DR. C.D. DESHMUKH MEMORIAL LECTURE 2018

 

"Great" Contemporaries: Akbar, Suleiman I and Elizabeth I 

Speaker: Justice Rohinton F. Nariman, Judge of the Supreme Court of India

 

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

 

The ‘Philosopher Monarch’ was an ideal of Plato’s. The age of the Antonines in Rome produced five of them in quick succession. Thereafter, these three contemporaries more or less fulfilled the same ideal of Kingship. Their attitude to their subjects, and particularly to their minority subjects, is a lesson in the modern Constitutional Ideal of Fraternity, assuring the dignity of the individual, and the unity and integrity of the Nation

 

Sharing of Hopes for Peaceful Existence

Launch of 6th Indo-Pak Peace Calendar, followed by a discussion

 

Shri Sudheendra Kulkarni, Head-Observer Research Foundation-Mumbai; Ms Kamla Bhasin, peace activist; Shri Rahul Jalali, senior journalist; and Air Vice Marshal Kapil Kak, (Retd.)

 

(Collaboration: Aaghaz-e-Dosti, an Indo-Pak Friendship Initiative)

 

BOOK DISCUSSION GROUP

 

Will to Argue: Studies in Late Colonial and Postcolonial Controversies

By Sumanyu Satpathy (Delhi: Primus Books, 2017)

 

Panellists: Prof. Asha Sarangi, Professor, Centre for Political Science, JNU  and Dr. Ashok Acharya, Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Delhi

 

Chair: Prof. Purushottam Agrawal, former Member, UPSC and Visiting Professor, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies

 

Role of Central Information Commission in Governance


Introductory Rermarks:  Shri Prabhat Kumar, Former Cabinet Secretary
 

Keynote Speaker: Shri Nikhil Dey, Social Activist

Chairman's Remarks:  Shri Radha Krishna Mathur, Chief Information Commissioner 

 

(Collaboration: IC Centre for Governance)

 

Travel, Thought and Trade from Khorasan to Khotan: Indo-Iranian Heritage During Late Antiquity

Speaker: Dr. Burzine Waghmar, currently a Senior Library Assistant at SOAS and formerly editor of the Circle of Inner Asian Art newsletter. He is a research fellow of the European Foundation for South Asian Studies, The Hague, Netherlands

 

Chair: Dr. Romila Thapar

 

A millennial appreciation of daily life among the sedentary and transient peoples domiciled in what was an Indo-Iranian cultural zone stretching from the Persian plateau to the Indian peninsula is surveyed here during late antiquity (AD 200-800). This shared Indo-Iranian heritage is frequently recognised but relegated to broad cultural correspondences between contemporary dynasts in the heartlands of southwest Iran and northern India. The then known Indo-Iranian world, namely lands Indic at once as Iranic ethno-linguistically, was an era of efflorescence far more eclectic than is conventionally admitted. It was a forerunner of what became the Persianate world ranging from Bosnia to Bengal during the medieval and early modern epochs. But the antecedents of that collective consciousness must be traced to the artistic, mercantile and spiritual legacies of this pre-Islamic period  

 

From Temple to Museum: Colonial Collections and Uma Mahesvara Icons in the Middle Ganga Valley

Speaker: Dr. Salila Kulshreshtha, PhD in History from Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University and is currently based in Dubai. Her research interests include religious iconography, afterlives of shrines, colonial archaeology and the making of museums in South Asia. Her book, From Temple to Museum will be published by Routledge shortly

 

Chairperson: Prof  Anjana Sharma, Delhi University

 

The talk will focus on the creation of regional identities and the politics of heritage making through the use of visual cultures and museum spaces; how the establishment of museums in Bihar in the early 20th century, such as the Patna Museum and the Nalanda Museum through their collection, cataloguing and display of sacred sculptures attempted to create a particular heritage; a Buddhist heritage for the state of Bihar which continues to define the region to the present day

 

China’s Transformation: The Success Story and the Success Trap

Introduction by Vivek Mehra, Managing Director and CEO, Sage Publications and presentation of first copy to Professor Muchkund Dubey, President, CSD

 

Introduction to the book by the author, Dr. Manorajan Mohanty

Followed by a panel discussion

 

Panellists: Shri Jairam Ramesh, Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha; Shri Shivshankar Menon, Former National Security Adviser; Prof Utsa Patnaik, Emeritus Professor of Economics, Jawaharlal Nehru University; and Prof Patricia Uberoi, Honorary Fellow and Chairperson, Institute of Chinese Studies

 

Moderator:  Shri Ashok Kantha, Former Ambassador to China, Director, Institute of Chinese Studies

 

(Collaboration: Institute of Chinese Studies and Sage Publications)

 

The Generation of Rage in Kashmir

Speaker: Shri David Devadas, author of the book, The Generation of Rage in Kashmir (Oxford University Press, 2018). A Distinguished Fellow of the Institute of Social Sciences and Contributing Editor, Firstpost; has been Visiting Professor, Jamia Millia Islamia and Senior Fellow, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, and Political Editor, Business Standard

Chair: Shri Talmiz Ahmad

 

The talk will examine the minds of the youth who have known only an environment of violence and unrest since their birth

 

Piano Recital 

By Raphael  A.   Lustchevsky 

 

The programme will include works by Schubert, Chopin, de Falla, Gershwin and Szymanowski

 

(Collaboration: The Polish Institute, Delhi)

 

Bharatanatyam Recital

By Anwesa Das from, Seattle, Washington, a disciple of Urmila Satyanarayanan   

 

(Collaboration: Seher)