Firefly memories

By Jonaki Ray (Copper coin; 2023)

Discussants:  Shri Saif Mahmood; Ms Smitha Vakkadavath Sehgal; and Ms Jonaki Ray, author of the book

Chair: Prof. Radha Chakravarty
 

India-Africa building synergies in peace, security and development 
By Ruchita Beri (Pentagon Press; 2024)

Discussants: Mr. Cedrick C. Crowley, Acting High Commissioner, South African High Commission; Dr. Uttam Sinha;

Prof. J.M. Moosa, and Ms Ruchita Beri, author of the book

Chair: Amb. Gurjit Singh

Speakers: Kavita Bundelkhandi, co-founder and Editor-in-Chief, Khabar Lahariya and the first Dalit member of the Editor’s Guild of India who is a non-conformist of many parts who stumbled into motherhood; Pooja Pande, writer, author and editor, TED speaker and co-CEO, Chambal Media who has deconstructed the institution of motherhood in India in her book Momspeak; and Vandana Sharma, practicing advocate who qualifies as a mother and advocate at about the same time 

Chair: Richa Jha, children’s author and the publisher of Pickle Yolk Books

In literature, films, performative spaces, popular media and in our everyday lives, we now have portrayals and real-life role models of mothers who do not shy away from putting themselves first, even at the cost of being labelled as ‘bad’ mothers. By living on their own terms, or by not making motherhood the focus of their existence, they challenge the conventional views that have long since reduced women to the all-loving, all-sacrificing and rule-bound gendered identity and role.

The conversation will explore how mothers today are breaking the classic mothering moulds
 

A House of Bamboo- Mud and Thatch
Illustrated lecture by Nengcha Lhouvum and Gautam Mukhopadhaya

Discussants: Savyasaachi, Anthropologist, Professor and former Head, Dept. of Sociology, Jamia Millia Islamia; and Snehanshu Mukherjee, architect, educator and writer, Adjunct Professor, Indian Institute of Art & Design, New Delhi

Moderator: Anisha Shekhar Mukherji, Conservation Architect, author and Visiting Faculty, School of Planning & Architecture, Delhi

Nengcha Lhouvum served as India’s Ambassador to Lebanon, Serbia and Indonesia from 2005-2013. She drew from her childhood to build a traditional mud hut with a contemporary touch in the hills of Manipur. Gautam Mukhopadhaya served as Indian Ambassador to Syria, Afghanistan and Myanmar from 2006-16.  

With a shared interest in building with natural and local materials: mud, stone, bamboo and thatch, the talk is the outcome of that interest.

Healing a Landscape: Rewilding Aravali Biodiversity Park

Illustrated lecture by Vijay Dhasmana, Ecological Restoration Professional

The talk will be followed by a discussion with:
Sohail Hashmi, writer, filmmaker and heritage activist; and Bharati Chaturvedi, Founder and Director, Chintan

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

Coordinator and Moderator: Anuj Srivastava, architect, writer and photographer

The 380-acre mined site of the Aravali Biodiversity Park, Gurugram, degraded over 40 years, was restored to a lush native forest integrating ecology, urban environment and human aspirations in an unprecedented public-private partnership, spearheaded by the civil society, citizens of Gurugram, private corporations and the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram. It is the first site in India to be accorded the OECM (Other Effective Area based Conservation Measures) under the IUCN


First talk in a new series that aims to re-examine our relationship with nature and the built environment
 

Indian Economy: Can it be at a Turning Point 

Speaker: Prof. Amit Bhaduri, one of the foremost Economists of our times, former Professor Emeritus, Jawaharlal Nehru University, ‘Professor of Clear Fame’ at Pavia University, Italy and recipient of the Leontief Prize, Tufts University, USA for ‘advancing frontiers of thought’

Moderator of the Series: Suhas Borker, Trustee, IIC

Introduction: Vinay Kumar, former Associate Editor, The Hindu

(Collaboration: Press Club of India)

Speaker: Anuj Bhasin, Trade Commissioner (Education), Canadian High Commission and formerly a member of the advisory board of Indo-Canadian Business Chamber’s Education committee and Indo-Canadian Alumni Network 

Chair: Dr Prachi Kaul, Director, Shastri Indo Canadian Institute, New Delhi

Panelists: Dr. Amarendra Khatua, former Director General, ICCR; Ms Arpana Caur, eminent artist; Ms Gargi Seth, Chief Curator, Indian Art Circle; Dr. Neerja Chandna Peters, artist and recipient of the IAC Art Fair Grant; and Ms Renuka Sondhi Gulati, artist, winner of  the IAC Art Fair Grant

Chair: Dr. Sanjeev Kishor Goutam, Director General, National Gallery of Modern Art

(Collaboration: Indian Art Circle)

Speaker: Dr. Arun Kumar, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Nottingham University, UK

Chair: Dr. Hem Borker, Assistant Professor, Department of Social Work, Jamia Millia Islamia

A history of defiance by Indian workers who refused to see themselves as mere laboring entities that elites and employers wished them to become. It is the colonial world of the late nineteenth and twentieth century where educational opportunities, especially for socio-economically oppressed castes and the laboring poor, were very limited and uneven. How state and non-state elite power attempted to shape laboring subalterns and how laboring subalterns experienced and responded to educational institutions and elite visions. The contestation between “dreams” of educated and literate subalterns and “educational visions” of elites shaped the projects of non-elite education and marked the birth of industrial and technical education in modern India

Speaker: Venkat Srinivasan, Head, Archives at NCBS and founding member and co-director, the Milli Archives Foundation

Chair: Prof. Aparna Vaidik, Prof. of History, Ashoka University

The Milli Archives Foundation (https://milli.link/about/) is a non-profit body dedicated to the nurturing of archives in South Asia. It facilitates discussions among the community around issues of diversity, archival standards, conservation, physical and digital access, pedagogy, privacy and the development of inclusive description standards. The talk will present an overview of four current projects run by the Milli Archives: a guidebook to look at the intersection of ethics, law and archives; a software annotation tool to allow additional user-driven description of archival objects; a benchmarking approach to assessing the quality of an archive in South Asia; and a two-day teaching module that covers ten steps for small organisations to set up their own archive, from sourcing to archival use.