Nehru’s First Recruits: The Diplomats who built Independent India’s Foreign Policy
By Kallol Bhattacherjee (HarperCollins: 2024)

Discussants: Ms Nandita Haksar, Human Rights Lawyer, Advocate, Supreme Court of India and author; Amb. Manjeev Singh Puri, former Indian Ambassador to Nepal, Deputy Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations; and Shri Kallol Bhattacherjee, Senior Assistant Editor, Foreign Affairs, The Hindu and author of the book

Chair: Amb. K.P. Fabian, Distinguished Fellow, School of Law, Symbiosis University, Pune

Speaker: Shri Kallol Bhattacherjee, Senior Assistant Editor, Foreign Affairs, The Hindu

Chair: Amb. K.P. Fabian, Professor, Symbiosis University, Pune and Indian Society of International Law, New Delhi

Shri Bhattacherjee will speak about his recent visit to Bangladesh

Speaker: Ms Apoorva Thakur, Director, LAWGYSTIX Foundation
Chair: Ms Priya Hingorani, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India

Has the Prevention of Sexual Harassment (PoSH) Act of 2013 helped create a safer and more equitable workplace environment for women.  Recent dastardly happenings with women in the workplace point to a horrendous scenario. Does the act have flaws that undermine its efficacy? How is the confidentiality of the complainant ensured? Is creating awareness about the act among all employees and implementing the law in smaller organizations an issue? As per PoSH Act’s definition of workplace, can “home” constitute workplace? The answer is “yes”, “home” comes under the ambit of “Extended Workplace”.

Curated by Prof. Himanshu Prabha Ray

Stones and Texts: Playing Dice with the Matrmandala

Speaker: Dr. Tara Sheemar Malhan, Associate Professor, Dept. of History, Janki Devi Memorial College, University of Delhi

Chair: Prof. Neeru Misra, Academic Advisor, B.L. Institute of Indology, Delhi

The commonality among the Indic expressive traditions like painting, sculpture, literature and dance is known to be rooted in the theory of Sanskrit aesthetics. The narratives of the 11th century ‘meta-text’, the Kathasaritsagara of Somadeva, invest the physical decoration of the temples with life and these are further closely entwined with the characters. The speaker will trace some of the stories of the Kathasaritsagara which refers to sculptures in particular wats and connect this with certain examples derived from various early medieval spatial contexts as possible material correlates of the narrative descriptions

State-Society Relations in Xi Jinping Era

Panelists: Anthony Spires, Associate Professor, Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies, University of Melbourne; Pradeep Taneja, Senior Lecturer in Asian politics, political economy and international relations, University of Melbourne; B.R. Deepak, Professor and Chair, Centre for Chinese and Southeast Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University; and Rajiv Ranjan, Associate Professor, Dept. of East Asian Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Delhi

Discussant: Alka Acharya, Chairperson, Centre for East Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University 

Chair: Pradeep Taneja

Release of the book edited by Sumangala Damodaran (New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2024)

The book will be released by Shri Shyam Saran, President, IIC

Followed by a discussion between Prof. Partho Datta, School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University; Prof. Tanuka Kothiyal, School of Liberal Studies, Ambedkar University, Delhi; and Dr. Irfan Zuberi, National Cultural Audiovisual Archives, IGNCA

This book traces circuits of interaction between Africa and Asia as revealed through music. It is the outcome of a colloquium that the IIC convened in collaboration with ‘Recentring AfroAsia: Musical and Human Migrations, 700-1500 AD’, an international research project involving universities in South Africa, Tanzania and India. Participants in the project were in conversation with scholars and practitioners in related fields on the different ways that music can trace routes through our overlapping histories, and how such scholarship and performative interactions prise open a number of orthodoxies in our understanding of musical systems

(Organised by IIC-International Research Division)

Speakers: Shri Urmilesh, former Executive Editor, Rajya Sabha TV; Ms Arfa Khanum Sherwani, Senior Editor, The Wire; Shri Nikhil Pahwa, Editor, MediaNama

Moderator: Suhas Borker, Editor, Citizens First TV (CFTV) and Trustee, IIC

This conversation marks the 34th anniversary of the presidential assent to Prasar Bharati Act 1990 and the 31st discussion in the annual series

(Collaboration: Jan Prasar)
 

Rising Phenomenon of Urban Flooding: Causes, Consequences and Sustainable Solutions

Speakers: Manu Bhatnagar, Principal Director, INTACH; Shyamal Sarkar, IAS (retd.), Distinguished Fellow and Director, Water Resources Division, The Energy Resource Institute (TERI); and Shri Jaideep Chatterjee, Dean, Jindal School of Art and Architecture, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat

Flooding in urban areas is a growing concern worldwide as it is causing significant damage to human lives, the environment and economy. The damage is more evident in India because of the growing density of population in urban areas, including in the Tier – 1, 2, 3 and 4 cities. The discussion will discuss the possible solutions and strategies to mitigate and manage urban flooding with policy –level changes; green infrastructure; flood-resistant construction; planned well-maintained drainage system; and community involvement and alertness.  

(Collaboration: Toxics Link)
 

Illustrated lecture by Ahtushi Deshpande, photographer and author of the recently published book Speaking Stones: Rock Art of Ladakh

Chair: Dr. Arshiya Sethi, dance scholar and author

Ahtushi Deshpande will present a journey through Ladakh’s hidden petroglyph galleries. These ancient imprints, scattered across Ladakh’s sprawling and often remote open-air galleries, offer tangible evidence of a history that predates recorded accounts. She will also draw comparisons with rock carvings from other regions, such as Utah and Arizona, to highlight the similarities and share intriguing stories. 
 

Illustrated lecture by Prof. Philip Lutgendorf, scholar of South Asia, Emeritus Professor of Hindi and Modern Indian Studies, University of Iowa and author of the award winning book The Life of a Text: Performing the Ramcaritmanas of Tulsidas (University of California Press: 1991), Hanuman's Tale: The Messages of a Divine Monkey (Oxford University Press, New York: 2006) among others

Chair: Prof. Ananya Vajpeyi, Fellow, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies

The poet-saint Tulsidas’s immensely popular retelling of the Ramayana saga, Ramcaritmanas (ca.1574 AD), is structured as an allegorical Himalayan sacred lake symmetrically bounded by four seven-tiered ghats. The narrators (in order of appearance) are the human author Tulsidas, the Vedic sage Yajnavalkya, the god Shiva, and a crow named Bhushundi. Whereas the first three are either human or (in Shiva’s case) divine-anthropomorphic, the final one is an avian form. Why did the poet choose this unusual figure to conclude whose epic narrative and to deliver, in effect, the “last word”? 

(Collaboration: American Institute of Indian Studies)