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Unearthing Partition’s Narrative: The Work of Dr. Jennifer Leaning

Apr 12, 2022 | Announcements, Bangladesh, Faculty, In Region, India, News, Pakistan, Partition

Unearthing Partition’s Narrative: The Work of Dr. Jennifer Leaning

An expert in public health and rights-based responses to humanitarian crises, Dr. Jennifer Leaning has spent her nearly 50-year career at the intersection of war and disaster, atrocities and conflict. Despite witnessing some of the darkest instances of human behavior, it is a ‘kindness of strangers’ motif that motivates her work. She applies this approach to the Mittal Institute’s 1947 Partition Project, which she has led since its inception in 2016.

Hemakshi Meghani: Nurturing Principled Political Leaders Through the Indian School of Democracy

Apr 6, 2022 | Announcements, In Region, India, News, Social Enterprise

Hemakshi Meghani: Nurturing Principled Political Leaders Through the Indian School of Democracy

Hemakshi Meghani, co-founder of the Indian School of Democracy (ISD), is a Harvard Kennedy School graduate, where she studied as a World Bank Graduate Scholar. She began her journey as a Teach for India Fellow before working with Boston Consulting Group and two startups in the education and sociopolitical consulting space. Hemakshi is passionate about politics, bottom-up social reform, and making democracy work for every citizen of the country, and she shared some insights into her experience building ISD.

Tradition and Transformation: A Conversation on South Asian Politics with Pratap Bhanu Mehta and Hansong Li

Apr 6, 2022 | Announcements, Graduate Student Associates, In Region, India, News

Tradition and Transformation: A Conversation on South Asian Politics with Pratap Bhanu Mehta and Hansong Li

Hansong Li (Mittal Institute, Harvard University), spoke with Pratap Bhanu Mehta (Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi; Laurance S. Rockefeller Distinguished Professor at the Center for Human Values, Princeton University) about the South Asian political sphere ahead of the 2022 Global Political Thought Conference on April 8. Both interlocutors are founding members of the Association for Global Political Thought, an international, interdisciplinary, and intercollegiate project founded in 2021, supported by humanists and social scientists from global institutions. What follows is an exerpt from their conversation – to read the full text, visit the article in Comparative Political Theory.

Spotlight on Ankur Tamuli Phukan, New Mittal Institute India Fellow

Apr 6, 2022 | Announcements, Fellows, In Region, India, News

Spotlight on Ankur Tamuli Phukan, New Mittal Institute India Fellow

Last week we introduced one of our Mittal Institute India Fellowship recipients, Mayanka Ambade. Now, meet our second fellow, Ankur Tamuli Phukan. Ankur is a historian and has a broad research interest on issues such as festivals, populism, nationalism, migration, citizenship and ecology. His field of study is largely located in the archives of Northeast India. Ankur will be mentored by Professor Sugata Bose.

Bhutan and the “Inbetween”: The Work of Dr. Nitasha Kaul

Mar 29, 2022 | Announcements, Faculty, In Region, News, South Asia in the News

Bhutan and the “Inbetween”: The Work of Dr. Nitasha Kaul

Nitasha Kaul, a Kashmiri novelist, multidisciplinary academic, poet, economist, and artist who is based in London, headlines the April 7 talk, ‘Inbetween’ India and China: Bhutan’s International Relations. The talk, sponsored by the Mittal Institute, Asia Center and Fairbank Center, traces Bhutan’s history as a Himalayan country sharing borders with India and China, and its foreign policy trajectory. Dr. Kaul, who is also an Associate Professor (Reader) in Politics and International Relations at the University of Westminster, spoke to the Mittal Institute ahead of the talk about her work.

LMSAI Welcomes Fulbright Fellow Yaqoob Bangash, Historian of Modern South Asia

Mar 23, 2022 | Announcements, Faculty, Fellows, In Region, News, Pakistan, Partition

LMSAI Welcomes Fulbright Fellow Yaqoob Bangash, Historian of Modern South Asia

The Mittal Institute welcomes Yaqoob Khan Bangash as the 2022-23 United States Educational Foundation in Pakistan (USEFP) Fulbright Fellow. A historian of Modern South Asia, Dr. Bangash is Associate Professor, Department of Governance and Global Studies and Director, Centre for Governance and Policy at Information Technology University, Lahore, Pakistan. He studies Pakistan as a post-colonial state – its state formation, identity, conflicts, etc. Dr. Bangash is the author of A Princely Affair: Accession and Integration of Princely States in Pakistan, 1947-55 and in 2016 founded the first academic literary festival in Pakistan, the ‘Afkar-e-Taza ThinkFest,’ which attracted over 25,000 people in 2020. We caught up with Dr. Bangash to learn more about his plans for the upcoming year.

Decarbonizing India’s Energy Economy: A Conversation with Professor Michael B. McElroy

Mar 22, 2022 | Announcements, Faculty, In Region, India, News, South Asia in the News

Decarbonizing India’s Energy Economy: A Conversation with Professor Michael B. McElroy

Professor Michael B. McElroy, Gilbert Butler Professor of Environmental Studies at Harvard University and Chair of the Harvard-China Project on Energy, Economy and Environment, leads a research group studying how India might forge a path towards a decarbonized energy system. He will present his thoughts at the upcoming March 30 event, “Decarbonizing India’s Energy Economy,” hosted by the Harvard-China Project and LMSAI. The Mittal Institute sat down with Professor McElroy to learn more about his research and the future energy and climate outlook of India.

Post Pandemic: Driving Inclusive Growth in Asia (Videos)

Mar 22, 2022 | Announcements, COVID-19, News, South Asia in the News

Post Pandemic: Driving Inclusive Growth in Asia (Videos)

This semester, the three-part series “Post Pandemic: Driving Inclusive Growth in Asia,” focused on the unique challenges faced by many Asian countries recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic. Hosted by the Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research, Harvard University’s Center for International Development, and Harvard University’s Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, the series explored the following topics: Education in Asia (January 19); Healthcare in Asia (February 16); Economics and Social Policy Driving Social Cohesion in Asia (March 16)

Transforming the Art of Learning: The Work of Pre-Texts with Doris Sommer

Mar 15, 2022 | Announcements, Arts Program, Community, In Region, India, News

Transforming the Art of Learning: The Work of Pre-Texts with Doris Sommer

Professor Doris Sommer, a Mittal Institute Steering Committee member, recently visited the Indian city of Pune to launch the Pre-Texts project, a pedagogy based on interpretation through the arts. She is partnering with Professor Yugank Goyal of FLAME University in Pune, where the project is being housed. Pre-Texts is an arts-based training program for teachers of literacy, critical thinking, and citizenship. While the number of readers has grown worldwide, reading comprehension stays alarmingly low because students need to use texts in order to understand them. With Pre-Texts, students master texts by using them to create visual and performative arts.