Since its inception a year and a half ago, Bangalore International Centre (BIC), envisioned by a group of like-minded civic leaders, educators, professionals, government officials, artists, academics and thinkers, is now Bengaluru’s go-to place for intellectual and informed discussions. The lockdown has not prevented BIC from presenting thought-provoking discussions and interviews with leading thinkers and intellectuals in India and abroad. They are presented online helping people across the globe access their discussions. Raghu Tenkayala COO of BIC says that their two initiatives BIC Streams (available on their YouTube channel) and BIC Talks (also available on all podcast platforms) has received a good response so far, with a minimum of 100 to 120 people watching these discussions. “This transition has been driven by V Ravichandar. Even before the lockdown, we had plans of starting BIC Stream. We thought this is the ideal moment to kickstart it. It allows us to reach out to people across the country and abroad. And it will continue even after lockdown.”
Their most popular discussions include ‘When Sport Returns : Its role in a changed world’, (Sundar Raman, Rohit Brijnath, Suresh Menon, Deepthi Bopaiah in conversation with Nandan Kamath) and ‘Social Equity and the Marginalised in India: The Role of the Judiciary: The BN Yugandhar Memorial Colloquium’, which includes talks by Professors Amita Dhanda and Sudhir Krishnaswamy, moderated by PR Dasgupta.
“Next week on BIC Stream, Professor Narasimha D Rao from Yale University’s School of the Environment will make an online presentation on climate change,” says Raghu. The sessions are also interactive. “There is a question and answer box on Zoom, which the moderator asks and it is addressed,” says Raghu. Also to ensure security, Raghu says people have to register prior to BIC Stream.
The YouTube videos and podcasts are well made and seamless. “We got help from Dipti Rao from Arts and Cultural Resources India (ACRI), as part of their capacity building in the arts initiative, and for the podcasts we have Pavan Srinath from Thale Harate podcasts, and V Ravichandar as hosts,” says Raghu.
All their podcasts are available on https://bangaloreinternationalcentre.org/watch-listen-read/audio/ . And their upcoming stream will be available on https://bangaloreinternationalcentre.org/event/climate-change/ .
