Through a collaboration between the Tata Trusts and the Mittal Institute, the project “Designing a Sanitation Hub” will yield a series of design drawings and representations of how a sanitation “hub” will be configured spatially in both rural and urban settings, including indigenous community settlements (such as the koliwadas and lal dora areas) to high-density squatter settlements.
Binalakshmi Nepram, a Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, is an indigenous scholar and human rights defender from Manipur in Northeast India. We recently spoke with her to learn more about her efforts in disarmament, the importance of women in peace processes, and her current fellowship with the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy.
Last year, the Crossroads Emerging Leaders Program received 6,093 total applications from 115 countries spanning the Middle East, Africa, Central Asia, Latin America, South Asia, and US students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU). Selected students joined the Crossroads Virtual Program via Zoom to attend an interdisciplinary seminar series uniquely designed for them, curated to encourage their individual professional and academic aspirations. The Crossroads Virtual Program featured 13 fascinating and insightful lessons given by senior Harvard faculty across a range of disciplines.
The Seed for Change (SFC) competition aims to develop a vibrant ecosystem for innovation and entrepreneurship in India and Pakistan through an annual competition run by the Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute at Harvard University. Grant prizes will be awarded to interdisciplinary student projects that positively impact societal, economic, and environmental issues in India and Pakistan. Applications for the 2021 cycle must be submitted by February 26, 2021.
Each semester, the Mittal Institute offers grants to Harvard students to further their research, language study, or internship opportunities. This semester, 14 students were awarded grants to carry out projects during the 2021 Wintersession, ranging from research on a timeline of South Asia history from the dawn of Indus valley civilization until 1947 CE, to language studies on Sinhala, Bangla, Kashmiri, and more.
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant and negative impact on the delivery of eye health services around the world, while pushing new behaviors of both consumers and healthcare service provides. We spoke with Ajay Chawariya, the Executive Director of Project Prakash Charitable Trust (PPCT), to understand how the Project Prakash team is dealing with the challenges of providing eye care during the pandemic.
Another big year for the Mittal Institute and our community has sped by. 2020 has been marked by big changes, and with it we have shifted our operations to the virtual world to continue providing events, in-region programming, and opportunities for our students and faculty to pursue their research on South Asia at Harvard.
New Delhi, December 11, 2020: India’s efforts to achieve universal health coverage (UHC) will now be catalyzed by the voices of its citizens and prominent stakeholders from across diverse sectors of India’s health system with the launch of Reimagining India’s Health System: A Lancet Citizens’ Commission. The work of the Commission will begin today, with an aim to publish a final report of its findings and recommendations in the next two years.
Join us next Friday, December 11, for the launch event of the Lancet Citizens’ Commission on Reimagining India’s Health System. The Lancet Citizens’ Commission is an ambitious, cross-sectoral endeavor that is working to develop a citizens’ roadmap to achieve universal health coverage throughout India. The Commission will be the first participatory, country-wide report of its scale to be published by the Lancet, a leading international medical journal that has paved the way for medical reforms and global health discussions around the world.
Until recently, expertise from outside of South Asia has been crucial to informing practices around cultural conservation, but efforts need to be made to understand and adapt to the regional context and nuances. The current state of research and practice of conservation in India is in a nascent stage and is faced by the overwhelming task of the safekeeping and conservation of India’s vast material and intangible cultural heritage. We spoke with Anupam Sah, the Head of Conservation at the CSMVS Museum, to learn more about the status of art and heritage conservation in India. Anupam Sah will be moderating an upcoming two-part seminar series on December 10, “Art and Science of Heritage Conservation: Finding the Right Balance.”
Recently, a discussion moderated by Richard Cash, Senior Lecturer on Global Health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, brought together Satchit Balsari, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Manoj Mohanan, Associate Professor of Public Policy, Economics, and Global Health at Duke University, to discuss “A Class Apart: COVID-19 Seroprevalence in India.” Together, they explored the findings and implications of a recent seroprevalence survey (the number of individuals in a population who test positive for a specific disease based on serology specimens) conducted by Professor Mohanan’s team in India.
Emmerich Davies, Assistant Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, recently moderated a discussion with panelists Ayaz Aziz (Manager, Online Education, Bangladesh Youth Leadership Center), Nishant Pandey (CEO, American India Foundation), Rumee Singh (Founder, Katha4Nepal), and Haroon Yasin (Co-founder and CEO, Orenda) as they showcased their innovative models of education delivery in times of the pandemic.