HYBRID  PROGRAMME

Ganga: Reimagining Rejuvenating Reconnecting
By Rajiv Ranjan Mishra and Pushkal Upadhyay 

Speakers: Ms Yamini Aiyar, President and Chief Executive, Centre for Policy Research; Shri Rajiv Ranjan Mishra, Author of the book and Director General National Mission For Clean Ganga (NMCG), Ministry of Jal Shakti; and Shri Pushkal Upadhyay, Author of the book and former Additional Mission Director, National Mission for Clean Ganga; Dr. Vibha Dhawan, Director General, TERI; Shri Abhay Mishra, Writer; Prof. Birgit Vogel, GIZ, India EU Water Partnership.

Chair: Shri Bibek Debroy

Moderator: Dr. Victor Shinde, Lead-Water and Environment, National Institute of Urban Affairs

PHYSICAL PROGRAMME

Contested Lands: India, China and the Boundary Dispute
By Maroof Raza (Westland Non-Fiction: 2021)

Discussants: Amb. Sujan R. Chinoy, Director General of the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses; Prof. Alka Acharya, Professor, Centre for East Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University; and Shri Maroof. Raza, strategic analyst and author of the book 

Chair: Shri K.N. Shrivastava, Director, IIC

PHYSICAL PROGRAMME

An exhibition of photographic panels to mark the 50th anniversary of Bangladesh’s war of liberation. The photographs traces the history of the Liberation War starting with the peoples’ movement against the military regime that culminated in the transformation of East Pakistan to Bangladesh.

The Discovery and Dispersal of Relics: The Modern History of Buddhism
Illustrated lecture by Prof. Himanshu Prabha Ray, author and historian who is currently affiliated to the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, Oxford

Chair: Prof. Madhavan K. Palat

The relics of the Buddha are said to have been divided into eight soon after his parinirvana or passing away in the 6th century BCE. Textual accounts mention a second redistribution by the Mauryan king Ashoka in the third century BCE when 84,000 stupas were built over the Buddha’s relics across the Buddhist world. This talk shifts the focus to the nineteenth and twentieth century dispersal of relics, as these were discovered through archaeological excavations at stupa site. These sacred objects often became pawns in cultural diplomacy as colonial officials sought to cement ties with Buddhist countries through presentation of relics.

Speakers: Prof. Surajit Mazumdar, Professor of Economics, Jawaharlal Nehru University; Prof. Partha Sen, former Professor of Economics, Delhi School of Economics; Prof. R. Kavita Rao, Professor National Institute of Public Finance and Policy; Prof. Vikas Rawal, Professor of Economics, Jawaharlal Nehru University; and Dr. Zakaria Siddiqui, Associate Professor, Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation, Thiruvananthapuram

Moderator: Suhas Borker, Convener, Working Group on Alternative Strategies and Editor, Citizens First TV (CFTV)

For India's industrial sector, a mere recovery to the pre-Covid situation would not amount to much given that stagnation and a shrinking relative significance in the economy have been its features for the past decade. In response to Covid-19, fiscal policy was not leveraged and redistribution was given a short shrift; also there are emerging concerns in respect to finances of states; can the continued eschewal of fiscal policy to expand demand and reduce inequalities and reliance mainly on supply side measures, produce a magic that has been conspicuous by its absence for a long time? The three farm laws have been repealed after a historic struggle by farmers – what should be the future direction of policies in the agricultural sector?  India's rank is low in the global hunger Index - why? what has the government done about it? On climate change, Post-Glasgow conference - what exactly is India up to? is there a net-zero commitment on serious modelling? Is coal going to be phased out?

(Collaboration: Working Group on Alternative Strategies)

Click here to Register
 

The Brandenburg Gate: History of a Symbol
(42 min; 2021; English)
A film by Florian Optiz
DW DocFillm

Built in 1793, the Brandenburg Gate received little attention at first. That changed when Napoleon triumphantly entered the city through the gate after his victory over Prussia in 1806 - and took its Quadriga to Paris as a spoil of war. After the charioteer returned to Berlin in 1814, the Brandenburg Gate became a national symbol of triumph. Following the Second World War, the gate stood at the place where two opposing political systems met. Here, East and West confronted each other, from either side of the Wall. That changed in 1989, when people from East and West crossed the Wall at the Brandenburg Gate to embrace each other. More than any other German monument, the Brandenburg Gate has been exploited again and again for the politics of power; its symbolism has been reinterpreted numerous times; and it has been used and abused as a backdrop by countless political groups.
 

Samuel Beckett: Silence to Silence (Ireland)
(80 min; 1984; English)
Director: Seán O’Mórdha 

What a sensitive documentary can do, and what Seán O'Mórdha's Samuel Beckett: Silence to Silence does admirably, is bring together the man's life and work in a way that offers glimpses of how the one flowed into the other. For those who haven't read much about the singular Nobel Prize-winner, the documentary provides illuminating details of his childhood, school days and his war years with the French resistance; for admirers, there are tantalizing snatches of his prose, poetry and inimitable plays.

A two-part BBC television series with British gardener and broadcaster, Monty Don. Monty Don travels the Islamic world and beyond from Morocco to India in search of Paradise Gardens celebrated in the Koran and uncovers the influence they've have had back in the UK.

Episode I: Spain, Morocco and Iran | ( Click here to watch )
(58 min; English)
Director: Jason Holmes

Monty starts in Spain, a country synonymous with Christian traditions but which, for 800 years, was actually Islamic. At the Alhambra, he discovers the basic building blocks of paradise gardens - green spaces divided into four by channels of water that meet at a central fountain. In Seville, Monty explores their symbolic significance. Water is the key feature of these gardens. In Morocco, Monty discovers the wide variety of paradise gardens. But it is Monty's final stop that sheds the most light on the origins of these incredible gardens. In Iran, he explores the huge influence emanating from the gardens of old Persia. In the cultural centres of Isfahan, Kashan and Shiraz, Monty visits some of the most exquisite gardens in the world and then in the middle of the desert, comes across the secret to their creation.