2018 Mittal Institute Visiting Artist Kabi Raj Lama is a contemporary printmaker based in Kathmandu, who primarily works with lithography and the Japanese mokuhanga (woodcut) medium. His work examines themes of natural disasters, trauma, and healing through art. In this interview, we discuss how he first discovered printmaking, his personal encounters with natural disasters and what he has been up to at Harvard.
M.R. Sharan, a PhD candidate at the the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, presented joint work with Chinmaya Kumar, University of Chicago, on elections in Bihar at a seminar on May 29, 2018. Sharan and Kumar’s work investigates how political reservation in favor of Scheduled Castes (SCs) in Bihar affects inequality in private wealth and access to public goods.
As part of the oral histories collection under the Partition Project, 40 student volunteers came together last week for their first orientation as ambassadors to collect oral stories from the survivors of Partition.
The Mittal Institute’s Seed for Change Program (SFC) aims to develop a vibrant ecosystem for innovation and entrepreneurship in India and Pakistan through an annual competition. Through SFC, grant prizes are awarded to interdisciplinary student projects that positively impact societal, economic, and environmental issues in India and Pakistan. We spoke to Gina Ciancone from “Green Screen,” the winning team for India. She discussed the genesis of the project and gave advice to students thinking about entering next year’s competition.
For nearly twenty years, new graduates of the Harvard Graduate School of Education have been carrying and waving children’s books as they enter Harvard Yard for the commencement ceremony. This tradition emphasizes the importance of children’s literacy and inclusion, as the books represent different cultures from around the world.
This year amongst copies of The Hungry Caterpillar and A Snowy Day will be several copies of Harvard Doctoral Candidate Maung Nyeu’s children’s books. These multilingual books are based on stories collected by children of Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), Bangladesh. The books contain moral and civic values and the wisdom of generations and help revitalize endangered languages and revive vanishing cultures.
Three years ago, we launched the Jana Swasthya Project at the 2015 Kumbh Mela in Nashik and Trimbakeshwar, India. It was comprised of two components: a large-scale digital disease surveillance program, EMcounter, and a mass screening program for oral health, hypertension and diabetes offered to pilgrims, sadhus, security forces, and all visitors.
Mittal Institute Visiting Artist, Faiham Ebna Sharif is a freelance journalist and photographer focusing on social issues in his home country of Bangladesh. During his time at Harvard, Faiham has been researching the world tea trade in Harvard’s museums and libraries
Congratulations to Green Screen and Umbulizer, the winners of our 2018 Seed for Change Competition. Umbulizer, the winner of Seed for Change Pakistan, will receive $15,000 to further develop a reliable, low-cost, and portable device that can provide continuous ventilation to patients in resource-limited healthcare settings. Green Screen, winner of Seed for Change India, will receive $40,000 to produce a zero-electricity, modular ventilation panel made from an agricultural waste byproduct and designed for the slums of New Delhi, India.
Before the upcoming Buddhism in Nepal conference on Monday, May 7, The Mittal Institute spoke with professor and conference organizer Leonard van der Kuijp about the conference and the Nepal Studies Program.
In the developing world, 95% of people with a clinically significant mental illness receive no treatment at all, and it costs the global economy an estimated trillion dollars a year. Vikram Patel is a distinguished Indian psychiatrist and The Pershing Square Professor of Global Health at Harvard Medical School. The Mittal Institute’s Hasit Shah caught up with him before our 2018 Symposium, where Professor Patel was one of the key speakers.
The Lakshmi Mittal South Asia Institute (SAI), Harvard University conducted an open house on “Trust and Creativity, Fostering Entrepreneurship in Developing Countries,” the last in a series of events planned to mark the official opening of its India headquarters in Delhi.
Murad Khan Mumtaz’s research focuses on devotional portraiture with a special interest in representations of Muslim saints in early modern India. On April 6th, he gave a talk at SAI that will discuss sixteenth and early-seventeenth-century album and manuscript paintings made for Muslim patrons. Before his talk, we chatted with him about his Miniature Portrait training at the Lahore National College of Art, his influences, and journey into traditional musawwari painting.