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New India Office Inauguration

New India Office Inauguration
Images from the Mittal Institute’s new India Office. On Thursday, March 11, the Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute (the Mittal Institute), Harvard University, officially inaugurated its new India headquarters in New Delhi – a significant milestone...

Podcast: Lancet Citizens’ Commission for Reimagining India’s Health

Podcast: Lancet Citizens’ Commission for Reimagining India’s Health

The Lancet Citizens’ Commission on Reimagining India’s Health System is an ambitious, cross-sectoral initiative to lay out the path to universal health coverage in India. Its guiding principle is that structural change toward universal health coverage can only be achieved through consultative and participatory engagement with the diverse sectors involved in healthcare and, most importantly, with India’s citizenry.

This event aimed to introduce the Commission to the Harvard community and invite students, researchers, faculty, and alumni to participate in the initiative. It consisted of a panel discussion featuring several of the Commission’s co-chairs and commissioners, who are leading voices from across India’s healthcare landscape. They discussed the Commission’s five work streams (citizens’ engagement, financing, governance, human resources, and technology) and ways to get involved.

Earth Warriors: Creating Climate Positive Changemakers

Earth Warriors: Creating Climate Positive Changemakers

By Keya Lamba and Shweta Bahri, Harvard College ‘20. Earth Warriors is an early childhood education curriculum that uses play-based learning and a solutions-oriented approach to teach young children (3-7 years old) about climate change and sustainability. Climate change, pollution, and unsustainable levels of waste have led to an environmental crisis that can no longer be denied, and it is crucial for people to start building sustainable habits and reducing waste production from a young age to combat it. Yet, less than five countries in the world have climate change as part of their mandatory education curriculum, and none have it as part of their early curriculum.

Podcast: The Prevalence of COVID-19 in India

Podcast: The Prevalence of COVID-19 in India

In the third episode of The COVID Chronicles podcast, Dr. Satchit Balsari speaks with Manoj Mohanan, Associate Professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. Mohanan’s team’s recent paper, published in Lancet Global Health, reports that seroprevalence (the number of individuals in a population who test positive for a specific disease based on serology specimens) in Mumbai varies from 55–61% in the slums, to 12–19% in non-slum settings.

Sajeda Amin: Women’s Empowerment in Bangladesh

Sajeda Amin: Women’s Empowerment in Bangladesh

We spoke with one of the experts who participated in the “Economic Development: From ‘Basket Case’ to Emerging Economy” panel, Sajeda Amin, Senior Associate at the Population Council in New York, about her years of work with women’s empowerment in Bangladesh. Sajeda Amin conducts intervention research on empowerment programs for girls and women and writes about the role of education and work opportunities in girls’ and women’s lives. She has designed and implemented interventions to prevent violence and child marriage by empowering adolescent girls and has studied their outcomes in Bangladesh, India, Mali, Malawi, and Niger.

Rounaq Jahan: Unmaking and Upholding Bangladesh’s Founding Principles

Rounaq Jahan: Unmaking and Upholding Bangladesh’s Founding Principles

We spoke with one of the speakers who will participate in the “Political Development: Making, Unmaking, and Rebuilding of Founding Principles” panel, Rounaq Jahan, Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Policy Dialogue in Bangladesh, about the political history of Bangladesh, and what needs to be done to push forward in the future. Previously, she served as a Professor of Political Science at Dhaka University and a Senior Research Scholar and Adjunct Professor at Columbia University.

Podcast: How Has COVID-19 Affected the Lives of Children in India?

Podcast: How Has COVID-19 Affected the Lives of Children in India?

In the second episode of The COVID Chronicles podcast, Dr. Satchit Balsari speaks with Enakshi Ganguly, child rights activist and the co-founder of HAQ: Centre for Child Rights. In July 2020, Ganguly was part of the 11-member expert committee set up by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on human rights, especially those of marginalized and vulnerable sections of the society. Ganguly led the discussion related to the advisory on the rights of children.