BIC TALKS

Researcher Karthick Bala talks to host Pavan Srinath about the microscopic world of diatoms, and discusses the life and work of HP Gandhi, a pioneer in the study of diatoms in India.

Diatoms are microscopic algae which are present in all water bodies, and occur in fascinating shapes and structures. Apart from producing almost 25 per cent of the world's oxygen, diatoms find myriad invisible uses across human society and economy.

Hemendrakumar Prithviraj Gandhi (1920-2008) was a pioneer in studying diatoms across India, and discovered and catalogued about 300 different species as well as studied their distribution and behaviour. He conducted his entire life's worth of research without any financial or institutional support, while teaching as a college lecturer and eventually a college Principal. Against great adversity, he published seminal work on Indian diatoms in top international journals. His work received new attention in the 2000s, thanks to the effort of Karthick Bala and others, and diatoms are better studied by a larger set of scientists in India in 2020.

Listen to Karthick take listeners through the world of diatoms, and share the work of HP Gandhi, and his own personal journey in rediscovering Gandhi's corpus of work.

Karthick Balasubramanian leads the diatom diversity and distribution lab at the Biodiversity and Palaeobiology Group of the Agharkar Research Institute, Pune, India. His group works on the ecological and evolutionary processes responsible for the current diversity and distribution of diatoms in the Indian subcontinent. He is also interested in communicating science in English and Tamil to common people, especially the school children using diatoms for sensitising river conservation.

BIC Talks is brought to you by the Bangalore International Centre. Visit the BIC website to learn more about the guest and for links, references and related readings.

Researcher Karthick Bala talks to host Pavan Srinath about the microscopic world of diatoms, and discusses the life and work of HP Gandhi, a pioneer in the study of diatoms in India. 

Diatoms are microscopic algae which are present in all water bodies, and occur in fascinating shapes and structures. Apart from producing almost 25 per cent of the world’s oxygen, diatoms find myriad invisible uses across human society and economy. 

Hemendrakumar Prithviraj Gandhi (1920-2008) was a pioneer in studying diatoms across India, and discovered and catalogued about 300 different species as well as studied their distribution and behaviour. He conducted his entire life’s worth of research without any financial or institutional support, while teaching as a college lecturer and eventually a college Principal. Against great adversity, he published seminal work on Indian diatoms in top international journals. His work received new attention in the 2000s, thanks to the effort of Karthick Bala and others, and diatoms are better studied by a larger set of scientists in India in 2020. 

Listen to Karthick take listeners through the world of diatoms, and share the work of HP Gandhi, and his own personal journey in rediscovering Gandhi’s corpus of work. 

Karthick Balasubramanian leads the diatom diversity and distribution lab at the Biodiversity and Palaeobiology Group of the Agharkar Research Institute, Pune, India. His group works on the ecological and evolutionary processes responsible for the current diversity and distribution of diatoms in the Indian subcontinent. He is also interested in communicating science in English and Tamil to common people, especially the school children using diatoms for sensitising river conservation. 

BIC Talks is brought to you by the Bangalore International Centre. Visit the BIC website to learn more about the guest and for links, references and related readings. 

Authors Devi Yesodharan and Samhita Arni talk about how sex is depicted in literature and epics and how they can inform healthier conversations in the 21st century. They explore how Indian epics like Kalidasa's Kumārasambhava, to Andal's poetry, to the Arabian Nights and Dante's Divine Comedy, approach various aspects on sex, courtship, and relationships. They also talk about how distorted modern sex education and understanding can be, and what role literature can play in dispelling taboos.

Devi Yesodharan is the author of Empire, a historical fiction novel on the Tamil king Rajendra Chola. Her book was nominated for the Tata Lit Live First Book Prize and the JCB Literature Prize. She is a Chevening Gurukul fellow and the co-founder of trendlyne.com. She lives in Bangalore.

Samhita Arni is the author of four books, and retells mythological stories. Her most recent book is The Prince. She was previously on Episode 10 of BIC Talks to talk about pandemics in prose.

BIC Talks is brought to you by the Bangalore International Centre. For the full list of books and epics discussed in the episode along with links, please visit the episode page on the Bangalore International Centre website.

Authors Devi Yesodharan and Samhita Arni talk about how sex is depicted in literature and epics and how they can inform healthier conversations in the 21st century. They explore how Indian epics like Kalidasa’s Kumārasambhava, to Andal’s poetry, to the Arabian Nights and Dante’s Divine Comedy, approach various aspects on sex, courtship, and relationships. They also talk about how distorted modern sex education and understanding can be, and what role literature can play in dispelling taboos. 

Devi Yesodharan is the author of Empire, a historical fiction novel on the Tamil king Rajendra Chola. Her book was nominated for the Tata Lit Live First Book Prize and the JCB Literature Prize. She is a Chevening Gurukul fellow and the co-founder of trendlyne.com. She lives in Bangalore. 

Samhita Arni is the author of four books, and retells mythological stories. Her most recent book is The Prince. She was previously on Episode 10 of BIC Talks to talk about pandemics in prose.

BIC Talks is brought to you by the Bangalore International Centre. For the full list of books and epics discussed in the episode along with links, please visit the episode page on the Bangalore International Centre website. 

Musician and Museum Director Manasi Prasad joins host Pavan Srinath to talk about the life and work of Mysore T Chowdiah (1885 – 1967), violin maestro, innovator, composer and teacher of Carnatic music. Manasi also discusses the larger role of Mysore in music and performing arts over the last two centuries, and locates Chowdiah within it. She also shares Chowdiah's compositions, which have not received their due before now.

Manasi spear-headed the creation of the Mysore T Chowdiah Project – www.chowdiah.com, with support from the Indian Music Experience and the Shankar Mahadevan Academy's Archive to Alive programme.

The Chowdiah Project is also hosting a worldwide music competition for violinists and vocalists called Smarane, which is open for submissions till November 15, 2020.

The Indian Music Experience Museum also currently crowdsourcing funding from the public. Visit their website to learn more about how you can help.

Visit the Bangalore International Centre website for all the links to the archive, the music, the competition, and more.

Manasi Prasad is a noted classical vocalist from Bangalore and the Museum Director of the Indian Music Experience - India's first hi-tech interactive music museum. Manasi has learnt Carnatic classical music from renowned gurus such as RK Padmanabha in Bangalore and Sriram Parasuram in Chennai. She started performing concerts at the age of 9 and since then has performed widely across India and in 6 continents around the world. Manasi is a recipient of several awards in music, including the prestigious Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar from the Sangeet Natak Akademi, Govt. of India.

Musician and Museum Director Manasi Prasad joins host Pavan Srinath to talk about the life and work of Mysore T Chowdiah (1885 – 1967), violin maestro, innovator, composer and teacher of Carnatic music. Manasi also discusses the larger role of Mysore in music and performing arts over the last two centuries, and locates Chowdiah within it. She also shares Chowdiah’s compositions, which have not received their due before now. 

Manasi spear-headed the creation of the Mysore T Chowdiah Project – www.chowdiah.com, with support from the Indian Music Experience and the Shankar Mahadevan Academy’s Archive to Alive programme. 

The Chowdiah Project is also hosting a worldwide music competition for violinists and vocalists called Smarane, which is open for submissions till November 15, 2020. 

The Indian Music Experience Museum also currently crowdsourcing funding from the public. Visit their website to learn more about how you can help.

Visit the Bangalore International Centre website for all the links to the archive, the music, the competition, and more.

Manasi Prasad is a noted classical vocalist from Bangalore and the Museum Director of the Indian Music Experience - India's first hi-tech interactive music museum. Manasi has learnt Carnatic classical music from renowned gurus such as RK Padmanabha in Bangalore and Sriram Parasuram in Chennai. She started performing concerts at the age of 9 and since then has performed widely across India and in 6 continents around the world. Manasi is a recipient of several awards in music, including the prestigious Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar from the Sangeet Natak Akademi, Govt. of India. 

Milan Vaishnav joins host Pavan Srinath to talk about the rise of Indian Americans in US politics. They discuss how Indian Americans might vote in the upcoming 2020 US Presidential Elections, political views across the community, and what issues matter most to them.

Milan Vaishnav is Director and Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C. Milan is one of three authors of a new report on how Indian Americans are likely to vote in upcoming elections. He also hosts The Grand Tamasha Podcast.

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.

Milan Vaishnav joins host Pavan Srinath to talk about the rise of Indian Americans in US politics. They discuss how Indian Americans might vote in the upcoming 2020 US Presidential Elections, political views across the community, and what issues matter most to them. 

Milan Vaishnav is Director and Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C. Milan is one of three authors of a new report on how Indian Americans are likely to vote in upcoming elections. He also hosts The Grand Tamasha Podcast.

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. 

In this talk as part of 'The Satish Chandra Memorial Lecture', Romila Thapar discusses two categories of migrants, the pastoralists and the traders and will be confined to the early period of Indian history, namely up to about the fourteenth century. A fundamental difference between the two categories is that pastoral migrants tend to come to a new area, set up scattered settlements and tend to not return to their homelands. Traders tend to do the reverse since they stay in the cities where they have their trading partners. Even when they settle in the host societies there is a minimum connection between their homeland and where they have settled.

The interface between the host society and the migrant settlement frequently results in elements of new cultures. These can be changed versions of a language, new social customs and new deities or forms of worship. This podcast is an extract of the longer BIC Streams event held earlier in the week.

Visit BIC for more details.

In this talk as part of 'The Satish Chandra Memorial Lecture', Romila Thapar discusses two categories of migrants, the pastoralists and the traders and will be confined to the early period of Indian history, namely up to about the fourteenth century. A fundamental difference between the two categories is that pastoral migrants tend to come to a new area, set up scattered settlements and tend to not return to their homelands. Traders tend to do the reverse since they stay in the cities where they have their trading partners. Even when they settle in the host societies there is a minimum connection between their homeland and where they have settled.

The interface between the host society and the migrant settlement frequently results in elements of new cultures. These can be changed versions of a language, new social customs and new deities or forms of worship. This podcast is an extract of the longer BIC Streams event held earlier in the week.

Visit BIC for more details.