SC judges to get Harvard schooling

Harvard Business School will soon be training judges from the Indian Supreme Court. A programme to train the judges has been proposed where they would be attending a two-week advanced executive programme in management of cases, at the Harvard Business School. The course will start this June or December when the court sessions are off.

The programme will be sponsored by the Harvard Business School. The school's Vice Provost for International Affairs, Jorge I. Dominguez , who was recently in India, said "A fund of $1 million has been earmarked to support the Harvard-India study and facilitate better relationship between the two nations".

The course will be specially tailored for the judges to teach them how to manage cases; having data or statistics at their disposal while handling cases, et al. Help will be sought from professors of the National Judicial Academy, Bhopal, to determine the courses' needs and designing the content.

"If we have to prepare for the new India, the Supreme Court judges should be provided with the latest education techniques," said proposed coordinator for the course and president of Harvard Alumni Association, Asia, Surat Singh.

In fact, last year, Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government rolled out its first four-week programme to train Indian civil servants on "Governance Challenges in India".

The programme will train around 360 Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers with between 26-28 years experience over the next three years. Faculty from the Kennedy School and the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, collaborated to design the curriculum for the course. Sessions focusing on governance, political economy, and policy analysis will be taught through cases as well as through lectures besides specially-designed exercises.

Although Indian civil servants have frequently visited Harvard on sabbaticals, this is the first time the institution has come to India to impart its expertise. A three-year agreement to design, develop and deliver the programme was signed by the Kennedy School and the Government of India, Department of Personnel and Training. The course is delivered jointly by faculty from both institutions.