The South Asia Initiative at Harvard

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

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

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

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.

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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.

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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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.

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

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

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.

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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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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

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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

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chaired by

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

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by

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

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by

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

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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.

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

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

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by

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

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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.

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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.

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

Free and open to the public

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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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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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.

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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.

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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by

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

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by

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

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.

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by

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

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.

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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.

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

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by

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Friday, September 22, 2006
South Asia Initiative Fall Reception
Time: 4:30-6:00 pm.
Ticknor Lounge.
Please join us for our Fall Reception to welcome in the new academic year.
The reception will take place next Friday, September 22nd, from 4:30-6:00pm in the Ticknor Lounge in Boylston Hall (the gray building on the West side of, and adjecent to, Widener Library in Harvard Yard).
Refreshments will be served, and this will be a great opportunity to meet faculty, students and friends interested in the field of South Asia.

Monday, September 25, 2006
Inaugural Harish C. Mahindra lecture – India 's Security Perspective
Pranab Mukherjee, Indian Defense Minister
Time: 6:00-7:15pm
The Forum, Kennedy School of Government.
The South Asia Initiative's Inaugural Harish C. Mahindra lecture will be given by Mr. Pranab Mukherjee, Defense Minister of India, on the topic of "India's Security Perspective". We are pleased that the South Asia Initiative and the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs are able to bring the Minister to Harvard to share his insight at this critical moment in the world.
Mr. Pranab Mukherjee, Defense Minister of India, ranks second in the Indian Cabinet, after the Prime Minister. Mr. Mukherjee has held crucial Cabinet positions in successive Congress Party governments: he served in Indira Gandhi's cabinet during the ‘70s and ‘80s, in Narasimha Rao's cabinet from 1991-1996 (for part of which he was India's Foreign Minister) and again from 2004 to the present under Manmohan Singh. He has held the Commerce, Finance and Foreign Minister's positions in addition to his current position as Minister of Defense.

Friday, September 29, 2006
Modern Asia Seminar Series: India 's Relations with the Rest of Asia
Hon. Jaswant Singh, Former Indian Minister of External Affairs, Former Indian Minister of Finance, Senior Fellow, Harvard Asia Center
Time: 12:30-2:00 pm
CGIS South, Concourse Seminar Room S050.

Thursday October 5, 2006
South Asia Seminar: Nuclear Diplomacy's Blind Spots: Iran, India and Pakistan
Ambassador Ali Sarwar Naqvi, Former Chairman of the Asia Group and Vice Chairman of the IAEA Board of Governors as Pakistan 's Permanent Representative to the IAEA.
Time: 3:00-5:00 pm.
Taubman Building, 5th Floor, Nye Conference Room, BC, Kennedy School of Government.
Drawing on his recent experiences as a senior official at the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ambassador Ali Sarwar Naqvi will highlight the shortcomings of current approaches to nuclear diplomacy using Iran, India, and Pakistan as case studies. In this effort, he will address the limitations of the IAEA in shaping nuclear policy and will suggest a more comprehensive approach to nuclear diplomacy that takes into account regional security contexts as well as the wider nuclear black market.
Co-sponsored by the Project on Managing the Atom.

Friday October 6, 2006
South Asia Seminar: Challenges before Higher Education in India
Pawan Agarwal, Visiting Scholar, Indian Council for Research in International Economic Relations (ICRIER).
Time: 4:00-6:00 pm.
Robinson Hall Lower Library.
Mr. Agarwal is presently Visiting Scholar at the Indian Council for Research in International Economic Relations (ICRIER) based at New Delhi. He is working on the theme, 'Higher Education and Training Sector (in India): Public Policy and Regulatory Reforms'.
Earlier he was Financial Adviser and Coordinator (New Initiatives) in the University Grants Commission (India) dealing with issues of public funding and internationalization of higher education in India. Prior to this, Mr. Agarwal was Director in the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) in the Govt. of India where he was involved with policy issues relating to financing, governance, academic decentralization, restructuring, internationalization, testing services, use of technology in education, manpower development in IT and biotechnology.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006
South Asia Seminar: Making of the Linguistic Survey of India, c. 1890-1920
Shahid Amin, Professor of History, University of Delhi.
Time: 4:00-6:00 pm.
CGIS South, Room S050.
Mr. Amin received his D.Phil. from Oxford University and is currently Professor of History at the University of Delhi. Among his publications are Event, Metaphor, Memory: Chauri Chaura, 1922-1992 (1995) and Writing Alternative Histories: A View from India (2002). He is the editor of A Concise Encyclopaedia of North Indian Peasant Life (2005), the co-editor, with Gyan Pandey, of Nimnvargiya Itihas, Bhag Ek, Bhag Do (1994, 2001), and has also written the Hindustani dialogues of the feature film Karvan, directed by Pankaj Butalia.

Friday, October 13, 2006
South Asia Without Borders musical performance: Purabi: The East in its Feminine Gender - The Music of Rabindranath Tagore
Pramita Mallick, recording artist.
Time: 8:00-9:45 pm.
The Thompson Room, The Barker Center.
Pramita Mallick is a leading exponent of the music of Rabindranath Tagore, the great Bengali poet who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. She has recently recorded a CD with Professor Sugata Bose to accompany a book of translations of Tagore's poems and songs to be published in March 2007. She will perform nine songs from that CD in a special 'South Asia without Borders' concert in the Thompson Room of the Barker Center on Friday, October 13, 2006, at 8 pm. Professor Bose will read the English translations of the songs. The concert by Pramita Mallick will feature Siddharth Bhattacharjee on the tabla and Dipankar Deshmukh on the esraj.
Co-sponsored by Harvard Sangeet.

Friday, October 20, 2006
South Asia Without Borders Seminar: Indo-US Nuclear Cooperation: Genesis, Prospects, Problems
Hon. Jaswant Singh, Former Indian Minister of External Affairs, Former Indian Minister of Finance, Senior Fellow, Harvard Asia Center
Time: 4:00-6:00 pm.
The Tsai Audotorium, CGIS South S010.
Hon. Jaswant Singh is the Former Indian Minister of External Affairs, Defense, and Finance. He is a seven time member of Parliament and one of the architects of India 's Nuclear Doctrine. Additionally, his diplomatic efforts led to thawing of India 's relations with Pakistan and China. Mr. Singh is currently a Senior Fellow at the Harvard Asia Center and the South Asia Initiative.

Monday, October 30, 2006
South Asia Without Borders: The Indian Economy in the Global Context
Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairperson of the Planning Commission, and Tarun Das, Chief Mentor of CII
Time: 2:00-4:00 pm.
Harvard Faculty Club Library.
Reception to follow.
Montek Singh Ahluwalia was the first Director of the Independent Evaluation Office from 2001-2004, when he was appointed Deputy Chairperson of the Planning Commission. Prior to taking up his position at the IMF, Mr. Ahluwalia was a Member of the Planning Commission in New Delhi as well as a Member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister. He had previously served as Finance Secretary, Ministry of Finance; Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs; Commerce Secretary; Special Secretary to the Prime Minister; and Economic Advisor, Ministry of Finance.
Tarun Das has spent his entire working career in industry associations, starting with the predecessor body of CII in November 1963 and has been the Chief Executive of the permanent secretariat since April 1974 when CII (formerly AIEI) was formed. Mr. Das has been conferred an Honorary CBE by Her Majesty for his contribution to the Indo-British Partnership. He is also the non-executive Chairman of The Associated Cement Companies Ltd., India; and Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd, India; non-executive Director on the Boards of John Keells Holdings Ltd., Sri Lanka and GIVE Foundation. He is also a member of Board of Trustees of The Aspen Institute, USA and member of the International Advisory Board of the Coca Cola Company Ltd., USA.

Thursday, November 2, 2006
From Dissonance to Detour: Negotiating Artistic Identity
7:00 - 8:30 pm
Remis Auditorium, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Shahzia Sikander joins cultural critic Homi Bhabha to discuss the ways in which she negotiates her artistic identity, having been trained in traditional miniature painting techniques in her native Pakistan, but now living and working in New York. Her paintings were featured in the recent MoMA exhibition "Without Boundary: Seventeen Ways of Looking," and her painting Pathology of Suspension #6 was recently acquired by the MFA.
Presented in cooperation with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Detail events also available at the MFA website.
$10 (MFA member), $13 (non-members)

Friday, November 17, 2006
South Asia Seminar: The Familial Dimension of Indian Nationalism: Gandhi, Bose, Nehru
Reba Som, School of Women's Studies, Jadavpur University, Kolkata
Time: 4:00-6:00 pm.
Robinson Hall Lower Library.
Reba Som graduated from Presidency College, Kolkata and took her PhD from Calcutta University. Her publications include Differences within Consensus: The Left–Right Divide in the Congress 1929–39 and Subhas Chandra Bose and the Resolution of the Women's Question. Her most recent publication, Gandhi, Bose, Nehru and the Making of the Modern Indian Mind, was published in 2004 by Penguin Viking Press.

Saturday, December 2, 2006
Panel Discussion: Human Rights Policy Challenges in Bangladesh
Part of the conference "The Millennium Generation in Diaspora: Owning Our Future", celebrating the 35th year of independence of Bangladesh.
Time: 5:15-6:40 pm.
Fong Auditorium, Boylston Hall (next to Widener Library), Harvard Yard, Cambridge, MA 02138.
The panel discussion will center around human rights and policy challenges faced by Bangladesh, the impact of the issues on the generation moving towards future leadership of the country, and on expatriate young Bangladeshis.
Panelists: Dr. Ayesha Jalal, Professor of History, Tufts University; Dr. Rounaq Jahan, Senior Research Scholar, Columbia University; Dr. Nazli Kibria, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Boston University; Dr. Elora Chowdhury, Assistant Professor of Women's Studies, University of Massachusetts, Boston; Panel Moderator: Dr. Jalal Alamgir, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Massachusetts, Boston.
Conference co-hosted by: Amra Kojon; Change Bangladesh; Drishtipat; Harvard Law School Advocates for Human Rights; Human Rights Project at Fletcher School of Diplomacy (Tufts University); International Development Group at Fletcher School of Diplomacy (Tufts University); South Asian Journalists Association; South Asian Law Students Association.
To view the conference website, click here.

Friday, February 9, 2007
South Asia Seminar: A Place at the Multicultural Table: The Development of an American Hinduism
Prema Kurien, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Maxwell School, Syracuse University
Time: 4:00-6:00 pm.
Robinson Hall Lower Library.
Prema Kurien is associate professor of sociology at Syracuse University. Prof. Kurien's research focuses on the relationship between religion, ethnicity, and international migration. Her first book, Kaleidoscopic Ethnicity: International Migration and the Reconstruction of Community Identities in India (2002), explored differences in migration and migration-induced social change of three ethno-religious communities in Kerala, India. She has completed her second book, A Place at the Multicultural Table: The Development of an American Hinduism, (to be published in August 2007) on the institutionalization of Hinduism as a minority religion in the U.S. and the politicization of Hinduism. She is also researching Indian Christian Americans, and on how Indian Americans have entered the public sphere in the U.S.

Friday, March 2, 2007
South Asia Seminar: India's New Middle Class: Democratic Politics in an Era of Economic Reform
Leela Fernandes, Associate Professor of Political Science, Rutgers University.
Time: 4:00-6:00 pm.
Robinson Hall Lower Library.
Leela Fernandes is Associate Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. Her most recent book, India's New Middle Class: Democratic Politics in an Era of Economic Reform (University of Minnesota Press, December 2006) examines the political implications that the rise of the Indian middle class has had for Indian democracy and the politics of globalization. She is also the author of Producing Workers: The Politics of Gender, Class and Culture in the Calcutta Jute Mills (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997) and Transforming Feminist Practice: Non-Violence, Social Justice and the Possibilities of a Spiritualized Feminism (A. Lute Books, 2003). Her research interests lie at the intersection of the study of culture, gender and political economy. She has published numerous articles on labor, gender, cultural politics, nationalism, human rights and globalization, and has received fellowships from the MacArthur Foundation, American Institute for Indian Studies, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Social Science Research Council.

Friday, March 9, 2007
South Asia Seminar: Archive Without Address: Naming, Namelessness and the Question of the Proper in History
Aishwary Kumar, Rouse Ball Fellow, Trinity College, Cambridge University.
Time: 4:00-6:00 pm.
Robinson Hall Lower Library.
Aishwary Kumar is Rouse Ball Fellow in History at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was a Nehru Doctoral Fellow between 2003 and 2006 at Trinity College, where he completed his thesis on South Asian Intellectual History. His work is concerned with the relationship between colonial archives, popular memory, and native narrative strategies in South Bihar. A central thrust in his work is geared towards unpacking the complex usages of testimony and writing in the colonial legal sphere. He is working on a book manuscript which examines how juridical ideas about land and status, and thus of land reform and 'socialism' itself, were produced in an intellectual field cut across by competing narratives about citizenship, propriety, and community. His current engagement with political ethics extends this inquiry further into ideas of giving, affect, and responsibility, as these shaped the liberal and communitarian strands of South Asia's anti-colonial thought. He has published on the allegorical uses of citizenship in Salman Rushdie's writings, and on the aporias of speech in colonial societies.

Friday, March 16, 2007
South Asia Without Borders: Bridging Hearts: A Road to Better Health from New Delhi to Kabul
Dr. Ravi Kasliwal, Director of Cardiology, Escorts Heart Institute and Research Centre, New Delhi.
Time: 4:00-6:00 pm.
Robinson Hall Lower Library.
PLEASE NOTE REVISED DATE AND LOCATION.
Dr. Kasliwal has been working with Escorts Heart Institute in New Delhi since 1987, and is currently the Director of Non Invasive Cardiology, Director of the Community Out-reach Program, Program Director of the DNB (Diplomat National Board, Cardiology). He also runs the Post Graduate Diploma in Community Cardiology with Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU). Dr. Kasliwal is an editorial advisor and International advisor for national & international organizations including the Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Govt. of India, and the Delhi Medical Council (2005–2009).
Dr. Kasliwal is the Founder and Director of Academic Programs at the Escort Heart Institute and Research Center, and has rceived over 150 awards and Honors in the field of Cardiology on Professional & Academic front. He has contributed chapters and text for approximately 25 books on cardiology and 150 scientific research papers in Indian and international medical journals.

Saturday, March 24, 2007
Annual Meeting for the Association for Asian Studies Reception
Time: 8:00-10:00 pm.
Suffolk Room, 3rd Floor, Boston Marriott Copley Place.
Harvard University Asia Center * Fairbank Center for East Asian Research
Korea Institute * Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies * South Asia Initiative
We cordially invite you to a reception in honor of incoming President Elizabeth Perry at the Annual Meeting for the Association for Asian Studies.
Drinks and light refreshments will be served.
Contact: Jorge Espada, jespada@fas.harvard.edu

Friday, April 6 and Saturday, April 7, 2007
Harvard and Tufts University Conference: Contested Spaces, Competing Narratives: Towards Human Rights and Democracy in Pakistan
Conference Presenters and Moderators: Khaled Ahmed, senior journalist (Consulting Editor, Daily Times and Friday Times, Pakistan ) currently at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC, researching "Sectarian Violence in Pakistan and Its Linkages to Iran, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States ". Syed Asif Alam, Reuters (technical account management), co founded the Association of Pakistani Professionals (http://www.aopp.org) shortly after 9/11 that aims to engage media in a proactive manner to help create a better understanding about Pakistan. Kamran Ali Asdar, Associate professor of anthropology, Middle East studies and Asian studies at the University of Texas, Austin, TX. Jacqueline Bhabha, Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy. A graduate of Oxford University, executive director of the University Committee on Human Rights Studies at Harvard University and a lecturer at Harvard Law School. Sugata Bose, Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History and Affairs, head of South Asia Initiative at Harvard University. Main areas of research: modern South Asia and history of the Indian Ocean region; publications include Modern South Asia : History, Culture, Political Economy (2004, with Ayesha Jalal). Christopher Candland, Assistant Professor, Political Science, Wellesley College ; teaches courses related to politics, literature and political economy of South Asia ; (http://www.candland.info). Ethan Casey, journalist, editor, radio show host (http://www.pakcast.com); author of Alive And Well In Pakistan ; Seattle, WA. Shahla Haeri, Director of Women's Studies Program and Associate Professor in Boston University's Department of Anthropology, has researched and written extensively on religion, law and gender dynamics in the Muslim world; publications include No Shame for the Sun: Lives of Professional Pakistani Women (2004) and Law of Desire: Temporary Marriage, Mut'a, in Iran (1989, 1993). Ayesha Jalal, Professor of History, Tufts University; author of several books including Democracy and Authoritarianism in South Asia: A Comparative and Historical Perspective & The State of Martial Rule: The Origins of Pakistan's Political Economy of Defence. Hamid Kizilbash, Principal Research Analyst at American Institutes for Research, Washington, D.C; founding member of SAHE, the Society for the Advancement of Education, and former Professor of Political Science at Punjab University. Andy McCord, freelance journalist, poet, Pakistan and South Asia specialist. Saadia Toor, Assistant Professor, Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work, College of Staten Island, NY. Adil Najam, Associate Professor of International Negotiation & Diplomacy, The Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy, Tufts University. Humaira Rahman, Director of the World Sindhi Institute (Canada); former architect, teacher, environmental and political activist; pursuing post graduate studies at York University, Toronto, Canada. Hasan Askari Rizvi, political analyst, columnist, former professor of political science, Punjab University; 2006-07 Pakistan Studies Scholar at School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University. Shahnaz Rouse teaches sociology at Sarah Lawrence College, has written on agrarian transformation in Pakistan and is currently working on the social history of pre-Partition Lahore. Her many publications include Shifting body politics: gender, nation, state in Pakistan (2004). Sehba Sarwar, poet, fiction writer ( Black Wings, 2004); Founding Director of Voices Breaking Boundaries, a non-profit multi-media arts organization in Houston – (http://www.vbbarts.org) – co-hosts a radio show and is involved in the anti-war/ pro-immigration movement. Beena Sarwar, journalist and documentary filmmaker; Fellow, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Kennedy School. Ayesha Siddiqa is a Ph.D. in War Studies from King's College, London. She is the author of Pakistan 's Arms Procurement and Military Buildup, 1979-99 In Search of a Policy (2000) and Military Inc, Inside Pakistan 's Military Economy (2007).
To register, please contact Naveed Malik (naveed_malik@ksg08.harvard.edu), Tanya Ghani (tanya_ghani@ksg08.harvard.edu) or Usman Khan (umankhan@hotmail.com)
Times: Friday, April 6: 5:30-7:15 pm; Saturday, April 7th: 10:00 am-4:00 pm.
For the full conference agenda, click here.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007
South Asia Seminar: Cultural Icons and Copyright: The 'Nationalisation' of Bharati
A.R. Venkatachalapathy, Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai, India.
Time: 4:00-6:00 pm.
CGIS South, Concourse Seminar Room S050.
A.R. Venkatachalapathy took his Phd from the Jawaharlal Nehru University for his work on print culture in colonial Tamilnadu. Presently he is Professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai. Earlier he taught at Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Tiruneveli and University of Madras, Chennai and held visiting assignments at Chicago, Cambridge and Paris. His areas of interest include the social and cultural history of colonial Tamilnadu. He is an accomplished writer in Tamil with over a dozen published books. His recent publications include: In Those Days There Was No Coffee: Writings in Cultural History (Yoda, 2006); ed. Chennai, Not Madras (Marg, 2006) and ed. A.K. Chettiar, In the Tracks of the Mahatma: the Making of a Documentary (Orient Longman, 2006).

Friday, April 13, 2007
South Asia Seminar: The Godhra Incident and the Gujarat Riots, 2002
Jayanti Ravi, Masons Fellow, Kennedy School of Government.
Time: 4:00-6:00 pm.
Robinson Hall Lower Library.
Jayanti Ravi, a civil servant from India has worked in the development sector in New Delhi and Gujarat, India. She was the District Magistrate of Godhra, India during the Sabarmati Express train Incident. In the aftermath, the response of the district team under her leadership for maintaining law & order and providing Relief and Rehabilitation was widely appreciated. The Computer Society of India has awarded her for the innovative work in the area of citizen empowerment using ICTs. She has contributed to the Education sector as the Commissioner, Schools and the Chairperson of the State Board of Secondary Education, Gujarat. Most recently, she was appointed Director of the National Advisory Council, a National level think tank in New Delhi . She lives with her husband and two children. She was a University topper in Nuclear Physics, is a performing vocalist in Indian music and has also been a column writer for a leading fortnightly in India. She is currently a Mason Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government.

Friday, April 20, 2007
South Asia Without Borders: Musical Subjects Across and Beyond the Atlantic: Indian-Caribbean Conversations
Tejaswini Niranjana, Director and Senior Fellow, Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bangalore.
Time: 4:00-6:00 pm.
Robinson Hall Lower Library.
Tejaswini Niranjana is Director and Senior Fellow of the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society in Bangalore. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles, her M.A. from the University of Bombay, and her B.A. from Bangalore University.
Ms. Niranjana is the author of Siting Translation: History, Post-Structuralism and the Colonial Context (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992); the editor, with P.Sudhir and Vivek Dhareshwar, of Interrogating Modernity: Culture and Colonialism in India (Calcutta: Seagull, 1993); the editor, with Seemanthini Niranjana of Streevaadi Vimarshe , in Kannada (Bangalore: Kannada Sangha, Christ College, 1994). She is currently coordinating the project on Gender and Modernity for CSCS.
Ms. Niranjana was the recipient of a Sephis Postdoctoral Fellowship (1997-99) for a project on Mobilizing 'India': Gender and Ethnicity in Trinidad and South Africa.
Ms. Niranjana has published widely on cinema, translation theory and feminist theory. She has lectured at universities in the West Indies, Brazil, South Africa, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, the United Kingdom and the USA. She has taught at the University of Hyderabad and the University of Chicago.

Friday, April 27, 2007
South Asia Seminar: Re-writing a Nationalist Narrative: The 1940s in India
Indivar Kamtekar, Associate Professor, JNU, New Delhi.
Time: 4:00-6:00 pm.
Robinson Hall Lower Library.
Indivar Kamtekar is associate professor of modern history at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge, has taught at the Indian Institute of Management in Calcutta, and has been a fellow of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study at Shimla. His publications include articles in the journals Past and Present, and Studies in History.

Thursday, May 24, 2007
The UN Secretary-Generalship and Secretariat since 1945: the Hidden and Indispensible Political Organ of the UN System
Time: 1:00-3:00 pm.
Thompson Room, Barker Center (map).
Dr Thant Myint-U was educated at Harvard (A.B.'87) and Cambridge Universities and received his PhD in history at Cambridge in 1996. He was a Fellow of Trinity College from 1995-1999 and is the author of two books on Burmese history, the Making of Modern Burma (Cambridge 2000) and The River of Lost Footsteps: Histories of Burma (FSG 2006). He has also served on three United Nations peacekeeping operations, in Cambodia (2002-3) and in the former Yugoslavia, including as the UN's spokesman in Sarajevo in 1994.
From 2000-2006 he worked in the UN Secretariat in New York, most recently as head of policy planning in the Department of Political Affairs and as a senior officer in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General. He is currently a Visiting Senior Fellow at the International Peace Academy.
Dr Thant Myint-U will provide an overview of the history of the UN's least understood and in some ways most important institution - the Secretariat and its chief, the UN Secretary-General. Whereas there has always been much discussion of the reform of the Security Council and other parts of the UN, there is rarely been much attention given to the Secretariat itself, despite its many changes over the years and its key role in the UN system. The lecture will focus on the attempts of each of the seven past UN chiefs to develop the Secretary-Generalship as an independent political institution (usually against big power resistance) and turn the Secretariat into the efficient civil service the UN's founders envisaged.