India’s National Security Challenges

Edited by N.N. Vohra (Primus Books: 2023)

Discussants: Lt. Gen. Deependra S. Hooda (Retd.), PVSM, UYSM, AVSM, VSM & Bar, former General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Northern Command, Indian Army; Prof. (Dr.) C. Raja Mohan, Visiting Research Professor, Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore; Ms Indrani Bagchi, Chief Executive Officer, Ananta Centre; Shri R. Banerji, former Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India; and Shri N.N. Vohra, former Governor of Jammu & Kashmir and Life Trustee, IIC

Chair: Shri Shyam Saran, President, IIC

A discussion on ISID’s India Industrial Development Report 2024-25

Presentation of the Report by Prof. Nagesh Kumar, Director, Institute for Studies in Industrial Development (ISID)

Panelists: Shri Ajay Shankar, former Industry Secretary, Govt. of India; Amb. Dammu Ravi, Secretary (Economic Relations), Ministry of External Affairs, Govt. of India; and Prof. Ram Singh, Director, Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University

Chair: Dr. V.K. Saraswat, Member, Niti Aayog, Govt. of India

The Report is the first in a new series of flagship reports, ISID has launched, provides an evidence-based analysis of different challenges and opportunities that the country faces, as it pursues manufacturing-led transformation and outlines a policy agenda and institutional framework for accelerating it.

(Collaboration: Institute for Studies in Industrial Development)

Webinar 

Presentations:

Research: Effectiveness and cost-efficiency of NbS for tackling urban heat

By Stefan Greiving, Professor and Regional Development and Risk Management Chair, Department of Spatial Planning, TU Dortmund University

Practical applications and policy frameworks

By Sudeshna Chatterjee, Program Director, Sustainable Cities and Transport, World Resource Institute

With intervention from: Raja Asvanon, Research Associate, Stockholm Environment Institute Asia

Moderator: Liam O’Connor, Associate Urban Climate Change Specialist, Environment and Development Division, ESCAP

The year 2024 went down as the hottest year in recorded history and left cities across the globe grappling with the effects of extreme urban heat. With soaring temperatures exacerbated by urban heat island effects affecting over half of the world’s population, cities remain at the front lines of adverse climate impacts. This is particularly true in regions like Asia and the Pacific and consistently affects vulnerable populations the most. Fortunately, amidst these challenges lies a powerful and often underutilised solution – biodiversity. Nature-based solutions (NBS) offer a promising pathway to combat urban heat while delivering a myriad of co-benefits for climate resilience and sustainable living. The discussion will explore the latest research, practical applications, and policy frameworks that leverage biodiversity as a transformative tool for cooling cities, enhancing urban resilience, and supporting sustainable socioeconomic development.

YouTube link: https://youtu.be/790wf_Oi4do?si=ihZ_it5gCE_X5qx7

(Collaboration: The United Nations Economic and Social Commission on Climate Change for Asia and Pacific)

Speaker: Dr. Anil Seal, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, Co-Founder, Cambridge School of Indian History

Chair: Shri K.N. Shrivastava, Director, IIC

Dr. Seal’s talk will trace the genealogy of the structure of Indian politics in the late Colonial period. He argues that the major contradiction in the British Raj lay between the administrative expedience in a fragmented empire and the lucrative nature of a centralized state with a greater extractive capacity. He maintains that while the nationalist movements across India were initially mired in more local networks, they latched on these centripetal forces, aiming at inheriting this structure, and will analyse the transfer of power in the light of this broader picture

(Collaboration: Caucus – The Discussion Forum of Hindu College)

Speakers: Lucy Soutter, Reader Photography, University of Westminster; Duncan Wooldridge, Reader Photography, Manchester Metropolitan University; and Tanvi Mishra, Curator/writer

Moderator: Suryanandini Narain, Assistant Professor, School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University

Introduction: Rahaab Allana, Alkazi Foundation for the Arts

Does contemporary photography offer strategies to rethink and reorganize our sense of the global and local? What are the shared tools, dynamic strategies and new fields of possibility for images? The talks address how ecological and decolonial discourses around photography reveal the medium’s global entanglements: images produced on one side of the world are intricately connected to the other, including by way of imperial histories, labour and migration. A multiplicity of approaches, intentions if not inferences may reveal that despite its alleged understanding as a universal language, the photograph can be deployed to serve radically different ends

(Collaboration: The Alkazi Foundation for the Arts; University of Westminster; CREAM; Manchester Metropolitan University; SODA – School of Digital Arts; and ahead – Arts and Humanities Engagement and Dialogue)