India China Institute

The Rise, Transformation, and Fall of Liberalism in India: 1800-1950
2010-05-11 18:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York)
The India China Institute, and History at the New School for Social Research and Eugene Lang College are very please to present:

The Inaugural Carol Breckenridge Annual Memorial Lecture in South Asian History.

The Rise, Transformation, and Fall of Liberalism in India: 1800-1950

Delivered by Christopher Bayly

Christopher Bayly is a Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History and part of the Faculty of History at the University of Cambridge. As a historian and scholar of global cultures, Carol Breckenridge (1942-2009) brought along with her to different cities and campuses not only her erudition and insight into intellectual debates on global and transnational issues, but also her formidable gift of inspiring others through a rare combination of charm, generosity of spirit, hospitality, and hard work. The journal Public Culture which she founded in 1988 with her husband and soulmate Arjun Appadurai, the later Sister Cities Project, and the articles and books she wrote and co-edited with colleagues, have brought new perceptions to the field and remain as evidence of her unstinting efforts against the stultifying effects of academic parochialism on the world at large. At the New School for Social Research and at other departments and universities where Carol and Arjun have lived and taught, Breckenridge will be remembered for the way she personified these very commitments by her concern and care for her junior colleagues and students, even while, as in more recent times, she was courageously coping with physical challenges of her own. Mentor, scholar, and friend, she will be sadly missed.

Landscapes of Modernity: Public Culture in South Asia
2010-05-10 00:00

Cha n' Chai: Tea between China and India
2010-04-13 18:00 - 20:00
The India China Institute invites you to Cha n’ Chai: Tea between China and India, a discussion with Dr. Victor Mair.

Structural Imbalances in China
2010-03-23 15:30 - 17:30

Prosperity and Inequality: India and China in a Global Perspective
2010-03-22
While the economies of China and India have grown significantly in the past decade, we are witnessing a growing concern for the rise of inequality in both countries. Over the past two years, the 2nd cohort of ICI Fellows has worked in four primary collaborative teams. This event will conclude the final residency for the 2nd Cohort of 15 ICI Fellows, a distinguished group of scholars and experts from India, China and the New School, and their work on “Prosperity and Inequality in India and China.” Additionally, they will initiate a new conversation surrounding the theme of the 3rd Cohort of six ICI Fellows on “Social Innovation for Sustainable Environments.”

The team members come from diverse disciplinary backgrounds, enabling them to engage in a unique process of understanding and analyzing the complex dynamics of prosperity and inequality. The March 22, 2010 conference is designed to share these insights and findings based on the Fellows’ work in the following initiatives:Preliminary Conference Agenda:Session I Rethinking Borders between India and China: New Connections for Ancient GeographiesSession II Open Governance and AccountabilitySession III Migrant Lives: Documentary & DiscussionSession IV Growth, Reforms and Inequality: Comparing India & ChinaSession V Wealth Inequality and Social Justice: Analysis of India and ChinaSession VI India & China in Global Perspective

Panelists, Discussants & Moderators: Adriana Abdenur, Ashwini Deshpande, Azizur Rahman Khan, Carl Riskin, Jeesoon Hong, JIAN Yi, L.H. M. Ling, LI Bo, Lopa Banerjee, Mahendra Lama, Milind Murugkar, Nimmi Kurian, Prem Shankar Jha, Sanjay Reddy, Sanjay Ruparelia, Sanjib Baruah, Vamsi Vakulabarnam, WEI Zhong, XU Zhiyong, YAN Ming

Limited Seating, refreshments provided.

Presentations:Using right to information by Milind MurugkarGrowth, Reform and Inequality by Lopamudra Banerjee, Ashwini Deshpande, Yan Ming, Sanjay Ruparelia, Vamsicharan Vakulabharanam, and Wei Zhong

Re-Orient: India, China and the West in the 21st Century
2010-02-18 18:00 - 20:00
India China Institute invites you to Re-Orient: India, China and the West in the 21st Century, a lecture by Prem Shankar Jha.

Considered among the finest authors and journalists in India today, Prem Shankar Jha is the author of several books including The Perilous Road to the Market: Political Economy of Reform in Russia, India and China and Kashmir 1947: The Origins of a Dispute. His most recent book, Crouching Dragon, Hidden Tiger: Can China and India Dominate the West? looks at the interaction of economic with political and social change in China and India. The book also examines the social and political conflicts that the market has unleashed, and the success of the countries in containing it. Prem Shankar Jha has recently been a Visiting Fellow at the Fairbank Centre at Harvard University, the Visiting Chair in India’s Political Economics at the University of Science Politique in Paris and was a senior advisor to the Prime Minister of India.

Urban Citizenship in India and China
2009-11-30 18:30 - 21:30

The Peace Process in Nepal: Is it failing?
2009-11-06 18:00 - 20:00
Speaker: Ian Martin, Former United Nations Envoy in NepalDiscussants: Professor Andrew Arato, The New School; Deepak Thapa, Professor of Social Science, Baha, Nepal; Kul C. Gautam, former Assistant Secretary General of the U.N. and Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF.

Nepal’s peace process has been hailed as an unusual success story, achieved by Nepali actors and not by the international community. But with the deadline for an agreement on a new constitution fast approaching, and the Maoist army still in cantonments, divisions among political parties threaten its successful completion. Is the peace process failing?

Video of the Event

Transforming World Politics: From Empire to Multiple Worlds
2009-11-04 18:00 - 20:00

Accumulation, Development and Exclusion: China, India, and Global Capitalism
2009-11-02 18:00 - 20:00

China, India, Brazil and South Africa in the World Economy
2009-10-19 18:00 - 20:00

Architectural Culture in Consumerist China
2009-09-24 18:00 - 20:00
The India China Institute is pleased to welcome Professor Liu Dong, and esteemed academic from Tsinghua University.Professor Liu will speak on the unprecedented building boom in China, and its effect on the urban and cultural landscape of the country. In its rush to construct modern housing is China wiping away both the cultural memory and individuality that has made it unique?

Professor Liu is the Executive Director of the Tsinghua Academy of Chinese Learning: professor of Aesthetics, Comparative Literature and Sinology of the Philosophy Department, Tsinghya University. He is also the Chief Editor of the Chinese Scholarship Quarterly. This event will be moderated by Zha Jianying, a writer and media commentator who is also the India China Institute’s Senior Adviser in China.

Dong Liu’s presentation

The Country is Yours: Contemporary Nepali Literature
2009-09-04 18:00 - 20:00
The India China Institute invites you to a reading of selections from The Country is Yours: Contemporary Nepali Literature by Manjushree Thapa. Friday, 4 September, 2009 6:30-8:00PM Wollman Hall 65 W 11th Street The New School

The Country is Yours: Contemporary Nepali Literature Translated and introduced by Manjushree Thapa

Modern Nepali literature started in the 1930s. As a response to state censorship, one group of high modernists sought to locate human freedom in the play of language. Another group wrote more directly in favor of social justice. From these pioneers emerged the ‘democrats’ and the ‘progressives’, the distinctions between who have gradually blurred since the re-establishment of democracy in 1990. The Country Is Yours is a collection of contemporary Nepali literature. Organized in four sections- ‘The Perplexity of Living’, ‘The Right to Desire’, ‘The Imminent Liberation’ and ‘Visions’- the stories and poems of the 49 writers included here offer a view onto the upheavals of Nepali Society, Politics and Identity leading up to and after 1990. They also speak of the universal joys and sorrows of the human condition. Translated and introduced by Manjushree Thapa, this volume sensitively captures the spirit of a society at the threshold of transformation. Manjushree Thapa is a writer from Nepal, the author of many well-received books of fiction and nonfiction. Her essays and opinions have appeared widely in the Nepali and international media, including in the New York Times. Her fiction titles are Tilled Earth, a collection of short stories about Nepalis and the Nepali diaspora; The Tutor of History, a novel set in a small highway town in Nepal during a general election; and the upcoming Seasons of Flight, a novel about a Nepali woman who wins the US government’s diversity visa lottery and lands in Los Angeles. Her non-fiction titles are Forget Kathmandu, a personal account of Nepal’s political upheavals, with reportage on the Maoist insurgency; Mustang Bhot in Fragments, a travelogue to villages on the Nepal-Tibet border; and the upcoming A Boy from Siklis, a biography of the groundbreaking Nepali environmentalist Chandra Gurung. Her oeuvre includes several titles of literary translations, including Secret Places: New Writing from Nepal, published by the University of Hawai’i Press, which she co-edited.”

Emerging Exchanges: New Architectures of India
2009-04-30 - 2009-05-01
India’s architectural and urban landscape is being remade in unexpected and exuberant ways at this defining moment in its history. New economic growth, proliferation of media technologies, transnational modes of production, as well as new state and social dynamics are presenting challenges to the entrenched traditions and extraordinary diversity of India. Modern architecture in India, represented by the seminal practices of Balkrishna Doshi, Charles Correa, Raj Rewal and others have long been on a world stage, however the present moment is marked by new ideological and ideational shifts away from early modernist positions. The Delhi/Ahmedabad axis has moved east and south to Mumbai and Bangalore, which now includes a new generation of architects, both Indian and international, who are involved in a diverse range of practices and productions that are re-imagining entrenched histories of both modernities and traditions. Centrifugal and centripetal dynamics characterizes contemporary practices where many architects look to balance global and transnational imperatives as well as more situated approaches to building. The circulation of these inward and outward movements has resulted in both the glittering towers that reproduce the Special Economic Zones of Shanghai or Dubai as an enclave in a landscape of contested territories and economic disparities. At the same time, some architects are engaged in emplaced material practices related to landscape, siting, local building fabrication, and programming, which has led to reconsidering new regionalisms and the informal sector.The Architectural League of New York, the India China Institute and Parsons The New School for Design plan a two-day conference to probe these material economies and territorial intersections in Indian architecture today. These circuits and realignments will be examined by keynote speakers, project presentations and interdisciplinary panels in order to present a body of emerging architectural practices, while unraveling the forces of the larger cultural and social dynamics that these projects generate, concentrate and disperse.

Download Full Conference Agenda

The Historical Chindian Paradigm: Intercultural Transfusion and Solidification
2009-04-21 17:00 - 19:00
View Tan Chung Presentation

Democracy Today
2009-04-17 - 2009-04-18
Modern democracy can be understood as a form of life, a set of institutional structures linked to legal-juridical concerns, and a collective imaginary rooted in representational practices. The aim of this conference is to examine the challenges, accomplishments and particularities of democracy as it has surfaced across Africa, Middle East, India, Latin America, Asia, Europe, and in the United States of America.This conference, will gather a remarkable group of scholars to discuss the various experiences of contemporary democracies and the challenges confronting them.

This event is free; no tickets or reservations required; seating is first-come first-served

This event is co-sponsored by the Department of Sociology, Sociology Student Association, the India China Institute, The New School for Social Research Dean’s Office, Department of Political Science, and The New School for General Studies: Bachelor’s Program.

Download Full Conference Agenda

Ashok Gurung: The Politics of Establishing Inclusive Democracy in Nepal

The Future of Inequality in China
2009-04-09 18:00 - 20:00
Economic inequality has grown sharply in China in recent decades, making a formerly egalitarian society into one of the most unequal countries in its region. What are the forces shaping this transformation and how are they likely to play out in the near future? Professor Carl Riskin will address these questions and other questions in his upcoming talk.Carl Riskin is a Distinguished Professor of Economics at Queens College, CUNY and Senior Research Scholar at Columbia’s Weatherhead East Asian Institute. He is the author of China’s Political Economy: The Quest for Development since 1949 and of books and articles dealing with the impact of economic development on poverty, inequality and human development more generally. He has also done extensive consulting work for the United Nations Development Programme in China and elsewhere.

Smoke and Mirrors
2009-04-08 18:30 - 20:00
Author and journalist Pallavi Aiyar will discuss her book Smoke and Mirrors, a personal account of her years spent living and working in China. Moderated by Siddhartha Deb, Writer in Residence at The New School Pallavi Aiyar is the Beijing-based China Bureau Chief for The Hindu group of publications. She has reported from across China for over six years. She is the winner of the 2007 Prem Bhatia Memorial Award for excellence in political reporting and analysis, the youngest ever recipient of the prize. She was also awarded a Reuters Foundation Fellowship at Oxford in the same year. Aside from her work as a journalist, she has taught news writing to students at the Beijing Broadcasting Institute and served as an advisor to the Confederation of Indian Industry on China-related issues. Smoke and Mirrors is a smart, insightful book about modern China. What sets Aiyar’s work apart is that it is not written by an academic or expert, nor is it told from either a Western or Chinese viewpoint…… she has discovered a way of bridging her native and adopted homes. As someone well acquainted with the problems of Asian development, she easily sees past the smoke and mirrors of China’s shiny new metropolises” International Herald Tribune“

Transforming China: The Impact of Buddhism and Islam on Premodern and Modern China
2009-04-02 18:00 - 20:00
Professors Tansen Sen and Yihong Liu will lead a panel discussion on religion in China, with a focus on the contributions of Buddhism and Islam. As decorated scholars, their discussion will help illuminate the cultural cross-currents that have and will continue to influence the complicated cultural milieu of this increasingly important region.Discussion moderated by Faisal Devji, Associate Professor of History, The New School for Social ResearchYihong Liu is a researcher and scholar on Islamic and Chinese philosophy. An official member of the Columbia Society of Comparative philosophy, she is a supervisor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and a Professor at the Institute of Philosophy.Tansen Sen is an Associate Professor of Asian History and Religions at Baruch College, The City University of New York. Currently he is a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. He is the author of Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade: The Realignment of Sino-Indian Relations, 600-1400. He has also guest edited a special issue of the journal China Report entitled Kolkata and China.

Harmony between Urban Development & Environmental Planning: The successful case of Xi’an, China
2009-03-31 16:30 - 17:30
WANG Jun, Deputy Mayor of Xi’an, will deliver a talk about urban development and environmental planning in Xi’an. As Deputy Mayor, Mr. WANG is utilizing ideas of modernization, fashion, and environmental awareness in the building of a new Xi’an. He will talk about his proposed concept of building a new Xi’an that reflects the history, culture, science, and innovation of such a historically important city. In September 2007, Mr. Wang led the Xi’an government delegation to London and won the bidding to host the 2011 World Horticultural Expo. This international exposition will be a six-month long event (April through October 2011) hosted in the Chanba Bio District of Xi’an, China. The expo is expected to draw 10 million visitors, and over 40 foreign and 60 domestic cities to Xi’an.

Learning to Unlearn from Development: Ideology and Experience
2009-03-10 16:00 - 17:00

China, India, Brazil and South Africa: Engines of Growth in the World?
2009-03-02 18:00 - 20:00
Deepak Nayyar, Distinguished Univeristy Professor of Economics, The New School, will deliver a lecture on his research regarding China, India, Brazil and South Africa as engines of economic growth in the world, moderated by Professor Anwar Shaikh, Professor of Economics, The New School for Social Research. This event is co-sponsored by India China Institute and the Department of Economics, The New School for Social Research. It is the first of a series of discussions with Professor Nayyar.
Professor Nayyar has taught at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, University of Oxford, The University of Sussex, the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, and served as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Delhi from 200 to 2005. Recent Books include Governing Globalization: Issues and Institutions, and as co-author with Joseph Stiglitz and Jose Antonio Ocampo et al, Stability with Growth: Macroeconomics, Liberalization and Development.

Deepak Nayyar’s presentation

The Disinterested Government: An Interpretation of China’s Economic Success in the Reform Area
2009-02-17 18:00 - 20:00
A talk by Professor Yao Yang, China Center for Economic Research, Beijing University & ICI Fellow.

In the last 30 years, China has reached high economic growth and successfully transformed itself from a planning economy to a market economy. To a large extent, China has achieved its successes by adopting the recommendations proposed by the standard economic theory. However, a political economy question has been left out in the literature: Why has China adopted the right economic policies and a proper road to reform? This talk attempts to provide an answer to this question.

Discussion Moderated by: Jianying Zha, ICI Representative in China & author.

Dr. Yao obtained his B.S. in geography in 1986 and M.S. of Economics in 1989 both from Peking University. He obtained his Ph.D. in Development Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1996. Dr. Yao has been following issues of land acquisition, ownership transformation, and migration in China for the past decade. Yao has taught economics at various institutions in China, Japan, and the United States. In addition, he has served as a consultant to the World Bank and participated in numerous contemporary debates about China’s economic reform. Yao writes widely in the popular and academic in China and is a respected authority on rural development

Student Fellows Presentations
2009-02-13 13:00 - 16:00

China’s Gradual Economic Reform in Light of Income & Wealth Distribution
2008-11-24
Presentation by Zhao Renwei Institute of Economics, CASS – part of ICI fellows’ China ResidencyView presentation

Reflections and Analysis of the Historic Constituent Assembly Election
2008-11-13 17:30 - 20:30
Reflections and Analysis of the Historic Constituent Assembly Election: A Discussion with Bhojraj Pokharel, Chief Election Commissioner of Nepal

This discussion will be followed by Q&A SessionLimited seating on a first come basis

In October 2006, Bhojraj Pokharel was appointed the Chief Election Commissioner of Nepal, and oversaw the historic Constituent Assembly (CA) Election on April 10th 2008 – the country’s first post-conflict election. His leadership in the successful planning and implementation of the CA election, against a backdrop of major political and logistical challenges, has been widely recognized by national and international institutions, including the Secretary General of the United Nations. Mr. Pokharel will share his experiences of the CA elections and discuss his views of the future of Nepal’s electoral process.

View Bhojraj Pokharel’s presentation

Film Screening: Still Life
2008-11-11 17:00 - 20:00
Grand Prize winner at the 2006 Venice Film Festival! In “Still Life” the blood and the sweat run directly into the Yangtze River, where they mingle with more than a few tears. The movie takes place amid the clatter and misery of the Three Gorges Dam, which cuts across the Yangtze in central China. The largest dam in the world, Three Gorges is a site of great cultural and political strife because of both environmental and humanitarian concerns. This may sound like a prescription for social cinema, but director Jia Zhang-ke’s interest lies in visual ideas and human behavior, not agendas.

Kristine Harris (PhD, Columbia University) is Associate Professor of Chinese History and Director of the Asian Studies Program at the State University of New York. In Spring 2007 she was Visiting Associate Professor in Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Chicago. She has also taught at the New School for Social Research. Her research explores the social and political facets of film culture in China from the 1890’s to the present, with emphasis on the pre-1949 period. Her publications include The Metropolis in the Cinematic Imagination of Republican China and the City Symphony Film,” In Dushi wenhua zhong de xiandai zhongguo 都市文化中的现代中国 [Popular Culture of the Modern Metropolis] (Shanghai: East China Normal University Press, 2007) and “The Goddess: Fallen Woman of Shanghai,” in Chinese Films in Focus (BFI 2003, 2008). “

India's Water Relations with Her Neighbors
2008-11-03 17:30 - 19:30
A presentation by Professor Ramaswamy R. Iyer, India’s Centre for Policy Research with discussant Lopamudra Banerjee, Assistant Professor of Economics, The New School.

Limited seating on a first come basis.

The Himalayas feeds nine of the largest rivers in the region on which more than 1.5 billion people depend upon downstream. Over the years these water systems have also been one of the more sensitive political subjects in the region. Today there is a bidding war for controlling these water ways for various reasons including large hydro power plants and India is actively negotiating new as well as old treaties with its neighbors.

Professor Ramaswamy R. Iyer is currently a member of the High Level Expert Panel on Water and Disaster, an adjunct to the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation. He was formerly the Secretary of Water Resources in the Government of India. After his retirement from the Government, he was Research Professor at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) , New Delhi, where he worked on water-related issues, and in particular on cooperation on river waters by India, Nepal and Bangladesh. He continues with CPR in an honorary capacity. Professor Iyer will discuss India’s inter-country water relations with Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh. He will address both transboundary river water systems as well as looking beyond river waters, governments and big projects to outline other possibilities of cooperation between India and these countries.

Development & Empowerment Through the Arts
2008-10-21 18:00 - 20:00
A talk and discussion with Dr. Mallika Sarabhai. Dr. Sarabhai, educated as an economist and a business manager, is well known as a performer, writer, strategist, and as a social activist. For over 30 years Dr. Sarabhai has led Darpana, to becoming a leading workshop for the arts where the focus has been on excellence and the use of the arts for social change. Darpana for Development was founded in 1982 to concentrate on developing performance as a language for change. Raising public awareness of violence against women in every strata of society is an important facet of Mallika’s work. The Darpana 50 Showcase in Delhi is presented in collaboration with Sakshi, an NGO that works for women’s empowerment and, through intervention with schools, colleges, and people involved in health care, social work and public life, seeks to realize a ‘vision of equality and the basic right of women and children to a life free from violence.’ Mallika Sarabhai has performed in over 90 countries including the United States. She has acted in more than 30 films. She played the lead character of Draupadi in an international theater production of “The Mahabharata” by renowned director Peter Brook.

Sponsored by Milano The New School for Management and Urban Policy, and Parsons The New School for Design. Co-Sponsored by the India China Institute at the New School.

Vertical Density | Sustainable Solutions
2008-10-16 - 2008-10-18
The Skyscraper Museum Presents:

An International Symposium:

In conjunction with its Vertical Cities: Hong Kong | New York exhibition, The Skyscraper Museum presents an international symposium that examines the dramatic vertical urbanism of Hong Kong and New York and asks: “Is density a strategy for sustainable cities?”

Three separate programs are held in partnership with The Regional Plan Association, The New School’s India China Institute and The Tishman Environment and Design Center and features Hong Kong and New York leaders from development, design and government.

Thursday, Oct. 16, 3-5:30pm: Learning from Hong Kong Using the Venturi and Scott-Brown model of Learning from Las Vegas, this program will examine Hong Kong’s extreme density and development model of transit and towers and asks: What can New York learn?

Friday, Oct. 17th, 2-5:30pm: Debating Density Developers love density: urban activists generally decry it. Government officials try to find a balance between revenues generated by private development and the high costs of infrastructure and public amenities. Does density pay? Or does it cost?

Saturday Oct. 18th, 2:30-5pm: Designing Density In Delirious New York, Rem Koolhaas admired Manhattan’s “culture of congestion”. Hong Kong has had the most densely-inhabited districts in the world, first by lack of regulation, then by design. An afternoon of discussion among academics and architects examines concepts of density and extreme urbanism in theory and practice.

All events are FREE but space is limited, REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED: www.skyscraper.org/verticaldensity
