India International Centre

The mainstay of the India International Centre is its programme activities. In furtherance of its objectives, the Centre organises talks, discussions and symposia in which scholars and leaders of culture and thought, both from India and abroad, participate. An Advisory Council appointed by the Board of Trustees advises the Centre on the thrust of the programmes. Through its close contacts with prominent academic and cultural institutions in India and abroad, and through its networking with diplomatic missions in the capital, the Centre draws original thinkers and professionals from different parts of the world and this country. Visiting delegates from the early years have included Pearl Buck, P.M.S. Blackett, Robert Goheen, Paul Gore-Booth, Frederick Leboyer and Ivan Illich. In recent years eminent public personalities have included H.H. The Dalai Lama, Sogyal Rimpoche, Julius Nyerere, Willy Brandt, Henry Kissinger, Lee Kuan Yeu, Shimon Peres, Henry K. Cardoso, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Wangari Mathai, Kofi Annan, and Shirin Abadi.

The talks and symposia range from international and civic affairs, ethics and human rights, environment, ecology and wild life to dimensions in science and medicine, to religion, philosophy, culture and literature. Writers and scholars drawing large audiences at the Centre have been Octavio Paz, Christophe Von Furer-Haimendorf, Gunter Grass, Hasan Fathy, Sayed Hossein Nasr, A.L. Basham, Dominique Lapierre, Noam Chomsky, Charles Taylor, Kathleen Raine, Helene Cixous, Maheswata Devi, Nissim Ezekiel, Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, Amitav Ghosh, Amartya Sen, Nadine Gordimer, and Robert Thurman.

The Centre is an important venue for holding international conferences on cultural exchange, initiated by the Centre and by other institutions. Among the notable events organised by the IIC were the Asian Relations Commemorative Conference in 1987, two conferences held in India and the USSR in 1988, Understanding Contemporary Africa in 1996, the Symposium on Greece-India in 1996, and the Indo-Austrian Symposium held in 1997. Recent seminars have largely focused on SAARC, South Asia, China; India & Europe, and India and Australasia. For some years the Centre has initiated the Track – II Indo-Bangladesh Dialogue in collaboration with Centre for Policy Dialogue, Dhaka. Most recently,  to mark the centenary year of Hind Swaraj, the Centre organised the Hind Swaraj Centenary International Seminar on “Social Development and the Human Civilization in the 21st Century” in collaboration with Council for Social Development.  

Each year the Centre organises the C.D. Deshmukh Memorial Lecture, in memory of the founder of the Centre, where distinguished persons in the fields of education, governance and economics are invited to speak. Other annual events are a lecture on Governance and a seminar on the Mid-Year Review of the Indian Economy, the proceedings of which are published.

 

Programmes Conducted by IIC Subject wise:

Other Programmes

Performing Arts

Programmes featuring classical dance, music and folk forms from different regions of India as well as from abroad form an essential feature of the Centre's cultural activities. In addition to regular Hindustani and Carnatic vocal and instrumental recitals, and classical Indian dance performances, dance and art forms from lesser known traditions, from far flung corners of the country, are encouraged by the Centre. The Centre's main thrust has been to encourage and promote young and upcoming artists from all over the country and to provide a platform for established artists to present experimental works and new compositions in dance and music. The Centre has also become an important platform for Western music concerts--recitals, chamber music orchestras and international vocalists.

Another cultural feature promoted by the Centre in recent years has been the 'country festivals' organised with the support of different countries through their cultural missions and embassies based in Delhi, through lectures, seminars, performances, film screenings, exhibitions and cuisine. These have included 'Greece-India-2500 Years of Cultural Exchange', 'Namaste Japan', 'Austrian Millennium'--commemorating the founding of the Austrian nation--and 'Tibet 2000 - Survival of the Spirit'. Similarly, to promote a greater awareness of lesser known communities in India and the cultural diversities of India's traditions, the Centre presented a series of programmes featuring the Parsees and Kodavas of Coorg. Four states of Northeast India--Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Assam--presented cultural festivals at the Centre during 1997-98. In recent years several festivals were organised which focused on specific states and themes as in ‘From the Very Heart of India: The Madhya Pradesh Festival’; ‘Utsav – Celebrating Tagore in the 21st Century’; and ’50 Years in Exile: The Tibet Experience’.

Aspects of folk and classical performances which were in need of patronage have been presented by the Centre in collaboration with the Sangeet Natak Akademi and these include performances of Koodiyattam, Mudiyettu, Pavakathakali and Yakshagana, which were new to audiences in Delhi. As a tribute to Smt Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya, Founder-Trustee of the Centre, in 2000 and 2001 the Centre presented two puppet festivals.  These festivals featured local puppeteers from Delhi as well as those from other parts of the country and abroad including the world renowned Wayang Kulit--shadow puppet tradition of Indonesia.
Since 2004, the Centre has introduced an annual festival ‘The IIC Experience: A Festival of the Arts’ as a yearly feature which presents the finest talents in the visual and performing arts. The entire spectrum of activities – dance, music (Indian and Western), theatre, folk and installation art, photography exhibition, the best of world cinema festival and cuisine are presented using both the indoor spaces as well as flowing on to outdoor locations.

The Centre regularly presents exhibitions of paintings, photographs, sculptures, pottery, ceramic, and glass works of artists from India and abroad. The focus of the exhibitions is to present younger artists, lesser known art forms and folk and traditional styles. The Centre's Art Gallery is now established as an important venue for the presentation of photography as an art form and for new and experimental forms in the arts.

All the programmes are open to members as well as non-members; and is without tickets, invitations or passes. The programmes are announced in the monthly Programme Cards which is sent to members and non-members by post and through email.