The Mittal Institute welcomed two new VAF Artists, Bunu Dhungana and Pragat Jain, to campus this week, for the start of their eight-week research fellowship at Harvard. The program connects artists from South Asia with Harvard’s intellectual resources, and allows a platform for mid-career artists to conduct independent research that explores critical issues in South Asia through the lens of art and design.
This Harvard University panel, co-sponsored by the Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute and the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies’ Negotiation Task Force, explored the lead up to the collapse of the Afghan government, as well as what the new Taliban regime means for the future of the country and its people.
Kushagra Nayan Bajaj, an Indian businessman and Chairman of the Bajaj Group, Chairman and Managing Director of Bajaj Hindusthan Limited, and Chairman of Bajaj Corp Limited is the benefactor of the Mittal Institute’s newest research fellowship, the Jamnalal Kaniram Bajaj Trust Visiting Research Fellowship Fund. His support creates a fellowship at the Mittal Institute to deepen the teaching and research on significant cultural issues related to South Asia.
Aidan Milliff, Mittal Institute Graduate Student Associate, is a Ph.D candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a predoctoral fellow at the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies at George Washington University. He wrote an Op-Ed in the Hindustan Times on India’s response to riots in 1984 and 2020.
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.
Since independence in 1947, India has played a considerable role in shaping the world. But the world also played a considerable role in shaping Indian independence. As India approaches the 75th anniversary of its freedom, the Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, in association with the Harvard Club of India, presents a webinar on how the anti-colonial struggle developed beyond India’s borders, in diaspora settlements and with non-Indian partners. This webinar brings together three scholars—all with previous or current Harvard connections—to examine the overseas careers of Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, Mahendra Pratap, and J.J.Singh.
Scienspur is an initiative that provides free science courses online to promising undergraduate and master’s students at public colleges in India’s rural areas.
Project Empower seeks to address these barriers through a digital platform for community health workers, which provides virtual training on identifying and treating common mental health disorders. In Gujarat, Project Empower piloted a digital platform, called TeCHO, to enable front-line providers to learn brief psychological interventions.
One key to successful healthcare is competent, trained healthcare professionals – but how can this training model improve? A recent Lancet Citizens’ Commission webinar explored this issue, through keynote lectures and a panel discussion.
Nusrat Jahan Mim, a Harvard D.Des candidate, was a recipient of a Mittal Institute Summer 2021 Research Grant, and she shared her findings in the account below. As a part of her Doctor of Design thesis, she investigated and collected spatial data from the largest annual makeshift cattle marketplaces in Dhaka, Bangladesh during Eid ul Adha (July 19-23, 2021).
In this episode of the ‘India in Focus’ podcast, Bindu Ananth, Chair at Dvara Trust, speaks with Dr. Nachiket Mor, Visiting Scientist, The Banyan Academy of Leadership in Mental Health. Dr. Mor leads the financing workstream at the Lancet Citizens’ Commission, which seeks to address challenges related to the sources and utilization of health expenditures, in order to maximize financial risk protection and to ensure an effective, equitable, reliable, and responsive health system for all.
Join us on Wednesday, October 6 at 8:00am EST for “India at 75: The Global Roots of Independence,” moderated by Dinyar Patel, Mittal Institute Research Affiliate and Assistant Professor of History at the S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR) in Mumbai. He will join a conversation on “India at 75: The Global Roots of Independence” with panelists Nico Slate, Professor and Department Head, Department of History, Carnegie Mellon University and Carolien Stolte, Senior Lecturer in History at Leiden University, The Netherlands. The Mittal Institute sat down with Dinyar to discuss the event and his new paper, which he will share at the talk.