ABOUT IIC AND THE CONTRIBUTORS
The India International Centre (IIC), a non-government institution in existence for over four decades, is a forum where statesmen, diplomats, intellectuals, scientists, jurists, writers and activists convene for discussions. Founder-President Dr C. D. Deshmukh described IIC as an institution designed to be a meeting of minds, a place where ‘various currents of intellectual, political and economic thought could meet freely’. True to its mission, the IIC serves as a ‘bridge’ for cultures and communities from all over the world. It organizes lectures and conferences to initiate the exchange of new ideas and knowledge in the spirit of international cooperation. It also hosts programmes in music, film, folk and classical cultures, and the performing and visual arts.
Kapila Vatsyayan, scholar, author, linguist, dancer, ethnographer, educationist, cultural policymaker, organiser, administrator, institution builder and, above all, an art historian, combines in herself the creativity of an artist, the critical insight of a scholar and an over-arching vision of a thinker. She has convincingly established, through her writings, lectures and exhibitions, the intrinsic inter-relationship and inter-dependence between the arts, as also the interface of the arts with the domains of science, metaphysics and sociology. She is internationally recognised as a pioneer of inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary approach to art and culture, and as one who has delved deep into the fundamental perennial concepts such as space and time. She has communicated this vision through several thematic and multi-media presentations that she has conceived and organised; these include Images of Man, Akasa (Space), Kala (Time), Akara (Form) and Prakriti (Primal elements). Author of over 15 books and editor of several volumes of a series of publications, some specifically on environment, Indian myth and ecology, Dr Vatsyayan is a nominated member of the Rajya Sabha and a life trustee (and a former president) of the India International Centre.
Clare Arni, a British photographer, specialises in architecture, travel and portrait photography. Widely travelled in Europe and India, Clare is a tireless enthusiast with her assignments, imparting her distinctive and sensitive touch to every subject framed through her viewfinder. She has been published by Thames and Hudson, Phaidon, Dorling Kindersley and Blue Guides. Her architectural work includes contribution to books chronicling the works of Charles Correa, B. V. Doshi and Geoffrey Bawa. She has been the solo photographer for books on Hampi, Benaras and the Kaveri River for Marg Publications. Recently, she completed a detailed black and white photo documentary on the works of a German aid agency in some of the most remote regions of India. Projects she is currently working on include a documentation of the vernacular architecture of South India and a book on the beauty traditions of Asia.
Claude Arpi, an enthusiastic student of the history of Tibet, China and the subcontinent, was born in Angoulême (France) in 1949. In 1972, he undertook a journey to the Indian Himalayas, after which he became interested in the history of this region. He graduated in dental surgery from Bordeaux University in 1974 and then decided to move to India. In December 1974, he joined Auroville, the International community founded by the Mother, Sri Aurobindo’s spiritual collaborator. Since then, he has been living there with his Indian wife and his daughter. Claude Arpi regularly writes on the geopolitics of this region, the environment and Indo-French relations.
Sanjay Barnela is part of a Delhi-based media team with specific interests in the environment and in development. He has produced a number of documentaries on issues as diverse as conservation versus livelihoods, renewable energy and the politics of water. His film Hunting Down Water won awards at the Festival du Cinema de Paris and the Festival du Film de Strasbourg-Palmares. He has over 20 films to his credit and some of his other acclaimed documentaries include Turf Wars, River Taming Mantras (Best Documentary, Vatavaran 2005), Village of Dust-City of Water (Best Environment Feature, Wildlife Asia Film Festival, Singapore) and Pastoral Politics.
Mahesh N. Buch is Chairman of the National Centre for Human Settlements and Environment at Bhopal, an applied research institution working in the field of settlements planning, afforestation, environmental protection, watershed management, consumer protection and skill development. He has won the UNEP award for implementation of desertification control program in 1994–95, the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 1998 and the Man of Vision Award instituted by the Hindustan Times in 2003. His main areas of concern are town country planning, housing, afforestation and environmental protection. In April 2002, he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Science (Honoris causa) by the Rajiv Gandhi Technical University, Bhopal (MP).
Partha Chatterjee is a Delhi-based freelance writer and film critic.
Maria Couto is a writer based in Goa. She taught English literature in colleges in India and has contributed to periodicals in India and the UK. Couto is the author of Graham Greene: On the Frontier, Politics and Religion in the Novels of Graham Greene, Goa: A Daughter ’s Story and the translation into Portuguese from a classic work Ethnography of Goa, Daman and Diu. She lives with her husband, Alban Couto, in his ancestral home in Aldona, a village in North Goa. The central concern of her work is with issues of environment, identity and culture, as manifested in harmonious life in communities and society.
Shripad Dharmadhikary obtained his Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech.) degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, in 1985. He worked with industry for a couple of years, and then joined a research institute to study development policy issues. He was a full-time activist of the Narmada Bachao Andolan for 12 years, before he set up the ‘Manthan Adhyayan Kendra’ in 2001. This centre was set up to research, monitor and analyse water and energy issues. His publications include Unravelling Bhakra, the report of a three-year study of the Bhakra Nangal project led by him. He writes regularly on issues of water, energy and development.
Gulshan Dietl is professor at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her areas of teaching and research are domestic developments, foreign policies and security issues in the Gulf and West Asia. Her publications include The Dulles Era: America Enters West Asia (1985), Through Two Wars and Beyond: A Study of the Gulf Cooperation Council (1991), Saudi Arabia: People, Politics and Policies (2006), and Contemporary Saudi Arabia and the Emerging Indo-Saudi Relations (2007; co-edited).
Rohan D’Souza is Assistant Professor at the Centre for Studies in Science Policy in Jawaharlal Nehru University. He is the author of Drowned and Dammed: Colonial Capitalism and Flood Control in Eastern India, published in 2006.
Sanjoy Hazarika is Managing Trustee of the Centre for North East Studies and Policy Research, which works in the north-east India on health, education, environment as well as media and governance. A visiting fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, he is a former correspondent of The New York Times and makes documentary films on the Northeast. Hazarika is the author of six books, including the recent Writing on the Wall: Reflections on the Northeast as well as Strangers of the Mist: Tales of War and Peace from India’s North East, Rites of Passage: Border Crossings, Imagined Homelands, India’s East and Bangladesh, and Bhopal: Lessons of a Tragedy.
Ramaswamy R. Iyer, former secretary of Water Resources in the Government of India, has been with the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, since 1990, and now continues in an honorary capacity. He has served on many government committees and commissions; has been an occasional consultant to the World Bank, the World Commission on Dams, the European Commission, and other organisations; and is currently a member of the UNSGAB High Level Expert Panel on Water and Disaster. He is the author of Water: Perspectives, Issues, Concerns (2003) and Towards Water Wisdom: Limits, Justice and Harmony (2007). He is currently editing a book titled ‘Water and the Laws in India’.
Vijayan Kannampilly was born in the state of Cochin. He has worked for over three decades as a journalist in various publications and is an artist. He is also the author of The Essential Kerala Cookbook published by Penguin.
Maya Khosla is a poet living in California. Trained as an ecologist, Maya is interested in the interdisciplinary interaction between restoration, ecology, creativity, and art. Keel Bone (2003), her latest poetry anthology won the Dorothy Brunsman Poetry Prize in 2003. She is also the author of Web of Water, a creative non-fiction manuscript, and Heart of the Tearing, a chapbook collection of poetry. Her poetry has featured in America’s Review, Permafrost, Poetry Flash, and Seneca Review. She has performed at venues such as Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival and at Headlands Center for the Arts, where she was writer-in-residence in 1998.
Indrani Majumdar describes herself as a genuine Delhiite. Yet, her roots are based firmly in Bengali culture, and she stays in active touch with this culture through the mediums of music, art, films and literature. Her bilingualism has helped in her career too, as she has, on a few occasions, translated Bengali texts into English and vice versa. Indrani’s vocation in life is the works of the noted director, Satyajit Ray, whom she has worked with closely. She works with the Programme Office of India International Centre, New Delhi.
Keshav Malik is an Indian poet, critic, arts scholar and curator. During the 1950s, Malik studied Renaissance art in Florence, French at the Sorbonne and attended lectures at Columbia University. Malik was the art critic for the Hindustan Times from 1960 to 1972, and for The Times of India from 1975 to 2000. Malik has published 18 volumes of poetry, including The Lake Surface and Other Poems, Storm Warning, and Between Nobodies and Stars. He has also edited six anthologies of English translations of Indian poetry. He co-founded the Poetry Society of India and is currently president of the Poetry Club of India. Malik was awarded the Padma Shri for literature in 1991. He is also a Fellow of Lalit Kala Akademi.
Himanshu Prabha Ray is Professor at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Her research interests include maritime history and archaeology of the Indian Ocean, the history of archaeology and the archaeology of religion in Asia. Some of her recent books include The Archaeology of Seafaring in Ancient South Asia (2003), and edited volumes Cross Currents and Community Networks: Encapsulating the History of the Indian Ocean World (2007) and Sacred Landscapes in Asia: Shared Traditions, Multiple Histories (2007).
Vasant Saberwal is a director, script writer and academic researcher, with special interests in ecology, development and indigenous cultures. In 1996, he received his doctorate from Yale University for his work on change and continuity among the Gaddi, a pastoral community of Himachal Pradesh. He has co-directed several films with Sanjay Barnela, including Pastoral Politics, Turf Wars, River Taming Mantras and Hunting Down Water. He is currently working as a program officer at the Ford Foundation, New Delhi.
Lotika Varadarajan is an ethno-historian working in the area of traditional knowledge systems through investigations into the fields of textiles and maritime venture. She also has a keen interest in developing Indian heritage studies having undertaken considerable spadework in this area with colleagues in Paris. She has undertaken numerous lecture tours of the Far East, Russia and Europe. Dr Varadarajan is a member of the Asiatic Society of Bombay, the Societe Asiatique, Paris, and the Royal Asiatic Society, London, and has served on several noted committees. An author of repute, her major publications include South Indian Tradition of Kalamkari (1982), Traditions of Textile Painting in Kutch, Ajrakh and Related Techniques (1983), Sewn Boats of Lakshadweep (1998), and India of the Seventeenth Century, Vols I–IV (1984–1985). With Denis Chevalier, she edited Tradition and Transmission, Current Trends in French Ethnology, the Relevance for India (2003), The Rahmani of M P Kunhikunhi Malmi of Kavaratti, A Sailing Manual of Lakshadweep (2004), Journey in Science, Technology and Culture: Indo-Portuguese Experiences, Vols I & II ( 2005), and Of Fibre and Loom, the Indian Tradition co-authored with Krishna Patel (2008).