A Haunting Tragedy: Gender, Caste and Class in 1866 Famine of Orissa

By Bidyut Mohanty (Routledge Taylor & Francis, New Delhi: 2022)

Discussants: Shri P. Sainath, Founder Editor, PARI (People’s Archives on Rural India); Prof. Tim Dyson, Emeritus Professor, London School of Economics, UK; Prof. Sanjay Sharma, Professor of History, Ambedkar University, Delhi; Prof. Pritish Acharya, Regional Institute of Education (NCERT), Bhubaneswar; Prof. Jean Dreze, Visiting Professor of Economic, Ranchi University, Jharkhand; and Dr. Bidyut Mohanty, Head, Women Studies, Institute of Social Sciences and author of the book

Chair: Prof. Ashwini Deshpande, Professor of Economics, Ashoka University, Sonipat 

(Collaboration: Social Science Research Community; Institute of Social Sciences; Development Research Institute; Bandung Network India; and Manohar Publishers)

To access the webinar: 
https://meet.google.com/vmf-ryfa-www 

Krishna Sobti: Classic Litterateur

A discussion with Anamika, Geetanjali and Sanjeev Kumar

Moderator: Ashok Vajpeyi

Organised to mark Krishna Sobti’s birth anniversary

(Collaboration: The Raza Foundation)

The Only Son (Netherlands) | Click here to watch
(78 min; 2013; English and with subtitles)
Director: Simonka de Jong

The Only Son is the story about the challenges of keeping Dolpo’s ancient culture alive as the area becomes less isolated. The film is primarily shot in Karang, a village at 13,000 feet in Upper Dolpo, one of the most remote areas of Nepal. 

The film centres on Pema’s parents’ expectation that Pema will return to Dolpo, Nepal, when he completes his education, marry a Dolpapa woman, and manage the family’s land. As the only son, this is his role in Dolpo’s traditional culture. Pema is torn between his duty to the family and his desire to live the modern life that he now prefers. 

https://www.documentarytube.com/videos/documentary-on-arranged-marriage…
 

Dangerous Knowledge (UK) | Click here to watch
(89 in; 2007; English)
Director: David Malone

A two-part documentary about four of the most brilliant mathematicians of all time, Georg Cantor, Ludwig Boltzmann, Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing, their genius, their tragic madness and their ultimate suicides.

Dangerous Knowledge: The Enigma (44 min)
Kurt Gödel, the introverted confidant of Einstein, proved that there would always be problems which were outside human logic. His life ended in a sanatorium where he starved himself to death. Finally, Alan Turing, the great Bletchley Park code breaker, father of computer science and homosexual, died trying to prove that some things are fundamentally unprovable.
 

Joseph Haydn: Libertine & His Master’s Servant (Germany) 
(54 min; 2009; English and with subtitles)
Director: Nele Münchmeyer
A DW film

Nele Münchmeyer's documentary throws light upon Haydn as the ingenious composer and as the private person – the "Libertine" in his private life and the "Servant" as the Kapellmeister of Esterházys'.

Haydn's lifetime saw a series of striking changes in musical style. At the time of his birth and childhood baroque traditions still prevailed. By the end of his life the apparent stability of the classical style was being challenged, notably by Beethoven. Haydn did not simply live through this long development; he was a central part of it.

The film includes excerpts from highly acclaimed performances of Haydn works. Amongst them are: the opera, Armida with the German Soprano Annette Dasch, Arias from Haydn performed by the Freiburger Barockorchester and the Baritone Thomas Quasthoff, performances of Die Schöpfung and Die Jahreszeiten conducted by Roger Norrington.

 Conan Doyle and the Realm of the Faeries (UK) | Click here to watch
(75 min; 2007; English)
Director: Philip Gardiner

Ever since Sir Arthur Conan Doyle first introduced him to readers back in 1887, Sherlock Holmes has fascinated fans of mystery fiction worldwide, and in this documentary filmmaker Phillip Gardiner explores the mind of both the author and the enduring characters he created. In exploring the life of Doyle, Gardiner uncovers a bizarre mystery of his own, one that seems almost stranger than the wildly imaginative fiction he penned for the written page. A tormented author with ominous ties to secret societies, the man who gave birth to Holmes, Moriarty, and Watson is almost as great a mystery as The Hound of the Baskervilles.

India’s Foreign Policy in the Post Covid: International Relations through the Eyes of Indian Diplomats

By Surendra Kumar (Wisdom Tree, New Delhi: 2021)

Discussants: Shri Shyam Saran, Life Trustee, IIC and former Foreign Secretary; Amb. Jayant Prasad, former Director General, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses and former Ambassador to Afghanistan, Algeria & Nepal; Amb. Manjeev Puri, Distinguished Fellow, Earth Science and Climate Change, TERI and former Ambassador to the European Union & Nepal; Amb. Gurjit Singh, Chair, the CII Business Task Force on Trilateral Cooperation in Africa and former Ambassador to Germany, Indonesia, ASEAN, Ethiopia & the African Union; Ms Suhasini Haider, National Editor and Diplomatic Affairs Editor, The Hindu; and Dr. Manoj Joshi, senior journalist and Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation

Moderator: Amb. Surendra Kumar, former Dean, Foreign Service Institute and Editor of the book

Registration link