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DTSTART;TZID=Asia/Kolkata:20260218T090000
DTEND;TZID=Asia/Kolkata:20260219T200000
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SUMMARY:Queer Fest TBA
DESCRIPTION:
URL:https://www.ashoka.edu.in/event/queer-fest-tba/
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DTSTART;TZID=Asia/Kolkata:20260218T132500
DTEND;TZID=Asia/Kolkata:20260218T150000
DTSTAMP:20260215T233741Z
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LAST-MODIFIED:20260215T233741Z
UID:89371-1771421100-1771426800@www.ashoka.edu.in
SUMMARY:18 Feb (Wed) 1:40 PM: Third Lecture in Ashoka History Spring Seminar Series 2026
DESCRIPTION:Abstract: My talk discusses the figure of the ambassador in early modern South Asia through a close reading of the memoirs of Asad Beg QazwÄ«nÄ«\, the Mughal emissary to Bijapur in the early seventeenth century. Composed in Indo-Persian\, QazwÄ«nÄ«’s memoirs stands at the intersectionality of multiple textual genres\, thereby defying circumscribed genre limits in the Persian archival register. The text is written as both a wāqiÊ»at (a calendar of incidents) chronicling QazwÄ«nÄ«’s diplomatic enterprise and a safar-nāma (Indo-Persian travel accounts) as QazwÄ«nÄ« provides vivid descriptions of his travails in transit. Despite its limited circulation\, QazwÄ«nÄ«’s meticulously detailed first-hand account is the closest one comes to observing the envoy’s everyday life while on diplomatic deputation. By examining the challenges QazwÄ«nÄ« navigated in the pursuit of his diplomatic mission\, I delineate how QazwÄ«nÄ«’s memoirs offers critical insights into the professional toolkit of the ambassador. I contend that\, while QazwÄ«nÄ«’s narrative strategy is performative in texture\, the text also carries a prescriptive undertone and could be read as a manual on diplomatic conduct. By analysing the autobiographical elements in QazwÄ«nÄ«’s narrative\, I will illustrate how the envoy’s temperament\, subjectivity\, diverse skillsets\, and multi-layered identities shaped his perception and execution of the diplomatic assignment. In doing so\, I explicate the dynamic relationship between imperial service (khidmat) incumbent upon a courtier and diplomatic service (sifārat) an emissary was expected to perform. My talk underscores the processual components of diplomatic practice and demonstrates how individual agency informed by “courtliness” is pivotal to reconstructing the ambassador’s versatile profile. \nBio: Shounak Ghosh is a postdoctoral research associate in the History Department at the University of Manchester\, working on an ERC- and UKRI-funded project on institutional transformation and early modern global history. His research examines shifting diplomatic practices among courts in Mughal South Asia\, Safavid Iran\, Uzbek Bukhara\, and the Deccan sultanates\, that communicated in Persian. Drawing on extensive archival research in Persian manuscript collections — particularly diplomatic letters and emissary reports — he studies how ambassadorial performance\, material cultures\, and epistolary strategies informed diplomatic negotiations across this transregional geography between the late fifteenth through the mid-seventeenth centuries. Shounak is currently developing his first monograph\, "Performing Diplomacy: Ambassadors and the Cultural Grammar of Power in the Persianate World\, 1481-1636\," based on his doctoral dissertation (Vanderbilt University\, 2024). This will be the first book-length study of the ambassador in the Islamic world that will demonstrate how envoys creatively reconfigured the art of letter writing and the aesthetics of diplomatic gifts into a performance of sovereignty in varied courtly spaces. Shounak is simultaneously working on his second book project\, titled "Epistolary Correspondence among Persianate Court Societies: Glimpses from Early Modern Deccan\," supported by an archival research grant from the British Institute of Persian Studies.
URL:https://www.ashoka.edu.in/event/18-feb-wed-140-pm-third-lecture-in-ashoka-history-spring-seminar-series-2026/
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DTSTART;TZID=Asia/Kolkata:20260218T134000
DTEND;TZID=Asia/Kolkata:20260218T145000
DTSTAMP:20260216T232629Z
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SUMMARY:Economics Department Weekly Seminar | Anshuman Bhakri | 18th February 2026 | 1:40 PM
DESCRIPTION:Dear All\, \nThe Department of Economics invites you to their weekly seminar on Wednesday\, February 18\, 2026. \nTime: 1:40 PM – 2:50 PM \nVenue: AC-04-301  \nSpeaker: Anshuman Bhakri \nTitle: Contract Design in Renewable Energy Auctions: Evidence from India \nAbstract: In procurement auctions\, contracts set the post-auction investment terms. Under future uncertainty\, incomplete contracts result in under-investment. This paper proposes contract design for Indian solar energy procurement auctions to help achieve their green energy targets at the lowest possible procurement costs. I estimate a model of firms' optimal bidding and deployment decisions under cost uncertainty. Using the auction and post-award deployment data\, I recover the distribution of the firms' costs and show how the contract design influences procurement costs and deployment outcomes. The results show that the firms take the option of not deploying under high-probability cost scenarios\, which leads to low deployment rates. The counterfactual analysis shows that incentive contracts with optimal selective bid indexing and penalties can achieve an 80% increase in deployment with a 3% increase in tariff. \nThanks & Regards\, \nManish
URL:https://www.ashoka.edu.in/event/economics-department-weekly-seminar-anshuman-bhakri-18th-february-2026-140-pm/
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