The Mittal Institute welcomes Rahul Gupta as a Research Affiliate. Rahul’s mission is a malaria-free India, and then the world, through the development of healthy housing strategies to complement the current core malaria interventions of insecticidal bed nets and indoor residual spraying. The Mittal Institute spoke with him about his past experience in the banking world, and current commitment to public health.
It started as a solution to a challenge: how do we help students from India’s government schools follow their dreams and explore their curiosity towards science, technology, and everything in between? The answer took the form of Scienspur: an initiative led by Nagaraju ‘Nag’ Dhanyasi and Vinay Vikas, who brought together their network of Ph.D.s and postdocs using a Mittal Institute grant to provide free science courses to students from public colleges across India.
Nirupama Rao, a former Foreign Secretary of India, unknots this complex saga of the early years of the India-China relationship in her new book, The Fractured Himalaya. As a diplomat-practitioner, Rao’s telling is based not only on archival material from India, China, Britain and the United States, but also on a deep personal knowledge of China, where she served as India’s Ambassador. She shared her new book with the Mittal Institute ahead of her upcoming February 17 Borders in Modern Asia Seminar Series talk, “The Fractured Himalaya.”
Prabhat Jha, Professor in Disease Control at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto and one of the event panelists, gave the Mittal Institute some insight into what he will focus on during the talk. As an epidemiologist, Dr. Jha studies the major causes of death in developing countries – including those from COVID-19. He is the lead author of a study published in Science that estimates India’s total COVID-19 deaths are “substantially greater than estimated from official reports.” He shared more on his survey in the interview below.
Sujata Saunik, former Mittal Institute Research Affiliate and current Additional Chief Secretary of the Government of Maharashtra, spoke with the Mittal Institute about her new book, “Deconstructing the Kumbh Mela: Nashik-Trimbakeshwar 2015 – A Public Health Perspective,” which details some of the underpinings of planning the Kumbh Mela. She was the Principal Health Secretary during the 2015 Kumbh Mela, and in the book documents the detailed planning, preparedness and foresight necessary to plan an event of such magnitude. Sujata says the book is a celebration of the zeal of the entire workforce that is involved in the event, and she shares her experience in the interview that follows.
Rahul Mehrotra—practicing architect, urban designer, and educator—recently released a new book, entitled “The Kinetic City & Other Essays.” The book presents Rahul’s writings over the last thirty years and illustrates his long-term engagement with and analysis of urbanism in India.
The Mittal Institute’s Delhi Office has long been focused on fostering collaborations – both in-country and beyond. They recently had a visit from S.V. Subramanian, a Professor of Population Health and Geography at Harvard University, and chair of the Faculty Advisory Group for the Center for Geographic Analysis at Harvard University. He is also the Principal Investigator of the India Policy Insights program, based out of the Geographic Insights lab at Harvard. This interdisciplinary research lab uses fine-grained data to bring important insights and accountability to policy actions. Professor Subramanian is based at the LMSAI Delhi office while he works on the program, where he is building collaborations with stakeholders, including the government of India.
The Lancet Citizens’ Commission on Reimagining India’s Health System partnered with the Centre for Health Equity, Law and Policy to present a joint webinar on the interlinkages between right to health and universal health coverage. The panel discussed the right to health as a foundational framework for design and implementation of universal health coverage, emphasizing marginalized contexts, and social determinants of health.
Nell Shapiro Hawley ‘11, a scholar of the Mahābhārata and its early iterations in Sanskrit poetry and drama, is the Preceptor in Sanskrit in the Harvard University Department of South Asian Studies and current Ph.D candidate in South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. She recently released a new book, Many Mahābhāratas (SUNY Press), which she co-edited with Sohini Sarah Pillai. The volume is an introduction to the spectacular and long-lived diversity of Mahābhārata literature in South Asia. The Mahābhārata, with roughly 1.8. million words, is the longest epic poem known. The Mittal Institute sat down with Nell to learn more about her research, and the importance of the book to the landscape of South Asian literature.
Aakrity Madhan, a Masters of Design Studies candidate in the Harvard Graduate School of Design, received an LMSAI student grant to carry out an in-country study of India’s construction and demolition waste. Her project, “Circularity in Construction and Demolition Waste Management,” explored the life-cycle of waste, and offered some suggestions to lesson its climate impact. She shares her findings in a reflection.