BIC TALKS

In an illustrious career spanning over forty years in public service and culminating in the highest office in Indian bureaucracy – Union Cabinet Secretary – KM Chandrasekhar has seen, and done, it all. He is one of those rare IAS officers who has held a wide range of senior positions in State government, the Centre, and public sector undertakings. In this episode of BIC Talks, Chandrasekhar talks...

UR Ananthamurthy (1932–2014), writer, teacher, literary critic, and public intellectual, was born in Shivamogga district in Karnataka. In 1965, his debut novel,  Samskara , took the literary world by storm with its unflinching portrayal of the rigid orthodoxy in Brahmin society. Since then, it has become a landmark novel of the modernist, or Navya, movement of the 1950s and 1960s in Kannada litera...

India's mythmaker and Jnanpith awardee, Chandrashekhar Kambar, has not only enriched Kannada literature but has also placed the country on the global literary map. The recent translation of his collection of folk tales and the charming play Pushparani , titled When the Wind God Fell Sick and Other Folk Tales , opens up new and exciting vistas in children's literature. The book also highlights urge...

Divorce has been typically framed in Indian popular culture as available mainly to upper-class urban and Anglicised people with the financial means to pursue long-winded remedies in courts. In addition, Hindus have had specific obstacles to accessing divorce; among the various religion-based personal law systems, Hindu personal law was the last to legalise divorce. Critics have long framed divorce...

Amitav Ghosh's new book,  Smoke and Ashes: A Writer's Journey Through Opium's Hidden Histories  is the story of how, under the aegis of the British Empire, India became the world's largest producer of opium. It also traces the transformative impact that the opium trade had on India, China, Britain and the United States, with profound long-term consequences for the birth of the modern world, and of...

In 2015, students of the Film & Television Institute of India took the cinema to the streets with a strike. One of the first of the agitations that raged across India's universities at that time, it defined the right to make and show films as central to freedom on the campus. The names of Eisenstein and Pudovkin, John Abraham, Tarkovsky and Ghatak, recited in slogans and displayed on banners, evok...

In 2015, students of the Film & Television Institute of India took the cinema to the streets with a strike. One of the first of the agitations that raged across India's universities at that time, it defined the right to make and show films as central to freedom on the campus. The names of Eisenstein and Pudovkin, John Abraham, Tarkovsky and Ghatak, recited in slogans and displayed on banners, evok...

In 2015, students of the Film & Television Institute of India took the cinema to the streets with a strike. One of the first of the agitations that raged across India's universities at that time, it defined the right to make and show films as central to freedom on the campus. The names of Eisenstein and Pudovkin, John Abraham, Tarkovsky and Ghatak, recited in slogans and displayed on banners, evok...

A large citizen survey was conducted in Bengaluru to better understand the everyday practices through which citizens effectively wield their rights. This is beyond conventional measures of voter turnout or generalisations about citizen participation in politics. The key takeaway is that the poor access the state through political participation and the rich through their influence and connections....

It is generally believed that the indigenous vernacular education in India was oral, controlled by certain sections of the population and exclusive in nature. However, the archival data of 16,000 indigenous vernacular schools gives a very different picture. In 1813, the British Parliament earmarked 100,000 rupees a year for education in India. The colonial government did not utilise the amount. Th...

Much has been written and debated about the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan. It cost more than one million Hindu, Muslim and Sikh lives and bequeathed a legacy of suspicion, hatred and hostility. For many it was a blessing, for others a tragedy. For many it meant independence and freedom, for others loss of independence and change of the masters. It left millions traumatized. The v...

Noted musician and scholar Satyasheel Deshpande, delves into and demystifies the music of his Guru, Padmavibhushan Pandit Kumar Gandharva in an illustrated talk. This rich, flavourful mehfil, in Hindi with some English, begins with a recording of Kumar Gandharva, the child prodigy, before moving on to include both speech and song that span the many facets of his musical personality and ideas as th...

Former Kerala health minister KK Shailaja became a global icon because of her handling of the first phase of the COVID pandemic. In her memoir, My Life as a Comrade , she tells her story – from her childhood as a shy, fearful girl, her days as a school teacher where she learnt the art of managing difficult students to her entry into politics leading to a tenure as health minister where she dealt w...

Gaanasaraswati Kishori Amonkar was not only a vocalist of extraordinary calibre, she was also one of the greatest composers in Hindustani music in her era. Compositions like ' Sahela Re Aa Mil Gaaye', 'Nainawa Barase' or 'Ganapata Vighan Harana' have left a mark in the minds of listeners long after even Kishoritai stopped performing them. However, very few listeners may know of the vast ocean of c...

Justice BV Nagarathna made a key note address during an event on a curated volume of essays, Constitutional Ideals: Development and Realisation Through Court-led Justice in May 2023. This episode of BIC Talks is an extract from this key note address. Justice Nagarathna reflects on certain basic ideals secured in the Constitution and indicates their value in present times, while stressing seven ess...

The BIC series, My Guru, My Art takes an intimate look at the Guru-Shishya tradition and hopes to capture for posterity the stories of how the magic is created. Conversations between two artistes, Guru and Shishya, will explore their personal histories of learning a classical art form, sharing memories of interactions with their teachers, inspirations, influences, anecdotes of compositions and tea...

The Guru-Shishya Parampara has been integral to the learning of Indian classical dance. It is a deeply immersive and rigorous tradition that holds its own even in the modern context. A profound bond forms between teacher and student, through which both a way of life, and the practice and knowledge of art, is transmitted. The Guru goes beyond merely imparting technicalities and nuances to shape and...

In the third and final episode of Being a Present Parent , Gauri and Tena talk about intersectionality and feminist motherhood. They explore how class, caste and gender impact motherhood and mothering in urban Indian lives. They discuss the challenges of carrying the load of parenting and household responsibilities, how to navigate the help we in a way that promotes equity and empowerment for all...

In the second episode of Being a Present Parent , our speakers Tena and Gauri reflect on the trends, surprises and lessons learnt from a year of circles and workshops on topics such as sex and post-partum, trauma and vocabulary, birth and autonomy, and medical science's approach to obstetrics and gynaecology while they share personal stories and insights. The Series: Parenting can be one of those...

Parenting can be one of those challenges in life that never has any right answers. How do you enable another person to live up to their full potential in a healthy way while being mindful of their individuality and personality as well as taking care of yourself? Some have called it the ultimate crash course in adulting. A large number of us have come to understand equity, equality and feminism lat...

The book "Memories in the Service of the Hindu Nation: The Afterlife of the Partition" by anthropologist Dr. Pranav Kohli presents the findings of an extensive ethnographic study conducted over fourteen months, focusing on survivors of the Partition from west Punjab and the North-West Frontier Province. The research was conducted in Delhi and its surroundings between 2017 and 2018. The author expl...

The Shaolin monks of the legendary monastery in China are famous for their skills in Kung Fu. However, Shaolin Kung Fu isn't just a martial art but a specific way of life and conduct that can be applied effectively in any professional or personal context. The real secret of the Shaolin monks' success isn't their physical abilities. Rather it is their way of thinking that makes them invincible. Bus...

Delving into the intricate world of storytelling, author and historian Anirudh Kanisetti and author Vikram Chandra explore the fundamental questions that intrigue both readers and writers alike: How are stories told? How do they come to be? And where do these wisps of memory and words find the kernels to sprout from? Drawing upon his own journey and experiences, Vikram shares insights into his lit...

An ethnographic study of Indian democracy that shows how agrarian life creates values of citizenship and active engagement that are essential for the cultivation of democracy,  Cultivating Democracy provides a compelling ethnographic analysis of the relationship between formal political institutions and everyday citizenship in rural India. Dr. Mukulika Banerjee draws on deep engagement with the pe...

Journalism has been the beacon that illuminates the truth amidst the shadows of ignorance. How true does this adage hold in a post-truth world. Writer and columnist, Bachi Karkaria, moderates a captivating panel discussion featuring authors and journalists - P Sainath, Sashi Kumar, and Barkha Dutt.  This BIC Talks conversation revolves around the evolving nature of human interest stories, the impo...