Krea University

24/08/2026

Presenting a Centre for Writing and Pedagogy (CWP) and Krea Sociology and Social Anthropology Talk

Title: Ethnography and Memory: A Workshop on Methods

Speaker: Dr Soibam Haripriya, Assistant Professor, Department of Social Sciences and Humanities, Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology Delhi

📅Tuesday, 25 August 2026
🕛10:30 am - 12:20 pm
📍JSW-3HI

About the Talk

The fieldwork experience of social anthropology is mediated by memory. The informants' memories and the researchers' own reconstruction of the field partially reconstruct the field for the audience, academic or otherwise. This workshop engages with the method of memory in doing research. With a brief introduction to collective memory in the sociological tradition, this workshop begins with an introduction to memory ethnography. It engages with the move from external memory, from the act of writing to mnemonic aids that now accompany us in the field, and is ubiquitous to the extent that it has become almost an extension of oneself. In this workshop, participants are encouraged to examine new forms of memory practices in their own research and to engage with the imbrications of memory-technology in research and in the social life of our research interlocutors. The workshop also engages with a few key texts and methods of memory—memoirs and autoethnography. In the concluding session of the workshop, the participants are led to interrogate the matrix of memory practices—old and new- and look at memory as an intrinsic part of all research methods in social anthropology, whether overtly mentioned or unacknowledged.

About the Speaker

Dr Soibam Haripriya is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Social Sciences and Humanities, Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology Delhi, and a Faculty Member of the Ethnography Lab. She was a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Fellow at the South Asia Institute, University of Texas at Austin, 2022-2023. She was an FWO Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Conflict and Development Studies, Ghent University, Belgium, 2019-2021, and a Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla, 2018-2019. Dr Haripriya’s research lies at the intersection of gender studies, violence studies, Northeast India, and digital ethnography. Her work engages feminist ethnography, conflict studies, and experimental writing methods.

24/08/2026

Presenting a Krea Research Support office Talk!

Title: Exploring Cholesterol Sensitivity of G Protein-Coupled Receptors: Excitements and Challenges

Speaker: Professor Amitabha Chattopadhyay, CSIR Bhatnagar Fellow, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Uppal Road, Hyderabad

📅Monday, 24 August 2026
🕛2:30 - 4:20 pm
📍NAB-1A

About the talk

Biological membranes are complex assemblies of lipids and proteins that allow cellular compartmentalization and act as the interface, through which cells communicate with each other and with the external milieu. The biological membrane constitutes the site of many important cellular functions involving transfer of information from outside to the interior of the cell. In physical terms, membranes can be treated as a complex oriented fluid which is a weakly coupled, non-covalent, and anisotropic assembly of molecules in two-dimensions (and can be treated as soft matter). G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are cellular nanomachines that represent the largest group of integral membrane proteins in the human proteome involved in signal transduction across cellular membranes. GPCRs represent major drug targets in all clinical areas and account for ~40% of current drug targets. The serotonin 1A receptor is an important neurotransmitter receptor of the GPCR superfamily and is implicated in the generation and modulation of various cognitive, behavioral and developmental functions. Pioneering work from our group demonstrated that membrane cholesterol is necessary for ligand binding, G-protein coupling and signaling of serotonin 1A receptors. In our recent work, we explored the molecular basis of cholesterol sensitivity exhibited by the serotonin 1A receptor by generating site-specific mutants of key residues in CRAC motifs in transmembrane helices (TM) 2 and 5 of the receptor supported by all-atom MD simulations. These results constitute one of the first reports comprehensively demonstrating that cholesterol sensitivity could be knocked out by a single point mutation at a cholesterol binding site. Our observations are further supported from all-atom molecular dynamics simulations. I will end my talk by presenting our recent exciting observations on the role of cholesterol in GPCR endocytosis (spatiotemporal regulation) and trafficking and their implications in pathophysiology and therapeutics.

21/08/2026

HarperCollins India has announced the acquisition of Prajwal Parajuly’s first picture book, Karma and Lola. This marks Parajuly’s debut in children’s literature and explores the cherished bond between Karma and her beloved dog, Lola. The story will be brought to life through illustrations by Nepali artist Ubahang Nembang.

Know more: https://harpercollins.co.in/illustrated-books/harpercollins-india-acquires-prajwal-parajulys-debut-picture-book-illustrated-by-ubahang-nembang/

18/08/2026

What stays with you after your undergraduate years?

In this episode, we sit down with Urvi Bhatia and Shreya Kabadi, SIAS Cohort of 2024, to talk about the experiences, choices and discoveries that shaped their time at Krea.

From Student Government and Outreach to Summer School, exploring courses across their undergraduate years, and pursuing opportunities such as a fellowship, Urvi and Shreya reflect on the moments that influenced their interests, perspectives and paths beyond graduation.

Listen in as they look back on their undergraduate journeys — what they explored, what challenged them, and what they took with them.

17/08/2026

Krea University commemorated India’s 80th Independence Day with a solemn and spirited celebration in front of the JSW Academic Building, with faculty, students and staff coming together to honour India’s freedom and its responsibilities.

In his address, Chief Guest Satish Rajarathnam, Chief of People and Operations, Krea University urged students to identify three problems, collaborate with two people whose perspectives differ from their own, and create one measurable impact before graduating. Lakshmi Prasanna and Krishanu Singh, second-year IFMR GSB MBA students, reflected on the responsibilities of freedom, the new generation of freedom fighters, and the importance of courage, curiosity, dignity and service, followed by a dance recital by Mudra, the SIAS Dance Club.

17/08/2026

Introducing, the new Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) facility, part of the Laboratory of Advanced Spectroscopy Education and Research (LASER) at Krea.

Dr Kalyan Chakrabarti, Associate Professor, Biological Sciences and Chemistry, SIAS takes us through the state-of-the-art lab, housing a 600 MHz solution NMR spectrometer fitted with a cryoprobe, and a 300 MHz wide-bore NMR spectrometer fitted with solid-state probes. The NMR facility will be key to undergraduate and postgraduate research, as students team up with scientists to advance our understanding of neurogenerative diseases like Parkinson's and dementia, among other real-world problems.

View here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=db2wtI-Oths

Video Courtesy : Media Lab

Introducing, our exciting new Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) faci...

17/08/2026

Presenting a krea Politics Talk

Title: A Sixth of Humanity: Independent India's Development Odyssey

Speakers:

Arvind Subramanian, Senior Fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics and Former Chief Economic Adviser, Govt of India and

Dr Devesh Kapur, Starr Foundation Professor of South Asia Studies, School of Advanced International Studies, John Hopkins University

📅Tuesday, 18 August 2026
🕛6:30 - 8:20 pm IST
📍Online
Click here to attend: https://krea-edu-in.zoom.us/j/82727255948?pwd=gN4qrZWfyxkVoZWyuDQ6HnUJFeMkvU.1

About the Talk

India's journey has been distinctively 'precocious' in comparative terms. It opted for democracy before development and social change, promoted high-skilled services before and over low-skilled manufacturing, and chose a globalisation that favoured exports of talented people and short-changed the poor. The socialist state became an inefficiently capitalist one before providing the public goods of physical infrastructure and human capital. The outcomes have been surprising, with the country achieving success in creating and sustaining democracy, albeit flawed, and maintaining a modicum of order.

As the world gets radically upended, India's development odyssey is at a critical juncture. A Sixth of Humanity is an attempt to trace how one of the largest and most diverse countries in the world uniquely and daringly attempted four concurrent transformations-building a state, creating an economy, changing society and forging a sense of nationhood-under conditions of universal suffrage. Jointly written by political scientist Devesh Kapur and economist Arvind Subramanian, both of whom have decades of academic and policy experience, this book encompasses perspectives that span disciplines, experiences and geographies. Rigorously researched, carefully argued and lucidly written, this is the definitive development history of India. There is no book remotely like it.

17/08/2026

We are thrilled to share Prajwal Parajuly's fiction 'Making Amends' has been anthologised in, 'The Greatest Stories from the Northeast Ever Told'. Published by Aleph Book Company and edited by Jobeth Ann Warjri, the anthology is a collection of twenty-seven short stories from the Indian northeast.

Know more: https://www.alephbookcompany.com/book/the-greatest-stories-from-the-northeast-ever-told/