Perhaps no other issue today is as confronting as our warming earth. What we need are thousands - millions - of everyday conversations about the climate to enlarge the ranks of the concerned, engage the disengaged and persuade the cautious of the need for action. While companies and governments are hugely responsible for the mess we’re in, can individuals effect real, significant, and lasting change to solve this problem. Towards the end of October 2021, filmmaker and designer Jenny Pinto engaged authors and researchers Prof. Kimberly Nicholas and Dr. Rebecca Huntley on their work and their books on Climate Change and the shifting of the strategy on conversations around the impending climate emergency.

India has been one of the biggest contributors towards global efforts at reconstructing Afghanistan. Over the last two decades, India’s development partnership with Afghanistan has had four fundamental elements: a) humanitarian assistance; b) infrastructural projects; c) small and community-based development projects; and d) capacity-building programmes. (Source: Observer Research Foundation) In this episode of BIC Talks recorded in November 2021, experts on India-Afghanistan relations, Suhasini Haidar, Shantie D’souza and Anand Arni give us a reading of the situation and analyse the implications of the recent developments with respect to India’s relations with the people of Afghanistan. BIC Talks is brought to you by the Bangalore International Centre. Visit the BIC website for show notes, links and more information about the guests.

Art historian, writer and educator Alice Procter embarks on everything that a historian in mainstream establishment shuns. She speaks about colonial loot, whiteness, historical trauma, myths of national identity besides excavating the colonial story of art in museums. Her unofficial and unauthorised Uncomfortable Art Tours initiative has been unpacking colonial narrative since 2017 across some of Britain’s leading museums.  Her book The Whole Picture: The Colonial Story of the Art in Our Museums & why We Need to Talk about it deftly unpacks many of the themes that guide her work and asks crucially ‘…who has the right to hold objects, and to tell their stories? Alice in this conversation with Pramod Kumar KG, art historian and co-founder of Eka Archiving Services deliberates on repatriation and restitution and the need to explore alternative histories of objects, people, and collections.  This episode of BIC Talks was originally a live BIC Streams session in collaboration with Eka Archiving Services. 

The question of judicial diversity has long featured in global discourse, encompassing demographic characteristics such as gender, race, ethnicity, religion, socio-economic background etc. as well as professional background. Arguments in favour of prioritising judicial diversity emphasise that it provides decision-making power to previously disenfranchised sections of society, and that a diverse bench is an essential component of a fair and impartial judiciary. But in the Indian context, popular discourse on courts tends to exclusively focus on case delay, ignoring other systemic problems that are equally important for maintaining public confidence in the judiciary, and for ensuring that the courts function in a just and equitable manner. While there are many dimensions to the diversity debate, this episode of BIC Talks focuses on gender diversity in the lower judiciary. Highlighting some of the outcomes from two research papers on this subject are lawyers and researchers Deepika Kinhal and Shreya Tripathy in conversation with lawyer Poornima Hatti.

Who are the Indian Muslims? Are they a monolithic community practising a faith alien to India? Or are they a diverse people, geographically rooted in the cultural ethos of the land? Is there an ‘Indian Islam’? In this episode of BIC Talks, author Ghazala Wahab in a conversation with historian Rajmohan Gandhi takes a clear-eyed look at every aspect of Islam in India today.  Weaving together personal memoir, history, reportage, scholarship, and interviews with a wide variety of people, Ghazala’s book Born a Muslim highlights how an apathetic and sometimes hostile government attitude and prejudice at all levels of society have contributed to Muslim vulnerability and insecurity. This conversation is an extract from a BIC Streams event. 

Vachana Sahitya is a form of literature unique to the Sharanas of the 11th to 13th Century CE in Karnataka. Vachana means speech. The Sharanas chose to use everyday language of the time over the prevailing poetic structure and language to make it accessible to people of the streets as well as the learned connoisseurs. This sets it apart from the classical Sanskrit tradition of poetry. The Vachanas represent the deep philosophical journey the Vacharakaara or Sharana takes towards self awareness and divinity. A Sharana could be from any walk of life - a farmer, a sex worker, a cobbler, a cleaner- anyone who believed that one’s work and one's own conscience is the divine.  This movement rejected caste, class and gender bias and upheld the tradition of intellectual awareness. Recent studies reveal the expanse of Vachana Sahitya could be far more widespread than it was believed before, going beyond Kannada and Karnataka. In this episode of BIC Talks Musician Sumitra Nitin, accompanied by Abhiram Nitin, takes us on an introductory journey of a selection of Vachanas and the essence each of them carry.

History is famously unkind and there are few who witness a changing world and can set the record straight. In this no-holds-barred conversation with lawyer Rahul Matthan, about his book, A Rude Life journalist Vir Sanghvi treats us to anecdotes, personalities and era altering events in his inimitable equanimous style. The conversation sprinkled with fascinating tidbits and a generous amount of chuckles features Vir’s personal impressions of and interactions with prime ministers, presidents, kingmakers, mafiosos among other characters and presents them in a most human and accessible light. This conversation is an extract from a BIC Venue in-person event. 

When musicians of two proudly distinct though overlapping traditions encounter each other as two contemplative artists and thinking people of music, the conversation is no less than a refreshing jugalbandi of the highest order. In this episode of BIC Talks, Ustad Zakir Hussain and TM Krishna meet and converse for the first time. In a freewheeling tête-à-tête leaving their performative selves aside and talk about their respective experiences that have shaped them as artists, their craft, artistry, the importance of listening and engagement with the world around them. This conversation is adapted from a BIC Streams session presented by JSW, in collaboration with Literature Live.

In this episode of BIC Talks, historian of science Jahnavi Phalkey speaks with eminent scientist  Raghunath Mashelkar about his journey in scientific-industrial research, his leadership style, the status of scientific-industrial research in India@75, and how might India think about bringing home a Nobel Prize in science after having waited for nearly a century! This episode is adapted from a BIC Streams session presented by JSW as part of the Anil Dharker Literature Live! Independence Lecture.

The Brahmaputra born as Yarlung Tsangpo in Tibet transforms into the Dihang River in Arunachal Pradesh, and later morphs into Luit, Dilao in Assam, is a trans-boundary river flowing through Tibet, India, and Bangladesh - which contributes to the complexity of history, politics and lives in the region.  In this episode of BIC Talks, journalist Tora Agarwala is in conversation with author of  the Braided River, Samrat Choudhury where they talk about the environmental, military and political issues the region faces through Samrat’s book which blends travel, memoir and history with the present.