Last month, a team of six staff from the Civic Initiative (a business group of the University of Massachusetts Amherst Donahue Institute) were in Islamabad. They held a three-day follow-up conference for alumni from recent cohorts of the Study of the U.S. Institutes Comparative Public Policymaking program that has been held annually by the Civic Initiative since 2010. The SUSI program is funded by the US Department of State Education and Cultural Affairs Office.
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Deciphering Pakistan and US-Pakistan Relations
Deciphering Pakistan and US-Pakistan Relations
Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT, September 30-October 1, 2011
The Wesleyan International Relations Association invites you to its 2011 Conference, "Deciphering Pakistan and US-Pakistan Relations" organized in collaboration with the Wesleyan South Asian Studies Faculty and Wesleyan Pakistan Flood Relief Initiative. The conference includes panel discussions, a key note talk, a sufi-rock concert by Junoon and a movie screening of Ramchand Pakistani.
The conference aims to increase understanding and awareness about Pakistan from its culture to its politics, and US-Pak relations. The conference's speakers are among the top commentators, officials and scholars on Pakistan and US-Pakistan relations, and the event will be open to the students, faculty and the larger public.
Panelists and guest speakers include:
- Shahid Javed Burki (Former Vice President of World Bank and Former Finance Minister of Pakistan)
- Stanley Wolpert (Emeritus professor of History in University of California, LA, focuses on political and intellectual history of modern south asia)
- Najam Sethi (the editor-in-chief of The Friday Times and of Geo News in Pakistan. He is the only Asian journalist to receive three international press freedom awards in a decade).
- Ambassador Howard B. Schaffer (Former Ambassador of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh; spent 36 years of foreign service career focusing on US relations with South Asia)
- Asim Khwaja (the Sumitomo-FASID Professor of International Finance and Development at the Harvard Kennedy School and the faculty chair of the MPA/ID program).
- Humeira Iqtidar (Research fellow at the Centre of South Asian Studies and at Cambridge University. She focuses on secularism, feminism and Islamism).
- Najeeb Ghauri (the founder, Chairman and CEO of NetSol Technologies, Inc, and Vice President of US-Pak Business Council)
Social Events:
- Junoon Concert by Salman Ahmed. Junoon is a sufi rock band from Pakistan and is considered one of Pakistan's most successful band; the Q magazine regarded them as "One of the biggest bands in the world" and The New York Times called Junoon "the U2 of Pakistan." Ahmed is the pioneer of Sufi rock, author of Rock n Roll Jihad and UN ambassador for peace (Sample Music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQQLeB7efog)
- Ramchand Pakistani Screening and Q&A with director, Mehreen Jabbar. Ramchand Pakistani is a Pakistani film that tells a true story about a boy who inadvertently crosses the border between Pakistan and India and the following ordeal that his family has to go through. The film has won the Audience award at Fribourg International Film Festival, Switzerland. (Trailer: http://www.ramchandpakistani.com/Preview.htm)
Seats are limited. Please register through the Registration Form and see the schedule.
Proceeds from the conference will go to Wesleyan Pakistan Flood Relief Initiative.
For more details, please contact our team at wira.conf@gmail.com.