BIC TALKS

This episode of BIC Talks remembers an individual who has been described as “the conscience of the collective self known as Andhra society”. Arvind Narrain in a conversation with Aishwarya Ravikumar provides a primer and an insight into the inner workings of a profound and rare mind of clarity and action, as we mark his birth anniversary on the 10th of June.  K Balagopal (1952-2009) was a trained Mathematician who became one of the country’s most important human rights activists. He was initially with the Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee and then went on to found the Human Rights Forum. As an inspirational part of these human rights organisations he travelled the length and breadth of the land from Kashmir in the North to Orissa and the North East, Gujarat  and of course his own home state, the then Andhra Pradesh, producing an astonishing series of Fact Finding Reports which documented and analysed human rights violations. He also wrote extensively in the Economic and Political Weekly and was an insightful commentor on Indian political and legal developments right from Gujarat 2002, the rise of the Naxalites to the politics of Mandal. His writings and speeches have been archived at www.balagopal.org.  Arvind Narrain is a lawyer and writer based in Bangalore. Aishwarya Ravikumar has worked in different contexts to make short documentary films and learn about governance and community perspectives on land & forest rights, right to employment, fair wages and information and food sovereignty.

The word Dissent in its various misinterpretations has been in use for a while; within the zeitgeist of uncertainty that we are now living in, the immediacy of an engaged artist, citizen, human being has become apparent and urgent. This episode of BIC Talks with musician and author TM Krishna in conversation with activist and author Kavita Krishnan begins as a conversation based on Krishna’s newest book The Spirit of Enquiry: Notes on Dissent blossoms into a philosophical exchange on aesthetic, the practice and consumption of art, politics and socio political stances, that addresses crucial issues of caste, culture, class and gender with nuance and openness. Thodur Madabusi Krishna is an author and one of the pre-eminent vocalists in the rigorous Karnatik tradition of India’s classical music. Kavita Krishnan is activist and currently the Secretary of the All India Progressive Women’s Association (AIPWA), a women’s group that is especially active among women workers, agricultural laborers, and other sections of poor laboring women in rural and urban India. 

This episode of BIC talks is an extract from a BIC Streams session, where Zubin Balaporia and Shwetant Kumar take us on a journey celebrating Vanraj Bhatia's music and memory on what would have been his 94th birthday. You could say Vanraj Bhatia’s music crosses boundaries the way people cross the street! He was trained in Indian classical music from his schooldays, and in western classical music in London and in Paris, where he was Nadia Boulanger’s only Indian student. Frequently working with the best musicians and the latest technology in India, Bhatia created music that was as impossible to pigeonhole as was his colourful personality. His 60-year career spanned multiple disciplines: cinema, television, documentaries, major theatre productions, spiritual music, advertising jingles (7000 of them!), western classical and also new age music. It is very likely that every person in India knows at least one piece of music by him – even if they’ve never heard of him! We take this opportunity to celebrate Vanraj, his life and his music in our own small way.

How do you build a scientifically and technologically strong modern nation with limited means and resources? Indian scientists faced this challenge seven decades ago when the country became independent and confronted a world rapidly advancing in science and technology. In the years that followed, they battled poor funding and archaic regulations to build India's science infrastructure from scratch. Hari Pulakkat in his book, 'Space Life Matter' captures the story of the struggles and triumphs of these leaders of science and the institutions they founded. In this episode of BIC Talks which was originally a BIC Streams session, Hari, in conversation with science historian Jahnavi Phalkey talks about key events that shaped Indian science after independence that he explores in his book. This includes the cosmic-ray experiments at the Kolar Gold Fields, the building of the world’s largest radio telescope, ISRO's space observatory, and how persistent scientist-engineers developed a chemicals and pharmaceutical industry in India. Hari Pulakkat is a science journalist and writer based in Bangalore, with nearly three decades of experience in covering science and technology from an Indian point of view. In 2020, he was the winner of the Indira Gandhi Prize for Science Popularisation. Space Life Matter is his first book. Jahnavi Phalkey is a historian of science and the Founding Director of Science Gallery Bengaluru. 

We are well into the 21st century, and yet 50% of women and girls in developing countries, including India, cannot afford basic sanitary products to manage their periods, and rely on unhygienic practices such as old rags, sand and ash. Together with limited knowledge and limited sanitary facilities, this leads to serious health risks, such as reproductive and urinary tract infections. It also prevents women and girls from participating in essential daily activities, such as going to school and going to work. It’s estimated that every year, 23 million girls in India drop out school upon reaching puberty. We are here today for the occasion of World Menstrual Hygiene Day, to discuss how we can solve the challenge of period poverty to unlock gender equality, environmental sustainability and growth. In this conversation you will hear from two women with expertise in the menstrual hygiene space Mariana Lopez and Ira Guha. 

Between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries, a distinct form of Islamic thought and practice developed among Muslim trading communities of the Indian Ocean. In this episode of BIC Talks, economic historian and author of Monsoon Islam: Trade and Faith on the Medieval Malabar Coast, Sebastian R Prange and art historian and researcher, Ayesha Matthan explore the argument presented in Sebastian’s book, that this 'Monsoon Islam' was shaped by merchants not sultans, forged by commercial imperatives rather than in battle, and defined by the reality of Muslims living within non-Muslim societies. Focusing on India's Malabar Coast, the much-fabled 'land of pepper', Prange speaks of how Monsoon Islam developed in response to concrete economic, socio-religious, and political challenges.  Sebastian R Prange is an economic historian who researches the development of Muslim trade networks in the medieval Indian Ocean world. Ayesha Matthan is an art historian interested in photojournalistic practices, culture and politics in the Indian subcontinent from the 19th century to the present day.

'So, what's your exit strategy?' The question often leaves most entrepreneurs stumped as running a business leaves little time to think about anything else. While business owners recognise that they may have to exit their business at some point, few give enough thought to how they will sell it. And fewer prepare for it. In this episode of BIC Talks, K Srikrishna, serial entrepreneur, business mentor and author of The Art of a Happy Exit is in conversation with Hema Hattangady, author, entrepreneur and business leader on how can an entrepreneur prepare for all that selling their business entails. Hema, co-author of Liftoff: The Story of Conzerv has featured as the principal speaker on an earlier BIC Talks episode titled Succeeding in Business Ethically. K. Srikrishna, Ph.D., is a serial entrepreneur, business mentor and former angel investor. He founded his first company Impulsesoft in 1999, which grew from a bootstrapped organisation of two people to a global leader in Bluetooth wireless stereo music prior to being acquired by SiRF Technology of San Jose, CA. Hema Hattangady is an independent Director and thought leader in the energy efficiency space. She co-owned and ran Conzerv Systems in energy management products and services until she sold to Schneider Electric in 2009. Her story is a case that has been taught at the AMP at Harvard Business School. 

The enduring persistence, resurgence and mutation of many epidemic diseases have made apparent the problematic nature of the ‘epidemic disease narrative’ in the 21st century. Through the lens of the history of polio vaccination and treatment from a seemingly peripheral, Eastern European perspective, Dora Vargha aims to shift our attention to question what, when, and for whom is an end of an epidemic ‘the end’, and what happens after. This episode of BIC Talks is in association with Science Gallery Bengaluru and was originally part of their ongoing online exhibition season - Contagion, open until the 13th of June, 2021. Do visit bengaluru.sciencegallery.com for more talks and an exhibition experience of Contagion. Dora Vargha is historian of medicine, science and technology at the University of Exeter, based jointly at the Department of History and the Wellcome Centre for Cultures and Environments of Health and is co-editor of Social History of Medicine journal. She has published on vaccine development in Eastern Europe, the Cold War politics of polio, disability in communist Hungary, and epidemic narratives in current global health policies. Jahnavi Phalkey is historian of science and the Founding Director of Science Gallery Bengaluru. 

Memories of a city and its unique brand of life come from the people who make it memorable and places that work as pegs for those memories. One such person who created that space which so many Bangaloreans remember with unfaltering fondness and affection is Mr. Shanbhag, the gentle bibliophile who created a warm and welcoming space, synonymous with his personality in Premier Bookshop. Premier is remembered with great affection as a Bangalore institution by people of several generations. The impact that the bookshop and the person running it have had is reflected in the outpouring of grief and tribute across channels, from across the world when news of Mr.Shanbhag’s passing broke on 5th of May 2021. In this episode of BIC Talks a few Bangaloreans remember and pay tribute to TS Shanbhag. Image credit- Raghav Shreyas 

Gandhi’s autobiography is famous for the austerity of its narration, and its veracity. Less known are his autobiographical observations made, almost incidentally, in the course of his speeches and writings. This episode of BIC Talks features Gopalkrishna Gandhi  in conversation with scholar and author Sunil Khilnani about the latest book ‘Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi: Restless as Mercury: My Life as a Young Man’ edited by Gopalkrishna Gandhi which seeks to complement The Story of my Experiments with Truth.  This book culls out, mainly from The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi some of those pertaining to his life as a young man. They tell the extraordinary story of the householder and lawyer, very fallible, vulnerable, but ready to self-correct and eager to learn from peers and those who he acknowledged as shapers of his life. This episode is an extract from an earlier BIC streams session.  Gopalkrishna Gandhi is Distinguished Professor of History and Politics at Ashoka University. Sunil Khilnani is Professor of Politics and History at Ashoka University.