Concert

Presented by Advaita Crescendo Quintet

With Dr. Suma Sudhindra (veena); Federica Colangelo (piano); Ned McGowan (flute); Karthik Mani (percussion, vocals); and Laurent Peckels (bass)

Advaita Crescendo is a new ensemble that weaves the rhythmic and expressive threads of Indian Carnatic music with the spontaneous flow of European jazz. Their rich compositions and intimate improvisations reflect the essence of Advaita – the unity of diversity

Organised in collaboration with Italian Embassy Cultural Centre; and Embassy of Luxembourg; and Embassy of the Netherlands

Illustrated lecture by Brig. Ashok Abbey, a veteran climber, who has climbed extensively for over 43 years in the Karakoram, Great Himalaya, and adjoining mountain ranges who will retrace Galwan’s fascinating life, journey and travels.

With select photographs from the personal collection of Amb. Shyam Saran, President, IIC

Speaker: Dr. Janet Rizvi, Cambridge educated independent scholar who has specialised in Ladakh. Her two seminal books, Ladakh: Crossroads of High Asia; and Trans-Himalayan Caravans: Merchant Princes and Peasant Traders in Ladakh are well-known. She has also written numerous papers and articles on Ladakh, Kashmir and the wider are of Western Himalayas.

Chair:  Amb. Shyam Saran, President IIC

Moderator & Host: Ms Ahtushi Deshpande, travel journalist, photographer and author of Speaking Stones: Rock Art of Ladakh (2024)

Time of Monsters, Time of Possibilities: Reflections on an Interstitial Era

Speaker: Dr. Amitav Ghosh, well-known writer, recipient of the Jnanpith Award in 2018, the Erasmus Prize in 2024 and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Chair: Shri Shyam Saran, President, IIC

Ours is an era of multiple intersecting crises and transitions - of geopolitics, financial structures, and, perhaps most importantly, of environmental and ecological regimes that are slowly but surely pushing the planet towards catastrophe. And yet, the paradox of this interstitial era is that it has also made it possible to contemplate, and even embrace, possibilities that were denied or rejected during the age of high modernity. This lecture explores some of these paradoxes and possibilities. 
 

Global Governance of Artificial Intelligence

Speaker: Mr. Amandeep Singh Gill, United Nations Secretary-General’s Envoy on Technology and Under-Secretary General

Chair: Shri Shyam Saran, President, IIC
 

Sitar Recital

By Shubhrodeep Pathak from Gurgaon, disciple of Vidushi Sahana Banerjee

At 19:00 
Hindustani Vocal Recital

By Swarali Panshikar Kulkarni from Mumbai, disciple of Pt. Shankar Abhyankar
 

Indian Soil in Revolution
(55 min; 2023; English)
Directed by Renuka George who will introduce the film

Screening will be followed by a discussion

In 2015, with the support of the state government of Andhra Pradesh, senior civil servant T. Vijay Kumar introduced natural agriculture on a large scale. The aim: to convert 6 million farmers to chemical-free agriculture. Through meetings with farmers and with T. Vijay Kumar, this film is an insight into the success of these new methods and the vision behind the world’s largest agroecological transition experiment
 

Main Tum Hoon, Tum Main Ho! (Hindi/Hindustani; 50 min)

Human values, such as empathy, compassion, resilience, are vividly reflected in Hindi literature particularly in the context of the Partition of India in 1947. The traumatic division of the country left millions displaced, with families torn apart, and communities fractured by violence and distrust. Writers of the time portrayed the raw human emotions and the social chaos that accompanied this historic event.

A performance based on text - poetry, prose and anecdotes in the works of Punjabi writers such as Mohan Rakesh, Bhishm Sahani, Krishna Sobti, Agyeya, and Yashpal.

Dramatised readings and enactment by Alka Ranjan, Prof. Apoorvanand, Dr. Purwa Raza Haider and Yusra Naqvi

Concert – Piano for Four Hands

By Gioia Barbera and Federico Bucaioni from Italy

The artists will present compositions by W.A. Mozart; Franz Schubert; and S. Rachmaninov among others

(Collaboration: Delhi Music Society)