Vidya Subramanian, former Raghunathan Fellow at the Mittal Institute and STS Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, has been busy in the years since her 2020 stint at Harvard. We caught up with Vidya to learn more about her work at the intersection of technology and society, and her research into the changing nature of citizenship in our technological society.
In an essay for the 1800 Histories project based at the Harvard Center for History and Economics, which explores the local conditions at key sites that play a disproportionate role in methane emissions, WIEGO founder and Mittal Institute Steering Committee member Martha Chen writes about the impact waste pickers have on methane emissions in Delhi, India.
The Mittal Institute mourns the passing of Richard A. Cash, Senior Lecturer on Global Health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and an esteemed member of the Mittal Institute’s Steering Committee. Richard A. Cash was a highly distinguished scholar of public health with longtime ties to South Asia. He conducted the first clinical trials of Oral Rehydration Therapy (ORT) in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). This relatively simple innovation proved highly effective and led to a globally accessible and affordable solution to dehydration that has since saved over 60 million lives worldwide.
The Mittal Institute is excited to announce that Naiza Khan, a highly acclaimed visual artist from Pakistan, will be in residence on the Harvard campus in April 2025 as the institute’s second Distinguished Artist Fellow. The Distinguished Artist Fellowship at the Mittal Institute supports the artistic and research endeavors of senior artists from South Asia. A selection committee nominates a fellow in recognition of the artist’s contribution to important issues related to South Asia.
The project “The History of Punishment in India,” led by Adaner Usmani, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Harvard University, explores the paradox of low violence rates in India despite limited policing and high poverty.
The Mittal Institute is pleased to offer a new fellowship for post-doctoral scholars researching the impacts of climate change on South Asia. The Mittal Family Climate Fellowship aims to support innovative research projects that explore how climate change has influenced the region’s past, is shaping its present, and will affect its future. The application window for Academic Year 2025/2026 is open and will close on December 10, 2024.
The Mittal Institute is pleased to welcome Distinguished Artist in Residence Ustad Bahauddin Dagar, a renowned rudra veena player. Ahead of his visit, we spoke with Dagar about how to balance tradition and artistic freedom, the peculiarities of the rudra veena, and what attendees can expect from his performance on Oct. 17, which will be part of ArtsThursdays, a university-wide initiative supported by Harvard University Committee on the Arts (HUCA).
This fall, the Mittal Institute welcomes a new Visiting Artist Fellow from Nepal: Saurav Ghimire, a fiction and docu-fiction filmmaker who explores how to subtly disguise personal elements to achieve a universal story. Learn about his artistic motivations and save the date for the October 22 Art Exhibition and Film Screening.
On Friday, September 27, 2024, Rt. Hon. KP Sharma Oli, Prime Minister of Nepal, spoke to more than 400 students, affiliates, and faculty at Harvard Kennedy School’s JFK Jr. Forum. The Mittal Institute co-sponsored the event together with the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School, the Harvard Center for International Development, and the Asia Center at Harvard University.
