The 9th edition of the Biennial Festival organised in collaboration with Toxics Link. The festival showcases 30 films categorized into four broad themes, Environmental Justice, Water, Conservation and Sustainable living along with a discussion with filmmakers present. The films are a mix of documentaries, animation and features from Austria, Canada, Greece, India, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, South Africa, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, USA, and Venezuela. The festival will also include a panel discussion with eminent journalists, environmentalists, academicians, filmmakers, policymakers, and personalities from civil society organisations.

FULL PROGRAMME

FROM 10:00 TO 11:25
Inauguration
Welcome Address by Ravi Agarwal, Founder-Director, Toxics Link
Chief Guest: Rahul Ram, well-known singer/songwriter 

Followed by 
Cultural programme
Presented by The Shri Ram Millenium School, Gurguram

FROM 11:45 TO 13:40
Manas and People (26 min/2020/Assamese/English/India) – director: Dip Bhuyan
Film on the Bodo indigenous ethnic group and their association with the natural landscape

Save our Species (2 min/2020/animation/India) – director: Delwyn Jude Remedios
Stop-motion animation film on the harm done to our planet’s species

Wildfire (10 min/2022/Nepali/Hindi/English/Nepal) – director: Shyam Karki
A little red panda, a rare species has become homeless due to a 16-day wildfire in the Nepali mid-hills

Changing Landscape (57 min/2022/Tamil/English/India) – director: Pravin Selvam
The film focuses on the plight of the wetlands in Tamil Nadu

From 14:00 onwards
The Last Tribe (45 min/2020Hindi/English/India) – director: Amit Goswami
A study of the environmental crisis in one of India’s war zone through the lens of a wildlife biologist

Between Hell and Paradise (15 min/2017/Ukrainian/English/Ukraine) – director: Slavik Bihun
Film on the holding the state responsible for the industrial activities that directly impact the environment

Svalbard in Plastic (40 min/2020/English/Norway) – director: Ivonne Salo
The film is a “wake up call” for the protected Arctic Life of Svalbard where vast amounts of plastic litter have been spotted

Green Wars (28 min/2021/English/UK) – director: Joel Elias
The film showcases the battles for land, livelihood, and climate justice in Idukki district of Kerala

The Sea’s Guardian (23 min/2021/Urdu/English/UK) – director: Sidra Altaf
Documentary on the rich and unique ecosystem of the mangroves in Karachi, Pakistan

Bleeding Gold (15 min/2022/Spanish/English/Venezuela) – directors: Thaelman Urgelles, Juan Urgell
An unprecedented ecocide in the southeast region of Venezuela, officially known as the Orinoco Mining Arc

Sensual Pill (4 min/2021/animation/English/Greece) – director: Sam3
While the human race tyrannizes the planet, nature begins a quiet dialogue that gradually increases in intensity

The Last Seed (80 min/2022/English/South Africa) – director: Andrea Gema
Film on the state of food and agriculture in Africa in the 21st century
 

 
WEBINAR REGISTRATION
Title:    Kriti-SAMHiTA: The Plurality of Indian Knowledge Systems
Malayalam Digital Archives: The Gundert Portal at Tübingen University and Granthappura (Kerala Digital Archive)

Details:    Speakers: Heike Oberlin (Tübingen University, Germany) and Shju Alex (Indic Digital Archive Foundation)
Chair: Sudha Gopalakrishnan, Executive Director, IIC-International Research Division
Prof. Dr. Heike Oberlin is Head of the Dept. of Indology at Tübingen University, Germany. In 1995–2001 she studied Kūṭiyāṭṭam and Naṅṅyār Kūttu at Kerala Kalamandalam, and gained her PhD in 2004 at Würzburg University with an award-winning work on the subject. Her research focus is on Kerala, Malayalam language and literature and performance studies. In 2012–2016 she together with David Shulman led an international project on Kūṭiyāṭṭam. In 2015, in cooperation with the Thunchath Ezhuthachan Malayalam University (Tirur), she established the ‘Gundert Chair’ for Malayalam at Tübingen. 
Shiju Alex is Senior Technical Writer with ABB Robotics in Bangalore. He spends his free time in digital archiving activities as a volunteer. He is one of the directors of the newly founded, non-profit organization ‘Indic Digital Archive Foundation’. 

Date & Time:    Saturday, 26 November 2022 at 6.30 pm
About:    Heike Oberlin and Shiju Alex will introduce the open source, online databases ‘Gundert Portal’ and ‘Granthappura’ (ഗ്രന്ഥപ്പുര | Kerala Digital Archive), presenting their history and relationship and demonstrating their use through examples. ‘Granthappura’ was started in 2009 by Shiju Alex as a volunteer-driven digitization project. In June 2022 it became part of the ‘Indic Digital Archive Foundation’, a non-profit organization for the digitization of Indic-language documents. Granthappura’ has a constantly growing collection of 2500+ digitized artefacts related to Kerala, among them the first Malayalam printed book and first Malayalam dictionary. In 2012-13 Granthappura volunteers approached Heike Oberlin with a request to digitize the Kerala documents at Tübingen’s University library, in particular Hermann Gundert’s legacy. Thus started a digitization project funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) in 2016–18, that resulted in the ‘Gundert Portal’, an open source database run by the University Library of Tübingen. It contains printed and lithographed books, manuscripts and pamphlets, mainly in Malayalam, but also in other South Indian languages. About 137,000 pages from 849 titles have been digitized, including more than 140 manuscripts (also palm leaf). Nearly 24,000 pages were transcribed into machine-readable Malayalam script by Indian collaborators coordinated by Shiju Alex. 
Seventh in a series of lectures organised by IIC-International Research Division with the support of Ministry of External Affairs
Registration link:
    https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Af5ErfQ_TtuKhhiinhumEg

YouTube link:    https://youtu.be/lx8iScTkzcY

For any other clarification, kindly please contact us on webinar@iicdelhi.in

                        India International Centre | 40 Max Mueller Marg | New Delhi 110003  

The Last Heroes: Foot Soldiers of Indian Freedom

By P. Sainath (Penguin Viking: 2022)

Discussants: Ms Anubha Bhonsle, independent journalist, Founder, Newsworthy; Ms Sukhpreet Kahlon, Research Scholar, Jawaharlal Nehru University; Ms Jenisha Singh, Research Fellow; Ms Elin Lakra, Activist, SRUTI; Ms Yusra Naqvi, Student, Jamia Millia Islamia; and Shri P. Sainath, journalist, Founder-Editor, People’s Archive of Rural India and author of the book

Japan – India Synergy: Vision 2052
An International Symposium
Conceptualised by Dr. Anu Jindal, artist, scholar and curator

PROGRAMME

Opening remarks:         Dr Anu Jindal, New Delhi
Welcome Address:         Mr K. N. Shrivastava, Director, IIC
Invocation:                     Ms Yoko Matshushita, Osaka, Japan

Session I:                    10.10 - 11.20 am

Chair: Mr Kojiro Morikawa, Historian, Member of Osaka Foreign Business Network Club & Investor, Kyoto, Japan. 

A brief introduction of the Mithila Museum at the Museum of Modern Art, Wakayama
Mr Tokio Hasegawa, Founder-Director, Mithila Museum, Tokamachi, Niigata, Japan. (Yuka-san - Amagasaki, Osaka, interpreter) 

My Journey of Dance, Kalari, Yoga, Geeta and Situation of Indian Culture in Japan
Ms Yoko Matsushita, Bharat Natyam Dancer, Founder-Director, Studio Prachee, Osaka, Japan

India-Japan Economic Relations: Select Aspects
Dr H.S. Prabhakar, former Prof, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi 

Tea break:             11:20 – 11:40 hours

Session II:             11:40 – 13:00 hours
Chair: Dr Anu Jindal, Artist, Scholar, Arts Administrator

Special Address:     Dr Vibha Dhawan, Director-General, The Energy & Resources Institute (TERI), New Delhi 

India as a fountain in the Japanese popular culture context: Focusing on the 1970s children's action TV drama Rainbow Man
Dr Hajime Hasegawa, Prof of Media Studies, Gaku-in University, Tokyo 

Dr Nisha Taneja, ICRIER, New Delhi 

Three Similarities of China’s Territorial Expansion: How does QUAD work?
Dr Satoru Nagao, Fellow (non-resident), Hudson Institute (Washington DC), will join from Tokyo

Lunch Break:         13:00 – 14:00 hours

Session III:             14:00 – 15:20 hours

Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between Japan-India 
Dr Sreeram Chaulia, Prof & Dean, Jindal School of International Affairs (JSIA), O.P. Jindal Global University (JGU), Sonipat, Haryana, India 
 

Mr Anuj Dayal, Principal Executive Director (CC), Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, New Delhi

Mr Pramit Pal Chaudhuri, Head of India Practice, Eurasia Group, New Delhi 

Indo-Japanese bilateral and multilateral relations till 2047
Mr Gautam Mukherjee, Senior Journalist & TV Panelist, New Delhi 

Strategic Partnership/Africa Corridor
Mr. Manish Chand, CEO & Editor-in-Chief, India Writes Network, Centre for Global India Insights (CGII), India 

Tea break:             15:20 – 15:40 hours

Session IV:             15:40 – 17:00 hours

Chair: Dr Anita Sharma, former Prof, Dept of East Asian Studies, University of Delhi, New Delhi

Japan-India Trade and Soft Power Exchanges
Mr Amarendra Khatua, former Secretary and Director-General, Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), New Delhi

City Planning in Japan: Historic City of Nagahama
Dr Prafulla Parlekar, Prof in Dept of Urban Planning, School of Planning & Architecture, New Delhi 

Environment Friendly Design for Sustainable Living-Japanese Role Model
Dr Anu Jindal, Artist Scholar Arts Administrator, New Delhi 

Summation by Dr Anu Jindal

The Symposium takes off from the Embassy of Japan in India’s declaration of “Building a future for our centenary” – looking ahead to the year 2052, when the celebration to mark the 100th Anniversary of the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations between Japan and India will take place. 

Organised to mark the 70th Anniversary of the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations between Japan and India

Fit at Any Age: A Practitioner’s Guide
By Air Marshal (Retd.) P.V. Iyer, AVSM, VSM (Bloomsbury India: 2022)
 
The author will be in conversation with Shri Rajiv Mehrishi, former Comptroller and Auditor General of India; and Shri Shekhar Gupta, journalist and author
 
(Collaboration: Bloomsbury India)
 

 
Relevance of the Values of the Freedom Struggle
Speaker: S. Irfan Habib
 
Moderator of the series: Suhas Borker
Introduction: Vinay Kumar, Secretary General, Press Club of India
 
The series of Conversations with Media is jointly presented by IIC and PCI and is hosted by them alternatively every month
 

Ideology and Organization in Indian Politics: Polarisation and the Growing Crisis of the Congress Party (2009-19) 
By Zoya Hasan (OUP Oxford: 2022)
 
Discussants: Shri Mani Shankar Aiyar, politician, former career diplomat and author; Dr. Harish Khare, former Media Advisor to the Prime Minister of India and former Editor-in-Chief, Tribune; Dr. Rahul Verma, Fellow, Centre for Policy Research and Assistant Professor, Ashoka University; and Dr. Zoya Hasan, Professor Emerita, Jawaharlal Nehru University and author of the book
 
Moderator: Shri Bharat Bhushan, senior journalist
 

Nepal General Elections 2022 and India-Nepal Relations

Speaker: Sanjay Upadhya, Nepali author and analyst based in USA who has worked for the BBC, the Times of London, Inter Press Service, Khaleej Times and the United Nations. His latest book is Empowered and Imperiled: Nepal’s Peace Puzzle in Bits and Pieces (Kathmandu: FinePrint Books, 2022)

Chair: Prof. S.D. Muni, Professor Emeritus, Jawaharlal Nehru University and former Ambassador and Special Envoy, Government of India

Party manifestos in the run-up to the 20 November 2022 parliamentary elections in Nepal have highlighted the urgency of maintaining a balanced relationship with the country’s two giant neighbours, India and China. Nepal-India relations have always been entwined with the country’s domestic electoral politics. This time, China’s motives and intentions in Nepal are also being sharply scrutinised. More broadly, Kathmandu and New Delhi will have to navigate long-standing issues such as borders, sharing of water resources, and the plight of the madhesis. This challenge would be all the more pressing amid the general Nepali grumbles of India’s ‘big brotherliness’ and India’s perceptions of tepid Nepali sensitivity to New Delhi’s security concerns

Registration link