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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Mittal Institute Visiting Artist, Faiham Ebna Sharif is a freelance journalist and photographer focusing on social issues in his home country of Bangladesh. During his time at Harvard, Faiham has been researching the world tea trade in Harvard’s museums and libraries
Congratulations to Green Screen and Umbulizer, the winners of our 2018 Seed for Change Competition. Umbulizer, the winner of Seed for Change Pakistan, will receive $15,000 to further develop a reliable, low-cost, and portable device that can provide continuous ventilation to patients in resource-limited healthcare settings. Green Screen, winner of Seed for Change India, will receive $40,000 to produce a zero-electricity, modular ventilation panel made from an agricultural waste byproduct and designed for the slums of New Delhi, India.
Before the upcoming Buddhism in Nepal conference on Monday, May 7, The Mittal Institute spoke with professor and conference organizer Leonard van der Kuijp about the conference and the Nepal Studies Program.
In anticipation of her upcoming book, The Mittal Institute Research Affiliate Vineeta Sinha sat down with us to discuss her work on the Hindu Diaspora in Singapore and her thoughts on being a woman in academia. “Sitting on recruitment and reviewing committees and on management boards, I have witnessed that even my lone presence as a woman tempers the tone of the discussion and prevents loaded and blatantly sexist and even racist questions to be raised — even if it is just for political correctness,” she says.
In the developing world, 95% of people with a clinically significant mental illness receive no treatment at all, and it costs the global economy an estimated trillion dollars a year. Vikram Patel is a distinguished Indian psychiatrist and The Pershing Square Professor of Global Health at Harvard Medical School. The Mittal Institute’s Hasit Shah caught up with him before our 2018 Symposium, where Professor Patel was one of the key speakers.
“The transformational support from Indian industrialist Mr. Lakshmi Mittal and his family ensures that South Asia remains an education and research priority at Harvard. The $25m naming endowment builds on the foundation established by the University and our Advisory Council. The Lakshmi Mittal South Asia Institute (The Mittal Institute) at Harvard University enters a new era of being a catalyst for interdisciplinary, Harvard-wide initiatives across South Asia.” – Tarun Khanna (Director, The Mittal Institute; Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor, Harvard Business School)
Was that a flash of gold I just saw? I moved around to the other side of the table, hoping to catch the light just right again. I was in a storage room of the Archäologisches Zentrum of the Museum fur Islamische Kunst in Berlin, viewing a folio of calligraphy signed by the Mughal prince Dara Shikoh (1615-59). I tilted my head as I followed the flowing lines of nast’aliq script around the page.