April 15 will mark the launch of a new multi-media exhibition on the Harvard campus, titled HUM SAB EK (We Are One). The project leader is Dr. Satchit Balsari, Associate Professor in Emergency Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and LMSAI Steering Committee member. In this Q+A, Satchit Balsari talks about the ideation of the exhibition, what difficulties the curatorial team came across, and the lessons that public health can learn from poor working women in India.
This spring break, 27 Harvard students joined a trek to Pakistan, representing the Harvard Kennedy School, the Harvard Business School, the Nieman Foundation, and Harvard College. Designed to immerse the student delegation in Pakistan’s culture, history, politics, and development trajectory, this trip was organized by some of the Pakistani student groups on campus.
Imaan Mirza, a third-year undergraduate concentrating in History and Literature, earned a Mittal Institute student grant to intern in January with AGHS Legal Aid Cell in Pakistan. AGHS is a law firm that provides free legal representation to the vulnerable and fights for human rights for the disenfranchised. During Imaan’s three-week internship, she completed legal research, legal drafting, and administrative tasks – read on for more about her three-week experience.
This February a group of Harvard Graduate School of Design students set out for Mumbai to explore urbanism in one of the world’s most crowded cities as part of the “Extreme Urbanism 9: Imagining Housing as Urban Form” course at the Graduate School of Design. Harish Krishnamoorthy (MAUD ’25) is an urban designer and architect from Bengaluru, India is a student in and teaching assistant for the studio, led by Rahul Mehrotra, John T. Dunlop Professor in Housing and Urbanization at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Harish kept a travelogue of his experience, which he shares with the Mittal Institute below.
The Mittal Institute’s Syed Babar Ali Fellow, Muhammad Imran Mehsud comes to Cambridge from Hazara University Mansehra, Pakistan, where he is an Assistant Professor of International Relations. He is an expert on South Asian transboundary hydropolitics and his research project at the Mittal Institute examines the effectiveness of the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 in settling contemporary transboundary water issues between India and Pakistan. We spoke with Imran about his research, and his plans for his time at Harvard.
This academic year, there are two new Afghan student groups on campus: the Afghanistan Caucus at Harvard Kennedy School and the Harvard Afghan Students’ Association at Harvard College. The Mittal Institute spoke with Sal Parsa, co-founder of the Afghanistan Caucus, about their inaugural event on February 20 and further plans to foster a sense of unity and purpose among Afghan students and alumni.
This week, the Mittal Institute along with the Department of South Asian Studies gathered over 20 representatives from the many (and growing!) South Asian student groups at Harvard to discuss how to strengthen ties and develop new collaborations.
The annual student-led India Conference at Harvard returns to campus for its 21st year on February 17 and 18, with experts from various sectors including business, economy and culture offering insight into India’s current landscape and future. We spoke to two of the four co-organizers, Ananya Chhaochharia (Harvard Kennedy School) and Ishaan Poddar (Harvard Business School) to understand the goals of the conference, and unpack this year’s theme, “India Rising.”