India China Institute

What Would a UN-Country-City Partnership Look Like? w/ Aromar Revi
2017-09-20 17:30 - 19:00 (America/New_York)
Preparing the World to Implement the SDG’s:

What would a UN-Country-City Partnership Look Like?

Public talk with former ICI fellow Aromar Revi

Sept 20, 2017 | 5:30-7pm

Dorothy Hirshon Suite (#205), 66 W 12th St, The New School

Join us in welcoming Aromar Revi, a former ICI fellow, for a talk on preparing the world to implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). He is a global expert on Sustainable Development; Co-Chair of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), from where he helped lead a successful global campaign for an urban Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 11) as part of the UN’s 2030 development agenda, which brought major global urban institutions and over 300 cities and organisations together. He has the distinction of addressing the UN General Assembly twice on the theme of sustainable cities, in 2014 and 2017.

About the Speaker

Aromar’s policy, practice and research work lie at the interface of sustainability and climate science; and the emerging discipline of ‘urban science’, that he is helping define internationally. He is a member of the UCL-Nature Sustainability Expert Panel on urban research and global sustainability. In 2016, UNSDSN & the SDG Academy launched the first 75-session global Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Sustainable Cities & SDG 11, curated by him featuring 30 of the world’s leading urbanists. 10,000 participants from 110 countries have registered for this.

Reflections on the Belt and Road Forum
2017-06-20 17:30 - 19:00
Reflections on the Belt and Road Forum

June 20, 2017 | 5:30 – 7:00 pmTheresa Lang Center (55 W. 13th St, 2nd floor, The New School) * Updated Event Venue

Featured Speakers: Liang Huijiang, Wang Wen, Zha Daojiong, and Zhai Kun

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About the Talk:

Last month China held a major international forum on its Belt and Road Initiative, the first of its kind since Beijing announced the project in 2013. Drawing official delegations, scholars, entrepreneurs, as well as representatives from financial institutions and media organizations from 130 nations, the forum was an important step in China’s drive to develop infrastructure and connectivity along the “Belt and Road Corridors” from China to Africa, Europe, South and Southeast Asia. Though many important details about the initiative remain unclear, foreign businesses are already vying for opportunities to join the project, and their excitement was primed by President’s Xi Jinping’s promise at the Forum to raise tens of billions of dollars in new financing. The event generated some concern about whether actual profits and benefits will match expectations. From the perspectives both of recipient countries and investors, the Belt and Road Initiative represents huge potential and significant risk. Amid the enthusiasm and apprehension surrounding the project, a robust dialogue and accurate information are critical. In support of this, the National Committee and the India China Institute of The New School are pleased to welcome a delegation of financial and economic scholars led by the director general of the International Finance Department of the China Development Bank, Mr. Liang Huijiang, to discuss the May 2017 Belt and Road Forum on June 20, 2017.

About the Speakers:

Mr. Liang Huijiang is director general of the International Finance Department of the China Development Bank (CDB). He oversees strategy and policy making of the bank’s international business operations as well as cooperation with national and multilateral development banks. He also manages an overseas loan portfolio of over USD 300 billion, and is instrumental in expanding the bank’s global network.

From 2005 to 2009, Mr. Liang was deputy director general of the bank’s Treasury Department, playing a key role in building a professional team for the bank’s liquidity and investment portfolios as it reached several milestones in overseas bond offerings and underwritings. Between 1998 and 2003 Mr. Liang was special assistant to Mr. Chen Yuan, then president of the CDB. In that capacity, he was in charge of developing strategies as the CDB transformed itself from a semi-government agency into a market-oriented bank. Before joining CDB, Mr. Liang worked in the International Department of the People’s Bank of China, where he was involved in annual consultations between China and the IMF and reform of China’s exchange rate regime.

Mr. Liang holds a master’s degree in finance from the London Business School (2004), a master’s in economics from the PBC School of Finance, Tsinghua University (1996), and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Hangzhou University (1993).

Dr. Wang Wen is a professor and executive dean of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China. He also serves as a consultant fellow at the Counselors’ Office of the State Council of China, secretary general of the Green Finance Association of China, and standing director of World Socialism Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. As a leading think tank professional since 2013, Dr. Wang was named a “2014 Top Ten Figures of Chinese Think Tanks,” and a “2015 China Reform and Development Pioneer.”

Dr. Wang worked as chief op-ed editor and editorial writer at Global Times before 2012, and won a China News Awards in 2011. He has written and edited over 20 books including Think as a Tank; Anxiety of the U.S.; Visions of the Great Powers; 2016: G20 and China; Theories of World Governance: A Study in the History of Ideas; and The G20 and Global Governance.

Dr. Zha Daojiong is a professor of international political economy at the School of International Studies, Peking University, where he holds concurrent appointments in the University’s Institute of South-South Cooperation and International Development and Institute of Ocean Research. He specializes in studying non-traditional security issues in China’s foreign relations, including energy, food, public health, and transboundary water management. His recent research interests have expanded to political risk management for Chinese investments overseas.

Professor Zha has served as Arthur Ross Fellow at the Center on US-China Relations of the Asia Society in New York, as the inaugural Rio Tinto China Fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney, and as senior research fellow at the Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He is also a member of the China chapter of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific, and a senior advisor to the Chinese Association for International Understanding. He is an active participant in the National Committee’s longstanding track II economic dialogue.

Professor Zha has written and edited seven academic books, in addition to dozens of journal articles. He taught in Japan for six years and holds a doctoral degree in political science from the University of Hawaii at Manoa and the East-West Center.

Dr. Zhai Kun is a professor at the School of International Studies, Peking University, and director of the Center for Global Interconnectivity Studies, Peking University.

Dr. Zhai was formerly director of the Institute of World Political Studies (2011-2014) and director of South and Southeast Asian and Oceania Studies (2007-2011) at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR). He is a council member of China People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs, a China expert and eminent person of the ASEAN Regional Forum, and deputy president of the China Association of Southeast Asian Studies. Dr. Zhai has published extensively on China’s diplomacy and strategic thinking. He frequently writes for the People’s Daily, China Daily, World Knowledge, and Oriental Morning Post.

Dr. Zhai received his Ph.D. in international relations from CICIR, and his M.A. in international relations and B.A. in international journalism from the University of International Relations.

This event is organized by the National Committee on U.S. – China Relations, and co-sponsored by the India China Institute.

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India China: Rethinking Borders and Security - Book Launch
2017-05-22 16:00 - 18:00
India China: Rethinking Borders and Security

Book launch with authors: L.H.M. Ling, Adriana Abdenur, Payal Banerjee, Nimmi Kurian, Mahendra P. Lama, Li Bo

Monday, May 22, 4:00-6:oo pmOrozco Room (712), 66 West 12th St

Remarks by:Mary Watson, Executive Dean, NSPETansen Sen, Professor, CUNYAshok Gurung, Senior Director, ICI

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University of Michigan Press (2016)

About the Book

Challenging the Westphalian view of international relations, which focuses on the sovereignty of states and the inevitable potential for conflict, the authors from the Borderlands Study Group reconceive borders as capillaries enabling the flow of material, cultural, and social benefits through local communities, nation-states, and entire regions. By emphasizing local agency and regional interdependencies, this metaphor reconfigures current narratives about the China India border and opens a new perspective on the long history of the Silk Roads, the modern BCIM Initiative, and dam construction along the Nu River in China and the Teesta River in India.

Together, the authors show that positive interaction among people on both sides of a border generates larger, cross-border communities, which can pressure for cooperation and development. India China offers the hope that people divided by arbitrary geo-political boundaries can circumvent race, gender, class, religion, and other social barriers, to form more inclusive institutions and forms of governance.

Ling and her collaborators have ambitions that are not merely explanatory but also transformative: they seek not merely to make sense of an existing conflict, but by diagnosing it in terms of blocked flows and interrupted balances, they seek to envision ways to resolve (or, better, to dis-solve) it. If the more typical IR explanatory social-scientific question would be ‘why is this India-China conflict as virulent as it is?,’ their question is instead ‘what does the present state of the conflict reveal about how to change things?’ The transformative question encompasses the explanatory question and presses it onto novel terrain; call the results ‘explanation-plus.’ —Patrick Thaddeus Jackson, Editor, Configurations Series, University of Michigan Press and Professor, School of International Service, American University

About the Authors

L. H. M. Ling is Professor of International Affairs at The New School in New York, USA.

Adriana Abdenur is a Fellow with the Igarapé Institute, in Rio de Janeiro, and a Productivity Scholar with the Brazilian National Council for Technological and Scientific Development (CNPq).

Payal Banerjee is an Associate Professor with the Department of Sociology at Smith College in Northampton, MA.

Nimmi Kurian is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) in New Delhi, India, and India Representative, India China Institute, The New School, New York.

Mahendra P. Lama is a Professor in the School of International Studies at Jawarhalal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi, India.

Li Bo is a part-time consultant for environmental grant-making in China and chief editor of the Green Cover Book: Annual Review of China’s Environment, a Chinese publication. At the same time, he runs a small organic farm by Lake Huron in Canada.

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The Global Democracy Recession: Can it be Reversed?
2017-05-03 18:00 - 19:30
The Global Democracy Recession: Can it be Reversed?

A TALK WITH CARL GERSHMAN

Wed, May 3, 2017 – 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM

Johnson/Kaplan Lecture Hall (#404), 66 West 12th St, NY

Three decades after the historic “third wave” of democratization, global democracy is in retreat and authoritarianism has made alarming gains. Can the momentum of global democratization be revived?

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Carl Gershman is the president of the Washington DC-based National Endowment for Democracy, an institution with the mission to strengthen democratic institutions around the world through non-governmental efforts. The World Movement for Democracy, which was founded under his leadership in India in 1999, held its fifth global assembly in Kyiv in 2008. Prior to assuming the position with the Endowment, Mr. Gershman was Senior Counselor to the United States Representative to the United Nation. Mr. Gershman has lectured extensively and written articles and reviews on foreign policy issues for leading international publications, is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. His work in advancing democracy has been recognized worldwide and on behalf of NED, he has accepted awards from the governments of Poland, Romania, Korea, Lithuania and from numerous NGOs internationally. A frequent visitor to Ukraine, he most recently traveled there in April 2015. Born in New York City in 1943, he received his undergraduate degree from Yale University in 1965 and M.Ed. from Harvard University in 1968.

Opening and Welcome:

David Van Zandt
President of The New School

Discussants:

Jeffrey C. Goldfarb
Michael E. Gellert Professor
Department of Sociology, New School for Social Research

Sukhadeo Thorat
Chairman
Indian Council of Social Science Research Professor Emeritus, Jawaharlal Nehru University

Sanjay Ruparelia
Associate Professor and Chair
Department of Politics, New School for Social Research

China: End of the Reform Era w/ Carl Minzner
2017-05-01 16:00 - 18:00
China: End of the Reform Era

A Public Talk by Professor Carl Minzner

Monday, May 1st, 20174:00-6:00 pmOrozco Room (712), 66 West 12th St, New York

Join ICI for an exciting talk by University of Fordham law professor Carl Minzner as he discusses the core factors that have characterized China’s ending reform era. Professor Minzner’s recent publications include “China After the Reform Era” and “The Rise and Fall of Chinese Legal Education”.

About the Talk:

China’s reform era is ending. Core factors that characterized it – political stability, ideological openness, and rapid economic growth – are unraveling. Since the early 1990s, Beijing’s leaders have set their face against fundamental political reform of China’s one-Party system. On the surface, this has been a success. The past three decades have seen political turmoil topple former Communist East bloc regimes, internal unrest overtake Mideast nations, and populist movements rise to challenge established Western democracies. China, in contrast, has appeared a relative haven of stability and growth. But a closer look at China’s reform era reveals a different truth. Over the past three decades a frozen political system has fueled both the rise of entrenched interests within the Communist Party itself, and the systematic underdevelopment of institutions of governance among state and society at large. Economic cleavages have widened, social unrest worsened, and ideological polarization deepened. Now, to address these looming problems, China’s leaders are progressively cannibalizing institutional norms and practices that have formed the bedrock of the regime’s stability in the reform era. Uncertainty hangs in the air as a new future slouches towards Beijing to be born.

About the Speaker:

Carl Minzner is an expert in Chinese law and governance. He has written extensively on these topics in both academic journals and the popular press, including op-eds appearing in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and Christian Science Monitor. Prior to joining Fordham, he was an Associate Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis. In addition, he has served as Senior Counsel for the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, International Affairs Fellow for the Council on Foreign Relations, and Yale-China Legal Education Fellow at the Xibei Institute of Politics and Law in Xi’an, China. He has also worked as an Associate at McCutchen & Doyle (Palo Alto, CA) and as a Law Clerk for Hon. Raymond Clevenger of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Book Launch w/ Jonathan Bach
2017-04-26 18:00 - 20:00
LEARNING FROM SHENZEN: CHINA’S POST-MAO EXPERIMENT FROM SPECIAL ZONE TO MODEL CITY

Please join us on Wednesday evening, April 26th, for a reception celebrating the publication of Learning from Shenzhen: China’s Post-Mao Experiment from Special Zone to Model City, edited by Mary Ann O’Donnell, Winnie Wong, & Jonathan Bach (University of Chicago Press, 2017).

This multidisciplinary volume presents an account of China’s contemporary transformation via one of its most important yet overlooked cities: Shenzhen, located just north of Hong Kong. From an experimental site as the first of China’s special economic zones, Shenzhen is now a dominant city at the crossroads of the global economy, a UNESCO City of Design, and the hub of China’s emerging technology industries. A city of contradictions, it embodies the spatial and temporal intricacies of the contemporary urban experience. The book explores especially how urban villages and informal institutions enabled social transformation. Through cases of labor, architecture, gender, public health, politics, education, and more, this urban case study serves to explore critical problems for modern-day China and beyond.

The book just received prominent mention in the latest Economist magazine special feature on the Pearl River Delta.

Remarks by co-editor and author, Jonathan Bach, chair of the Global Studies Program (New School), Mark Frazier, Professor of Politics (New School), and special guest Na Fu, Luce Visiting Scholar in Urban Studies at Trinity College and head of the research department at the Shenzhen Center for Design.

Refreshments will be served and books will be available for purchase at a discount.

Sponsored by the interdisciplinary programs in Global Studies, Urban Studies, and Environmental Studies, the India China Institute, the Department of Anthropology, and the Graduate Program in International Affairs.

Mountains and Sacred Landscapes Conference
2017-04-20 17:45 - 2017-04-23 14:00
The India China Institute (ICI) at The New School, the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture (ISSRNC), American University’s Center for Latin American and Latino Studies (CLALS), and the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) are excited to announce an international conference on Mountains and Sacred Landscapes at The New School in New York City from Thursday, April 20th to Sunday, April 23rd, 2017. The conference will include the latest research on the intersections of religion, nature and culture and will also feature a special presentation from the India China Institute’s three-year research project on Sacred Landscapes and Sustainable Futures in the Himalaya (Sacred Himalaya Initiative).

Diverse mountain communities from the Himalayas to the Andes to the Appalachians face growing pressures linked to social and ecological changes. Melting glaciers, shifting agricultural patterns, conflicts over mining and resource extraction, and risks to livelihoods, the consequences of increasingly erratic global climate change, pose unknown future challenges to many sacred landscapes, including mountain communities and ecosystems and those beings, human and nonhuman alike, who rely on these habitats. Scholars have even suggested we have entered a fundamentally new geologic epoch called the Anthropocene.

The conference seeks to critically explore how the idea of sacred landscapes is entangled with these communities, with a particular interest in topics related to mountain landscapes. Some of the issues we hope to explore include: major challenges and opportunities facing communities in the 21st century; religious conceptualizations of place and landscape; relationships between mountain spiritualities and peoples adapting to climate change; traditional ecological knowledge held by communities that can help address issues of social and ecological justice; the future of mountain and forest peoples; and the fate of more than human worlds inhabiting these diverse landscapes. What kinds of meanings shape and are shaped by the effects of climate change, mass extinction, human population growth, and the ecological degradation of mountains, forests, rivers, and other sacred landscapes? How do ritual activities linked to sacred landscapes respond to environmental challenges, or not? How do mountains—as highly biodiverse ecosystems, as critical sources of water, energy, and materials, as repositories of tradition, and as sacred beings—remain vital components in ongoing processes of religious change? How do understandings of the sacred manifest within and across different landscapes, such as deserts, rivers, or forests?

You can view and download the pdf version of the Conference Program.

The Myth and Dilemma of Public (公共 gōng gòng) Design
2017-03-31 18:30 - 20:30
PUBLIC LIVING ENVIRONMENTS: The Myth and Dilemma of Public (公共 gōng gòng) Design

A Lecture by Kin Wai Michael SIU

6:30-8:30 pm | Kellen Auditorium (#101), 66 Fifth Ave., The New School

Kin Wai Michael SIU will discuss the term “public” from the perspective of its more complex Chinese language equivalent—公共 (gōng gòng), examining how the interpretation of these constituent terms influences the design of public spaces. He will suggest that, for design researchers and practitioners, a re-thinking of the relationship between gōng and gòng can result in better public living environments.

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About the Speaker

Kin Wai Michael SIU is Chair Professor of Public Design and Leader of the Public Design Lab at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. His research areas include public design, user reception, inclusive design, and social innovation. In addition to publishing widely, he holds over 50 US and international patents and design registrations, and has received numerous invention and design awards.

Presented by School of Design Strategies, Parsons. The Stephan Weiss Lecture Series is made possible by an endowment established by The Karan-Weiss Foundation, Donna Karan, Gabrielle Karan, Corey Weiss, and Lisa Weiss. The spring 2017 Stephan Weiss Lecture is co-sponsored by India China Institute.

Kailash Cartographies | Closing Reception & Faculty Talk
2017-03-30 17:00 - 19:30
Sacred Landscapes Talk

Come listen as New School faculty members and ICI staff share their insights from fieldwork in India, Nepal and Tibet as part of a three-year Sacred Himalaya Initiative focused on religion, ecology and culture in the Himalayas. Faculty involved with ICI’s research project–Rafi Youatt (NSSR), Mark Larrimore (Lang), Nitin Sawhney (Media Studies) and Sreshta Rit Premnath (Parsons)–will talk about their experiences traveling in these sacred landscapes and how this work has influenced their own artistic and academic practices as well as their teaching. A photo presentation highlighting some of the key areas from the field research will be featured.

5:00-6:00 pm – Gallery Tour and Reception6:00-7:00 pm – Faculty Talk and Presentation

The opening reception and gallery tour will take place in the Aronson Gallery, 66 Fifth Ave. The talk will take place next door in the Kellen Auditorium.

Drinks and refreshments will be served. The event is free and will be Live streamed on the official New School channel. Watch it there.

This event is the final event for the Kailash Cartographies exhibition. Learn more about the month-long exhibit here.

A press release about the exhibit can be found here.

About the Exhibit

Kailash Cartographies is an exhibition of artists from India, China, Nepal, and the US exploring conceptions of sacred geography, particularly in the Himalayas. Devotees encounter the sacred through ritual, art, and acts of pilgrimage and circumambulation of mountains and temples. The artists in the exhibition pose questions about the nature of both the sacred and the secular by drawing on the points of connection with landscapes and lived worlds. The photographs, videos, works on paper and installations, deploy cartographic modes that are both personal and political.

The title of the exhibition refers to Mount Kailash, the symbolic center of the Buddhist and Bön cosmos and the seat of Shiva for Hindus. Although associated with a multiplicity of geographical sites and religious representations, its earthly manifestation is most often located in Tibet. “It is the simultaneously singular and plural aspect of this sacred geography that caught our imagination,” said Sreshta Rit Premnath, curator of the exhibition and participating artist. “Every gesture within such a geography is both specifically located yet can be powerfully invoked elsewhere.”

The exhibition emerges from a three-year research project of The New School’s India China Institute focused on Sacred Landscapes and Sustainable Futures in the Himalayas. In conjunction with this endeavor, a group of artists initiated creative explorations during 2015-2016. Many of the works in this exhibition were the direct result of a creative workshop convened in Kathmandu in March 2016. The exhibit is part of ICI’s ongoing Sacred Himalaya Initiative research project focused on Mount Kailash in Tibet.

Featured artists are Atul Bhalla, Kevin Bubriski, Vibha Galhotra, Sreshta Rit Premnath, Ashmina Ranjit, Nitin Sawhney, Radhika Subramaniam, Charwei Tsai & Tsering Tashi Gyalthang, Zheng Bo & Jiang Chao and Qiu Zhijie.

Presented by the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center and the India China Institute.

Roundtable Discussion: Harvard-Yenching Institute Young Scholars
2017-03-29 16:00 - 18:00
The India China Institute is pleased to be hosting several emerging scholars from the Harvard-Yenching Institute. This is an exciting opportunity for New School members to learn about and provide feedback on the research being done by a new generation of scholars on the frontier of India-China scholarship.

Seating is limited, and an RSVP is required to attend.

Colloquium on the Economies and Societies of India and China - Ching Kwan Lee
2016-12-05 16:00 - 18:00
Colloquium on the Economies and Societies of India and China (CESIC)

“Authoritarian Precarization: Mapping the Labor Politics of Recognition, Regulation and Reproduction in China”

A Public Talk by Professor Ching Kwan Lee

Monday, December 5, 2016 | 4:00-6:00 pm Orozco Room (#712) 66 West 12th St., NY, NY

Professor Lee’s talk will analyze the making of precarity in China and identify the various contested terrains constitutive of its politics. For each of the three periods of Chinese development since the Communist Revolution, viz. the Mao era of state socialism 1949-1979, the high-growth reform era 1980-2010, and the current period of crisis and restructuring since around 2010, she will discuss the changing forms and meanings of labor precarity, their political economic drivers, and the shifting and uneven capacity of popular struggling for the recognition, regulation and reproduction of labor.

About the Speaker:

Ching Kwan Lee is Professor of Sociology at UCLA. She received her PhD from the University of California at Berkeley. She was a Fellow with the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University (2013-14) and was awarded a National Science Foundation Grant (2010-2013). She was awarded the 2008 Sociology of Labor Book Award by the American Sociological Association (Labor and Labor Movement Section) for her book Against the Law: Labor Protests in China’s Rustbelt and Sunbelt (UC Press, 2007). Her books include Re-envisioning the Chinese Revolution: Politics and Poetics of Collective Memory in Reform China (Stanford University Press, 2007, edited with Guobin Yang) and Working in China: Ethnographies of Labor and Workplace Transformation (Routledge 2007, edited).

FOOD, POWER AND POLITICS: A response to Roxy Paine’s Dinner of the Dictators, 1993-95
2016-11-29 18:00
One of The New School Art Collection’s most significant works will be installed on campus: Roxy Paine’s Dinner of the Dictators, 1993-95 from November 19, 2016 to January 4, 2017 in the Sheila Johnson Design Center’s Arnold and Sheila Aronson Gallery at 66 5th Avenue.This seminal work, recently restored by the artist, will act as a point of departure for a broader discussion of food, power, and politics, featuring Paul Freedman, Chester D. Tripp Professor of History, Yale University, Nina Khrushcheva, Professor of International Affairs at The New School, and moderated by Fabio Parasecoli, Associate Professor and Director of Food Studies Initiatives at The New School.

Sponsored by the University Art Collection, Parsons School of Design, the Food Studies Program, and the India China Institute at The New School.

Working In Mumbai: The Works of RMA Architects
2016-11-15 17:00 - 18:30
Architects working in India are dealing with a range of social, cultural and economic phenomena that are rapidly molding the built environment there. Rahul Mehrotra, founding principal of RMA Architects, will discuss his firm’s unique multidisciplinary approach to working in Mumbai and responding to that city’s kinetic and complex milieu.This event will also be livestreamed. Click here to view.

**The Stephen Weiss Lecture Series is made possible by an endowment established by The Karan-Weiss Foundation, Donna Karan, Gabrielle Karan, Corey Weiss, and Lisa Weiss. The Fall 2016 Stephan Weiss Lecture is co-sponsored by The New School’s India-China Institute and Parsons’ School of Design Strategies.

Colloquium on the Economies and Societies of India and China - Devesh Kapur
2016-11-14 16:00 - 18:00
“The Dilemmas of Higher Education: India in Comparative Perspective”

A Public Talk by Professor Devesh Kapur

Monday, November 14, 2016 | 4:00 – 6:00 pmOrozco Room (#712), 66 West 12th St., NY, NY

In the last two decades the expansion of higher education in India has been the most rapid in human history after that of China. The talk will first document the characteristics of growth and change in higher education in India. It will then address the tensions among the core goals of growth, access, cost and quality and the paradox of large skill premiums despite massive increases in supply even as underemployment among the college educated has been rising. Finally, the talk will examine the political economy of higher education in India, and why there has been so little change in the regulation of higher education and the governance of higher education institutions – and its consequences.

About the Speaker:

Devesh Kapur was appointed Director of the Center for the Advanced Study of India in 2006. He is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania and holds the Madan Lal Sobti Chair for the Study of Contemporary India. Prior to arriving at Penn, Professor Kapur was Associate Professor of Government at the University of Texas at Austin, and before that the Frederick Danziger Associate Professor of Government at Harvard. His research focuses on human capital, national and international public institutions, and the ways in which local-global linkages, especially international migration, and international institutions, affect political and economic change in developing countries, especially India. He is the author of Diaspora, Democracy and Development: The Impact of International Migration from India on India (Princeton University Press, 2010).

Triple Play | 3 Films on Kashmir w/ Filmmaker Sarah Singh
2016-10-27 17:45 - 19:00
TRIPLE PLAY: Three films on Kashmir
Film Screening and Panel Discussion on Kashmir
Award-winning filmmaker and New School alumna Sarah Singh
Panel – Mohamed Junaid and Prof. Nitin Sawhney in conversation with Sarah Singh
5:45pm-7pm | Theresa Lang Community Center (55 W 13th St, NY)

All three films are approximately 10 min each.

The Sky Below (segment from her award-winning documentary)
A Million Rivers (segment from her new surrealist fiction work)
Sufiyana: Music of the 21st Century (segment from a new film in progress)

These three completely different film works offers a rare opportunity to construct a cubistic portrait of a people, land, culture, history, and future, thereby expanding the narrative portrayal regarding one of the most disturbing and dangerous regional issues of our time. Kashmir is at the forefront of global politics, like a stick of dynamite between two nuclear nations. The region has been called a ‘frozen conflict’ in which many thousands of lives have been destroyed by a deadly cocktail of internal and external players over decades.
What are the possible outcomes or ways forward in what appears to be an increasingly hostile and desperate clash where ramifications echo across the world, and importantly, resonate immediately across Central, South, and East Asia?
The event is co-sponsored by The India China Institute, the School of Media Studies and the Engage Media Lab at The New School.
Event on Facebook.
About the Filmmaker
Sarah Singh was born in Patiala, Punjab, India and moved to the US in 1974. She is an award-winning filmArtist and has completed two feature-length films, several short film works, and is in the development of a third feature film. Sarah has worked in the film and TV industry for over a decade. Prior to that she exhibited paintings, drawings and photography. Starting from her first solo show in 1996 at the Prithvi Gallery in Juhu, Bombay, her work has been privately collected. She is on the Board of Advisors for Sindhi Voices Project and The Journal for Ethnic and Migration Studies.
You can learn more about Singh’s work on her website. You can follow Sarah on @sarahsinghNY.
The Sky Below is a critically-acclaimed doc on the 1947 Partition of the Subcontinent and the Kashmir question.
A Million Rivers recently had its’ world premiere at the V&A Museum and will premiere in New York later this Fall. This is an opportunity to get a sneak preview of one of the main thematic aspects of this work. The film starts Om Puri, Lillete Dubey and Asif Basra as “the man from Kashmir”.
Music For the 21st Century is a new film series devoted to exploring music traditions and practices across the Subcontinent. This segment showcases a memorial concert for the world’s last known Kashmir Sufiyana master, Ghulam Mohammed Saznawaz.

Colloquium on the Economies and Societies of India and China - Olle Törnquist
2016-10-17 16:00 - 18:00
Olle Törnquist

Can social democracy be reinvented? Insights from Indian and Scandinavian comparisons

Oct 17, 2016 | 4-6pm Orozco Room

In the age of market driven globalisation, social democracy is hard pressed. Can it be reinvented? Scholars on Scandinavia and India are just out with a joint book that is the first to compare experiences in the South and the North. Having identified the universal processes of social democracy and analysed Indian experiences by asking questions from Scandinavia, and vice versa, they arrive at four general conclusions. One, the development strategy from the 1930s remain tenable, but it is missing a fundamental pillar in the form of comprehensive industrialisation and relatively coherent labour movement and modernisation oriented employers. The conditions for social growth pacts are poor in countries like India. Two, however, these conditions can be improved by transformative politics. Several additional historical factors in the rise of social democracy remain valid in the South too. Three, renewal in the South calls for reversed priorities. Struggles for welfare state, decent conditions at work and representation of the most vital interests in public policy making and administration must come ahead of social growth pacts. A number of experiences suggest that this may not be impossible. Four, it should be in the enlightened self-interest of social democracy in countries like Sweden and Norway to support such processes.

About the Speaker:

Olle Törnquist

Professor of Political Science and Development Research, University of Oslo, Olle has written widely on radical politics, development and democratization. In addition to parts of India, especially Kerala, his main empirical focus since the 1970s is Indonesia, where he also co-directs research with scholarly activists. His recent books are Assessing Dynamics of Democratisation (Palgrave, 2013) and the anthologies (with co-editors) Democratisation in the Global South (Palgrave, 2013) and Reclaiming the State: Overcoming Problems of Democracy in Post-Soeharto Indonesia (PolGo; PCD 2015).

Reflections on the Cultural Revolution: Impact and Legacy of the Cultural Revolution
2016-10-13 16:00 - 17:30
Impact and Legacy of the Cultural RevolutionProfessor Xu Youyu, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Scholar in Residence, The New School.

Thursday, October 13th, 4:00-5:30 PM80 Fifth Ave (#529), The New School

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the launching of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. The “cultural” revolution was full of violence and suppression, and shrouded in conspiracy. It stunned the world and lasted 10 years. However, the topic has been a taboo in discourse and academic studies in China. The seminar series, attempting to address some of the crucial questions concerning the movement, is comprised of four parts, with each part focusing on a different theme. The speaker will deal with key controversies surrounding each theme and develop his own positions.
Impact and Legacy of the Cultural Revolution: Was the Cultural Revolution a period of great democracy or anti-democracy? Why do Mao’s former loyal followers fight for democracy? Do Chinese today condemn the Cultural Revolution, or view it with some nostalgia?

Reflections on the Chinese Cultural Revolution - Impact and Legacy
2016-10-13 16:00 - 17:30
Impact and Legacy of the Cultural Revolution

A Public Talk by Professor Xu Youyu

Thursday, October 13, 2016

4:00-5:30 PM, Orozco Room

This year is the 50th anniversary of the Cultural Revolution in China. To mark this extraordinary period in Chinese history, the India China Institute has organized several events that examine the revolution’s significance and its lasting impact on China and the world. The events will feature leading scholars on the subject, some of whom experienced the revolution firsthand.

Seminar Series:

Reflections of the Cultural Revolution is a seminar series with Xu Youyu, a Professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Science and a current Scholar in Resident at The New School. The cultural revolution was full of violence and suppression, and continues to be shrouded in conspiracy. This seminar series is comprised of four parts, with each part focusing on a different theme, and attempts to address some of the crucial questions concerning the movement. Professor Xu will deal with key controversies surrounding each theme and develop his own positions.

Xu Youyu was a teenager in the Red Guard at the time of the Chinese Revolution and witnessed the Tiananmen Square protest of 1989. As a pro-democracy activist, Xu was one of the most prominent signatories of the 2008 Charter 08 manifesto, which demanded political and humanitarian reforms in China.

This is the fourth and final lecture in this series with Professor Xu. This seminar will explore whether the Cultural Revolution was a period of great democracy or anti-democracy? Why do Mao’s former loyal followers fight for democracy? Do Chinese today condemn the Cultural Revolution, or view it with some nostalgia?

A link to RSVP for the event will be posted here.

Global Himalaya and Sustainable Futures
2016-10-11 17:30 - 19:30
Global Himalaya and Sustainable Futures: A Panel Discussion

Tuesday, October 11th | 5:30-7:30pm

Orozco Room (710), 66 W. 12th St. The New School

Join the India China Institute and the Himalayan Universities Consortium for an engaging panel discussion on the state of the Himalayas and questions of sustainable futures in the region. Panelists will present their insights and experiences from working in the region, and their thoughts on the future of the Himalayas from both a regional and global perspective. An RSVP is required for this event.

Featured speakers include:

Dr. Eklabya Sharma, ICIMOD
Prof. Pasang Sherpa, The New School
Prof. Alton Byers, University of Colorado
Ms. Lisabeth Hilton, Founding Director of The Third Pole
Prof. Mark Turin, University of British Columbia

Release of Dr. Dong Shikui’s New Book
2016-10-04
About this book:This edited volume summarizes information about the situational context, threats, problems, challenges and solutions for sustainable pastoralism at a global scale. The book has four goals. The first goal is to summarize the information about the history, distribution and patterns of pastoralism and to identify the importance of pastoralism from social, economic and environmental perspectives. The results of an empirical investigation of the environmental and socio-economic implications of pastoralism in representative pastoral regions in the world are also incorporated.

The second goal is to argue that breaking coupled human-natural systems of pastoralism leads to degradation of pastoral ecosystems and to create an analysis framework to assess the vulnerability of worldwide pastoralism. Our analysis framework provides approaches to help comprehensively understand the transitions and the impacts of human-natural systems in the pastoral regions in the world.

The third goal is to identify the successful models in promoting coupled human-natural systems of pastoralism, and to learn lessons of breaking coupled human-cultural pastoralism systems through examining the representative cases in regions including Central Asia, Southern and Eastern Asia, Northern and Eastern Africa, the European Alps and South America.

The fourth goal is to identify the strategies to build the resilience of the coupled human-natural systems of pastoralism worldwide. We hope that our book can facilitate the further examination of sustainable development of coupled human-natural systems of pastoralism by providing the summaries of existing data and information related to the pastoralism development, and by offering a framework for better understanding and analysis of their social, economic and environmental implications.

Author”s Bio:

Dr.Dong Shikui is currently a full Professor at School of Environment, Beijing Normal University and an Adjunct Professor at Natural Resource Department of Cornell University, as well as a fellow of India China Institute and New School, New York. He completed his undergraduate and graduate studies in Grassland Science from Gansu Agricultural University in 1995 and 1998, respectively; he received his PhD in Grassland Ecology from Gansu Agricultural University in 2001; and he completed his post-doc program in Natural Sciences at Beijing Normal University in 2003.

Dr. Karim-Aly S. Kassam is International Professor of Environmental and Indigenous Studies in the Department of Natural Resources and the American Indian Program at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University. He is Associate Professor in the Department of Natural Resources and the American Indian Program.

Dr. Randall B. Boone is a Research Scientist at the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory and a Professor in the Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability at Colorado State University.

Chat & Chai - Information Session 2016
2016-09-30 16:00 - 18:00
ICI’s annual Chat & Chai is an information session featuring Student Fellow presentations from past recipients of our Student Summer Travel & Research Grants. Each year ICI awards six undergraduate or graduate students with $3,000 to support an independent study project, or to defray the cost of attending a New School program in India or China. Students who spent the 2016 summer in India and China will present brief reflections on their work and experiences abroad.

You can read more about the 2016 Student Fellows and see photos of their trips on the Student Blog here.

The information session will provide information regarding the 2017 fellowship, offer information about job opportunities and volunteer positions with the India China Institute, as well as serve as a networking event for anyone interested in India and China. The event is free and open to all New School members.

Light snacks and refreshments will be provided.

Please RSVP for the event at: chatnchai2016.eventbrite.com

Reflections on the Cultural Revolution - Student Movements in 1968
2016-09-29 16:00 - 18:00
Student Movements, 1968: In Industrialized Countries and in China

A Public Talk by Professor Xu Youyu

Thursday, September 29, 2016 – 4:00-6:00 PM

80 Fifth Ave, Room 529, The New School

This year is the 50th anniversary of the Cultural Revolution in China. To mark this extraordinary period in Chinese history, the India China Institute has organized several events that examine the revolution’s significance and its lasting impact on China and the world. The events will feature leading scholars on the subject, some of whom experienced the revolution firsthand.

Seminar Series:

Reflections of the Cultural Revolution is a seminar series with Xu Youyu, a Professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Science and a current Scholar in Resident at The New School. The cultural revolution was full of violence and suppression, and continues to be shrouded in conspiracy. This seminar series is comprised of four parts, with each part focusing on a different theme, and attempts to address some of the crucial questions concerning the movement. Professor Xu will deal with key controversies surrounding each theme and develop his own positions.

Xu Youyu was a teenager in the Red Guard at the time of the Chinese Revolution and witnessed the Tiananmen Square protest of 1989. As a pro-democracy activist, Xu was one of the most prominent signatories of the 2008 Charter 08 manifesto, which demanded political and humanitarian reforms in China.

This is the third lecture in this series with Professor Xu. This seminar will explore Mao’s motives in launching the Cultural Revolution. Was the movement a political purge under the disguise of anti-revisionism? Was it a fight for social ideals, or simply a power struggle?

To RSVP for the event click here.

Social Justice, Peace, & Sustainable Futures - ICSD Closing Session
2016-09-22 18:00 - 20:00 | Tishman Auditorium, The New School, 63 Fifth Ave Room U100, New York, NY, 10003, USA
Social Justice, Peace, & Sustainable Futures

Closing Session of the International Conference on Sustainable Development (ICSD)

Thursday, September 22nd, 6-8 pm63 Fifth Avenue, Tishman Auditorium (Room 100), New York

RSVP NOW (Limited Seating)

The Earth Institute, Columbia University; the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN); the Global Association of Master’s in Development Practice Programs (MDP); and India China Institute (ICI), The New School are partnering on the Fourth Annual International Conference on Sustainable Development (ICSD) on September 21 & 22, 2016. The New School will host the closing session of the conference, entitled Social Justice, Peace, & Sustainable Futures, on September 22, from 6 pm to 8 pm.
In 2015 United Nations member states adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the most ambitious and encompassing agenda to date. The SDGs call for the eradication of poverty and hunger (SDGs 1 and 2), the achievement of universal healthcare and education (SDGs 3 and 4), sustainable cities that support resilient communities (SDG 11), and an end to conflict and the promotion of peace and justice (SDG 16). The closing session of ICSD will focus on the theme of SDGs 16 and its interconnectedness with other SDG priorities. Speakers will discuss how the promotion of peace and good governance globally are critical to achieving poverty eradication, universal health care and education, sustainable cities, and the preservation of ecosystem services.
Program Agenda

5:15 Doors Open, Seating begins

6:00 Welcome, David E. Van Zandt, President, The New School

6:10 Opening Remarks, Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Director, Sustainable Development Solutions Network and Director, Center for Sustainable Development, Columbia University
Professor Sachs will thank ICI, The New School for this wonderful partnership. He will talk broadly about the unprecedented agenda of the SDGs, especially their commitment to equality and social justice, and the role of good governance in strong institutions in their realization.

6:20 Video Message from President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia
In the President’s video message he discussed the recent progress towards peace between the federal government and the FARC in Colombia, and also Colombia’s strong commitment to the SDGs.

6:30 Keynote Address, John Cardinal Onaiyekan, Archbishop of Abuja
The Archbishop will discuss inter-faith partnerships for peace, how peace is fundamental to the achievement of all the SDGs, and how faith communities can come together to accelerate progress on the SDGs.

6:50 Discussants
Each person will make brief (5 minute) remarks in response to the earlier presentations and the event themes (social justice, peace, and sustainable futures)

Yves Leterme, Secretary General, UN IDEA; Former Prime Minister of Belgium
Abigail Moy, Director, Global Legal Empowerment Network, Namati
Mary Watson, Executive Dean for Public Engagement, The New School

7:05 Expanded Discussion
Prof. Sachs and Cardinal Onaiyekan will each have 5 minutes to respond to the discussants.

7:15 Discussion, Moderated by Ashok Gurung, Director, India China Institute, The New School
The moderator will put a few questions to the five panelists, and then open up the floor for questions from the audience.

Please direct all press inquiries to info@ic-sd.org. You can also follow ICSD on Twitter, connect with ICSD on Facebook.

Participant Biographies
David E. Van Zandt became The New School’s president in 2011. He has advanced a vision for The New School that elevates the university’s core values of creativity and social engagement and connects its strengths in design, social research, liberal arts, and performance. He has led the development of strategic initiatives to deepen The New School’s commitment to student success, global education, new and distinctive educational models, and institutional effectiveness and assessment.
David has spoken and written widely on higher education, including regular articles in the Huffington Post on topics such as college accountability, universities and the creative economy, and the importance of education that fosters innovation and the courage to bring about positive change in the world. He has spoken on panels at the United Nations, the Taihu World Culture Forum, and the World Summit on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. He holds an AB from Princeton University, a JD from Yale Law School, and a PhD in sociology from the London School of Economics.
Jeffrey D. Sachs is a world-renowned professor of economics, leader in sustainable development, senior UN advisor, bestselling author, and syndicated columnist whose monthly newspaper columns appear in more than 100 countries. He is the co-recipient of the 2015 Blue Planet Prize, the leading global prize for environmental leadership. He has twice been named among Time Magazine’s 100 most influential world leaders. He was called by the New York Times, “probably the most important economist in the world,” and by Time Magazine “the world’s best known economist.” A recent survey by The Economist Magazine ranked Professor Sachs as among the world’s three most influential living economists of the past decade.
Professor Sachs served as the Director of the Earth Institute from 2002 to 2016. He was appointed University Professor at Columbia University in 2016, and also serves as Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University. He is Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the Sustainable Development Goals, and previously advised both UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the Millennium Development Goals. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria. Sachs is Director of both the Center for Sustainable Development, and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network under the auspices of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
H.E. John Cardinal Onaiyekan is the Archbishop of Abuja, Nigeria, and a Co-Moderator of the World Council and Co-Chair of the African Council of Religious Leaders at Religions for Peace. His Eminence Onaiyekan was elevated to Cardinal on 24 November 2012. He was born on 29 January 1944 in Kabba, Nigeria. He received a licentiate in theology, a licentiate in Sacred Scriptures and a doctorate in theology from Pontifical Urbanian University. Cardinal Onaiyekan was ordained in 1969 at Sacred Heart Church in Kabba. He served in a variety of posts as a priest before he was ordained titular bishop of Tunusuda and auxiliary bishop of Ilorian on 6 January 1983. He was later appointed Bishop of Ilorin in 1984 and then Coadjutor Bishop of Abuja in 1990. Cardinal Onaiyekan became Bishop of Abuja on 28 September 1992 and Archbishop of Abuja on 26 March 1994. Cardinal Onaiyekan has served as President of the Christian Association of Nigeria and President of the Catholics Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria. He has also served as President of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar. He currently serves as a Member of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith and as a Member of the Presidential Committee of the Pontificial Council for the Family. Cardinal Onaiyekan was named Paz Christi International’s 2012 Peace Laureate.
Yves Leterme, a Belgian national, is the Secretary-General of the Stockholm-based intergovernmental organization International IDEA. Prior to International IDEA, Leterme served as Prime Minister of Belgium (2007 to 2011) and then as Deputy Secretary General of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris (2011 to 2014).
Before serving as Prime Minister, Leterme held a variety of political posts in Belgium. After starting his career as an Alderman in his home town of Ypres, he became a Member of Parliament in the Chamber of Representatives, Group Chairman and leader of the opposition, Secretary-General and Chairman of the CD&V party, Minister-President and Minister for Agriculture of the Flemish Government, Federal Senator, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of the Budget and Mobility, and Minister of Foreign Affairs. During Leterme’s tenure as Prime Minister, Belgium held the Presidency of the European Union. Leterme has also worked, inter alia, as a deputy auditor at the Belgian Court of Audit and as an administrator at the European Parliament. Leterme, who was born on 6 October 1960, has degrees in Law and in Political Sciences from the University of Ghent.
Abigail Moy is Director of the Global Legal Empowerment Network at Namati. Abigail has worked with access to justice programs in Africa, Latin America, and South Asia, in cooperation with the World Bank, The Asia Foundation, Fundacion Soros-Guatemala, and Timap for Justice. She previously clerked for the Hon. David H. Coar in the Northern District of Illinois, served in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the United States Department of State, and worked in the New York office of White & Case, LLP. Abigail was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship, graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School, and holds a master’s degree in law and development from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
Mary R. Watson is the Executive Dean of the New School for Public Engagement. She has served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs for the Milano School of International Affairs, Management, and Urban Policy, and she was previously the Chair of the graduate programs in Organizational Change and Nonprofit Management. Watson is a recipient of The New School’s Distinguished University Teaching Award. She earned her PhD in organization studies from Vanderbilt University.
Watson serves in leadership roles worldwide to reimagine management, sustainability, and innovation education. Watson is a founding steering committee member of the The New School Social Innovation Initiative, a university-wide initiative that created The New Challenge, the New School’s social innovation ideas competition, as well as The New School Collaboratory, a university wide fund and action research project to study collaboration between the University and its community partners. She has been active in Ashoka University’s global network, a project of more than 20 universities advancing empathy and innovation education. Watson is a member of 50+20, a global network of business school deans and partners reinventing management education worldwide, focusing on sustainability, collaboration, and globally responsible leadership. The 50+20 project, in partnership with the Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative (GLRI, Brussels), Principles for Responsible Leadership (New York, PRME), and the UN Global Compact, has launched a higher education leadership innovation cohort project in four global locations: The New School (January 2014), University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, Oulu University in Finland, and CENTRUM in Peru.

Public Talk & Book Launch: China's Future
2016-05-09 18:00 - 20:00
Watch Here

Join India China Institute for a discussion on what the future holds for China with David Shambaugh.

Book Description

China’s future is arguably the most consequential question in global affairs. Having enjoyed unprecedented levels of growth, China is at a critical juncture in the development of its economy, society, polity, national security, and international relations. The direction the nation takes at this turning point will determine whether it stalls or continues to develop and prosper.

Will China be successful in implementing a new wave of transformational reforms that could last decades and make it the world’s leading superpower? Or will its leaders shy away from the drastic changes required because the regime’s power is at risk? If so, will that lead to prolonged stagnation or even regime collapse? Might China move down a more liberal or even democratic path? Or will China instead emerge as a hard, authoritarian and aggressive superstate?

In this new book, David Shambaugh argues that these potential pathways are all possibilities – but they depend on key decisions yet to be made by China’s leaders, different pressures from within Chinese society, as well as actions taken by other nations. Assessing these scenarios and their implications, he offers a thoughtful and clear study of China’s future for all those seeking to understand the country’s likely trajectory over the coming decade and beyond.

About David Shambaugh

David Shambaugh is is an internationally recognized authority and author on contemporary China and the international relations of Asia, with a strong interest in the European Union and transatlantic issues. He is currently the Director of the China Policy Program and a Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University. Professor Shambaugh is a prolific author, having published more than 30 books and 300 articles.

Watch the video of David Shambaugh’s talk below.

Nepal: A Year Since The Earthquake
2016-05-06 18:00 - 19:30
A Discussion on International Crisis Group’s Report

Nepal’s Divisive New Constitution: An Existential Crisis

The International Crisis Group, in partnership with India China Institute (ICI), will present its latest report, “Nepal’s Divisive New Constitution: An Existential Crisis.”
The earthquakes that rocked Nepal in Spring 2015 were followed by a period of political instability linked to a contentious constitution-writing process. Since the constitution was passed last September amid deadly protests, the country’s ethnic, social and political fractures have only deepened. Meanwhile, earthquake relief efforts have also been hampered by political infighting and corruption.
This special event aims to reframe the arguments regarding Nepal’s current political situation and move the discourse in a more productive direction. Panelists will examine the political, legal, and human rights challenges ahead, and recommend options for the international community to engage constructively to prevent further instability.

Discussion Panel:

Anagha Neelakantan, International Crisis Group

Anagha Neelakantan is Crisis Group’s Deputy Asia Program Director, assisting the Program Director in leading research, analysis, policy prescription and advocacy activities of the Asia Program, overseeing and managing field staff, while ensuring timely communications between field and headquarters, spread across three sub-regional projects: South Asia, Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia. Anagha follows in particular political transitions including peace processes, ethnic and other entrenched violent social conflicts, constitution-making, human rights, demobilisation and security sector reform, governance issues, India’s foreign policy and the role of geopolitics in conflict resolution. Anagha worked in Nepal from 2000-2013, as Crisis Group’s senior analyst for Nepal, an analyst with the United Nations Mission in Nepal, and as executive editor of the Nepali Times weekly. In 2014, she worked in Myanmar with the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue.

Ashish Pradhan, International Crisis Group

Ashish Pradhan is Crisis Group’s UN Advocacy and Research Analyst and is based in New York where he supports the organisation’s advocacy at the United Nations. He assists in providing detailed analyses of developments at the Security Council to ensure adequate reflection of UN perspectives in Crisis Group publications. He also supports advocacy with UN officials, NGOs, and diplomats from a variety of UN member-states on country-specific crises and policy issues covered by Crisis Group. And he conducts research on thematic issues covered in Crisis Group reports, including on jihadi militancy in South Asia. He previously worked for Crisis Group’s Kathmandu office from 2010-2013 while analyzing Nepal’s peace and constitution-writing processes with a particular focus on identity politics, minority rights, and the federalism debate.

Richard Bennett, Amnesty International (formerly with OHCHR-Nepal)

Richard Bennett joined Amnesty International in March 2014 as Asia-Pacific Director and from July 2015 has been Head of Amnesty’s New York Office. Previously he served with the United Nations in senior human rights posts, heading the human rights components of peacekeeping operations in Sierra Leone, Timor-Leste, Afghanistan and South Sudan. From 2007 to 2010 Richard was the Representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Nepal. He has also been Chief of Staff for the Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts on Sri Lanka and Special Adviser to the Assistant Secretary General for Human Rights in New York. A citizen of New Zealand and the UK, Richard worked for a decade at the NZ Human Rights Commission before joining the UN.

Rohan Edrisinha, UN Department of Political Affairs (formerly with UNDP in Nepal)

Rohan Edrisinha is a Senior Political Officer and Constitutional Advisor in the Policy and Mediation Division of the Department of Political Affairs of the U.N. He taught at the Faculty of Law, University of Colombo from 1986 to 2011. He served as the constitutional advisor to UNDP Nepal and the head of its constitution support programme from 2011 to 2014. In 2015, he functioned as an independent consultant on constitutional reform and federalism in Myanmar, and as a governance advisor to UNDP Sri Lanka. He taught at the Faculty of Law, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, in 1995 and was a visiting fellow at Harvard University (2005) and the University of Toronto (2009). He was a founder Director and Head of the Legal and Constitutional Unit of the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA), Sri Lanka, from 1996 to 2010.

Moderated By:

Ashok Gurung, India China Institute

Ashok Gurung is the senior director of the India China Institute (ICI) and is Professor of Practice in the Julien J. Studley Graduate Program in International Affairs at The New School. A founding director of ICI, he is responsible for establishing and the overall development, management, and coordination of ICI programs and projects in India, China, and the United States. A native of Nepal, he has taught several courses on development management, political and social issues in Nepal at the New School. Ashok has over twenty years of international development experience as an educator, researcher, manager, grant-maker, policy analyst, activist and training facilitator with civil society groups, academic institutions, foundations and multi-lateral organizations, and governments worldwide. Among various roles, he was the program officer for the International Fellowships Program, the largest global leadership initiative ($280 million) of the Ford Foundation.

Two Countries: Many Relationships; India and China
2016-05-05 17:30 - 18:30
Watch Here

The India China Institute is proud to host Ambassador Nirupama Rao for a talk exploring the trajectory of relations between these two Asian giants, so near and still so far from each other. Issues left over from the past still cast long shadows although the two nations and their leaders have built systems of interaction and dialogue that have helped maintain a peaceful environment in relations between them. Has the advent of strong, personality-driven leadership in both countries been a factor for closer understanding that can promote an accelerated settlement of outstanding issues or will the accelerated rise of China only intensify competition and strategic mistrust between the two neighbors?
Nirupama Menon Rao is a 1973 batch Indian Foreign Service officer, who served as India’s Foreign Secretary from 2009 to 2011, as well as being India’s Ambassador to the United States, China and Sri Lanka (High Commissioner) during her career. In July 2009, she became the second woman to hold the post of India’s Foreign Secretary, the head of the Indian Foreign Service. In her career she served in several capacities including, Minister of Press, Information and Culture in Washington DC, Deputy Chief of Mission in Moscow, stints in the MEA as Joint Secretary, East Asia and External Publicity, the latter position making her the first woman spokesperson of the MEA, Chief of Personnel, Ambassador to Peru and China, and High Commissioner to Sri Lanka.

The Colonial Practices of the Postcolonial State: China in Tibet, India in Kashmir w/ Dibyesh Anand
2016-03-31 12:00 - 13:30
The Modern Tibetan Studies Program at Columbia, the India China Institute at the New School, and the Inner Asia Curricular Development Project at Columbia •

The Colonial Practices of the Postcolonial State: China in Tibet, India in Kashmir

Dibyesh Anand

Thursday, March 31

12:00-1:30 pm

SIPA #918, Columbia University

Dibyesh Anand is a Reader (Associate Professor) and Head of Department in International Relations at the University of Westminster in London. He has degrees from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University, University of Hull and Bristol. He is the author of the monographs Geopolitical Exotica: Tibet in Western Imagination, Tibet: A Victim of Geopolitics, and Hindu Nationalism in India and the Politics of Fear.

Dr. Anand has held visiting positions at the University of California Berkeley, Australian National University, Jawaharlal Nehru University and the Central University of Hyderabad.

Event is free and open to all.

SIPA is by Columbia’s main Morningside campus at 118th and Amsterdam.

No.1 Train to 116th or buses M4, 11, 60, or 104. Map Directions

e-Waste Tsunami
2016-03-05 - 2016-03-26
e-waste Tsunami

Sheila C. Johnson Design CenterArnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries

March 5 – March 26, 2016Opening reception: Friday, March 4, 6:00-8:00 p.m.

Behind the virtual worlds conjured by our computers and mobile phones is the very real world of electronic trash—e-waste: where electronic equipment goes to die. Tracing the journey from wealthy desktops to the poorest corners of the world, this multi-media exhibition defines new ways to see and connect the global ecosystems behind the creation, use and disposal of products and services in today’s technologically connected world. Understanding the interrelation of the ecosystems is key to the design of new products and services that will address and alleviate the e-waste problem. Can industrial design, which plays a major role in creating this problem, be part of its solution?

The exhibition features documentary photographs of those who work with e-waste on a daily basis from the frontline in Delhi, India, along with data visualizations revealing the scale of the problem. Real data and “exploded view” models explore the nature of product manufacture and assembly. Exhibition visitors are introduced to the physicality of electronic products and the end of life cycle of manufactured objects, raising the question – Why are we currently not designing for this occurrence?

This exhibition is a joint work of the students of Parsons’ School of Constructed Environments, Industrial Design MFA creating exploded view assemblies which make up a product, and STUDIOFYNN’s photographic documentary and data visualization. The assemblies paired with photo documentary and data analysis inspire urgency around creating new approaches to design and consumption, international public policy and human rights advocacy. Comprehensive solutions to this problem will come about when all stakeholders – legislators, designers, policy makers, NGOs, corporations and last but not least, citizens take responsibility and participate.

Co-sponsored by the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, Parsons School of Constructed Environments, and the India China Institute at The New School. In-kind support for printing generously provided by Duggal.

RELATED PROGRAMS:

e-waste Tsunami: Design & Policy Response – Panel Discussion Friday, March 11, 2016, 6:00-8:00 p.m.Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Auditorium, 66 Fifth Avenue

This panel brings together designers, policy experts, and supply-chain participants to raise e-waste awareness and imagine best practice scenarios. The immediate audiences are those who are involved in the design and manufacture of consumer and electronic products, while the secondary audience is very broad and covers those concerned with the broader environmental and social issues around manufactured goods and consumerism. This will be of interest to anyone who wishes to expand their view on the eco systems around the products of technology we consume today.

Introduction: Brian McGrath, Dean, Parsons School of Constructed Environments

Interlocutor: Rama Chorpash, Director MFA Industrial Design, Parsons

Panelists:

Shaun Fynn, CEO and Creative Director, Studio Fynn
Amita Singh D.Sc CFO and Director of Quantitative Research, Studio Fynn
John S. Shegerian, Co-founder, Chairman and CEO of Electronic Recyclers International (ERI) and Urban Mining
Prasad Boradkar, Professor, Industrial Design, Senior Sustainability Scholar, Arizona State University.

Admission is Free; no tickets or reservations required; seating is first-come, first-served.

"Aboveground-40 Moments of Transformation" Chinese Feminist Photo Exhibition
2016-02-13 - 2016-02-27
“Aboveground—40 Moments of Transformation”

A photography exhibition of young feminist activism in China

February 12-26, 2016

Skybridge Art Space

65 West 11th Street, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10011

The India China Institute is pleased to announce “Aboveground—40 Moments of Transformation”, a photography exhibition of young feminist activism and the struggle for gender equality in China. The exhibition is co-hosted by China Rights in Action, Feminist Task Force, and Asian American Arts Centre.

Feminism calls for freedom from restrictive gender roles and for gender equality in the realization of social, cultural, economic and political rights. “Aboveground—40 Moments of Transformation” documents young Chinese activists’ impressive efforts to combat stigma, discrimination, and violence against women in pursuit of these ideals. These activists use public spaces as their battlefront to gain visibility and spark open dialogue. But in China, bringing the fight for gender equality above ground comes at great personal risk. This exhibition frames and explores the determination with which these young feminists are pushing for a China with true gender equality.

Background information:

In 1995, 189 governments came together in China and adopted the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. These documents were a remarkable milestone, committing to a vision for women and girls of equal rights, freedom, and opportunities in all spheres of society and of lives free from want, fear, and violence. Two decades later, ironically, feminists and lawyers in China who fight for such equal rights are subjected to search, harassment, and even detention. On March 7, 2015, the Chinese government detained five women activists on the eve of International Women’s Rights Day for their efforts to call attention to sexual harassment. The women received an outpouring of support from feminists, women’s groups, human right organizations, and politicians around the world. But dark clouds are still gathering inside China. Although “The Feminist Five” were released after 37 days, it was conditioned on a strict form of bail that limits their movement, associations, and speech, and they are still treated as criminal suspects by Chinese police.

Global Warming and the Rise of Asia w/ Amitav Ghosh & Prasenjit Duara
2016-02-12 17:30 - 19:30
Global Warming & the Rise of Asia w/ Amitav Ghosh and Prasenjit Duara

The India China Institute engages two renowned intellectuals – Amitav Ghosh and Prasenjit Duara – in a conversation on climate change and capitalism in Asia.

Opening remarks by The New School President David van Zandt.

Conversation moderated by ICI Research Scholar and NYU History Professor David Ludden.

Friday, Feb 12th, 20165:30 -7:30 PM

63 Fifth Ave, Tishman AuditoriumUniversity Center, The New School

SOLD OUT

Watch Livestream – starts at 5:30 pm EST

Amitav Ghosh

Empire and the Anthropocene: Asia’s place in the genealogy of global warming

In accounts of the Anthropocene, and of the present climate crisis, capitalism is usually the pivot on which the narrative turns. But this narrative overlooks a driver of history that is of equal importance: Empire and imperialism. The relation between capitalism and empire is not, and has never been, a simple one: in relation to global warming the imperatives of capital and empire have often pushed in different directions, producing some unexpected and counter-intuitive results. To look at the climate crisis through the prism of Empire is to recognize that the continent of Asia is conceptually critical to every aspect of global warming: it’s causes, it’s philosophical and historical implications, and to the possibility of a global response to it.

Amitav Ghosh was born in Calcutta and grew up in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. He is the author of one book of non-fiction, a collection of essays and eight novels, of which the most recent is Flood of Fire (Book 3 in the Ibis Trilogy). His books have won prizes in India, Europe and Myanmar and he has been awarded honorary degrees by the Sorbonne, Paris, and by Queens College, New York.

Prasenjit Duara

Network Asia and the Problem of Sustainability

The December 2015 Climate Change Summit (COP21) was a landmark event for the global recognition of the planetary crisis of sustainability. But as is well known there are significant gaps between recognition and implementation of the largely voluntary commitments; the latter depends upon a range of monumental transformations not only in the market and technological management of carbon emissions but also notions of sovereignty that will have to allow for extra-national monitoring and changes in expectations and life-styles.

The same globalization process which has brought about this recognition had in the last decade also accelerated capitalist regionalization of the world, including the re-connection of Asian societies, especially around China, India and Southeast Asia, particularly ASEAN. While policy makers intended the integration of Asia to enhance capitalist competitiveness, the new or renewed connections will have to be mobilized equally to address problems of regional and global sustainability. What are the forces working for sustainability in the region and how can they be enhanced?

Prasenjit Duara is the Oscar Tang Chair of East Asian Studies at Duke University. Born and educated in India, he received his PhD in Chinese history from Harvard University. He was Professor of History and East Asian Studies at University of Chicago (1991-2008) and Raffles Professor and Director of Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore (2008-2015). His latest book is The Crisis of Global Modernity: Asian Traditions and a Sustainable Future (Cambridge 2014).

Co-sponsors: Global Studies and Environmental Studies at Eugene Lang College, The Center for Public Scholarship, South Asia – New York University, Baruch College – CUNY.
