India China Institute

Prosperity and Inequality Conference
2008-03-27
The centerpiece of the 2008 New York residency “Prosperity and Inequality: Debates in India and China,” marked the beginning of two years of trilateral conversations among the 2008-10 ICI Fellows. The conference juxtaposed issues in India and China such as urbanization and wealth-formation; the management of risks associated with rapid growth in agrarian societies; the implementation of alternative designs for future development; and how to combine the virtues of socialism and capitalism without sacrificing the virtues of democracy and grassroots activism. The keynote address, delivered by Kemal Dervis, administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, addressed the basis for economic growth in China and India; their relationship to the U.S. economy; as well as constraints on growth and the effect of the economic slow-down. Dervis is an expert in development economics and has held various positions at the World Bank as well as served as the Minister for Economic Affairs in his native Turkey. He serves as chair of the UN Development Group, a committee comprised of the heads of all UN funds, programs, and departments related to development.

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India and China: Changing Giants in the World System
2008-02-13 18:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York)
Disussion with Sanjay Reddy and Jeffrey Wasserstrom – The New School – February 13, 2008. Sanjay Reddy discussed the global implications of India’s changing international economic position. Jeffrey Wasserstrom focused on a cultural analysis of the current situation in China, at a time when the forces of economic and cultural globalization have been transforming patterns of urban life in myriad ways.

Participant bios:

Sanjay Reddy is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Barnard College, Columbia University. He also teaches in Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. He earned a PhD in Economics and an AB in Applied Mathematics with Physics from Harvard, and an MPhil in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge. He received fellowships from (among others) Harvard University and Princeton University. His areas of research include development economics, international economics, and economics and philosophy. He has researched for development agencies and international institutions, including the G-24 group of developing countries, Oxfam, UNICEF, UNDP, and World Bank. He has published widely, and is a member of the editorial advisory boards of Development, Ethics and International Affairs, and the European Journal of Development Research. Dr. Reddy’s published articles includeGlobalisation, Labour Markets, and Social Outcomes in Developing Countreis (2006); International Trade: What Does Justice Demand? (2006) and Promoting Poorer Countries’ Interests (2006). He most recently wrote International Debt: The Constructice Implications of Some Moral Mathematics(2007).

Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom is a Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine. He received a Master’s in East Asian Studies from Harvard and his doctorate in History from the University of California, Berkeley. He is a specialist in modern Chinese history. He publishes widely in academic venues and also contributed reviews and commentaries to general interest periodicals, such as Newsweek, The Nation, The TLS, The New Left Review, andLos Angeles Times. He has edited, co-edited, or co-authored five books including Human Rights and Revolutions (Rowman and Littlefield, 2000 and 2007 editions). He is currently completing work on Global Shanghai, 1850-2010, which will appear in Routledge’s series on Asia’s World Cities. Dr. Wasserstrom is the author of Student Protests in Twentieth-Century China: The View from Shanghai (Stanford Univ. Press, 1991), and, most recently, China’s Brave New World–And Other Tales for Global TImes (Indiana Univ. Press, 2007). In this book a scholar poses such questions as what it really means to order a latte at Starbucks in Beijing as he journeys from nine-teenth century China into the future in this examination of China’s place in the current world order, and from Shanghai to Chicago, St. Louis, Budapest, and beyond.

Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism
2008-01-29 18:00 - 20:00
Co-sponsored with Schwartz Center for Economic Policy and Analysis, Economics Department, and Graduate Program for International Affairs.

Over the last two and half decades, most developing countries have experienced slowdown in growth, rising inequality, and increased economic instability. The outcome is, Ha-Joon Chang contends, due to the policies imposed upon them by the rich countries and the international organisations that they control free trade, free international investment, privatisation, stronger protection of intellectual property rights, and conservative macroeconomic policies. Chang argues that there are good theoretical reasons that those policies produce such outcome. He backs this contention by showing that neo-liberal policies that the “Bad Samaritan” rich countries have been promoting are actually not the policies that they themselves used when they were developing countries themselves nor are they policies used by more recent development success stories, from 1960s Korea and Taiwan down to China and India since the 1980s. Featuring Alexander Hamilton, the Lexus, Nokia mobile phone, his son, Orson Welles, and an elephant (if he has time), Chang’s talk argues for a fundamental reform of the international economic system and for national policies focused on raising long-term productivity (mostly) in manufacturing.

Ha-Joon Chang, a Korean national, has taught at the Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge, since 1990. In addition to numerous articles in journals and edited volumes, Ha-Joon Chang has published nine authored books (three of them co-authored) and eight edited books (six of them co-edited). His most recent books include Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective (Anthem Press, 2002), Globalization, Economic Development and The Role of the State (Zed Press, 2003), and Reclaiming Development: An Alternative Economic Policy Manual (with Ilene Grabel; Zed Press, 2004), and Bad Samaritans: Rich Nations, Poor Policies, and the Threat to the Developing World(Random House, 2007). His writings have been translated into 15 languages. Apart from his academic activities, Ha-Joon Chang has worked as a consultant for numerous international organisations, including various UN agencies (UNCTAD, WIDER, UNDP, UNIDO, UNRISD, INTECH, FAO, and ILO), the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank. He has also worked as a consultant for a number of governments (the UK, Canada, Japan, South Africa, and Venezuela). Ha-Joon Chang is the winner of the 2003 Myrdal Prize, awarded to his book, Kicking Away the Ladder, by the European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy (EAEPE). He is also the winner (jointly with Richard Nelson of Columbia University) of the 2005 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought awarded by Tufts University.

William Milberg is Associate Professor of Economics at the New School for Social Research and Program Coordinator for the Schwartz Center for Economic and Policy Analysis. His research focuses on the implications of changes in international trade and investment flows for employment and income distribution. He has worked as a consultant to the UNDP, UNCTAD, and ILO. He is the co-author (with Robert Heilbroner) of The Crisis of Vision in Modern Economic Thought and The Making of Economic Society. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Rutgers University in 1987.

Outsourcing as a Way of Life: Lessons from Shanghai
2007-12-11 18:00 - 20:00
Most Americans today are aware that jobs are being outsourced to China, India, and othernations at an alarming rate. From factory jobs to white-collar, high-tech positions, the exporting of labor is one of the most controversial issues in America. Yet few people know much about the other end – about the people who are actually working these jobs and how their own lives have been thrown into tumult by these new economic forces.

Andrew Ross, professor of American Studies and chair of the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University, spent a year in China, interviewing local employees and their managers in Taiwan, Shanghai, and the far western provinces. His talk draws from his engaging and informative book, Fast Boat to China, in which he shows how the Chinese workforce has inherited many of the same worries as American workers, such as job instability, long hours, and awareness of their own expendability. He also reports on the daily reality of corporate free trade and explores the growing competition between China and India.

The discussion will be moderated by Rachel Heiman, assistant professor of anthropology in the Bachelor’s Program and Department of Social Sciences at the New School for General Studies. This event is cosponsored by the Department of Social Sciences, India China Institute, and the Graduate Program in International Affairs.

What Led to China's Economic Growth?
2007-12-06 18:15 - 20:15
Discussion by Zhiwu Chen, Professor of Management, Yale School of Management, explores the determinants of China’s economic growth with Keith Abell and Salieh Neftci as discussants.

In the last 15 years China’s economy has been catapulting forward at a tremendous rate. Much is said about where it is going, but what are the root causes behind this growth? Why the recent “reform and open door policy” succeeded while those in the Qing and republican years did not? Why institutions matter despite China’s growth experience in the past 30 years? What “capitalization and financialization” lessons to learn from China’s experience?

Zhiwu Chen is an expert on finance theory, securities valuation, emerging markets, and China’s economy and capital markets. Dr. Chen is a frequent contributor to top economics and finance journals with research papers ranging from novel means of valuing stocks and pricing options, to studies of foreign exchange, market integration, mutual funds and profitable investment strategies. In the last few years, Dr. Chen has been actively doing research on market development and institution-building issues in the context of China’s transition process and other emerging markets. What institutions are necessary for markets to develop? What roles do financial innovations play in a country’s economic development process? These are among the issues which Dr. Chen’s research focuses on. Dr. Chen’s work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Barron’s, Far-Eastern Economic Review, and many newspapers and magazines in Hong Kong and China. He is also a frequent contributor to newspapers and magazines in China, on economic policy and legal reform issues.

Moderated by Benjamin Lee, Provost.

Co-sponsored with Graduate Program for International Affairs.

Gauging Public Opinion: Polling and Social Work in China
2007-10-30 17:00 - 19:00
A presentation by Victor Yuan, moderated by Jaheo Kang.

With the re-emergence of China as a world power one of the challenges for both the Public and Private sector is gauging public opinion. What role can polling and social work play in establishing the political and commercial needs of the rapidly growing Chinese consumers? What have been the results thus far?

Dr. Victor Yuan is the chairman of Horizon Corp., an India China Institute honorary fellow, a Global fellow at Yale University, and a host of the Dragon TV-CBN talk show “Brainstorm”. He is considered one of China’s most highly regarded young leaders and is at the forefront of information gathering services.

Horizon Consultancy Group is one of the leading strategic research and consultancy firms in China. The group was one of the first companies certified by the State Statistic Bureau eligible for engaging international research projects in China.

Calm Before the Storm? Perspectives on Continuing Crisis Burma/Myanmar
2007-10-26 14:00 - 16:00
A panel discussion with Sanjay Reddy, Khin Zaw Win, Anshin Nayake, Sara Davis. Co-sponsored with Graduate Program for International Affairs and TCDS.

Khin Zaw Win: Burmese Independent Researcher and Activist. A trained dentist and former prison of conscious (1994-2005) for his “seditious writings” and human rights work, Mr. Khin Zaw Win has been working independently in the past two years as a development practitioner and policy writer and researcher. He advocates incremental reform and broader international economic and political engagement with Burma, instead of abrupt regime change, isolation and sanction, which differs him from the mainstream opposition movement. After witnessing first hand of the Saffron Revolution in Burma, he arrived in New York in October as a Visiting Fellow of Friedrich Ebert Foundation.

Sanjay Reddy: Assistant Professor of Economics at Barnard, Columbia University. Dr. Reddy also teaches in the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, where he teaches courses on world poverty and on development economics. His areas of work include development economics, international economics and economics and philosophy.

Ashin Nayaka: Burmese Buddhist monk. Dr. Nayaka is founding director of the Buddhist Missionary Society, New York and currently a visiting scholar at Department of History, Columbia University.

Sara (Meg) Davis: Executive Director, Asia Catalyst. Sara Davis (“Meg”) is a writer and human rights advocate. Her book, Song and Silence: Ethnic Revival on China’s Southwest Borders (Columbia University Press, 2005), based on her doctoral dissertation, draws on research in Yunnan, China and Shan State, Burma into cross-border ethnic cultural and religious revival.

Tim Pachirat: Assistant Professor of Political Science and International AffairsTimothy Pachirat (Ph.D. 2008, Yale University) is an assistant professor in the Department of Politics and the Graduate Program in International Affairs at The New School. His research and teaching interests include comparative politics, the politics of Southeast Asia, spatial and visual politics, the sociology of domination and resistance, the political economy of dirty and dangerous work, and interpretive and ethnographic research methods. Pachirat’s work has received awards from the American Political Science Association’s Section on Qualitative Methods and from the American Political Science Association’s Labor Project. He is currently working on a book project that draws on an ethnography of immigrant labor on the kill floor of an industrialized slaughterhouse to explore how violence that is seen as both essential and repugnant to modern society is organized, disciplined, and regulated.

Nepal's Fragile Peace Process
2007-10-08 18:00 - 20:00
An event co-sponsored with International Crisis Group.

Rhoderick Chalmers, South Asia Deputy Project Director for The International Crisis Group, discussed the state of Nepal’s peace process; what is behind political parties’ heightened tensions that threaten to disrupt the upcoming elections for Nepal’s Constituent Assembly; and actions the government, its constituent participants, and the international community can take to support the peace process

Rhoderick Chalmers, Deputy South Asia Project Director, International Crisis Group: Rhoderick Chalmers is primarily responsible for Crisis Group’s reporting on Nepal’s Maoist insurgency. As well as examining the roots of the conflict and means of containing and resolving it, he coordinates research on specific areas including political parties and constitutional reform, cross-border security issues, ethnic movements and Maoist politics. Advocacy work involves continuous interaction with diplomatic missions in Kathmandu and maintaining close contact with government, academia, the media and policy think tanks both in Nepal and India, as well as briefing foreign ministries, UN agencies and international NGOs in Europe and the U.S.

Urban Futures: People and Planning in India and China Conference
2007-06-16
Following the two-weeks of the Fellows’ residency in China, the ICI hosted an international conference in partnership with the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in Beijing. The conference began with opening remarks by Benjamin Lee, Provost of The New School, and Pan Gongkai, President of CAFA, both emphasized the need for academia to respond to the challenges of urbanization by focusing on research and to take collaborations seriously. Following their remarks, Nirupama Rao, the Indian Ambassador to China, spoke on the need for inclusive growth in both India and China. The keynote address, delivered by Chen Gang, Deputy Mayor of Beijing, focused on Beijing’s urbanization pressures. Chen described cities as centers of spiritual and material wealth and culture. In order to make Beijing a liveable international metropolis, the government plans to cap the city’s population at 18 million, organize the city by district centers, create green belts, improve mass transit and services for migrants, and promote sustainable agriculture. After the address, three panels of experts from India, China, and the United States spoke on different aspects of urban futures.

The first session, Speculation and Preservation, moderated by K.C. Sivaramakrishnan, Chair of the Center of Policy Research in India, addressed planning and management of cities’ growth. Panelists included two developers, Feng Lun, Chair of Vantone Group, and Zhang Guilin, Chair of Zhuzong Group; Wen Zhongyong, Deputy Chief Planner of Beijing and ICI fellow; and Michael Cohen, Director of the Graduate Program in International Affairs and former World Bank official. Panelists analyzed political forces, market forces, and public participation as major factors that decide the future of cities. In China, city planning, formerly a technical area, has become a matter of public policy; designers have been transformed from technical officials to social workers; and government has moved from public management to service provision.

In the second session, Aspiration and Agency, moderated by S. Parasuraman, Professor and Director of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in India, panelists addressed planning for the unexpected and people’s participation. Hua Xinmin, preservation scholar and activist, discussed the evolution of property rights and implications for planning and social development with a historical perspective on land reform since the 1950s. ICI fellow Yao Yang, Professor and Director of the China Center for Economic Research, Peking University, discussed property rights as a countervailing force to social engineering created by concerned stakeholders, and the way popular protest and resistance, as well as challenges from scholars, are changing government’s mindset. Arjun Appadurai, ICI endowed Professor at The New School, stated that whereas in the past cities demanded housing, now housing demands cities. The housing industry is increasingly driving both finance and human labor, requiring infinite production of poor people.

The third session, Technology and Innovation, moderated by Colleen Macklin, Professor at Parsons School of Design at The New School, addressed ways to account for technology and innovation in planning for the future of cities. Panelists included two architects, Frank Fu, Professor at CAFA, and Margarita Gutman, faculty member at The New School; ICI fellow Wu Xiaobo, Vice Dean of the School of Management, Zhejiang University; and ICI fellow Aromar Revi, founder and President of TARU in India. Wu discussed the use of digital management systems in Hangzhou and the challenges of integrating the soft power of human behavior with technology. Revi outlined four necessary urban transformations: social transformation, which addresses caste, gender, and minority inclusion and empowerment; economic transformation, which makes markets work for poor people; RUrban transformation, which maintains ecosystem services to balance the rural and the urban; and institutional transformation, which requires a functioning and responsive decentralized governmental framework, the building of a cadre of urban change management professionals, and the integration of risk mitigation into the urban economy, planning, and design.

Nepal Today: Challenges of Inclusive Democracy
2007-05-19
D.B. Bishwakarma: Pro-Dalit Politics towards Inclusive Democracy in Nepal

Murari Sharma: Inclusion and Democratization

The Historical Chindian Paradigm
2007-04-21 17:00 - 19:00
A presentation and talk by Tan Chung; moderated by Professor L.H.M. Ling, Graduate Program in International Affairs, The New School It is hard to overstate the influence that India and China have had on each other, from the introduction of Buddhism into Chinese society, to their rapid and concurrent development in modern times. Yet their two thousand years of interaction has been short-changed in academic circles, covered in not nearly the same depth as the relatively recent invasion of Western powers. Professor Tan’s talk will address these and other discrepancies, focusing on the acculturation of Buddhism into Chinese society.

Professor Tan Chung is an Academic Associate at the University of Chicago and an Emeritus Member at the Institute of Chinese Studies in New Delhi. A legendary figure among Asian scholars, he has published countless articles and over fifteen books in Chinese and English, including”Across the Himalayan Gap: An Indian Quest for Understanding China” and “Rise of Asian Giants: The Dragon-Elephant Tango.”

Intermediate Organizations amidst talk about 'New' Nepal
2007-04-21 13:00 - 16:00
Despite much recent debate about the significance of civil society in Nepal, there has been comparatively little discussion about the social and political role intermediate organizations like NGOs and professional associations can play in the country’s future. On April 21, Pratyoush Onta, one of the most respected historians and public intellectuals from Nepal, will be at The New School to share his views on this important issue and the so-called ‘new’ Nepal.

Pratyoush Onta has a Ph.D. in history and has done research on Nepali nationalism, Gurkha history, institutions, area studies and media. He is currently the convener of Martin Chautari, a forum for public discussions and research in Kathmandu. He is the founding editor of the biannual academic journal, Studies in Nepali History and Society, published from Kathmandu since 1996. He has authored, edited or co-edited several books including Social History of Radio Nepal (2004), Growing up with Radio (2005), and Mass Media in Post-1990 Nepal (2006). During spring 2008, he was a visiting member of the faculty at Trinity College, Hartford.

Revisioning India and China: Authors and Artist Series
2007-02-20 18:00 - 20:00
Join us for a discussion with two leading experts on: “Market Upheaval and the Breaking of Form: Chinese Cultural Trends since the late 1990sJianying Zha is the author of “China Pop: How Soap Operas, Tabloids, and Bestsellers Are Transforming a Culture”. Her Chinese publication includes three books of fiction and two books of essays and journalism. Her most recent book Bashiniandai fangtanlu (Conversations on the Nineteen Eighties) was published to great acclaim and has won several “best book of the year” awards in 2006. Currently based in Beijing, she is also Senior Advisor for India China Institute at the New School University.Prof. Xudong Zhang is Professor of Chinese and Comparative Literature and Chair of Dept. of East Asian Studies at New York University. The author of Chinese Modernism in the Era of Reforms and Postsocialism and Cultural Politics, he is also the co-editor of “Postmodernism and China”; and editor of “Whither China: Intellectual Politics in Contemporary China”. His works in Chinese include Piping de zongji (Traces of Criticism); and Quanqiuhua shidai de wenhua rentong (Cultural Identity in the Age of Globalization).

Nepal In Transition: The Terai Question
2007-02-10 14:00 - 17:00
The turmoil in Terai raises serious issues and challenges facing “new” Nepal. What is new and distinct about the Madhesi movement? Are there opportunities for strengthening new democracy?Organized by the India China Institute in collaboration with Alliance for Democracy & Human Rights in Nepal, USA; Nepalese Democratic Youth Council, USA; and Nepal-America Friendship Society

Panelists:Prof. Pramod Kantha, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Wright State University, Dayton, OhioParamendra Bhagat, President, Hamro Nepal, NYCProf. Mahendra Lawoti, Department of Political Science, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MichiganMr. Kul Gautam, Deputy Executive Director, UNICEFModerator: Ashok Gurung, Director of India China Institute

Art and Design Education in Today's China
2006-11-06 18:30 - 20:00
The India China Institute and Parsons The New School for Design present: Art and Design Education in Today’s ChinaSpeaker: Prof. Pan Gongkai of The Central Academy of Fine Arts, China

Moderator: Benjamin Lee, Provost of the New School

Art and design education in China has been transformed over the last decade as a result of the radical changes in the landscape of China’s society. Professor Pan Gongkai will make reference to the impact of globalization and localization on Chinese art and design education, with an emphasis upon how Chinese education institutions should respond to these challenges in the future.

The President of the most renowned art institution in China, Pan Gongkai is also a well-known painter and scholar of Art History in China. From 1992 to 1994, he was a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. He also holds an Honorary Doctor Degree from the Los Angeles College of Art. He has had exhibitions of his work in New York, Los Angeles, Hong Kong and at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris.

Admission is Free. Snacks will be provided. In collaboration with The Vera List Center for Art +Politics”

Sensing Urbanization in India and China: Close-up and Remote
2006-10-11 13:00 - 16:00
The India China Institute and the Tishman Environment and Design Center present:Sensing Urbanization in India and China: Close-up and Remote

A workshop which will explore the question: How can remote sensing technology connect to local actors and decision makers on the ground?

Moderator: Grahame Shane, author of Recombinant UrbanismPresenters: Remote and Close-upChristopher Small, Lamont Daugherty Earth ObservatoryColleen Macklin, Chair, Design and Technology, ParsonsPresenters: How to fill the Gap?Sarah Williams, Director of the Spatial Information Design lab at ColumbiaVictoria Marshall, Till and Brian McGrath, ICI Faculty Fellow

Cities in the Long 21st Century

This century begins with half of the world, for the first time in history, living in urban areas with much of the rest somehow plugged into the global telecommunications net. How will our global urban society collectively navigate the long, turbulent 21st century of systemic change? What role will cities as incubators of knowledge, creativity and sociability take in shaping critical environmental choices in the future? Since this century will witness the final elimination of any wild, rural or subsistence agricultural life on the planet, many fixed ideas about the relationship between cities, nature and society need to be challenged. The exhaustion of both new labor markets and natural resources means that industrial and economic expansion cannot proceed along the 19th and 20th century trajectory, and new productive paradigms must be invented. This century’s challenge is to create an urban society that is more socially equitable and better able to manage natural resources repairing the social and environmental damage caused by the first centuries of global capitalism. How can India and China, the largest and fastest developing countries, lead the way?

Close-up and Remote Technologies: Filling the Gap

Satellite technology brings global society two different representations of this millennial transition: telematic flows bring center and periphery together in one kaleidoscopic close-up media image of the global village. Meanwhile and remote sensing gives many of us a picture of our mixed human, vegetative and watery planet. Close-up, micro-expressions broadcast from multiple sites within the global metropolis, and the continually updated objective and remote fractal mosaic of night-light or satellite imagery from afar offer two radically different windows on the emerging 21st-century city. Can the scalar gap in these two technologies be bridged in order to offer global society the complex socio-political tools with which to design, manage and re-inhabit the planet in the coming decades? The choices we face are daunting: how to share diminishing resources within an unevenly developed world society based on the belief in the endless accumulation of capital? How can knowledge from space empower and inform decisions of local actors on the ground?

Chinese in India: The Legend of Fat Mama
2006-09-29 18:30 - 20:00
Please join us for a viewing of The Legend of Fat Mama, a film by Rafeeq Ellias, an award-winning advertising and magazine photographer. Discussion Participants:Rafeeq Ellias, Director The Legend of Fat MamaPayal Banerjee, Adjunct Professor, GPIA, The New SchoolLily Ling, Associate Professor, GPIA, The New SchoolModerator: Tansen Sen, Associate Professor of History at Baruch College and author of Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade: The Realignment of Sino Indian Relations, 600-1400

The Inaugural Conference: Cities in a World of Migration: India and China in Global Perspective
2006-04-28 - 2006-04-29
The rapid economic emergence of India and China has significantly altered the landscape and context of cities in a world of migration. The scale and urgency of globalization and urbanization in India and China are unprecedented and present significant socio-economic challenges for these two countries and across the globe. Cities in a World of Migration: India and China in Global Perspective” provided a forum for insight into the multiple dimensions of these changes – social, economic and environmental – and the opportunities and challenges of urbanization and globalization in the 21st century.

The conference began with an opening address delivered by New School President Bob Kerrey. The keynote address was delivered by Sen. Joseph R. Biden, Jr., Democrat from Delaware, who compared internal migration in India and China with immigration to the United States. He called for the development of strategic relations between the United States and the two Asian countries, which are rising powers facing a number of urgent problems. As a nation where 300 million people have risen out of poverty, China offers important opportunities for the United States in areas such as energy tech support. Senator Biden pointed out that lessons learned from U.S. immigration periods could be applied to address the massive migration problems now facing India and China. More than 20 scholars, architects, urban planners from The New School, and experts from India and China joined ICI fellows as conference panelists.

In five sessions over a two day period, panelists addressed the following topics: 1) Dynamics: What are the dynamic roles of cities in India, China, and the United States? How have they evolved from local, national, and global perspectives? 2) Circulation: How do we understand the dynamics of urban and rural migration in both directions? 3) Governance and Planning: Cities in India, China, and the United States have developed in very different physical and political environments. How do these differences affect our approaches to urban governance and planning? 4) Dwelling and Development: How is the real estate market responding? Can people be regulated? What is the social impact of new housing and infrastructure developments? 5) Imagining the Future: What opportunities exist for imagining a democratic future for the emerging cities of the world? What are the constraints?

The discussions were so varied that it would be impossible to give an adequate summary of the proceedings. There was, however, consensus among the participants that the most crucial lesson learned is the importance of balancing open public debate and private discussion. Energetic work and slow-paced reflection must both be employed to develop exceptional collaborations across disciplines and countries. Ultimately, as President Kerrey pointed out, the cultivation of friendships across borders may make the difference between war and peace.

India & China: Who’s Ahead?
2006-02-03 17:30 - 19:30

Nepal at the Crossroads: A Year of Worsening Political Quagmire
2006-02-01 18:00 - 20:00
February 1st marks the first year of King Gyanendra’s direct rule in Nepal. To many this day is seen as a black day due to spiraling down of human rights situation and deeply troubling political quagmire in Nepal since then. In the name of “Ïwar on terror” the government of King Gyanendra has resorted to curbing civil liberties and heavy-handed crackdown on democratic forces in the country. The speakers will highlight some of the key aspects of general trend in political and human rights situation in Nepal in the past year and discuss the possible ways out of the crisis. Questions and answers will follow the presentations from the speakers.
Alliance for Democracy & Human Rights in Nepal, USA and the South Asia Forum (The New School) cordially invite you to a discussion Nepal at the Crossroads: A Year of Worsening Political Quagmire

Sub-topics and speakers:
“Chairman Gyanendra vs. The People of Nepal”
Kanak Mani Dixit is a prominent Kathmandu-based journalist who is the editor of the Himal South Asia and publisher of the news magazine Himal Khabarpatrika. He is also a children’s author and a cultural activist.
“Prospects for Peace: International Perspectives”
Rhoderick Chalmers is the Deputy South Asia Project Director at the International Crisis Group.

The program will start with a 10-minute performance art by Ashmina Ranjit, a prominent Nepali Artist and Activist, currently a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University.

Moderator: Professor Carol Breckenridge, Founder, South Asia Forum

Free admission.
