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SAI Event Topic : Special Event

Mittal Institute Student Grants Open House

START
Mon, Oct 4, 2021 at 05:30pm

END
Mon, Oct 4, 2021

VENUE
CGIS South, S250
Harvard University

ADDRESS
CGIS South, S250
Harvard University
1730 Cambridge Street
Cambridge MA

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Come learn about funding opportunities available to Harvard students interested in South Asia! The Mittal Institute supports undergraduate and graduate students in a wide variety of disciplines with grants for internships, language study, and research. Winter Term applications are due on October 22. Join us on October 4 either in-person at CGIS S250 or register to attend virtually at bit.ly/2ZBHSoB. 


Afghanistan’s Next Transition: How we got here, and what comes next

START
Fri, Oct 15, 2021 at 11:00am

END
Fri, Oct 15, 2021 at 12:15pm

VENUE
Webinar

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This Harvard University panel, co-sponsored by the Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute and the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies’ Negotiation Task Force, will explore the lead up to the collapse of the Afghan government, as well as what the new Taliban regime means for the future of the country and its people.

Moderator

Arvid Bell, Director, Negotiation Task Force, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies; Lecturer, Government Department, Harvard University.

Panelists

Anand Gopal, Journalist and Author

Fara Abbas, Fellow, Negotiation Task Force, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University; Former Director of Programs, National Security Council, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan

Philipp Ackermann, Director General, Africa, Latin America, Near and Middle East, German Ministry of Foreign Affairs

 


Entangled Histories: The Bamiyan Buddhas—Past, Present, and Future

START
Wed, Sep 22, 2021 at 07:00pm

END
Wed, Sep 22, 2021 at 08:15pm

VENUE
Webinar

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Western scholarship has focused on the monumental sculptures in Afghanistan’s Bamiyan Valley as Buddhas created in the late sixth and early seventh centuries. This lecture tells an alternative story based on Islamic sources from the tenth to the twentieth century, which saw these sculptures not as Buddhas but as legendary heroes representing the mythic conversion of the Bamiyan Valley to Islam. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the Taliban destroyed the sculptures—as Buddhas. After the fall of the Taliban, the sculptures’ entangled histories and the viewpoints of multiple stakeholders posed challenges for the global debate on how best to memorialize the destroyed images. Now that the Taliban has again taken power, the question is: what is Bamiyan’s future?

Speakers:

Deborah Klimburg-Salter, University Professor of Art History, emerita, University of Vienna, Austria, and Associate, Department of South Asian Studies, Harvard University

Masanori Nagaoka, Programme Specialist for Culture, UNESCO Office in Cambodia

This talk will take place online via Zoom. Free admission, but registration is required. To register, please complete this online form. Please read these instructions on how to join a meeting on Zoom. For general questions, email am_register@harvard.edu.

The Harvard Art Museums are committed to accessibility for all visitors. For anyone requiring accessibility accommodations for our programs, please contact us at am_register@harvard.edu at least 48 hours in advance.


Political Misinformation in India: Evidence from Experimental Solutions

START
Fri, Sep 24, 2021 at 12:00pm

END
Fri, Sep 24, 2021

VENUE
Webinar

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Dr. Sumitra Badrinathan is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Oxford. In May 2021, she received a PhD in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests include studying misinformation, media effects and political behavior, with a regional focus on India.

Sumitra’s dissertation evaluates the effectiveness of interventions to combat political misinformation in India and the power of partisanship and motivated reasoning to affect information processing. To shed light on these questions, her research has focused on techniques to fight fake news on WhatsApp and digital literacy trainings to decrease vulnerability to misinformation. Her work has appeared in academic journals such as the American Political Science Review well as popular press such as The Washington Post. Methodologically, Sumitra uses experimental and survey methods to study the relationship between newer forms of media like WhatsApp and their effect on trust in news, polarization, political participation, and quality of democracy.

Originally from Mumbai, India, Sumitra holds an M.A. in Political Science from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in Psychology from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai.

A Joint Sem­i­nar on South Asian Pol­i­tics co-sponsored by the Watson Institute at Brown, the Weatherhead Center and South Asia Institute at Harvard and the MIT Center for International Studies


The Past and Future of India-China Relations

START
Fri, Oct 29, 2021 at 10:00am

END
Fri, Oct 29, 2021 at 12:00pm

VENUE
Webinar

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Join Kanti Prasad Bajpai, Vijay Gokhal, and Shivshankar Menon, Tanvi Madan and Taylor Fravel to discuss relations between China and India.

Speakers:

Vijay Gokhale is a nonresident senior fellow at Carnegie India.  Mr. Gokhale retired from the Indian Foreign Service in January 2020 after a diplomatic career that spanned thirty-nine years. From January 2018 to January 2020, he served as the foreign secretary of India. 

Prior to his term as foreign secretary, Mr. Gokhale had served as India’s high commissioner to Malaysia from January 2010 to October 2013, as ambassador of India to the Federal Republic of Germany from October 2013 to January 2016, and as ambassador of India to the People’s Republic of China from January 2016 to October 2017. He has served as head of the India-Taipei Association, in Taiwan, from July 2003 to January 2007. During his time in the headquarters of the Ministry of External Affairs, he has also worked in key positions in the East Asia Division, including as the joint secretary (Director General) for East Asia from March 2007 to December 2009. 

In his new book, ‘The Long Game: How the Chinese Negotiate with India’, Gokhale unpacks the dynamics of India-China relations through the prism of six historical and recent events. The book gives a practitioner’s insight into strategies, tactics, and tools that China uses for diplomatic negotiations.

Shivshankar Menon is a Distinguished Fellow at CSEP and a Visiting Professor at Ashoka University. His long career in public service spans diplomacy, national security, atomic energy, disarmament policy, and India’s relations with its neighbours and major global powers. Menon served as national security advisor to the Indian Prime Minister from January 2010 to May 2014. He currently serves as chairman of the advisory board of the Institute of Chinese Studies in New Delhi. He was also a Distinguished Fellow with Brookings India. He is the author of “Choices: Inside the Making of Indian Foreign Policy” published by the Brookings Press and Penguin Random House in 2016. His new book, “India and Asian Geopolitics; The Past, Present” is likely to be out in 2021.

Menon has previously served as foreign secretary of India from October 2006 to August 2009 and as ambassador and high commissioner of India to Israel (1995-1997), Sri Lanka (1997-2000), China (2000-2003) and Pakistan (2003-2006). From 2008 to 2014, he was also a member of India’s Atomic Energy Commission. A career diplomat, he also served in India’s missions to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Geneva and the United Nations in New York.

In his new book, India and Asian Geopolitics: The Past, Present, Menon traces India’s approach to the shifting regional landscape since its independence in 1947. From its leading role in the “nonaligned” movement during the cold war to its current status as a perceived counterweight to China, India often has been an after-thought for global leaders—until they realize how much they needed it.

Kanti Prasad Bajpai is a Professor of Asian Studies at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and the Director of the Centre on Asia and Globalisation.Bajpai is an expert on a range of policy issues, including international relations theory, international security, regional cooperation in South Asia, and Indian security and foreign policy.

Previously, he was Professor of International Politics, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Professor in the Politics and International Relations of South Asia, Oxford University. From 2003 to 2009, he was Headmaster, The Doon School, India. He taught at the Maharajah Sayajirao University of Baroda, and has held visiting appointments at Wesleyan University, Columbia University, and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He has also held visiting appointments at the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace, Notre Dame University, the Brookings Institution, and the Australian Defence Force Academy. Most recently, he was Distinguished Fellow, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi. Kanti writes a regular column for the Times of India (New Delhi).

In his new book, India Versus China : Why they are not friends, Bajpai decodes the complex history of India–China relations and argues that the path ahead is a difficult one that could see more military confrontations, including violent border clashes. Crucial to the relationship will be India’s ability to reduce the enormous gap with China in economic, military, and even soft power.

Chair: Vipin Narang, MIT

A Joint Sem­i­nar on South Asian Pol­i­tics co-sponsored by the Watson Institute at Brown, the Weatherhead Center and LMSAI at Harvard and the MIT Center for International Studies

 

Vaccinating India Against Covid: Lessons from History

START
Fri, Nov 19, 2021 at 11:00am

END
Fri, Nov 19, 2021

VENUE
Webinar

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Harish Naraindas is professor of sociology at Jawaharlal Nehru University, and honorary professor at the Alfred Deakin Institute, Faculty of Arts and Education, Deakin University. He was adjunct faculty at the University of Iowa (2004-19); joint-appointments professor of the Cluster of Excellence, University of Heidelberg (2008-12); visiting professor at the department of sociology, University of Freiburg (2009); and DAAD visiting professor at the department of anthropology, University of Heidelberg (2017). He works on the history and sociology of science and medicine and has published on a range of topics, including an epistemological history of tropical medicine, a comparative history of smallpox from the 18th to the 20th century, on the creolisation of contemporary Ayurveda, on spa medicine in Germany, on pregnancy and childbirth within the context of competing medical epistemes, and recently on how anthropology attempts to explain the non-human. He is currently working on AyurGenomics and P4 medicine; past-life aetiologies and therapeutic trance in German psychosomatic medicine; a multi-sited study of perinatal loss and bereavement in the Anglophone world; and on the pedagogy and practice of obstetrics in India. Among his recent publications are a co-edited special issue of Anthropology and Medicine called ‘The fragile medical: the slippery terrain between medicine, anthropology and societies’ (2017), and two co-edited books: Healing holidays: itinerant patients, therapeutic locales and the quest for health (London: Routledge, 2015), and Asymmetrical conversations: contestations, circumventions and the blurring of therapeutic boundaries (New York: Berghahn, 2014).

Discussant:
Prerna Singh, Brown University

A Joint Sem­i­nar on South Asian Pol­i­tics co-sponsored by the Watson Institute at Brown, the Weatherhead Center and South Asia Institute at Harvard and the MIT Center for International Studies


How do Gender Quotas Impact Accountability?

START
Fri, Dec 3, 2021 at 12:00pm

END
Fri, Dec 3, 2021

VENUE
Webinar

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Zuheir Desai is an assistant Professor in the School of Global and Public Affairs at IE University. His research focuses on electoral competition and political accountability. His work spans both theoretical models of elections, voting, and policymaking, as well as empirical applications of these models on developing democracies such as Brazil and India. Previously, Desai was a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Politics at Princeton University in the 2020-21 academic year. He received my Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Rochester in 2020.

A Joint Sem­i­nar on South Asian Pol­i­tics co-sponsored by the Watson Institute at Brown, the Weatherhead Center and South Asia Institute at Harvard and the MIT Center for International Studies


Implications: Regional Perspectives on the US Withdrawal from Afghanistan

START
Fri, Sep 10, 2021 at 09:00am

END
Fri, Sep 10, 2021 at 10:30am

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An Asia Beyond the Headlines Seminar Series 

Panelists: 

  • Shirin Jaafari, Reporter, The World, USA  
  • Shubhanga Pandey, Chief Editor, Himal Southasian, Sri Lanka 
  • Nasim Zehra, Author/Columnist; National Security Expert; Senior Anchor/Analyst, Channel 24, Pakistan 

Moderator: 

James Robson, James C. Kralik, and Yunli Lou Professor, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations; Harvard College Professor; Victor and William Fung Director, Asia Center, Harvard University

Biographies:

Shirin Jaafari is a reporter for The World, a public radio program based in the US. Her reporting focuses on the Middle East and Afghanistan. Most recently, she was in Afghanistan to cover the US withdrawal. Shirin has also reported from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. Before joining The World, Shirin worked for the BBC in Washington DC.

Shubhanga Pandey is the chief editor of Himal Southasian, a digital publication of South Asian politics, history, and culture. He has also written for other publications, including The World Politics Review, London Review of Books, Jacobin, and The Caravan.

Nasim Zehra is a national security specialist and a prominent journalist. As a columnist, television host, and teacher, with extensive experience in the development field, she writes and lectures widely on national security and global politics. She is the author of From Kargil to the Coup (2018). Ms. Zehra has been a Fellow and is currently an Associate at the Harvard University Asia Center. She was also a visiting lecturer at the Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad; National University of Science and Technology; and at the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. Ms. Zehra has served in an honorary capacity in the following committees/positions: the President‘s Advisory Committee on Foreign Affairs and national security (2001), member of Kashmir Committee ( 2002), and Pakistan‘s Special Envoy on UNSC reforms for Canada & Latin America (June 2005). Ms. Zehra holds an MBA from Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, and a Master’s degree in Law & Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, USA.

James Robson is the James C. Kralik and Yunli Lou Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations and the William Fung Director of the Harvard University Asia Center. He has served as the Chair of the Regional Studies East Asia M.A. program. He teaches East Asian religions, in particular Daoism, Chinese Buddhism, and Zen, as well as the sophomore tutorial for concentrators. Robson received his Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies from Stanford University in 2002, after spending many years researching in China, Taiwan, and Japan. He specializes in the history of medieval Chinese Buddhism and Daoism and is particularly interested in issues of sacred geography, local religious history, and Chan/Zen Buddhism. He has been engaged in a long-term collaborative research project with the École Française d’Extrême-Orient studying local religious statuary from Hunan province. He is the author of Power of Place: The Religious Landscape of the Southern Sacred Peak [Nanyue 南嶽] in Medieval China (Harvard, 2009), which was awarded the Stanislas Julien Prize for 2010 by the French Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres and the 2010 ToshihideNumata Book Prize in Buddhism. Robson is also the author of “Signs of Power: Talismanic Writings in Chinese Buddhism” (History of Religions 48:2), “Faith in Museums: On the Confluence of Museums and Religious Sites in Asia” (PMLA, 2010), and “A Tang Dynasty Chan Mummy [roushen] and a Modern Case of Furta Sacra? Investigating the Contested Bones of Shitou Xiqian.” His current research includes a long-term project on the history of the confluence of Buddhist monasteries and mental hospitals in East Asia.

Sponsored by the Harvard University Asia Center; Co-sponsored by the Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, Harvard University


Art Walk: Liminal Worlds by Sunanda Khajuria

START
Sat, Sep 11, 2021 at 05:00pm

END
Sat, Sep 11, 2021 at 07:00pm

VENUE
Mandi House

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5:00-7:00PM IST

RSVP here by 4pm Friday, Sept 10

The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute in association with the Harvard Club of India is hosting an immersive art walk at the exhibition themed, Liminal Worlds, featuring the artwork of a former Visiting Artist Fellow at Harvard University, Sunanda Khajuria. Explore the transient, dream-like worlds of Sunanda Khajuria and hear her speak about her work and journey as an artist on Saturday, September 11, 2021, from 5 pm to 7 pm. Since the exhibition is a limited capacity event, kindly RSVP and confirm your presence by 4 pm on Friday, September 10, 2021.

Venue

Art Heritage, 205, Tansen Marg, Triveni Kala Sangam, Mandi House, New Delhi, Delhi 110001

About the Artist

Sunanda Khajuria is a visual artist who is deeply inspired by Chinese traditional painting techniques and draws her imagery from both the terrain of ethereal memory as well as from actual, physical landscapes she has visited. Through her psychedelic and startling dreamscapes, she attempts to create liminal spaces, capturing the experience of being ‘in transit.’ Using a lexicon of symbols, and visual metaphors, she skillfully interweaves images of transition and mobility and places them in a non-perspectival liminal space.


Concert from Bangladesh

START
Sun, Aug 1, 2021 at 06:00pm

END
Sun, Aug 1, 2021

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6pm Dhaka – 6pm London – 6pm New York

Stream the Virtual Concert


Concert from Bangladesh is a mixed reality music concert, using cutting edge technology to take audiences on a virtual audio-visual journey through Bangladesh past and present, encompassing mystical Baul singers from rural Kushtia, experimental electronics and hip hop from the streets of Dhaka.

Musicians and Performers

  • Adittya Arzu aka Siaminium (Electronics and Recording Engineer)
  • Meerashri Arshee (Classical Raga vocalist)
  • Arif Baul (Baul vocalist and composer)
  • Nishit Dey (Composer, Sitar and Tabla player)
  • Enayet (Producer, Electronics, Composer)
  • Moumita Haque (Nazrul sangeet vocalist)
  • Nazrul Islam (Dhol player)
  • Gully Boy Rana and Tabib Mahmud (Hip hop artists)
  • Jawaad Mustakim Al Muballig (Bansuri flute player)
  • Provhat Rahman (Electronics)
  • Saidur Rahman (Harmonium player)
  • Shoummo Saha (Audio producer)
  • Sohel (Percussionist)

About the Concert From Bangladesh

Concert From Bangladesh is a groundbreaking mixed reality digital collaboration between UBIK Productions (London) and Samdani Art Foundation (Dhaka) supported by the British Council Digital Collaboration Fund. The organisations have commissioned acclaimed British-South Asian artist Shezad Dawood to create a virtual reality stage for a concert released on 1 August 2021 via Pioneer Works’ (NYC) website, expanding on the 50 year legacy of Concert For Bangladesh: the original charity concert initiated by Ravi Shankar and George Harrison of Beatles’ fame, in aid of the relief effort and refugee crisis during the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971.

Co-curated by Diana Campbell, Artistic Director of the Samdani Art Foundation (SAF), with Dhaka-born music producer and artist Enayet Kabir, together with assistant curators Ruxmini Choudhury and Shoummo Saha, Concert From Bangladesh updates the 1971 concert to showcase a wealth of talent across varied Bangladeshi musical traditions – from mystical Baul singing to experimental electronics and socially engaged Dhaka hip hop – and raise funds for the Bangladeshi climate change and human rights charity Friendship.

The concept was developed by Campbell together with multiple collaborators including Dawood. In the words of SAF Founder Nadia Samdani, “As Bangladesh celebrates 50 years of independence, we are delighted to be a part of producing a work that allows the world to listen to the wealth of music and culture found in our country, and to reconsider the role that music and art can play in banding people together to fight for a better and more equal future.” Miranda Sharp, UBIK Productions Director, says,“We’re thrilled to be working with SAF and Shezad Dawood on this multidisciplinary, transnational project that pushes the boundaries of art and music production and develops new digital collaborative workflows.”

Concert From Bangladesh will go live to audiences via Pioneer Works’ online platform on 1 August 2021, accompanied by live events at Yorkshire Sculpture Park (Wakefield) as part of Yorkshire Sculpture International and Pioneer Works (New York City), 50 years on from the original concert. Additional events will take place with Chisenhale Gallery (London), at Leeds City Varieties Music Hall (Leeds) and Srihatta Samdani Art Centre and Sculpture Park (Sylhet). These institutions are located in significant diasporic or rural Bangladeshi areas and will further de-centre and democratise the project’s reach, amplifying the experience to diverse Bangladeshi and international communities.

The concert will take viewers on an expansive sonic journey spanning six centuries, beginning with renowned Baul singer Arif Baul accompanied by instrumental virtuosos Nazrul Islam, Saidur Rahman, and Sohel. This will be followed by a piece composed by Enayet and Nishit Dey exploring the shared musical language between Nazrul sangeet, classical raga and 90s jungle, by blending cutting edge electronic production and arrangements by Enayet, Provhat Rahman and Adittya Arzu aka Siaminium, with classical raga and Nazrul sangeet vocals by Meerashri Arshee and Moumita Haque, Bansuri flute by Jawaad Mustakim Al Muballig and sitar performance by Nishit Dey. The concert will end with the Bangladeshi hip hop duo Tabib Mahmud and 12-year-old Gully Boy Rana, whose socially engaged lyrics highlight some of the pressing issues the Concert aims to fundraise for.

Shot against a green screen by a Bangladeshi team in Dhaka, Concert From Bangladesh will feature the musicians performing against shifting virtual sets that will immerse audiences in vibrant Dhaka streets, and transport them to the riverbanks of Gorai River Kushtia via mangrove ecosystems and Somapura Mahavihara – one of the best known monasteries in the Indian Subcontinent built in the 8th century AD –, culminating with a performance in the iconic Beauty Boarding, a historically vibrant literary hub in Dhaka and a meeting place for intellectuals to this day.

The performances will be interspersed with archival and contemporary documentary footage, and the concert will be amplified by Augmented Reality assets, including a free filter activated through audiences’ phones and laptops, bringing 3D objects from the screen into viewers’ immediate surroundings. The Concert’s graphic identity is developed by long-time Samdani Art Foundation collaborator Fraser Muggeridge Studio.


Arches: A Data Management and Visualization Platform for Cultural Heritage

START
Wed, May 12, 2021 at 10:00am

END
Wed, May 12, 2021 at 11:00am

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7:00 am – 8:00 am PST/ 10am – 11am EST/ 7:30 am – 8:30 pm IST

CoSTAR Public Talk: ARCHES Getty Conservation Institute

Managing Cultural Heritage (CH) data can be a daunting task.  Uncertainties in dating CH resources, multi-scale geospatial representations, and complex (but essential) relationships among objects, activities, agents, and events make implementing data management applications for CH challenging.  Once a data management system is implemented, accessing, visualizing, and sharing CH data often requires significant effort. To help the CH field address the difficulties in managing and using CH data, The Getty Conservation Institute has developed Arches, an Open Source, freely available data management, and visualization platform.  Arches provide a comprehensive set of modern data management, visualization, and integration capabilities to help identify the appropriate actions needed to protect and preserve cultural heritage resources in a dynamic and changing world.  This presentation will summarize how Arches helps improve stewardship of CH resources and where it is being used around the world.

Speakers:

Annabel Lee Enriquez, Associate Project Specialist at the Getty Conservation Institute

Dennis Wuthrich, CEO of Farallon Geographics, a geospatial web and mobile application development company in San Francisco


The COVID-19 Crisis in India: What is the Way Forward?

START
Thu, May 13, 2021 at 08:00am

END
Thu, May 13, 2021 at 09:30am

VENUE
Webinar

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5:30-7:00 pm IST/ 8:00-9:30 am ET

Register here for the talk
Stream the talk on YouTube

Lancet Citizens’ Commission on Reimagining India’s Health System Public Webinar Series, in collaboration with Lancet COVID-19 Commission India Task Force

Panelists:

  • Gagandeep Kang, Professor of Microbiology, Department of Gastrointestinal Sciences, Christian Medical College
  • Peter Piot, Director and Handa Professor of Global Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine 
  • Gautam Menon, Professor of Physics and Biology, Ashoka University
  • K. Sujatha Rao, Former Secretary of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India 
  • K Srinath Reddy, President, Public Health Foundation of India

Moderator:

Sarah Jacob, Editor/Anchor of ‘We The People’ on NDTV

Description: 

The Lancet Citizens’ Commission on Reimagining India’s Health System is an ambitious, cross-sectoral endeavor that aims to lay out a citizens’ roadmap to achieving universal health coverage for the people of India. Our new webinar series is intended to serve as a platform for public health discourse in India, and a means for academics, practitioners and the public to engage on substantive and timely issues regarding universal health coverage in India.

The Lancet COVID-19 Commission is an interdisciplinary initiative across the health sciences, business, finance, and public policy that was launched in July 2020. It has four themes: to propose recommendations on how best to suppress the epidemic; to address the humanitarian crises arising from the pandemic; addressing the financial and economic crises resulting from the pandemic; and rebuilding an inclusive, fair, and sustainable world. The work of the Commission is supported by twelve Task Forces, in areas ranging from vaccine development, to humanitarian relief strategies, to safe workplaces, to global economic recovery. The India Task Force of the COVID-19 Commission is the only country-specific Task Force, set up in recognition of the unique challenges that India faces in the context of COVID-19.

The first webinar in the series is a joint event with the Lancet COVID-19 Commission India Task Force and will be a panel discussion about the devastating COVID-19 pandemic surge in India – focusing on the short and long-term actions that are needed to address the impact. Leading experts from the medical, scientific, and public policy community will discuss the lessons that need to be learnt and propose what the next steps should be to respond to, and improve, the situation in India. As a Citizens’ Commission, we invite the public to participate in the discussion, provide input and engage with the panelists.