LILA’s quest is to understand how the act of living can be made organic and transformative — it is a continuing enterprise to find ways of actualising the experience of constant renewal, and share them, thereby enabling individuals and communities to profoundly appreciate life’s transformative value. Since its inception, LILA has been organising the interdisciplinary series of lectures, LILA PRISM, during Aug-Dec every year. PRISM, for us, holds together five constituent elements of transformation: Performativity, Relevance, Innovation, Sustainability and Multiplicity.In the first year (2013), eminent experts from 15 different disciplines discussed the question of ‘development’ in their respective areas. Most of them concluded that there are issues of discontinuity, fragmentation, exclusion and marginalisation in their fields while they attempt to adopt and implement the neo-liberal development strategies. In the second year (2014), hence, we asked ourselves if there was a way to understand ‘development’ differently in the Indian context — a way of understanding how certain fields have survived the test of time, and what challenges they are facing now. PRISM 2014 on Cultures as Continuum hence looked for paradigms of continuity in fields ranging from Bronze to Food, Cotton to Puppetry, Tribal Societies to Cartoon Art.

Simultaneously, we have been trying to evolve our governance model of LILA Terra-Sutra, and the concept of Organic Governance that relies on the inherent strengths of locales to arrive at an organic path of governance. An outline of LILA Terra-Sutra is available in our Vision Manifesto here. The major question that we face is this: How can we go deeper than our current take off points in the discourses of development and governance? If urbs implies ‘settlement’, and the urban has stemmed from the human urge to move away from the jungle’s unsettlement, ‘urban spaces’ becomes a misnomer for our present day cities. The concern here is, how to bring settlement, of mind, body and spirit, to human beings vis-a-vis time and space, and what is the governance that would lead us to fulfill our quest for true urbanity?’ LILA PRISM 2015 on ‘Transformative Governance’, attempts to explore these issues. It may not be viable to overturn the prevalent patterns of development, and bring in a completely new order of governance. Yet, we can certainly transform, slowly and steadily, if we think and act together. We are at another historical juncture where we need to evolve a methodology of creative nonviolence. How do we do that?

LILA PRISM 2015 on Transformative Governance seeks to shift our governance thinking from its current take off points, thus creating designs and discourses relevant to our changing contexts. In this landmark series of public lectures, 15 thinker-doers from different terrains of life share their insights about making Transformative Governance a reality in a multidynamic India.

Entry is free !

Speakers

August

Media and Transformative Governance in the Indian Context

Mass Communication and Transformative Governance

India’s Crisis is Faecal:
No More Time to Waste

Mark Tully

Chair: Saeed Naqvi

Thu. 6 August | More details

Jawhar Sircar

Chair: Subhash Chandra Agrawal

Thu. 13 August | More details

Raj Liberhan

Chair: Yatish Rajawat

Tue. 18 August | More details

September

Slum Communities and Transformative Governance

Pre-Requisites of Good Governance

Scientific Temper and Transformative Governance

Dunu Roy

Chair: Partha Mukhopadhyay

Thu. 3 September | More details

Soli Sorabjee

Chair: Ajit Prakash Shah

Thu. 10 September | More details

Gauhar Raza

Chair: Aditya Mukherjee

Fri. 25 September | More details

October

International Economic Relations and Internal Governance

Sense of Design and Transformative Governance

Education and Transformative Governance

Rajat Kathuria

Chair: Anil Padmanabhan

Sun. 4 October | More details

Rajeev Sethi

Co-Chairs: Gurmeet S Rai & Raghu Rai

Thu. 8 October | More details

Kavita Sharma

Chair: Karan Singh

Sun. 25 October | More details

November

Managing Delhi’s Greens: Ecology and Governance

Translocal Governance of Heritage

Artistic Heritage and Transformative Governance in India

Pradip Krishen

Chair: Shekhar Singh

Sat. 7 November | More details

Aman Nath

Chair: Ratish Nanda

Thu. 19 November | More details

Jyotindra Jain

Chair: Gulam Mohammed Sheikh

Sat. 21 November | More details

December

Food Cultures
and Transformative Governance

Art Administration and Transformative Governance

Presence and Representation: Gender, Government
and Green Governance

Pushpesh Pant

Chair: Sohail Hashmi

Wed. 9 December | More details

Kapila Vatsyayan

Tue. 15 December

More details

Bina Agarwal

Chair: Zoya Hasan

Tue. 22 December | More details

LILA PRISM Lecture Series 2015