Making Connections

Environmental contaminants become specially deadly when invisible to the eye, and subtle and gradual in their effects. It takes awareness, inter-disciplinary understanding and a continued commitment, to overcome such threats.In this episode, Barun Kumar Thakur, Assistant Professor of Economics at FLAME, speaks about his work in fighting one such contaminant- arsenic in ground-water. Along with various facets of the subject, we focus on the need to quantify the costs involved.

Why are so few employees in the organized sector actually engaged with their work? What can Indian companies do to promote engagement among the millennial and post-millennial cohorts? We speak with Amarpreet Ghura, Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship at FLAME University, about the employee engagement crisis, and a potential game-changer: corporate entrepreneurship. 

Sabah Siddiqui, Assistant Professor of Psychology at FLAME University, speaks with us about her thesis-work on faith healing, which featured a ghost story, and discusses an epiphany, as to methodology, that occurred to her in the course of her research. We consider such questions as: How does one come to know entities one cannot handle objectively? What is the place of fiction in the search for knowledge? Is something lacking in strict disciplinary approaches to subjects?

We revisit the Aadhaar controversy with Shivakumar Jolad, Professor of Public Policy, at FLAME University. How does Aadhaar work? Was the hue and cry against it a case of crying 'wolf'? And what is the prognosis for the rights-based discourse in relation to privacy, identity and welfare, in India?

The 19th Century was a time of hectic transition, not least in literature. We speak to Prof. Kedar Kulkarni about his recent study of Marathi literary expression from 1790 to 1890- and about the perennial currents of literary change.

Are territorial conflicts resolvable? As tensions continue to spiral in long-standing border conflicts, we speak with Dr. Smitana Saikia, Assistant Professor of International Studies, FLAME University, about the fascinating case of Mizoram. How did the Mizo conflict find a path to peace, while other territorial conflicts appear to have no end?