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SAI Event Topic : Cosponsored Event


Fri, April 12, 2019 at 02:00pm  /  CGIS South, S153

De Facto Suffrage: A Field Experiment to Improve Women’s Turnout in Pakistan’s General Elections

JOINT SEMINAR ON SOUTH ASIAN POLITICS SERIES

Sarah Khan, Postgraduate Associate, Yale MacMillan Center

Sarah Khan is a postgraduate associate at the Yale MacMillan Center. Her research interests lie at the intersection of gender and comparative politics, with a regional specialization in South Asia. In her work, she explores gender gaps in political preferences, and the barriers to women’s participation and substantive representation in Pakistan. Additionally, she explores questions related to the prevention of violence against women. Her research has been generously supported by grants from the American Institute of Pakistan Studies, the Abdul Jameel Poverty Action Lab (JPAL) Governance Initiative, and the National Science Foundation.

Khan has worked with Ali Cheema, Shandana Mohmand, and Asad Liaqat to research potential pathways to increasing women’s voter registration and turnout in Pakistan, culminating in a paper entitled “Exercising Her Right: Civic and Political Action as Pathways for Increasing Women’s Turnout in Pakistan.” According to the team, “there is a large and persistent gender gap in voter registration and turnout in Pakistan, making for a heavily male-skewed electorate in all levels of Pakistani elections. This has implications both for the quality of democracy, and for women’s substantive representation in politics.”

START
Fri, Apr 12, 2019 at 02:00pm

END
Fri, Apr 12, 2019

VENUE
CGIS South, S153
Harvard University

ADDRESS
1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02138

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Tue, February 19, 2019 from 04:15pm - 06:00pm  /  CGIS South, S250

Book Talk: The Future Is Asian

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)
 

START
Tue, Feb 19, 2019 at 04:15pm

END
Tue, Feb 19, 2019 at 06:00pm

VENUE
CGIS South, S250
Harvard University

ADDRESS
1730 Cambridge Street
Cambridge MA

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Fri, February 8, 2019 at 02:00pm  /  CGIS South, S450

Crisis and Credibility: The Politics of Ideas in India and Developing Democracies

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.

START
Fri, Feb 8, 2019 at 02:00pm

END
Fri, Feb 8, 2019

VENUE
CGIS South, S450

ADDRESS
1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA

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Thu, December 6, 2018 from 05:00pm - 08:30pm

Film Screening and Discussion: Haider

A special screening of the Hindi film Haider (2014), followed by dinner and a group discussion. The film is an adaptation of Hamlet in the contemporary military context of Kashmir. It contains significant violence and bloodshed. This will be a unique chance to understand both the realities and representations of the Kashmir Valley. 

Discussants:

Aniket De, PhD candidate, Harvard University

Neha Ansari, PhD Candidate in the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, and a former journalist.

Niya Shahdad, a writer and independent journalist based in Srinagar, via Skype

 

RSVP: aniket_de@g.harvard.edu

Sponsors: Program in General Education, and Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute at Harvard University.

START
Thu, Dec 6, 2018 at 05:00pm

END
Thu, Dec 6, 2018 at 08:30pm

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Thu, November 29, 2018 from 05:00pm - 07:00pm  /  CGIS South, Tsai Auditorium S010

Beyond the Nation and the Novel: The Drama and Music of Dwijendralal Roy

Chaired by: Sugata Bose, Gardiner Professor of History, Harvard University

Sunil Amrith, Mehra Family Professor of South Asian Studies, Harvard University

A reading on “Musical Crossings” by Sarvani Gooptu, Professor in Asian Literary and Cultural Studies, Netaji Institute for Asian Studies, Kolkata, from her book The Music of Nationhood

Sugata Bose on “Literature as History, History as Political Theory”

Performance of D.L. Roy’s songs (including those from his play Shah Jahan) by Sarvani Gooptu and Sugata Bose, accompanied by Dipankar Deshmukh on the esraj and Rajesh Pai on the tabla

We are co-sponsoring this event with the Asia Center, Harvard University

START
Thu, Nov 29, 2018 at 05:00pm

END
Thu, Nov 29, 2018 at 07:00pm

VENUE
CGIS South, Tsai Auditorium S010
Harvard University

ADDRESS
1730 Cambridge Street
Cambridge, MA 02138

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Mon, October 22, 2018 from 02:30pm - 04:00pm  /  Harvard Kennedy School, Taubman Building

The Water-Energy-Food Nexus in India: Indirect Management of Groundwater Through Electricity Sector Reforms

Aditi Mukherji, PhD

International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), Nepal; and

Coordinating Lead Author, Working Group II/Water Chapter, 6th Assessment Report, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

 

The agriculture, groundwater and electricity sectors in India are bound in an unsustainable nexus of mutual interdependence. Growth in the agriculture sector is often reliant on unsustainable practices in the groundwater and electricity sectors. Likewise, policies and practices in one sector affect outcomes in all three sectors. This mutual interdependence is referred to as the water-energy-food nexus (WEF). The institutions undergirding India’s WEF nexus were shaped by the imperative to make India food secure at a time when hunger and starvation seemed imminent. While the Green Revolution led to an expansion in India’s food production, the de-metering of the agricultural electricity supply in late 1970s–early 1980s led to a WEF nexus that has become untenable in India today.

While many accounts of India’s rapid groundwater decline do not differentiate across contexts, Dr. Mukherji’s work shows that there is wide variation across states in the functioning and outcomes of the WEF nexus, which has led to distinctly different outcomes in terms of their sustainability today. In this talk, through three state-level case studies, she demonstrates that variation in outcomes in the WEF nexus is caused not only by the physical characteristics of groundwater endowments and rainfall-recharge in each state, but also by variation in both institutional policies and in political exigencies between states. It follows that policies to improve the sustainability of the WEF nexus must take into account this inter-state variation.

Dr. Mukherji is the first ever recipient of the Borlaug Field Award (2012), which recognizes “exceptional, science-based achievement in international agriculture and food production by an individual under the age of 40 who has clearly emulated the same intellectual courage, stamina and determination in the fight to eliminate global hunger and poverty as was demonstrated by Dr. Norman Borlaug as a young scientist.” The award is endowed by the Rockefeller Foundation and given by the World Food Prize Foundation, USA.

Dr. Mukherji currently leads the Water and Air Theme at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in Nepal. She has over 18 years of experience working on policies and institutions of water resources management with a special focus on water-energy-food nexus. She has published over 50 peer reviewed papers. Dr. Mukherji has served as a Permanent Consultative Committee member of GEF-FAO’s Groundwater Governance project hosted by FAO at Rome. She is currently a part of the 6th Assessment Report team of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and will contribute as Coordinating Lead Author (CLA) for the Water Chapter in the Working Group II. Aditi is a human geographer by training and has a PhD from Cambridge University, United Kingdom where she was a Gates Cambridge Scholar.

Co-sponsored by:

Sustainability Science Program (SSP), Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, HKS

Evidence for Policy Design (EPoD), Harvard Kennedy School

Harvard University Center for the Environment (HUCE)

The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute (SAI), Harvard University

Weatherhead Center for International Affairs (WCfIA)

The MIT Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (JWAFS

START
Mon, Oct 22, 2018 at 02:30pm

END
Mon, Oct 22, 2018 at 04:00pm

VENUE
Harvard Kennedy School, Taubman Building

ADDRESS
79 John F. Kennedy St, Cambridge, MA 02138

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Tue, October 9, 2018 from 06:00pm - 08:00pm  /  Emerson Hall, Harvard Yard

Panel Discussion: Democracy in Distress in South Asia

Panelists

Sugata Bose
Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History and Affairs, Harvard University

Rohit De
Assistant Professor of History, Yale University

Sreenivasan Jain
Anchor and Managing Editor, New Delhi Television Limited (NDTV)

Ayesha Jalal
Mary Richardson Professor of History, Tufts University

Moderator

Homi Bhabha
Director, Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard

START
Tue, Oct 9, 2018 at 06:00pm

END
Tue, Oct 9, 2018 at 08:00pm

COST: Free

VENUE
Emerson Hall, Harvard Yard

ADDRESS
Room 305, 25 Quincy Street, Cambridge

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Tue, October 2, 2018 from 06:00pm - 07:30pm  /  Barker Center 110

Book Talk | Trust: Creating the Foundation for Entrepreneurship in Developing Countries

Tarun Khanna, Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor, Harvard Business School on his new book, Trust: Creating the Foundation for Entrepreneurship in Developing Countries in conversation with Caroline Elkins, Professor of History and African and African American Studies, Harvard University

Free and open to the public; seating is limited.

 

About Trust

Entrepreneurial ventures often fail in the developing world because of the lack of something taken for granted in the developed world: trust. Over centuries, the developed world has built customs and institutions such as enforceable contracts, an impartial legal system, and credible regulatory bodies—and even unofficial but respected sources of information such as Yelp and Consumer Reports—that have created a high level of what scholar and entrepreneur Tarun Khanna calls “ambient trust.”

This is not the case in the developing world. But Khanna shows that rather than become casualties of mistrust, smart entrepreneurs can adopt the mindset that, like it or not, it’s up to them to weave their own independent web of trust—with their employees, their partners, their clients, their customers, and society as a whole. This can be challenging, and it requires innovative approaches in places where the level of societal mistrust is so high that an official certification of quality simply arouses suspicion—and lowers sales! Using vivid examples from Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and elsewhere, Khanna’s stories show how entrepreneurs can build on existing customs and practices instead of trying to push against them. He highlights the role new technologies can play (but cautions that these are not panaceas) and explains how entrepreneurs can find dependable partners in national and local governments to create impact at scale.

As far back as the 18th century, Adam Smith recognized trust as what Khanna calls “the hidden engine of economic progress.” “Frankness and openness conciliate confidence,” Smith wrote. “We trust the man who seems willing to trust us.” That kind of confidence is critical to entrepreneurial success, but in the developing world, entrepreneurs have to establish it through their own efforts. As Khanna puts it, “The entrepreneur must not just create, she must create the conditions to create.”

START
Tue, Oct 2, 2018 at 06:00pm

END
Tue, Oct 2, 2018 at 07:30pm

COST: Free

VENUE
Barker Center 110

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