(50 min)
Recording of Professor Mahmood Mamdani giving the Edward W Said London Lecture 2017 on 31 March 2017, at The British Museum, London. Prof. Mamdani is a Ugandan academic, author and political commentator, presently Chancellor, Kampala International University, Uganda; Director, Makerere Institute of Social Science Research; the Herbert Lehmann Professor of Government, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University; and Professor of Anthropology, Political Science and African Studies, Columbia University. In the lecture Mamdani examines the question of justice in the postcolonial period, in the writings of Aime Cesaire and Nelson Mandela. He looks at how South Africa's transition from apartheid presents a critique of the lessons drawn from the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals.

Of Bridges & Breaks- The Constitution at a Crossroads |  ( Click here to watch )

Electoral Democracy in India – From Spectacle to Substance

Speakers: Shri R. Venkataramani, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India and former Member, Law Commission of India; and Dr. Neelanjan Sircar, Assistant Professor, Ashoka University and Senior Visiting Fellow, Centre for Policy Research

Moderator: Ms Ritwika Sharma, Lead Charkha and Senior Resident Fellow, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy

A new year-long series of monthly conversations jointly curated and presented with Charkha, the Constitutional Law Research Centre, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy. The conversations have been envisaged to spark thoughtful, nuanced discussions on some of the most significant constitutional challenges of our times. The conversations will focus on three broad themes – understanding Indian democracy, unpacking Indian federalism, and unearthing civil liberties

This Life at Play: Memoirs

By Girish Karnad; translated by Girish Karnad and Srinath Perur (Fourth Estate: 19 May 2021)

Discussants: Ms Nasreen Munni Kabir, television producer, director and author based in UK; Ms Arundhati Ghosh, Executive Director, India Foundation for the Arts; and Dr. Srinath Perur, writer, author and co-translator of the book

Chair: Shri Suryasarathi Bhattacharya

Girish Karnad was one of modern India’s greatest cultural figures: an accomplished actor, a path-breaking director, an innovative administrator, a clear-headed and erudite thinker, a public intellectual with an unwavering moral compass, and above all, the most extraordinarily gifted playwright of his times. Moving and humorous, This Life at Play translated from the Kannada in part by Karnad himself and in part by Srinath Perur, is insightful and candid, the memoirs provide an unforgettable glimpse into the life-shaping experiences of a towering genius, and a unique window into the India in which he lived and worked.  

Travel to south India this weekend and enjoy the incomparable flavours of Chettinad cuisine. Modern-day Chettiars have inherited recipes, ingredients and cooking methods from the migrations of mercantile ancestors who travelled across Burma, Ceylon, Java, Sumatra and Vietnam. Meat and foreign spices soon crept into vegetarian Chettiar food, fusing into a fiery, complex cuisine that would soon distinguish itself from others in south India. Traditionally, meals are served on banana leaves and follow a specific protocol—each dish has a designated space and order in which it must be served. IIC will be serving the special menu from 6th to 8th August 2021. These items shall be served in addition to the regular take away/dine in menu.

Take away services with prior booking will be available from 1100 hrs to 2100 hrs.

Last order can be placed at 2030 hrs. Kindly Place order at: 011-24609359, 24609449, 24609472

Kanwal Wali
Secretary

It has been observed that some Members of the Centre have been proposing/seconding a very large number of applications for Short Term Associate Membership (STAM).   
 
It has been decided that a Member may propose/second a maximum of three Applications of persons whom they have known for significant periods and consider them truly eligible for membership of the Centre. If a Member is found to have proposed/seconded more than three Applications, the excess number of applications (beyond 3) proposed/seconded by him/her shall not be considered, being held invalid. 
 
Members are requested to please appreciate our concern and cooperate. 
 

K.N. Shrivastava
Director IIC
 

Prof. Deborah Swallow, Director, Courtauld Institute of Art, London will speak on

Art for All: Samuel Courtauld, collecting and public patronage

The concept of 'Art for All' is universally endorsed, but what does it really mean?
Industrialist Samuel Courtauld ensured that the great impressionist and post-impressionist paintings that he purchased, and so loved, were primarily in the collections of public institutions. He passionately believed in the positive impact of great art. Yet the concept of 'Art for All' in the 1920s is different from that in the 2020s. Today arts and cultural institutions, are rightly being challenged about what they do, what they hold, whose work they show and whom they are for. This talk will look at the history of The Courtauld from this perspective and its hopes for the future.  Prof. Deborah Swallow is the Märit Rausing Director of The Courtauld Institute of Art, London.  Founded in 1932, The Courtauld is the UK’s leading specialist institution for research and study in the history of art, architecture, and conservation, with an art gallery and a world-renowned art collection. Before joining the Institute, Prof. Swallow worked for 21-years in the Indian and Asian Departments at the Victoria and Albert Museum and 8 years in the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

(Collaboration: JD Centre of Art)

Poetry in Corona Times

A discussion with Anamika; Prof. K. Satchidanandan; Priya S. Chabria; and Sudeep Sen

Moderator: Ashok Vajpeyi, Managing Trustee, The Raza Foundation

(Collaboration: The Raza Foundation)

Dusk to Dawn: Poetic Voices on the Current Times South Asia and Beyond
Edited by Chandra Mohan, Rita Malhotra and Anamika (Heritage Publishers, New Delhi: 2021)

Discussants: Shri Ashok Vajpeyi, eminent poet and critic; Prof. Sanjukta Dasgupta, academic, poet, Convenor, English Advisory Board, Sahitya Akademi and President, Intercultural Poetry and Performance Library, ICCR, Kolkata; Dr. Chandra Mohan, Chair, ICLA Standing Research Committee South Asian Literature and Culture and one of the Editors of the book

Moderator: Prof. Malashri Lal, academic, writer and Editor

Chair: Shri N.N. Vohra, President, IIC 

Witness for the Prosecution (USA) | ( Click here to watch )
(116 min; 1957; b/w; English)
Director: Billy Wilder

With Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich, Charles Laughton

Multiple award winner including David for Best Foreign Actor, David di Donatello Awards 1958; Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress, Golden Globes, USA 1958; Golden Train Award for Best Actress, Faro Island Film Festival 1957; among others

Ailing barrister Sir Wilfrid Robarts is thrust back into the courtroom in what becomes one of the most unusual and eventful murder case of the lawyer's career when he finds himself defending Leonard Vole, a man being tried for the murder of a wealthy woman. With Robarts choosing to represent him, the two find themselves up against Leonard's cold-hearted wife, Christine - who, in a surprising turn of events, chooses to appear in court against her husband.

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 3 – Confucius | ( Click here to watch )
(59:01 min; 2015; English)
In the third and final episode, Bettany Hughes investigates the game-changing ideas of Confucius. Confucius is considered the first Chinese thinker to take a systematic, philosophical approach to the social, political and moral challenges of his world.

Born in a chaotic, violent age, he believed that harmony could be restored through the example of the sage rulers of history. A great innovator, he commandeered rituals and traditions of the past, to form a compelling philosophical vision. A pioneer in education, he attracted a loyal band of students, and tried to instil his principles of moral excellence and self-cultivation in China's rulers.