People’s Road: Connecting Rural Populations
Mittal Institute Fellow Raile Rocky Ziipao discusses the case of the People’s Road, in which the community funded and built 100 km of road in Northeast India where the State had failed for decades.
Category : News
Apply Now to the Visiting Artist Fellowship
The application deadline for the Visiting Artist Fellowship (VAF) is July 16, 2018. The VAF is an 8-week program connecting artists from South Asia to Harvard’s intellectual resources.
Visiting Artist Profile: Kabi Raj Lama
2018 Mittal Institute Visiting Artist Kabi Raj Lama is a contemporary printmaker based in Kathmandu, who primarily works with lithography and the Japanese mokuhanga (woodcut) medium. His work examines themes of natural disasters, trauma, and healing through art. In this interview, we discuss how he first discovered printmaking, his personal encounters with natural disasters and what he has been up to at Harvard.
India Seminar Series: “It’s Complicated – Unpacking the Material Consequences of Political Reservation in Bihar”
M.R. Sharan, a PhD candidate at the the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, presented joint work with Chinmaya Kumar, University of Chicago, on elections in Bihar at a seminar on May 29, 2018. Sharan and Kumar’s work investigates how political reservation in favor of Scheduled Castes (SCs) in Bihar affects inequality in private wealth and access to public goods.
New Group of Student Ambassadors Joins the Oral Histories Project: Looking Back, Informing the Future
As part of the oral histories collection under the Partition Project, 40 student volunteers came together last week for their first orientation as ambassadors to collect oral stories from the survivors of Partition.
2018 Summer Grant Recipients
The Mittal Institute has awarded 22 grants to support student projects over the Summer Session 2018. These include 17 graduate students and 5 undergraduate students who will travel to India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar, and Pakistan for research and internships.
Seed for Change Winner Green Screen
The Mittal Institute’s Seed for Change Program (SFC) aims to develop a vibrant ecosystem for innovation and entrepreneurship in India and Pakistan through an annual competition. Through SFC, grant prizes are awarded to interdisciplinary student projects that positively impact societal, economic, and environmental issues in India and Pakistan. We spoke to Gina Ciancone from “Green Screen,” the winning team for India. She discussed the genesis of the project and gave advice to students thinking about entering next year’s competition.
Second Annual Crossroads Emerging Leaders Program
If you’re the first in your family to attend college and you’re based in South Asia, the Middle East or Africa, apply now for our Second Annual Crossroads Emerging Leaders Program. It’s a collaboration with an important alumni organization, the Harvard Business School Club of the Gulf Cooperation Council, to create a fantastic, fully-funded opportunity for talented students.
Chittagong Hill Tract Children’s Books Part of HGSE Commencement Tradition
For nearly twenty years, new graduates of the Harvard Graduate School of Education have been carrying and waving children’s books as they enter Harvard Yard for the commencement ceremony. This tradition emphasizes the importance of children’s literacy and inclusion, as the books represent different cultures from around the world.
This year amongst copies of The Hungry Caterpillar and A Snowy Day will be several copies of Harvard Doctoral Candidate Maung Nyeu’s children’s books. These multilingual books are based on stories collected by children of Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), Bangladesh. The books contain moral and civic values and the wisdom of generations and help revitalize endangered languages and revive vanishing cultures.
Congratulations, Class of 2018!
Harvard’s Commencement was Thursday, May 24, 2018. The Mittal Institute asked two graduating students who have been involved with the Institute to reflect on their time at Harvard and their plans.
The Jana Swasthya Project at the 2015 Kumbh Mela
Three years ago, we launched the Jana Swasthya Project at the 2015 Kumbh Mela in Nashik and Trimbakeshwar, India. It was comprised of two components: a large-scale digital disease surveillance program, EMcounter, and a mass screening program for oral health, hypertension and diabetes offered to pilgrims, sadhus, security forces, and all visitors.
New Podcasts: “Culture Eats Technology” and “How Scientists And Economists Get Things Done (And Save Lives)”
A fascinating conversation from our 2018 Symposium between Professor Ashok Gadgil (UC Berkeley), Professor Tarun Khanna (The Mittal Institute; Harvard Business School) and Professor Asim Khwaja (Harvard Kennedy School) – they talk about how difficult it is to solve life-or-death problems, even with great resources, and the kinds of things you have to do in order to get things done. The podcast is published in two parts.