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.

Wild Women: Seekers, Protagonists and Goddesses in Sacred Indian Poetry

 by Arundhati Subramanian (Penguin Ebury Press: March 2024)

In conversation with Amb. Pavan K. Varma, author and diplomat; Shri Ashok Vajpeyi, poet and essayist; Ms Alka Pande, author and Art Historian; Ms Anamika, poet and novelist; and Ms Arundhati Subramanian, poet, anthologist and author of the book

Speaker: Sumathi Ramaswamy, James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of History, Duke University who has published on language politics, gender studies, spatial studies and the history of cartography, visual studies and the modern history of art, and more recently, digital humanities and the history of philanthropy. Her recent writings on Gandhi include Gandhi in the Gallery: The Art of Disobedience (New Delhi: Roli Books, 2022) and the digital project B is for Bapu: Gandhi in the Art of the Child in Modern India (https://sites.duke.edu/bisforbapu/)

Using a material culture approach, the lecture reflects on the overwhelming penchant for the creation of statues of Gandhi, the most among India’s political leaders to be so “honoured” both at home and overseas, where many a statue has been installed as the official government gift. It is worth reflecting on this phenomenon at a time when across the world, because of varying projects for critically reckoning with difficult inherited pasts, statues of (big) men are being defaced. How might Gandhi respond to such acts, especially since his statue is increasingly vulnerable as well. 

(Collaboration:  American Institute of Indian Studies)
 

Restoring the Yamuna Flood Plains and Drainage Systems

Speakers: Shri P. K. Tripathi, former Chief Secretary of Delhi; Shri Ashok Lavasa, former Union Environment Secretary;
Dr. Faiyaz Khudsar, Senior Secretary, Biodiversity Parks Programme, Centre of Environmental Management of Degraded Ecosystems, University of Delhi; Shri Ashok Mandal,  Chartered Engineer; Shri Rajendra Ravi, Co-ordinator, People's Resource Centre; Prof. Yamini Gupt, Professor, Department of Finance and Business Economics, University of Delhi; and Shri Vinay Kumar, former Associate Editor, The Hindu

Chair: Suhas Borker, Founder Member, Green Circle of Delhi and Trustee, IIC

This series is dedicated to the memory of Shri Mahesh. N. Buch, civil servant and environmentalist, who passed away on 6 June in 2015 and who had given the key-note address at the inaugural edition of the Dialogue in 2013.

(Collaboration: Green Circle of Delhi)

29 May 2024_CR I-Workshop on Indian Economy (1).pdf

Context and Introduction: Dr. Charan Singh, CEO and Founder Director, Egrow Foundation

Inaugural Address: Dr. Arvind Virmani, Member NITI Aayog and former Chief Economic Advisor to the Govt. of India

Panel discussions on The Issues in the Indian Economy

10:30 to 11:15 - The Growth Triangle: Infrastructure, Urbanization, and Insurance

11:15 to 12:00 – Exploring Climate Dynamics

12:15 to 13:15 – Macroeconomic Policy for India’s Evolving Economy

13:15 to 14:00 – Indian in the Geopolitical Crossroads

(Collaboration: EGROW Foundation; and Primus Partners)