Even at the Nanoscale... Society's deep impact on science, technology and innovation in India

'Nanoscale - society's deep impact on science, technology and innovation in India' (Authors Upfront, 2020) is researcher and author, Pankaj Sekhsaria's new book based on six years’ research across five nanoscience and technology laboratories in three cities of India. It provides an incisive yet deeply empathetic account of scientific life, laboratory research and technological innovation and makes a strong case for the deep influence of societal context on science, technology and innovation. The colloquium presentation will be the simultaneous story of these labs as also the story of his own journey through these labs. The presentation will also draw upon his other recent book 'Instrumental Lives - an intimate biography of an Indian laboratory' (Routledge 2019), which is a detailed account of the making of perhaps the earliest scanning tunnelling microscopes in India in the late 1980s in the physics department at the Savitribai Phule Pune University.

Sekhsaria will be in conversation for the colloquium with Amitangshu Acharya, independent journalist, interdisciplinary researcher and Doctoral Candidate in Human Geography at the University of Edinburgh, UK.

About the Speaker:
Pankaj Sekhsaria is Associate Professor, Centre for Technology Alternatives for Rural Areas (CTARA) & Associate Faculty, Centre for Policy Studies (CPS), IIT-Bombay. He has a PhD in Science and Technology Studies (STS) from Maastricht University, the Netherlands, where he worked on the 'Cultures of innovation' in nanoscience and technology research in India. His current research interests lie at the intersection of society, science, environment and technology. He is also a long-time member of the environmental group, Kalpavriksh, and author, The Last Wave - an island novel (HarperCollins India, 2014) and Islands in Flux - the Andaman and Nicobar Story (Harper Litmus India 2017, 2019).