BIC TALKS

Kumaravyasa's Bharata is a crown jewel of Kannada literature, beloved by scholars and common people alike. In this 15th-century classic, Kumaravyasa reimagines Vyasa's epic, making it more compact, dramatic, closer to everyday life and language. He dispenses with most didactic material, cuts out subsidiary tales, and concludes with the end of the war. Here, Krishna, who is cool, clever, charming, and charismatic, is the central character, but many others, such as Draupadi, Karna, and Duryodhana leave an indelible mark. He narrates the story through fast-moving, deftly crafted situations, where characters confront grand conflicts and articulate subtle and complex emotions in brilliant metaphorical language. In this series of masterclasses, Professors SN Sridhar and Krishnamurthy Hanuru will introduce the audience to several aspects of Kumaravyasa's poetic genius, illustrating them with the modern English translations the first volume of which has just been published as The Kannada Mahabharata by Harvard University Press in the Murty Classical Library of India series.

The first episode places the poet in relation to his life and times, discusses his unique poetic manifesto, outlines the work, and highlights his originality in the way he creatively transforms Vyasa's prototype of the Mahabharata and Pampa's version.

In this episode of BIC Talks Professors Sridhar and Hanuru illustrate Kumaravyasa's genius and versatility while analysing what accounts for the enduring popularity of his work for over half a millennium.

This is an excerpt from an in-person masterclass series that took place in January 2024.

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How do people, who are often at the receiving end of legal violence, engage with the law?

Amidst the grinding terror trials – which are replete with stories of torture, illegal detention and fabricated charges – this presentation will discuss how the terror-accused schooled themselves in legal language and came to understand how paperwork's certificatory procedures produce legal truth. Though seemingly mundane, legal technicalities are fraught and highly contested, and acquire urgent ethical qualities in the life of a trial: legal language becomes a question of a form of life. The file becomes a space in which the world can be made or unmade, and the petition is a way of imagining a future.

In attending to the ways in which legal technicalities are made to work – through legal language and through files – we are offered a way of understanding how human expressiveness, creativity and vulnerability emerge through the law.

In this episode of BIC Talks, author and senior lecturer in law at SOAS, University of London, Mayur Suresh talks about his research in the area, followed by a conversation with research manager at Daksh, Leah Verghese.

This episode is an extract from an in-person event that took place at the BIC premises in mid-December 2023.

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Pranay Kotasthane, Co-author of "Missing in Action," and Devashish Dhar, Author of "India's Blind Spot," come together for a unique duet in the realm of policy. Drawing inspiration from the classical music approach of jugalbandi that allows artists to showcase their mastery of instruments, Pranay and Devashish leverage their experiences at Takshashila Institution and NITI Aayog, respectively, to weave a harmonious narrative on public policymaking.

Having both spent time at the Takshashila Institution, they bring a rich understanding of the intricate world of policy. As they collaborate and build upon each other's work, this policy jugalbandi aims to unravel the complexities of policymaking for our audience.

In this episode of BIC Talks, our speakers, Pranay Kotasthane and Devashish Dhar, delve into the core of public policy, offering fresh insights and perspectives. Pranay, with his co-authorship on "Missing in Action," challenges the prevalent perceptions about the Indian State, urging us to reflect on its workings. Meanwhile, Devashish, the author of "India's Blind Spot," sheds light on the challenges and opportunities that define India's experiment with urbanization, emphasizing how cities have become the country's blind spot.

In this exploration of policy, our participants dissect fundamental concepts and propose innovative solutions to the complex issues. This episode was adapted from a live event at the BIC premises.

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Gandhiji gave expression to his dreams for Swaraj or Independent India on many occasions in many ways.

"The Swaraj of my…our…dream recognizes no race or religious destinations. Nor is it to be the monopoly of the lettered persons nor yet of moneyed men. Swaraj is to be for all, including the farmer, but emphatically including the maimed, the blind, the starving toiling millions." Young India, 26-3-1931

"It has been said that Indian Swaraj will be the rule of the majority community, i. e. the Hindus. There could not be a greater mistake than that. If it were to be true, I for one would refuse to call it Swaraj and would fight it with all the strength at my command, for to me Hind Swaraj is the rule of all people, is the rule of justice." Young India, 16-4-1931

This talk by Prof. Mridula Mukherjee explores the multiple facts of the Mahatma's vision for India, especially his ideas and practice on religion and secularism, democracy and dissent, violence and non-violence. It will also pose the question: to what extent have we been faithful to Gandhiji's dreams? Where have we failed him? Does the India of his dreams remain an ideal for Indians today?

This episode of BIC Talks is an excerpt from an in-person event that took place in October 2023 as the Prof. Satish Chandra Memorial Lecture.

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This episode of BIC Talks is an excerpt from a live discussion at the BIC premises presented by DAKSH in late October 2023. The panelists in this discussion were Justice Suraj Govindraj, Judge, Karnataka High Court; Sarayu Natarajan, Founder, Aapti Institute; Prof. Nomesh Boliya, Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Delhi and moderated by Surya Prakash BS, Programme Director at DAKSH.

The panel discusses Daksh's newest publication - Technology and Analytics for Law and Justice - a unique volume that examines the evolution of technology in the law and justice system in India. It delves into the challenges and opportunities presented by technology, current thinking on the subject, and what the future may hold for this rapidly developing field.

From tracing the historical journey of law and technology in India to the rise of 'justice makers,' the impact of cutting-edge forensic technology, the world of smart contracts, and the realm of surveillance, this book offers a comprehensive and thought-provoking look at the ever -changing landscape of law and technology.

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In the aftermath of ChatGPT fueled AI hype, there's an equally charged conversation on how the public and governments should respond to present (and future) harms related to these technologies. It's a crowded space – with AI industry voices and existential risk (x-risk) doomers trying to shape the narrative on regulation alongside civil society advocates and government agencies.

With many combined decades of experience critiquing and working within the tech industry, Meredith Whittaker, Amba Kak & Udbhav Tiwari share their insights and perspectives on the current AI hype wave and the related policy landscape, with a particular focus on the threats this poses to privacy, and the ways that the dominant narratives are getting AI wrong.

This episode of BIC Talks is adapted from an in-person event that took place in early October 2023, in collaboration with Signal and Hasgeek.

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As we approach the 300 episode milestone, this special installment of BIC Talks - the last of 2023 - featuring V Ravichandar, honorary director of BIC, Raghu Tenkayala, Chief of Operations and Infrastructure and Vikram Bhat, current Joint Director, taking over as director from the first of January in conversation with Lekha Naidu, Programme Manager and Custodian of the podcast.

This episode features an informal chat - an exercise in looking back for insights and looking forward with an evolved vision as far as the podcast is concerned. In this two part episode, we also take an opportunity to look back at what Ravi, dubbed the patron of lost causes does best - think deeply about solving the city's problems, with a quick look back at a session titled - Why is it so Darn Hard to Fix Bengaluru? -

Bengaluru appears to be a work in tatters. 'Mohenjo Daro' type excavations, 'moon like' craters and continuous road works are normalised. Traffic snarls are a daily occurrence. We think nothing of dumping the waste of a city of 11 million in villages of 5000 consigning them to everlasting misery. Come monsoon and there are inevitable flooding of low lying areas – if a Nostradmus like prediction is required, urban flooding is the doomsday scenario for Bengaluru given the rampant, unchecked growth with multiple violations.

The speaker despite the above gloomy outlook is a perpetual optimist despite tilting at 'windmills' for over two decades. His talk will focus on understanding the underlying reasons why fixing the city needs a herculean, holistic effort. That is a first step in figuring out how do we get out of the collective hole we are in.

This was originally part of a BHeard at BIC event that took place in March of 2022.

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In a world where more and more people burrow deeper into the silos of their way of thinking, the separation from an understanding of another view, much less an appreciation, is shrinking. In a healthy society, the moderate middle continues to grow at the expense of fringes competing against each other in deepening the wells of hate and misunderstanding. As a consequence, the reality of each of us, of all of us, belonging to a common humanity gets lost.

Three decades ago, it was pointed out by author and professor of geopolitics, Prof. Nalapat that the cultural DNA of the people of India is a fusion of the Vedic, the Mughal and the Western, something that was termed "Indutva". No strand can stand alone, and yet not just within countries but between countries, there are outlier states that believe they and they alone have the right to assume primacy, even dominance, over the rest.

In the 1930s in Europe, such a state, because it remained unchallenged throughout that decade, ignited a world war. The 21st century must not witness a similar holocaust, and such an outcome is preventable only through the coming together of those committed to the equality of nations and to a free, open and inclusive Global Commons that includes the entirety of the Indo-Pacific.

In his book, Cold War 2.0, Professor Madhav Das Nalapat presents both the danger as well as the deterrent. What happened in the 1930s must not be repeated in the 2030s. The time for prevention is now.

This episode of BIC Talks is an extract from a lecture that took place inthe BIC premises in October 2023.

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The Indians is a collection of essays by some of South Asia's foremost historians and scholars that maps the origins, evolution, and present-day reality of India's civilisation and people. The collection covers a period of some 12,000 years-from the last Ice Age to the twenty-first century.

The book is divided into seven sections - the first part looks at the evolution of humans in South Asia through the lens of the early 'Indian' population, their migrations, and the climate. The second part focuses on the emergence of different civilisations in the region through the domestication of plants and animals and other factors and how these civilisations eventually begin to decline. The third part discusses the languages and philosophies that defined ancient India-Buddhism, Jainism, Sanskrit, Indo-Iranian languages, and Pali literature, among others. The fourth part is a detailed study of society and culture in various geographical regions--the North, South, Northeast, the Deccan, East, and West India. The fifth part looks at the advent of colonialism and its impact on the country's economy, social fabric, and knowledge systems. The sixth part looks at Adivasi movements, Ambedkarite politics, Gandhian resistance, and other events that would come to form the bedrock of the independent republic. And, finally, the seventh part looks at contemporary India--the workings of the Constitution and urbanism, liberalisation, and other aspects of the modern Indian experience.

Taken together, the essays in the book provide remarkable insights into Indian history and society. An attempt has been made to reflect these sections to an extent in this seven part series.

This BIC Talks mini series - Histories of a Civilisation - glimpses into the collection, presenting readings from selected essays, interspersed with conversations with the scholar who wrote them, providing a sampling of the various topical discourses that cover the epochs of the subcontinent and hopes to encourage our listeners to take a deep dive into what makes the Indians.

In this seventh and final part of the series, Dr Arati Deshpande Mukherjee speaks about domestication of animals in India.

Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favourite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast, Audible and Amazon Music.

The Indians is a collection of essays by some of South Asia's foremost historians and scholars that maps the origins, evolution, and present-day reality of India's civilisation and people. The collection covers a period of some 12,000 years-from the last Ice Age to the twenty-first century.

The book is divided into seven sections - the first part looks at the evolution of humans in South Asia through the lens of the early 'Indian' population, their migrations, and the climate. The second part focuses on the emergence of different civilisations in the region through the domestication of plants and animals and other factors and how these civilisations eventually begin to decline. The third part discusses the languages and philosophies that defined ancient India-Buddhism, Jainism, Sanskrit, Indo-Iranian languages, and Pali literature, among others. The fourth part is a detailed study of society and culture in various geographical regions--the North, South, Northeast, the Deccan, East, and West India. The fifth part looks at the advent of colonialism and its impact on the country's economy, social fabric, and knowledge systems. The sixth part looks at Adivasi movements, Ambedkarite politics, Gandhian resistance, and other events that would come to form the bedrock of the independent republic. And, finally, the seventh part looks at contemporary India--the workings of the Constitution and urbanism, liberalisation, and other aspects of the modern Indian experience.

Taken together, the essays in the book provide remarkable insights into Indian history and society. An attempt has been made to reflect these sections to an extent in this seven part series.

This BIC Talks mini series - Histories of a Civilisation - glimpses into the collection, presenting readings from selected essays, interspersed with conversations with the scholar who wrote them, providing a sampling of the various topical discourses that cover the epochs of the subcontinent and hopes to encourage our listeners to take a deep dive into what makes the Indians.

In this sixth part of the series, Professor Sunny Kumar speaks about Delhi in the last millennium.

Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favourite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast, Audible and Amazon Music.