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2 episodes with australia india institute
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A new report by the Melbourne-based think tank, Australia India Institute, recommends that Australia offer a three-month basic Hindi language training program for defence personnel posted to India. It also suggests creating a national register of linguists and India specialists to boost long-term investment in language and regional expertise. The report, titled 'Building a Resilient Australia-India Defence Relationship: Options for the Next Decade', was launched at Parliament House by Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles. In this podcast, we speak with co-author Dr Gaurav Saini.
Donald Trump's second term in the White House has resulted in allies and partners, like Australia and India, adjusting to new geopolitical realities. In this episode, Manoj Kewalramani speaks to Lisa Singh, the CEO of the Australia India Institute at the University of Melbourne, about how Australia is adapting to these changes and the future of India-Australia ties.The PGP is a comprehensive 48-week hybrid programme tailored for those aiming to delve deep into the theoretical and practical aspects of public policy. This multidisciplinary course offers a broad and in-depth range of modules, ensuring students get a well-rounded learning experience. The curriculum is delivered online, punctuated with in-person workshops across India.https://school.takshashila.org.in/pgpAll Things Policy is a daily podcast on public policy brought to you by the Takshashila Institution, Bengaluru.Find out more on our research and other work here: https://takshashila.org.in/...Check out our public policy courses here: https://school.takshashila.org.in
Former diplomat and Indian politician Shashi Tharoor has stated that Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential election will benefit India, as the two leaders share a close rapport. Speaking at a session titled 'Shifting Perspectives: The State of the World in 2024' organised by the Australia India Institute on 13 November, Tharoor told SBS Hindi that India's primary concern lies in Trump's immigration policies, which could impose restrictions on legal immigrants.
The world, including key nations like Australia and India, is closely watching Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 US election. This outcome has sparked global interest due to its potential to influence international policies, economic dynamics and geopolitical alliances. In this podcast, we speak with international relations expert and former Australia India Institute director, Amitabh Mattoo, who provides insights into how a potential second Trump administration could impact the global landscape and India's interests.
India has only been on the periphery of Darren's professional vision since the dramatic headlines last year surrounding the killing of a Sikh activist in Canada and an indictment alleging a similar assassination attempt in the US. But 2024 has been a big year for India with its national election and PM Modi winning a 3rd term, but with a far smaller margin of victory than most expected. And with the Quad meeting recently being held in Joe Biden's home state of Delaware, now is a good time to catch up on the world's most populous country. To do that Darren invited back Ian Hall. Ian is a Professor of international relations at Griffith University and an Academic Fellow at the Australia India Institute. Darren asks what the election and post-election tell us about the trajectory of India's democracy. They discuss whether India ought to be modelled as a ‘normal' rising power and the nature (and limit) of China as the core organising principle of Western cooperation with India, with a focus on the Quad. Finally, they discuss the Indian diaspora in Australia. Australia in the World is written, hosted, and produced by Darren Lim, with research and editing this episode by Corbin Duncan and theme music composed by Rory Stenning. Relevant links Ian Hall (biography): https://experts.griffith.edu.au/18600-ian-hall Ian Hall, Modi and the Reinvention of Indian Foreign Policy (Bristol U Press, 2021): https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/modi-and-the-reinvention-of-indian-foreign-policy Grand Tamasha (podcast): https://carnegieendowment.org/podcasts/interpreting-india Global India (podcast): https://www.brookings.edu/tags/global-india-podcast/ Vijay Gokhale, The Long Game: How the Chinese Negotiate with India (Penguin India, 2021): https://www.penguin.co.in/book/the-long-game/ Steve Randy Waldman, “Abundance is overcapacity”, Interfluidity Drafts (blog), 17 Sep 2024: https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2024/09/17/abundance-is-overcapacity/index.html
What can we expect from Indian foreign and security policy under a third Modi government?How does the India-Russia relationship impact India's foreign policy and cooperation with Western partners?How can India manage its strategic ambitions amidst region instability – including its deteriorating relationship with China?How do Australia and other Western powers balance their interests in strategic cooperation with India alongside challenges to political trust that have emerged recently? In this episode, Ian Hall and Darshana Baruah join Rory Medcalf to discuss India's evolving place in the world, from its immediate neighbourhood to bilateral relationships with global powers. Professor Ian Hall is a Professor of International Relations at Griffith University. He is also an Academic Fellow of the Australia India Institute.Darshana Baruah is Director of Security and Geopolitics at the Australia India Institute and an Expert Associate at the ANU National Security College.Professor Rory Medcalf is Head of the ANU National Security College. His professional experience spans more than three decades across diplomacy, intelligence analysis, think thanks, journalism and academia. Show notes ANU National Security College academic programs: find out more Darshana Baruah's book: The Contest for the Indian OceanIan Hall's books: The Engagement of India: Strategies and Responses and Assessing Australia's Strategic Personalities We'd love to hear from you! Send in your questions, comments, and suggestions to NatSecPod@anu.edu.au. You can tweet us @NSC_ANU and be sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on future episodes. The National Security Podcast is available on Acast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
What is social licence a licence for? What are the public signing up to? How do other nations restructure the national security discussion to involve people, rather than just informing them? As a diverse and multicultural nation, how can we use technology to broaden public consultation? In this episode, James Brown, Dai Le, Christian Fjäder, Lisa Singh, and James Mortensen join Duncan Lewis to discuss the role of social licence, how it is generated, and how much licence is enough. They explore lessons from comparable liberal democracies and Australia's own history in achieving lasting policy support. James Brown is the Chairman of Invictus Australia. Dai Le MP is the independent Federal Member for Fowler. Dr Christian Fjäder is the CEO of Geostrategic Intelligence Group. The Hon Lisa Singh is the CEO of the Australia India Institute. Dr James Mortensen is a Lecturer and the HDR Program Coordinator at the ANU National Security College (NSC). Professor Duncan Lewis AO DSC CSC is a Professor in the Practice of National Security at NSC. Note: This episode was recorded during NSC's Securing our Future conference, 9-10 April 2024. Show notes: Full version with Q&A – Social licence for national security: what's the mandate? ANU National Security College academic programs: find out more We'd love to hear from you! Send in your questions, comments, and suggestions to NatSecPod@anu.edu.au. You can tweet us @NSC_ANU and be sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on future episodes. The National Security Podcast is available on Acast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's statement linking India to the assassination of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar has raised global concern, including in Australia. This SBS Hindi podcast explores the growing diplomatic conflict between India and Canada and its possible impact on Australia's growing ties with India. Amitabh Mattoo, former head of the Australia India Institute, emphasises the importance of Australia approaching this situation with caution due to its substantial Indian diaspora and their deep-seated interest in Indian political affairs.
When he touched down in Sydney this week, India's leader received a rock star welcome. A few weeks back, Narendra Modi became the leader of the most populous nation in the world, after India surpassed China for the title. Now, he wants to transform India's economy into a global superpower to rival Beijing. Today, a fellow at the Australia India Institute, Dr Pradeep Taneja, on the two faces of Prime Minister Modi, and why - despite his chequered human rights record - nations like Australia can't resist him. Featured: Dr Pradeep Taneja, senior lecturer, University of Melbourne and academic fellow, Australia India Institute
When he touched down in Sydney this week, India's leader received a rock star welcome. A few weeks back, Narendra Modi became the leader of the most populous nation in the world, after India surpassed China for the title. Now, he wants to transform India's economy into a global superpower to rival Beijing. Today, a fellow at the Australia India Institute, Dr Pradeep Taneja, on the two faces of Prime Minister Modi, and why - despite his chequered human rights record - nations like Australia can't resist him. Featured: Dr Pradeep Taneja, senior lecturer, University of Melbourne and academic fellow, Australia India Institute
In this special one-off episode of the pod, Van Jackson joins a panel hosted at Australian National University's Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, alongside Greg Raymond, Ian Hall, and Yun Jiang. The topic: "Whataboutism" and the China debate.The great American political scientist Seymour Lipset once said, “they that know only one country, know no countries”. This panel addresses the issue of comparisons in our political discourse, and in particular “whataboutism” - the response China critics often make when it is pointed out that other countries have committed egregious actions similar in kind, if not scale, to China. By this, they mean that the comparison raised is a distraction from dealing with China's actions. But this approach arguably sits uneasily with our desires to avoid double standards. This panel of experts will discuss the ethical and political aspects of “whataboutism”, with a focus on China. Speakers: Ian Hall is a Professor in International Relations and the acting Director of the Griffith Asia Institute at Griffith University. He is also an Academic Fellow of the Australia India Institute and a co-editor (with Sara Davies) of the Australian Journal of International Affairs. Van Jackson is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Victoria University of Wellington, a Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, and a Senior Associate Fellow at the Centre for Strategic Studies in Wellington, New Zealand. Yun Jiang is the inaugural AIIA China Matters Fellow. Prior to this, she was the co-founder and editor of China Neican, and a managing editor of the China Story blog at the Australian Centre on China in the World. Moderator Gregory Raymond is a lecturer in the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs researching Southeast Asian politics and foreign relations. He is the author of Thai Military Power: A Culture of Strategic Accommodation (NIAS Press 2018) and the lead author of The United States-Thai Alliance: History, Memory and Current Developments (Routledge, 2021).
The Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, England, has the largest collection of Naga material culture in the world (around 6466 items), including the human remains of Naga ancestors. Anthropologists Dolly Kikon and Arkotong Longkumer have been working as part of a community-led initiative to ensure the return of the Naga ancestral remains to their rightful home in Nagaland. Through this project, Dolly and Arkotong say they are discovering how Indian mainland scholars have also used and abused Naga ancestral remains in similar ways and that some Indian museums continue to store them. In this episode of The Suno India Show, host Suryatapa Mukherjee spoke to Dolly and Arkotong to learn more about this path-breaking work. This is the first time that repatriation of ancestral human remains have been initiated in India and even Asia, for indigenous people. Dolly Kikon is a Senior Lecturer in the Anthropology and Development Studies Program at Melbourne University, and a Senior Research Associate at the Australia India Institute. Arkotong Longkumer is Senior Lecturer in Modern Asia at the University of Edinburgh, and Senior Research Fellow at the Kohima Institute in Nagaland. Morung Lecture XIV: Naga Ancestral Remains, Repatriation and Healing of the LandThe Unfinished Business of Colonialism: Naga Ancestral Remains and the Healing of the Land | MorungExpressCritical Changes | Pitt Rivers MuseumPitt Rivers Museum | Oxford and Colonialism Working Towards Return with the Pitt Rivers Museum Return Reconcile Renew See sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.
In this episode of the National Security Podcast, Lisa Singh, CEO of the Australia India Institute, and Dr David Brewster, Senior Fellow at ANU National Security College, join Will Stoltz to discuss the challenges and opportunities for greater cooperation with India on international security issues.India will play a pivotal role in shaping international security in the decades to come. There are challenges and opportunities for greater cooperation between India and other democratic states like Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. As the world adapts to the invasion of Ukraine and looks to potential conflicts that may arise elsewhere, we ask what practical steps Australia and other countries can do to ensure India fulfils its potential to secure and stabilise an uncertain world.For more, see the College's recent Policy Options Paper, 'New options for trilateral cooperation in the Indo-Pacific: Australia-India-United Kingdom'. Lisa Singh is CEO of the Australia India Institute and a former Senator for Tasmania. Dr David Brewster is a Senior Fellow at the ANU National Security College.Dr William A Stoltz is the Policy Director at the ANU National Security College.We'd love to hear from you! Send in your questions, comments, and suggestions to NatSecPod@anu.edu.au. You can tweet us @NSC_ANU and be sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on future episodes. The National Security Podcast is available on Acast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Dr. Surjeet Dhanji, Manager for Victorian Government Projects at the Australia India Institute chats to Arpita Das, founder of Yoda Press, and Editor of South Asian Series, Melbourne University Press. Arpita is also visiting faculty, lecturer at Ashoka University, where she teaches critical thinking. Amongst her many other ventures is her feminist electives, and in this podcast, Arpita shares with us her journey as a writer, publisher, advisor, and teacher.
Earlier this month, South Asian Today reported 13 Academic Fellows resigned from the University of Melbourne's Australia India Institute alleging restricted academic freedom and raising concerns around the Institute's approach toward research on matters of Hindu nationalism. There is also a strong indication of interference by the Indian High Commission in the Institute's operations. In May 2019, a public lecture by Thomas Blom Hansen on ‘violence' was downgraded to an invite-only seminar. In a recent interview with The Wire, The Institute's founding director Professor Amitabh Mattoo alleged it was changed due to security concerns and suggested the Institute's then CEO Craig Jeffrey was responsible for it. Dilpreet speaks with Thomas about his lecture, if the Institute was in fact intimated by higher authorities in the Indian Consulate General and why must the University of Melbourne step up.Tune in. Support the show by becoming a member: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/southasiantodaySupport the show
What comes to mind when you think of the Himalaya? For Jonathan, it's a whole lot of questions! This week's guest Dr. Mona Chettri gives us a glimpse at life in the eastern Himalaya, including how political borders have shaped the region; what's changing amidst rapid development; and what the future might hold for young residents. Mona Chettri is a Post-Doctoral Research fellow at the Australia-India Institute, University of Western Australia. She has worked extensively on urbanisation, ethnicity, environmental politics and development in the eastern Himalayan borderlands of Sikkim, Darjeeling and east Nepal. She is the author of Constructing Democracy: Ethnicity and Democracy in the eastern Himalaya (Amsterdam University Press, 2017) and co-editor of Development Zones in Asian Borderlands (Amsterdam University Press, 2021). Her current research focuses on the intersections between gender, labour, urbanisation and infrastructure in the Sikkim-Darjeeling Himalaya, India and Himalayan immigrant labour in Australia. You can follow Dr. Chettri on Instagram @monagtk, on Twitter at @mona_chettri, and on Facebook at mona.gtk. For more information on the eastern Himalaya, check out The Confluence Collective and Sikkim Project. Join the conversation, and find out what former guests are up to, by following us on Instagram and Twitter @CuriousWithJVN. Transcripts for each episode are available at JonathanVanNess.com. Love listening to Getting Curious? Now, you can also watch Getting Curious—on Netflix! Head to netflix.com/gettingcurious to dive in. Jonathan is on Instagram and Twitter @JVN and @Jonathan.Vanness on Facebook.Our executive producer is Erica Getto. Our associate producer is Zahra Crim. Our editor is Andrew Carson. Our socials are run and curated by Middle Seat Digital. Our theme music is “Freak” by QUIN; for more, head to TheQuinCat.com. Getting Curious merch is available on PodSwag.com.
On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. Going beyond the contested regions in the East, the Russian troops marched on other Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv, and Putin announced that his nuclear forces were on high alert. This war has had a significant humanitarian, economic, and geopolitical fallout. Meanwhile the UN General Assembly has voted to adopt a resolution condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine, with some 141 countries demanding that Moscow immediately withdraw its forces from the soil of its sovereign neighbour. While 5 voted against the resolution, some 35 countries abstained from voting, including India. For India, a nation one may say is isolated in an increasingly hostile region, its challenge is to continue to engage with the West while trying not to abandon ties with an old ally, Russia. This podcast decodes India's stance on the Ukraine crisis with Professor Ian Hall, from Griffith University, Dr Daniel Markey from United States Institute of Peace and the Australia India Institute's CEO Lisa Singh.
2021 witnessed the historic elevation of the QUAD when the leaders of the four nations met in the US and discussed the future of the QUAD and the Indo-Pacific. The members also agreed to work together on multiple issues of significance, and through their QUAD vaccine diplomacy played a crucial role in helping the region deal with the pandemic. QUAD nations have time and again expressed concerns over the ever-changing geopolitical environment in the Indo-Pacific. So will 2022 see an increase in efforts to collectively tackle common security issues among QUAD members? What role will the QUAD play in shaping the future of the Indo-Pacific? Concerns over global supply chains have also been imperative to the QUAD's agenda, so will the QUAD consider broadening its agenda to include economic and trade aspects? This podcast features an interview with Dr. Rajesh Rajagopalan, a Professor of International Politics at Jawaharlal Nehru University and the Australia India Institute's CEO Hon Lisa Singh.
Professor Pradeep Taneja, Academic Fellow at Australia India Institute and Senior Lecturer at the University of Melbourne, says the 700,00-strong Indian diaspora will play a crucial role in strengthening ties between Indian and Australia in future. Professor Taneja explains the current Australia-India relations after Treasurer Josh Frydenberg on Thursday announced $36 million for expanding Australia's diplomatic presence in India's southern city of Bengaluru.
The Australia India Institute's Director, Lisa Singh in conversation with Professor Bindu Puri from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on the significance of satyagraha as a method of earning rights through self-suffering rather than inflicting suffering on others and the influence of such satyagraha on contemporary movements and as an inspiration to those who seek to fight oppression and injustice through truth and non-violence.
Why does gender matter when thinking about security? In Asia, discussions and policies concerning conflict, peace and security remain dominated by male voices and views. The exclusion of women's voices has significant implications for the types of ideas, strategies and policies that are proposed and adopted in security-related fields. A live recording of the Asia Rising podcast for 'India Week' - in collaboration with the Australia India Institute. Guest: Dr Meenakshi Gopinath (Director, Women in Security Conflict Management and Peace and member of the La Trobe Asia Advisory Board) Recorded on 11th July, 2021.
India's devastating second wave of COVID-19 is finally showing signs of easing after weeks of lockdowns across the country. But hospitals in India are still overflowing with COVID-19 patients. In this podcast, we hear from two frontline health workers in India who share their experiences treating COVID-19 patients in intensive care and counselling patients and their families. This podcast was a collaboration between the Australia India Institute and the University of Melbourne's Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry & Health Sciences, with support from the Global Health Alliance Melbourne. Speakers Dr. JV Peter – Director of Christian Medical College, Vellore and ICU consultant Jubin Varghese – Sister Mary Glowrey Scholar and Emmanuel Health Association (EHA) clinical psychologist Professor Jane Gunn – Dean of Medicines, Dentistry & Health Sciences, University of Melbourne (Co-Chair) Professor Nathan Grills – AII Senior Research Adviser and Global Health Professor at the School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne (Co-Chair)
As coronavirus continues to ravage India, students from India find themselves torn between family responsibilities at home and their studies in Australia. Monash University PhD candidate Shaheen Ahmed is in Melbourne and unable to be with her family in India. While Dr Akash Aaron is using his medical skills to support a charitable hospital in India, but his situation is hindering his studies at the University of Melbourne. In this podcast, hosted by AII’s Acting Director Professor Ashok Muthupandian and Delhi Project Manager Parul Nadar, both students share how their lives have been impacted by COVID-19. The Australia India Institute has been contributing to the knowledge of India in Australia and the building of the bilateral relationship for over 10 years. The current COVID-19 crisis in India is devastating because it directly touches many of our families, friends, colleagues and associates. We learn daily of people within our networks suffering or succumbing to this terrible illness. As this crisis continues, it is important that we offer our support and strengthen our engagement with India even further.
The whole world is watching India right now. Its daily case numbers of COVID-19 hit 400,000 this week. The death toll is also rising rapidly with India's health ministry reporting more than 3,600 deaths in the past 24 hours. We speak with James Oaten; the ABC's Indian correspondent from Dehli to the get the latest from India; and we speak with Dr Pradeep Teneja from the Australia India Institute about what Indians in Australia make of what's happening on the sub-continent. India is facing a Covid catastrophe. Will it get worse before it gets better? TODAY'S HEADLINES Questions over legality of India ban Senior leaders warn of growing Chinese military and influence Report exposes gymnastics abuse Ex Australia Post boss Holgate sets deadline for legal action OR watch Today's Headlines on YouTube: http://bit.ly/TheBriefingSUBSCRIBE Follow The Briefing Instagram: @thebriefingpodcast Facebook: TheBriefingNewsAU Twitter: @TheBriefingAU See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In this podcast, the Australia India Institute’s Professor Ashok Muthupandian, Professor Nathan Grills and Dr Haripriya (Priya) Rangan discuss the current COVID-19 crisis devastating India and how the Institute and University of Melbourne are lending support. Professor Ashok Muthupandian is the AII’s Acting Director and the Assistant Deputy Vice-Chancellor International at the University of Melbourne. Professor Nathan Grills is an AII Senior Researcher Adviser and Global Health Professor at the School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne. Dr Haripriya Rangan is an AII Academic Fellow and Principal Fellow of the School of Geography at the University of Melbourne. Frontline charitable organisations that University of Melbourne partners with: • CMC Vellore: 500 Covid19 beds. Requesting support for vaccines, COVID19 tests, oxygen concentrators. • Emmanuel Hospital Association : 20 hospitals in rural India serving the poor. Requesting support for PPE, medications, oxygen cylinders/concentrators. • The Catholic Health Association of India : responding to Covid19 across 3500 health facilities. Melbourne University is conducting training to equip their response to Covid19.
In this episode of 'Conversations with Priya', Priya has a candid conversation with Stephen Manallack on Indo Australian public relations. Stephen shares insights on his business journey in India and recollects his many memories of visits, especially one of the times he visited during the festival of colour, Holi (watch and, find out why). Stephen also talks about the strength of Indian democracy according to him , the misrepresentation of modern India created by the western media and the rapid growth of business and the economic development in India in the recent years. Other topics discussed are effective communication strategies, RCEP ( Regional comprehensive economic partnership), Indian PR and strategy, Indo-Australian trade relations, India's possible benefit from the Biden government, comparison of trade between India and China with Australia, trade and business in India and much more.
Over the past five years India and Australia’s bilateral relations appear to be deepening. Both states agree that the future security challenges are likely to occur in the world’s oceans, and other common domains such as space. As a response to rising regional contestation, India and Australia have both expanded defence cooperation activities, including through the development of multiparty initiatives such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (the ‘Quad’) and the new India, France and Australia trilateral grouping. Yet, differences in strategic outlook and trade relations remain that may hinder closer cooperation. Are Australia and India’s strategic interests closely aligned? How does India’s leadership define its core national security interests, and seek to manage relationships with rising China and the US? And what practical steps can India and Australia take to further strengthen bilateral and regional cooperation? A live recording of the Asia Rising podcast as part of the Australia India Institute’s 'India Week' via zoom. Guest: Dr Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan (Distinguished Fellow and Head of the Nuclear and Space Policy Initiative, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi) Recorded 27 October 2020.
India has a long and unique history with a rich cultural heritage, but in the modern race for progress it can be difficult to conserve the past. The country boasts 38 recognised UNESCO world heritage sites with many more under consideration, ranging from natural wonders like the Himalayan National Park, to the cultural treasures such as the Agra Fort, the Taj Mahal, and the Historic City of Ahmedabad. These sites are treated with respect and pride by India, but many intersect with conflicting demands of tourism, religion, and everyday living. How can India preserve its heritage while pursuing a ‘smart-city’ agenda? Who holds the responsibility for maintaining and preserving these sites? How does heritage status affect the local individuals and communities? Panel: Dr Kiran Shide (Planning, La Trobe University) Professor Utpal Sharma (Dean and Director at the Institute of Architecture and Planning at NIRMA University, India) Dr Anita Smith (Archeology and History, La Trobe University) Chair: Dr Bec Strating (La Trobe Asia) A La Trobe Asia event as part of the Australia India Institute’s 'India Week'. Recorded live via zoom on 29 October, 2020.
In the second episode of Ten Minutes India, we speak with Senior Research Adviser at the Australia India Institute, Jyoti Shukla. Jyoti Shukla is a Lecturer in Property at the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning at the University of Melbourne. She also works as a Senior Research Adviser at the Australia India Institute. Issues related to housing and land economics are of prime interest to Jyoti and most of her publications are in related fields. This episode will focus on compulsory land acquisition as in when the government takes over privately owned land for a public project.
Sam and Chris talk with Craig Jeffrey, Director and CEO of the Australia India Institute and Dr Priya Chacko, Senior Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Adelaide about Australia's relationship with India moving culturally and economically in the future.
February 17, 2020 China is increasingly active in the Indian Ocean – be it through trade, port calls or research activities. This development is watched closely by the countries in the region and beyond. How do these states respond to this shift? How does this activity impact China’s relationship to India? And should it concern the European Union? To answer these and more questions I was joined by Pradeep Taneja, former visiting academic fellow at MERICS and fellow of the Australia India Institute and an Associate of the Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies, both at the University of Melbourne, Australia. The conversation was led by Johannes Heller, communications manager at MERICS.
India, the most populous democracy in the world, is asserting itself as a force on the world stage at an impressive rate. With a development this rapid, there are bound to be complications. This episode saw us sit down with Professor Craig Jeffrey, Director of the Australia India Institute, to discuss some of the challenges facing youth in India, the surprising innovations employed to overcome them, and the social phenomenon of ‘time-pass’.
India, the most populous democracy in the world, is asserting itself as a force on the world stage at an impressive rate. With a development this rapid, there are bound to be complications. This episode saw us sit down with Professor Craig Jeffrey, Director of the Australia India Institute, to discuss some of the challenges facing youth in India, the surprising innovations employed to overcome them, and the social phenomenon of ‘time-pass’.
After a rocky start, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue is seeing somewhat of a renaissance. What is driving the renewed interest from the US, Japan, Australia, and India? What are these countries looking to achieve out of the dialogue? Is the Quad going to emerge as a method of containing China, or is this minilateral more mythical than meaningful? Listen here: In this episode of the National Security Podcast, four experts representing the thinking from each of the Quad nations put forward their positions on what the Quad is, what it is not, what each nation sees in the grouping, and where the divergences of interests may arise. Zack Cooper is a Research Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he studies US defence strategy in Asia. Dr Cooper is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Georgetown University and an associate with Armitage International. He previously served on staff at the Pentagon and White House, as well as the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Kyoko Hatakeyama is Associate Professor at Kansai Gaidai University in Japan, teaching international relations and foreign policy. Prior to this Professor Hatakeyama served as a Research Analyst responsible for security situations in Asia and Europe at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan. Ian Hall is a Professor in the School of Government and International Relations at Griffith University and the Deputy Director (Research) of the Griffith Asia Institute. He is also the co-editor (with Sara E Davies) of the Australian Journal of International Affairs and an Academic Fellow of the Australia India Institute. His book on Modi and the Reinvention of Indian Foreign Policy (Bristol University Press, 2019) will be published later this year. Rory Medcalf is the head of the National Security College at The Australian National University. His professional background involves more than two decades of experience across diplomacy, intelligence analysis, think tanks and journalism. The National Security Podcast is available Simplecast, iTunes, and wherever you get your podcasts. We’d love to hear your feedback for this podcast series! Send in your questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes to podcast@policyforum.net. You can also Tweet us @NSC_ANU or find us on Facebook. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Indian general elections begin April 11. vepar5/shutterstockHere’s an astonishingly large number. Around 900 million Indians are heading to the polls to decide if they want to reelect the current government of Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). India Tomorrow is a seven-part podcast series by The Anthill (produced by The Conversation UK), exploring some of the major issues facing India – identity politics, the rise of Hindu nationalism, Kashmir, the role of caste and gender in shaping Indian society, and how women and young people experience these phenomena. Part one, an episode on India’s information wars and how fake news fuels violence, launched on April 9. You can sign up to The Anthill newsletter to stay up to date and send questions via podcast@theconversation.com or via Twitter @AnthillPod. The producers will be putting your questions to academics. Read more: Why Australia should engage with the unemployment crisis affecting Indian youth Today on Trust Me, I’m An Expert, we’re hearing from an academic featured on India Tomorrow. Craig Jeffrey is the director and CEO of the Australia India Institute and Professor of Development Geography at the University of Melbourne. He explains what issues are front of mind for India’s millions of first-time voters delivering their verdict on the performance of the BJP government, led by Narendra Modi. “Two things are really crucial. One is jobs. Young people across India and particularly in parts of India where the economy’s been less successful at creating jobs - so some of the northern states, for example, are going to be really concerned with the capacity of the government to provide better employment opportunities,” Professor Jeffrey told The Conversation’s editorial intern Bageshri Savyasachi. “The second issue, I think, that they’ll be very concerned about is education. So they’ll be looking to see which political parties and politicians are promising to improve higher education […] Because for a lot of young people who aren’t part of the elite in India, there is a mismatch, often, between the educational opportunities they obtain in school or university and then the employment markets and the demands of key private sector firms.” “A third area that’s perhaps less obvious is the issue of health care and public health. And my own observations, as an anthropologist and human geographer working in mainly Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand over the past 25 years on social change, is that young people are often demanding access to health services that are poorly provisioned in provincial India, particularly in relation to issues like sexual health, mental health, reproductive health and that’s an area where I think young people are looking to government for more action.” Join us as Professor Jeffrey explains what implications this enormous election will have for the world’s second most populous nation, and for the rest of the globe as well. Read more: India Tomorrow: a podcast series from The Anthill – episode guide New to podcasts? Podcasts are often best enjoyed using a podcast app. All iPhones come with the Apple Podcasts app already installed, or you may want to listen and subscribe on another app such as Pocket Casts (click here to listen to Trust Me, I’m An Expert on Pocket Casts). You can also hear us on Stitcher, Spotify or any of the apps below. Just pick a service from one of those listed and click on the icon to find Trust Me, I’m An Expert. Transcript Craig Jeffrey: Those numbers are astonishing, aren’t they? And it’s very difficult, I think, for pundits to predict what precisely they’ll do in terms of the elections. What’s slightly easier to say, though, I think, is what’s in the minds of those voters. And I think two things are really crucial, one is jobs. So young people across India and particularly in parts of India where the economy’s been less successful at creating jobs - so some of the northern states, for example - are going to be really concerned with the capacity of the government to provide better employment opportunities. The second issue, I think, that they’ll be very concerned about is education. So they’ll be looking to see which political parties and politicians are promising to improve higher education, tertiary education more generally, the skills environment and school education. Because for a lot of young people who aren’t part of the elite in India, there is a mismatch, often, between the educational opportunities they obtain in school or university and then the employment market and the demands of key private sector firms. So I think jobs and education are going to be at the top of young people’s minds as they go into the polling booths. What are parties and politicians promising in those areas? A third area that’s perhaps less obvious is the issue of health care and public health. And my own observations, as an anthropologist and human geographer working in mainly Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand over the past 25 years on social change, is that young people are often demanding access to health services that are poorly provisioned in provincial India particularly in relation to issues like sexual health, mental health, reproductive health and that’s an area where I think young people are looking to government for more action. And I think that will also be in young people’s minds in the lead up to the elections. Read more: India Tomorrow part 1 podcast transcript: Fake news and the battle for information Bageshri Savyasachi: What jobs are available to young people and do they want to do those jobs? Craig Jeffrey: Well, I think one of the stories of Indian economic growth since 1990 is its failure to create a large number of what might be regarded as white collar or middle class jobs for the increasing numbers of young people who are getting high school matriculation certificates or degrees in India. Now, India’s not especially unusual in that regard. Particularly since the global financial crisis in the late 2000s, economies around the world have often found it difficult to create secure employment opportunities for people. Of course, automation, mechanisation is changing the nature of work throughout the world. So this isn’t specific to India but India is an almost very condensed or intense example of the failure of economic growth to create lots of good quality jobs, that long predates 2014 and the coming to power of the BJP. It’s a structural feature of the Indian economy since 1990 and especially since the mid-2000s period. So to get to your question of what jobs actually exist, in many cases what we’re seeing in India is people having to realign their expectations of what work they’re going to do in that five to 10 year period after they graduate from high school or university. This is not new. Ronald Dore wrote in his book The Diploma Disease in 1970 that India was the country of the BA bus conductor. So that sense of having to downplay your expectations in light of circumstances is quite old in India. But now, I would argue, that a lot of people with bachelors degrees in India would be very keen to have a job on state roadways as a bus conductor, so intense and cut-throat has the employment market become. So you’re seeing people with masters degrees, with PhDs having to do very small scale entrepreneurial business work, you’re seeing them especially having to go back into agriculture – not as large-scale agricultural innovators making large amounts of money and employing other people but rather working on quite small plots of land in an environment where they didn’t imagine that they would go back into farming. So one of the alarming statistics, I think, is that while in most of the period between 2000 and 2010 the number of young people in agriculture was declining, as you would expect in a country that’s undergoing a structural transformation from agriculture into manufacturing and services, in the 2010s and particularly since 2014 there has been an increase in young people in agriculture. Now that is quite worrying for India and reflects the point that jobs in the modern economy are not becoming available quickly enough, young people are not finding the infrastructural and institutional environment conducive to moving into successful medium-scale entrepreneurship where they employ other people and find an outlet for their talents. Bageshri Savyasachi: How crucial has mobilising young people been to the electoral successes of the ruling party, the BJP? Craig Jeffrey: That’s an easy question to answer because of the demographic structure of India and the figures for voting in 2014 in particular show that of course the BJP has been very successful at mobilising people generally in India to vote for them and that includes young people. It’s done so through making a series of important statements about its approach to social and economic change. And it has done so also through tapping into, I think, a sense of national identity that’s important to young people. So the BJP has been pretty successful. Not just the BJP but also various organisations connected to the party at the grassroots level. Bageshri Savyasachi: Is young people’s support for Modi on the wane? A lot of young people supported him when he was first running for prime minister but now a lot of young people are feeling disappointed. What do you think? Craig Jeffrey: I should do that classic academic thing of saying that I’m not an expert on the contemporary views of young people in India. Where I’ve done most of my research has been in particular pockets of India, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand and the bulk of that research was done in the period between 1995 and 2010. Since 2010, my work has been mainly in a village in quite a remote part of Uttarakhand, in Chamoli district, and I’ve written quite a lot about the social and political attitudes of young people in that village. Now, those are quite particular to one part of India. Like you and like lots of people, I read the newspapers, I talk to friends in different parts of India, I try to pick up on the streets a sense of the mood. But in that regard, I’m an armchair or amateur interpreter of young people’s political views at the moment. With those caveats in mind, my sense is that young people may not support Modi as much as they did five years ago but that doesn’t mean that they won’t vote for him. So one needs to maybe distinguish between support and how people will actually behave in the ballot booth. I think lots of people that I speak to recognise that given the high pitch to which Modi raised people’s aspirations in 2014 there was always going to be a sense of disappointment, that skilling hundreds of millions of people quickly was going to be a very tough ask. And that the vision of New India, while attractive in certain respects, is not borne out in social reality for those outside of the elite and particularly in provincial parts of India, in small town and rural India. So people see on the social and economic side a kind of mismatch between promise and actuality. And I think that’s undermined a certain enthusiasm for the ruling BJP government. I’m really not in a position to be able to adjudicate on the extent to which people have sort of fallen out of love with a particular vision of the nation as primarily Hindu or driven by a Hindu civilisational push. That’s, I think, more difficult to ascertain. It’s tricky. The question, I suppose, is: is 2019 to be like 2004, where there was a bit of a surprise that actually the Indian population, including the young population, did move away from the BJP? And it was partly because they didn’t feel that they were sharing in the social gains associated with economic growth. And it was partly, as you just observed, that some of the aspects of the sort of rhetoric of Hindu nationalism were not anymore particularly attractive. So it is possible that the same kind of cocktail will still exist in 2019, of sort of a sense of social and economic exclusion and a sense of being a little bit tired of the same message coming out from the government. But it’s very very difficult to tell. As I said, one has to distinguish between support and enthusiasm on the one hand and the actual decision to vote on the other. Because one thing you see again and again in elections in India is people putting their votes in for politicians or parties that they don’t actually very much like but they feel like they ought to. Ultimately, it’s the least bad choice that they want to make, which is of course it’s not distinctly Indian, it’s an aspect of how people vote across the world. Read more: India Tomorrow podcast series from The Anthill – trailer Bageshri Savyasachi: We’ll just have to wait and watch. What is the state of youth unemployment in India? My impression is that for young people, it’s hard to get a job if you don’t have a masters or a bachelor’s degree. And even then you may not get a job in your chosen field. Craig Jeffrey: Oh, that’s absolutely right. The recent NSSO figures show that youth unemployment in India is something around 16 or 17%. Now those figures are contested but my view is that they are fairly robust. And, of course, beyond that problem of outright unemployment, there’s a very large problem of underemployment where people are working in part-time insecure work that doesn’t reflect their skills, ambitions and credentials. So both outright unemployment and underemployment are becoming increasing problems in India. In 2010, I wrote a book called Timepass which drew attention to this problem based on fieldwork work in Western Uttar Pradesh. I talked about the emergence of a generation of young people who described themselves as people with nothing to do. Who were doing nothing but also in some sense saw themselves as being nothing. A very intense form of social suffering associated with a prolonged period of unemployment or underemployment. When I talk to young people in the same area now they say that actually that book is more relevant in 2019 than it was in 2010. Someone told me when I visited India two weeks ago “I felt like it had been written yesterday” and this reflects the way this problem of unemployment and underemployment to young people has intensified over the past nine years rather than dissipated. Bageshri Savyasachi: In her recent book, Dreamers: how young Indians are changing the world, the prominent Indian journalist Snigdha Poonam writes, “the world’s future depends on young Indians meeting their aspirations but it’s a pipe dream at this point”. How big of a problem is this disconnect between young Indians’ aspirations and their reality? Craig Jeffrey: Well, I think it’s a huge problem and I think that the book Dreamers is very successful in setting that out. It’s worth again going back to the point about demographics. One in eight people in the world is an Indian under the age of 30. It’s worth repeating that: one in eight people in the world is an Indian young person, someone under the age of 30. Now, that’s an extraordinary statistic and it gives a sense of the importance of that demographic for the future of Asia and of the world. Now unlike the same generation 25 years ago, that set of young people are very well aware of events in other parts of the world which are streamed to them via their mobile phones or on the internet. They are increasingly in secondary school, including young women, and in school they’re learning to obviously dream big. And the government is also encouraging those young people to see themselves as part of a new India that’s modern, in which people are based often in urban areas doing what historically has been described as sort of middle class work, service work. And now where you’ve got that situation of both demographic growth and the rapid sort of revolution of rising aspirations, you need an outlet for young people so that they feel as they move into their 20s and 30s that they’re achieving the goals that they desire. And that’s not happening. And the question then is, how much of a problem is that? Well, obviously for the young people concerned it’s a big problem for their families. Young people are not passive in that situation, they actively and creatively seek ways to make do. That may be entering into fallback work in agriculture. It may be finding jobs that perhaps they weren’t aspiring to originally but which provide a means for establishing a family and getting by, in areas like sales and marketing. But there is also a lot of just disappointment, I think, and a sense of stuckedness and limbo that, again, I wrote about in detail in my book Timepass. What’s surprising, perhaps, is that that sense of social suffering hasn’t led to more unrest in India and I think there are several reasons for that. I think partly because India is a democracy people have an outlet for frustration through the political system, through voting, through demonstrating on the streets. I think a second reason why there hasn’t been more political mobilisation is that people often perceive this as a personal failure rather than a failure of government or of society or as a structural failure, as social scientists would put it. They see it as “Well, I didn’t try hard enough” or “I wasn’t successful enough in that examination”. So it’s quite a lot of this failure I think often is personalised rather than seen as a reflection of the structural features of the Indian economy and the wider institutional environment in which people may be trying to start businesses. There’s a whole history of commentators on India talking about the country as being poised to sort of fall into unrest. I’m not going to do that. I think India, it holds together and as I said people are, young people are actively finding ways to make do. But I do think it’s a major social issue at the moment, the lack of capacity for young people to realise their aspirations and it should be and will remain an absolutely critical issue for government in India. Bageshri Savyasachi: How has national politics played out in Indian universities under Modi? Craig Jeffrey: Well, the information that leaks out on this issue tends to come from a small number of the very well-known universities in India. So universities like Jawaharlal Nehru University, Hyderabad University, Delhi University and that there has been, over the past few years as you’ll be well aware, a series of controversies over the government’s treatment of student protesters in those universities and of the ideological, the role of government in shaping how universities operate ideologically through, for example, the appointment of particular vice-chancellors with particular views on politics that then shape those institutions. Now, that’s a very important debate and it’s one that people can follow through a whole series of articles in magazines and newspapers in India. What interests me more is what’s happening outside of those well known central universities. What is happening actually in universities like the one that I worked in quite a bit 15 years ago. Chaudhary Charan Singh University which is the sixth largest university in the world if one excludes universities that provide distance education. And is actually, according to some sources, the second largest university in India after Indira Gandhi National Open University, which of course is largely a distance university, distance education university. So what’s happening in those big state universities that are affiliating other colleges. And that’s an area which desperately requires consideration. I think it would repay close social research. You’re seeing the emergence of different types of student politics to that which existed 15 years ago and some of those forms of student politics are linked to a Hindu nationalist agenda. Some are not. There’s a great deal of foment in those sort of more provincial universities that operates under the radar on which commentators and social scientists know very little about but which is really important in terms of shaping the environment in which the vast majority of students in India study, which is in colleges, not actually in universities. It’s in colleges affiliated to universities like Chaudhary Charan Singh University. I’d be really interested in hearing from anyone who’s listening to this podcast about their views or experiences of the curricular, of student action in India’s colleges where most people study. Bageshri Savyasachi: Do you think there is a growing shift towards illiberalism among India’s youth? Craig Jeffrey: Well, I think that’s a really interesting question. First, one has to think about, well, what is liberalism? And if we define that relatively narrowly in terms of a commitment to formal equality and individual freedoms then I think there’s evidence both ways. There’s evidence of young people contesting those visions of formal equality and individual freedom, for example through their views on areas like sexuality. So there was a recent Centre for the Study of Developing Societies survey that showed that the majority of young Indians didn’t approve of homosexuality. So there’s some evidence there of a certain kind of “illiberalism”. There’s evidence of young people’s involvement in societies or organisations that are policing people’s right to eat certain foods, again which would suggest the rise of a certain form of illiberalism. But there’s also of course a great deal of evidence the other way, that young people are very active in nongovernmental organisations that are seeking to protect people’s formal equality, protect people’s freedoms. The number of youth NGOs in India is growing very, very quickly. There’s also, I think, a very interesting debate about the relationship between the individual and liberalism in India. So an argument that’s been made by several people is that actually liberalism in India is organised around a sense of group rights rather than around individual rights. So it’s perfectly possible to be part of a caste organisation or a religious organisation that’s about equality and freedom but nevertheless is articulating those notions of equality and freedom through reference to caste and religion. So that would be an argument that I think lots of Hindu nationalists would make, is that even though Hindus are the majority and even though that they’re making an argument in Hindu terms, it’s an argument about tolerance and about liberalism rather than about violence or exclusion or limiting people’s freedoms. So it’s a very complicated question. There’s evidence both ways. There’s also a tangled set of debates about whether you could have a kind of liberalism based on a sense of group rights and whether so-called Western visions of liberalism can really be applied to a place like India, where notions of religion and caste and family are so strong. That might be a more detailed answer than you wanted but it’s one that really interests, this is a question that really interests me. Bageshri Savyasachi: What do young people think now in 2019 that their parents or grandparents may not have thought at the same age? Craig Jeffrey: Well, I think one of the effects of more young people studying in secondary school is that they’ve often absorbed notions of citizenship and good government that are communicated in school textbooks. So in one of the villages where I work, I was sitting working with a young person who was doing an English lesson recently and one of the English exercises was to write a letter to the local district magistrate in English complaining about the state of the drains in their neighbourhood. And this was obviously an attempt not only to learn English but to inculcate a particular vision of the citizen and of the state. And I think the effect of having large numbers of young people in school, being exposed to these narratives is actually that many more people have accepted and appreciate that kind of vision of rights and citizenship than in the 1990s when I started doing fieldwork in north India. So you see that’s reflected, for example, in young people’s support for anti-corruption movements. You see it in terms of young people’s questioning of forms of malpractice that exist in certain bureaucracies in India. Another point I’d really like to stress is the revolution that’s been happening in India with reference to women’s and especially young women’s rights and capacities. And that’s, I think, really a major success story in the last 20 years in India or 30 years, is that women and young women have achieved a much greater degree of autonomy and voice at all levels of society and in cities as well as in villages. Now, that comes, of course with all sorts of caveats about the continued problems of gender violence, of disparities in terms of pay and access to schooling and social goods. Nevertheless, I think that is a really important point to stress about the achievements of India in the period since 2000. Additional audio Kindergarten by Unkle Ho, from Elefant Traks Image: Shutterstock
India’s fast-growing population, and aspirations to join the throwaway prosperity of the developed world, generate vast quantities of waste, sewage and pollution. In attempting to mitigate these problems, India displays strengths and weaknesses, and the Clean India campaign has found successful techniques as well as discovering strategies that do not work. Some of India’s experiments hold lessons for Australia. The panel examines the Indian experience of waste removal, public sanitation, recycling and local-government dilemmas with special reference to India’s economic and population growth and to the role caste plays in the contest to control waste. SPEAKERS Assa Doron is Associate Professor in Anthropology at the College of Asia & the Pacific, Australian National University (ANU). Robin Jeffrey is an Emeritus Professor of Politics at La Trobe University and the ANU and chairs an advisory panel for the Australia-India Institute. Dolly Kikon, a lawyer from northeastern India, has a doctorate from Stanford University and is a lecturer at the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne. CHAIR Sally Warhaft is a Melbourne broadcaster, anthropologist and writer. Melbourne book launch of Waste of a Nation: Garbage and Growth in India by Assa Doron and Robin Jeffrey (Harvard University Press). This event is a collaboration between La Trobe Asia and the Australian India Institute (AII). It was held at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne on 31st May, 2018.
India’s fast-growing population, and aspirations to join the throwaway prosperity of the developed world, generate vast quantities of waste, sewage and pollution. In attempting to mitigate these problems, India displays strengths and weaknesses, and the Clean India campaign has found successful techniques as well as discovering strategies that do not work. Some of India’s experiments hold lessons for Australia. The panel examines the Indian experience of waste removal, public sanitation, recycling and local-government dilemmas with special reference to India’s economic and population growth and to the role caste plays in the contest to control waste. SPEAKERS Assa Doron is Associate Professor in Anthropology at the College of Asia & the Pacific, Australian National University (ANU). Robin Jeffrey is an Emeritus Professor of Politics at La Trobe University and the ANU and chairs an advisory panel for the Australia-India Institute. Dolly Kikon, a lawyer from northeastern India, has a doctorate from Stanford University and is a lecturer at the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne. CHAIR Sally Warhaft is a Melbourne broadcaster, anthropologist and writer. Melbourne book launch of Waste of a Nation: Garbage and Growth in India by Assa Doron and Robin Jeffrey (Harvard University Press). This event is a collaboration between La Trobe Asia and the Australian India Institute (AII). It was held at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne on 31st May, 2018.
Is it time to say farewell to the Asia-Pacific? In recent years the idea of an ‘Indo-Pacific’ has swept through foreign policy circles all throughout our region. Yet despite its growing popularity in Canberra, Washington, New Delhi and Tokyo, the new mental map is not without its critics. On this special Policy Forum Pod, we play you a public lecture by Rory Medcalf on Indo-Pacific strategy and what the concept means for Australia. We then take the discussion further with David Brewster and Denise Fisher, where we dive into the wheres, whys and what-ifs of the Indo-Pacific. Rory Medcalf is the head of the National Security College at The Australian National University. His professional background involves more than two decades of experience across diplomacy, intelligence analysis, think tanks and journalism. David Brewster is a Senior Research Fellow at the National Security College, Australian National University and a Distinguished Research Fellow with the Australia India Institute, University of Melbourne. He writes widely on Indian strategic affairs and maritime security in the Indian Ocean region. Denise Fisher is Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University’s Centre for European Studies. She is a former senior Australian diplomat who has served as Australian Consul General in Noumea, High Commissioner in Zimbabwe, and Political Counsellor in Washington. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
In recent years, the English-speaking world has become wildly enthusiastic about India. India is a trusted ally, ‘the world's largest democracy', and it's the ‘democratic counterweight' to China. Despite these pronouncements, India has continually defied and confounded the expectations of the English-speaking world. Dr Alexander Davis, (New Generation Network research fellow with La Trobe University Department of Politics and Philosophy and the Australia India Institute) speaks to Matt Smith about the English-speaking world's 'India problem'. Follow Alex Davis on Twitter: @AlexEDavisNGN Follow La Trobe Asia on Twitter: @latrobeasia
In recent years, the English-speaking world has become wildly enthusiastic about India. India is a trusted ally, ‘the world’s largest democracy’, and it’s the ‘democratic counterweight’ to China. Despite these pronouncements, India has continually defied and confounded the expectations of the English-speaking world. Dr Alexander Davis, (New Generation Network research fellow with La Trobe University Department of Politics and Philosophy and the Australia India Institute) speaks to Matt Smith about the English-speaking world's 'India problem'. Follow Alex Davis on Twitter: @AlexEDavisNGN Follow La Trobe Asia on Twitter: @latrobeasia
In recent years, the English-speaking world has become wildly enthusiastic about India. India is a trusted ally, ‘the world’s largest democracy’, and it’s the ‘democratic counterweight’ to China. Despite these pronouncements, India has continually defied and confounded the expectations of the English-speaking world. Dr Alexander Davis, (New Generation Network research fellow with La Trobe University Department of Politics and Philosophy and the Australia India Institute) speaks to Matt Smith about the English-speaking world's 'India problem'. Follow Alex Davis on Twitter: @AlexEDavisNGN Follow La Trobe Asia on Twitter: @latrobeasia
India has been described as a country of potential, but hiding behind that hopeful term are a few powerful statistics. By 2022 it is projected to surpass China to become the most populated country in the world, and currently around 50% of India's people are below the age of 24. Professor Craig Jeffrey (Director, Australia India Institute) speaks to Matt Smith about the challenges presented with youth in India, and whether it's a demographic dividend or a disaster. Follow Craig Jeffrey on Twitter: @CraigJeffreyaii Follow La Trobe Asia on Twitter: @latrobeasia
India has been described as a country of potential, but hiding behind that hopeful term are a few powerful statistics. By 2022 it is projected to surpass China to become the most populated country in the world, and currently around 50% of India's people are below the age of 24. Professor Craig Jeffrey (Director, Australia India Institute) speaks to Matt Smith about the challenges presented with youth in India, and whether it's a demographic dividend or a disaster. Follow Craig Jeffrey on Twitter: @CraigJeffreyaii Follow La Trobe Asia on Twitter: @latrobeasia
India has been described as a country of potential, but hiding behind that hopeful term are a few powerful statistics. By 2022 it is projected to surpass China to become the most populated country in the world, and currently around 50% of India's people are below the age of 24. Professor Craig Jeffrey (Director, Australia India Institute) speaks to Matt Smith about the challenges presented with youth in India, and whether it's a demographic dividend or a disaster.
This event explored the concept of nothingness in scientific inquiry, sustainability, literature and cultures that express that they ‘do nothing’. Was it vague? There was nothing to worry about. This symposium brought together leading academics, thinkers and experimental artists to delve and dive, to poke and prod and explain to you, the very idea of nothingness. On the night, international law scholar Hilary Charlesworth AM discussed the role of utopia (‘no place’) in international law; Dr Mark McMillan—a Wiradjuri man from Trangie, NSW— who researches in the area of human rights and presented the audience with all or nothing… unpacking Indigenous indifference to being legally “nothing”; founder and co-editor of the Lost Plays Database and lecturer in Shakespeare Studies Dr David McInnis explored the clues to lost plays that can be found in those which survive – clues to existence when nothing remains; Lecturer in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne, and former astrophysicist, Dr Maurizio Toscano drew from the science of human consciousness, from the worlds of particle physics, cosmology and field theory to illustrate how nothing is the authentic source of the scientific imagination; Dr Trent Brown, research assistant at the Australia India Institute, spoke about how nothing has a power that we overlook in our relentless attempts to ‘do something’ and ‘be something’ as he discussed sustainability and food production; Oxford University’s Associate Professor in German and Comparative Literature Professor Barry Murnane spoke about how literature’s nothingness is extremely productive, and how writing allows nothingness to at least be evoked or somehow approximated within its fictional medium; Finally, rounding out the panel, director of the Australia-India Institute, Craig Jeffrey enunciated how young people in northern India refer to themselves as ‘doing nothing’. At the close of the event, a sound installation was performed by nothing—a semi-automatic percussion system by sound artist Robbie Avenaim. At the talk's conclusion musician and producer Lisa Lerkenfeldt played a selection of music about nothing. -- This event was made possible by the Australia India Institute and the Hugh D T Williamson Foundation through funding for MPavilion’s series of events looking at design & science.
The word ‘lore’ refers to a body of knowledge, especially of a traditional nature, typically passed on by word of mouth. So, how does the concept of lore relate to architecture? At this Melbourne School of Design and MPavilion lecture, celebrated Indian architect Bijoy Jain discussed how the concept of lore is central to his practice and philosophy. The founder of sustainable architecture firm Studio Mumbai, Jain studied and worked in architecture in the United States before returning to India in 1995 to establish his practice. Jain has won many awards for his work, including the Grande Medaille d’Or from the Academie D’Architecture in Paris (2014), and was commissioned by the Naomi Milgrom Foundation to design this year’s annual MPavilion in Melbourne. Jain believes in using local materials, labour and expertise and drawing from traditional skills and and building techniques in all his projects. His philosophy of local collaboration and sensitivity to landscape and environment has influenced his plan for the MPavilion 2016, which will be a ‘symbol of the elemental nature of communal structures.’ In this lecture at the University of Melbourne, Jain informed attendees about how local lore can inform beautiful and sustainable architecture. Presented in partnership with MPavilion, the University of Melbourne and the Australia India Institute.
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