"Between Global Aspirations & Local Realities: India’s cities in interdisciplinary perspective" at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Mehrauli Road > 10am onwards on 26th-28th March 2012

Time : 10:00 am onwards

Entry : Free (Seating on First-Come First-Served basis)

Place : Auditorium, School of Arts & Aesthetics ( SAA ) -2, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Mehrauli Road, New Delhi - 110067

Venue Info : www.jnu.ac.in | Map 
Nearest Metro Stations - 'Hauz Khas(Yellow Line)' &  'Delhi Aerocity(Orange Line)'

Event Details : 'Between Global Aspirations and Local Realities: India’s cities in interdisciplinary perspective'.
The environmental effects of India's largely-unplanned cities are increasing, along with their cultural and political importance, and their economic costs and potentials. Together with colleagues from throughout India, the eleven Professors of the South Asia Institute at Heidelberg University in Germany will hold a three-day interdisciplinary conference at Jawaharlal Nehru University on 26-28 March 2012, in which we will discuss the historical, cultural, environmental, political and economic aspects of Indian cities.
Schedule : 
26 March:    CITIES AND THEIR ENVIRONMENTS
10:00                        Welcome by the Acting Ambassador of Germany
                                    Rector of Heidelberg University, Prof. Dr. Bernhard Eitel
                                    Representative DFG to India, Dr. Torsten Fischer
Kolkata and Mumbai
Chair: William Sax
10:30                       Keynote Address
                                 Dietmar Rothermund, Heidelberg
                                 Mumbai: From Fishing Village to Metropolis
11:30                       Mariam Dossal, University of Bombay
                                 An Urban Vision for Mumbai
12:00                       Teatt              
12:30                       Sumanta Banerjee, Dehra Dun 
Memoirs of Calcutta Roads: From colonial urbanization to neo-liberal modernization
13:00                       Lunch
14.00                       Gita Dharampal-Frick, Heidelberg
The discursive construction of Calcutta as a colonial metropolis
14.30                       Partho Datta, Delh University
The "Haussmanization" of Calcutta, 1911-1940
15:00                       Tea
15:30                       Discussion
Urban Environments
Chair: Partho Datta
16:00                       Rohini Somanathan (Delhi): 
Pricing Plastic: Consumer Responses to Environmental Policies in Urban India
16:30                         Marcus Nüsser, Heidelberg
                                 Urban agglomeration and development in Central Ladakh, Northern India                           
17.00                       Discussion
27 March:    POLITICS and HINTERLANDS
Finance and Politics
Chair: Chandrashekhar Bhat
10.00                       Stefan Klonner, Heidelberg
A rural group-based savings and credit scheme on its way to the city: institutional persistence and flexibility in India’s Chit Funds
10.30                       Subrata K. Mitra, Heidelberg
The city and Citizenship in India
11.00                       Tea
11.30                       Christian Struempell, Heidelberg
                                 From the Ruhr Valley to Rourkela: Nehru's industrial modernity between             the global and the local
12.00                       Discussion
12.30                       Lunch
Cities and their Hinterlands
Chair: Christiane Brosius
14:00                       Chandrashekhar Bhat, Tezpur
From Nomadism to Settlement: Journey of seminomadic Waddars from Andhra into a caste in Bangalore
14.30                       William S. Sax, Heidelberg
Urban Nomads of Delhi
15:00                       tea
15:30                       Monica Juneja, Heidelberg
Urban imaginaries, rural utopias – modernist experiments
                                 from South Asia
16.00                       Axel Michaels, Heidelberg
One Valley, Three Cities: Religious Processions and Political Rallies in Nepal
16:30                       Discussion
18.00h                     Reception at the German Embassy
28 March:    IMAGINING URBANITY
Chair: Parul Dave Mukherjee
10.00                       Christiane Brosius, Heidelberg
The creative city between world class and ordinary everyday
10.30                          Arunav Dasgupta, Delhi
                                    Engaging the City: Urban Space, Public Art and the Citizen Designer
11.00                          tea
11.30                          Hans Harder, Heidelberg 
   Literary Images of the City
12.00                          discussion
12.30                         lunch
14.00                          Purushottam Agrawal (Delhi, JNU/UPSC):
   Urbanity and the Question of Pre-Colonial Modernity in India
14.30                          Birgit Kellner, Heidelberg
   Cities and Philosophy in South Asian Intellectual History:  a fresh look at           narrative material
15:00                          tea
15:30                          16:00             
16.00                          discussion
16:30                          final discussion
17:30                          vote of thanks

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