The Botanical Heritage of India

Exhibition based on the Indian Natural History Collections in Botany and Meteorology showcasing specimens and literatures that depict some of the most crucial chapters of botanical history of India and the world during which the order of the modern natural world was shaped. On view are copies of paintings and drawings by botanical artists of species discovered by Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew and corresponding artefacts from the archives of Botanical Survey of India; a collection of the Bengali manuscripts known as Puthi, one of the earliest records of indigenous knowledge of plants and their medicinal values. The exhibition also celebrates the life and work of Indian Botanist, Janaki Ammal Edavaleth Kakkat 

 

(Collaboration: Botanical Survey of India; Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; and Centre for World Environmental History, University of Sussex)

 

 

Celebrating Isaiah Berlin: 20 years After

Speaker: Dr. Ramin Jahanbegloo is a political philosopher.   Professor and Vice Dean and Executive Director, Mahatma Gandhi Centre for Peace Studies, Jindal Global Law School

 

Chair: Shri Ashok Vajpeyi

 

By the time Isaiah Berlin died in November 1997 at the age of 88, a worldly fame had long since come to surround his name as the great political thinker of the age. He was also celebrated as one of the leading liberal thinkers of the century and as a remarkable historian of ideas. An acute practical analyst of international politics, a biographer of Marx and a translator of Turgenev in English, a longtime participant in Jewish affairs, a director of the Royal Opera House, a President of the British Academy and the founder of Wolfson College at Oxford, Isaiah Berlin was a man for all seasons and a humanist with diverse intellectual interests. It would be difficult to approach Berlin as a systematic thinker and philosopher or to reduce his writings to a systematic statement. Yet, while Berlin’s work ranges across many disciplines and embraces a varied cast of concepts and ideas, there is one principal leitmotif behind all his concerns and convictions. For Berlin the history of ideas was not a way to analyze the belief-systems of the past or portray the progress from one idea to another, but rather an art of understanding men’s relationships to each other and to their institutions

 

 

 

Gustav Holst – Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda

Vedic Hymns from Sanskrit to English by Gustav Holst

By The Bangalore Men

With Vimal Kurian on the piano

Conductor: Jonas Olsson

 

The all-male voice ensemble The Bangalore Men, consists of fourteen singers who came together in 2016. Each with many years of experience singing in choirs, the group focuses on western classical music from eras ranging from medieval music to contemporary. The singers are: Jonas Olsson, Sudipto Biswas, Philip Thomas, Allwyn Prasanna, Ravikumar T V, Anup Abraham Thomas, Jessel C. Mathews, Venkatesh Vicky, Abhishek K. Mathew, Chinglang Konyak, Nivedh Jayanth, Chetan Anthonthy Noronha, Taruna Bhalla, Alexander M. John, Abishek Gnanaraj and Subin Thomas

 

(Collaboration: Sardana Creative Consultancy; and Delhi Music Society)

 

 

Role of CAG in Governance

Details to be announced later

 

(Collaboration: IC Centre for Governance)

 

 

 

Travels of the Prince Waldemar of Prussia to India 1844 – 46

An exhibition of selected lithographs on the unique trip of Prince Waldemar of Prussia (1817-1849) through India. His strong desire to explore the unknown world and to understand other cultures led him at the age of 27 to start his expedition to India, reaching Calcutta in January 1845. His field studies included Patna, Kathmandu, Benaras, Delhi, Nainital, as well as the regions of the Himalayas up to Tibet and finally Lahore, Jaipur, Gwalior, Indore and Bombay. Prince Waldemar was also drawn into the battles of the Anglo-Sikh war of 1844-45. The outcome of this journey to India comprised valuable first-hand observations and innumerable sketches, drawings and water colours

 

nauguration by Ambassador Ronen Sen, President, Federation of Indo-German Societies in India on Thursday, 2 November 2017 at 18:00

 

Followed by a talk in the adjoining Lecture Room II at 18:30 on

Travels of the Prince Waldemar of Prussia to India 1844 – 46

Illustrated lecture by Dr. Jutta Jain-Neubauer, Art Historian who has contributed a foreword to the Album

 

(Collaboration: Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany; and Federation of Indo-German Societies in India)

 

 

Naya Lahore: Contemporary Art Practices in Lahore

By Prof. Salima Hashmi, artist, curator and contemporary art historian. Professor Hashmi was the founding Dean of the Mariam Dawood School of Visual Art and Design at Beaconhouse National University, Lahore

 

In Milton's Paradise Lost, when God creates Adam and tells him what riches he is heir to, he says, "and you will see the Lahore of the Moghuls". Presumably, the blind poet was acquainted with the magic of Lahore. But not only poets, artists and musicians have, for centuries, been dedicated to Lahore. Often having to pay dearly for this passion

 

Naya Lahore looks at more recent times and examines contemporary art practices which have blossomed in the city in the last three decades. Owing a great deal to the political, social and art educational circumstances which have instigated and nurtured artists, Lahore has been a significant player at so many levels. Defying the odds and difficult terrain, strong contemporary art practices have emerged to define the City and make it proud

 

The Ila Dalmia Memorial Lecture 2017 

 

(Collaboration: Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art (FICA), supported by Yashodhara Dalmia )

 

 

Kathak Recital

By Sonali Roy from Delhi, disciple of Pt. Birju Maharaj

 

 

Three Hundred Verses

A discussion on Bhartrihari’s collection of poems, translated from the Sanskrit by Shri A.N.D. Haksar, well-known translator of Sanskrit classics including Hitopade?a, Simh?sana Dv?trim?ika, Subh?shit?vali, Kama Sutra, The Courtesan’s Keeper, The Seduction of Shiva, Suleiman Charitra and Raghuvamsam, all published in Penguin Classics.  He was also India’s Ambassador to several countries

 

Discussants: Dr. Bibek Debroy and Shri Ashok Vajpeyi

Chair: Shri Shashi Tharoor

 

Three Hundred Verses, Bhartrihari, one of the greatest Sanskrit poets of all time, brilliantly expounds on our most enduring concerns and dilemmas: living, loving and leaving. Although composed centuries ago, these poems amply display the full force of his genius 

 

By turns playful and wise, A.N.D. Haksar’s gorgeous and accessible translation captures the verve, acuity and erotic charge of Bhartrihari’s most significant work

 

(Collaboration: Penguin Random House)

 

Afro-Balcan Wake-up

Concert by Vocal Rasta, Teamwork Arts from Delhi

Conductor: Antoine Redone

 

Vocal Rasta is a Delhi based a cappella group of fifteen singers who’s repertoire include songs from African to Romani traditions, Bob Dylan and Negro spirituals

 

Vocal Rasta singers - Aditi Rastogi, Ushmeet Kaur, Swati Bhatt (sopranos); Shivangi Saxena, Ritika Singh (altos); Vipul Singh, Ujjwal Dubey, Aman Negi, Astitwa Saxena (tenors); Akshar Bhan, Antoine Redon, Stephen Kumar, Manikaant Suryan & Shantanu Pandit (bass)