Count Every Breath: A Climate Anthology

Edited by Vinita Agrawal (Hawakal Publishers: 2023)

Discussants: Dr. Sukrita Paul Kumar, poet and critic; Shri Kinshuk Gupta, bilingual writer, poet and translator; Ms Sahana Ahmed, poet, novelist and publisher; and Shri Kiriti Sengupta, poet, translator, Editor and publisher

Moderator: Prof. Vinita Agrawal, poet and Editor of the book

Panelists: Prof. Parth Sen, former Director and Professor, Delhi School of Economics; Prof. Surajit Mazumdar, Professor of Economics, Jawaharlal Nehru University; Prof. Siddhartha Mitra, Professor of Economics, Jadavpur University, Kolkata; Prof. Vikas Rawal, Professor of Economics, Jawaharlal Nehru University; Dr Zakaria Siddiqui, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Jamia Millia Islamia; and Dr Pooja Sharma, Economist and Independent Researcher

Moderator: Suhas Borker, Convener, Working Group on Alternative Strategies and Trustee IIC
 
Discussion on the State of the Indian Economy (SoIE) is an annual event and is jointly organised by IIC and the Working Group on Alternative Strategies in December each year. This year marks the 31st anniversary of the Working Group on Alternative Strategies.
 
(Collaboration: Working Group on Alternative Strategies)

Multidimensional Poverty (MPI) as an Input for Strategic Intervention

Chief Guest: Shri Suman Bery, Vice Chairperson, NITI Aayog
 

Panelists: Dr. Hyun Hee Ban, Chief of Social Policy, UNICEF India; Dr. Amee Misra, Senior Economist and Head of Policy, UNDP India; and Dr. Amitabh Kundu, Distinguished Fellow, Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS)

Chair: Dr. Ramesh Chand, Member, NITI Aayog; Fellow, National Academy of Agricultural Sciences and Indian Society of Agricultural Economics

The panel discussion will analyse various conceptual and operational issues pertaining to measurement of multidimensional poverty and its application in designing, implementing and monitoring various government missions and their outcomes

(Collaboration: Egrow Foundation)

Panelists: Sukumar Muralidharan, columnist and journalist educator; R. Srinivasan, columnist and former Editor, The Hindu Business Line; Sanjay Kapoor, Editor, Hardnews; Suhas Borker, independent filmmaker, Convenor, Jan Prasar and Trustee, IIC; Poornima Joshi, Political Editor and Chief of Bureau, Hindu Business Line; and Bharat Bhushan, South Asia Editor, 360info

Moderator: Anant Nath, Editor, Caravan

We live in times when media ownership has become corporatised, the role of the editor has changed beyond recognition, media is unable to hold the State to account, its access to the government and legislature has shrunk, investigative journalism seems to have become extinct and the threat to both journalism and journalists has increased. At a time of low trust in news and widespread misinformation, how does one understand the changes taking place in the media? This dialogue with media practitioners on the subject will examine what can be done and what needs to be done.

Programme organised as part of the IIC’s Sectoral Programme Group on Media 

Curator: Prof. Himanshu Prabha Ray

Early Buddhist Art at Sanchi: Power and Piety in Uruvela Narrative Cycle

Illustrated lecture by Prof. Seema Bawa who specializes in the History of South Asian Art and Culture, Department of History, University of Delhi. Books written by her include Gods, Men and Women: Gender and Sexuality in Early Indian Art and Religion and Art of the Chamba Valley, A.D. 700-1300. The areas of research focus on Indian Art, Ancient Indian Art and Iconography; Western Himalayan Art and Religion and Modern and Contemporary Indian Art. She was a recipient of DAAD Fellowship at the University of Bonn

Chair: Prof. Y. S. Alone, Jawaharlal Nehru University

This presentation focuses on the physical and imagined landscapes and locale within the visual narratives in early Buddhist art at Sanchi. The Uruvela or Uruvilva cycle, depicted on the pillar of the Eastern gateway at Sanchi Stupa 1, illustrates the interaction between the Kasyapa brothers and the aniconic presence indicating the Buddha. The fact that this is also a story that is based on the contestation between the established ideology of yajna and the emergence of Buddha as a proselytizing force makes nuanced reading of this visual even more interesting.

 

Speaker: Prof. Sari Hanafi, Professor of Sociology, Director, Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies and Chair, Islamic Studies program, American University of Beirut.  He is the President of the International Sociological Association and was also the editor of Idafat: the Arab Journal of Sociology (Arabic) (2017-2022).

Discussant: Dr. Bhrigupati Singh, Ashoka University and Brown University

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

The CIS-IEG-SAGE Annual Lecture 2023

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

‘Unfolding the Cosmos’ – The Significance of History and of Architecture as its Primary Source: The Case of the Red Fort

Illustrated lecture by Anisha Shekhar Mukherji, architect who has specialized in conservation and is Visiting Faculty, School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi. Anisha works as an independent designer and researcher and is Founding Director, Ambi Knowledge Resources and author of The Red Fort of Shahjahanabad (Oxford University Press: 2003); Jantar Mantar (Ambi: 2010); Renewing Design with Communities (co-edited with Snehanshu Mukherjee, Routledge, 2023) among other books

Chair: Anuradha Chaturvedi, Architectural Conservation, School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi

The talk will explore the significance of history in construing and constructing identity and memory — what we are, what we may have been, and what we can be. And the role of architecture in all this, through the example of the iconic World Heritage Site of the Red Fort, a symbol of political and cultural identity. Can architecture be considered a primary source of history? And how should we read it?

75 Kavitayein 
Collection of poems by Anamika (Nayee Kitab Prakashan: 2023)

Discussants: Dr. Lakshmi Kannan, poet, novelist and bilingual writer; Prof. Malashri Lal, author and Convenor, English Board, Sahitya Akademi; Dr. Sushma Bhatnagar, former Director of Interpretation, Lok Sabha and former Lecturer, Lady Shri Ram College for Women; Prof. Rekha Sethi, author, Editor and translator of the book; and Prof. Anamika, well-known poet, novelist and author of the collection of poems

Speaker: Prof. Shonaleeka Kaul, cultural historian of early India and Professor, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Prof. Kaul has published eight books so far including a new translation with critical introduction to the Hitopadesha by Narayana: A New English Translation (Aleph, 2022)

This talk uncovers complex layers of human-non human entanglements in an iconic and witty literary genre from early India. It explores the representation of animals in a dedicated textual tradition best identified with the influential 2nd century Panchatantra and its retelling, the 9th century Hitopadesha. Delving into this lively corpus to illuminate the mutually constituted fields of animal history and Sanskrit literature, the talk argues for the instrumentality of animals in human culture and discourse.

Chair: Amb. A.N.D. Haksar, former Indian diplomat, prolific translator of Sanskrit classics into English

Speaker: Prof. Tathagatan Ravindran, Indian scholar based in Colombia who works on social movements, Left politics, race/ethnicity in Latin America. A social anthropologist, Prof. Ravindran has taught at Icesi University in Colombia, the University of Texas at Austin and the Delhi School of Economics. His work is interdisciplinary as it engages with and advances debates in Anthropology, Sociology, Geography, and Political theory

Chair: Amb. R. Viswanathan, Specialist on Latin America and former Indian Ambassador to Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Venezuela