Speaker: Ms Sunita Narain, Director-General, Centre for Science and Environment

 

16th BCF annual lecture organised in collaboration with the Business and Community Foundation

 

 

By Paromita Mukherji, disciple of Pt. V.G. Jog

 

Followed by

Hindustani Vocal Recital

By Milind Chittal, disciple of Firoz Dastoor, Kirana Gharana

 

 

India at a Crossroads. The Future of our Democracy

Speaker: Shri Baijayant “Jay” Panda, M.P.

 

(Collaboration: Prem Bhatia Memorial Society)

 

 

 

An exhibition of photographs and documents depicting India’s freedom struggle under Mahatma Gandhi’s leadership and his vision of free India from the collection of the National Gandhi Museum. Beginning with Gandhi’s return to India from South Africa in 1915 and the first satyagraha in Champaran in 1917, the Ahmedabad Mill workers’ strike, the Non-Co-operation movement, Bardoli satyagraha, Dandi March, Quit India movement and Gandhi’s last days in Bihar and Noakhali. It will also depict the Mahatma’s dream of free India – removal of poverty, communal harmony, removal of untouchability, equality of women, a new system of education, etc. The exhibition will also include replicas of Gandhi’s ashrams

Curated by Dr. Aparna Basu, Chairperson, National Gandhi Museum

 

Inauguration by Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan, Chairperson, IIC-International Research Division on 10 August 2017 at 17:00 followed by Gandhi ji’s Favourite Bhajans presented by school children

 

(Collaboration: National Gandhi Museum)

DISCUSSION ? ANNEXE LECTURE ROOM II AT 18:30

 

A discussion on the recent book, India Dissents (Speaking Tiger, New Delhi: 2017)

 

Speakers: Keki Daruwalla, Githa Hariharan, Purushottam Agrawal, Madhavi Menon, and Siddhartha Varadarajan

Chair: Ashok Vajpeyi

 

The book is a collection of essays, letters, reports, poems, songs and calls to action – from texts ranging from the Rig Veda to Ambedkar’s Annihilation of Caste; and by thinkers as varied as the Buddha, Akka Mahadevi, Lal Ded, Nanak, Ghalib, Tagore, Manto, Jayaprakash Narayan, Namdeo Dhasal, Mahasweta Devi and Amartya Sen. Their words embody the undying and essential spirit of dissent in one of the world’s most diverse, dynamic and oldest civilizations

 

(Collaboration: Speaking Tiger)

 

 

THURSDAY 10

 

 

 

(70 in; 2017; dvd; English subtitles)

Directors: Biju Toppo & Meghnath who will introduce the film

Produced by Films Division

 

Screening will be followed by a discussion

 

Film on the life and work of Dr. Ram Dayal Munda who is a symbol of indigenous cultural reawakening. Born in an Adivasi family of Tamar in Jharkhand, following his higher studies in USA, he returned to teach at the Tribal and Regional Language Department of Ranchi University and subsequently became its Vice-Chancellor. A leading intellectual who has contributed immensely to the Jharkhand movement, Dr. Munda represented Adivasi voices in the Rajya Sabha and at the United Nations. The film follows the personal and private life of Dr. Munda, as a brilliant student, successful teacher, poet, performer, activist and philosopher

 

 

 

Book Discussion Group

 

Energizing India: Towards a Resilient and Equitable Energy System

By Suman Bery [Et al.] (New Delhi: Sage, 2017)

 

Panelists: Shri Montek Singh Ahluwalia, former Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission; Shri Vikram Singh Mehta, Chairman and Senior Fellow, Brookings India; and Shri Ashok Bhattacharyya, Editor, Business Standard; and

 

Lead authors will give a brief introduction on the book

 

Chair: Shri Shyam Saran, former Foreign Secretary

 

Curated by Rajiv Mehrotra

 

The Long Search - IV

A film presented by Ronald Eyre 

 

Judaism: The Chosen People (51 min; dvd; English)

What is it that makes a Jew? In New York, Elie Wiesel, author and survivor of the concentration camps, tries to define it, In London, Nobert Brainin and the Amadeus Quartet carry the argument further, both in words and music. Inevitability the search takes us to Jerusalem, where Dr. Pinches Peli, tenth generation rabbi and fourth generation Jerusalem, explains the meaning of prayer and acts as our guide through the religious schools, the synagogues and a museum for the survivors of the Holocaust

 

Religion In Indonesia: The Way Of The Ancestors (51 min; dvd; English)

There are almost 200 million people scattered across the world who belong to tribal religions that are local, exclusive and frequency animist – i.e., they believe that inanimate objects and natural phenomena process a soul. Through no single group can be chosen as typical, this episode is devoted to primal religions-that of the Torajas who live in a mountain fortress on an Indonesia island

 

(Collaboration: Foundation for Universal Responsibility of His Holiness The Dalai Lama)

 

 

 

 

The Musical Journey of Rabindranath Tagore

Presented by Reba Som

Chair: Shri Suresh Goel
 

Despite having bunked school and formal training, Tagore imbibed multiple cultural influences and his music is a rich amalgam of classical Indian and western, folk, and regional musical styles. The talk will also explain why Rabindrasangeet remains relevant today and why to many it assumes the form of a personal religion

 

Reba Som is a noted academic and singer. Her publications include Rabindranath Tagore: The Singer and His Song (Penguin 2009) and Margot: Nivedita of Vivekananda (Penguin Random House, 2017) and her CDs include Select Songs of Rabindranath Tagore (Saregama 2005) and Love Songs of Kazi Nazrul Islam (Times Music 2016)