Category : In Region

Annual Symposium Preview: The Role of Empathy in Global Health & Social Medicine

Apr 22, 2024 | Announcements, Climate, India, News

Dr. Bharat Vatwani, one of the speakers at LMSAI’s Annual Cambridge Symposium: Science and Technology – the Future of South Asia, is a psychiatrist based in Mumbai who has dedicated much of his professional career to aiding the mentally ill. Together with his wife, Dr. Smitha, he founded Shraddha Rehabilitation Foundation in 1988, an NGO dedicated to treating mentally ill and unhoused individuals in India. He shared more about his life’s work in the Q&A below, and previewed what attendees can expect at his fireside chat.

The Mittal Institute’s Summer 2024 Student Grant Recipients

Apr 18, 2024 | Announcements, In Region, News, Students

Each semester, the Mittal Institute offers grants to Harvard students to further their research, language study, or internship opportunities. This coming summer 2024, 13 students were awarded grants to carry out projects across five countries, ranging from studies on women in Urdu print culture, to the career mobility of rural-urban migrants in India, to the environmental impacts on mothers with disabled infants, to language studies on Persian, Mewati, and more.

On Community Engagement for Climate Resilience: A Q&A with Mihir Bhatt

Apr 16, 2024 | Announcements, Climate, In Region, News

In this second instalment of a new interview series with Mittal Institute’s Climate Change Platform collaborators in South Asia, we spoke with Mihir Bhatt, the director of the All India Disaster Mitigation Institute. An architect and city planner by training and practice, he’s a former fellow with the François-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Center for Health and Human Rights and Harvard Humanitarian Initiative at Harvard University and was deputy lead to joint evaluation of the humanitarian work of both UN and international nongovernmental agencies on tsunami relief and rehabilitation activities in coastal areas of South India, and Indonesia. He was a coordinating lead author of a chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report, “Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation” where heatwaves were a focus.

Nazmul Haque, Mason Fellow, Pioneers Energy Initiatives in Rural Bangladesh

Apr 16, 2024 | Announcements, Bangladesh, Climate, News

Nazmul Haque, a current Mason Fellow in ClassACT HR73’s Benazir Bhutto Leadership Program at the Harvard Kennedy School, has a long history of developing public-private partnerships in response to climate change in his home country of Bangladesh. His experience was a case study for a recent symposium, “Climate Change, Public-Private Partnerships, and Social Equity: Lessons from Bangladesh” – also co-sponsored by the Weatherhead Center and the Salata Institute – in which Harvard practitioners and professors gathered to examine and enlarge upon the examples offered by Nazmul’s career. We spoke with him about his commitment to sustainability, and what the symposium meant for him.

It Takes a Village: Harvard Students Reflect on Creating the HUM SAB EK (We Are One) Exhibition

Apr 10, 2024 | Announcements, COVID-19, India, News, Students

The multimedia exhibition HUM SAB EK (We Are One) launched this past week at CGIS South (read an interview with project leader Dr. Satchit Balsari here). Ahead of the April 15 Opening Reception, we spoke with some of the students who volunteered their time to make this exhibition a reality. Few had prior experience bringing an exhibit to life, yet they all pitched in to make it a reality. They hail from departments and schools across Harvard, with a variety of academic backgrounds and interests. Together they created something powerful, and look forward to bringing their immersive show to sites around the U.S. in in South Asia.

A. Revathi, Activist and Performer, on Her Journey as an Indian Trans Woman

Apr 9, 2024 | Announcements, India, News

Vellai Mozhi – Frankly Speaking is a powerful first-person account of a hijra-thirunangai-transfeminine experience in southern India. A. Revathi enacts her life as a Tamil trans woman, stringing stories about finding community, navigating family relationships, encountering violence, building solidarities, finding and losing love, and discovering the joys of writing and performing. A. Revathi previewed the upcoming April 18 event for us in a Q&A.

Behind the Scenes of the Exhibition “HUM SAB EK – We Are One” with Dr. Satchit Balsari

Apr 3, 2024 | Announcements, India, News, Students

April 15 will mark the launch of a new multi-media exhibition on the Harvard campus, titled HUM SAB EK (We Are One). The project leader is Dr. Satchit Balsari, Associate Professor in Emergency Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and LMSAI Steering Committee member. In this Q+A, Satchit Balsari talks about the ideation of the exhibition, what difficulties the curatorial team came across, and the lessons that public health can learn from poor working women in India.

From Rituals to Resilience: A Conversation with Nepali artist Sneha Shrestha

Apr 3, 2024 | Announcements, Nepal, News

Sneha Shrestha, known by her artistic alias IMAGINE, is a Nepali artist who gracefully incorporates her native language and meshes the aesthetics of Nepali manuscripts with graffiti influences. We are also lucky enough to call her one of our own, as she is the Mittal Institute’s Arts Program Manager. We had the privilege of discussing her recent milestone as the first Contemporary Nepali artist to have her work permanently acquired by the MFA. We also eagerly anticipate insights into her latest exhibit in New York and the opening of her solo show, Ritual and Devotion.

Susan Crawford on “Visiting the Future” of Climate Change in Bangladesh

Apr 3, 2024 | Announcements, Bangladesh, Climate, Faculty, News

This spring break, Prof. Susan Crawford, John A. Reilly Clinical Professor of Law, set out to Bangladesh on a Mittal Institute-supported research experience.

Crossing Many Seas: Virtual Exhibition Featuring Two Visiting Artist Fellows Alumni

Mar 27, 2024 | Announcements, India, News

The Mittal Institute presents a virtual exhibition titled “Crossing Many Seas,” featuring Sudipta Das and Ishita Chakraborty, two alumni of the Visiting Artist Fellowship (VAF) program. Through their works, the artists delve into the complexities of human migration, emphasizing the interconnectedness of diverse experiences across geographical boundaries. Despite this commonality, each artist explores a wider spectrum of human experiences in a world affected by shifting political and economic circumstances and the devastation caused by climate change. The exhibit will be live until April 30, 2024.

Pakistan, Through Their Eyes

Mar 27, 2024 | Announcements, In Region, News, Pakistan, Students

This spring break, 27 Harvard students joined a trek to Pakistan, representing the Harvard Kennedy School, the Harvard Business School, the Nieman Foundation, and Harvard College. Designed to immerse the student delegation in Pakistan’s culture, history, politics, and development trajectory, this trip was organized by some of the Pakistani student groups on campus.

Hafsa Ahmad LLM ’24 on How Food Waste Violates Human Rights in Pakistan

Mar 26, 2024 | Alumni, Announcements, In Region, News, Pakistan

In 2019, the Lahore High Court in Pakistan declared that the government has a duty to ensure excess food is not wasted, and any food waste violates a Constitutional “right to life.” This seminal case found that the government must ensure excess food makes it to those...