A YEAR OF POETRY AT IIC

Conceptualised by Gitanjali Surendran

The Book of Desire: Love Poems from the Kural

In the mood for literary love and desire on Valentine’s Day? Join Meena Kandasamy as she reads love poems from her luminous translation of Kammatu-p-pal, the third section of the Tamil classic Thirukkural. Her rendering will help us discover Thirukkural anew, leading us into a quintessential Tamil world of exaggerated hurt, lovers’ quarrels, evenings full of longing, and the many faces of love and desire.

Meena Kandasamy is an award-winning, poet, writer, translator, anti-caste activist and academic based in India. Among her many books are two devoted to poetry, Ms. Militancy and Touch, and more recently the novel Exquisite Cadavers. She was awarded the Hermann Kesten prize by the PEN Centre, Darmstadt, Germany in 2022.
 

The ‘Indianization’ Debate: Historical Connections between South and Southeast Asia

Chair: Shri Shyam Saran, President, IIC

Panellists: 

Maritime Cultural Heritage: From Nationalism to Trans-nationalism
By Prof. Himanshu Prabha Ray, archaeologist and maritime historian

Indian Nationalist readings of Southeast Asian History
By Prof. Madhavan K. Palat, historian of Modern Europe and India 

The Impact of the Greater India Society on post-Independence Foreign Policy Initiatives
By Amb. T.C.A. Raghavan, diplomat and historian and former Director-General, Indian Council of World Affairs

A prelude to the two-day workshop on ‘Shared Cultural Heritage across the Indian Ocean’, the panel discussion will provide a backdrop to the wider issues of early cultural relations between India and Southeast Asia.
 

Talk and an interactive session with Mr. John Keay FRGS, British historian, journalist and radio presenter and author of several books on India, the Far East and China with a particular focus on colonisation. Mr. Keay will speak on his recently published book of the same title

Chair: Prof. Siddiq Wahid, Distinguished Professor and Senior Fellow, International Relations and Governance Studies, Shiv Nadar University

(Collaboration: Shiv Nadar University)

Private and Controversial  When Public Health and Privacy Meet in India

Edited by Smriti Parsheera (HarperCollins India: 2023)

 Speakers:  Virnda Bhandari, lawyer, Supreme Court of India;  Ms Yamini Aiyar, President, Centre for Policy Research ;  Ms Usha Ramanathan, Legal Scholar ;  Ms Smriti Parsheera, Fellow, CyberBRICS Project & Author of the Book

Moderator: Shri Nikhil Pahwa, Founder, Medianama

Discussion based on the book by Dr. Yash Gupta (Roots and Shoots: 2022)

Lead presentation by Dr. Yash Gupta, FRCS, Trauma and Plastic Surgeon, UK

Followed by a panel discussion with

Panelists: Prof. N.K. Gupta, well-known physicist, Consultant and Advisor, Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi; and Prof. Sanjiv Kumar, Chairperson, Three Domain Health Leadership Foundation, New Delhi

Chair: Shri K.N. Srivastava, Director IIC

Parenting in the Age of Anxiety: Raising Children in India in the 21st Century

By Abha Adams (Aleph Book Company: 2022)

Ms Abha Adams, Innovative educationist, former Director, The Shri Ram Schools and author of the book In Conversation with Dr. Shelja Sen, Narrative Therapist and Co-Founder, Children First; and Shri Rajiv Mehrotra, author and Secretary, Foundation for Universal Responsibility of HH The Dalai Lama

(Collaboration: Foundation for Universal Responsibility of HH The Dalai Lama)
 

Navigating India: $18 Trillion Opportunity

By Bharat Joshi (Rupa Publications: 2017)

Speakers : Amb. Freddy Svane, Ambassador, Royal Danish Embassy; Ms. Lakshmi Puri, Distinguished Fellow, Indian Association of International Studies;  Former Assistant Secretary- General, UN; Deputy Executive Director, UN Women & Former Ambassador of India ; Mr. Toshihiko Kurihara, Chief Representative New Delhi, Japan Bank for International Cooperation ; Sh. Bharat Joshi, Chairman, Joshi Konoike Transport & Infrastructure; CEO, J Curve Ventures and Author of the book
   

Speaker: Prof. Ashutosh Varshney, Director, Saxena Center for Contemporary South Asia, Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences, Professor of Political Science, Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University, USA

Chair:  Ms Yamini Aiyar, President and Chief Executive of the Centre for Policy Research
 

The talk is based on two recent papers by Prof. Varshney where he argues that since 1947 India has done better as an electoral democracy, and less well as a liberal democracy. The recent assessment of international agencies about India’s democratic decline should be viewed as claims about the latter, not the former. India’s electoral democracy remains vibrant, buts liberal democracy has weakened. Prof. Varshney will define the two concepts of democracy, electoral and liberal
 

The True Potential of the Mind: 8 and 9 December 2022

A retreat with Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

Welcome Address: Shri Shyam Saran, President, IIC

The retreat will be led by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, who possesses a rare ability to present the ancient Indian and Tibetan wisdom in a fresh, engaging manner. Mingyur Rinpoche is a world-renowned meditation teacher with personal experience of anxiety and panic attacks, which he suffered from throughout his childhood and into his teenage years, when he learned to transform his panic through meditation. From childhood, he became interested in contemporary science through conversations with scientists on research projects that study the effects of meditation on the brain and the mind. 

Mingyur Rinpoche’s first book, The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness, debuted on the New York Times bestseller list and has been translated into over twenty languages. In his most recent book, In Love with the World, Mingyur Rinpoche shares how his meditation practice sustained him when he left his monastery to wander through India and the powerfully transformative insights he gained from the near-death experience he had at the beginning of his journey. 

More information on the Retreat can be accessed on:

https://www.cepeace.org/RegisterNow-Retreat-with-Mingyur-Rinpoche

(Collaboration: Centre for the Escalation of Peace; Nalanda Foundation; and with the support of Pallavan Learning Systems; and Ritinjali)