The Queen’s Step Well – World Heritage Site of Rani ki Vav in Gujarat

Speaker:  Mr K. C. Nauriyal, Superintending Archaeologist, Archaeological Survey of India

 

Chair: Dr. B.R. Mani, ADG, Archaeological Survey of India

 

Rani-ki-Vav or the Queen’s step-well is a subterranean temple and marvel of human endeavour in the fields of architecture and sculpture. Located on the outskirts of Patan in North Gujarat, it was built in about 1050 CE by Queen Udayamati  in memory of her husband, the founder of the Solanki dynasty, and is the most elaborately constructed and richly embellished step-well encountered to date. It was declared a World Heritage Site in June 2014. The presentation will discuss both the splendour of the monument as well as  the process of documenting and recording the structure for preparing  the dossier for nomination 

 

An exhibition of ceramic creations – flora, fauna and cityscapes

By Sharmishtha Roy

 

Inauguration by Smt. Ira Chaudhuri, eminent ceramist/potter on Tuesday, 16th December 2014 at 18.30

 

Medicine – Stranger than Fiction!

Keynote Speaker: Dr Naresh Gupta, Director-Professor, Maulana Azad Medical College & Associated Hospitals and Chairman, Advisory Group, Consumers India 

 

Panelists: Dr. Vinay Kamble, former Director, Vigyan Prasar, Department of Science & Technology, GOI; Dr.  Ravinder Goswami, Professor & Head of the Department, Endocrinology, AIIMS, New Delhi; Dr.  Sandeep Garg, Professor of Medicine, Maulana Azad Medical College & Associated Hospitals; and Dr.  Jayashree Gupta, President, Consumers India

 

The New Metropolis: Nehru and the Aftermath

Speaker: Shri Romi Khosla, well known architect

 

Chair: Shri Ram Rahman

Panelists: Nandita Bhavnani on Minorities, Property and Displacement: The Sindhi Hindu Experience of Partition

Rita Kothari on Partition in the Western Regions, India

Tarun K. Saint on Some Observations on the Representation of Trauma in Selected Writings About the Sindhi Experience of Partition

Priya Kumar on Home and Diasporic Consciousness in Qurratulain Hyder’s “Sita Betrayed and Kamila Shamsie's Kartography

Rakshanda Jalil on Karachi: Beyond Lies the Sea

Part of the seminar organised by The Department of English, University of Delhi – UGC/DSA III Seminar

Centre for Studies in Violence, Memory and Trauma

Health Culture as Continuity

Speaker: Smt Ritu Priya Mehrotra, Associate Professor, Centre for Social Medicine, JNU

 

The Plunder of India's Past

Speaker: Dr. Kirit Mankodi, author of The Queen’s Stepwell at Patan who is associated with a Project for Indian Cultural Studies founded by Franco-Indian Pharmaceuticals, Private, Ltd., Mumbai 

 

Chair: Shri B.M. Pande

 

The lecture will consider the loss of India's sculptural heritage through the illegal export of antiquities. This will be done with the help of visuals from such monuments as Atru, Nagda, Bharhut, Patan and others. Some cases where repatriation of smuggled sculptures was possible will also be mentioned

 

Speaker: Smt Chitrita Banerji, well known food writer who has written extensively on Bengali cuisine

 

Chair: Professor Pushpesh Pant

 

The talk  examines how food permeates Bengali consciousness and makes its presence felt in literature, songs ,  idiom, religious and secular rituals

 

 

On a Express Highway (30 mins; dvd; 2003; English)

Directed by Reena Mohan

 

The film traces the journey of a 33-year old woman who gave up the material world for the austere life of a Jain Sadhvi 

 

Autumn in the Himalayas (56 min; dvd; 2008; English)

Directed by Malgorzata Skiba

 

The film brings to light the story of a group of elderly Buddhist nuns from Ladakh, the last generation of unordained and uneducated women in robes who lead isolated lives as domestic help and construction workers.  Neglected by religious and social systems for centuries, the new Nyerma Nunnery is their last call for dignity and enhancement and purification of their religious status