2012

10 February

Palagummi Sainath: The agrarian crisis and farmer suicides in India

Date: Friday, 10th February 2012
Time: 12:30 PM
Where: UTS Building 10 (235 Jones St, Ultimo), Level 5, Room 425 (China Research Centre Meeting Room)

RSVP: Lola.Davidson@uts.edu.au

About The Speaker: Palagummi Sainath, or P. Sainath as he is popularly known, is India’s most highly-awarded journalist with over 40 international and national awards for his investigative and social sector reporting. He is the Rural Affairs Editor of The Hindu – a 133-year-old daily with a circulation of over 1.6 million. Sainath was the first Indian  journalist in 25 years to win the Ramon Magsaysay Prize in 2007 for his “passionate commitment as a journalist to restore the rural poor to India’s national consciousness.” He won the United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization’s Boerma Prize in 2001 and was the first reporter in the world to win Amnesty International’s Global Human Rights Journalism Award. Sainath’s book Everybody Loves a Good Drought, now in its 33rd printing, has remained a Penguin non-fiction best-seller for years.

2011

17 March

Amit Dasgupta (Consul General of India)

‘Globalization, Migration and the Dilemma of Identity: Ramblings of an Indian by Choice’

12.30 to 2 pm, UTS Building 10 (235 Jones St), Level 2 , Room 4.10

Abstract: Economic globalization is poised to intensify. The trend towards Mergers and Acquisitions is predicted to continue to be strong in 2011. According to Bloomberg, the world’s Top 1000 companies had accumulated strong cash reserves of $3000 billion between 2009-10. Stabilization in the credit markets would allow for easier financing for companies looking for acquisitions. As a net result, companies are likely to gradually shed their ‘national’ identity and be seen as either being efficiently or inefficiently run, rather than as ‘a Japanese company’ or ‘an American company’. This process is also likely to see freer movement of people and thus, of migration. Migration, which is driven by economic reasons, nevertheless, has a profound social impact and triggers discussions on the social impact of economic globalization and multiculturalism.

The talk will try to address how this would impact on identity and how circumstances would determine the chosen identity.

Examples would be drawn from the book Indian by Choice [Amit Dasgupta; Wisdom Tree; 2009].

RSVP required: Cornelia.Betzler@uts.edu.au

14 April

Carole Douglas

‘Threads of Traditions – the textile arts of Kachchh, Gujarat’

12.30 – 1.30 pm, UTS Building 10 (235 Jones St), Level 5, Room 210

Abstract: The location of Kachchh has dictated its destiny and the character of its people. With direct access to the Arabian Sea its ports were a vital link in the trade routes between India and Arabia, Africa and the western world.
Caravans traversed the fertile plains of the Indus and the mountain passes of the north and the region (which is now called Kachchh) attracted traders and travellers, adventurers and conquerors, scholars and kings, nomadic pastoralists and religious orders to its promise.

This presentation will trace the history of migration and traditions carried into Kachchh and illustrate the factors that made Kachchh an international hub of textiles that is still strong today.

RSVP required: Cornelia.Betzler@uts.edu.au

2010

11 November

Roanna Gonsalves

Curry Munchers, Cricket, and Crime : A writer’s response to the violence against Indian students in Australia

About the presentation: Who would have thought that curry crimes could be solved with cricket? Curry Munchers, Cricket, and Crime takes a look at the violence against Indian students in Australia, through IPL-tinted glasses. It also explores how the recent spate of attacks has thrown up some unusual bedfellows. It presents some artistic responses to the violence, and poses the question, Where does the racism really lie when it comes to international students in Australia?

About Roanna Gonsalves: Roanna Gonsalves is an Indian Australian writer who once came to Australia as an international student. Her work has been performed/published across various media including Screen, Indian Express, PACT Youth Theatre, Eureka Street, ABC Radio National etc. Most recently she worked with Melbourne Workers Theatre on a verbatim theatre show about the violence against Indian students, Yet To Ascertain The Nature of The Crime, which plays in Melbourne from Nov 3 to 14, 2010.

30 September

‘Does Gandhi Matter?’
A documentary film by Manoj Raghuvanshi

After the film screening the Indian Consul General Amit Dasgupta will be in conversation with Vinod Daniel, Board Member of the Australia India Council.

About the film:
To mark the 141st birthday of Mahatma Gandhi on the 2 October, the IOSARN is pleased to continue its Talking India Series with a film screening showing the documentary ‘Does Gandhi Matter’ by renowned Indian filmmaker Manoj Raghuvanshi.

In times of growing interest in and the re-discovery of the Mahatma and his message of peace, tolerance and non-violence, the question the film poses begs to be answered. Through interviews with a wide cross-section of people, the documentary tries to capture the immediate reaction that the question evokes.

About Vinod Daniel:
Vinod is a Board Member of the Australia India Council (Australia’s Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade). This appointment by the Australian Governor general to be one of the eight board members has a key mandate to broaden and deepen Australia-India relations.

He is also the Chairman of the Australia India Council (Australia’s International Heritage Industry Network), Branch Head at the Australian Museum, Vice Chairman of the International Council of Museums-Committee for Conservation and President of the Board for the Australian operations of the internationally recognized, Indian-based, Centre for Environmental Education.

He has published and presented over 60 papers on various aspects of heritage practice and worked on international initiatives in over forty countries. Vinod works extensively with India on Arts, Culture, Public Health and Environmental co operation. He was awarded the 2009 Indo-Australian Award for Meritorious Service by the Indo-Australian Association and is also one of the sixty invited members of Tourism Australia’s “Friend of Australia’ program.

2 September

Presented by Indian film maker Suresh Kohli: ”Kashmir in Indian Poetry’ and ‘Through a Lens Clearly: Raghu Rai’s India”

About the presentation:
‘Kashmir in Indian Poetry’ uses poetic outpourings in various Indian languages to explore Indian perceptions of the region that was once described as “paradise on earth,” and is now the site of escalating violence.

‘Through a Lens Clearly: Raghu Rai’s India’ follows one of India’s foremost artists and photo-journalists on his journey through the vibrant and diverse cultures of the nation.

The two films are introduced by the director, Suresh Kohli, and followed by an audience Q&A session.

About Suresh Kohli: Suresh Kohli has carved out a  niche in various disciplines of creative communication. He is a poet, author, literary critic, translator, editor, film historian, and a leading short and documentary film maker with more than 24 books, and 80 films to his credit