RASAJA MUSIC AND DANCE FESTIVAL: 28 and 29 October 2017

 

Folk Songs

By Manganiyars of Rajasthan

 

Baul

By Tarun Das Baul from West Bengal

 

 

 

(Collaboration: Rasaja Foundation)

 

 

Heritage and Democracy: IIC-ICOMOS Public Outreach Discussion

 

Culture – Nature Journey, Exploring the Complexities of Human Relationships with Natural and Cultural Places

Names of the speakers to be announced later

 

 

(Collaboration: International Council on Monuments and Sites)

 

 

FILMS ON WILDLIFE AND ENVIRONMENT
 

 

 

Last of East (30 min; 2007; dvd; English)

 

Director: Vijay Kumar

 

 

 

Documentary on the importance and history of the Namdapha Biosphere Reserve in Arunachal Pradesh and its unique flora and fauna. The interference of man is beginning to disrupt the ecological balance of the park

 

 

 

Gaur in My Garden (26 min; 2012; English)

 

Director: Rita Banerji

 

 

 

Recipient of the Best Film Award, Environment Category, Woodpecker Film Festival, Delhi 2013; and Jury Special Mention, Biodiversity, CMS Vatavaran, New Delhi 2014

 

 

 

The film looks at human-animal interactions and conflicts arising in Kotagiri, Nilgiris – one of the key biodiversity hotspots in India. The story unfolds through the experiences of the residents of the Keystone Foundation Campus with the Gaur or the Indian Bison – on the IUCN red list of threatened species, and takes us through the larger context of this conflict

 

 

 

 

(Collaboration: World Wide Fund for Nature-India)

 

 

Understanding Qawwali 2017

Qawwali, its social impact and relevance as a medium for integration, with regional sensibilities and emphasis on poetic traditions

 

(Collaboration: Sufi Kathak Foundation)

 

 

Kabir Bhajans

By Kaluram Bamaniya from Malwa, Madhya Pradesh

Accompanied by Santosh Saroliya (violin); Ram Prashad Parmar (harmonium); Devidas Bairagi (dholak); Sajjan Singh Parmar (nagadi); and Uttam Singh Bamaniya (manjira)

 

Amit Baruah will introduce the group

 

Kaluram Bamaniya and his group will focus on two key Kabir dohas – of love and unity as well as that of questioning the given order

 

 

Discussion on Oliver Tambo and His Contribution to the Freedom Struggle in South Africa

Speakers: Ambassador Shiv Shankar Mukherjee, former Indian High Commissioner to South Africa and Britain; Prof. Rajen Harshe, President, G.B. Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad and former Vice-Chancellor, Allahabad University; Prof. S.N. Malakar, Centre for African Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University; and H.E. Mr. France Morule, High Commissioner of South Africa

 

Chair: Shri Suhas Borker, Editor CFTV News

 

(Collaboration: Working Group on Alternative Strategies)

 

 

 

Village Also Speaks Through Poetry

Readings in Hindi by Divik Ramesh

 

A Critical Appreciation by Dr. Durga Prasad Gupta, Professor, Department of Hindi, Jamia Millia Islamia

 

Chair: Dr. Ganga Prasad Vimal

 

(Collaboration: The Poetry Society, India)

 

 

 

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 

 

Inauguration on Thursday, 26 October 2017 at 17:30

 

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

 

 

Indian Coffee House: Then and Now

A talk by Dr. Bhaswati Bhattacharya, Resident Fellow, Centre for Modern Indian Studies,, Goettingen  and author of  Much ado over Coffee: Indian Coffee house, Then and Now (pub : New Delhi- Social Science Press, 2016)

 

Chair: Dr. Narayani Gupta

 

Gandhi, Hinduism and Humanity

Speaker: Dr. Faisal Devji, Reader in Indian History, University of Oxford

 

Chair & Discussant: Dr. Avijit Pathak , Professor in Sociology, Jawaharlal Nehru University

 

As a critic of modern civilization Gandhi was deeply suspicious of its desire for universality. While universal ideals like freedom, therefore, were enthusiastically taken up by many anti-colonial thinkers, the Mahatma focused instead on their darker aspects and links with imperialism. And yet he refused to become a partisan for the particular either, recognizing it as a category belonging to the universal as well. Hinduism provided Gandhi with an important example of a phenomenon that he thought might avoid the violence of the universal while at the same time denying relegation to a mere particularity. This lecture will explore how Gandhi posed Hinduism against what he saw as the violent appeal to humanity as a universal ideal, looking in particular at his understanding of three contentious issues: caste, conversion and cow protection

 

(Collaboration: South Asian University and Society and Culture in South Asia)