The Light of Asia: The Poem that Defined the Buddha

By Jairam Ramesh (Penguin, New Delhi: 2021)

Discussants: Geshe Ngawang Samten, Tibetan educationist, Tibetologist & Vice-Chancellor, Central University for Tibetan Studies, Sarnath, Varanasi; Prof. Karam Tej Singh Sarao, Former Professor & Head, Department of Buddhist Studies, Delhi University; and Shri Jairam Ramesh, Economist & Author of the Book

Chair: Dr. Karan Singh
 

Speakers: Prof. S. Narayan, Emeritus Professor and Member, Commission on Nomadic Tribe, Govt. of India; Ms Jayshree Vyas, Managing Director of SEWA Bank; Dr. Shobha Kujur, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Education, Chatra College, Chatra Jharkhand; and Dr. Shiwani, academic and journalist with The Hindustan Times

Chair: Prof. S. Narayan

Financial inclusion has been defined as the process of ensuring access to financial services, timely and adequate credit for vulnerable groups such weaker sections and low income group at an affordable cost. To ascertain the extent of financial inclusion among tribes and nomadic tribes, financial literacy Haats on a weekly basis have been organized. The webinar will discuss the current status and the gaps in their financial inclusion

(Collaboration: Society for Empowerment)

Pedagogy in the Times of the Pandemic
Opening Remarks & Moderator: Prof. Krishna Menon, Professor, Gender Studies and former Dean of the School of Human Studies at Dr. B R Ambedkar University Delhi.  

Welcome: Ms Seema Kakran, Deputy Director, WISCOMP

Speakers: Prof. Rukmini Sen, School of Liberal Studies, Dr B. R. Ambedkar University Delhi; Dr. Bijayalaxmi Nanda, Acting Principal, Miranda House, Delhi; Prof. Dushyant Kumar, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Miranda House, University of Delhi.

The Covid -19 pandemic is changing our world in many ways.  Education, especially higher education, has borne the brunt of the pandemic in very specific ways. Students and teachers have had to keep away from the campus, since distancing norms and lockdown policies across the world made it difficult to have face to face classes and interactions on campus.  As teachers committed to transformative and critical pedagogy, the speakers at the dialogue will highlight the experiences of faculty and students in campuses of higher learning while battling the anxieties and losses unleashed by the pandemic. Meaningful interventions by the students and faculty of educational institutions to extend care and logistical support to the citizens such as in Delhi are a significant initiative that merit a discussion. However, accompanying these efforts have been the accounts of gendered experiences of the teaching/learning process as it shifted online, almost overnight.  The challenges posed by the existing social inequalities have been exacerbated by online processes, how have teachers navigated these inequalities?  The role of leadership in academic institutions, the gendered nature of the struggles of online teaching/learning, the initiatives by the faculty faced with unequal access to digital technology and the mental health concerns of all engaged in the higher education space would form the backdrop of this dialogue. 

(Collaboration: WISCOMP)

Simple Life: An Inquiry into the Joys of Simplicity in a Complex World
By K. Jayakumar (Shubhi Publications, New Delhi: 2021)

Discussants: Smt Shovana Narayan, well-known Kathak exponent and author; Dr. C.V. Ramanan, Director, Institute of Marketing & Management, Professor and Sadhak; and Shri K. Jayakumar, former Chief Secretary, Govt. of Kerala; Founder Vice Chancellor, Malayalam University; poet, translator and author of the book

Moderator: Ms Mandira Ghosh, poet and author

Chair: Dr. Sudha Gopalakrishnan, Executive Director, IIC-International Research Division

With his singular and unwavering style, Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu (1903-1963) disregarded the established rules of cinema and created a visual language all his own. Precise compositions, contemplative pacing, low camera angles, and elliptical storytelling are just some of the signature techniques the great filmmaker used to evoke a sense of melancholy and poetry in everyday existence. The three films that Ozu made between 1949 and 1953 constitute his most enduring achievement. Dubbed the “Noriko Trilogy” after the name of the female protagonist in all three films, the films (Late Spring, Early Summer, Tokyo Story) co-star the two most familiar members of Ozu’s longstanding stock company: Chishu Ryu (1904–1993), the director’s favourite actor; and Setsuko Hara (1920–2015), who plays Noriko in all three parts of the trilogy. 

Early Summer (Bakushu/Japan) | (125 min; 1951; b/w; Japanese with English subtitles)

Director: Yasujiro Ozu

Recipient of the Blue Ribbon Awards 1952 for Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Director and Best Cinematography; Kinema Junpo Awards 1952 for Best Film; and Mainichi Film Concours Awards 1952 for Best Film and Best Actress

A family drama set in Kamakura, the leisurely, poignant Early Summer ends, as do so many Ozu films, in tears – theirs and ours. The Mamiya family takes up the challenge of finding a husband for Noriko (Setsuko Hara)), a happily unmarried "working girl." Her boss suggests a middle-aged businessman as a suitable prospect, but Noriko impulsively accepts another proposal and the family begins to disintegrate – ever so quietly – in the wake of her marriage. Consistently ranked with Late Spring and Tokyo Story as the best of Ozu’s postwar films, Early Summer is perhaps the most freely structured of his late work, with its elliptical narrative logic and constantly shifting rhythms.
 

The Inner Eye (India) | (22 min; 1981; English) 

A film by Satyajit Ray
Produced by Films Division

With his documentary on Benode Behari Mukherjee, Satyajit Ray delineates a beautiful portrait of the life of a remarkable man – a devoted artist, a born fighter and, in more ways than one, a great philosopher.

A three-part BBC series. Historian Bettany Hughes travels to India, Greece and China on the trail of three giants of ancient philosophy - Buddha, Socrates and Confucius. All three philosophers lived between the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, during a period of unprecedented and intense intellectual development.

Trailblazers whose radical ideas signalled a key change in human consciousness, each embodied the shift from a reliance on the supernatural, as the sole way to explain humankind’s place in the cosmos, to one where rational argument and logical reasoning offered new, exciting possibilities.

Drawing on archaeology and expert opinion, Bettany Hughes follows in the footsteps of these great figures, in her quest to unpack their philosophy in the context of their age. She reveals how, even though their ideas came about two and a half thousand years ago, their thinking still shapes, and continues to provide solutions to, our own lives.

Genius of the Ancient World: Episode 1 - Buddha | (59:10 min; 2015; English) | ( Click here to watch )

In this first episode Bettany Hughes investigates the revolutionary ideas of the Buddha. In his 20s the Buddha abandoned his family and homeland in the foothills of the Himalayas to embark on an ambitious philosophical quest to find a solution to human suffering. 

Before the Flood | (96 min; 2016; English) | ( Click here to watch )
Director: Fisher Stevens

Recipient of the Hollywood Film Award 2016 for Documentary Film of the year

This epic documentary follows Leonardo DiCaprio, actor, environmental activists and U.N. Messenger of Peace as he travels to five continents and the Arctic speaking to scientists, world leaders, activists and local residents to examine first-hand the devastating effects of climate change, and to investigate concrete solutions to prevent catastrophic damage that could make the Earth unsustainable for human life.