To Mark the 25th Anniversary of the Presidential Assent to the Prasar Bharati Act, 1990
Lead presentation: Shri Suhas Borker, Convener, Jan Prasar
Discussant: Ms Rita Mukerjee, former Chief Producer, All India Radio and Founder Producer of Yuv Vani
Chair: Dr. S.Y. Quraishi, former Chief Election Commissioner of India
GOVERNANCE ISSUES ON AGRICULTURE
Keynote speakers: Shri Siraj Hussain, Secretary (Agri & Coop), Ministry of Agriculture, Govt. of India; and Dr. R.B. Singh, former President, National Academy of Agricultural Sciences
Chair: Shri Syed S. Mahdi, former Vice-Chancellor, Jamia Millia Islamia University
In a Globalised World, Who Needs Languages?
Lead presentation by Ratnottama Sengupta, senior journalist, author, film festival programmer and art curator
Speakers: Prof. Indra Nath Choudhuri, academic, administration and cultural diplomacy; author and Professor of Indian Studies and Comparative Literature; Prof. Malashri Lal, Professor, Department of English, University of Delhi; and
Shri Arunava Sinha, well-known translator of classic, modern and contemporary Bengali fiction and nonfiction into English
This discussion is part of the IIC Film Club programme Languages of a Globalised World: Festival of Regional Cinema curated by Ratnottama Sengupta
BOOK DISCUSSION GROUP
Shri Vishwajyoti Ghosh, graphic novelist and cartoonist; Shri Sudhir Tailang, political cartoonist; and Ms Urvashi Butalia, Director, Zubaan – an imprint of Kali for Women will discuss Out of Line: Cartoons, Caricature and Contemporary India by Christel Rashmi Devadawson (New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2014)
Chair: Sir William Mark Tully, senior journalist
FILMS ON SPIRITUALITY AND OTHER DIMENSIONS
The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s – Eye View of the World (120 min; 2009; dvd; English)
Director: Michael Schwarz
Based on Michael Pollan’s best – selling book showing how human desires are an essential and intricate part of natural history. The film explores the natural history of four plants – the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato – and the corresponding human desires – sweetness, beauty, intoxication and controlling nature that link their destinies to our own. One of the great conceits of human civilization is to put ourselves outside nature. Taking these plants’ perspectives of the world restores human activity to its proper place in the matrix of nature
Vimkuti: Memories of Dust, Sounds and Agonies (56 min; 2014; dvd; English subtitles)
imkuti: Memories of Dust, Sounds and Agonies (56 min; 2014; dvd; English subtitles)
Director: Dheeman Bhattacharyya
Produced by Apne Aap Women Worldwide
Shot on location across villages in Gujarat and Bengal, the film is an outcome of the research conducted by Apne Aap Women Worldwide in collaboration with ICSSR on the Educational Attainment of Denotified, Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic Tribes in the six states of India). It explores the issues of growing marginalization of the DNT community and their eco system in the neo-liberal society
Followed by a discussion
Panelists: Prof. Ramnika Gupta, author of Aadivasi Asmita ka Sankat and Editor of Yuddhrat Aam Admi; and Dheeman Bhattacharyya, filmmaker
Moderator: Ruchika Gupta, Professor New York University and Founder of Apne Aap Women Worldwide