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Gae Emilio Leanza | November 8th, 2012
During a recent lecture at Brown University, one of the most famous journalists in India Barkha Dutt read an excerpt from her upcoming memoir Unquiet Land: Exploring India’s Fault Lines. Widely known for her coverage of conflict zones, fault... -
Gae Emilio Leanza | October 25th, 2012
As a pseudo-Marxist, vehement criticism of the excesses of Delhi’s upper crust is a theme familiar to me. In fact, if I were to create a list of things that occupied most of my time in Delhi this summer, discussing class politics comes in only... -
Gae Emilio Leanza | October 17th, 2012
It is perhaps impossible to consider what India would be like today without Mohandas K. Gandhi. His ideas and the mass demonstrations he led defined the Indian Nationalist Movement in its fight against the British colonial administration. The... -
Gae Emilio Leanza | October 1st, 2012
Professors Partha Chatterjee and Ashutosh Varshney, already seated with several graduate students in an isolated corner of the Brown Faculty Club when I arrived, were deeply engaged in a debate about the Indian Penal Code. My presence temporarily... -
Dominic Mhiripiri | May 6th, 2011
“24,000 children die every single day because of preventable water-borne diseases, and $600 million is the annual GDP loss in India alone from lost productivity because of preventable water-borne diseases,” says Brown University third-year student... -
Sarah K | April 24th, 2011
It's been a busy couple months. But I am finally proud and happy to present the video I have made for the Delhi Commonwealth Women's Association (DCWA). I was so amazed by the DCWA volunteers, and it was an honor to make this video for them. I... -
Dominic Mhiripiri | April 5th, 2011
Above: Ramachandra Guha _ You can watch the full webcast of this talk on the Asia Society website here Ramachandra Guha, the preeminent Indian historian and author of two blockbuster narratives on the modern making of his country, provided a... -
Dominic Mhiripiri | March 23rd, 2011
Asia Society, the global pan-Asian organization promoting ties between the continent and the United States, will host one of the most preeminent public intellectuals, historians and authors in contemporary India — Ramachandra Guha, on Friday, March... -
Thane Richard | February 14th, 2011
On this episode we talk to Nancy Barry about microfinance and her work with Enterprise Solutions to Poverty. The scandal with SKS Microfinance has plunged India into a state of doubt regarding the ethics and viability of this model - we ask Nancy... -
Thane Richard | February 13th, 2011
On this episode we talk to Mitesh Panchan who has been volunteering in Sanjay Gandhi National Park for the last decade. Mitesh talks about the importance of the park, things that need to be done to allow it to continue to thrive, as well as ways to... -
Alexandra Ulmer | February 7th, 2011
If you compliment elderly Indians, they’ll likely credit God’s kindness or blessings bestowed on their life, according to Anand Giridharadas, a New York Times columnist and writer. But if you congratulate young Indians for nabbing a job at... -
Elias Scheer | January 15th, 2011
The Shodh Yatra was undoubtedly one of the most powerful learning experiences of my life. It is difficult to imagine what a rural lifestyle in the developing world actually looks and feels like until you go there and walk from village to village,... -
Sarah K | December 4th, 2010
*Note: I finished writing about my travels and adventures in India with the Pragati Schools a while back, but have only now found my way to uploading them to the blog. Apologies for their tardiness, and also for the way they are written. I wrote... -
Sarah K | December 4th, 2010
*Note: I finished writing about my travels and adventures in India with the Pragati Schools a while back, but have only now found my way to uploading them to the blog. Apologies for their tardiness, and also for the way they are written. I... -
Sarah K
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December 1st, 2010
*Note: I finished writing about my travels and adventures in India with the Pragati Schools a while back, but have only now found my way to uploading them to the blog. Apologies for their tardiness, and also for the way they are written. I wrote...
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Thane Richard | November 24th, 2010
On this week’s episode we talk to William Dalrymple, author, historian, and co-director of the Jaipur Literature Festival. We chat with him about what it takes to organize the Jaipur Festival, his take on Indian literature and how, as a festival... -
R. David Coolidge | November 8th, 2010
In my understanding, if God is God, then all of reality must be understandable in reference to God. There is nothing in the world that is an "abomination" to God, for it is only in the world because God has decreed it to be. This is an idea that I... -
Chris Lydon
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September 3rd, 2010
NEW DELHI -- Ashis Nandy has a big idea about "loss and recovery" in the history of colonialism. The bumpersticker version is that the conquerors and colonists lose in the end; the vanquished victims win. He is talking, of course, about England...
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Chris Lydon
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August 31st, 2010
Click to listen to Chris' conversation with Sudhir Kakar (17 minutes, 8 mb mp3) NEW DELHI -- Sudhir Kakar has built a Freudian bridge to the alternate universe that is India. The India he writes and talks about is different not only from our world...
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Chris Lydon
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August 26th, 2010
Click to listen to Chris' conversation with Tarun Tejpal (66 minutes, 32 mb mp3) NEW DELHI -- Tarun Tejpal -- muckraker, editor and novelist -- is speaking with professional zeal and a certain generational remorse about his remarkable ten-year-old...
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Chris Lydon
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August 25th, 2010
Click to listen to Chris' conversation with Mark Tully (40 minutes, 19 mb mp3) NEW DELHI -- Mark Tully is something like the Edward R. Murrow of India. He has been the beloved voice of the BBC in New Delhi since 1964 -- knighted by Queen Elizabeth...
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Chris Lydon
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August 24th, 2010
Click to listen to Chris' conversation with Shashi Tharoor (41 minutes, 20 mb mp3) NEW DELHI -- Shashi Tharoor is the global Indian who came home -- who scored a thundering victory in his first run for office, and has been paying the price ever...
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Chris Lydon
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August 20th, 2010
Click to listen to Chris' conversation with M. A. Baby (29 minutes, 14 mb mp3) TRIVANDRUM, Kerala -- M. A. Baby is giving us an introductory dose of Indian leftism in power. A Communist and a Catholic, too, he is the Minister of Education and...
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The Editors | August 19th, 2010
Parachute Radio on the Global Conversation has been dropping small packages of India down for our readers over the summer. As Radio Open Source host Christopher Lydon and colleague Paul McCarthy traversed India, they filed vivid shorts, vividly... -
Chris Lydon
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August 17th, 2010
Click to listen to Chris' conversation with Paul Zacharia. (33 minutes, 15 mb mp3) Paul Zacharia is a novelist and story writer eminent in the Malayalam language and in Trivandrum, the southernmost big city in India and the capital of the famously...
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Chris Lydon | August 16th, 2010
Click to listen in on Chris' slum tour with Brindge Adige. (54 minutes, 26 mb mp3) BANGALORE -- Brinda Adige, a self-starting social activist, in yellow sari, is our guide to the slum side of Bangalore and the virtual canyon between the public... -
Chris Lydon | August 12th, 2010
"First I hit. And if he still has his senses, then we talk." This is Kamakshi speaking. In the smelly slum that houses about 10,000 families or 50,000 souls near the heart of India's digital boomtown, Bangalore, Kamakshi is the first and... -
Chris Lydon | August 12th, 2010
Click to listen in on the conversation at Koshys Cafe. (35 minutes, 16 mb mp3) "... And our nation, though it has no drinking water, electricity, sewage system, public transportation, sense of hygiene, discipline, courtesy or punctuality, does have... -
Chris Lydon | August 11th, 2010
Click to listen in on Chris's visit to the Ubuntu workshop in Ramanagar. (22 minutes, 11 mb mp3) RAMANAGAR -- We drove out about 50 kilometers south and west of Bangalore to see a busted "silk city" and a social "silver bullet" in action. Vibha... -
Zak Leonard | August 11th, 2010
Being in the business of new media, I have a particular interest in the journalistic representation of events and issues for public consumption. The role of the media in modern India is an issue worthy of a blog discussion, given the often... -
Chris Lydon | August 5th, 2010
Click to listen to Chris's conversation with the Ramachandra Guha. (58 minutes, 28 mb mp3) BANGALORE -- Ramachandra Guha, the provocative, critical historian of India After Gandhi, has vitality and charisma to match his country's. Writing and... -
Chris Lydon | August 3rd, 2010
Since anyone can remember, people in India kept their teeth healthy by scrubbing them with mango leaves and chewing sticks of the Neem tree. Natural antibacterial properties kept mouths happy, they say. Today all middle and upper class Indians... -
Chris Lydon
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August 3rd, 2010
Click to listen to Chris' conversation with Namita Gokhale (34 minutes, 17 mb mp3) NEW DELHI -- Namita Gokhale -- novelist, publisher, sparkplug of the annual Jaipur Literature Festival -- says the essential (maybe the only) revolution in India...
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Chris Lydon | August 3rd, 2010
Click to listen to Chris's conversation with the Suprabha Seshan. (27 minutes, 13 mb mp3) BANGALORE -- Suprabha Seshan -- a gardener and guardian of the land, living for the last 17 years in the wild rain forest of Kerala, near the southwest tip of... -
Chris Lydon | July 27th, 2010
Bharati Raja Reddy is the Indian entrepreneur we didn't expect to meet: a young man of the Old India happy to be dropping out of the New. He is a soft-spoken Hindu nationalist who's devoted to the social comfort of his upper caste, denoted by... -
Chris Lydon | July 26th, 2010
Flexibility, hierarchy, politics, non-aggression and horns -- India reveals itself on the road. Of course street life is the lowest hanging fruit for an outsider of a society to witness, but after talking to all kinds of Indians for two weeks,... -
Chris Lydon | July 24th, 2010
The graceful ladies in a needlework-training collective are a glimpse of the proud poverty everywhere to be seen in India. We're in a third-floor sewing workshop run by the NGO Ubuntu-at-Work in Ramanagar, a busted silk city not far from Bangalore... -
Sarah K | July 22nd, 2010
Here are some more photographs from my time working at the clinic with Maggie. Now you can see what I mean about all the saris. India is so full of color! -
Chris Lydon | July 22nd, 2010
Click to listen to Chris's conversation with the Chhiber-Mathew family. (46 minutes, 22 mb mp3) BANGALORE -- Neelam Chhiber met her husband Jacob Mathew in graduate school, the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad. Today, with their 19-year-... -
Sarah K | July 19th, 2010
My favorite thing about India is the color. Even the poorest women wear beautiful, bright saris, when walking through mud puddles or living in huts made of trash. The culture is infused with silks and draping fabrics. I have always been in love with... -
Chris Lydon | July 19th, 2010
On the backside of the Bangalore boom, the stinky private squalor supporting the world-class private affluence is the shocker. The new Indian slum -- growing up with the Information Technology capital -- is a work-in-progress between shanty town and... -
Sarah K | July 19th, 2010
Okay. It’s time to come clean. Originally, I was coming to India to volunteer at the Pragati Schools and help make a presskit for them to use to increase their visibility and fundraise. When I was trying to organize my trip, I asked my contact,... -
Sarah K | July 12th, 2010
After a week of being here, I’ve already seen so much, it’s hard to know where to start. The Pragati schools are wonderful. There are three of them, each named after whatever large building they are closest to. Vatika holds the... -
Sarah K | July 10th, 2010
There have been a lot of highlights of my trip so far. But this is one of my favorites. -
Sarah K | July 5th, 2010
Yesterday was a down day, and I spent the morning vomiting, the afternoon scurrying around trying to find a new converter (the one I brought doesn’t work), and the evening running through all of my equipment, making sure it all worked. The... -
Zak Leonard | June 30th, 2010
It is a lamentable fact that the Brown's Year of India has concluded. And yet, this news should not be overly distressing, for Brown University libraries boast a myriad of materials on Indian arts and culture. I recently stumbled upon the Minassian... -
Zak Leonard | June 18th, 2010
Since the partition of British India in 1947, India and Pakistan have been locked in a struggle for dominance. The two countries continue to vie for control of the Kashmir region, an area long embroiled in territorial disputes. Religious differences... -
Zak Leonard | June 16th, 2010
Here at the Global Conversation, we are expanding the partnership between India and Brown established this past year through the Year of India initiative. In the upcoming month, the Year of India website will be converted into an archive, while this... -
Sarah K | May 26th, 2010
Hello! My name is Sarah Kay, and I am less than a week away from graduating Brown University with a Bachelor’s degree in Modern Culture and Media. There has been a lot of chaos surrounding my life recently with the rush to graduation, but I’m...
India at Brown
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