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Empowering the Rohingya Refugee Community Through Design

Mar 5, 2020 | Announcements, Bangladesh, In Region, News, Students

Empowering the Rohingya Refugee Community Through Design

With the support of the Winter Travel Grant, I traveled through Bangladesh for over 30 days during December 2019 and January 2020. I was accompanied by my research partner, John David Wagner, an Irving Innovation Fellow at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. During our trip, we carried out extensive field research in Bangladesh to inquire if the very nature of the spatial quality of refugee camps contributes to keeping the inhabitants of these urban dwellings marginalized for many generations.

Fatima Zahra: Improving the Wellbeing of Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh

Feb 27, 2020 | Announcements, Associates, Bangladesh, News

Fatima Zahra: Improving the Wellbeing of Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh

Fatima Zahra, Research Affiliate at the Mittal Institute and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Harvard University, has been working to design and implement socially responsible programs to address the loss of human potential and enhance life outcomes among the most marginalized. Recently, she was in Bangladesh for about three months to work at the Rohingya refugee camps and uncover ways to improve the mental and fiscal wellbeing of the refugees who live there.

Abdul Razaque Channa: Gender Representation in Pakistan’s Primary School Textbooks

Feb 27, 2020 | Announcements, Fellows, News

Abdul Razaque Channa: Gender Representation in Pakistan’s Primary School Textbooks

How does Pakistan’s educational system influence the creation and construction of gender in society? In an upcoming talk, Gender Representation in Primary School Textbooks in Pakistan, the Mittal Institute’s Syed Babar Ali Fellow, Dr. Abdul Razaque Channa, will discuss his research on the textbooks that are taught to students between grades 1 and 5 throughout the public-school system of Sindh province. In his research, Channa is working to uncover how these textbooks contribute to the construction, inculcation, and perpetuation of gender roles in Pakistan.

How Will President Trump’s Visit Impact India-US Ties?

Feb 27, 2020 | Announcements, Faculty, In Region, India, News

How Will President Trump’s Visit Impact India-US Ties?

Earlier this week, US President Donald Trump traveled to India for two days. In an exclusive broadcast from Harvard Business School, the India Today News Director Rahul Kanwal discussed the potential impact of Trump’s visit to India in terms of trade, economy, and electoral politics. He was joined by Professor Tarun Khanna (Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor at the Harvard Business School and Director of the Mittal Institute), Punita Kumar Sinha (Founder, Pacific Paradigm Advisors), Ashutosh Varshney (Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences at Brown University), and Vipin Narang (Associate Professor of Political Science at MIT).

Grad Students From Across Campuses Convene on South Asian Studies

Feb 20, 2020 | Announcements, Graduate Student Associates, News, Students

Each month, the Mittal Institute’s Graduate Student Associates (GSAs) meet to discuss their latest work on South Asia, spanning various disciplines — from politics to religion and the arts — and providing feedback on one another’s dissertations, articles, and more. Led by Head Graduate Student Associates Aiden Milliff (Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science, MIT), Blair Read (Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science, MIT), and Akshay Dixit (Ph.D., Political Economy, Harvard), the group of about 20 members from schools across Boston provide support and new insights to one another as they work through their studies.

Traditions, Philosophies, and Art of Ancient Hindustan

Feb 20, 2020 | Announcements, In Region, India, News, Students

Traditions, Philosophies, and Art of Ancient Hindustan

Over the last three weeks of my winter vacation, I traveled to Hindu temples throughout South India, with the goal of understanding the inspirations and motivations that drove musicians to compose about the idols worshipped at these establishments. Starting from the Eastern temple city of Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu, I snaked along the Eastern coast of the Indian peninsula, ultimately arriving to the country’s southern tip at Kanyakumari, before continuing through the hill stations of Kerala and ending at Guruvayur, Kerala.

Building a One-Stop Shop for Smallholder Farmers in India

Feb 20, 2020 | Alumni, Announcements, In Region, India, News, Social Enterprise

Building a One-Stop Shop for Smallholder Farmers in India

In 2019, the Mittal Institute’s Seed for Change competition awarded the Gramhal team, composed of members Vikas Birhma and Pankaj Mahalle, first place. Over the past year, the funding from the competition has helped take their social enterprise initiative off the ground, and Gramhal has already had a significant impact on the lives of smallholder farmers in India. In the last few months of 2019, over 50 farmers sold their produce — worth USD 100,000 — through Gramhal, receiving a fair and higher price.

The Global Learning Crisis: What We Do (and Don’t) Know

Feb 13, 2020 | Announcements, In Region, News, Pakistan

The Global Learning Crisis: What We Do (and Don’t) Know

Last week, the LUMS Syed Ahsan Ali & Syed Maratib School of Education (SOE) in Lahore, Pakistan hosted a talk with development economist Lant Pritchett, entitled “The Global Learning Crisis: What We Do Know, What We Don’t.” Pritchett is an Associate at the Building State Capability Program at Harvard’s Center for International Development, and the RISE Research Director at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford.

Exploring the Rasavahini and Buddhism of Medieval Sri Lanka

Feb 13, 2020 | Announcements, In Region, News, Students

Exploring the Rasavahini and Buddhism of Medieval Sri Lanka

Alexis Brown is a doctoral student at Harvard University, who recently traveled to Sri Lanka over the winter break to perform field research for her dissertation, centered on a Buddhist narrative anthology entitled Rasavahini, written in medieval Sri Lanka. As Brown notes, “the Rasavahini is considered one of the most important works among post-canonical Pali literature in Sri Lanka, as well as Thailand, Burma, and Laos. Despite the Rasavahini’s importance in South and Southeast Asia, relatively little scholarship has been published on it.”

Priti Gupta: Project Prakash Restores Eyesight to Children

Feb 13, 2020 | Announcements, In Region, India, News

Priti Gupta: Project Prakash Restores Eyesight to Children

Project Prakash recently hosted a successful UnrulyArt event at its center in the Shroff Charity Eye Hospital in New Delhi. The participants were Prakash children, who had been treated for congenital cataract under Project Prakash in the last few years. Among the oldest of the Prakash children participating in the event were sisters Bushra and Fatima, who had traveled with their father from Panipat in Haryana, covering a distance of no less than a hundred miles.

The Centuries-Old Sculptures and Temples of Western India

Feb 6, 2020 | Announcements, Arts Program, In Region, India, News, Students

The Centuries-Old Sculptures and Temples of Western India

Through the Mittal Institute’s South Asia and the Arts Travel Fund, I traveled to Vadodara, Gujarat and Mumbai, Maharashtra in India to conduct research for my qualifying paper, a requirement in the History of Art and Architecture Department at Harvard University. My qualifying paper explores the conception of the mother-child motif in ancient India within Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain traditions, and expands on the function and role of these goddesses and the similarities and differences in their worship.