OCSI Dialogues – Conversations on India’s Wildlife and Ecology, Friday, 20 April 2018

What :  OCSI Dialogues – Conversations on India’s Wildlife and Ecology
Where :   Private Dining Hall, India International Centre, Lodhi Road, New Delhi
When : Friday, 20 April 2018 at 7 pm

Thank you for making our maiden effort of organising a day long conference, OCSI DIALOGUES 2018 – INDIA PERSPECTIVES,  a great success. It has certainly galvanised both intellectual engagement and fellowship in the society,  and the President would be sending more details about it soon through a separate mail.

Meanwhile we are ready with our next event and it gives  The PresidentOxford and Cambridge Society of India on behalf of the Oxford and Cambridge Society of India great pleasure to invite you to the next edition of OCSI Dialogues – Conversations on India’s Wildlife and Ecology on Friday, 20 April 2018 at 7 pm at Private Dining Hall, India International Centre, Lodhi Road, New Delhi.

Please join us for an evening of stories, anecdotes and conversations with some of our members involved in the study and conservation of wildlife and ecology in India.

The speakers for the evening are Ashok Mahindra (wildlife photographer and author, Capturing Wildlife Moments in India), Latika Nath (wildlife biologist), Pranay Lal(author, Indica – A Deep Natural History of the Indian Subcontinent) and Dr. Vinod B. Mathur (Director, Wildlife Institute of India).

 

Information on the Speakers:

Ashok Mahindra

Ashok has worked as a Chartered Accountant in a career spanning nearly 40 years, and retired as Co-Chairman of Deloitte India in 2008. As a former Treasurer and Vice-President of WWF India, he became aware of the need for preservation of wildlife in India. Post retirement, Ashok become a wildlife photographer. As a photographer, he has widely travelled in India and abroad, seen the fragility of the ecological system and his endeavour is get people to care for the threatened species before it is too late. In May 2015, he came out with his first coffee table book titled ‘Capturing Wildlife Moments in India‘. He has also set up the Hem Chand Mahindra Foundation to promote wildlife and conservation. Ashok studied Mathematics at St. Stephen’s College, Delhi and read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at University of Oxford.

Latika Nath

Latika is a wildlife biologist with a D.Phil on Tiger Conservation and Management from the University of Oxford. She is the first woman wildlife biologist in India to work on tigers and entered the field of tiger conservation at a time when no holistic scientific work had been done on the tiger in India. Breaking into what had been so far an exclusive male dominated field, Latika has spent over 25 years working at the grassroots level for tiger conservation eventually changing focus from academic work to working with the tribal communities in the buffer zone of Kanha Tiger Reserve and the Forest Department of the Government of India. Her life and work has been featured on National Geographic and the Discovery Channel. She is an ardent traveller, photographer, diver and spends time exploring the myriad wilderness spaces of the Planet.

Pranay Lal

Pranay is a biochemist by training and works for a non-profit organisation on public health. He has been a caricaturist for newspapers, an animator for an advertising agency and an environmental campaigner. His first book, Indica – A Deep Natural History of the Indian Subcontinent was published by Allen Lane in December 2016 which won the best non-fiction debut award at the Tata Lit Fest in Mumbai in 2017, the best book award at the Delhi Book Fair 2017, and was named among the top 10 memorable books of the year by Amazon and The Hindu’s non-fiction list of 2017. Pranay did a Masters in Forestry and its relation to Land Use from the University of Oxford in 1995-1997.

Dr. Vinod B. Mathur

Dr. Mathur is the Director of Wildlife Institute of India (WII) located at Dehradun. He joined the Indian Forest Service in 1983 and worked briefly in the State of West Bengal. He obtained his doctorate degree in wildlife ecology from University of Oxford in 1991. He is actively engaged in working with United Nations and its agencies particularly UNESCO and UNDP. He is also the Director of UNESCO Centre for ‘World Natural Heritage Management and Training for Asia and the Pacific region’ at WII. He is also the Regional Vice-Chair of United Nations-Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (UN-IPBES) Multidisciplinary Expert Panel (MEP). He is also currently the Chair of the UN Advisory Group for developing synergies between eight biodiversity-related conventions. His major area of interest include research-policy interface; mainstreaming biodiversity; ecological assessments and green development.

We look forward to seeing you there.

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