Event Reports Archives - Page 4 of 6 - LILA Foundation for Translocal Initiatives

20 Aug 2014

Ritu Menon: Biography as Continuity

by LILA Foundation | posted in: Event Reports | 0

The genesis and realisation of a biography echo the way we deal with the relevance of others’ lives. Biographies attempt the full picture, the small details, the backside of the public image, on societal agents who have inspired generations. Such works aim at ‘humanising’ them, to replace the quantity of their achievements with the backdrop of their personal trajectories. But what, exactly, is at the centre of a biography? Is it the life of an individual, liberated from her own cautious confessions? Or, is it the continuous presence of an actor of change within the larger dynamic of a society’s history? As a part of the second edition of the LILA PRISM Lecture Series titled ‘Cultures as Continuum’, publisher and feminist researcher Ritu Menon reflected on the discontinuous-continuous space of interaction that the genre of biography draws into focus. Seeking to rescue its subject from her past by bringing her into the middle of the present, a biographer intensely studies history, its politics as well as its unsuspected roots in the realm of the personal. A biography is always a new take on the connection of historical periods with personal time.

13 Aug 2014

Vandana Shiva: Food as Continuity

by LILA Foundation | posted in: Event Reports | 0

Opening the second edition of the LILA PRISM lecture series, Malaysian puppetry conservationist Eddin Khoo had reaffirmed cultures, history and memory as the subversive forces to political shortsightedness. In this second event, ecology activist Vandana Shiva forwarded the confirmation of cultures as the main force of continuity. In fact, Vandana Shiva’s response was but inevitable: it is only in the last four centuries that the word ‘culture’ shied away from its initial meaning – cultivation, growing soils – to the establishment of a cardinal metaphor: human culture as the cultivation of the mind, of manners, of practices. Not only could humanity sprout through agricultural innovations, but the very elaboration of cultures, traditions, customs also followed the paradigm of nature. And at the heart of culture, of cultivation, is food. Food is life. In Sanskrit, Pran means rice, and life.

11 Aug 2014

Voices in Verse

by LILA Foundation | posted in: Event Reports | 0

“For the dead and the living, we must bear witness…” The spirit of Elie Wiesel’s words animated the air as the Sahitya Akademi hosted a unique poetry evening, with readings by seven major writers in various languages, and a conversation among them, to mark the launch of the cultural banner of LILA Foundation, LILA Bearing Witness. The event, entitled ‘Voices in Verse’ celebrated the multicultural origins of the participants, and also served as an initial collective reflection on the possibilities of individuals and communities bearing witness to the times in general, and to the multitudinous ways in which poets in particular tend to bear witness.

5 Aug 2014

Eddin Khoo: Puppetry as a Paradigm of Continuity

by LILA Foundation | posted in: Event Reports | 0

Puppetry, a paradigm of continuity. Why? Opening the PRISM Lecture Series 2014 on Cultural Continuum with Malaysian cultural conservationist Eddin Khoo was a hint at the ambitious spatial and temporal scope of the debate. South East Asia is a cultural crossroad, echoing the multiplicity inherent in Indian traditions, and, in fact, often genealogically related to them. But, the spread of Sanskrit as the lingua franca of literature and the arts around the turn of the first millennium, or the simultaneous spread of Hinduism and Buddhism, should not reduce the region to a mere offspring of Indian cultures. What makes South East Asian culture, then? What is Malaysian culture? Eddin Khoo recalls the interrogation he offers to initiate with his students. “What is the Malay identity?” The only available answers are constitutional. Never cultural. A unified, common cultural history cannot easily be found. And it is precisely through culture, and through the multiplicity of cultures, that the concept of identity can be questioned. Through culture, the ubiquitous starting point of today’s political climates can be shaken.

27 Dec 2013

Srinath Reddy: Universal Health Coverage for India: Dream or Development Imperative?

by LILA Foundation | posted in: Event Reports | 0

Srinath Reddy began his lecture by stating that it is important for societies to invest in health, because it has both instrumental and intrinsic values. From a utilitarian point of view, improved health increases productivity, while it offers a sense of well-being to an individual. Health indicators of a society also indicate the amount of vulnerability and values that are shared within that society. In Sridhar Venkatapuram’s words, “a well-ordered society would ensure that all individuals have the capability to be healthy, and at a level that is commensurate with human dignity in the modern world, which is their right.” Having thus established equity in health as a fundamental criterion for a society to be called modern, Srinath tried to understand what makes such equity possible.

19 Dec 2013

Mission Rio16: An Evening for the Cause of Goonga Pehelwan

by LILA Foundation | posted in: Event Reports | 0

“Mission Rio 16: An Evening for the Cause of Goonga Pehelwan”, the third LILA Lumieres event, opened to an overflowing hall at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, on 18 December. It featured ‘Goonga Pehelwan’ a biopic on Virender Singh aka Goonga Pehelwan, India’s gold-winning deaf-mute wrestler. The film, produced by Drishti, Ahmedabad, is the result of the untiring work of three young directors, Mit Jani, Prateek Gupta and Vivek Chaudhary.

19 Dec 2013

Harsh Mander: Inequality and Indifference in India

by LILA Foundation | posted in: Event Reports | 1

Harsh Mander’s LILA PRISM Lecture on “Inequality and Indifference in India” was an insightful study on the unending quest of humanity to make a just society possible. Shiv Visvanathan, who served as Chair during the lecture, set the tone of the evening by mentioning the complexity embedded in Harsh’s understanding of the world. Harsh, following Amartya Sen’s The Idea of Justice, began by placing three features as the fundamental triggers of our search for justice: empathy, dissent, and love of freedom. They make this search a universal category. Of these, he positioned empathy at the heart of his quest.

17 Dec 2013

Minukku: The Reel Crossover l A Space for Exchanges and Explorations

by LILA Foundation | posted in: Event Reports | 0

Minukku: The Reel Crossover was an interdisciplinary event organised by our films wing LILA Lumieres on 4 December 2013 at Gulmohar Hall, IHC. MR Rajan’s film Minukku is a reel journey into the life of a Kathakali maestro, seen through the eyes of an actor, Nedumudi Venu, and a graphic artist, EP Unny. Minukku portrays Kottakkal Sivaraman, who revolutonised, in Kathakali, the portrayal of female roles (minukku veshom). LILA Lumieres chose to screen Minukku because of the many levels of crossover experience embedded in the film. As a creative space, the film explores the possibilities of the in-between spaces between different artistic expressions, genders, voices and the like. Rajan’s films are important to LILA because of their exploratory nature, as well as their archival value.

13 Dec 2013

Anil Gupta: India Reimagined, Redefined and Reignited

by LILA Foundation | posted in: Event Reports | 1

“India Reimagined, Redefined and Reignited: A perspective on the grassroots, youthful creativity and innovation” discusses how India is constantly redefined by the forces contesting for domination of mind space, cultural scape and memoryscape. The more privileged one is, the more cynical one becomes. It seems that sustaining hope and reinforcing faith is a project undertaken by knowledge rich-economically poor people. This lecture will share ideas and insights gathered from shodhyatras (learning walks) throughout the country along with other volunteers of Honey Bee Network during the last 25 years, though in particular 16 years. One may ask why the image of the Indian society is so optimistic and reassuring when seen from the perspective of unaided, grassroots achievers, innovators and traditional knowledge holders. And yet why are the state and its various institutions so hesitant in engaging with these creative people? Perhaps, there is the fear of upsetting the apple cart, and their own imagination about the backward, unthinking working class at the grassroots? I will critique public policies which treat people as having only legs, mouth and hands, but no head, as attempted in the largest employment program MGNREGS. The idea of treating people as only a sink of assistance aid and advice, rather than sources of ideas, imagination and institutional vibrancy will be challenged herein. The experience at the Honey Bee Network, Sristi and Techpedia.in, GIAN (Grassroots Innovation Augmentation Network), and National Innovation Foundation, will of course be the backbone of the presentation.

8 Dec 2013

Vinod K Jose: Media and Responsibility

by LILA Foundation | posted in: Event Reports | 0

“Media and Responsibility.” Democracy is unimaginable without a free press. However, what kind of free press, and how much ‘free’ a press is, are questions based on the political and cultural understanding of each democratic tradition.Therefore, in theory and practice, there is increasingly very little consensus, from country to country, on what freedom of press is. In the United States, one of the oldest democracies, the first constitutional amendment categorically protected freedom of press, stopping the Congress of abridging the freedom of speech and press. In contrast, in India, the first amendment famously reduced freedom of press, a fundamental right, to a negotiable one for the government. The constitution brought it under the clutches of the innumerable state laws conceived by the British colonial government. The questions on the freedom of the press, and the responsibility of the press did not quite recover from such early onslaughts. And with many dubious and corruptible ethical conducts in the decades thereafter, our press model very easily fluctuated between totalitarian and libertarian models. The lack of a free and fair press model framework continues to be the hallmark of Indian press. This talk will briefly trace the historiography of the debate on the press and its responsibility, and the need for a theoretical and philosophical framework suited for India. From inadequacies in the newsrooms to structural problems in the news industry, how does one start a conversation on a “democratic press”?