make any Economics student dread these subjects. No! Because when you get an instructor who puts Marvel references in the question paper, how dare you crib about it! If you can’t give arguments against Thanos in economic terms, it’s clearly your fault. Not just question papers, the classroom is equally interesting too. Let’s enter Dr. Sudatta Banerjee’s chamber and know about her journey to research – from school to college to our college.

Y: Yashdeep S. Dahiya (Interviewer)

S: Dr. Sudatta Banerjee

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Y: Firstly, ma’am, tell us about your research work here.

S: My research domain is Development Economics. I work in areas related to health, education, women empowerment, and growth theory.

Y: What brought you in research? What/who influenced you to pursue research?

S: I was born and brought up in a university campus. My father and grandfather both were professors. Throughout my life, I had lived in a university campus. Ironically, the only time I couldn’t live in a university campus was when BITS couldn’t allot me residence when I joined. However, that was soon made available and now I’m back in a university campus again :D

You tend to be influenced by what you see around. I saw university students only! There were hostels for students pursuing masters, and there were separate hostels for Ph.D. students. So, my understanding of minimum educational qualification for an individual was post-graduation; since it wasn’t mandatory to stay in a hostel after masters. I wrote this in my PhD acknowledgement also! So, I never thought of not pursuing research ahead.

Development economics introduced me to the real world, where there was so much illiteracy.

Y: Which subjects did you choose in senior secondary?

S: I was interested in economics since 9th standard. So, I chose Economics, Mathematics and Statistics. I felt math and stats were easy to score, and I was fond of economics. I didn’t opt for Bengali though. I chose Alternative English, as I was from a convent background. I thought it would have been tough competing with students who had started Bengali early in school and had it as a first language. And there was Environmental Studies too.

Y: Where did you pursue P.G. and Ph.D. after school?

S: I completed my post-graduation from University of Burdwan, Kolkata. Then, I moved to Delhi. I did my Ph.D. from JNU. I worked as a consultant in the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy for a brief period while my Ph.D. thesis was getting evaluated. There, I worked on the black money evaluation project initiated by the government. The findings of the project, however, aren’t out yet.

Y: How did you end up here at BPHC?

S: After my project with NIPFP, I got the appointment letter for BITS Pilani. I joined Hyderabad Campus 1 semester after I got the letter as I was working on the black money project and didn’t want to leave it unfinished.

Y: Which course do you like teaching the most?

S: I teach what I like only! To think about it, I’ve never got courses that I don’t like teaching. Principles of Economics is quite general and all faculty members can teach. Apart from this, I really like teaching Development Economics.

Y: Are the projects that are floated in the department specifically tailored for students or are they something which are being worked on in the department already?

S: Project allotment is a very student friendly system. It is up to the students what they want to see in their project. I have done projects that involved Computer Science too. There was a project, last semester, where the student wanted to perform sensitivity analysis, which involved computer science as well as econometric applications. I wholeheartedly helped in the econometric and policy synthesis part of the project and gave the student complete autonomy in CS part.

Y: Being in economics and finance department, do you invest in stocks, F&O, etc.?

S: Oh, the irony! Although I do have a demat account, I don’t run it actively. My husband is a very keen participant in trading though and, so, he does most of the trading from my part too. Besides, some department members also keenly invest in stocks. As a result, there’s a lot of finance-related discussion on chai.

Y: We know that Economics Department does not have a lab. So, what relevance does a lab-oriented or a design-oriented project hold here?

S: All projects that involve econometric analysis can be called a design-oriented project or a lab-oriented project. For example, doing a project on R can be classed as a lab-oriented project. Or, if the project involves conducting a primary survey, that can be categorised as a lab-oriented project too.

Y: There are 2 junta courses in Economics Department – Principles of Economics and Principles of Management. What is it like handling such courses which involves so many students, and instructors alike, from the viewpoint of an HoD?

S: Interestingly, I was given the IC-ship of PoE the first time I taught it! This was before I became the HoD. I was told it is maddening to coordinate among so many people, that I wouldn’t be able to distribute the papers in the end, et al. But I handled it so well the first time, now the department doesn’t let me go off the team, whether I’m the IC or not! On one instance, the exam was just 2 days before vacation were to start and I had to distribute 350 papers the very next day at any cost. If I couldn’t do so, I had no option but to distribute them next semester, and changing grades is impossible in such a scenario. So, I sat the whole night checking papers. Next day, other faculty members joined too and it all happened smoothly. Now, PoE feels like a cakewalk!

Y: How often do you visit the library?

S: I visit the library quite often actually. I don’t know what you will feel about it, but apart from the academic books, I also pick a Nancy Drew sometimes! So, when friends, or your seniors, visit my home, they ask what is this book doing in my house. I tell them I like reading it. So, don’t be surprised if you find the likes of Hardy Boys and Famous Five at my home!

Y: Knowing that you are a Marvel fan, what’s your favourite Marvel character?

S: It’s a draw between Hulk and Ironman. Ironman is cool for what he does. Hulk is fun to watch; Hulk smash for the win!