Mubarakpur located in Azamgarh district in Uttar Pradesh has been a historic weaving centre since the 14th century. With power-looms overwhelming the cluster,  this seminar presents a case-study on building a sustainable collective structure for handloom renewal

 

Illustrated lecture by Dr. Nayana Goradia, author/biographer who dabbles in History and Education

Chair: Shri Swapan Dasgupta

 

Hailed as ‘a very Superior person’, from his Eton days, George Nathaniel Curzon was the last of the British Moghuls. British imperialism reached its high noon in his regime but seven years later he returned home a broken man, his viceroyalty in shamble. Was this a result of a fatal flaw in his personality? Dr. Goradia looks for answers in the tales surrounding the man

 

The book edited by Arundhati Subramaniam, will be introduced by Shri Ashok Vajpeyi

 

Ms Arundhati Subramaniam will trace the trajectory of the book, interspersed with readings of translations 

By Shri Keki N. Daruwalla and Shri H.S. Shiva Prakash

 

Chair: Dr. H.K. Kaul, The Poetry Society (India)

 

Eating God: A Book of Bhakti Poetry edited by Arundhati Subramaniam (Penguin, 2014) has been described as ‘a wonderful mix of 48 voices, spanning several centuries, in adept, stylistically varied translations’ [with an} ‘extensive and deeply intimate introduction…elegantly ushering readers into a trance-like receptiveness’ (The Sunday Guardian)

 

Arundhati Subramaniam is the author of four books of poetry. Her recent collection was awarded the inaugural Khushwant Singh Poetry Prize, selected as the Winter Choice of the Poetry Book Society, UK and shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Poetry Prize

 

Sense of Design and Transformative Governance

Speaker: Shri Rajev Sethi

Chairs: Shri Raghu Rai  and Smt Gurmeet Rai

Speaker: Prof. Achin Vanaik, former Professor of Political Science, University of Delhi

 

Introduction: Shri Suhas Borker

 

Britain’s main opposition party now has in Jeremy Corbyn its most leftwing leader ever. This is not because Labour MPs - 95% of whom did not want him as leader - but in spite of them. This has reflected a great eruption of Grassroots support which has led to a trebling of Labour Party membership in just a few months. Corbyn has long opposed Britain's and his own party's policies on three major fronts. His 3 'NOs' have been - NO to Austerity, NO to Militarism in the name of Democracy, NO to social discrimination of any kind whether based on race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, caste or religion. This development needs to be seen in the context of the rise in public approval of a more radical left in Europe and North America.  In 2013, Corbyn was awarded the Gandhi International Peace Award for his "consistent efforts over a 30-year parliamentary career to uphold the Gandhian values of social justice and non?violence”.

 

Promoting Income Security and Livelihood for Small and Marginal Farmers

Introduction: Shri Prabhat Kumar, former Cabinet Secretary

 

Speaker: Shri Pravesh Sharma, Managing Director, Small Farmers’ Agri-Business Consortium

Chair: Shri B.K. Taimini, former Secretary, Govt. of India

 

Curated by Rajiv Mehrotra

 

Ghosts of Machu Picchu: Inside the Incan City in the Clouds 

(56 min; 2014; dvd; English)

Director: Alan Ritsko

 

Perched atop a mountain crest, mysteriously abandoned more than four centuries ago, Machu Picchu is the most famous archeological ruin in the Western Hemisphere and an iconic symbol of the power and engineering prowess of the Inca. In the years since Machu Picchu was discovered by Hiram Bingham in 1911, there have been countless theories about this "Lost City of the Incas," yet it remains an enigma. Why did the Incas build it on such an inaccessible site? Who lived among its stone buildings, farmed its emerald green terraces, and drank from its sophisticated aqueduct system? The film follows a new generation of archeologists as they probe areas of Machu Picchu that haven't been touched since the time of the Incas and unearth burials of the people who built the sacred site

 

CANCELLED


A discussion series on well-known literary figures of Latin America

 

Conceptualised and coordinated by Prof. Vibha Maurya, Dept. of Germanic and Romance Studies, University of Delhi

 

Speakers: Prof. Anil Bhatti, Emeritus Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University; Prof. Shaswati Mazumdar, Professor of German Studies, University of Delhi; Prof. Vijaya Venkataraman, Associated Professor of Hispanic Studies, University of Delhi; among others

 

Screening of a film followed by a recital

 

Jamal-e-Begum Akhtar (20 min; dvd; year?)

Directed by Rita Ganguly

 

Shayari by Janab Wasim Barelvi

Vocal Recital by Rageshri Das 

 

Beyond Barbed Wires: A Distant Dawn (35 min; dvd; English)

Directed by Rafeeq Ellias who will introduce the film

 

A Knock at Midnight  - More than 50 years ago the lives of thousands of Chinese living in India changed when they were taken from their homes in the Darjeeling and Assam areas to an internment camp in Deoli, Rajasthan. The film explores in gripping vignettes how some ex-internees have lived with the experience

 

The Deoliwallahs – The Last Generation of Survivors of the Chinese Internment Camp in Deoli

Panelists: Michael Cheng was six years old when he was interned. He lives in Charlotte, North Carolina with his family; Joy Ma is a writer and attended Delhi University. Born in Deoli, she is working on a book about her family’s journey in India; Yin Marsh was 13 when she went to Deoli. She is the author of Doing Time with Nehru; and Steven Wan who was a teenager when he was interned with his family. He lives in Toronto, Canada

 

Chair: Dilip D’Souza, Mumbai-based writer and journalist