Academic Heaven

So today, I went to a lecture hosted by Nobel Laureate Jagdish Bhagwati, and featuring the Indian Minister of State for the Environment - Jairam Ramesh.

I'm in love with Indian politics (if you hadn't noticed yet). And the lecture was fascinating! It was great to see how the type of people in Indian politics has changed over the past few years. Ramesh was eloquent, impeccably dressed in a white kurta and blue vest (and with the coolest hair!), and quite funny as well. I also wanted to appropriate his accent - sometimes my 'eh' tinged Canadian accent sounds so boring. Sigh.

Anyway. Ramesh spoke about India's road to Copenhagen and the various processes that have been put into place, and are being put into place, for the upcoming climate change summit. What was fascinating though, apart from the numbers and the action being undertaken by the ministry, was how much India has started to assert itself on the world stage. India's desire to be at the top of the world, in terms of power and influence, was apparent - nay, tangible - in every sentence.

I'm not going to post the notes I took, but will leave you with my favourite quote of the afternoon - from Jairam Ramesh, of course...

And I'm paraphrasing here..

"Why is climate change such an important issue for India? It's because India is completely dependent on climate - economically, socially, culturally. Think about it - what would Bollywood do if the rains stopped coming?"

Hilarious.