Meet the Author: Aman Sethi

Author of A Free Man (New Delhi: Random House, 2011), who will speak about his work followed by a discussion

Panelists: Dr. Awadhendra Sharan, Associate Fellow, CSDS; and Dr. Prabhu Mohapatra, Department of History, University of Delhi

Chair: Shri Hartosh Singh Bal, Open Magazine

BOOK DISCUSSION GROUP

Prof Sukhdeo Thorat, Chairperson, ICSSR, and former Chairperson, UGC; Prof Dinesh Singh, Vice-Chancellor, University of Delhi; and Dr Nitish Sengupta, will discuss Dr Karan Singh: The Portrait of a Statesman by Kishore Gandhi (New Delhi: Allied Publishers, 2012)

Chair: Shri Jagmohan, former Governor, Jammu & Kashmir

Memorial Meeting for

 Shri Natarajan ("˜Manna') Srinivasan
 (September 12, 1934 - March 10, 2012)

MUSIC APPRECIATION PROMOTION

Re-looking at Tagore's Musical Compositions in his Plays
Presented by Smt Jayati Ghosh

FRONTIERS OF HISTORY
Tale of Two Cities: Chandernagore and Kolkata under French and English Rule

Speaker: Sumanta Banerjee, author of The Wicked City: Crime and Punishment in Calcutta (Orient Blackswan, 2009)

Concert
By the Kodály String Quartet from Hungary
Attila Falvay (first violin); Erika Tóth (second violin); János Fejérvári (viola); György Éder (violin-cello)

Founded in 1966 by students of the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest, the Quartet has made it its mission to authentically interpret the Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály, and to uphold his musical values and traditions. It also acknowledges inspiration from Zoltan Szekely, first violinist of the Hungarian String Quartet, with whom its members have studied. Besides having performed the major Hungarian composers as well as premières of contemporary Hungarian pieces, it has recorded entire string quartet cycles by Beethoven, Schubert and Haydn. The Quartet has performed in North and South America, in nearly all European countries, throughout the Far East, and once before in India. Among other honours, its recording of Mendelssohn and Bruch octets in 2007 was nominated by the BBC for the "˜Best Chamber Music Recording of the Year' Award.

The agenda to build a water prudent society
Speaker: Ms. Sunita Narain, Director General, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE)

Chair: Chair: Shri BG Verghese, veteran journalist

People in cities get water in their houses, discharge waste, and see their rivers die. They don't make the connection between flush toilets and dying rivers. Ferreting out data from government offices, CSE mapped 71 cities, to uncover innumerable cases where what we know today as a drain was once a river. The Report calls for decisive and wholesale change, lest we stand accused of deliberate "˜hydrocide'.

Access to Affordable Medicines: A Millennium Development Goal

Panelists: Dr Naresh Gupta, Director-Professor, Maulana Azad Medical College; Shri P.K. Khanna, Advisor, Bureau of Pharma PSUs of India; Dr Habib Hasan, Assistant Professor, Indian Institute of Public Health, Public Health Foundation of India

Chair: Major General Dr J.K. Bansal, Member, National Disaster Management Authority

SATURDAY 21 
FOUNTAIN LAWNS AT 18:30 
Agadum Bagadum
Dance drama presented by MuktoMon children
Direction: Smt Durba Bhattacharjee and Smt Rama Jordar

Bostomi
Play by Rabindranath Tagore
Dramatisation: Shri Jhulan Mukherjee; Direction: Shri Soumitra Basu; Lead Actors: Soumitra Basu and Smt Averee Chaurey; Production: Sandarbha, Kolkata

SUNDAY 22 
FOUNTAIN LAWNS AT 18:30 
Pratham Puja - Sesh Pronam
Recitation: Smt Ishita Das Adhikari; Music: Shri Kingshuk Roy

Rajendranandini
Choreography in Chhau and Contemporary styles, based on Tagore's Chitrangada
Concept, Choreography and Direction: Smt Soma Giri; Production: Nrityamandir, Kolkata

MONDAY 23
AUDITORIUM AT 18:30 
Bashay Fera Danaar Shobdo
Readings, songs, rare audio-visual footage and dance explore a seldom-visited passage in Tagore's life

Readings and Songs: Dr Ananda Gupta, Dakshinayan UK-Dakshinee Kolkata; and Pandit Biplob Mondal, Kolkata
Dance: Kathak Team

In 1926, Gurudev visited Italy as Mussolini's guest even as the clouds of Fascism lowered over Italy. This brought him the condemnation of the world's press, which Gurudev found hard to take, and his musical genius suffered. As autumn approached, the blue skies with the fluffy white clouds made Gurudev desperate to return home. His heart cried like a bird flapping its wings, longing to get back to its nest. It was while sailing on the Baltic Sea that the first song after a long drought came to him. Through performance and audio-visual footage, we follow Gurudev through cities across Europe, a journey punctured by illness, up to the point when morning ragas and the clear skies of Bengal's festive season set him free him to bury his traumatic journey like "˜sharp blades of grass'.