The conference began on the morning of August 7, 2006. Mr. N.N. Vohra chaired the inaugural session. Mr. Vohra, a veteran administrator, spoke about various practical problems in governance that he experienced during his tenure. Professor Avinash Dixit from Princeton University made the inaugural presentation. He focused on ' Economic Governance ', elaborating on various concepts involved in it. A key message was that relation-based systems (prevalent in developing and transition economies) of governance are difficult to scale up as opposed to more general rule-based systems of governance.

The third day was reserved for discussion on 'Decentralisation'. In the first session speakers from different regions of south-Asia shared the experiences of their region in decentralisation. Patrick Canagasingham Executive Director, Neelan Tiruchelvam Trust spoke on the ' Decentralisation Experiences of Sri Lanka '. He spoke on how ill planned and inefficiently implemented decentralisation policy added to ethnic conflict in the region. On the other hand, Hossain Zillur Rahman, Chairman, Power and Participation Research Centre, in his presentation on ' Decentralisation Experiences of Bangladesh ' elaborated how the region has benefited from decentralisation policy. V. Santhakumar from Centre for Development Studies also showed how decentralisation has worked in Kerala in his presentation ' Decentralisation in Kerala' . M. Govinda Rao, Director, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy spoke on the ' Decentralisation Experiences of India ' providing examples and broad lessons learnt.

Sanjeev Sanyal from Global Markets Research, Deutsche Bank presented ' Post liberalization India: Importance of Legal Reforms ' and emphasised the need for improved governance in the Indian legal system and provided varied real life examples.

The second day was restricted to a morning session. The afternoon session was open for informal discussions among the speakers and participants. The morning session began with the presentation by Professor Ian Jewitt from Nuffield College. His paper entitled " Reputational self-governance and the reform of legal service markets " investigates how the market for legal services can operate to provide consumer protection and value for money along with adherence to professional mores. Professor Vivekananda Mukherjee from Jadavpur University spoke on ' Poverty, Taxation and Governance '. The last speaker for the day was Professor Gurbachan Singh from Jawaharlal Nehru University. He presented a paper on ' Financial Repression, Bank Deposits, Real Assets and Black Money ' relating to an emerging economy with poor governance. The paper considers the existence of repression in financial markets and prevalence of black money in some sectors. It examines the effects of improved governance in the form of reduction in financial repression.

The afternoon slot was reserved for a roundtable discussion on the decentralisation and governance issues. Shubhashis Gangopadhyay moderated the session. Moving ahead of two days of academic discussions, the roundtable focused on implementation aspects. The discussion spanning varying issues was productive. Governance in education was discussed at length. Polar views on education ranged from compulsory primary schooling to private provision of schooling with school vouchers and parent choice of school. The lack of hard evidence underscored the need for empirical research. Another key topic was decentralisation - merits and de-merits - wherein the several case studies presented helped to identify what decentralisation mechanism might work under what conditions. In the same vein, the goals of collective action, with reference to India and South Asia, were also discussed. Governance in judiciary, especially in expanding capacity during transition was also raised.

The conference ended with Manisha Singh, Fellow, India Development Foundation, presenting what we learnt over the three days - agreements, disagreements and the open questions - that lead to a research agenda and the different methodologies to answer these questions.