A discussion on two books: The Millennial Sovereign: Sacred Kingship and Sainthood in Islam by A. Azfar Moin and Negotiating Languages: Urdu, Hindi, and the Definition of Modern South Asia by Walter N. Hakala

 

Chief Guest: Professor Robert P. Goldman, Catherine and William L. Magistretti Distinguished Professor in South and Southeast Asian Studies, The University of California at Berkeley

 

Discussants: Professor Farhat Hasan, Department of History, University of Delhi, and Professor Hilal Ahmed, Associate Professor, CSDS, (The Millennial Sovereign); and Professor Sunil Kumar, Professor in the History of Medieval India, Department of History, University of Delhi, and Professor Shahid Amin, Professor of History, University of Delhi (Negotiating Languages)

 

(Collaboration: Primus Books)

 

 

The ‘In-Betweeners’: Trade, Politics and Patronage on the Western Coast in 1st Century AD

By Dr. Shailendra Bhandare, Ashmolean Museum / St Cross College, University of Oxford

 

Chair: Dr. Peter Skilling

 

The lecture will focus on one particular site on the Western Coast, namely Kuda-Mandad (Dist. Raigad, Maharashtra) and the feudal elites known as the ‘Mahabhojas’ who ruled here in these tumultuous times. Their existence depended on machinations played at a ‘higher’ level by their overlords and as such they were the ‘in-betweeners’ of political world of their times. The patronage extended by the Mahabhojas to the rock-cut cave temple complex at Kuda is well-attested through inscriptional evidence available in situ.   By deploying new numismatic evidence in the narrative, the talk will outline various aspects of Mahabhoja rule at Kuda, such as their contribution to the political and economic/trade history of the region

 

The Saints of Sin (85 min; 2016; dvd; English & with subtitles)

Director: Aniruddha  Sen

Original concept: Swati Bhattacharya

 

Screening will be followed by a discussion

 

The Saints of Sin is a lyrical journey of emotion and experiences of seven and a half Bengali women spread all over the globe between Nairobi to New York to New Delhi and Bombay. Built on intimate conversations recorded over three years, the film explores the lives of Debbie, Runa, Srila, Gopi, Shreya, Swati, Paro and Pradipta, where each acknowledges her propensity towards one of the Sins and speaks of her negotiations with it

 

 

 

Keynote Speaker: Dr. E. A. S. Sarma, former Economic Affairs Secretary and Power Secretary, and now a civil society campaigner based in Visakhapatnam

 

Panellists: Shri P. K. Tripathi, former Chief Secretary of Delhi and Chairman, Public Grievances Commission of Delhi, 

Prof. Gurpreet Mahajan, Professor, Centre for Political Studies, JNU; Dr Reetika Khera, Associate Professor of Economics, IIT-Delhi 

 

(Collaboration: D. S. Borker Memorial Foundation)

 

 

 

 

Speaker: Professor Robert Yelle, Professor and Chair of Religious Studies, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich; author of several books including: Explaining Mantras: Ritual, Rhetoric and the Dream of a Natural Language in Hindu Tantra

Chair: Dr. Ananya Vajpeyi

 

The lecture will address some of the parallels, as well as the differences, between Hindu mantras (especially those of the Tantric variety) and Christian prayers. Like prayers in many other cultures, each of these has been used historically for a range of purposes: to worship gods and goddesses, of course, but also to perform magic. The first part of the lecture will examine how, through the use of poetry in particular, such formulas are converted into powerful speech, supposed to be capable of achieving their objective. The second part of the lecture will trace the polemics against poetic and magical prayers that originated in the Puritan critique of “vain repetitions.” For several centuries, this polemic was directed against first Roman Catholic chants, then Hindu mantras

Chair: Dr. Ananya Vajpeyi, Fellow and Associate Professor, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies

 

 

By Sriram Krishnan from Delhi, disciple of Guru Dr K Vageesh

 

 

Sugamya Pustakalaya: Enabling Libraries to Meet the Needs of Persons Who Cannot Read Normal Print

Speaker: Shri Dipendra Manocha, Director of the Regional Resource Centre, New Delhi, DAISY for All and Developing Countries Coordinator and Head of Training and Tech support with the Daisy Consortium

 

Shri Manocha will speak on India’s first and largest collection of accessible books which is a collaborative effort of several organisations to end the book famine faced by people with print disabilities. He will also address the issues related to accessibility of resources for visually impaired people

 

In addition, Dr. Ramesh Gaur, University Librarian, Jawaharlal Nehru University and a Representative from Delhi University Library System will speak on the facilities and services given by their respective libraries to visually impaired students 

 

FRIDAY 6

 

CONCERT ? FOUNTAIN LAWNS AT 16:00

 

By Fiddlers Green Band of Kolkata

 

Arko Mukherjee (Vocals, Guitar, Ukulele, Kazoo); Shamik Chatterjee ( Guitar, Bass, Ukulele); Diptanshu Roy (Mandolin, Tenor Guitar, Dotara); and Ritoban Ludo Das (Indian & Afro Latin Percussions)

 

Fiddler's green talks about folklores of the world through songs of the south Asian subcontinent, sonically connecting them with humane stories of the shires in middle earth, running through the deserts of West Africa, merging with the streets of Havana and Puerto Rico or the wild trekking trails of Nepal or the Appalachian mountains

 

(Collaboration: Rasaja Foundation)

 

 

Golden Ratio, Fibonacci Sequence and Fractals in Mathematics, Nature and the Arts 

Speaker: Balan Nambiar

 

Moderator: Ashok Vajpeyi

 

(Collaboration: Raza Foundation)

 

 

Noise and Health – How Sound?

Series Moderator: Dr. Naresh Gupta, Director-Professor, Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi

 

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Naresh Gupta, Director-Professor, Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi
 

Panelists: Dr. M.P. George, Scientist `D', Pollution Control Committee; Dr. A.K. Agarwal, Former Dean MAMC and ENT Specialist; Dr. Roopa Vajpeyi, Academic and Consumer Activist and Dr. A.K. Tewari, Ministry of Railways, Govt. of India

 

(Collaboration: Health Environment Foundation in association with Consumers India)