Events

With extreme health complications and constraints on travel brought on by the recent pandemic, how can queer love survive and flourish across borders and at home? In a landmark judgement for the LGBTQ community, the Supreme Court of India decriminalized the colonial-era Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. Yet, experts have pointed out that decriminalization without equal rights, especially the right to marriage, precludes living a life of dignity and fulfillment.  
This Pride Month, join Columbia Global Centers | Mumbai, in partnership with the Columbia Alumni Association of India, for a virtual conversation featuring distinguished panelists who will share first hand experiences, unpack the rights and limitations of LGBTQ relationships in India, and propose strategies for availing of networks and services during the coronavirus crisis.

Panelists:

• Geetanjali Misra, Co-Founder and Executive Director, CREA, and Columbia SIPA '89

• Anish Gawande, Curator and Co-Founder, Pinklist India, and Columbia College '18

Chaired by Dr. Ravina Aggarwal, Director, Columbia Global Centers | Mumbai

About the Speakers:

Geetanjali Misra is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of CREA. She is a feminist who has worked at the activist, grant-making, and policy levels on issues of sexuality, reproductive health, gender, human rights, and violence against women. Before joining CREA, she was Program Officer, for the Ford Foundation in New Delhi and and made grants in the fields of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, Violence Against Women and Women's Human Rights. She has served as Co-Chair, President, and Advisor for many organizational Boards including Mama Cash, Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) where she led a strategic planning and organizational development process leading to changes in leadership roles and structure, Global Fund for Women, and American Foundation for Aids Research (AMFAR) among others. She is currently on the Astraea Foundation Board and member of the Amnesty International Task Force- Gender and Diversity. She also co-founded SAKHI for South Asian women in New York and has taught as an adjunct professor at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. In addition, Geeta is an author and regularly writes on issues of sexuality, gender, and rights. She holds Master’s degrees in International Affairs from Columbia University and in Economics from Syracuse University.

Anish Gawande is a writer and translator. He is the director of the Dara Shikoh Fellowship, an interdisciplinary arts residency in Kashmir, and the founder and curator of Pink List India, a queer political advocacy organisation. Mr. Gawande graduated with a degree in comparative literature and society from Columbia University and is currently a Rhodes Scholar pursuing his master's in intellectual history at Oxford, focusing on disinformation and propaganda in the global South.