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Many languages of South Asian poetry

On May 17, 2014, Harvard was reverberating with echoes of poets from different regions of South Asia at the 18th annual South Asian Poets Meeting. Each year, this event attracts poetic talents and wonderful pieces of poetry from diverse regions of South Asia. Twenty-seven poets from India, Bangladesh and Nepal participated in this year’s event. Among the participants from India, there were Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, Kashmiri, Kannada, Malayali and Oriya recitations.

Farewell dinner for SAI’s Aman Fellow

On Friday, May 16, SAI friends and affiliates gathered in CGIS at a farewell dinner for SAI’s Aman Fellow Muhammad Zahir. With delicious Pakistani food, the dinner provided Zahir the opportunity to thank everyone who had helped him during the course of his fellowship....

2014 Prasad Fellowships

This year, with the generous support of the Prasad family, the South Asia Institute has funded four Harvard College undergraduate students from various disciplines to study and complete internships in India this summer on issues ranging from the role of media in Indian democracy to environmental governance.

Romila Thapar discusses historical traditions of North India

On Monday, May 5, SAI hosted a book talk with prominent Indian historian Romila Thapar about Thapar’s most recent book, The Past Before Us: Historical Traditions of Early North India, which is a panoramic survey of the historical traditions of North India. In the book, Thapar reveals a deep and sophisticated consciousness of history embedded in the diverse body of classical Indian literature.

Women in Politics: The Case of India

“This is not an India problem, or a South Asia problem. It is global,” said Lakshmi Iyer, Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School at SAI’s webinar ‘Women in Politics: The Case of India.’ Iyer was referring to the fact that women comprise only 21 percent of national parliaments worldwide.

Student profile: Melissa Theiss

Melissa Theiss, a junior psychology concentrator at Harvard College, will be interning this summer at VidyaGyan with support from a SAI internship grant. VidyaGyan is a school for rural underprivileged students in Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh, India that takes an innovative approach to providing transformational education for students from 6th to 12th grades

Harvard botanical scientist visits India

From February to March 2014, Kanchi K. Gandhi. Senior Nomenclatural Registrar at Harvard University Herbaria, traveled throughout India to give 10 botany-related talks at colleges and universities. At the Indian Institute of World Culture in Bangalore, Gandhi was...

Harvard students in South Asia this summer

This summer, over 30 undergraduates and graduate students will be in South Asia for research and internships, on topics ranging from the role of media in Indian democracy, Sanskrit study, to postwar resettlement in Kilinochchi, Sri Lanka.

Ramachandra Guha discusses Gandhi Before India

On April 29, SAI hosted a book talk with Ramachandra Guha, who discussed his new book Gandhi Before India. The event, which took place at the Harvard Book Store with a packed audience, was moderated by Pratap Bhanu Mehta. Guha’s book, Mehta said, was a critical component of this new literature and was a monumental biographical account of Gandhi in South Africa. [Video]

Symposium highlights ongoing research projects

SAI held its Annual Symposium on April 24 and 25 titled ‘South Asia Regionalism: Workshops on Shared Challenges and the Way Forward.’ The workshops highlighted and showcased ongoing faculty research projects supported by SAI. Topics included mobile technology, disaster response and mental health, urbanism in South Asia, urban water challenges, religion and secularism, and the informal economy.