Dr. Sridharan (PhD Political Science, Penn '89) joined UPIASI (University of Pennsylvania Institute for the Advanced Study of India) as Academic Director in 1997. From September 2005 forward, he has assumed the role of Acting Secretary-General as well.
Ambassador Mahbubani has enjoyed a remarkable career in government, while at the same time writing prolifically on public issues. As a diplomat in the Singapore Foreign Service from 1971 to 2004, he was posted to Cambodia (where he served during the war in 1973-74), Malaysia, Washington, and New York, where he served two stints as Singapore's ambassador to the United Nations, and as president of the UN Security Council in January 2001 and May 2002. He was permanent secretary at the Foreign Ministry from 1993 to 1998.
Mr. R. Gopalakrishnan is executive director of Tata Sons, chairman of Rallis India and vice-chairman of Tata Chemicals. He is a director of several Tata Group companies such as Tata Motors, Tata Power and Tata Internet Services. He also serves on the board of two non-Tata companies, ICI and Castrol India. A key member of the Tata Group Executive Office, Mr. Gopalakrishnan plays a vital role in providing direction and impetus to the Group's forays into potentially viable areas of the new economy. A graduate in physics from Calcutta University, Mr.
The talk will draw from Sevanti Ninan's forthcoming book that is based on her fieldwork in eight Hindi-speaking states in central and northern India. In the 1990s, a newspaper revolution began blowing across India. When literacy levels rose, communications expanded, and purchasing power climbed in these Hindi-speaking states, newspapers followed, picking up readers in small towns and villages. Even while these new media surged to the top of national readership charts, they localized furiously in the race for readers.
Shantayanan Devarajan is the chief economist of the World Bank’s South Asia region, and editor of the World Bank Research Observer.
Arvind Subramanian is a division chief in the Research Department of the International Monetary Fund.
Dr. Basant served as the chief economist of the Prime Minister's Committee on the Social, Economic, and Educational Status of the Muslim Community in India (Sachar Committee.) In his remarks at CASI, he will share a unique perspective on the many factors that went into the Report's production. For anyone interested in seeing the document, you can download a PDF version of the file from the website of the National Council of Applied Economic Research: http://www.ncaer.org/whatsnew.html#N4
Dr. Niranjana will discuss her most recent book Mobilizing India. Descendants of Indian indentured laborers to the Caribbean comprise more than forty percent of Trinidad's population. While many Indo-Trinidadians identify themselves as Indian, what Indian signifies-about nationalism, gender, culture, caste, race, and religion-in the Caribbean is different from what it means on the subcontinent, but are intimately related. Drawing on a variety of historical and contemporary materials, Dr.
Dr. Isher Judge Ahluwalia is currently Chairperson, Board of Governors of Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) and Member, National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council, Government of India. She served as Director and Chief Executive of ICRIER from 1997 to 2001. Until recently, she was Vice Chairperson, Punjab State Planning Board, Government of Punjab and Chairperson, Board of Trustees of IFPRI (International Food Policy Research Institute).
Shot and edited between August 2004-2006, "Jashn-e-Azadi" engages us with the idea of Azadi in Kashmir. In 2007, as India celebrates its 60th anniversary of Independence, this is also a conversation about Freedom in India. Sanjay Kak is one of India's most significant documentary film makers today.
Written and directed by Sanjay Kak, photography Ranjan Palit, edited by Tarun Bhartiya 138 mins / Digital Video, Kashmiri/Urdu/English (English subtitles)