Monday, January 30, 2012

5th D D Kosambi Festival of Ideas from February 7

DD Kosambi Lectures begin Feb 07, 2012

2012-01-25

The 5th D.D. Kosambi Festival of Ideas will commence from 7th February 2012 at Kala Academy,  Campal, Panaji – Goa. This year, the Directorate of Art & Culture has invited world renowned personalities from various fields for delivering lectures of substantial knowledge.

This year the Directorate of Art & Culture has invited the following Speakers: 
Smt. Uma Dasgupta, D.Phil (Oxon.) is an Eminent Author and former Research Professor, Social Sciences Division, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. She has edited The Oxford India Tagore: Selected Writings on Education and Nationalism (OUP 2009), Rabindranath Tagore: My Life in My Words (Penguin Books, 2006), A Difficult Friendship: Letters of Edward Thompson and Rabindranath Tagore 1913–1940 (OUP 2003). She is the author of Rabindranath Tagore: A Biography (OUP 2004).

Smt. Medha Patkar (Active Social Activist and Environmentalist), She is known for her role in Narmada Bachao Andolan. She has also filed a public interest petition in the Bombay High Court against Lavasa along with other members of National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM), including Anna Hazare. 

Shri Shekhar Singh (Founder member, National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI)), Has worked with the government in various capacities, including as advisor to the Planning Commission of India on environment and forests, chairman of the Environmental Appraisal Committee for Power Projects of the Government of India, and as Supreme Court appointed commissioner on forestry and related matters for the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Shri Saeed Naqvi (Senior Journalist and Distinguished Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi) His articles appear in various newspapers in India and abroad. Parvin Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, US. Studied Journalism at the Thomson School of Journalism, Cardiff, UK. Graduated from Delhi University. School, La Martiniere, Lucknow.

Prof Muhammad Yunus (Noble Laureate, Acclaimed Economist and Chairman of Yunus Center, Grameen Bank). He is dedicated to eradicate poverty. Against the advice of banks and government, Yunus carried on giving out 'micro-loans', and in 1983 formed the Grameen Bank, meaning 'village bank' founded on principles of trust and solidarity. 

In Bangladesh today, Grameen has 2,564 branches, with 19,800 staff serving 8.29 million borrowers in 81,367 villages.

The Directorate of Art & Culture had initiated the D.D. Kosambi Festival of Ideas to commemorate the birth Centenary of the legendary Damodar Dharmanand Kosambi the Indian mathematician, statistician, historian, and polymath who contributed to genetics by introducing Kosambi's map function. He is well-known for his work in numismatics and for compiling critical editions of ancient Sanskrit texts. D.D. Kosambi was also a Marxist historian specializing in ancient India who employed the historical materialist approach in his work. He is described as "the patriarch of the Marxist school of Indian historiography".

He was an enthusiast of the Chinese revolution and its ideals, and, in addition, a leading activist in the World Peace Movement. This Festival is the only one of its kind in the Country.

The inaugural talk at the 1st D.D. Kosambi Festival of Ideas - 2008 was delivered by H.E.Hamid Ansari, Hon. Vice President of India. This was followed by talks by Prof. Romila Thapar – eminent Historian, Meera Kosambi – scholar and daughter of D.D. Kosambi,  P. Sainath – Magsaysay award winner, Journalist and Dr. Vivek Monteiro, a well-known Scientist.

The 4th D. D. Kosambi comprised of colossuses like Dr. Raghunath Mashelkar (Eminent
Scientist of India and President of Global Research Alliance), His Excellency Dr. A.P. J. Abdul
Kalam (Former President of India and Eminent Scientist), His Holiness The Dalai Lama (World renowned spiritual leader and crusader of Peace), Lord Meghnad Desai (Indian- born British economist and acclaimed intellect), Justice Albie Sachs (Former Judge on the

Constitutional Court of South Africa and active Human right activist) and Dr. Karan Singh (Hon. MP of Rajya Sabha and President of ICCR).

The interaction sessions between the public and the speakers is held subsequent to the talk delivered by the speaker to elucidate any doubts in the minds of the people.

The Directorate of Art & Culture requests all the people of Goa to exploit the potential of these illustrious personalities, gain knowledge imparted by them by attending the lectures in large numbers.

Related Report

 

 

The 5th DD Kosambi Festival of Ideas will commence from February 7 at Kala Academy, Campal, Panaji. This year, the Directorate of Art and Culture has invited personalities from various fields.

The speakers include Uma Dasgupta, Medha Patkar, Shekhar Singh, Saeed Naqvi and Prof Muhammad Yunus.

Uma Dasgupta is an eminent author and former research professor, social sciences division, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. She has edited The Oxford India Tagore: Selected Writings on Education and Nationalism, Rabindranath Tagore: My Life in My Words, A Difficult Friendship: Letters of Edward Thompson and Rabindranath Tagore 1913–1940, and is the author of Rabindranath Tagore: A Biography.

Medha Patkar is known for her role in Narmada Bachao Andolan. She has also filed a public interest petition in the Bombay High Court against Lavasa along with other members of National Alliance of People's Movements , including Anna Hazare.
 

Shekhar Singh has worked with the government in various capacities, including as advisor to the Planning Commission of India on environment and forests, chairman of the Environmental Appraisal Committee for Power Projects of the Government of India, and as Supreme Court appointed commissioner on forestry and related matters for the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
 

Saeed Naqvi articles appear in various newspapers in India and abroad. He studied journalism at the Thomson School of Journalism, Cardiff, UK and graduated from Delhi University, School La Martiniere, Lucknow.
 

Prof Muhammad Yunus is dedicated to eradicating poverty. Against the advice of banks and government, Yunus carried on giving out 'micro-loans', and in 1983 formed the Grameen Bank, meaning 'village bank' founded on principles of trust and solidarity. In Bangladesh today, Grameen has 2,564 branches, with 19,800 staff serving 8.29 million borrowers in 81,367 villages.

The Directorate of Art and Culture had initiated the D D Kosambi Festival of Ideas to commemorate the birth Centenary of the legendary Damodar Dharmanand Kosambi

 

Friday, January 20, 2012

Integrating Mathematics and History- The Scholarship of DDK

by Ramakrishna Ramaswamy

Today, D D Kosambi’s significance as a historian greatly overshadows his reputation and contributions in mathematics. Kosambi simultaneously worked in both areas for much of his adult life, and to understand the body of his work either in the social sciences or in mathematics, an appreciation of the complementarity of his interests is essential. An understanding of Kosambi the historian can only be enhanced by an appreciation of Kosambi the mathematician. In a fundamental way, Kosambi embodied the multidisciplinary approach, channelling diverse interests – indeed combining them – to create scholarship of high order.

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