The Seed for Change Program (SFC) is an annual competition run by The Mittal Institute, in which grant prizes will be awarded to interdisciplinary student projects that positively impact societal, economic, and environmental issues in India and Pakistan. First deadline: Dec 7, 2018.
Delhi-based filmmaker Aman Kaleem’s documentary on the institution of marriage through the perspective of three Indian brides. The characters explore the ideas of love, body image, and identity while seeking liberation for themselves. Kaleem is one of the four Mittal Institute Visiting Artist Fellows for 2018/19.
Green Screen is a zero-electricity passive air cooling panel installed in urban slums, made entirely of agricultural waste. Earlier this year, it won The Mittal Institute’s Seed for Change competition. It will launch in New Delhi in 2019 and one of its founders, Gina Ciancone, discusses her presentation of the product at the UN General Assembly last month.
Worldwide Week at Harvard showcases the remarkable breadth of Harvard’s global engagement. During Worldwide Week, Harvard Schools, research centers, departments, and student organizations host academic and cultural events with global or international themes.
For more information, please visit https://worldwide.harvard.edu/worldwide-week
START
Sat, Oct 20, 2018
END
Sat, Oct 27, 2018
The agriculture, groundwater and electricity sectors in India are bound in an unsustainable nexus of mutual interdependence. Growth in the agriculture sector is often reliant on unsustainable practices in the groundwater and electricity sectors. Likewise, policies and practices in one sector affect outcomes in all three sectors. This mutual interdependence is referred to as the water-energy-food nexus (WEF).
START
Mon, Oct 22, 2018 at 02:30pm
END
Mon, Oct 22, 2018 at 04:00pm
VENUE
Harvard Kennedy School, Taubman Building
ADDRESS
79 John F. Kennedy St, Cambridge, MA 02138
This volume opens with Mohandas Gandhi’s arrival in Bombay in January 1915 and takes us through his epic struggles over the next three decades: to deliver India from British rule, to forge harmonious relations between India’s Hindu and Muslim populations, to end the pernicious Hindu practice of untouchability, and to develop India’s economic and moral self-reliance.
Up to 100 people will be able to gain FREE ADMISSION via the ticketing website by using the promo code MITTAL.
START
Mon, Oct 22, 2018 at 07:00pm
END
Mon, Oct 22, 2018
COST: $42.50 (book included); $8 (general entrance)
VENUE
First Parish Church
ADDRESS
1446 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
The agriculture, groundwater and electricity sectors in India are bound in an unsustainable nexus of mutual interdependence. Growth in the agriculture sector is often reliant on unsustainable practices in the groundwater and electricity sectors. Likewise, policies and practices in one sector affect outcomes in all three sectors. This mutual interdependence is referred to as the water-energy-food nexus (WEF). The institutions undergirding India’s WEF nexus were shaped by the imperative to make India food secure at a time when hunger and starvation seemed imminent. While the Green Revolution led to an expansion in India’s food production, the de-metering of the agricultural electricity supply in late 1970s–early 1980s led to a WEF nexus that has become untenable in India today.
While many accounts of India’s rapid groundwater decline do not differentiate across contexts, Dr. Mukherji’s work shows that there is wide variation across states in the functioning and outcomes of the WEF nexus, which has led to distinctly different outcomes in terms of their sustainability today. In this talk, through three state-level case studies, she demonstrates that variation in outcomes in the WEF nexus is caused not only by the physical characteristics of groundwater endowments and rainfall-recharge in each state, but also by variation in both institutional policies and in political exigencies between states. It follows that policies to improve the sustainability of the WEF nexus must take into account this inter-state variation.
Dr. Mukherji is the first ever recipient of the Borlaug Field Award (2012), which recognizes “exceptional, science-based achievement in international agriculture and food production by an individual under the age of 40 who has clearly emulated the same intellectual courage, stamina and determination in the fight to eliminate global hunger and poverty as was demonstrated by Dr. Norman Borlaug as a young scientist.” The award is endowed by the Rockefeller Foundation and given by the World Food Prize Foundation, USA.
Dr. Mukherji currently leads the Water and Air Theme at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in Nepal. She has over 18 years of experience working on policies and institutions of water resources management with a special focus on water-energy-food nexus. She has published over 50 peer reviewed papers. Dr. Mukherji has served as a Permanent Consultative Committee member of GEF-FAO’s Groundwater Governance project hosted by FAO at Rome. She is currently a part of the 6th Assessment Report team of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and will contribute as Coordinating Lead Author (CLA) for the Water Chapter in the Working Group II. Aditi is a human geographer by training and has a PhD from Cambridge University, United Kingdom where she was a Gates Cambridge Scholar.
Co-sponsored by:
Sustainability Science Program (SSP), Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, HKS
Evidence for Policy Design (EPoD), Harvard Kennedy School
Harvard University Center for the Environment (HUCE)
The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute (SAI), Harvard University
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs (WCfIA)
The MIT Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (JWAFS)
START
Mon, Oct 22, 2018 at 02:30am
END
Mon, Oct 22, 2018 at 04:00pm
VENUE
Harvard Kennedy School, T-301, Taubman Building (Third Floor)
ADDRESS
79 John F. Kennedy St, Cambridge, MA 02138
The Seed for Change Program (SFC) is an annual competition run by The Mittal Institute, in which grant prizes will be awarded to interdisciplinary student projects that positively impact societal, economic, and environmental issues in India and Pakistan. First deadline: Dec 7, 2018.
As part of its successful India Seminar Series in New Delhi, The Mittal Institute invited Professor Anita Raj, UC San Diego, to present three major studies on gender, youth and violence.
Green Screen is a zero-electricity passive air cooling panel installed in urban slums, made entirely of agricultural waste. Earlier this year, it won The Mittal Institute’s Seed for Change competition. It will launch in New Delhi in 2019 and one of its founders, Gina Ciancone, discusses her presentation of the product at the UN General Assembly last month.
As part of our ongoing India Seminar Series, we put together a panel titled, “Tackling Fluorosis: Innovative Technology as a Solution to the Spreading Health Crisis”. The event was part of a project funded by the Tata Trusts-Mittal Institute initiative called “Multidisciplinary Approaches to Innovative Social Enterprises.” The project looks at scalable and affordable methods of removing fluoride from drinking water in fluoride heavy rural areas, where there is a dearth of access to even the very basic resources like proper nutrition, education, and clean drinking water.
Alongside our partners – the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University and BRAC – we are supporting an interdisciplinary team of researchers from Harvard and Bangladesh, who are examining a range of issues facing vulnerable populations in and around South Asia.
“It’s a big leap for me, personally and professionally, and the fellowship was unexpected. But in the first few days here, I have already felt the exciting academic and intellectual atmosphere. The issues that I touch upon in my own work are very much global in nature. There is a lot to learn from other parts of the world. I can listen, share my ideas and fully participate in the academic exchange.”
We’re launching our first ever Alumni Spotlight Series! Stay tuned for inspiring stories from Harvard Alumni in India. Know an inspiring change maker Harvard Alum working in India? Write to us at mittalinstitutedelhi@fas.harvard.edu
“Welcome to the start of another busy, transformative year at the Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute at Harvard University. The Mittal family’s generosity will enable us not only to continue our quest to research and understand the region and its relationship with the world, but will also allow our faculty, students and affiliates to push even further to produce new and useful knowledge.”
The recent floods that hit Kerala have been the worst floods the State has faced since 1924. Many places in the state are neck-deep in water, massive landslides have laid waste to roads, houses and other infrastructure, thousands of hectares of crops are ruined and hundreds of people have lost their lives. The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute at Harvard University and the America India Foundation are encouraging monetary donations from people in the US.
As part of the India seminar series, The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, Harvard University partnered with Sangath and It’s Okay to Talk for an event titled ‘Unspoken Story’. The event was a conversation between Vikram Patel, The Pershing Square Professor of Global Health, Harvard Medical School and two young women on their personal journey and experiences with mental health.
