The South Asia Initiative at Harvard





	2007 Grantee Reception

Academic Year 2007-2008:

Thursday, September 27th, 2007
6:00 pm - 7:30 pm

Norton Lecture Hall, Fogg Art Museum
32 Quincy Street (South entrance), Cambridge , MA 02138

Sunil Bharti Mittal President, Confederation of Indian Industry, Chairman & Group C.E.O.
Bharti Enterprises

Jamshyd Godrej Chairman and Managing Director,
Godrej and Boyce Mfg. Co.

Naina Lal Kidwai C.E.O., Hong kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation

Tarun Das Chief Mentor, Confederation of Indian Industry

in conversation with Krishna Palepu, Ross Graham Walker Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School on

The Globalization of the Indian Economy in the 21st Century

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The Harish C. Mahindra
2007 annual endowed lecture:

Hon. P. Chidambaram
The Finance Minister, Government of India

Poor Rich Countries:
The Challenges of Development

Chaired by Sugata Bose

Thursday, October 18th, 2007
4:00 pm – 5:30 pm

Spangler Auditorium, Harvard Business School,
One Soldiers Field, Boston, MA 02163
(click here for a map)

Click here for the event poster

This symposium is part of South Asia At 60, a year-long series of events on India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the other countries of South Asia.

Audio of the lecture available here (right-click and "save as" to download, or simply click to listen)
Video of the lecture available here (must have RealPlayer installed to view - click here to download)

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October 19th – 21st
Remis Auditorium, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Three Films by Shyam Benegal

Zubeidaa
Friday, Oct. 19th, 7:00 pm
Zubeidaa by Shyam Benegal (2001, 153 min.). An intelligent, lyrically constructed love story starring Hindi star Karisma Kapoor, Zubeidaa is the story of a young man's quest to recover the memory of the mother he never knew. Troubled by the scant knowledge he has of his mother Zubeidaa (Karisma Kapoor), Riyaz (Rajit Kapur) tries to piece together her life from the memories of those who knew her. Talented and beautiful, Zubeidaa was the only daughter of a film producer in Mumbai. Zubeidaa's dreams and aspirations did not interest her father, and her happiness fell victim to his domination over her life. Zubeidaa is a passionate love story of a vivacious, impulsive and daring young woman who defies all odds and conventions in order to live life on her own terms. In Hindi with English subtitles.
Followed by a discussion with Richard Delacy - Lecturer for Urdu-Hindi, Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, Harvard University

Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: The Forgotten Hero
Saturday, Oct. 20th, 2:00 pm
Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: The Forgotten Hero by Shyam Benegal (2004, 222 min.). His most ambitious project yet, acclaimed filmmaker Shyam Benegal explores the controversial life of Subhas Chandra Bose, the Bengali freedom fighter who declared open warfare on the British Empire . This fascinating account depicts historical events including Bose's escape from prison in British Calcutta, and his travels to Berlin to meet Adolf Hitler. Frustrated, Bose leaves Germany for Southeast Asia , where he links up with the Japanese to begin his own war. Benegal depicts the multi-faceted nature of the inner man and his doubts and drives, while unveiling a historical perspective rarely afforded in the West. Description adapted from the London Film Festival. In Hindi with English subtitles.
Introduced by Professor Sugata Bose – Gardiner Professor of History and Director, The South Asia Initiative, Harvard University

Manthan
Sunday, Oct. 21st, 2:00 pm
Manthan by Shyam Benegal (1976, 133 min.). Set against the deteriorating dairy industry of Gujarat , Manthan tells of dairy farmers who united to demand their fare share of proceeds from the corporate milk-processing giants. An inspirational film from India's art house pioneer, Shyam Benegal, Manthan was financed by 500,000 Gujarat dairy farmers, each of whom contributed two rupees (four cents) toward the film's budget. Upon its release, the farmers flocked to theaters in truckloads, ensuring that their film was a box-office success. Manthan is one of the first films starring Girish Karnad, Smita Patel, Naseeruddin Shan, and Amrish Puri, who all went on to become major stars of Indian cinema. In Hindi with English subtitles.
Followed by a discussion with Professor Arindam Dutta - Program in History, Theory and Criticism of Architecture and Art, MIT

A critical figure in the new wave of Indian directors, Shyam Benegal has introduced some of the most talented artists in Hindi films including Shabana Azmi, Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Smita Patil, and Amrish Puri. Founder of the Hyderabad Film Society, a former advertising filmmaker, and director of the Film and Television Institute of India , Benegal is noted for his portrayals of rural oppression and shifting social values, as well as his sensitivity to the role of women in contemporary Indian society. The recipient of numerous awards including a Palme d'Or in 1976 for Nishant , the Government of India has awarded Benegal both the Padma Shree (1976) and Padma Bhushan (1991) for his artistic contributions, and last year, the President of India appointed him to the Rajya Sabha, India 's upper house of Parliament. Benegal also won the the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, the highest lifetime achievement award in Indian cinema, last month.

DVDs and images are available.

Tickets are $8 for MFA members, seniors, and students; $9 for general admission.

Please call the Box Office at (617) 369 3306 for ticket orders.

Co-sponsored by the Museum of Fine Arts , Boston . Media sponsor: The Boston Phoenix

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The Fate of a Bowl (or Bowls):
Representations of the Buddha's Bowl in
Early Indian Buddhism

A South Asia Seminar by

Professor Juhyung Rhi
Department of Archaeology and Art History
Seoul National University

Tuesday, November 6th, 2007
5:00 pm

Sackler Museum, Room 318
485 Broadway
Cambridge, MA 02138
Click here for a map.

This lecture is co-sponsored by the South Asia Initiative and the Department of History of Art and Architecture.

Click here for the event poster.

For more information, please contact Alan Yeung
(yeung@fas.harvard.edu).

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Tuesday, November 6th, 2007
6:00pm-9:00pm

Fong Auditorium, Boylston Hall,
Harvard Yard, Cambridge, MA 02138
Click here for a map.

A Conversation and Film Screening with the Director:

Gandhi, My Father

A film by Feroz Abbas Khan

6:00 - 6:15 Introduction by the Director
6:15 - 8:30 Film Screening
8:30 Reception and Q&A with Director Feroz Abbas Khan

Gandhi, My Father is a moving film, exploring the troubled relationship of the Mahatma, Mohandas Gandhi with his eldest son Harilal. Though Gandhi has inspired countless other movies, including the Oscar winning film starring Ben Kingsley, few if any explore the paradoxical relationship between this father of a country, and his own son. This film however, portrays that intensely personal story, while also poignantly addressing the emotional predicament of a mother, Kasturba, caught between loyalty toward her husband and love for her son. Like many world leaders, Gandhi sacrificed much of his personal well being, and as Director Feroz Abbas Khan argues, his family's, in order to fully serve his country. Mahatma Gandhi transformed the soul of a nation, but could not save the soul of his own son. The BBC has called Gandhi, My Father "a must see" film and Newsweek has praised it as "emotionally charged and compelling" in its frustrating refusal to take sides. President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa after viewing it, declared the film "a gift to the world," and is encouraging everyone with even an inkling toward leadership to view the film as soon as possible.
http://www.gandhimyfather.erosentertainment.com/

This special premeiere screening is an extraordinary opportunity to talk with director Feroz Abbas Khan in close quarters, and to learn about the scholarly, artistic, political and cultural vision behind this trendsetting masterpiece.

Co-sponsored by the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations, and Harvard Sangeet

Click here for the event poster.

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Wednesday, November 7th, 2007
3:30pm-5:00pm

Aldrich 10, Harvard Business School,
One Soldiers Field, Boston, MA 02163
(click here for a map)

A South Asia Without Borders seminar by

Tarun Das
Chief Mentor, Confederation of Indian Industry

on

India and the Global Economy

Mr Das has spent his entire working career in industry associations, starting with the predecessor body of CII in November 1963 and was the Chief Executive since April 1974 [when CII (formerly AIEI) was formed through a merger of 2 Associations], till June 2004.

Mr Das is the non-executive Chairman of Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd, India ; non-executive Director on the Boards of John Keells Holdings Ltd. ( Sri Lanka ) and GIVE Foundation India . He is the Chairman of Task Force on Skills Development, Government of India. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of The Aspen Institute, USA; and East West Centre, USA;; Member of the International Advisory Board of The Coca Cola Company Ltd., USA. He is a member of the International Council of The Asia Society, USA . Mr Das is the Co-Chair of the Indo–US Strategic Dialogue and of Indo-US-Japan Strategic Dialogue. Mr. Das is the Managing Trustee of Indian Business Trust for HIV/AIDS.

He is an Honours Graduate in Economics and Commerce from Calcutta University , India and Manchester University , UK . He has been awarded an Honorary Degree of Doctorate in Science by The University of Warwick, UK and has been conferred an Honorary CBE by Her Majesty the Queen for his contribution to Indo-British relations. He is the recipient of the `Blackwill Award' by US-India Business Council for his contribution to Indo-US Economic co-operation. Mr. Das has been conferred with the 2004 Singapore National Award (Public Service Medal) by the Singapore Government for his contribution to strengthening economic ties between India and Singapore . Mr Das has been awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2006, one of the highest Civilian Government Awards, for his contribution in the field of Trade and Industry, by the President of India.

Video of the lecture available here (must have RealPlayer installed to view - click here to download)

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Friday, November 16th
4:00 pm – 6:00 pm

Thompson Room, Barker Center
12 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Click here for a map.

Chaired by:
AMARTYA SEN
Lamont University Professor and Professor of Economics and History, Harvard University

Keynote Address by:
Ayesha Jalal
Mary Richardson Professor of History, Tufts University, MacArthur Fellow (1998-2003) and Author,
“Partisans of Allah: Jihad in South Asia”
on
Pakistan At 60

Asad Ahmed
Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Harvard University
on
Law and Emergency

Asim Khwaja
Associate Professor of Public Policy, Kennedy School of Government
on
Education and Politics

Richard Wolf
Professor of Music, Harvard University
on
Music and Culture

This symposium will illuminate different facets of Pakistan and address the contemporary crisis.

Click here for the event poster.

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Wednesday, November 28th
4:30 pm – 6:00 pm

Eliot Lyman Room, Longfellow Hall
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
13 Appian Way, Cambridge, MA 02138

Expanding the Horizons of Knowledge:
the Work of India's National Knowledge Commission

Sam Pitroda
Chairman, National Knowledge Commission

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South Asia Without Borders

Friday, November 30th
4:00 pm – 6:00 pm

Fong Auditorium, Boylston Hall,
Harvard Yard, Cambridge, MA 02138

South Asia Without Borders:
'Was the Great 1857 Rebellion a Jihad?'

William Dalrymple
Historian and Author, "The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi, 1857"

Ayesha Jalal
Mary Richardson Professor of History, Tufts University,
MacArthur Fellow (1998-2003) and Author,
“Partisans of Allah: Jihad in South Asia”

chaired by

Sugata Bose
Gardiner Professor of History,
Harvard University
and
Homi Bhabha
Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities,
Harvard University

Click here for the event poster.

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South Asia Without Borders

Friday, February 8th, 2008
4:00 pm – 6:00 pm

Thompson Room, Barker Center
12 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138

'1971 in Fiction, Film and History':
Tahmima Anam reading from her book
A Golden Age

chaired by

Sugata Bose
Gardiner Professor of History,
Harvard University
and
Homi Bhabha
Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities,
Harvard University

Click here for the event poster.

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South Asia Seminar

Tuesday, February 19th , 2008
4:00 pm – 6:00 pm

CGIS South, room S030
1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
(Click here to view a map)

The Continuing Saga of the
Indo-U.S. Nuclear Deal

by

Professor Ramamurti Rajaraman
Emeritus Professor of Theoretical Physics, School of Physical
Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India

Click here for the event poster.

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South Asia Seminar

Friday, February 22nd, 2008
4:00 pm – 6:00 pm

Robinson Hall Lower Library
Harvard Yard, Cambridge, MA 02138
(Click here to view a map)

'When Asia was the World'

by

Stewart Gordon
Senior Research Scholar, Center for South Asian Studies, University of Michigan

chaired by

Sugata Bose
Gardiner Professor of History,
Harvard University

Click here for the event poster.

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South Asia Seminar

Monday, February 25th, 2008
3:00 pm – 5:00 pm

CGIS South, room S030
1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
(Click here to view a map)

A Conversation with Dr. Devi Shetty:
Healthcare for the Masses in India and the World

with

Dr. Devi Shetty
Chairman, Asia Heart Foundation

chaired by

Sugata Bose
Gardiner Professor of History,
Harvard University

and

Tarun Khanna
Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor of Business,
Harvard Business School

Dr. Shetty, a pioneer in heart surgery, runs Narayana Hrudalaya in Bangalore, which performs high quality Open Heart Surgery at a cost of $2,000. With about 5,000 surgeries a year (approximately half in pediatric surgeries), NH is one of the largest cardiac hospitals in the world.

Click here for the event poster.

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South Asia Without Borders

Thursday, February 28th, 2008
4:00 pm – 6:00 pm

CGIS South, room S020
1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
(Click here to view a map)

"Billions of Entrepreneurs:
How China and India are Reshaping
their Futures - and Yours"

Tarun Khanna
Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor of Business,
Harvard Business School

chaired by

Sugata Bose
Gardiner Professor of History,
Harvard University

This event is co-sponsored by the Harvard Asia Center and the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research

Click here for the event poster.

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South Asia Seminar

Friday, March 7th, 2008
4:00 pm – 6:00 pm

Robinson Hall Lower Library
Harvard Yard, Cambridge, MA 02138
(Click here to view a map)

How to speak about the North Indian Ashraf
to an audience of Historians of Western Europ e

by

Margrit Pernau
Senior Researcher, the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin

chaired by

Sugata Bose
Gardiner Professor of History,
Harvard University

Click here for the event poster.

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South Asia Seminar

Monday, March 10th, 2008
4:00 pm – 6:00 pm

Robinson Hall Lower Library
Harvard Yard, Cambridge, MA 02138
(Click here to view a map)

Topographies of Globalization

by

David Ludden
Visiting Professor of History, New York University

co-presented by the Political Economy Workshop, with support from the Warren Center

Professor Ludden's paper is available for download from www.fas.harvard.edu/~polecon or email polecon@fas.harvard.edu for a copy.

Click here for the event poster.

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Special Performance

Friday, March 14th, 2008
7:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Agassiz Theater
Radcliffe Yard, Cambridge, MA 02138

Bharatnatyam Demonstration and Lecture

by

Sunanda Narayanan

Sunanda Narayanan is an acclaimed exponent of the Vazhuvoor tradition of BharataNatyam. She is the prime disciple of Smt. Rhadha, one of the foremost Gurus and Choreographers of today. Sunanda has been performing for more than two decades and has given over 250 public performances all over the world. Sunanda has several awards to her credit. Apart from the Senior Scholarship of the Govt. of India, she was selected by the Tamil Nadu Eyal Isai Nataka Manram (a State Government Cultural Association in India) to perform under their sponsorship. She has won several awards – the Tamil Isai Sangam award, the Fine Arts Foundation India award, the Sindhu Memorial Award, and the Lions Club award, being some of them. In1993 the leading Indian newspaper “Indian Express” featured Sunanda in their Personality of the Week column.
Sunanda runs a dance school “Thillai Fine Arts Academy” in Newton, MA where she trains talented students in the fine art of Bharatanatyam.
The presentation for SAI will include an introduction to Bharatanatyam and several dance items drawn from traditional, contemporary, and modern literature. There will be a Q&A session with the audience at the end of the performance. The intermission will feature a short Carnatic vocal music performance by Samir Rao of Harvard Sangeet.

Click here for the event poster.

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Special Performance

Sunday, March 16th, 2008
4:00 pm – 5:30 pm

Paine Hall, Harvard University,
Cambridge, MA 02138
(Click here to view a map)

Karnatak (South Indian Classical)
Music Concert

Performers: B. Balasubrahmaniya - vocal, Anantha Krishnan - violin, David Nelson - mridangam

Free and open to the public

The Artists

B. Balasubrahmaniyan, voice, is an emerging master of Karnatak singing. He began music lessons with his father, D. Balraj, and subsequently studied under several teachers, including T. Brinda and T. Viswanathan. Balasubrahmaniyan has collected numerous first-place prizes for vocal music from a range of musical organizations. These include “Tamil Isaipannar,” from the Tamil Isai Mandram Society (1997) and the “Yuvakala Bharati” award from the Bharat Kalachar Cultural Center (2000). He is a regular performer on All India Radio and Doordarshan television, and for the past three years has been invited to perform solo concerts at the St. Thyagaraja Aradhana music festival in Cleveland, Ohio. He holds a Ph.D. in Music from the University of Madras. He is Adjunct Instructor in Music at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.

Anantha Krishnan, who traces his musical lineage to the great composer Mutthusvamy Diksitar, had his earliest music training in vocal music and violin from his father, Vainika Vidwan Sri Anantha Rama Iyer. He gave his first solo performance at age eleven; since then he has accompanied the top level musicians of South India, including D K Pattammal, K V Narayanaswamy, and T N Seshagopalan. He has toured widely in India, Europe and North America. In 1985 he participated in the Festival of Music. Anantha Krishnan has distinguished himself by his sensitive interpretation of raga and his supportive accompaniment.

David Nelson, mridangam, has been performing and teaching South Indian drumming since 1975. From his principal teacher, the renowned T. Ranganathan, he learned to accompany a wide range of styles, including Bharata Natyam, South India's classical dance. He has a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University, where he is Artist in Residence in South Indian drumming. He has accompanied well-known artists throughout the United States, Europe, India, and China. He has also written extensively on South Indian drumming, including a major article in the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. His latest book, Solkattu Manual: an introduction to the language of rhythm in south Indian music, is due to be published by Wesleyan University Press in the spring of 2008.

Sponsored by the Harvard University Department of Music, The South Asia Initiative at Harvard, and the Office for the Arts at Harvard

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Special Lunchtime Seminar

Thursday, April 3rd, 2008
12:30 pm – 2:00 pm

CGIS South, room S050
1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
(Click here to view a map)

A Himalayan Experiment: Bhutan's Unique Path

to Democracy

by

Dr. Nitasha Kaul
Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster, London
Author of Imaging Economics Otherwise: Encounters with Identity/Difference

Co-sponsored and hosted as part of the 10th Anniversary celebrations of the
Harvard University Asia Center.
For more information, call the Asia Center at (617) 496-6273

Dr. Kaul is an academic scholar based in the Centre for the Study of Democracy of the University of Westminster (London) in the UK. Her research has always been interdisciplinary critical social theory and in addition to audiences from political economy, she has addressed scholars in politics, sociology, human geography, social anthropology, gender studies/feminism, literary theory, and philosophy of social science.

Her book titled Imagining Economics Otherwise: Encounters with Identity/Difference was published by Routledge last year. She has been visiting Bhutan every year since 2006 and is currently writing a book about the ongoing democratic transition there, a project partly enabled by a grant from the British Association for South Asian Studies (2007). In addition to researching democratic change in Bhutan, she is completing a study of the Janpath urban informal street market in Delhi (2004-2008), titled 'Cultural econo-mixes of the Bazaar'. She has published in groundbreaking critical political economy volumes such as Postcolonialism meets Economics and Toward a Feminist Philosophy of Economics , and in journals including the Cambridge Journal of Economics . She has delivered lectures and seminars at scholarly as well as policy related forums in many countries on the subjects of Political Economy, Philosophy, and International Studies. She also writes literary fiction and poetry.

She has been a Lecturer in Economics and Politics at UK Universities in Hull, Bristol, and Bath. She holds a BA with Honours in Economics from the University of Delhi (1997), an MSc in Economics with a specialisation in Public Policy at the University of Hull (1998) and a Joint PhD in Economics and Philosophy from the University of Hull (2003).

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Special Business Seminar

Thursday, April 10th, 2008
5:00 pm - 6:30 pm
Reception: 6:30 - 7:15 pm

Harvard Business School
Hawes 201
http://www.hbs.edu/about/visit.html

Beyond “BRIC”: Investing in the Pakistani

Emerging Market

A discussion at Harvard Business School with two titans of Pakistani industry, Asad Umar and Hussain Dawood (please note that Syed Babar Ali, who had previously been listed, is unfortunately not able to attend). Pakistan is the world's 6th largest country and a critical emerging market, having steadily grown GDP and foreign direct investment over the past 7 years. The discussion will address the opportunities and challenges facing business investment in emerging markets and will be moderated by HBS Professors Louis Wells and Karim Lakhani as well as Ken Morse, Managing Director of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center.

Click here for an event poster.

Hosted by the South Asian Business Association.

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Panel Discussion

Monday, April 14th, 2008
4:00 pm - 6:00 pm

Harvard Kennedy School of Government
Littauer-Fainsod Room
Click here for a map.

TRANSNATIONAL PHILANTHROPY AND POVERTY REDUCTION

Transnational, organized philanthropies such as the Ford, Rockefeller, MacArthur and other large foundations have funded poverty reduction programs in the developing world for several decades. Levels of philanthropic funding dedicated to poverty reduction are increasing significantly, in part due to the entry of new philanthropies, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to the international funding arena.

Members of a panel drawn from philanthropy, the nonprofit sector and development economics will explore a number of questions related to philanthropy's strategic contributions to poverty reduction. Are foundations especially well-positioned to support innovative and untested approaches to poverty reduction? How do promising approaches, once tested with philanthropic funding, come to have system-wide impacts? How do the priorities of philanthropies influence the strategic decision-making of nonprofits, and vice versa? How important is private philanthropy to the financial sustainability of nonprofit organizations concerned with poverty reduction?

PANELISTS
Steven Lawry, panel moderator, is Senior Research Fellow at the Hauser Center, and co-principal investigator of the Hauser Center project on transnational philanthropy and poverty reduction.
Barry Gaberman is chair of BoardSource, which provides consulting and training services on effective governance to nonprofit boards.
Sheela Patel is the founder and Director of the Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres (SPARC).
Lant Pritchett is Professor of the Practice of Economic Development at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Click here for an event poster.

This event is co-hosted by The Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations, the Center for International Development, and the South Asia Initiative at Harvard, and is part of the Hauser Center 10th Anniversary panel series “The Future of the Nonprofit Sector.”

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South Asia Seminar

Friday, April 18th, 2008
4:00 pm – 6:00 pm

Robinson Hall Lower Library
Harvard Yard, Cambridge, MA 02138
(Click here to view a map)

Threads That Bind: South and South-East Asia

by

Sudhir Devare
Former Indian Ambassador to Indonesia,
Fellow, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University

and

Hema Devare
Producer, "Threads That Bind"

chaired by

Sugata Bose
Gardiner Professor of History,
Harvard University

Sudhir Devare comes to Harvard as a Fellow at the Weathehead Center for International Affairs following a long and distinguished career as a member of the Indian Foreign Service (IFS). Since his retirement in 2001, he has held senior advisory positions in India on national security, and also academic positions in India and abroad. He is currently associate senior fellow, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore; and member, Eminent Persons' and Experts' Group, ASEAN Regional Forum. Positions he has held in the Indian Foreign Service include: (permanent) secretary, Ministry of External Affairs (1998-2001); Ambassador to Indonesia (1994-1998); ambassador to the Ukraine (1992-1994); consul general of India in Frankfurt (1989-1992); ambassador to South Korea (1985-1989). Ambassador Devare was educated at Bombay University. He has published numerous articles and papers, and in 2006, a book entitled India and Southeast Asia: Towards Security Convergence . He plans to conduct research this year on India 's and China 's relations with East Asia against the backdrop of U.S. influence in the region. He is joined here by his wife Hema, producer of the film "Threads That Bind", directed by Arun Khopkar.

Click here for the event poster.

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South Asia Seminar

Friday, April 25th, 2008
4:00 pm – 6:00 pm

Robinson Hall Lower Library
Harvard Yard, Cambridge, MA 02138
(Click here to view a map)

The Rise of Mayawati and the

Changing Politics of Uttar Pradesh

by

Dr. Anil Verma
Officiating Chair, Department of Political Science, Christ Church College, Kanpur

chaired by

Sugata Bose
Gardiner Professor of History,
Harvard University

Dr. A. K. Verma teaches Politics at Christ Church College, Kanpur. He has been teaching under-graduate and post-graduate students since 1977. The courses taught included European Political Thinkers (especially Plato, Mill, and Hegel), Constitutions of the USA, UK, France, and India, Government and Politics in India with special reference to Uttar Pradesh, and Indian Administration. He has also written about a hundred journalistic articles in leading Hindi Daily ‘Dainik Jagran, Janasatta, Aaj etc. He worked as a Member of the Textbook Development Team, NCERT, Delhi for Class XI to assist in the preparation of, the New Generation of Text Books for Political Science (Indian Constitution at Work) under the National Curriculum Framework-2005. He was invited as a Resource Person to train the cadre of some national political parties. Since 1999, he is the State Coordinator of Uttar Pradesh at Lokniti, and is involved with the National Election Studies (NES) in India.
Dr. Verma has been associated with several journals and is currently the Editor of Shodharthy –An Abstract of Journals in Social Sciences (Hindi), Lokniti, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi since January 2005. He is the Managing Editor for Sankalp Shodh, Centre for the Study of Society and Politics (CSSP), Kanpur since 2004, and a member of the Editorial Board of, Society and Development Journal, Academy for Social Development, Kanpur, since 2003. He has also worked as Editor, The Lokniti Bulletin, Institute for Comparative Democracy, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), New Delhi, 2002-2004, and Editor, The U.P. Journal of Political Science, Official Journal of the U.P. Political Science Association, 1989-98. Dr. Verma was invited to work as Consultant to the Special Volume on Electoral Politics of ‘The Indian Journal of Politics' (May-June 2006), Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh 2006.

Click here to view the event poster.

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South Asia Seminar

Thursday, May 1st, 2008
4:00 pm – 6:00 pm

PLEASE NOTE THE CHANGE IN DATE AND TIME

Robinson Hall Lower Library
Harvard Yard, Cambridge, MA 02138
(Click here to view a map)

The United Nations and Global Public Health

by

Dr. Sunil Amrith
School of History, Classics & Archaeology, Birkbeck College, University of London

chaired by

Sugata Bose
Gardiner Professor of History,
Harvard University

Dr. Sunil Amrith's research focuses on the connections between modern Indian and Southeast Asian history. His current research is on the history of south Indian migration to Southeast Asia (particularly Burma, Malaysia and Singapore), from the 18th to the 20th centuries. He is interested in Tamil-speaking migrants' circulation across the Bay of Bengal, and particularly in how Tamils' engagement with others—Chinese, Malay, Burmese, and other South Asians—shaped their political ideas and cultural practices. His work also looks at how the changing notions of citizenship and nationality that accompanied decolonization produced very different experiences for Tamils in different parts of the region. He has been awarded a Large Research Grant by the British Academy to support the project, which is entitled ‘Cosmopolitanism and Race in Tamil Southeast Asia'. On a related but broader subject, he is currently writing a general history of Migration and Diaspora in Modern Asia for Cambridge University Press.
Dr. Amrith's earlier work was on the history of public health in South and Southeast Asia. His book Decolonizing International Health: India and Southeast Asia, 1930-65 (Palgrave, 2006) examined the role played by ideas about health, in broader debates about the post-colonial order, and looked especially at the role of international organizations as a forum for such debates. He maintains an active research interest in the history of public health, and especially in the history of hunger and nutrition in the rice-eating regions of South and Southeast Asia. In the future, he plans to work on the history of humanitarian thought and practice in the region.
Dr. Amrith is involved in a number of collaborative projects: with Dr Tim Harper (University of Cambridge), he is directing a workshop on ‘Sites of Inter-Asian Interaction', as part of an SSRC workshop on Inter-Asian Connections, to be held in Dubai in February 2008: http://www.ssrc.org/program_areas/global/papers/
With Dr Patricia Clavin (University of Oxford) he is developing a long-term research project on the global history of hunger, feeding and development.
With Professor Glenda Sluga (University of Sydney) he has jointly edited a special volume of the Journal of World History on new histories of the United Nations (scheduled to appear in September 2008).
Dr. Amrith has had a long involvement with the work of the Harvard/Cambridge Centre for History and Economics, and in particular its projects on United Nations and International History, and on Exchanges of Economic and Political Ideas Since 1760: http://www-histecon.kings.cam.ac.uk/
Dr. Amrith is also one of the editors of History Workshop Journal.

Click here for an event poster.

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GSAS / Humanities Center Workshop

Friday, May 2nd and Saturday, May 3rd, 2008

Humanities Center , Barker Center
12 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
(Click here to view a map)

Contested Spatialities

Sponsored by the Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the Humanities Center, the Edwin O.
Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, the Fairbank Center for Chinese
Studies, the Korea Institute, the Center for European Studies, and the South Asia Initiative.

Friday, May 2
2:15-3:00 pm Reception and Opening Remarks by Homi Bhabha

3:00-5:15 pm Public and Private Spaces
Chair: Eugene Wang, Harvard University
Jen Hui Bon Hoa, Harvard University
The Heterotopia Debate: Foucault, Harvey, and Jameson on Spatial Theory and Utopian Marxism
Jordan Sand, Georgetown University
How Public Space Ceased to be a Problem in Tokyo
Pamela Karimi, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
‘Naked Homes’ and ‘Sinful Refrigerators’: The Iranian Revolution and the Call for the Islamization of Domesticity
Linda Rodriguez, Harvard University
Dancing Havana: The Location of the Dancing Body in Public Spaces
Irvin Schick, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Istanbul Dog Massacre of 1910: Spatialized Discourses and Spatial Practices
Commentator: Dana Sajdi, Boston College

5:30-7:00 pm Monuments, Commemoration, and the State
Chair: Hyung-il Pai, University of California Santa Barbara
Cole Roskam, Harvard University
Public Architecture and the Semi-colonial Struggle for Civic Control in Shanghai, 1927-1937
D. Fairchild-Ruggles, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
The Stratigraphy of Forgetting: The Great Mosque of Cordoba and Its Contested Pasts.
Gábor Gyáni, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest
Collective National Memory and the Cultic Use of Metropolitan Space
Commentator: Todd Henry, Colorado State University

Saturday, May 3
9:00-10:30 am Travel, Landscape, and Heritage
Chair: Andrew Gordon, Harvard University
Patrice Dabrowski, Harvard University
Indigenous 'Discovery' or Dis-place-ment? The Eastern Carpathians before World War I
Ian Straughn, Brown University
A Replaced Past: Heritage crisis and the place-making of Muslim societies
Ellie Choi, Harvard University
Laying Claim to the Diamond Mountains: Travel and the Historical Imagination
Commentator: Cemal Kafadar, Harvard University

10:45 am-12:45 pm Geography and Visuality
Chair: Irvin Schick, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Naoki Sakai, Cornell University
The Logic of Imbrication and Cartographic Imagination
Oliver Simons, Harvard University
Mapping Colonial Space: German Geopolitics around 1900
Winnie Wong, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Framed Authorship: Dafen Village as the Global Readymade
Raja Adal, Harvard University
The Typewriter and the Brush: Modernity and the Aesthetics of Place in Egypt and Japan
Commentator: Shigehisa Kuriyama, Harvard University

1:45-3:45 pm Imperial and Colonial Spaces
Chair: Sunjoo Kim, Harvard University
Shunya Yoshimi, University of Tokyo
The Cultural Politics of ‘Americanism’ in Postwar Tokyo: From the Imperial City to the Commercial City
Zeynep Çelik, New Jersey Institute of Technology
Connected Empires, Mixed Modernities
Joseph Wicentowski, Office of the Historian, U.S. State Department
Space and the Policing of Health and Hygiene Consciousness in Colonial Taiwan
Todd Henry, Colorado State University
Spatial Fusions: Popularizing Japanese Shintō and ‘Imperializing’ Colonized Koreans in Wartime Seoul
Commentator: Naoki Sakai, Cornell University

4:00-6:00 pm The Formation of a Spatial Imaginary
Chair: William Granara, Harvard University
Hyung-il Pai, University of California Santa Barbara
Touring Japan’s Mythical Homelands in Colonial Korea: Anthropological Photography and the Promotion of Heritage Destinations
Milind Wakankar, State University of New York at Stony Brook
System and Allegory in the Indo-Islamic Millennium
Fares Alsuwaidi, Harvard University
The Arabic Desert Novel and the Reconfiguration of Novelistic Space
Helena Toth, Harvard University
‘The strong find the overpass, the weak are prisoners even without walls’: Political Émigrés and the Swiss Landscape
Commentator: Karen Thornber, Harvard University

For more information contact Raja Adal (adal @fas.harvard.edu) and Ellie Choi (eychoi@fas.harvard.edu).

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U.N. History Seminar

Monday, May 5th, 2008
12:00 pm – 1:00 pm

Thompson Room, Barker Center
12 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
(Click here to view a map)

The United Nations and Global Public Health

by

Dr. Sunil Amrith
School of History, Classics & Archaeology, Birkbeck College, University of London

chaired by

Sugata Bose
Gardiner Professor of History,
Harvard University

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The South Asia Initiative at Harvard University presents

The First Annual University-wide Symposium on South Asia

Thursday, May 8th, 2008
9:00 pm – 6:00 pm

Hawes 201,
Harvard Business School
http://www.hbs.edu/about/visit.html

Registration is Required

Click here to register

Registration is open for individual panels or the entire day.

9-10.30am Panel 1: Poverty Alleviation: Business Solutions

Chair: Krishna Palepu, Ross Graham Walker Professor of Business Administration, HBS

Speakers: Kasturi Rangan, Eliot I. Snider and Family Professor of Business Administration, HBS

Michael Chu, Senior Lecturer of Business Administration, HBS

David Bloom, Clarence James Gamble Professor of Economics and Demography, HSPH

10.30-11am Coffee Break

11-12.30pm Panel 2: Poverty Alleviation: Policy Solutions

Chair: Rohini Pande, Mohamed Kamal Professor of Public Policy, HKS

Speakers: Erica Field, Assistant Professor of Economics, FAS

Asim Khwaja, Associate Professor of Public Policy, HKS

Shawn Cole, Assistant Professor, HBS

12.30-1.30pm Lunch Break

1.30-2.45pm Panel 3: Migration and Diasporas: Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Chair: Tarun Khanna, Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor, HBS

Speakers: Bill Kerr, Assistant Professor of Business Administration, HBS

Ramana Nanda, Assistant Professor, HBS

2.45-4pm Panel 4: Migration and Diasporas: Challenges of Survival

Chair: Jennifer Leaning, Prof. of the Practice of International Health, HSPH; Associate Prof. of Medicine,

HMS; Sr. Advisor in International and Policy Studies, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies

Speakers: Jay Silverman, Associate Professor of Society, Human Development and Health, HSPH

Jacqueline Bhabha, Jeremiah Smith, Jr. Lecturer in Law, HLS; Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy, HKS; Executive Director of the University Committee on Human Rights Studies

4-4.30pm Tea Break

4.30-6pm Panel 5: Colorful Cosmopolitanisms, Different Universalisms: South Asia, Africa, America

Chairs: Sugata Bose, Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History and Affairs, FAS

Homi Bhabha, Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities, FAS

Speakers: Sana Aiyar, PhD Candidate, GSAS

Nico Slate, PhD Candidate, GSAS

Registration is Required

Click here to register

Click here to see the symposium poster.

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South Asia Initiative 2008 Grantee Award Reception

Friday, May 9th, 2008
4:00 pm – 5:00 pm

Ticknor Lounge, Boylston Hall
Harvard Yard, Cambridge, MA 02138
(Click here to view a map)

Join us in honoring the 60 Harvard students who are receiving South Asia Initiative grants for research, study or service internships. To view the full list of grantees for 2008, click here.

For photos from the reception, click here.

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For events from previous academic years, click here.

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Please check back for updates or e-mail sainit@fas.harvard.edu to be added to the events e-mail list.

All seminars subject to change. Please contact the South Asia Initiative with any questions: (617) 496-4862; sainit@fas.harvard.edu.