“India Today” will be an introductory talk on contemporary Indian society, politics, the work of NGOs (non-governmental organizations), and the various themes of gender, climate/environment, religion, media, and education. Hear from a renowned expert in India for this virtual and in-person event.

Presenters:

Siddhartha is the founder of Pipal Tree, an organisation concerned with media, inter-culturality, and environment issues, and Fireflies Intercultural Centre, an international eco-spiritual centre in Bangalore. He coordinates Meeting Rivers, an e-bulletin which engages religion and spirituality from a social and ecological perspective. He has lectured widely in Dublin, University of Massachusetts, Ramapo College (New Jersey), the United Nations University in Tokyo and organized international conferences and workshops in Manila, Bangkok, Seoul, Paris, Melbourne, Kathmandu and Bangalore on issues related to culture, ecology and sustainable development. 

Chandan Gowda is Ramakrishna Hegde Chair Professor of Decentralization and Development at the Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bengaluru. His areas of research include  Indian political thought and modern Kannada literature and cinema. Besides academic publications, he has translated Kannada fiction and non-fiction into English. He has compiled and edited The Way I See It: A Gauri Lankesh Reader and  A Life in the World, a book of autobiographical interviews he did with UR Ananthamurthy. At present, he is completing a book on the cultural politics of development in the old Mysore and co-translating and editing Daredevil Mustafa, a book of short stories by the Kannada writer, Purnachandra Tejasvi. He is also a columnist with Deccan Herald. 

Moderator:

Sanghamitra Padhy, Associate Professor of Law & Society, Ramapo College of New Jersey (Profile)

WebEx: https://ramapo.webex.com/ramapo/j.php?MTID=mca13973af95e11d3e27d034360d3c945 (Pre-registration required)