Digital politics and networks of environmental activism during the climate strikes in 2019

Our latest virtual workshop on Friday was with Aasim Khan (Assistant Professor at the Department of Social Sciences and Humanities, IIIT Delhi) where we heard about youth participation in the 2019 environmental protests in Delhi and Bangalore. Khan co-authored the work with Sarayu Natarajan from the Aapti Institute. A great Q&A with the audience followed. […]

India and China: Problems that Persist

Speaker: Nirupama Rao (Former Ambassador to China) As part of our weekly Friday workshops, we had an hour-long conversation with Ms. Nirupama Menon Rao, the former Indian Foreign Secretary and the head of the Indian Foreign Service from 2009 to 2011. Ms. Rao spoke to us about the history of the tensions between Indian and […]

Politicians, Gurus or Technocrats? Insights from Prime Ministers’s Speeches in Contemporary India

Speaker: Jean-Thomas Martelli (Centre de Sciences Humaines) This week for our Weekly Virtual Workshop, we hosted Jean-Thomas Martelli and his colleagues from the Centre de Sciences Humaines.They presented their fascinating research spanning text analysis on historical archives. We also saw some snippets of artificial speeches created by the GPT-2 machine learning algorithm on behalf of […]

Where does government come from?

Speaker: Jagdeep Chhokar (Association of Democratic Reforms) Professor Jagdeep Chhokar led an interactive session where he encouraged us to think about how a democracy is supposed to function right from the level of the individual voter to the political party. He stressed the importance of our fundamental duties as individuals in building a functioning democracy.

Researching Criminal Justice in India

Speaker: Anup Surendranath (NLU Delhi; Centre on the Death Penalty) This week we were joined by Anup Surendranath of NLU, Delhi, and Executive director Project 39 A. He spoke about the complexities of criminal justice research in India: the lack of efficient legal representation, little regard for the social context of the accused, the ethics […]

Synchronized Elections, Voter Behavior, and Governance Outcomes: Evidence from India

Speaker: Apurav Yash Bhatiya (PhD candidate, University of Warwick) Apurav Bhatiya from the University of Warwick took us through his research on the topic of synchronised elections and voter behaviour in TCPD's weekly virtual workshop series.We are happy to announce that the Centre has launched its youtube channel where you may access insightful discussions and […]

Doing Journalism in the Time of Modi

Speakers: Harish KhareMr. Harish Khare, distinguished journalist and former Media Advisor to the Prime Minister of India from 2009 - 2012 took us through an overview of the evolving face of Indian media through the decades.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4ebDp9EQdA

Role of Civil Society in India

Speaker: Luis Miranda (Chairman, Centre for Civil Society) Luis Miranda spoke on the importance of civil society to a functioning democracy. He highlighted the role of civil society orates and citizens. He also stressed on the need to incorporate multiple perspectives. He urges that anyone can contribute to a civil society, not necessarily by leading, […]

The Political Economy of Bureaucratic Overload: Evidence from Rural Development Officials in India

Speaker: Aditya Dasgupta (University of California, Merced) Aditya Dasgupta presented his paper, "Political Economy of Bureaucratic Overload", which is a study involving Block Development Officers (BDOs) in India. His study offers three key conclusions; first, that BDOs are often forced to multitask due to resource scarcity, second, their inability to focus on managerial activities affects […]

Political Ethnography: On the Ethnographic Approach to Politics

Speakers: Uday Chandra (Georgetown University, Qatar)Uday Chandra spoke on the ethnographic approach to studying politics, building on three case studies from his past work. He highlighted the approaches to ethnographic work and how various factors determine these approaches. His advice to beginners who want to conduct ethnographic work: learn by example, rather than through textbooks, […]

Propaganda and Populism: The Role of the Media in Fuelling Political Polarization”

Speaker: Maya Mirchandani (Ashoka University) Maya Mirchandani, Assistant Professor of Media Studies at Ashoka University joined us yesterday as part of the Centre's Virtual Lecture Series. She spoke about the evolving face of Indian media and its vulnerabilities to political pressures. She also touched upon the role that funding plays in influencing the stances of […]

The Causes and Consequences of Militarized Policing

Speakers: Erica De Bruin (Hamilton College)Based on her newly created dataset, Erica De Bruin (Hamilton College) shows that police forces around the globe have become more militarized—adopting the weaponry, culture, and organizational structures of military forces.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqziTqRwma8

Should News be Subject to TRPs?

Speakers: SY Quraishi, Vikram Chandra and Maya MirchandaniThe Centre in collaboration with Ashoka University's Department for Media Studies hosted a panel consisting of the former Election Commissioner of India, SY Quraishi and Vikram Chandra, well known journalist and founder of Editorji Technologies. The panel was moderated by Maya Mirchandani, who is faculty associate at TCPD […]

Minority Politics in Bihar

Speakers: Julien Levesque (Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH))Julien Levesque, from Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH Delhi), gives a useful overview of minority politics in Bihar and proposes an insightful typology of minority mobilization in that state.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXCwRMoP26s

“The Futility of the Anti-Defection Law.”

Speaker: Rajeev Gowda (former Rajya Sabha MP) Former Rajya Sabha MP and National spokesperson Indian National Congress Rajeev Gowda was in Conversation with Dr.S.Y Quraishi who spoke about law and its ramifications. The session was moderated by Gilles Verniers of Trivedi Centre for Political Data Ashoka University