People’s Road: Connecting Rural Populations
Mittal Institute Fellow Raile Rocky Ziipao discusses the case of the People’s Road, in which the community funded and built 100 km of road in Northeast India where the State had failed for decades.
Category : Announcements
Visiting Artist Profile: Kabi Raj Lama
2018 Mittal Institute Visiting Artist Kabi Raj Lama is a contemporary printmaker based in Kathmandu, who primarily works with lithography and the Japanese mokuhanga (woodcut) medium. His work examines themes of natural disasters, trauma, and healing through art. In this interview, we discuss how he first discovered printmaking, his personal encounters with natural disasters and what he has been up to at Harvard.
India Seminar Series: “It’s Complicated – Unpacking the Material Consequences of Political Reservation in Bihar”
M.R. Sharan, a PhD candidate at the the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, presented joint work with Chinmaya Kumar, University of Chicago, on elections in Bihar at a seminar on May 29, 2018. Sharan and Kumar’s work investigates how political reservation in favor of Scheduled Castes (SCs) in Bihar affects inequality in private wealth and access to public goods.
New Group of Student Ambassadors Joins the Oral Histories Project: Looking Back, Informing the Future
As part of the oral histories collection under the Partition Project, 40 student volunteers came together last week for their first orientation as ambassadors to collect oral stories from the survivors of Partition.
2018 Summer Grant Recipients
The Mittal Institute has awarded 22 grants to support student projects over the Summer Session 2018. These include 17 graduate students and 5 undergraduate students who will travel to India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar, and Pakistan for research and internships.
Seed for Change Winner Green Screen
The Mittal Institute’s Seed for Change Program (SFC) aims to develop a vibrant ecosystem for innovation and entrepreneurship in India and Pakistan through an annual competition. Through SFC, grant prizes are awarded to interdisciplinary student projects that positively impact societal, economic, and environmental issues in India and Pakistan. We spoke to Gina Ciancone from “Green Screen,” the winning team for India. She discussed the genesis of the project and gave advice to students thinking about entering next year’s competition.
The Jana Swasthya Project at the 2015 Kumbh Mela
Three years ago, we launched the Jana Swasthya Project at the 2015 Kumbh Mela in Nashik and Trimbakeshwar, India. It was comprised of two components: a large-scale digital disease surveillance program, EMcounter, and a mass screening program for oral health, hypertension and diabetes offered to pilgrims, sadhus, security forces, and all visitors.
New Podcasts: “Culture Eats Technology” and “How Scientists And Economists Get Things Done (And Save Lives)”
A fascinating conversation from our 2018 Symposium between Professor Ashok Gadgil (UC Berkeley), Professor Tarun Khanna (The Mittal Institute; Harvard Business School) and Professor Asim Khwaja (Harvard Kennedy School) – they talk about how difficult it is to solve life-or-death problems, even with great resources, and the kinds of things you have to do in order to get things done. The podcast is published in two parts.
Q+A: Building Relationships as a Documentary Photographer
Mittal Institute Visiting Artist, Faiham Ebna Sharif is a freelance journalist and photographer focusing on social issues in his home country of Bangladesh. During his time at Harvard, Faiham has been researching the world tea trade in Harvard’s museums and libraries
Year in Review Publication
Every year the Mittal Institute publishes an annual report that chronicles the highlights of the academic year. This report showcases the breadth of interdisciplinary faculty and student research projects, programs and events that The Mittal Institute supports related to South Asia both at Harvard and In-region.
Seed for Change 2018 Winners Announced
Congratulations to Green Screen and Umbulizer, the winners of our 2018 Seed for Change Competition. Umbulizer, the winner of Seed for Change Pakistan, will receive $15,000 to further develop a reliable, low-cost, and portable device that can provide continuous ventilation to patients in resource-limited healthcare settings. Green Screen, winner of Seed for Change India, will receive $40,000 to produce a zero-electricity, modular ventilation panel made from an agricultural waste byproduct and designed for the slums of New Delhi, India.
Q + A: Advancing Academic Study of Buddhism in Nepal
Before the upcoming Buddhism in Nepal conference on Monday, May 7, The Mittal Institute spoke with professor and conference organizer Leonard van der Kuijp about the conference and the Nepal Studies Program.