The South Asia Initiative at Harvard

Friday, November 13, 12:30 pm
SAI co-sponsored event
Modern Asia Seminar
"Rethinking Liberal Secularism in Pakistan"
Professor Asad Ahmed, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University
Brown Bag Lunch; coffee and dessert will be provided.
For more information, contact the Asia Center at 617-496-6824
Venue:
CGIS South, Seminar Room 050, Concourse Level

Thursday, November 19, 5:00-6:30 pm
OIP international Photo Contest Reception
Venue:
Fisher Family Commons, CGIS Knafel, 1737 Cambridge St., CambridgeThursday, November 12, 4:30-6:30 pm
SAI Co-sponsored event
The Kashmir Initiative Speaker Series
Human Rights Policy for "The World’s Most Militarized Dispute"
“62 Years of Unrest: Regional & International Ramifications”
Angana Chatterji, Ayesha Jalal, Alexander Evans
Moderated by: Sugata Bose
Venue:
L-230 Gundle Family Classroom, Littauer Building 2nd floor
For More Information See: http://www.hks.harvard.edu/cchrp/sbhrap/projects/kashmir/index.php
Co-sponsored by the Carr Center for Human Rights policy, the South Asia Initiative and the Harvard Pakistan Student Group (HPSG)
Click Here to view poster

Thursday, November 12, 5:00-6:30 pm
South Asia co-sponsored event
Graduate Student Research Workshop: South Asia Across Disciplines
"The Secret Spectacle: Discursive Representations of "the Secret" (gsang ba) of a Tibetan Buddhist Ritual"
Urmila Nair, University of Chicago
Venue:
CGIS North, Room K-105, 1730 Cambridge St., Cambridge, MA
Click here to visit the workshop's website

Thursday, November 12, 7:00-8:30 pm
SAI co-sponsored event
Film Screening: One Water and discussion with fimmaker Sanjeev Chatterjee
One Water addresses the global water crisis and the dramatic impact a deficiency of clean water is having over countries throughout the world. The documentary was filmed in 14 different countries and includes exclusive interviews with people such as the Dalai Lama, Vandana Shiva, Robert Kennedy Jr., Felipe Fernández-Armesto and Oscar Olivera. A short version of the film was screened at the 12th and 13th sessions of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development in New York. This film has also been presented in Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Brazil, Madrid, Finland and South Korea, China and Belgium among other places.
More information about Professor Chatterjee and his documentary can be found at: http://www.onewaterthemovie.org/ and http://com.miami.edu/people/faculty/Chatterjee.php
Venue:
Tsai Auditorium, CGIS South Bldg., 1730 Cambridge St., Cambridge

Thursday, November 5 4:00 pm
Project on Justice, Welfare & Economics Seminar (co-sponsored by the South Asia Initiative)
"Provincializing Democracy: Patronage and Space on India's Southwestern Coast"
Ajantha Subramanian (Harvard University)
Venue:
Robinson Lower Library, Harvard Yard, Cambridge, MA

Friday, November 6 & Saturday, November 7, 2009
Special 'South Asia without Borders' Symposium
"Ideas of Asia in Tagore and his Times"
Click here for poster for this event

2:30-4:15 pm: Academic Session I
Chaired by Sugata Bose, Gardiner Professor of History & Homi Bhabha, Rothenberg Professor of English
“History, Hermeneutics and the Paintings of Abanindranath Tagore”
Saranindranath Tagore, National University of Singapore
“Asian Relations and Tagorean Diplomacy: the Journeys of Kalidas Nag”
Kris Manjapra, Tufts University
Venue:
Thompson Room, Barker Center, 12 Quincy St., Cambridge, MA

4:30 pm-5:30 pm:
Tea Reception and venue of the SAI exhibit:
“Visions of Asia: the Art of Abanindranath Tagore and Nandalal Bose”
Remarks by Lori Gross, Associate Provost for the Arts, Harvard University
Venue:
Fisher Family Commons, CGIS Knafel, 1737 Cambridge St., Cambridge
Click here for a poster for this event

6:00-7:30 pm:
SAI Special Performance
"Tagore's Asian Voyages: A Rediscovery in Poetry, Music and Dance"
Opening remarks by Amartya Sen, Lamont University Professor
Songs performed by:Pramita Mallick
Dance performed by: Sushmita Biswas
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. The concert by Pramita Mallick will feature Siddharth Bhattacharjee on the tabla and Dipankar Deshmukh on the esraj
Venue:
Brattle Theater, 40 Brattle St., Cambridge, MA
Click here for a poster for this event

Saturday November 7, 2009
Special 'South Asia without Borders' Symposium
"Ideas of Asia in Tagore and his Times"

9:30 am-11:am: Academic Session II
Chaired by Wang Bangwei, Peking University
“China in Tagore’s One-Nest World”
Tan Chung, Independent Scholar, Chicago
“Japan, Tagore and the Idea of Visva-Bharati”
Nilanjan Banerjee, Visva-Bharati
“Chinese Perceptions of India during the Early Twentieth Century”
Tansen Sen and Zhang Xing, Nalanda-Sriwijaya Center, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

11:15 am-12:45 pm: Academic Session III
Chaired by Tansen Sen
“The Chinese Response to Tagore’s Ideas Reexamined”
Wang Bangwei, Peking University
“Tagore’s Understandings of China”
Wei Liming, Peking University
“Tagore, Xu Zhimo and the National Culture School”
Zeng Qiong, Beijing Normal University
Venue:
Thompson Room, Barker Center, 12 Quincy St., Cambridge, MA
Click here for poster for this event

Tuesday, October 20-Friday, November 13, 2009
SAI sponsored exhibit
Visions of Asia: The Art of Abanindranath Tagore and Nandalal Bose
Venue:
CGIS Knafel Bldg., Fisher Family Commons, 1737 Cambridge St., Cambridge, MA

Friday, October 30, 4:00pm
South Asia seminar
"‘To persuade them into speech and action’:Political Tamil and the Tamil political, Madras 1905-1919"
Bernard Bate, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Yale University
Chaired by Ajantha Subramanian, Associate Professor of Anthropology and of Social Studies
Venue:
Robinson Lower Library, Harvard Yard, Cambridge, MA
Click here to view poster

Thursday, October 14
South Asia sponsored event
Graduate Student Research Workshop: South Asia Across Disciplines
"Embodied Critiques: Fever, Pain, Marginalization and Complaint in
South Rajasthan."
Andy McDowell
Click here to visit the workshop's website
Venue:
CGIS Knafel Bldg., Room K105, 1737 Cambridge St., Cambridge, MA

Thursday, October 8, 4:00 pm and Friday, October 9, 4:00 pm
South Asia without Borders
"Awakening Giants, Feet of Clay: A Comparative Economic Assessment of the Rise of China and India" (Part I)
Pranab Bardhan, Professor of Economics, University of California, Berkeley
Professor Bardhan has done theoretical and field studies research on rural institutions in poor countries, on political economy of development policies, and on international trade. A part of his work is in the interdisciplinary area of economics, political science, and social anthropology. He was Chief Editor of the Journal of Development Economics for 1985-2003 and was co-chair of the MacArthur Foundation-funded Network on the Effects of Inequality on Economic Performance for 1996-2007. He held the Distinguished Fulbright Siena Chair at the University of Siena, Italy in 2008-9. He will be the BP Centennial Professor at London School of Economics for 2010 and 2011.
1st Lecture chaired by Amartya Sen, Thomas W. Lamont University Professor & Professor of Economics and Philosophy
2nd Lecture chaired by Sugata Bose, Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History and Affairs
The first lecture will give a broad critical overview of the main achievements and failures in the two giant economies.
The second lecture will reflect on the general and contrasting features of capitalism as it is developing in the two countries, on the political economy of the governance process in the context of the complex relationship between democracy (or lack of it) and development, and the nature of accountability failures in both countries.
Venue:
Robinson Lower Library, Harvard Yard, Cambridge, MA
Click here to view poster for this event

September 2009 events:

Monday, September 14, 4:00 pm
South Asia sponsored event
“Empire in our Time (looking at it with my penlight)”
Vijay Prashad Trinity College
Presented by the Warren Center’s Workshop on Empire, Sovereignty, Migration, Diaspora: Transnational America from Above and Below.
Venue:
History Library, First Floor, Robinson Hall

Thursday, September 17
South Asia sponsored event
Graduate Student Research Workshop: South Asia Across Disciplines:
"Nagas and the Buddha"
Ren Wei
Click here to visit the workshop's website

Tuesday, September 22, 5:30- 7:30 pm
Presented by the Tufts Center for South Asian and Indian Ocean Studies
Jonathan Shapiro Anjaria
Jonathan Anjaria is a cultural anthropologist whose research interests include urban studies, anthropology of the state, informal economy and transnational processes. In particular, he is interested in the ways conflicts over the mundane uses of public space index larger questions relating to urban development and desires for world-belonging in postcolonial contexts. He received his B.A. from Harvard in 2001, and received his PhD from UC Santa Cruz in 2008. He has taught in the anthropology departments at Stanford University and University of California, Santa Cruz, and is currently an assistant professor of Anthropology at Bard College and Mellon/ American Council of Learned Societies postdoctoral fellow.
Co-sponsor: Tufts History Department
Venue:
Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Cabot 206
Directions: http://fletcher.tufts.edu/directions/Default.asp
Contact: Shahla Hussain, Shahla.Hussain@tufts.edu tel. 617.627.3558
http://ase.tufts.edu/southasian/events.asp

Friday, September 25, 4:00 pm
South Asia without Borders
“From Bengal: Cosmopolitanism and the Address of Modernity"
Saranindranath Tagore, Associate Professor of Philosophy, National University of Singapore
Chaired by Sugata Bose, Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History
and
Homi Bhabha, Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of English
Discussant: Kris Manjapra, Tufts University
SAI Fall Reception to follow 6pm-7pm
Venue:
Robinson Lower Library, Harvard Yard, Cambridge, MA
Click here to view poster for this event

Saturday, September 26, 7:00 pm
Harvard Sangeet proudly presents:
“An Evening of Hindustani Music with Santoor Maestro Rahul Sharma”
Join us for a classical concert by world-renowned musician Rahul Sharma. Son of maestro Pt. Shivkumar Sharma and a prodigious musician in his own right, he has performed with the likes of Zakir Hussain and Richard Clayderman and has been instrumental in popularizing the santoor in both classical and fusion music.
Come experience the magic of his 100 strings!
(Tabla accompaniment to be provided by Aditya Kalyanpur)
Tickets: Free for Harvard undergraduates, $15 general admission, $10 for other students
Tickets can be purchased from the Harvard Box Office or at the door.
Venue:
Lowell Lecture Hall, 17 Kirkland St., Cambridge, MA

Wednesday, September 30, 5:00 pm
Sponsored by the Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies
Pre-Mauryan "rattle-mirrors" with artistic designs from the Scythian burial mounds of Altai in the light of the Sanskrit sources”
Professor Yaroslav V. Vassilkov, Saint Petersburg State University and Leading Research Fellow at Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkammer), Russian Academy of Sciences
Venue:
CGIS South, Room S050, Concourse Level, 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA

Wednesday, September 30, 5:00-7:00 pm
South Asia sponsored event
Graduate Student Research Workshop: South Asia Across Disciplines
"Narrative Structure in the Mahavastu"
Justin Fifield
Click here to visit the workshop's website
Venue:
CGIS Knafel Bldg., Room K105, 1737 Cambridge St., Cambridge, MA

Ronojoy Sen, Journalist, The Times of India, Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow, National Endowment for Democracy

Followed by a discussion on the Indian Election Results moderated by Sugata Bose, Gardiner Professor of History and Director of the South Asia Initiative at Harvard University

Dr. Ronojoy Sen is a journalist with The Times of India, the largest and most widely read English-language daily newspaper in India. As senior assistant editor of the newspaper’s editorial page, Dr. Sen has written numerous editorials and op-ed articles on a range of issues relating to the politics of South Asia, including constitutional secularism, law, religion, nationalism, globalization and culture. In addition to several articles, he is the author of Legalizing Religion: The Indian Supreme Court and Homogenization of the Nation, a monograph based on his doctoral dissertation at the University of Chicago, published in the East-West Center’s Policy Studies series in 2007. His book, tentatively entitled Articles of Faith, is scheduled to be published by Oxford University Press in 2009. During his fellowship, Dr. Sen is examining the reasons for popular disenchantment with politicians and political culture in India. He intends to share his findings in the form of a journal article and op-eds for the Times of India.
Venue:
CGIS S153 (South Building), 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Click here for the event poster

9.15-10.00 am: Session 1 on “Resources that cross Borders”
Chair: Venky Narayanamurthy
Presenter: John Briscoe on “Water and India-Pakistan-Bangladesh Relations”

10.15 am-11 pm: Session 2a on “Identities that cross Borders”
Chair: Sugata Bose
Presenter: Antara Datta on “Repatriation and Citizenship in the Aftermath of the Subcontinental Crisis of 1971”

11.15 am-12 pm: Session 2b on “Identities that cross Borders”
Chair: Jennifer Leaning
Presenter: Asim Khwaja on “Estimating the Impact of the Hajj: Religion and Tolerance in Islam’s Global Gathering”

To register, please send your full name, e-mail address, and affiliation (department, school or organization) in an e-mail to sainit@fas.harvard.edu. Please note which sessions you plan on attending.

Please join us for this celebratory occasion to honor the 6 faculty members and 69 students receiving Study Grants and SAI Service in India Internships.
The student grantees are listed here.
Venue:
Harvard Faculty Club, 2nd Floor Library , 20 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138

Tufts University Conference on ‘South Asian Islam in the Global Context’

The conference aims at bringing the insights of some of the most recent research in the field of Islamic studies into a constructive dialogue with the history and historiography of South Asian Muslims, thereby enriching understanding of the variegated and vibrant nature of the Islamic tradition not only for purposes of theory and history but also contemporary public policy.
Venue:
Cabot 7th floor, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, 160 Packard Ave., Somerville, MA 02155
Click here to visit the conference website
Offered by the Tufts University Center for South Asian and Indian Ocean Studies

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

Professor Ayesha Jalal is one of the most prominent historians of Pakistan and South Asia. The Mary Richardson Professor of History at Tufts University, she was a MacArthur Fellow during 1998-2003 and has also taught at Columbia and Harvard. Her scholarship has been innovative and provocative – on topics as varied as the partition of the sub-continent and the continued presence of the authoritarian colonial state in both India and Pakistan today.

At this event, Prof Jalal will lead a discussion with a small group of attendees around the growing influence of the Taliban in Pakistan and implications for relations between India and Pakistan. In the past week both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates have expressed extreme concern about the advances of the Taliban in Pakistan. Prof Jalal is eager to hear the views of students on this issue and looking forward to moderating a discussion.

Seating will be limited. Please RSVP by clicking https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=cF9QUVlYT2Q1amxXckY0UWxfUjVtTnc6MA..
Venue:
Malkin Penthouse (top floor, Littauer Building), 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Offered by the Harvard Kennedy School South Asia Security Initiative. Generously supported by KSSG.

Prof. Goswami's research interests include historiographical and theoretical debates in colonial, national, and subaltern studies; the historical-geography of colonial capitalism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; the relationship between social transformations and categories of understanding; and the global coordinates of apparently local intellectual and political projects. Her book, Producing India, probed how colonial India came to be conceived as a bounded national space and economy. Focusing on the joint determinations of material transformations and shifts in meaning, it locates the origins and contradictions of Indian nationalism in the convergence of the lived experience of colonial space, the expansive logic of capital, and interstate dynamics. Her current research focuses on the history of collective political imaginings of the future in twentieth century colonial and postcolonial north-India.
Co-sponsored by the Harvard University Humanities Center
Venue:
CGIS S020 (South Building), 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02138

"Non-Violence and the Nation": Gandhian Satyagraha and Racial Equality in the United States during the Second World War

Nico Slate, Weatherhead Center Dissertation Fellow, Ph.D. candidate, Department of History, Harvard University
This seminar is part of the International & Global History Seminar offered by the Harvard University Department of History.
For further details please contact David Armitage, armitage@fas.harvard.edu
Co-sponsored by the Harvard University Department of History
Venue:
CGIS S020 (South Building), 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Click here for the pre-circulated paper (please read before attending)

ABHIJIT GUPTA's chief areas of research are the history of printing and publishing, and bibliography. He is the co-editor of the Book History in India series, of which two volumes have been published: Print Areas in 2004 and Moveable Types in 2008. He is also associate editor for South Asia for the forthcoming Oxford Companion to the Book. He has just completed an STC and location register of books in Bengali from 1801-1867 and is currently at work on the period 1868-1914.His other research areas include science fiction and graphic novels.
Venue:
CGIS K050 (Knafel Building), 1737 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02138

AMITAV GHOSH is one of India’s best-known writers. His books include The Circle of Reason, The Shadow Lines, In An Antique Land, Dancing in Cambodia, The Calcutta Chromosome, The Glass Palace, Incendiary Circumstances, The Hungry Tide. His most recent novel, Sea of Poppies, is the first volume of the Ibis Trilogy.
Amitav Ghosh was born in Calcutta in 1956. He studied in Dehra Dun, New Delhi, Alexandria and Oxford and his first job was at the Indian Express newspaper in New Delhi. He earned a doctorate at Oxford before he wrote his first novel, which was published in 1986.
The Circle of Reason won the Prix Medicis Etranger, one of France's top literary awards, and The Shadow Lines won the Sahitya Akademi Award & the Ananda Puraskar. The Calcutta Chromosome won the Arthur C. Clarke Award for 1997 and The Glass Palace won the Grand Prize for Fiction at the Frankfurt International e-Book Awards in 2001. The Hungry Tide won the Hutch Crossword Book Prize in 2006. In 2007 Amitav Ghosh was awarded the Grinzane Cavour Prize in Turin, Italy.
Amitav Ghosh has written for many publications, including the Hindu, The New Yorker and Granta, and he has served on the juries of several international film festivals, including Locarno and Venice. He has taught at many universities in India and the USA, including Delhi University, Columbia, the City University of New York and Harvard. He no longer teaches and is currently writing the next volume of the Ibis Trilogy.
He is married to the writer, Deborah Baker, and has two children, Lila and Nayan. He divides his time between Kolkata, Goa and Brooklyn.
Venue:
Loeb House, 17 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Co-sponsored by the Harvard University Asia Center
Click here for the event poster

"Transnational Retailing & the Political Economy of Land Development": The Case of Makro ‘Embedding’ in Karachi, Pakistan

Nausheen Anwar, Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University South Asia InitiativeThis bi-weekly workshop brings together students, faculty, and other researchers from a range of humanities and social science departments who work on South Asia. Meetings will be organized around participants’ shared interests in matters such as languages and publics, cultural citizenship, politics and governance, identities, social movements, and the law, etc. We aim to develop and enrich each other’s scholarship through bi-weekly discussions of works-in-progress and occasional visits by guest speakers.If interested in being a workshop member, please e-mail the student coordinator, Bilal Malik, with your affiliation, area of study/disciplinary affiliation, name and e-mail address: malik@post.harvard.edu.
Co-sponsored by the Harvard University Humanities Center
Click here to visit the workshop's website

“The Singer Sewing Machine in Colonial Sri Lanka”: Issues of ‘Race’, Gender and Social Status

Nira Wickramasinghe, Professor, Department of History and International Relations, University of Colombo; Research Fellow, Davis Center for Historical Studies, Princeton University

Nira Wickramasinghe is a professor in the Department of History and International Relations at the University of Colombo and presently a visiting fellow at the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies, Princeton University. She read history at the Universite de Paris-IV Sorbonne and at the University of Oxford. Her most recent publication is Sri Lanka in the Modern Age. A History of Contested Identities (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2006). Her work on the Singer sewing machine is part of a larger work in progress on heterogeneous times in colonial Sri Lanka.Through a study of the reception and use of the Singer sewing machine, this talk hopes to explore the nature of the changes that were taking place in the everyday life of peoples during colonial times in order to comprehend the contours of a notion of ‘modernity’ unique and specific to Ceylon/Sri Lanka.
Venue:
Robinson Hall Lower Library, Harvard Yard, Cambridge, MA 02138
Click here for the event poster

In this unique concert event, award-winning Indian vocalist, Prahlad Singh Tipanya and ensemble, from Ujjain district, Madhya Pradesh, will perform traditional bhajans (devotional songs sung in the folk register) in honor of the poet-saint Kabir.Prahlad Singh Tipanya lives in Lunyakhedi village in the Malwa region of Madhya Pradesh, near the cities of Dewas and Ujjain. A rural schoolteacher, he began singing in the late 1970s after being attracted by the sound of the folk tambura. His rare talent, passion, and insight have caused him to be increasingly recognized as a remarkable exponent of Kabir’s music and meanings. Among many other honors, he received the prestigious Sangeet Natak Akademi award in 2008. (Sangeet Natak, India’s national academy of music, dance, and drama, gives eight annual awards to musicians, only one of which is reserved for a non-classical performer.) Tipanyaji is one of the main artists featured in Shabnam Virmani’s films. A grant for the musicians’ international travel has been generously provided by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations.Prahlad Singh Tipanya sings and plays the tambura (a five-stringed plucked and strummed instrument originally from Rajasthan), and kartal (a wood and metal instrument, two pieces struck together to make a tambourine-like sound, played with the fingers of the left hand). His younger son Vijay Tipanya sings with him and plays manjira (small cymbals); his older son Ajay Tipanya plays dholak (two-headed drum); his brother Ambaram Tipanya plays manjira, kartal, and sometimes harmonium; Devnarayan Sarolia plays violin. In addition to the official accompanying singer, all are likely to join in on the singing.
Stanford faculty member Linda Hess has been translating and writing on Kabir for many years and has worked closely with Prahlad Tipanya and Shabnam Virmani since 2002. She is author, with Shukdeo Singh, of The Bijak of Kabir (Oxford University Press, 2002). Her book Singing Emptiness: Kumar Gandharva Performs the Poetry of Kabir is forthcoming from Seagull Books (http://www.seagullindia.com/books/forthenactment.asp), and a book on Kabir oral traditions in rural Madhya Pradesh is in progress. Prof. Hess will introduce this event.This event is part of a day-long celebration of Kabir, preceded by a film-screening and discussion in the same venue beginning at 3:30pm (see above).Co-sponsored by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, the Stanford University Center for South Asia, and Harvard Sangeet.Free and open to the public.
Venue:
Hilles Performance Hall, Radcliffe Quadrangle, 59 Shepard Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Click here for the event poster

Kabir defied the boundaries between Hindu and Muslim, refusing to be labeled himself and sharply criticizing sectarianism. His name and upbringing were Muslim but his poetry often uses Hindu concepts and Hindu names for God, especially Ram. For most Indians, Ram is the widely revered Hindu god and hero of the epic Ramayana. This film is a journey in search of the Ram invoked in Kabir's poetry, encountering singers and lay people in India and Pakistan, probing the forces of history and politics that have created disputatiously diverse Rams, while also spawning many Kabirs.Followed by a discussion with the filmmaker.Award-winning filmmaker Shabnam Virmani has spent the last six years producing four feature-length documentaries on living Kabir culture, focusing on music and musicians, all embedded in various social, political and religious contexts. Along with these films she has produced ten remarkable audio CDs and a set of beautiful books to accompany CDs and DVDs. This work has been generously supported by Ford Foundation and by Srishti College of Art, Design, and Technology in Bengaluru, where Shabnam is artist-in-residence. Two of these films were recently broadcast on NDTV-Delhi. Had-Anhad: “Bound-Unbound” was one of two films selected to share first prize at the recent One Billion Eyes Film Festival in Chennai. For descriptions of the films and other creations, please visit www.kabirproject.org. Stanford faculty member Linda Hess has been translating and writing on Kabir for many years and has worked closely with Prahlad Tipanya and Shabnam Virmani since 2002. She is author, with Shukdeo Singh, of The Bijak of Kabir (Oxford University Press, 2002). Her book Singing Emptiness: Kumar Gandharva Performs the Poetry of Kabir is forthcoming from Seagull Books (http://www.seagullindia.com/books/forthenactment.asp), and a book on Kabir oral traditions in rural Madhya Pradesh is in progress. Prof. Hess will introduce this event.This event is part of a day-long celebration of Kabir, to be followed by a concert in the same venue beginning at 7:30pm (see below).Co-sponsored by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, the Stanford University Center for South Asia, and Harvard Sangeet.Free and open to the public.
Venue:
Hilles Performance Hall, Radcliffe Quadrangle, 59 Shepard Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Click here for the event poster

Sponsored by Phillips Academy Andover and the Winsor School

Hosted by the South Asia Institute of Harvard University

Keynote speaker: Tarun Khanna, Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor at the Harvard Business School

Educators For Teaching India is hosting the first secondary school conference on teaching India. The conference will feature a keynote address from Harvard Business School professor Tarun Khanna, as well as workshops by scholars of Indian literature, history, religion, media and global economics. Additionally, the conference will offer sessions on the pedagogy of teaching India in both public and private school classrooms. Led by a group of interdisciplinary educators currently teaching India, these workshops focus on the "how" of teaching such an ancient, diverse, and complex civilization in the secondary classroom. The conference registration fee is $40. To register, visit http://www.teachingindia.org/conference_reg.aspx WORKSHOPS
Session I
The seminars of this session approach the question "Why Teach India" from a variety of disciplinary and thematic perspectives. The presenters are all scholars from the Boston area whose research focuses on India. Their aim is to provide specific and practical information that teachers can easily adapt for secondary-level courses. Session II The seminars of this session focus on the "how" of teaching India in the secondary classroom. The presenters are high school teachers from a variety of disciplines who currently teach courses on India or courses that include specific units on India. These sessions aim to explore the practices and curricular innovations specific to the teaching of India at the high school level. KEYNOTE
Tarun Khanna is the Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor at the Harvard Business School, where he has studied and worked with multinational and indigenous companies and investors in emerging markets worldwide. He joined the faculty in 1993, after obtaining an engineering degree from Princeton University (1988) and a Ph.D. from Harvard (1993), and an interim stint on Wall Street. During this time, he has served as the head of several courses on strategy and international business targeted to MBA students and senior executives at Harvard. In January, 2008 Tarun Khanna published rhw book, Billions of Entrepreneurs: How China and India are Reshaping Their Futures and Yours (Penguin Books in India and South Asia).
Link to Dr. Khanna's faculty page: http://drfd.hbs.edu/fit/public/facultyInfo.do?facInfo=ovr&facEmId=tkhanna
Click here to visit the conference's website

"Defining the Region: Two approaches to the Categorization of Andhra’s Buddhist Art"

Catherine Becker Dept. of Art History, University of Illinois-Chicago & Post-Doc Fellow at South Asia Initiative, Harvard University.

This bi-weekly workshop brings together students, faculty, and other researchers from a range of humanities and social science departments who work on South Asia. Meetings will be organized around participants’ shared interests in matters such as languages and publics, cultural citizenship, politics and governance, identities, social movements, and the law, etc. We aim to develop and enrich each other’s scholarship through bi-weekly discussions of works-in-progress and occasional visits by guest speakers."Defining the Region: Two approaches to the Categorization of Andhra’s Buddhist Art" will focus on the 'framing' introductory chapter from the upcoming book titled, "Sacred Fragments: Creating, Encountering, & Redefining Sculptures from the Buddhist Stupas of Andhra Pradesh"If interested in being a workshop member, please e-mail the student coordinator, Bilal Malik, with your affiliation, area of study/disciplinary affiliation, name and e-mail address: malik@post.harvard.edu.
Co-sponsored by the Harvard University Humanities Center
Click here to visit the workshop's website

Graduate Student Research Workshop: South Asia Across Disciplines
"Twin Births, Divergent Democratization: The Social Origins of Political Parties in India and Pakistan"

This bi-weekly workshop brings together students, faculty, and other researchers from a range of humanities and social science departments who work on South Asia. Meetings will be organized around participants’ shared interests in matters such as languages and publics, cultural citizenship, politics and governance, identities, social movements, and the law, etc. We aim to develop and enrich each other’s scholarship through bi-weekly discussions of works-in-progress and occasional visits by guest speakers.If interested in being a workshop member, please e-mail the student coordinator, Bilal Malik, with your affiliation, area of study/disciplinary affiliation, name and e-mail address: malik@post.harvard.edu.
Co-sponsored by the Harvard University Humanities Center
Click here to visit the workshop's website

The legacy of the law of the modernizing colonial state had a definitive impact on the governance of labor in Pakistan. This talk considers the role of colonial labor legislation in defining worker representation and welfare in post-1947 Pakistan, and its inadequacy today for addressing emerging dynamics in urban labor markets. The themes presented in this talk buttress a new research endeavor concerning the governance of labor in Pakistan and alternative institutional arrangements for worker representation and welfare that are inclusive of local work ecology in city regions such as Karachi. Nausheen H. Anwar graduated in October 2007 from Columbia University with a PhD in Urban and Regional Development. She wrote her thesis on the role of infrastructure in economic development. Using case studies from Pakistan’s export-oriented sports goods and textile-garment industries located in Sialkot and Faisalabad, respectively, she compared the impact of infrastructure scarcities on large firms’ and small and medium scale enterprises’ (SMEs) competitiveness, and the institutional arrangements that facilitated firm-government collaborations for surmounting constraints.
As a Post-Doctoral Fellow with the South Asia Initiative at Harvard University, Nausheen has started a new research project on the governance of labor in Pakistan. This project will endeavor to examine the governance of workers through two key historical shifts in the subcontinent, and new challenges that state and society confront for worker representation and welfare.
Venue:
Robinson Hall Lower Library, Harvard Yard, Cambridge, MA 02138
Click here for the event poster

“Cremated like a King. The Funeral of the Buddha in the Context of Ancient Indian Culture.”

Dr. Oskar von Hinueber, Professor of Indology (Emeritus), University of Freiburg
Venue:
CGIS S250 (South Building), 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02138

Edward Luce, Author, Newspaper Correspondent
Due to circumstances beyond our control this event has been canceled. We hope to schedule a new date for this seminar, and will post here when a date is found.

"Nature-State-Citizen relationships in the Plan of Islamabad: The making of a 'City of the Future', 1959-63"

Ahmed Mahsud, Postdoctoral Fellow, MITThis bi-weekly workshop brings together students, faculty, and other researchers from a range of humanities and social science departments who work on South Asia. Meetings will be organized around participants’ shared interests in matters such as languages and publics, cultural citizenship, politics and governance, identities, social movements, and the law, etc. We aim to develop and enrich each other’s scholarship through bi-weekly discussions of works-in-progress and occasional visits by guest speakers.If interested in being a workshop member, please e-mail the student coordinator, Bilal Malik, with your affiliation, area of study/disciplinary affiliation, name and e-mail address: malik@post.harvard.edu.
Co-sponsored by the Harvard University Humanities Center
Click here to visit the workshop's website

Primary Source's 2008-2009 Public Programs series: "Discovering India Through Dance"

Primary Source's 2008-2009 Public Programs series continues on Thursday, March 19 at the Cambridge YMCA, where dancers will explore India's rich cultural heritage through the classical dance of Bharata Natyam. Tickets are now available online. To learn more about Primary Source, click here.

A collection of six short dances will trace the evolution of Bharata Natyam from its traditional place in South Indian temples and courts to its modern use as a means of artistic expression. A limited number of seats are also available at a private post-performance reception with performers at India Castle. To reserve your tickets, click here.
Venue:
Cambridge Family YMCA Theatre, 820 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge
$15 per ticket | $40 includes private reception with performers at India Castle, 928 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge.
Pre-registration strongly encouraged. Reserve your seats online today: http://primarysource.kintera.org/indiandance
For directions, parking details, and more information, please visit: http://www.primarysource.org/events
Contact: Julie Newport, Director of Marketing and Communications, Primary Source (julie@primarysource.org or 617.923.9933 x 18).

Graduate Student Research Workshop: South Asia Across Disciplines - Student Presentations

Faculty Coordinators: Profs. Asad A. Ahmed & Smita Lahiri (Harvard University Anthropology Dept.)This bi-weekly workshop brings together students, faculty, and other researchers from a range of humanities and social science departments who work on South Asia. Meetings will be organized around participants’ shared interests in matters such as languages and publics, cultural citizenship, politics and governance, identities, social movements, and the law, etc. We aim to develop and enrich each other’s scholarship through bi-weekly discussions of works-in-progress and occasional visits by guest speakers.If interested in being a workshop member, please e-mail the student coordinator, Bilal Malik, with your affiliation, area of study/disciplinary affiliation, name and e-mail address: malik@post.harvard.edu.
Co-sponsored by the Harvard University Humanities Center
Click here to visit the workshop's website

Graduate Student Research Workshop: South Asia Across Disciplines "Finding Home Abroad: The Safarnāma and the Development of a National Identity"

Daniel Majchrowicz, Near-Eastern Languages & CivilizationsFaculty Coordinators: Profs. Asad A. Ahmed & Smita Lahiri (Harvard University Anthropology Dept.)This bi-weekly workshop brings together students, faculty, and other researchers from a range of humanities and social science departments who work on South Asia. Meetings will be organized around participants’ shared interests in matters such as languages and publics, cultural citizenship, politics and governance, identities, social movements, and the law, etc. We aim to develop and enrich each other’s scholarship through bi-weekly discussions of works-in-progress and occasional visits by guest speakers.If interested in being a workshop member, please e-mail the student coordinator, Bilal Malik, with your affiliation, area of study/disciplinary affiliation, name and e-mail address: malik@post.harvard.edu.
Co-sponsored by the Harvard University Humanities Center
Click here to visit the workshop's website

Pre-circulated papers will be available by email. Please contact histecon@fas.harvard.edu.
All are welcome.

Session One: "The Mysterious Virtue of Wax and Parchmentâ": Sovereignty and Salvation on the Frontier of the Early Republic
4.15pm- 5.00pm
Sam Haselby (Harvard Society of Fellows)
Discussant: Stephen Marini (Wellesley College)

Session Two: "Hindu Tolerance" and Religious Freedom: North India, ca. 1880-1930
5.00pm-5.45pm
Cassie Adcock (Washington University at St. Louis)
Discussant: MriduRai (Yale University)

Session Three: "Toleration and Empire: The Origins of American Religious Pluralism"
5.45pm-6.30pm
Evan Haefeli (Columbia University)
Discussant: Martha Minow (Harvard Law School)

For more information and to read abstracts, see http://www.fas.harvard.edu/%7Ehistecon/religion-law/
Co-sponsored by the Harvard Center for History and Economics http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~histecon and the South Asia Initiative http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~sainit
Venue:
CGIS S250 (South Building), 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Click here to visit the event's webpage

Graduate Student Research Workshop: South Asia Across Disciplines - Student Presentations

"AIDS Sutra: Untold Stories from India": a Discussion about the Hidden AIDS Crisis in India with Authors Nikita Lalwani and Sonia Faleiro

Introduction by Professor Sugata BoseModerated by Negar Akhavi of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

AIDS SUTRA: UNTOLD STORIES FROM INDIA is a groundbreaking anthology that enlists India’s top authors to uncover the country’s hidden AIDS crisis. It was produced in collaboration with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, proceeds from the book will go toward a fund for children affected by HIV/AIDS in India.“What better way to give a voice to the 2.7 million people in India living with HIV / AIDS than to enlist the country’s top authors to tell their stories?” —Reuters “The writing in the anthology is by turns tortured and beautiful as writers show us the people behind the stereotypes.” —The Wall Street Journal
Venue:
CGIS S020 (South Building), 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Click here to view the event poster

Graduate Student Research Workshop: South Asia Across Disciplines - Guest Speaker: Dr. Francis Cody

Dr. Francis Cody, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Society for the Humanities and the Department of Anthropology at Cornell UniversityThis bi-weekly workshop brings together students, faculty, and other researchers from a range of humanities and social science departments who work on South Asia. Meetings will be organized around participants’ shared interests in matters such as languages and publics, cultural citizenship, politics and governance, identities, social movements, and the law, etc. We aim to develop and enrich each other’s scholarship through bi-weekly discussions of works-in-progress and occasional visits by guest speakers.Francis Cody is a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Society for the Humanities and the Department of Anthropology at Cornell University. His research brings ethnographic and historical lenses to bear on theoretical questions raised by social activism in a development context, political economies of representation, and postcolonial statecraft. His dissertation is entitled “Literacy as Enlightenment: Written Language, Activist Mediation, and the State in rural Tamilnadu, India.” In this work he undertook an ethnographic analysis of the Arivoli Iyakkam adult literacy movement in Pudukkottai District. Dr. Cody is currently preparing a new research project on rapidly expanding daily newspaper production in Tamil. This project will extend his interests in written culture by focusing more squarely on the development of transnational linguistic marketplaces as politicized spheres of circulation over the course of the twentieth century.If interested in being a workshop member, please e-mail the student coordinator, Bilal Malik, with your affiliation, area of study/disciplinary affiliation, name and e-mail address: malik@post.harvard.edu.
Co-sponsored by the Harvard University Humanities Center
Click here to visit the workshop's website

"The Monolithic Buddha in Hussain Sagar": Mining Antiquity to Manufacture a Modern Marvel for Andhra Pradesh

An eighteen meter monolithic representation of the Buddha Shakyamuni stands above the calm waters of Hussain Sagar Lake in Hyderabad, India. Begun in 1985 under the patronage of then-Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh N. T. Rama Rao, the Hussain Sagar Buddha is marketed in state-sponsored tourism brochures as a symbol uniting Andhra Pradesh’s remote Buddhist past with its more recent transformation into an “enlightened” and technologically sophisticated state. Yet, the first attempt to install the image in 1990, which resulted in the sinking of the barge carrying the statue and in the drowning of eight workers, further complicates the already uneasy use of the Buddha as a symbol of a modern Andhra Pradesh. Although the image was successfully installed in 1992, the tragic initial installation attempt gave rise to a popular belief that any politician participating in the inauguration of the image would subsequently be voted out of office. An examination of the diverse visual sources employed in the creation of this image, along with a consideration of the image’s larger contexts—physical, political, and historical, reveals the Hussain Sagar Buddha’s somewhat awkward status as not only a symbol of local and national modernity, but also an uncanny memorial to Andhra’s Buddhist heritage. Catherine Becker studies the relief sculptures that adorned Buddhist stupas, or relic mounds, in Andhra Pradesh during the second and third centuries CE. She investigates the shifting functions of Andhra’s Buddhist objects and monuments both in antiquity and today. After receiving her Ph.D. in Art History from the University of California, Berkeley, she was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Art History at Williams College and is currently an Assistant Professor in the Art History Department at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Venue:
Robinson Hall Lower Library, Harvard Yard, Cambridge, MA 02138
Click here to view the event poster

Graduate Student Research Workshop: South Asia Across Disciplines - Student Presentations

Faculty Coordinators: Profs. Asad A. Ahmed & Smita Lahiri (Harvard University Anthropology Dept.)

If interested in being a workshop member, please e-mail the student coordinator, Bilal Malik, with your affiliation, area of study/disciplinary affiliation, name and e-mail address: malik@post.harvard.edu.
Co-sponsored by the Harvard University Humanities Center
Click here to visit the workshop's website

A Project One production in association with Namak Films, Directed by Mehreen Jabbar

‘Ramchand Pakistani’ is derived from a true story concerning the accidental crossing of the Pakistan-Indian border during a period (June 2002) of extreme, war-like tension between the two countries by two members of a Pakistani Hindu family belonging to the 'untouchable' (Dalit) caste, and the extraordinary consequences of this unintended action upon the lives of a woman, a man, and their son.
The singular theme of the film is how a child from Pakistan aged eight years learns to cope with the trauma of forced separation from his mother while being held prisoner, along with his father in the jail of a country i.e. India, which is hostile to his own, while on the other side of the border, the wifemother, devastated by their sudden disappearance builds a new chapter of her life, by her solitary struggle for sheer survival. Belonging to one of the lowest castes in Hinduism (one of the
“untouchables”), the family is also part of a small minority of Hindus in a country, which is the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, in which 97% of the people are Muslims. The boy and his father are held captive in India where, in contrast to Pakistan, the overwhelming majority of about 80% comprises of Hindus.
The film portrays the lives of a family that is at the bottom of a discriminatory religious ladder and an insensitive social system, which is nevertheless tolerant, inclusive and pluralist. The irony is compounded by the fact that such a family becomes hostage to the acrimonious political relationship between two neighbor-states poised on the brink of war.

"I loved the film. Beautifully made. Great authenticity. Nandita was strong and moving”.
Mira Nair

“Another example of film bringing together cross-border talent is the upcoming "Ramchand Pakistani," directed by New York- and Karachi-based director Mehreen Jabbar, a daughter of Pakistan's former Information Minister Javed Jabbar."
Hollywood Reporter, February 22, 2008

"Two new films shed light on Pakistan's deep-rooted social and political problems by looking at them through the eyes of a child. "Ramchand Pakistani" follows the young Hindu boy of the title as he accidentally steps over the ill-defined border between old rivals Pakistan and India."
Reuters, February 19, 2008.

Free and open to the public. Co-sponsored by the Harvard University Asia Center
Venue:
Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Click here to visit the film's website

This film is a journey into the sweet science of boxing between two Indian women. It unfolds with them as they wrestle with their day to day existence as boxers and the conflicts that surround them. While one of the boxers is comprehending and dealing with her sexuality, the other struggles with the limitations of her body and the need to prove that she too can box like her brother. Using cinema verite style and shot over a period of two and a half years, the film articulates the boxers' concerns and shares experiences and ideas about their futures.

Director's Statement: "I read a very small article on the sports page of a mainstream newspaper mentioning that a woman boxer from India had become the world champion. I was taken aback. I wondered why people were not talking about her or why there have been no films made about female boxing in India. I set out looking for answers....From December 2004 to May 2007 I shot with two women boxers as they tried to understand their bodies, their undying love for the sport, and their constant struggle to realize their dreams. It was not important for me whether the two boxers won or lost, what was important was their negotiations with people and forces around them. The question for female boxers determined to stay in the game was not "why?" but instead, as I came to ask myself in this film, "why not?"

Produced with support from the Jan Vrijman Fund and Goteborg Film Festival Fund. Additional support from MAJLIS and SARAI (India). The film had its world premiere at the Goteborg Festival in January 2008 and has been screened at the Stuttgart Festival and at SANFIC Chile. Mr. Kumar was a Harvard Asia Center / Asia Society Fellow in 2003.
Venue:
CGIS S050 (South Building), 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Click here to view the event poster

The annual Office of International Programs' International Photo Exhibit and Reception features photographs entered to the OIP International Photo Contest by undergraduate students from their recent experiences abroad. The winning OIP photos were selected by Dr. Deborah Martin-Kao, the Richard L. Menschel Curator of Photography of the Fogg Art Museum and Senior Lecturer in History of Art and Architecture. Prizes will also be awarded by the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, the Korea Institute, the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, and the Harvard Summer School.

Of particular note to the South Asia Initiative's community is the first-place photograph in the "Sense of Place/Culture" category (also awarded the best-in-show), taken by SAI grantee Erin Yu.
Venue:
Fisher Family Commons (Ground Floor), CGIS Knafel Building, 1737 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02138

Graduate Student Research Workshop: South Asia Across Disciplines - Guest Speaker: Prof. Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar

Prof. Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar, Department of History, Brown University

Prof. Zamindar will be presenting her work at the Graduate Research Workshop: South Asia Across Disciplines. This bi-weekly workshop is sponsored by the Humanities Center, South Asia Initiative, and GSAS. It brings together students, faculty, and other researchers from a range of humanities and social science departments who work on South Asia. The workshop aims to develop and enrich participants' scholarship through bi-weekly discussions of works-in-progress. The format of the workshop is: i) paper and critique by pre-selected respondents is circulated to workshop participants prior to the workshop; ii) during the workshop, the presenter, respondents, and other participants discuss the paper (the paper/responses are not summarized, as everyone has read them beforehand).

RSVP is required for this event. If interested in being a workshop member, please e-mail the student coordinator, Bilal Malik, with your affiliation, area of study/disciplinary affiliation, name and e-mail address: malik@post.harvard.edu.
Co-sponsored by the Harvard University Humanities Center
Click here to visit the workshop's website

"'Feeling After a Way' Across Borders": Pioneering Indian Women Writing in English - Toru Dutt and Cornelia Sorabji

Dr Chandani Lokuge, Director, Centre for Postcolonial Writing, School of English, Communications and Performance Studies, Monash University

Together, the lives of Toru Dutt (1856-1877) and Cornelia Sorabji (1866-1954) span a century of the volatile Indian-British relationship from the heyday of British imperialism in India, through the development of Indian nationalism, well into the first decade of Indian independence. It was a century of extraordinary and rapid change for India. Dutt and Sorabji were irrevocably caught up in the vortex. Through their memoires, letters, fiction and poetry, their journeys provide powerful allegories of the Indian-British relationship. The discussion will be informed by theories of colonialism, postcolonialism, identity formation and feminist ideology. Biog: Chandani Lokuge is the author of nine books. As Editor of the scholarly Oxford Classic Reissue series, she has edited with introductions, six books including India Calling: The Memories of Cornelia Sorabji, India’s First Woman Barrister; Behind the Purdah by Cornelia Sorabji and the Collected Prose and Poetry of Toru Dutt. Lokuge is also the author of two novels, Turtle Nest (Penguin) and If the moon smiled (Penguin) and Moth and Other Stories (Aarhus). Her third novel, Softly, as I leave you is contracted to Curtis Brown Ltd. She is the Director of the Centre for Postcolonial Writing in the School of English, Communications and Performance Studies, Monash University, Victoria, Australia.
Co-sponsored by the Harvard University Humanities Center
Venue:
Humanities Center, room 133, The Barker Center, 12 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Click here to view the event poster

Panelists: Eric Beck ’10, Economics, SK Telecom(Korea), Corporate management support and management system development (sponsored by the Korea Institute) Robert Hamlin ‘10, Social Studies, China Universal Asset Management, Fund management (sponsored by the Harvard China Fund) Michael Kapps ‘11, Internship in Mauritius, Economic development (sponsored by the South Asia Initiative) Fuyuo Nagayama ‘11, Deloitte Tohmatsu (Japan), Consulting (sponsored by the Reischauer Institute)Returning students will talk about their experiences at various internships in Asia this summer. This is the first in a series of five panels to take place in the Fall semester. For additional information, please contact Jorge Espada at jespada@fas.harvard.edu.
Sponsored by the Asia Center, the Fairbank Center, the Harvard China Fund, the Korea Institute, the Reischauer Institute and the South Asia Initiative.
Venue:
CGIS S153 (South Building), 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Click here to view the event poster

Graduate Student Research Workshop: South Asia Across Disciplines - Student Presentations

“The Challenge of Climate Change": What are the Priority Actions for Policy Makers in Asia? What is the Asian Development Bank Doing?

Dr. Bindu Lohani, Vice President, Finance and Administration, Asian Development Bank Climate change is one of the key strategic development agendas of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) as emphasized in its recently approved Long-term Strategic Framework 2008-2020 (or Strategy 2020). In his presentation, Dr Lohani will introduce the challenge of climate change in the context of the Asia and the Pacific region, and suggest key priority actions which policy makers in Asia could undertake in addressing this challenge. Finally, Dr Lohani will also share the climate change program of the ADB for environmentally sustainable growth of the region, with real world illustrations of opportunities for investments.
Chaired by Peter Rogers, Gordon McKay Professor of Environmental Engineering and Professor of City and Regional Planning, Harvard University
Venue:
CGIS S050 (South Building), 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Click here to view the event poster

"Social Enterprise in Emerging Markets": Lessons from International Management to Social Enterprise

In a discussion moderated by senior HBS professor Allen Grossman, Syed Babar Ali (HBS ‘73) the renowned entrepreneur, industrialist and educationalist will share his insights on applying corporate management expertise to the social sector by drawing on his experiences building and leading high-impact non-profit and educational institutions in Pakistan.
Syed Babar Ali is the joint venture partner for Nestle and Coca-Cola in Pakistan, Chairman of Aventis, Bayer and Siemens Pakistan, Director of Unilever Pakistan and a former Finance Minister. He founded the Lahore University of Management Sciences, the country’s premier graduate business school and has established an institute for training primary and secondary school teachers. He has served as the International President for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and has received honors and awards from the Government of Sweden, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom (OBE). Syed Babar Ali also serves on the International Advisory Board of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Allen S. Grossman is the 1957 Professor of Management Practice at Harvard Business School and the former CEO of Outward Bound. His current research focuses on leading and governing high performing nonprofit organizations and leadership and management of public school districts.
Venue:
Hawes 101, Harvard Business School, One Soldiers Field, Boston, MA 02163
Click here to view the event poster

"Pakistan on the Brink?": A Discussion with Professor Ayesha JalalAyesha Jalal Mary Richardson Professor of History, Tufts University, MacArthur Fellow (1998-2003) and Author, “Partisans of Allah: Jihad in South Asia”

Ayesha Jalal is a Pakistani-American historian. She is a professor of history at Tufts University and a MacArthur Fellow. The bulk of her work deals with the creation of Muslim identities in modern South Asia. She is the daughter of Hamid Jalal, a nephew of the famous Urdu fiction writer Manto and a civil servant. The past year has seen dramatic developments in Pakistani politics and in the country as a whole, keeping the nation almost constantly in the news headlines the world over. Significant as these events are not only for Pakistan but for the wider global community, they warrant discussion in analysis. In light of this, SAA brings you "Pakistan on the Brink? A Discussion with Professor Ayesha Jalal" this Thursday at 5:00 pm in Ticknor Lounge. Professor Jalal is Mary Richardson Professor of History and Director of the Center of South Asian and Indian Ocean Studies at Tufts University and one of the most preeminent scholars of the history of the subcontinent in general and Pakistan in particular.
Venue:
Ticknor Lounge, Boylston Hall, Harvard Yard, Cambridge, MA 02138

Graduate Student Research Workshop: South Asia Across Disciplines - Student Presentations

Faculty Coordinators: Profs. Asad A. Ahmed & Smita Lahiri (Harvard University Anthropology Dept.)

This bi-weekly workshop brings together students, faculty, and other researchers from a range of humanities and social science departments who work on South Asia. Meetings will be organized around participants’ shared interests in matters such as languages and publics, cultural citizenship, politics and governance, identities, social movements, and the law, etc. We aim to develop and enrich each other’s scholarship through bi-weekly discussions of works-in-progress and occasional visits by guest speakers.If interested in being a workshop member, please e-mail the student coordinator, Bilal Malik, with your affiliation, area of study/disciplinary affiliation, name and e-mail address: malik@post.harvard.edu.
Co-sponsored by the Harvard University Humanities Center
Click here to visit the workshop's website

"The Real History of the Great People": Rajatarangini and the Mapping of India’s Past

Chitralekha Zutshi, Associate Professor of History, The College of William and Mary

Chitralekha Zutshi specializes in Modern South Asia, with particular interests in Islam in the Indian Subcontinent; interactions between religious identities, regional movements and nationalism in princely and colonial India; commodity and consumer cultures in Britain and colonial India; ideas of history and historiography in pre-colonial and colonial India; and empire. She received her PhD from Tufts University. Her book, entitled Languages of Belonging: Islam, Regional Identity, and the Making of Kashmir, was published by Permanent Black, New Delhi (2003); Hurst & Co., London (2004); and Oxford University Press, New York (2004).
She is currently working on a history of the Rajatarangini, the twelfth-century history of Kashmir by Kalhana. She is the recipient of several fellowships, including the National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship (2005-2006) and the Kluge Fellowship at the Library of Congress (2008).
Venue:
Robinson Hall Lower Library, Harvard Yard, Cambridge, MA 02138
Click here to view the event poster

Panelists: Natalie Bau ‘09, Centre for Micro Finance, India (sponsored by the South Asia Initiative) Will Guzick ‘11, Samsung Economic Research Institute, Seoul (sponsored by the Korea Institute) Nara Lee ‘11, International Red Cross of Japan (sponsored by the Reischauer Institute) 4th panelist TBDReturning students will talk about their experiences at various internships in Asia this summer. This is the second in a series of five panels to take place in the Fall semester. For additional information, please contact Jorge Espada at jespada@fas.harvard.edu. Sponsored by the Asia Center, the Fairbank Center, the Harvard China Fund, the Korea Institute, the Reischauer Institute and the South Asia Initiative.
Venue:
CGIS S153 (South Building), 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02138

“Inclusivist Growth and Economic Reforms": the Challenges of India's Pluralist Democracy

Dr. Ashwani Kuma, Minister of State for Industry, Government of IndiaDr. Kumar holds a Doctorate in Law and Masters in Philosophy in International Law. He was elected to the Parliament of India in May 2002 and has served on several committees related to energy, finance, information technologies, and commerce. He has written several articles in newspapers and magazines on law, economic reforms, elections, democracy, international affairs, and has been extensively interviewed in the print and electronic media including BBC, CNN, UN Radio (New York), and on political issues with the Washington Post, Le Monde, Los Angeles Guardian and the Times (London).
Light refreshments served. Contact: Lisa Matthews, Events Coordinator, Harvard University Center for the Environment, lisa_matthews@harvard.edu, p. 617-495-8883
Venue:
Harvard Kennedy School, Fainsod Room, 3rd Floor, Littauer Building, 79 JFK St., Cambridge, MA 02138

Graduate Student Research Workshop: South Asia Across Disciplines - Student Presentations

Aftab Seth, India’s former Ambassador to JapanAmb. Seth received diplomas with distinction in the Japanese Language and History from Keio University, Japan in 1963. B.A. (Hons); in History from St. Stephen's College, Dehli University, in 1964. M.A.; and in History and Politics, Constitutional History from Christ Church College, Oxford University, in 1967. He was a Rhodes Scholar from India in 1965 at Oxford University. He received a Doctorate of laws from the American College of Greece, Athens in 1993. After joining the Ministery of External Affairs of India in 1968 as a member of Indian Embassy he has lived and worked in Tokyo, Beirut, Cairo, Cyprus, Hamburg, Jakarta, Karachi, Athens, Hanoi. He was the Ambassador of India to Japan from 2000-2003.
He is now Professor and Director Global Security Research Institute, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan since June, 2004..
Co-sponsored by the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard University and the Program on U.S.-Japan Relations
Venue:
CGIS K262 (North Building), 1737 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Click here to view the event poster

K. Kesavapany, Director, Institute of South Asian Studies, SingaporeAmbassador K Kesavapany is the Director of the Institute of South Asian Studies in Singapore. His primary responsibilities are to plan, organize and supervise all the professional and research activities of the Institute.
Prior to his appointment to the Directorship of ISEAS, Ambassador Kesavapany was Singapore's High Commissioner to Malaysia since March 1997. In his 30-year career in the Foreign Service, he served as Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva (December 1991 - March 1997) and held key staff appointments in MFA, including Director of ASEAN, Director of Directorate II (North America and Europe) and Director of Directorate IV (International Organizations and Third World).
Ambassador Kesavapany was an active participant in the final phase of the Uruguay Round negotiations. He was unanimously chosen as the first Chairman of the WTO's General Council in 1995. Subsequently, he played a key role in securing Singapore as the venue for the first WTO Ministerial Meeting in 1996.
Venue:
Robinson Hall Lower Library, Harvard Yard, Cambridge, MA 02138
Click here to view the event poster
Watch a video of the event

Join us to celebrate the new academic year. A chance to meet others in the South Asian academic community over hors d'oevres and drinks, following the South Asia Without Borders Seminar by K. Kesavapany, Director, Institute of South Asian Studies, Singapore.
Venue:
Robinson Hall Great Space (ground floor lobby), Harvard Yard, Cambridge, MA 02138
Click here to view the event poster

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.