The Sixth Lecture in this series will be delivered by Dr. Ramachandra Guha.
Historian and Columnist, Author of 'India after Gandhi' on the Social Science
subject ...
Indian Institute of Science Alumni Association
IIScAA Science Forum Popular Lecture Series In order to promote the quality of the dialogue on the new roles and challenges of today's global society, the IISc. Alumni Association(IIScAA) has launched "IIScAA Science Forum - Popular Lecture series". The main objective of the IIScAA Science Forum is to inform the happenings of Science & Technology globally to the Society at large along with history and philosophy, discoveries and inventions, revolutions and limitations, use and abuse of Science & Technology and the impact of Science & Technology on society and its culture. The IIScAA Science Forum is intended to be a service to Society and Community to impart scientific culture, knowledge, scientific temper and inspire them by the achievements. The IIScAA Science Forum will also educate the public regarding the contribution of IISc in Science & Technology by arranging Lectures by eminent scientists from IISc. To meet these objectives, regular monthly Invited Lectures are organised and the speakers include eminent personalities both from IISc and persons of national importance. IISc. Alumni Association felt that conducting such regular periodical Lectures by eminent Scientists / Technologists will go a long way in fostering Science & Technology in the country. This series of Lectures by eminent speakers in their area of expertise would particularly enthuse the student community, the most needed confidence and interest in the field of Science & Technology. It may be noted that this Popular Lecture series is open to one and all including general public.
BRIEF INTRODUCTION OF THE SPEAKER Ramachandra Guha is a historian and biographer based in Bangalore. Now a full-time writer, he has previously taught at the universities of Yale and Stanford, held the Arné Naess Chair at the University of Oslo, and been the Indo-American Community Visiting Professor at the University of California at Berkeley. His books include a pioneering environmental history, The Unquiet Woods (University of California Press), and an award-winning social history of cricket, A Corner of a Foreign Field (Picador). Guha’s books and essays have been translated into more than twenty languages. His awards include the Leopold-Hidy Prize of the American Society of Environmental History, the Daily Telegraph/Cricket Society prize, the Malcolm Adideshiah Award for excellence in social science research, and the R. K. Narayan Prize. The New York Times has referred to him as ‘perhaps the best among India’s non fiction writers’; Time Magazine has called him ‘Indian democracy’s preeminent chronicler’. Ramachandra Guha’s most recent book is India after Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest Democracy (published by Macmillan in the U. K. and in the U. S. by Ecco Press). The Financial Times hailed that book as ‘a magisterial work… a sweeping and compendious book by one of India’s foremost writers’. The Independent called India after Gandhi a ‘brilliant and beautifully balanced book’. Writing in the Spectator, the eminent biographer and historian Philip Ziegler said that the book was ‘as comprehensive, balanced and elegantly crafted as any reasonable reader could expect’. In the Washington Post, the foreign policy specialist George Percovich noted that ‘the Indian story rarely has been told and is practically unknown in America’. Then he added: ‘India after Gandhi masterfully fills the void. India needs a wise and judicious narrator to convey its scale, diversity and chaos—to describe the whirlwind without getting lost in it. It needs a biographer neither besotted by love or enraged by disappointment. Ramachandra Guha… has given democratic India the rich, well-paced history it deserves’. India after Gandhi was a finalist for the Mark Lytton History Prize and the Kiriyama Prize. It won the Ramnath Goenka Award for the best work of non-fiction published in India in 2007-8. It was chosen as a Book of the Year by the Economist, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the San Francisco Chronicle, Time Out, and Outlook. It was also chosen as a Book of the Decade by the Times of India and The Times. In May 2008, Prospect and Foreign Policy magazines nominated Ramachandra Guha as one of the world’s one hundred most influential intellectuals. In January 2009, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan, the Republic of India’s third highest civilian honour. Also in 2009, both India Today and BusinessWeek chose him as one of the fifty most influential people in India. In 2010, India Today once more placed him on their most influential people list; as in 2009, he was the only scholar or writer so chosen.
The Sixth Lecture in this series will be delivered
by Dr. Ramachandra Guha Historian and Columnist, Author of 'India after Gandhi’
on the Social Science subject :
“The Tragedy of the Indian Adivasis” Date : Saturday, September 18, 2010 Time : 4.00 P.M. Venue : Faculty Hall, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore Moderator :
Dr. K.S. Rajanandam
Vice Principal, M.S.Ramaiah Institute of Technology and Treasurer, IISc. Alumni Association
Tea : 5.30 p.m.
