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‘Indian Sex Life’: Durba Mitra on Strict Social Norms

‘Indian Sex Life’: Durba Mitra on Strict Social Norms

Durba Mitra, Carol K. Pforzheimer Assistant Professor at the Radcliffe Institute and Assistant Professor of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality has been awarded the Bernard S. Cohn Book Prize by the Association for Asian Studies for her book, Indian Sex Life: Sexuality and the Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought. This prize honors “outstanding and innovative scholarship across discipline and country of specialization for a first single-authored monograph on South Asia.” Indian Sex Life, which demonstrates how ideas of deviant female sexuality became foundational to modern social thought, also received an honorable mention for the J. Willard Hurst Book Prize from the Law & Society Association.

Scienspur: Free STEM Program Continues to Grow in 2022

Scienspur: Free STEM Program Continues to Grow in 2022

It started as a solution to a challenge: how do we help students from India’s government schools follow their dreams and explore their curiosity towards science, technology, and everything in between? The answer took the form of Scienspur: an initiative led by Nagaraju ‘Nag’ Dhanyasi and Vinay Vikas, who brought together their network of Ph.D.s and postdocs using a Mittal Institute grant to provide free science courses to students from public colleges across India.

Dr. Prabhat Jha on India’s COVID Reporting Metrics

Dr. Prabhat Jha on India’s COVID Reporting Metrics

Prabhat Jha, Professor in Disease Control at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto and one of the event panelists, gave the Mittal Institute some insight into what he will focus on during the talk. As an epidemiologist, Dr. Jha studies the major causes of death in developing countries – including those from COVID-19. He is the lead author of a study published in Science that estimates India’s total COVID-19 deaths are “substantially greater than estimated from official reports.” He shared more on his survey in the interview below.

VAF Spotlight: Bunu Dhungana on Gender Norms in Art and Artistic Expression

VAF Spotlight: Bunu Dhungana on Gender Norms in Art and Artistic Expression

Last week, the Harvard community had the opportunity to virtually meet the Mittal Institute’s two newest VAF artists – Bunu Dhungana and Pragati Jain – through their Art Exhibition: Women in South Asia: Expectations, Burdens and Obligations. Both artists shared their motivations, their craft, and their creations in moving, personal reflections (the full event video is above). As VAFs, these two mid-career artists from South Asia are spending the semester at Harvard, engaging with faculty and students, participating in art exhibitions, and completing research projects. The Mittal Institute checked in with Bunu Dhungana to learn more about her artistic motivations. 

Visiting Artist Fellow Pragati Jain Reflects on Being a Practicing Artist and Woman in India Today

Visiting Artist Fellow Pragati Jain Reflects on Being a Practicing Artist and Woman in India Today

Last week, the Harvard community had the opportunity to virtually meet the Mittal Institute’s two newest VAF artists – Bunu Dhungana and Pragati Jain – through their Art Exhibition: Women in South Asia: Expectations, Burdens and Obligations. Both artists shared their motivations, their craft, and their creations in moving, personal reflections (the full event video is above). As VAFs, these two mid-career artists from South Asia are spending the semester at Harvard, engaging with faculty and students, participating in art exhibitions, and completing research projects. The Mittal Institute checked in with Pragati, to learn how her experience at Harvard is transpiring and what projects she is working on. An interview with Bunu will be forthcoming in December. 

Arvid Bell Previews Oct 15 Talk: Afghanistan’s Next Transition

Arvid Bell Previews Oct 15 Talk: Afghanistan’s Next Transition

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.

Rebooting Consent in the Digital Age: A Governance Framework for Health Data Exchange

Rebooting Consent in the Digital Age: A Governance Framework for Health Data Exchange

In the below article, which appeared in BMJ Global Health, authors Nivedita Saksena (Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, FXB Center for Health and Human Rights and the inaugural IDHN Fellow at the Mittal Institute), Rahul Matthan (Takshashila Institution, Bengaluru, India), Anant Bhan (Centre for Ethics, Yenepoya (Deemed to be University), Mangalore, Karnataka, India), and Satchit Balsari (Department of Emergency Medicine, Harvard Medical School / Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Mittal Institute Steering Committee member) explore India’s National Digital Health Mission’s goal of creating a system of electronic health records that capture data, with the patient’s consent.