in partnership with the South Asia Center, South Asia Studies Dept & Dept of History and Sociology of Science
About the Seminar:
Ward Morehouse (1929-2012) educationist, publisher, and activist from New York State left behind an unpublished five-hundred page manuscript called Sarkar and Vigyan or Government and Science. Written between 1965-70, the book is an assessment of key decisions on institution building, science policy, research, and the role of science in India’s development that were taken in the first twenty years after India's independence. The manuscript will be published shortly as a witness of its time and as a source to better understand one reading of the conversations behind the faith in science and technology for development in India. What do we gain from reading the manuscript now? How do current assessments of the status of science research and policy in India reflect Morehouse’s observations?
About the Speaker:
Jahnavi Phalkey is the Founding Director of Science Gallery Bengaluru, a public space for research-based engagement across the human, social, and natural sciences. She is the author of Atomic State: Big Science in Twentieth Century India (Permanent Black, 2013) and has co-edited Science of Giants: China and India in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge University Press, 2016). She is the producer-director of the 2020 documentary Cyclotron and was awarded the 2023 Infosys Prize in Humanities. Jahnavi is a CASI Spring 2025 Visiting Scholar.