The B.G. Verghese Memorial Lecture by Gopalkrishna Gandhi, civil servant, diplomat, former governor

 

 Followed by a  panel discussion 

Panelists: Shubha Mudgal, classical singer; Nilanjana Roy, literary critic and columnist; and Ashok Malik, columnist and TV commentator

 

Moderator: Siddharth Varadarajan, Senior Fellow, Centre for Public Affairs and Critical Theory

 

The lecture will be preceded by presentation of Chameli Devi Awards 2015 

The B.G. Verghese Memorial Lecture by Gopalkrishna Gandhi, civil servant, diplomat, former governor

 

 Followed by a  panel discussion 

Panelists: Shubha Mudgal, classical singer; Nilanjana Roy, literary critic and columnist; and Ashok Malik, columnist and TV commentator

 

Moderator: Siddharth Varadarajan, Senior Fellow, Centre for Public Affairs and Critical Theory

 

The lecture will be preceded by presentation of Chameli Devi Awards 2015 

Speaker: Ms Pallavi Aiyar, award-winning journalist and author, who has spent over a decade reporting from Beijing, Brussels and Jakarta, often as the only resident Indian foreign correspondent

 

Chair: Ms Suhasini Haider

 

What accounts for the dearth of Indian journalists abroad and why does this matter? Drawing upon her books on China (Smoke and Mirrors) and Europe (Punjabi Parmesan), Pallavi will address these issues with examples that range from Beijing’s toilets to Antwerp’s diamond merchant

Concert in honour of Marshal of the Indian Air Force Arjan Singh, one of the senior most and distinguished members of the IIC

 

Shri Soli J. Sorabjee, President IIC will felicitate Air Marshal Arjan Singh

 

Concert presented by Air Warrior Symphony Orchestra of the Indian Air Force. The 70-member Air Warrior Symphony Orchestra (AWSO) is based in Bangalore and was formed in 2002 with hand-picked musicians from various Air Force bands. In the past decade, the AWSO has won wide acclaim for its performances in India and abroad. The orchestra’s repertoire includes overtures, waltzes, light classical, film music, a Carnatic classical number, a hymn and a patriotic song

 

Led by Squadron Leader G. Jayachandran, Director of Music, IAF

 

Concept: Suhas Borker

Speaker: Dr. Marie Lall, South Asia expert and currently Reader in Education and South Asian Studies, Institute of Education, University of London; and Honorary Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. Her book on the Myanmar reforms will be published by Hurst in the autumn 2015

 

Chair : Shri Ravi Bhoothalingam

 

Screening of animation shorts to mark the centenary year of the well-known Canadian animator, pioneer in a number of areas of animation and filmmaking, including drawn – on- film animation, visual music, abstract film, pixilation and graphical sound

 

Introduction: Ms Jessie Curell, National Film Board of Canada

 

Opening Speech: McLaren (6 min; 1961)

Norman McLaren tries to welcome the audience to a film festival but is hampered by a microphone that has a will of its own

 

Boogie-Doodle (3 min; 1941)

Experimental animated film with pianist, Albert Ammons’ “boogie” and McLaren’s “doodle”

 

A Chairy Tale (9 min; 1957)

A man’s relationship with a chair

 

Begone Dull Care (7 min; 1949)

A visual composition by painting and engraving directly on film

 

C’estl’aviron(3 min; 1944)

Norman McLaren creates the illusion of movement to illustrate a folk song

 

Neighbours(8 min; 1952)

Recipient of the Oscar Award 1952 for Best Documentary; and Silver Bear for Best Short Documentary, Berlin International Film Festival 1956

 

Two neighbours live side by side in harmony until a flower grows on the dividing line between their properties

 

Blinkity Blank (5 min; 1955)

Well-known Norman McLaren film shows bird-like creatures engaged in a strange dance of seduction

 

Le Merle (4 min; 1958)

Using simple cardboard cut-outs to tell the story of a bird that loses its neck, then its eye, back, wings and feet

 

Spheres (7 min; 1969)

Three-part experiment in geometric abstraction

 

Synchromy(7 min; 1971)

An experiment in the exact synchronization of sound and image

 

Pas de deux(13 min; 1968)

Recipient of the Bafta Award 1969 for Best Animated Film

 

The film acts as a sort of magic mirror to the dance, as McLaren captures and multiplies the grace in the movements of two dancers from the Grands Ballets Canadiens

 

Seasons of Change: Sri Lanka's Newfound Optimism

Speakers : Prof. Pradeep Jeganathan, Shiv Nadar University; Shri Amit Baruah, Resident Editor, The Hindu;

Ms Padma Rao Sundarji, author of Sri Lanka: The New Country ; and Prof. Shwetha Singh, South Asia University

 

Chair: Prof. Sasanka Perara, South Asia University

An exhibition of photographs by Sujata Khanna, Vinit Gupta, Nirvair Singh Rai,  Raj Lalwani, Richa Bhavanam, and Sujatro Ghosh

 

Curated by Aditya Arya 

 

Opening on Friday, 13 March at 18.30 

 

Celebrating the life of the Bandwallas, the camera’s gaze turns to the men who make up wedding bands; it looks within their lives in search of answers. The gaze is both deeply empathetic as well as insightful