LIVING LANDSCAPES

09 August 2024, 06:30 pm
LIVING LANDSCAPES
Programme Type
Discussions
Venue
Conference Room I, IIC main building

Mapping the Future of Mehrauli Archaeological Park
By Swapna Liddle, author, historian and conservationist

Followed by a panel discussion with
 

Panelists: Debashree Mukherjee, Secretary, Department of Water Resources, Govt. of India; and Ms Niharika Rai, Secretary, Finance, Planning and Tourism, Delhi Govt.

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

Mehrauli Archaeological Park is an archaeological site spread over 200 acres containing over 100 historical monuments and structure. The area has been under continuous occupation for over 1000 years and contains Lal Kot built by the Tomar Rajputs in 1060 CE, the oldest extant fort of Delhi and several structures built by the Khilji, Tughlaq and Lodhi dynasties as well as the British. The area faces several challenges, both man-made and natural. Swapna Liddle has an abiding interest in the Mehrauli Archaeological Park and apart from writing extensively about it, she has mapped it in several walks. While talking about the historical context and enumerating the issues of concern, she will also lay out a roadmap for the future

BOOK DISCUSSION GROUP

03 August 2024, 06:00 pm
BOOK DISCUSSION GROUP
Programme Type
Discussions
Venue
Conference Room I, IIC main building

Firefly memories

By Jonaki Ray (Copper coin; 2023)

Discussants: Shri Saif Mahmood, International lawyer, writer, translator, poetry critic & cultural activist; Ms Smitha Sehgal, poet and lawyer; and Ms Jonaki Ray, poet, writer, Editor, scientist and author of the book

Chair: Prof. Radha Chakravarty, writer, critic, translator and former Professor at Ambedkar University
 

BOOK DISCUSSION GROUP

01 August 2024, 06:00 pm
BOOK DISCUSSION GROUP
Programme Type
Discussions
Venue
Conference Room I, IIC main building

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, Senior Fellow, Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses; Prof. J.M. Moosa, Professor, Centre for African Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University; and Ms Ruchita Beri, Senior Fellow, Vivekananda International Foundation author of the book

Chair: Amb. Gurjit Singh
 

Good Mom, Bad Mom and Motherhood’s Shifting Paradigms

22 July 2024, 06:30 pm
Good Mom, Bad Mom and Motherhood’s Shifting Paradigms
Programme Type
Discussions
Venue
Conference Room I, IIC main building

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
 

TALKING ARCHITECTURE 14

19 July 2024, 06:30 pm
TALKING ARCHITECTURE 14
Programme Type
Discussions
Venue
Conference Room I, IIC main building

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.

LIVING LANDSCAPES

10 July 2024, 06:30 pm
LIVING LANDSCAPES
Programme Type
Talks
Venue
Conference Room I, IIC main building

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
 

IIC/PCI - CONVERSATIONS WITH MEDIA

05 July 2024, 04:30 pm
IIC/PCI - CONVERSATIONS WITH MEDIA
Programme Type
Talks, Webcasts
Venue
Conference Room I, IIC main building

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)

Building International Collaboration in Education

04 July 2024, 06:30 pm
Building International Collaboration in Education
Programme Type
Talks
Venue
Conference Room I, IIC main building

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

 

Contemporary Indian Art: Global Perspectives and Local Roots

26 June 2024, 06:30 pm
Contemporary Indian Art: Global Perspectives and Local Roots
Programme Type
Discussions
Venue
Conference Room I, IIC main building

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)

Silent Rebellions and Working-Class Dreams

28 June 2024, 06:30 pm
Silent Rebellions and Working-Class Dreams
Programme Type
Talks
Venue
Conference Room I, IIC main building

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