Illustrated lecture by Dr. Luca Maria Olivieri, University of Bologna

Chair: Prof. Himanshu Prabha Ray, Chairperson, National Monuments Authority

Italian archaeologists have been exploring Pakistan's magical Swat Valley for nearly 60 years. Dr. Luca M.Olivieri who is co-director of the Italian Archaeological Mission and runs the ACT (Archaeology, Community, Tourism) Field School, has worked in Swat since 1987. He will speak about the three ACT projects in Swat: the Buddhist sacred area at Amluk-dara; a Kushan urban site at Barikot; and a late-Bronze Age graveyard recently uncovered in Udegram. He will also give an overview of the restoration of the Jahanabad Buddha partially destroyed by the Taliban, of the Udegram mosque and of the Saidu Sharif I main stupa, as well as the reconstruction of the Swat Museum

Shri Inder Malhotra, eminent journalist and author; Shri Salman Haider, former Foreign Secretary; and Prof. Mahendra P. Lama, Jawaharlal Nehru University will discuss India's Foreign Policy: Coping with the Changing World by Muchkund Dubey (Noida: Dorling Kindersley, 2013)

Chair: Shri K. Natwar Singh, former Minister for External Affairs

Presented by Haydn Baryton Trio from Budapest - Balázs Kakuk (barytongamba); József Spengler (violin); and András Kaszanyitzky (violoncello)

The Ensemble will play baryton trio pieces by Haydn, Tomasini, Neumann, Burgksteiner; and Lidl

Presentation of awards to Outstanding Woman Mediaperson

Followed by a panel discussion on
Freedom of Expression: Can We Get it Right?
Panelists: Shri Fali S. Nariman; Shri Shashi Tharoor; and Prof. Nivedita Menon

Moderator: Smt Sevanti Ninan

(128 min; 2006; DVCam; English subtitles)
A film by Vladimir Léon who will introduce the screening

Screening will be followed by a discussion

From Mexico to Russia, from Germany to India, director Vladimir Léon seeks out a revolutionary adventurer from Bengal - M.N. Roy. Founder of a Communist Party in Zapata's Mexico, leader of the Communist International (Comintern) in Soviet Russia alongside Lenin, an anti-Stalin militant and anti-Nazi in pre-war Germany, a politician and atheist philosopher in independent India, Roy personified the struggles of a century on three different continents. However, official history in these countries has preferred to erase his mark. Through direct and indirect accounts, Léon patiently reconstructs the chaotic existence of a free spirit; the film is as much an enquiry as it is a meditation on the obscure course of history

Speaker: Himanshu Prabha Ray, Chairperson, National Monuments Authority

Chair: Shri Pravin Srivastava, Member-Secretary, NMA

The group of monuments at Pattadakal on the banks of the Malaprabha river in north Karnataka, were inscribed as a World heritage Site in 1987 on the grounds of it being "˜the high point of an eclectic art which, in the 7th and 8th centuries under the Chalukya dynasty, achieved a harmonious blend of architectural forms from northern and southern India'. 

UNESCO's World Heritage Convention, to which India is a signatory, makes a distinction between cultural heritage and natural heritage. This presentation interrogates the viability of this distinction in the context of India and also examines the relationship between the monument and its cultural landscape. It shifts the focus from patronage of religious architecture by political dynasties such as that of the Chalukyas to understanding the monuments in their social context, which raises two significant issues: the first relates to the choice of the site. Why was Pattadakal chosen for the setting up of temples? What do we know of the archaeology of the site? The second theme is that of identity and the extent to which religious architecture defined the landscape ascribing it with sanctity and cultural identity. The larger objective is to initiate discussion on the extent to which "˜categories' defined in the early twentieth century continue to be in use. Perhaps it is time to analyze the theoretical frameworks that corroborate these categories.

A celebration of girlhood with tales of girl empowerment old and new; a quiz on Indian women achievers; poster making; and a skit on girl power by children

Coordinated by Deepa Agarwal