The goal of this concentration is to explore how education and knowledge systems can respond to the new realities of the twenty-first century. India has the largest youth population in the world, which is faced with new technologies, experiences, and ideologies that call for re-imagining educational values, knowledge fields, and learning techniques and skills.
Culture
With its identity as the historian’s fieldsite and identifying mark, the archive has taken on a far more capacious, transdisciplinary significance. The Center will host a public talk by Dr Y. S. Alone, Professor in Visual Studies, School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University on Dec 18, 2024. The talk will explore the intersections of Dalit aesthetics, caste and/in contemporary art practice, and infrastructures of art installation and spectatorship. More
Education
From 2013-17, the Mumbai Center worked on a research project entitled The Model Districts Education Project (MDEP) | Access to Achievement led by Nirupam Bajpai. This was a collaborative, five-year demonstration project with the Center for Sustainable Development, The Earth Institute, at Columbia University. The project worked with the Government of India and key education stakeholders in selected rural districts of Morigaon in Assam and Medak in Telangana. It used current scientific evidence and best professional practices to develop, recommend, monitor, and evaluate a high quality, cost-effective, transferable and scalable model of primary education. Selected districts will serve as regional pilots for scaling up improvements. More
Empowerment
Even as India has policies aimed at universal access to safe water for drinking and sanitation, adequate infrastructure is lacking, and achieving economies of scale in supply and delivery remains a challenge. Recognizing these challenges, the Center facilitated a study led by Nikhar Gaikwad, Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and a member of the Committee on Global Thought. The study was funded by the Presidents Global Innovation Fund. Conducted in the informal settlements of Mumbai, India, it aimed to identify and address demand-side barriers to accessing formal water services. More
