Pani, Potties aur Makaan: Fractured Domestic Landscapes

Ms Julia King, PhD candidate in Architecture for Rapid Change and Scarce Resources, London Metropolitan University, in conversation with Dr Renu Khosla, Director, Centre for Urban and Regional Excellence

Presentation on the development of a cluster-based sanitation system in Savda Ghevra, a resettlement suburb west of New Delhi whose inhabitants can seldom afford individual toilets with septic tanks. Following consultation with the community, municipal authorities were involved in revising regulations, and in place of the impractical strategy of community toilets was set up a low-cost system using rainwater collectors and individual basic toilet bowls connected to a common septic tank. For devising a simple, replicable model where service-users partner in a programme's design and management, the project received a Holcim Award for sustainable construction.

Roads of Bhakti Poetry

Speaker: Dr Andrew Schelling, Jack Kerouac School, Naropa University, Boulder, Colorado

Chair: Ms Vidya Rao, scholar and singer

A translator from Sanskrit, Pali and Hindi, and author of six volumes of poetry indebted to studies in ecology and ethnopoetics, the speaker has edited The Oxford Anthology of Bhakti Literature (New Delhi, 2011), and describes how Bhakti is "˜salted' with an intensity that requires intellectual effort and much honest probing to get close to, how efforts to break free of social constraint took hundreds of forms across India, and the resonances of this literature for audiences far removed in time and place.

Eye Care for the Elderly

Speaker: Dr Ritu Aurora, Coordinator and Head of the Department of Opthalmology, Max Balaji Hospital

Chair: Prof Ranjit Roy Chaudhury, Emeritus Scientist, National Institute of Immunology  

An overview of practices, including yoga exercises, that help to prevent damage to the eyes, with a focus on precautions to be taken by the elderly while working on computers or reading fine print

Kathak Recital

By Rekha Mehra from Delhi, disciple of Smt Uma Sharma, Late Pt Tulsi Tej Prakash and Guru Ram Kumar

MUSIC APPRECIATION PROMOTION

Overview of Carnatic Music with a focus on Madurai Mani Iyer to Celebrate his Centenary Year

Speaker: Dr S.A.K. Durga, eminent ethno-musicologist and Member of the Experts Committee, Music Academy, Madras

Chair: Shri S. Kalidas, music critic

Magic Realism and After: Indian English Fiction 1981-2011

(52 min; dvd; English)
Director: Shri Suresh Kohli

Screening will be followed by a discussion

(CANCELLED)

GOLDEN JUBILEE LECTURES ON ENVIRONMENT

Economics and the Environment 
Speaker: Prof E. Somanathan, Indian Social Institute

Chair: Prof Mahesh Rangarajan, Director, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library

"Disappearing Sparrows"

The common sparrow, which was ubiquitously seen in our cities, is now increasingly rare. One could not open a door leading to a garden without a sparrow instantly flying into the room. Alongside, over the years, the absence of common bird species has become increasingly noticeable. Does the 'loss' of this and other birds we once took for granted, a sign of other changes in our environment? 

Toxics Link invites you to the film screening and panel discussion in an attempt to understand this question. The film "Beyond The Mirage" directed by Nutan Manmohan, (produced by PSBT), examines the ensuring battle for food and habitat in Delhi's among the small and big birds that throng the city and documents the predicament of smaller birds, like sparrows, which are fast loosing this war against bigger predators.

Program:

Beyond the Mirage, a film by Nutan Manmohan (19"¦., duration "¦. mins)

Panel discussion:

Speakers:

·      Dr. Surya Prakash

(School of Life Sciences, JNU

Member of BNHS, Delhibirds, ButterflyIndia and Indian Wildlife Club)

·      Dr. Koustubh Sharma

(Senior Regional Ecologist-Snow Leopard Trust,

Research Associate, Nature Conservation Foundation &

Co-investigator, BNHS-Citizen Sparrow Foundation)

Moderated by Ravi Agarwal, (Director, Toxics Link)

History of Yoga

(90 min; dvd; 2012; Hindi)
Directors: Ramji Om and Deepika Kothari

Opening with Patanjali's exposition of yoga as a means of achieving mastery over the senses and modifications of the mind, the film traces yoga's development from Harappan times, in Vedic, Jain and Buddhist doctrine, through mediaeval hatha-yogic practices to counter disease, aging and death, up to the point when its potential is acknowledged within the framework of modern science. Observations by scholars and images of archaeological remains, manuscripts, reliefs and murals from 80 sites and 35 museums are interwoven with meditative dance and music.