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.
Project Empower seeks to address these barriers through a digital platform for community health workers, which provides virtual training on identifying and treating common mental health disorders. In Gujarat, Project Empower piloted a digital platform, called TeCHO, to enable front-line providers to learn brief psychological interventions.
One key to successful healthcare is competent, trained healthcare professionals – but how can this training model improve? A recent Lancet Citizens’ Commission webinar explored this issue, through keynote lectures and a panel discussion.
Nusrat Jahan Mim, a Harvard D.Des candidate, was a recipient of a Mittal Institute Summer 2021 Research Grant, and she shared her findings in the account below. As a part of her Doctor of Design thesis, she investigated and collected spatial data from the largest annual makeshift cattle marketplaces in Dhaka, Bangladesh during Eid ul Adha (July 19-23, 2021).