This February a group of Harvard Graduate School of Design students set out for Mumbai to explore urbanism in one of the world’s most crowded cities as part of the “Extreme Urbanism 9: Imagining Housing as Urban Form” course at the Graduate School of Design. Harish Krishnamoorthy (MAUD ’25) is an urban designer and architect from Bengaluru, India is a student in and teaching assistant for the studio, led by Rahul Mehrotra, John T. Dunlop Professor in Housing and Urbanization at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Harish kept a travelogue of his experience, which he shares with the Mittal Institute below.
The annual student-led India Conference at Harvard returns to campus for its 21st year on February 17 and 18, with experts from various sectors including business, economy and culture offering insight into India’s current landscape and future. We spoke to two of the four co-organizers, Ananya Chhaochharia (Harvard Kennedy School) and Ishaan Poddar (Harvard Business School) to understand the goals of the conference, and unpack this year’s theme, “India Rising.”
The Program for Scientifically-Inspired Leadership, funded in part and administered by the Mittal Institute, pairs Harvard undergraduates and Osmania university students with high school students from public high schools in Telangana for a cross-cultural learning experience built on the scientific process and focused on the liberal arts and sciences philosophy. By interacting together, all three groups gain a deeper understanding of teaching and learning. The program is the brainchild of Dominic Mao, Assistant Director of Undergraduate Studies for two of Harvard’s life science concentrations and a lecturer in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard. We spoke with him for more on the program, and what the teacher/student interaction is like.
Robert Rahman Raman joins the Mittal Institute as the third batch of India Fellows. We spoke with Robert about his research.
India Fellow Rinan Shah speaks about looking forward to her upcoming year with the Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, Harvard University, at the Delhi office.
Panelists gathered at the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Longfellow Hall last Friday for an event on the “Future of Cities” in a warming world said the topic is particularly relevant this year, when global temperatures soared to new records.
Dr. P. Sivakami, an Indian Dalit author who predominately writes in Tamil across many genres of literature, recently spoke at Harvard in conversation with Professor Martha Selby, Sangam Professor of South Asian Studies and Professor of Comparative Literature Harvard University. She first began her career as an Indian Administrative Services officer and later as an author was the first Dalit woman to become a novelist. We spoke with Dr. Sivakami about her career as an author, governmental official, and politician.
This fall the Mittal Institute welcomed Anu Kottemkerry Antony as the new Raghunathan Family Fellow. Anu is a researcher whose scholarship focuses on the themes of subjectivity, women’s religious life and labor, everyday religiosity, and post-secular discourses in the context of Indian Christianity. She is formerly a visiting faculty member at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Tuljapur, India, and she shared what she looks forward to for her upcoming year at Harvard.