VIDHI DIALOGUES

 

Drone Usage for Commercial Purposes – Possibilities and Concerns

Speakers: Shri Ananth Padmanabhan, Fellow at Centre for Policy Research with a focus on technology, regulation, and public policy; Shri Anirudh Rastogi, Founder & Managing Partner at TRA, Lawyers to Leading Drone Companies in India; and Ms Rajeshwari Rajagopalan, Senior Fellow and Head, Nuclear & Space Policy Initiative

 

(Collaboration: Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy)

Clio and Her Descendants

Edited by Manu V. Devadevan

 

This book is a collection of essays dedicated to honour Professor Kesavan Veluthat’s scholarship, and brings together the work of thirty historians who look to expand the horizons of South Asia’s diverse and polyphonic past

 

Speakers: Prof. Upinder Singh, Historian, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Delhi; Prof. David Shulman, Department of Asian Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Prof. Kumkum Roy, Historian at Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru university; Prof. Kunal Chakrabarti, Historian, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University; and Prof. Manu Devadevan, Historian at the Indian Institute of Technology Mandi, Himachal Pradesh

 

(Collaboration: Primus Books)

 

Intimate Strangers

 

Bakula Nayak is a raconteur. Old bills, legal papers, journals from as early as 1907 become a perfect foil for her stories which draw from the past.  These forgotten remnants get a new lease of life on her canvas. With each paper she rebuilds fragments of lives once lived and lost. Weaving their past into her present she takes the viewers along to unravel the life of strangers intimately.  

 

A display of paper sculptures, vintage photographs and letters along with her paintings stir romance in the little things while you live vicariously in the bygone even if only for a while.

 

Preview on Tuesday, 21 August 2018 at 18:30

 

ART MATTERS

Poetry Recalled

 

Reading and discussion, Soumitra Mohan, Girdhar Rathi and Jyotish Joshi

 

(Collaboration: The Raza Foundation)

India-Australia Relations in a Changing Geopolitical Landscape in the Indo-Pacific

Panelists: Prof. Stephen Smith, former Australian Minister for Defence and Foreign Affairs; Ambassador. Peter Varghese, former Australian High Commissioner to India; and Prof. Gordon Flake, Founding CEO, Perth USAsia Centre

 

Moderator: Ambassador Shyam Saran

 

(Collaboration: Perth USAsia Centre)

ENGINEERS AND THE SOCIETY

 

Role of Engineers in the Society

Inaugural address by Dr. Kirit Shantilal Parikh, Padma Bhushan, former Member, Planning Commission, Chairman, Integrated Research and Action for Development (IRADe), New Delhi & former Vice Chancellor, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai

 

Presentations by Sayona Philip, President, Consulting Engineers Association of India (CEAI), Head-Government Relations, Tata Consulting Engineers (TCE); Sudhir Dhawan, Immediate Past President, CEAI, CEO – Aether Engineering Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

 

First lecture in a new series of six lectures on the theme of “Engineers and the Society” organised in collaboration with Consulting Engineers Association of India. The series will try and acquaint audiences with the important role that an engineer plays in making the daily life of an individual safe, efficient and comfortable. Engineering focuses on the development of infrastructure, by contributing to the clean air you breathe, the safe water you drink, the secure home you live in and the multifarious transport systems you use

 

Concert – Guitar Duo

By R2T2 guitar duo – Raphaël Bereau and Tizoc Romero

 

The duo will present a concert of works by Scarlatti, Bach, Rameau, Albéniz, Rodrigo, Piazolla, Ponce and others

 

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

Indra ki Talwar (Hindi/45 min)

A dramatic rendition of a short story by K.A. Abbas

Direction & Design: Dr. Danish Iqbal

 

The play will be introduced by Shri D.P. Tripathi, former Member of Parliament and Trustee, Khwaja Ahmed Abbas Memorial Trust 

Remarks by Mr. Martin Macwan, Human Rights activist and Founder, Navsarjan and Dalit Foundation; and Shri Gagan Sethi, Founder, Janvikas and Centre for Social Justice

 

Written in the 1960s, Indra ki Talwar starts on a stormy night when an old woman gives shelter to a young traveller and tells him the story of the events of a similar night 40 years ago…..

 

Dramatised by Dr. Danish Iqbal’s Sada Arts Society, the director teases out the age old caste-class divide in society which is as relevant today as they were 50 years ago

 

Meet the Author

MadhuTandan in conversation with Jyoti Karan Singh

 

Madhu Tandan is the author of three books: Faith and Fire: A Way Within, based on her 7 year stay in a Himalayan monastery. Dreams and Beyond: Finding Your Way In The Dark, explores the multiplicity of the dreaming mind from the perspectives of science, psychology, paranormal and transpersonal paradigms; and Hemis a novel set in Ladakh where Ajay stranded by the floods seeks shelter in a remote monastery in the Hemis Sanctuary and where he meets its charismatic abbot, a man unlike any other. The book explores love and sexuality against an unusual backdrop of spiritual practices

 

A KUTIYATTAM PERFORMANCE – SURPANAKHANKAM FROM SAKTIBHADRA’S ASCHARYACHUDAMANI: 16 TO 21 AUGUST 2018

Performances by Nepathaya, Kerala led by Margi Madhu Chakyar and Dr. Indu G. 

Introduction by Prof. David Shulman 

 

A complete performance of Kutiyattam each evening at 6:30 pm. Details of each evening’s episode with simultaneous explanatory slide projection; and cast details will be distributed before the performance

 

One of the oldest forms of theatre in India, the last living tradition of Sanskrit drama in performance. Kutiyattam has miraculously survived in Kerala, first as a temple art, but today it is performed on the secular stage as well. 

Kutiyattam has a spectacular theatrical language which unfolds multiple layers of meaning of the text, conveyed through gestures, powerful facial expressions, and an elaborate, slowly evolving mode of enactment. In 2001, UNESCO proclaimed Kutiyattam as a ‘Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity’. 

 

Kutiyattam is a tradition fighting for its life, especially for the opportunity to perform full-scale, unabridged masterpieces spread out over several nights. Only such complete performances can convey the deep expressive force of these magnificent texts, which slowly build up to an unimaginable climax on the final night. 

 

This performance is based on Aranyakanda of the Ramayana. It depicts Surpanakhankam, the second act of Saktibhadra’s Sanskrit play Ascharyachudamani

 

(Collaboration: Sahapedia; Parekh Institute of Indian Thought, CSDS; and Seher)