396. Sama, Dana, Danda, Bheda: Friends, Rivals, or Just Trading Partners?
BIC TALKS
Trust is thin, history is long, and the consequences? Unforgiving. India and China share a long border and a longer shadow. Security risks and market hopes pull in opposite directions. In a world of shifting power, India must choose with care. This evening explores that choice through the ancient philosophical and logical Indian discipline of Purva Paksha. Each speaker first presents the other’s case, fully and fairly, before offering their own. The aim isn’t to score points, but rather, to see clearly: where trust frayed, where interests align, and where wisdom might guide policy....
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395. Reading the City Reading Ourselves
BIC TALKS
Sundar Sarukkai’s second novel published recently titled Water Days is a reflective look at the changes in his home city, Bangalore, how everyday life gets formed and what happens to the city insidiously and quietly. He explores migration and the changing social fabric, patriarchy, language, linguistic conflicts, power, and who gets to belong in the melting pot that is Bangalore. Water Days is not just a novel about a city; it is a novel about what it means to belong when everything around you is changing. Sarukkai does not romanticise Bangalore, but he listens carefully to...
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394. Building Teenage Mental Resilience
BIC TALKS
Adolescence has never been easy, but today’s teenagers face unique challenges: the pressures of a digital world, rising academic demands, and the aftershocks of a global pandemic. Rates of anxiety and depression are climbing, leaving parents searching for tools to support their children. This discussion, inspired by Resilience Decoded: What Every Parent Should Know About Teen Mental Health, brings together author Dr. Sujata Kelkar Shetty, biological scientist, writer and resilience coach; philanthropist and education innovator Rohini Nilekani; and award-winning filmmaker Pavitra Chalam,...
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393. Too Much Public Not Enough Interest
BIC TALKS
Public interest litigation (PIL) is a legal innovation of fairly recent vintage which was inspired by noble objectives. It has been seen as a useful tool in widening access to justice, especially in societies scarred by poverty, illiteracy, human exploitation, corruption and maladministration. The concept took deep roots in India some thirty years ago and has now become an ubiquitous feature of the legal landscape. Over the years, however, Indian PIL has, in Dr Venkat Iyer’s view, produced a plethora of serious negative consequences, most of them unintended (but not unforeseeable), which...
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392. Handlooms - Past Present Future
BIC TALKS
What does it take to keep a centuries-old craft alive in the 21st century? Handlooms: Past, Present and Future brings together some of the most influential voices in the craft world for a vital conversation on heritage, change, and continuity. From policy and preservation to design and storytelling, this panel explores how handwoven traditions have endured through countless centuries, and the new challenges the 21st century provides. The discussion features Laila Tyabji, founder of Dastkar and a pioneering force in India’s craft revival; Ratna Krishna Kumar, patron of traditional arts; actor...
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391. Code Red: Climate in the Dock
BIC TALKS
It’s here. The climate crisis is no longer a distant warning. Climate Change: The Policy, Law, and Practice is a vital intervention. A book that gathers decades of global negotiations, Indian legal battles, and emerging climate jurisprudence into one urgent and accessible narrative. From courtroom precedents to cutting-edge policy, from carbon markets to constitutional rights, it examines how law can both shape and respond to the climate emergency. Author and legal expert Jay Cheema draws from his experience as Amicus Curiae to the Supreme Court of India in a landmark carbon emissions case....
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390. Confessions of a Lobbyist
BIC TALKS
Insider accounts from political aides, bureaucrats, and diplomats have long illuminated the workings of power—but even more enigmatic were the lobbyists. Operating in the shadows, often invisible to public scrutiny, they were intimately privy to clandestine negotiations, back-channel discussions, and subtle bureaucratic skirmishes. In his new roman-à-clef For No Reason At All, Ramjee Chandran shines a light on this hidden world. Chandran—well‑known in Bangalore as a journalist, publisher, and podcaster—has, until now, remained silent about his time as a lobbyist in 1980s New...
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389. Aah Aha Ha-ha
BIC TALKS
Are we teaching children what to think, or how to think? When our children focus on rote learning and exam-based academic progress, how do we nurture the inventive Indian who can fuel the imagination of the world with creativity, critical thinking and problem-solving? What if classrooms became labs of imagination, not factories of repetition? These are the questions that the Agastya International Foundation set out to answer 25 years ago, by designing a curiosity-driven, experiential learning model that has transformed education across India. Today, their vision of sparking...
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388. The Indo-Pacific Outlook: An Australian Perspective
BIC TALKS
As global power dynamics continue to shift, the Indo-Pacific sits at the heart of a rapidly evolving strategic and economic landscape. In this timely and wide-ranging session, Peter Varghese, former Australian Foreign Secretary and High Commissioner to India, offers a perspective shaped by decades of diplomacy and deep engagement with the region. His address will explore the complex forces redefining the Indo-Pacific: from the sharpening rivalry between the US and China, to China’s expanding influence and the evolving policy direction in Washington. The session will also examine how key...
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387. Partition: Memory, Responsibility & Voice
BIC TALKS
How do we honour truths without exploitation or erasure? This panel discussion will explore how the chapter of Partition is remembered, who holds the responsibility of preserving its stories, and what it means to give them an honest voice. Through literature, oral testimony, archives, or immersive media, each speaker has engaged with histories marked by silence, trauma, and survival. In this session, they will reflect on the choices they have made: to amplify certain voices, to tell different stories with care, and to avoid reducing complex truths into simplified narratives. At the heart of...
info_outlineWhat does it take to keep a centuries-old craft alive in the 21st century?
Handlooms: Past, Present and Future brings together some of the most influential voices in the craft world for a vital conversation on heritage, change, and continuity. From policy and preservation to design and storytelling, this panel explores how handwoven traditions have endured through countless centuries, and the new challenges the 21st century provides.
The discussion features Laila Tyabji, founder of Dastkar and a pioneering force in India’s craft revival; Ratna Krishna Kumar, patron of traditional arts; actor and advocate Nandita Das; and Chandra Jain, textile revivalist and curator of River Weaves: Brocades of Banaras. Award-winning writer and cultural commentator Shoba Narayan will moderate the conversation.
Together, they reflect on what must evolve and what must endure– especially in a time when fast fashion threatens to erase the soulful, skilled work of artisans.
This panel is part of River Weaves, an immersive exhibition that celebrates the beauty, complexity, and cultural depth of Banarasi brocade. Designed by Siddhartha Das Studio and presented by Chandra Jain, the exhibition reveals the layers of history, symbolism, and sustainability woven into each fabric.
Expect insight, honesty, and a renewed sense of why these threads still matter.
In collaboration with:
Kadambari
In this episode of BIC Talks, Laila Tyabji, Ratna Krishna Kumar, Nandita Das, Chandra Jain with will be in conversation with Shoba Narayan. This is an excerpt from a conversation that took place in the BIC premises in Aug 2025.
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