Launch of the IIC-IRD book edited by Syed Akhtar Husain (New Delhi: Primus Books, 2025)

Shri N.N. Vohra, Life Trustee, IIC will release the book and preside over the discussion

Panelists: Amb. T.C.A. Raghavan, historian, former High Commissioner to Pakistan, and former Director General, Indian Council of World Affairs; Prof. Siddiq Wahid, Distinguished Professor, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, and Senior Fellow, Centre of Excellence for Himalayan Studies, Shiva Nadar Institution of Eminence; Dr. Meena Singh Roy, Head, West Asia Centre, Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi; and Prof. Syed Akhtar Husain, volume editor, Professor, Centre of Persian and Central Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and President, Institute of Indo-Persian Studies
 

Genome to Om: Evolving Journey of Modern Science to Meta-science
By Bhushan Patwardhan and Indu Ramchandani (BluOne Ink: 2024)

Discussants: Dr. Vaidya Rajesh Kotecha, Ayurveda physician, former Secretary, Ministry of AYUSH and former Vice Chancellor, Gujarat Ayurveda University, Jamnagar; Prof. Santishree Pandit, Vice Chancellor, Jawaharlal Nehru University; Dr. Sachin Chaturvedi, Director General, Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS); Dr. Kavita A. Sharma, former President, South Asian University; Prof. Bhushan Patwardhan, National Research Professor— Ayush and co-author of the book; and Smt Indu Ramchandani, editor, transcriber, compiler, and book publisher, and co-author of the book
 

A Place Called ‘Home’: Identity and Belonging

Speaker: Shri Sanjoy Hazarika, well-known columnist, author and policy analyst

Chair: Ms Preeti Gill, independent editor and literary agent

Second programme in a new series ‘The Fabric of Narratives: The Many Facets of North East India’ will focus on different aspects of the region and apart from talks and discussions, include seminars, exhibitions, performances and cuisine. Organised in collaboration with Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER)

Readings and recitations by Ms Jayshree M. Tripathi, poet and former International Educational Consultant; Amb. Amarendra Khatua, former Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs and poet; Prof. Swati Pal, Principal, Janki Devi Memorial College, University of Delhi and author; Ms Sahana Ahmed, poet and novelist; Ms Deepa Agarwal, author and poet; and Shri Mustafa Quraishi, photo journalist

Himalayan Huffing: Culture, Politics and Climate Change
 

Speakers: Prof. Jagannath Panda, Head, Stockholm Center for South Asian and Indo-Pacific Affairs (SCSA-IPA) who will speak on The Climate Challenge in Tibet: Why and How the Himalayan Community Must Act Together; and Prof. Dhananjay Tripathi, Associate Professor, South Asian University, New Delhi who will speak on Border and Culture: The Connection and Contradiction

Discussant: Dr. Rajiv Ranjan, Associate Professor, Dept. of East Asian Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Delhi

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

How Women Become Poems in Malabar

By Smitha Sehgal (Red River, 2025)

Discussants: Shri Sanjay Jain, Senior Advocate and former Additional Solicitor General of India; Ms Archana Pathak Dave, Additional Solicitor General of India; Ms Sahana Ahmed, poet, novelist and publisher; Ms Jonaki Ray, poet and editor; and Ms Smitha Sehgal, DGM Legal), EIL, poet and author of the book

Chair: Dr. Sukrita Paul Kumar, Guest Editor, Indian Literature, poet, academic and critic

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)

Idea of Order: Perspectives from Central and Eastern Europe (1989-2022)
By Rakesh Batabyal (KW Publishers Pvt. Ltd. 2024)

Panelists: Ms Nutan Kapoor Mahawar, Additional Secretary, ICWA; Prof. Gulshan Sachdeva, Centre for European Studies, SIS, JNU; Ms. Margit Koves, Assistant Professor, Department of Slavonic and Finno-Ugrian Studies, Delhi University; and Mr. Rakesh Batabyal, author of the book.

 Chair: Amb.T.C.A Raghavan, Former High Commissioner to Pakistan & Former Director General, ICWA

Aniconic to the Iconic: Cult of Dharmaraj – The Folk Form of Hinduism
 

Speaker: Shri Jawhar Sircar, public intellectual and former Secretary Culture and CEO, Prasar Bharti

Chair: Prof. Ashis Nandy, political psychologist, social theorist, futurist and critic

Speaker: Prof. Kath Weston, Professor of Anthropology, University of Virginia and Honorary Fellow, College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, University of Edinburgh

Chair: Prof. Rita Brara, Editor, Contributions to Indian Sociology, Non-Resident Senior Fellow, Institute of Economic Growth and Visiting Professor, Ashoka University, Sonepat

This talk on the medicalization of finance is based on Prof. Weston’s forthcoming book, Capitalism on Life Support: How Scientific and Medical Imagery Shapes Finance, which explores the centuries-long interplay between accounts of the financial operations that underwrite capitalism and knowledge production about how bodies work derived from the fields of science and medicine.

The 4th CIS-IEG-Sage Lecture

(Collaboration: Contributions to Indian Sociology; Institute of Economic Growth; and SAGE)