Ideas Worth Spreading

Topic: Seeking Sanctuary
Description: The talk focuses on Bittu Sahgal’s journey down three decades of Sanctuary Asia and links tigers and biodiversity with climate change and the quality of human existence.

Sarah Kay: If I should have a daughter ...

"If I should have a daughter, instead of Mom, she's gonna call me Point B ... " began spoken word poet Sarah Kay, in a talk that inspired two standing ovations at TED2011. She tells the story of her metamorphosis -- from a wide-eyed teenager soaking in verse at New York's Bowery Poetry Club to a teacher connecting kids with the power of self-expression through Project V.O.I.C.E. -- and gives two breathtaking performances of "B" and "Hiroshima."

Topic: Live the Life of Your Dreams
Description: Everybody has dreams. To turn your dreams into reality, however, takes courage, conviction, a readiness to take chances and the strength to follow your own course through life. Sanjeev Lamba dreamt of a life associated with movies when he was a teenager. It took him 20 years and moving to 4 countries to realise his dream. Today, as the CEO of Reliance Entertainment, he has been involved in some of the biggest movies of the past few years in India. In this talk, he shared his experiences and the lessons he has learnt along the way in making his dreams come true.

Topic: Erosion of Cultural Identities
Description: In his presentation, Hinesh Jethwani talked about how the world is slowly losing hold of age-old, cherished cultural practices due to rapid modernization and an increasingly prevalent self-centered perspective. The desire to surge ahead, no matter what the implications, is eroding cultural identities as we know it.

Hinesh talked about the importance of retaining cultural identities, and will describe his endeavor to retain the age-old craft of hand painted Bollywood movie posters. His two year old venture Indian Hippy, works with some of the last few surviving Bollywood movie poster artists in India with a core social responsibility and commitment towards breathing fresh life into this virtually extinct art form, and in doing so, provides a means of employment to the last surviving artists in the trade.

Topic: Not quite Avatar
Description: How the discourse of transforming traditions looks at human beings very cosmetically.....we change superficially but not systemically .....how the 'global' template is actually a 'linear' template that is being imposed on other 'linear cultures' and the Indian cyclical culture....how this is cultural imperialism is institutionalized and so faceless....we do not even realize we are the imperialist....to demonstrate this the talk shows how the internet Avatar and the James Cameroon Avatar have nothing to do with the Hindu concept of Avatar...Vishnu is not Batman!....and yet that is the global assumption where the Indian view, which is the source, is gagged and mocked and comes across as aberration.

Topic: Moving into the Future while taking the Traditions along
Description: India, as a country, as a culture, as a community is not one idea that can be explained easily. It is a concept that is on the move, that is ever changing and evolving.  In this talk, Lakshmi created a context for India's race toward modernity while taking its centuries old tradition along.

Harsha Bhogle: The rise of cricket, the rise of India

The tale of a major global cultural phenomenon: Cricket commentator Harsha Bhogle describes the spectacular arrival of fast-paced 20-20 cricket as it parallels the rise of modern India. He traces the game from its sleepy English roots to the current world of celebrity owners and million-dollar player contracts.