SAI Events Archive
Visiting Artist Fellows Exhibition Reception: Partition Perspectives
START
Tue, Mar 12, 2019 at 06:00pm
END
Tue, Mar 12, 2019 at 08:00pm
VENUE
Harvard Allston Education Portal
ADDRESS
Harvard Allston Education Portal
224 Western Ave.
Allston, MA
The 1947 Partition of British India displaced millions of people along religious lines and led to the creation of two new countries: Pakistan and India. In this exhibition, Mahbub Jokhio and Krupa Makhija, the Mittal Institute’s Spring 2019 Visiting Artist Fellows reflect on the impact of the partition. Their work explores the deeply personal issues of culture, language, and identity in the region.
Harnessing Science to Serve Humanity: Vision of Tata Institute for Genetics and Society
START
Mon, Mar 4, 2019 at 06:00pm
END
Mon, Mar 4, 2019 at 08:00pm
This seminar will focus on scientific advancements in research on human health and agriculture in India and the vision of the Tata Institute for Genetics and Society (TIGS) in this field. TIGS is a collaborative research institution that aims to improve health security and food security for India. Dr. Suresh Subramani, Global Director at TIGS and Tata Chancellor’s Chair at University of California, San Diego, will discuss efforts by the Institute to enhance the capacity of scientists to conduct innovative research in genetics in India. Research at TIGS focuses on developing alternative control methods for vector-borne diseases, developing better crops with higher productivity, and finding technological means to alleviate the global issue of antibiotic resistance.
This seminar is delivered in coordination with Harvard Global Research Support Centre India.
Refreshments will be served. Please RSVP to mittalinstitutedelhi@fas.harvard.edu.
Dreams of Independence: Vernacular Nationalism Among the Mizos of Northeast India
START
Wed, Feb 27, 2019 at 12:00pm
END
Wed, Feb 27, 2019 at 01:30pm
VENUE
CGIS South, S250
Harvard University
ADDRESS
CGIS South, S250
Harvard University
1730 Cambridge Street
Cambridge MA
Roluahpuia, the Mittal Institute’s Raghunathan Family Fellow, will discuss his research into the relationship between orality and nationalism at two levels through the lens of the Mizo case in northeast India. The first level surrounds the process of creating a vernacular language, involving the reframing and reconstruction of nationalist ideas. The second is the irrepressibility of the oral vernacular against the state’s violent response to the nationalist movement. As a result, the “vernacularization” of nationalist ideas reveals peoples’ agency to construct their own sense and understanding of the nation.
This discussion will be chaired by Sugata Bose, Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History and Affairs in the Department of History at Harvard University.
Lunch and refreshments will be served.
Sri Lankan Narrations and Building Schemes by Minnette de Silva
START
Tue, Feb 26, 2019 at 06:00pm
END
Tue, Feb 26, 2019 at 07:30pm
VENUE
CGIS South, S153
Harvard University
ADDRESS
CGIS South, S153
Harvard University
1730 Cambridge Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
In her building and writing, architect Minnette de Silva sought to recreate a “felicitous community spirit” across social and cultural differences, as stated in her memoir — a text on the significant multi-family housing project her office undertook. In this event, Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi, Assistant Professor of the Department of Architecture at Columbia University, will perform a critical examination of de Silva’s work. Siddiqi will discuss the claims de Silva sought to incorporate into modern architecture for Ceylon, and her labors as a cultural narrator imagining a heritage at the end of a half-century career.
Book Talk: The Future Is Asian
START
Tue, Feb 19, 2019 at 04:15pm
END
Tue, Feb 19, 2019 at 06:00pm
VENUE
CGIS South, S250
Harvard University
ADDRESS
CGIS South, S250
Harvard University
1730 Cambridge Street
Cambridge MA
Parag Khanna, Managing Partner of FutureMap, will discuss his new book entitled “The Future Is Asian,” in a talk chaired by Tarun Khanna, Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor at Harvard Business School and Director of The Mittal Institute.
This event is co-sponsored with the Harvard University Asia Center.
About the book:
“The ‘Asian Century‘ is even bigger than you think. Far greater than just China, the new Asian system taking shape is a multi-civilizational order spanning Saudi Arabia to Japan, and Russia to Australia—linking five billion people through trade, finance and infrastructure networks that together represent 40 percent of global GDP. From investment portfolios and trade wars to Hollywood movies and holiday travels, no aspect of life is immune from Asianization.
“Dr. Parag Khanna’s latest book, “The Future Is Asian,” presents this irrepressible global Asianization through detailed analysis, data and maps of Asia’s major markets and their combined impact on global economy, society and governance. With his trademark conceptual clarity and on-the-ground reportage, Khanna provides essential guidance for executives as they look to hedge their China exposure and capture the next big commercial opportunities across Asia from real estate and retail to finance and technology, and attract Asian capital and talent into their operations at home and abroad. With his intimate knowledge of Asian history and geopolitics, he also paints a compelling vision of a balanced global system of shared responsibilities across America, Europe and Asia.” (Parag Khanna, 2019)
India’s Daughter: Film Screening and Discussion
START
Fri, Feb 15, 2019 at 04:00pm
END
Fri, Feb 15, 2019 at 06:00pm
In collaboration with the Office of Student Affairs at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute and the Asia Center are co-sponsoring a film screening of “India’s Daughter,” followed by a discussion with Leslee Udwin, Producer and Director.
“India’s Daughter” is a documentary film based on the story of the brutal gang rape and murder of 23-year-old medical student Jyoti on a moving bus in Delhi in 2012, and the unprecedented protests and riots ignited by the event throughout India.
Pakistan’s Youth and the Welfare State: Bilawal Bhutto
START
Mon, Feb 11, 2019 at 06:00pm
END
Mon, Feb 11, 2019 at 07:15pm
VENUE
CGIS South, S020 Belfer
Harvard University
ADDRESS
CGIS South, S020 Belfer
Harvard University
1730 Cambridge Street
Cambridge MA 02138
Join us for a conversation with Bilawal Bhutto, Chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party, on Pakistan’s youth and the welfare state. The conversation will be chaired by Mariam Chughtai, Babar Ali Fellow of the Mittal Institute and Associate Dean and Assistant Professor at LUMS Syed Ahsan Ali and Syed Maratib Ali School of Education, Pakistan.
This event is a collaboration between the Mittal Institute and the Harvard Pakistan Student Group.
Building a Leading Institution for Research and Education: Insights from Harvard University
START
Mon, Feb 11, 2019 at 06:00pm
END
Mon, Feb 11, 2019 at 08:00pm
This seminar will focus on recent trends within higher education across the world, and how these trends present opportunities and challenges at Harvard University and similar institutions internationally. Professor Mark C. Elliott, Vice Provost for International Affairs and Mark Schwartz Professor of Chinese and Inner Asian History at Harvard University, will share examples of Harvard’s global engagement and how it supports the University’s standing as a world-class institution of research and education.
This seminar is delivered in coordination with Harvard Global Research Support Centre India.
Refreshments will be served. Please RSVP to mittalinstitutedelhi@fas.harvard.edu.
The First Battlefield of Western Nuclear Competition: India and Light Water Reactors, 1955–1963
START
Mon, Feb 11, 2019 at 04:15pm
END
Mon, Feb 11, 2019 at 06:00pm
VENUE
CGIS South, S250
Harvard University
ADDRESS
CGIS South, S250
Harvard University
1730 Cambridge Street
Cambridge MA
This event is co-hosted by the Asia Center and the Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute.
As part of the Asia Center’s Science and Technology Seminar Series, Professor Jayita Sarkar of the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University will discuss nuclear policy in India.
After President Eisenhower’s 1953 “Atoms for Peace” proposal at the United Nations General Assembly, U.S. technological superiority in nuclear technologies became a powerful tool of U.S. foreign policy in the form of civil nuclear assistance. American light water reactor sales were offered to Western Europe, Asia and elsewhere under Section 123 of the 1954 U.S. Atomic Energy Act, thereby, making General Electric, Westinghouse, Babcock & Wilcox and Combustion Engineering the major reactor suppliers in the world. Both the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations were anxious about the impact of an imminent Chinese nuclear weapons test on non-Communist and non-aligned India.
Policymakers in Washington, therefore, decided that the best chance of stalling Indian nuclear proliferation was to offer American power reactors that could help demonstrate the peaceful nuclear capability of the democratic Asian country, in sharp contrast to the military capability of the authoritarian Chinese communist state. Moreover, U.S. reactors would allow U.S. access and oversight on India’s nuclear program through safeguards. This led to the first bilateral reactor agreement between the United States and India leading to U.S. supply of two light water reactors built in Tarapur.
Notwithstanding the Indian Atomic Energy Commission’s opposition to safeguards, its chairman Homi J. Bhabha accepted the US offer because of the generous financial package that it accompanied, thereby, beating the offer of reactors without safeguards from the French Commissariat a l’emergie atomique. After India’s 1974 nuclear explosion, the US supplied light water reactors became tools of U.S. nonproliferation policy toward the Indian Atomic Energy Commission.
Victor Seow, Assistant Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University, will chair this lecture.
Crisis and Credibility: The Politics of Ideas in India and Developing Democracies
START
Fri, Feb 8, 2019 at 02:00pm
END
Fri, Feb 8, 2019
VENUE
CGIS South, S450
ADDRESS
CGIS South, S450
1730 Cambridge Street
Cambridge, MA
JOINT SEMINAR ON SOUTH ASIAN POLITICS SERIES
Dr. Bilal A. Baloch is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI), Ronald O. Perelman Center for Political Science & Economics and a Lecturer and Regional Director in South Asia, Middle East and North Africa at The Joseph H. Lauder Institute, Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania.
At CASI, Bilal focuses on the political economy of government behavior in India and other developing democracies. Here, he is revising his doctoral dissertation, Crisis, Credibility, and Corruption: How Ideas and Institutions Shape Government Behavior in India, into a monograph. Bilal has presented academic papers at several international conferences, including the annual meetings of the American Political Science Association and the International Studies Association. In addition to his scholarly publications, his commentary has appeared in a number of outlets, including: The Guardian, Foreign Policy, The Washington Post, and The Hindu. (Source)
In this lecture, Bilal will go beyond the claim that ideas matter in Indian politics, and will identify which set of ideas, as well as how these ideas shape political behavior during a credibility crisis. He will examine two main credibility crisis moments in contemporary Indian history: that which led to the declaration of an internal emergency and suspension of civil liberties by the ruling Congress government in 1974-1975; and the crisis milieu which led to policy paralysis within the UPA government in 2011-2012. This argument draws upon over 120 interviews with state elites, including prime ministers, cabinet ministers, party leaders, senior bureaucrats, and others.