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 Silk Road – an ancient network of international trade routes, home to diverse culture and traditions – has long been the subject of interest for LMSAI Affiliate Hasna Moudud. Over the past several years, she has journeyed on and researched the Silk Road’s connections to South Asia. In an upcoming Mittal Institute seminar, “Winds of Change: The Silk Road to South Asia,” on Wednesday, November 17 at 10:00am, Hasna will present findings from years of excursions and studies on the Southern Silk Road and the need to preserve this important part of the region’s heritage.
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.
Akshay Dixit, a Mittal Institute Graduate Student Associate, is a Ph.D. student of Political Economy & Government at Harvard University. He is a James M. and Cathleen D. Stone PhD Scholar in Inequality and Wealth Concentration, and a recipient of the Amartya Sen Fellowship for Students from India. He is interested in studying how people form beliefs about fairness and inequality, and how that shapes their support for redistributive policies. In ongoing research with Rachel Brulé, he is examining the effect of climate change-induced weather shocks on women’s collective political engagement in Bangladesh. In the past, Akshay has done research on youth civic engagement and accountability in public services, as a Research Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, and prior to that at Save the Children. He spent two years in Bangladesh as a Research Associate at Innovations for Poverty Action. The Mittal Institute sat down with Akshay to learn more about his research and future aspirations.
Last week, the Mittal Institute announced the launch of an inaugural India Fellowship. The Fellowship will commence on March 15, 2022, and aims to support research projects that focus on the advancement of public benefit in India. This unique Fellowship offers two (2) postdoctoral researchers in New Delhi the opportunity to work with Harvard Faculty remotely and have remote access to all Harvard libraries. It prioritizes scholars who have never received any opportunities or access to Harvard resources and those whom have primarily been educated at institutions in India. The Mittal Institute sat down with Sanjay Kumar, India Country Director at the Mittal Institute, to learn more about this exciting new opportunity.
This Harvard University panel, co-sponsored by the Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute and the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies’ Negotiation Task Force, explored the lead up to the collapse of the Afghan government, as well as what the new Taliban regime means for the future of the country and its people.
On Friday, October 15, the Mittal Institute and the Negotiation Task Force present “Afghanistan’s Next Transition: How we got here, and what comes next,” a focus on the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Discussants will explore the lead up to the collapse of the Afghan government, and what the new Taliban regime means for the future of the country and its people. Arvid Bell spoke with the Mittal Institute about his work, and what we can expect the panelists to cover at the October 15 event. Arvid is a scholar and entrepreneur who specializes in complex conflict analysis, negotiation strategy, and international security. He is lecturer on Government at Harvard University, Director of the Negotiation Task Force at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, and Partner at Negotiation Design & Strategy (NDS), a training, advisory, and research development group.
Scienspur is an initiative that provides free science courses online to promising undergraduate and master’s students at public colleges in India’s rural areas.