Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, Harvard University

Check out this great piece on Mittal Institute Steering Committee Member, Satchit Balsari, who is a founder of Crisis Readiness, a new initiative that harnesses mobility data as a tool for gauging the impact and effectiveness of measures like lockdowns and travel restrictions in times of crisis.

The power of data in a crisis CrisisReady program is building a platform of data, analytics, and tools to guide decision-making during public health emergencies.

Happening today at 12:30 EST! Harvard Graduate School of Design's Rahul Mehrotra presents his latest book, reflecting on 30 years of writing about Indian and other cities in South Asia. Join: https://bit.ly/3o2ztUS

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The Kinetic City (ArchiTangle, 2021) presents Rahul Mehrotra’s writings over the last thirty years and illustrates his long-term engagement with and analysis of urbanism in India. This work has given rise to a new conceptualization of the city. Mehrotra calls it the Kinetic City, a counterpoint to the Static City, as familiar to most of us from conventional city maps. He argues that the city should instead be perceived, read, and mapped in terms of patterns of occupation and associative values attributed to space. The framework is established in this publication by Mehrotra’s anchor essay, which draws out its potential to “allow a better understanding of the blurred lines of contemporary urbanism and the changing roles of people and spaces in urban society.”

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Rahul Mehrotra is Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design and John T. Dunlop Professor in Housing and Urbanization at the GSD. He is also the founder principal of RMA Architects, which is based in Mumbai and Boston.

Virtual Event: Health Seeking Behaviour in Four Indian States

11/23 @ 12:30 am – 2:00 am EST / 11:00 am – 12:30 pm IST / 4:30 – 6:00 pm AEDT

Join: https://bit.ly/3kZFEaF

The Nossal Institute For Global Health, University Of Melbourne, together with National Council of Applied Economic Research and Population Council India, have been implementing the study ‘Healthcare Seeking in four Indian states’ (the 4IS Study). This multi-method study, being conducted across eight districts across four states, explores the patterns of resort to healthcare, care-seeking pathways, and costs incurred amongst those suffering from chronic and acute illnesses. In this webinar, the 4IS study team will discuss the emerging findings from their analysis of existing datasets, a household survey amongst 2084 households across 4 districts in UP and Odisha (conducted in Nov 2020-Jan 2021), a qualitative inquiry: in-depth interviews with 64 persons in UP and Maharashtra; and a discreet choice experiment: In UP and Odisha.

The Mittal Institute is pleased to welcome Hitesh Hathi as Executive Director.

The Mittal Institute Appoints Hitesh Hathi as Executive Director • The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute The Mittal Institute’s Faculty Director, Prof. Tarun Khanna, announced the appointment of Hitesh Hathi as Executive Director. He will join the Institute on Dec. 7, 2021. In his new role, Hathi will lead the Mittal Institute’s efforts to strengthen connections between Harvard and South Asia, prov...

Deadline approaching!

Apply for our new India-based Fellowship by Nov. 30. Selected fellows will be based at our New Delhi Office with access to Harvard's vast resources.

Learn more: http://bit.ly/MIIFApply

Interested in how conservationists are being trained to preserve some of India’s great works of art? Join us for a round table tomorrow, November 18. Join here:

CoSTAR Module 1: Creating Community and Collaboration Among Art and Science Professionals in South Asia; Advancing Towards Module 2 • The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute Conservation Science Research and Training Program, CoSTAR, aims to build up a temper of scientific studies for the conservation of art objects in India in conjunction with art historical studies. The three-year program is a collaboration between the Mittal Institute, Harvard University, Harvard Art...

Harvard's India Policy Insights project has created a comprehensive, cross-cutting, data science platform with 7,500 different policy indicators across sectors. The platform helps decision-makers to prioritize areas for intervention. Read more:

Data-driven Decision-making: A focus on the India Policy Insights Program • The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute The Mittal Institute’s Delhi Office has long been focused on fostering collaborations – both in-country and beyond. They recently had a visit from S.V. Subramanian, a Professor of Population Health and Geography at Harvard University, and chair of the Faculty Advisory Group for the Center for Ge...

Q&A: New book on the Mahābhārata by Nell Shapiro Hawley '11, preceptor in Sanskrit at Harvard University. The Mahābhārata, with roughly 75,000-100,000 verses, is the world's longest epic poem. The volume is an introduction to the spectacular and long-lived diversity of Mahābhārata literature in South Asia. Read the full Q&A:

Many Mahābhāratas: The Work of Nell Shapiro Hawley • The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute Nell Shapiro Hawley ‘11, a scholar of the Mahābhārata and its early iterations in Sanskrit poetry and drama, is the Preceptor in Sanskrit in the Harvard University Department of South Asian Studies and current Ph.D candidate in South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago...

Join us today 11/8 at 5:30 pm EST online! We are so pleased to be featuring our Visiting Artist Fellows, Bunu Dhungana of Nepal and Pragati Dalvi of India. The artists will present their latest work, talk more about their time at Harvard, and then be in discussion with Prof. Jinah Kim.

Don't miss it! Join here: http://bit.ly/VAFexhibitbit

Happening today! Sarong Revolution: The Myanmar Coup, Militarization, and Gendered Resistance in the Borderlands of Asia Borders @ 10:30 am EST

Sarong Revolution: The Myanmar Coup, Militarization, and Gendered Resistance in the Borderlands of Asia Borders in Modern Asia Seminar Series • The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute Register for this talk Speaker: Sumitra Thongdaijam, Department of English, Jamia Milia University                                                    Chair: Sugata Bose, Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History and Affairs, Harvard University Sugata Bo...

Founded in 1986, the Harvard South Asian Association (SAA) is one of the largest and most active student groups on campus. The focus of their 300 members – who span myriad ethnicities, religions, and interests – is to bring the Harvard community closer to South Asia through academic, political, social, outreach and cultural initiatives. We spoke with two of their Board members, Varshini Odayar and Siona Prasad, the co-presidents, to learn more about the Harvard SAA and their own place in the student group.

Celebrating Diversity of Culture: A Spotlight on the Harvard South Asian Association • The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute Founded in 1986, the Harvard South Asian Association (SAA) is one of the largest and most active student groups on campus. The focus of their 300 members – who span myriad ethnicities, religions, and interests – is to bring the Harvard community closer to South Asia through academic, political, ...

I’m fascinated by the kinds of economic and political forces that influence people’s beliefs about fairness and inequality in South Asia, in turn shaping their support for some policies more than others," says Akshay Dixit, Harvard Ph.D. student and Mittal Institute Graduate Student Associate.

Studying How People Form Beliefs: Explore the Research of Akshay Dixit, Mittal Institute Graduate Student Associate • The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute Akshay Dixit, a Mittal Institute Graduate Student Associate, is a Ph.D. student of Political Economy & Government at Harvard University. He is a James M. and Cathleen D. Stone PhD Scholar in Inequality and Wealth Concentration, and a recipient of the Amartya Sen Fellowship for Students from India. H...