Mission Life and Ocean Ecosystem
 

Talk by Dr. R. Venkatesan, Gujarat Maritime University, Gujarat and Indian Institute of Technology, Mandi

Introduction: Dr. Malti Goel, President and Chief Executive, Climate Change Research Institute

Special Remarks: Prof. D. P. Agrawal, Chairman, Governing Council, CCRI and Ex-Chairman UPSC

Guest of Honour: Andreas B. Schei, Counsellor for Climate and Environment, Royal Norwegian Embassy in New Delhi

Chief Guest: Dr. M. Ravichandran, Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Govt of India

(Collaboration: Climate Change Research Institute)
 

Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things
(78 minutes; 2016; English)
Director: Matt D’Avella

A documentary that takes the audience inside the lives of minimalists from all walks of life - families, entrepreneurs, architects, artists, journalists, scientists, and even a former Wall Street broker - all striving to live a meaningful life with less.

(Collaboration: Foundation for Universal Responsibility of His Holiness the Dalai Lama)
 

The establishment of the India-Australia trade and the influence of India on the Australian colonies in the early nineteenth century

Speaker: Dr Charmaine O’Brien, author, culinary historian, and educator whose work explores the rich intersections of food, culture, and identity. Authored books like The Penguin Food Guide to India, The Colonial Kitchen: Australia 1788-1901, Eating the Present: Tasting the Future: exploring India through her changing food.

Special Invitee: Gemma Haines, Counsellor Strategic Communications & Public Diplomacy, Australian High Commission New Delhi

Moderator: Gunjan Goela, Chef, author and a food consultant

This talk explores the early foundations of India–Australia trade, beginning with a famine-driven exchange in 1791 and evolving into a dynamic commercial relationship in the nineteenth century. It examines how trade with Calcutta enabled colonial survival, generated wealth, and fostered enterprise, while also tracing India’s cultural influence on settler life, including food, labour, and domestic practices.
 

Where I am From
By Shyla Kumar Sapra ( Har Anand Publications, 2026)

Discussants: Dr Shovana Narayan, Padma Shri, Kathak Guru ; Prof. Radha Chakravarty, Former Professor & Poet and  Amb. Amarendra Khatua, Poet & Former Director General, ICCR

Chair : K N Shrivastava, Director, IIC 
 

Paka and Ahara: Everyday Stories of Food and Nutrition

Speakers: Dr. Kalyan Sekhar Chakraborty, Department of History, Ashoka University and postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History; Dr. Ishita Dey, Department of Sociology, South Asian University; Dr. Neha Vermani, Honorary Fellow, Durham University, UK

Chair: Dr Gurmeet Singh, Professor & Dean (Research & Outreach), TDU

Food has always occupied a central place in South Asian thought—not merely as sustenance, but as a medium through which ideas of health, wellbeing, ethics, labour, ecology and community are articulated. In manuscripts, memories and everyday kitchens, food emerges as a language of balance and belonging. The SAMHiTA- Bharat ki Soch Food Colloquium brings together noted scholars to trace India’s rich heritage and explore how historical and contemporary food practices shape community life. Through conversations that move between scholarship and lived experience, the colloquium traces how food practices in South Asia have shaped ideas of health, wellbeing and nutrition.

Curatorial note: Prof Kiranmayi Bhushi, Department of Sociology, IGNOU

Eternal Sky
(108 minutes;2022; English)
Directed by Debra Kellner

HOW DID TIME BEGIN?
Did the big bang happen, or did something else occur?
Humanity has searched for the answer to this question since time immemorial.
‍Six years in the making, the movie Eternal Sky was filmed over three continents. It follows science's most ambitious quest: how did time begin? Set in the remote Andes in the Chilean Atacama Desert, the documentary reveals an intimate story behind one of science's most competitive races by merging ancient wisdom and modern science. Eternal Sky follows in the footsteps of some of the world's leading astrophysicists as they seek to unravel the origins of time, space, and matter. The film follows the lives of several Atacameno elders who take the viewer on a soulful vision of the cosmos. The coexistence between scientists and the local Atacameno culture is a confrontation between the mystical and the existential.

(Collaboration: Foundation for Universal Responsibility of His Holiness the Dalai Lama)
 

From Amazon to Ganga: A celestial journey
(90 minutes; 2025; English)
Directed and written by Sehdev Kumar
 

This film is a deeply personal meditation on the nature and expression of the spiritual quest, envisioned as a celestial journey. Drawing upon the filmmaker’s life it reflects experiences and inspired by the visions of Sri Aurobindo, Kabir, and Albert Einstein. An evocative interplay of light and water, the film contemplates creation as a cosmic womb, exploring how elemental forces weave together a longing for renewal and new birth.
Sehdev Kumar, Professor Emeritus of Bioethics and Environmental Studies at the University of Waterloo, Canada

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the director of the film.
 

SAMHiTA-Bharat ki Soch Public Lecture Series

Diurnal Medicine: The Rajballabhiya Drabyaguna and the Making of a Regional Medical Tradition in Bengal, 18th to 20th Centuries
 

Speaker: Dr. Projit Bihari Mukharji, Professor of History, Ashoka University, recipient of the Pfizer Award, Guggenheim Fellowship and grants from National Science Foundation of the USA, and the Social Science & Humanities Research Council of Canada. He is the author of Nationalizing the Body: The Medical Market, Print, and Daktari Medicine (2009); and Brown Skins, White Coats: Race Science in India, 1920-66 (2022).

Chair: Dr. Burton Cleetus, Centre for Historical Studies, JNU

The Sanskrit Dravyaguna genre, which developed from earlier Nighantu texts, catalogued medically significant substances (dravya) along with their uses. Focusing on Bengal, the lecture traces the transition from a widely used Dravyaguna attributed to the 11th-century physician Chakrapanidatta to an 18th-century work ascribed to Raja Rajballabh, a Baidya courtier in the court of Bengal’s post Mughal Nawabs. By tracking the evolution of this text, particularly through the early print editions, the lecture revisits the dynamics of the transition from manuscript to print in the context of medical knowledge.

Second lecture of the series on “Health, Wellness and Nutrition”, organised by IIC- International Research Division and Bharat ki Soch Foundation
 

Mindfulness for All

An immersive mindfulness programme with cross-sector panel discussion with experiential practice, exploring stress, emotional balance in life. The session offers practical tools to cultivate mindful awareness in everyday living.
The programme will begin with a flute recital by Pankaj Mishra, flutist-vocalist, direct disciple of late Jagannath Ghoshal and bansuri-shehnai maestro Pandit Rajendra Prasanna followed by a panel discussion. 
Discussants: Dr. Sanjiv Saigal, Principal Director & Head of Hepatology and Liver Transplant Medicine at Max Super Speciality Hospital, Saket; Anuradha Joshi, senior educationist, National Teacher Awardee (2015); Pallavi Singh, Vice President–Human Resources at a global multinational bank; Narender Singh Rawat, Vice President and Chairman of the Umpire Committee, Taekwondo Association of India; Debika Mitra, Co-Founder, Escapades for the Soul, and a Certified Mindfulness Coach. 
Moderator: Nidhi Jarwal, faculty at Miranda House, University of Delhi, and Program Coordinator at the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR)
 

And the alley she whitewashed in light blue 
(72 minutes; 2023; Hebrew with English subtitles)
Directed by Nili Portugali

The film was premiered at the Mumbai International Film Festival

In this cinematic presentation, architect Nili Portugali revisits intimate childhood memories of the Kabbalistic city of Tsefat in the Galilee through her poetic, meditative lens. From a holistic and Buddhist perspective, she reflects on what makes certain places feel timeless and “at home,” and on the ‘pure art of making’ that shapes architecture and the arts across cultures. She also recalls the quiet influence of her grandmother, whom she regarded as a “Zen Master.”

The film screening will be followed by a Q&A with the Director, Nili Portugali.( On-Line)