On the occasion of completing 60 years of Indo-German diplomatic relations, a collaborative celebration titled “Germany and India 2011-2012: Infinite Opportunities” was being held in India. The programme started in September 2011 and continued until early 2013.
With a thematic focus on “StadtRäume – CitySpaces”, this programme series across India broached the implications of rapid urbanisation and challenges posed by the pace of change in German and Indian cities today. Issues like mobility, energy, sustainable urban development, architecture, cultural space, education and urban art were prominently featured, touching genres such as the performing and visual arts, science, education, technology and business.
Since its opening in September 2011, over 1,00 events across the fields of Business, Educatiion, Research and Science, Culture and Politics took place across India and simutaneoulsy covered on the website.
In the field of Business and also in Education, Research and Science, there were over 200 events each across the seven programme cities; while more than 600 events took place under the section Culture and numerous political and diplomacy related events of key importance were held under the year of Germany in India.
Year of Germany in India's calendar has been chock full of events, everything from classic music to rock performances, from political visits to performances by international artists, from business conferences to exhibitions and lots more, offering events to suit all tastes across India.
Here, we bring to you, a list of some of the highlights, in no particular order:
ART AND CULTURE
Infinite Rhythms
The year of Germany in India commenced amidst much fanfare and rhythmic resonance as India’s star percussionist Sivamani and Germany’s solo percussionist Christoph Haberer came together for an open-air concert titled, ‘Infinite Rhythms’, at New Delhi’s Nehru Park. The fifteen-month programme series “Germany and India 2011-2012: Infinite Opportunities” was jointly inaugurated by Minister of State of the German Federal Foreign Office Cornelia Pieper, German Ambassador to India Thomas Matussek, Chairman of the Asia-Pacific Committee of German Business (APA) Peter Löscher and Lt. Governor of Delhi Tejendra Khanna. Read more...
Dialogue 2013 Kolkata: A production of Sasha Waltz & Guests
A co-production with the Goethe Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Kolkata, in co-operation with Padmini Chettur and Mahler Chamber Soloists. Sasha Waltz & Guests was funded by Hauptstadtkulturfonds and the Land of Berlin. With the project Dialoge - 2013 Kolkata, German choreographer Sasha Waltz explored the historic district of North Kolkata together with her Indian colleague Padmini Chettur. Thirteen dancers of her company, Sasha Waltz & Guests, met Padmini Chettur and members of her ensemble accompanied by soloists of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Read more...
Parallel Cities
A project, interventions in public spaces, curated by Lola Arias and Stefan Kaegi. The project made theatre out of public spaces, and invited the audience to subjectively experience places built for anonymous crowds. The project was first introduced in Kolkata in December 2012. Read more...
Later it was presented in Delhi in 2013, offering four perspectives on one city. Lola Arias and Stefan Kaegi invited several artists to devise interventions in these omnipresent public spaces. Four artists each chose a location in Delhi as observation stations for urban phenomena. Read more...
5th Bengaluru International Film Festival
Germany was presented as Country in Focus during the 5th Bengaluru International Film Festival 2012 (BIFF), under the banner of the Year of “Germany and India 2011-2012: Infinite Opportunities”, a collaborative celebration on the occasion of completing 60 years of Indo-German diplomatic relations. The Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan sought to fill the gap in the city’s film landscape by introducing what is arguably the only bilateral film festival in the world, certainly in India – the immensely popular Indo-German Film Festivals under the motto ‘Two nations – a single screen’. A great package of 8 award-winning German films were screened and one of the highlights of the Festival was the Retrospective of the German filmmaker Fatih Akin. Read more...
Post Oil City
The exhibition "Post-Oil City: The History of the City's Future" presented a host of innovative city planning projects in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. The exhibition was produced by the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations, Stuttgart and curated by the architecture journal ARCH+, Berlin. After stops in Stuttgart, Berlin, Wien, Alsdorf and Zurich, the exhibition was placed on the international exhibition programme of the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen. In India it took place in Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Delhi. “Post-Oil City” was as much about the future as it is about the past. By contrasting current projects in the field of sustainable urban planning with some from the past, the exhibitions aimed to show that many of today’s developments have their roots in the urban utopias of mid-20th-century modernism. To know more about the exhibition in Hyderabad, click here and for Delhi, click here.
Greening with Goethe
In partnership with the University of Bremen, Germany and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore, Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, Bangalore organised with great success the 2nd International Environmental Youth Conference "Greening with Goethe" - the interdisciplinary environmental project that has been awarded the UNESCO tag of "Project of the Decade" Award for 2012-2013. This environmental project - a farsighted initiative by Dr. Anne Renate Schönhagen of the Language Department of the Goethe-Institut Bangalore - brought together students from Europe and South-Asia to discuss possible solutions for a greener and more sustainable living from December 1 to December 3, 2012. Read more...
Passageway: Solo exhibition by Wolfgang Laib
Along with the basic stock of art works acquired by IfA (Institute for Foreign Relations, Stuttgart, Germany), the Goethe-Institut presented, in consultation with Wolfgang Laib, a set of new, formerly unpresented exhibits by Laib in the realm of ‘Germany and India 2011-2012: Infinite Opportunities’. The exhibition in Mumbai took place in December 2011 while in Delhi in December 2012, Read more...
Symphony Orchestra of India's Concert Season: September 2012
The magnificent strains of Beethoven's 6th Symphony and Mahler's 5th Symphony, along with masterworks by Strauss, Wagner and other great composers were heard at the Symphony Orchestra of India's (SOI) September 2012 Season on September 20th, 25th and 30th. The audiences were treated to an enthralling repertoire of great symphonic works, tone poems, overtures and operatic pieces. Presented as part of "Germany and India 2011-2012: Infinite Opportunities", the Season introduced to the Indian audience two outstanding German artists - famous conductor Christoph Poppen and Lena Neudauer, virtuoso German violinist. Read more...
Sarai reader 09: The exhibition
It was a collaboration between Devi Art Foundation and the Sarai Programme at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (Delhi). Involving around 100 artists, practitioners and researchers invited through an open call, the exhibition took the form of a series of unfolding proposals and episodes that gather incrementally to produce a body of work. Over nine months, Sarai Reader 09: 'The Exhibition' not only initiated and brought new works to the public but also generated a desire for an engaging vocabulary of, and ways of practicing and thinking about, art. Read more...
India goes 3D
It was a platform for the consolidation of the music scene in India. Born from the acclaimed and influential German platform - ‘Germany Goes 3D’ - this programme included an all-day music conference, master-class sessions, performances and silent concerts by leading names from the German and Indian contemporary music scenes. Read more...
United Buddy Bears
The international United Buddy Bears art project was presented inside Connaught Place. Following the motto "We have to get to know each other better …, …it makes us understand one another better, trust each other more, and live together more peacefully.", the 2m tall Buddy Bears promoted tolerance and mutual understanding among different nations, cultures and religion. Read more...
Future Dialogue 2011
It focused on "Sustainable cities: Mastering the challenges and opportunities of rapid urbanisation". The conference, co-hosted by Max Planck Society and Siemens in partnership with Economist Conferences, UN-HABITAT/World Urban Campaign and the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, aimed to find solutions to help Indian cities overcome challenges of rapid urbanisation. Future Dialogue was furthermore a key event of the programme series “Germany and India: Infinite opportunities”. Read more...
"It's all Rheydt" Kolkata 2011
The project was presented by Goethe-Institut/ Max Mueller Bhavan in collaboration with the Ekdalia Evergreen Club Kolkata as part of Germany and India 2011-2012: Infinite Opportunities. It was a collaborative arts project conceived and designed by Gregor Schneider of Germany and fabricated by artisans of Bengal. During his 2010 visit to Kolkata, Gregor Schneider was inspired to design a Puja pandal which would incorporate his thematic work Haus u r as well as contain the ideas of local artisans who make these annual and temporary artistic structures typical of this great Hindu festival of Bengal. Read more...
Yamuna. Elbe Project Y
Project Y was a public art and outreach project initiated by the Ministry of Culture, Hamburg, and carried out in the framework of “Germany and India 2011-2012: Infinite Opportunities”. It was held in the cities of Delhi and Hamburg between October 16th and November 20th, 2011, almost in parallel. The collaborative project was centered on the idea of creating ecological sustainable rivers in cities. Both the rivers - Elbe and Yamuna are central to Hamburg’s and Delhi’s futures and there are various, deeply involved discussions around them, intensified by current challenges facing water issues. Read more...
Bujazzo meets India
The BuJazzO (Bundesjazzorchester), Germany’s Youth Jazz Orchestra, sponsors qualified and talented jazz musicians under the 24 years of age in Germany. As an institution involved in the musical training of young people, it is one of its kind and unique worldwide. In November 2011, on a seven city tour in India, the BuJazzO concerts promised new musical and cultural encounters. This ensemble of young German jazz musicians invited leading exponents of South Indian music - legendary figures and virtuosos from the Karnataka College of Percussion, R.A. Ramamani, T.A.S. Mani, Karthik Mani and master percussionist Ramesh Shotham. Read more...
5th Indo-German Film Festival
The 5th Indo-German Film Festival was held in November 2011, at Lavanya Theatre, St. John’s Road, Bangalore under the motto: 'Two nations - a single screen'. The Festival was being held in collaboration with the Bavarian State Government and the FilmFernsehFonds Bayern, Germany and Suchitra Film Society, Bangalore. It showcased 10 German and 10 Indian feature films, under the banner of Germany and India 2011 – 2012: Infinite Opportunities. Read more...
Hyderabad Literary Festival, 2012
In January 2012, Hyderabad played host for the second time to writers from across India, writing in various Indian languages as well as English. The Hyderabad Literary Festival offered a unique opportunity for literature lovers and aficionados to listen to and interact with some of the best writers. In the light of “Germany and India 2011-2012: Infinite Opportunities” that is, 'the year of Germany in India', Germany was the first host country to bring in two German speaking authors to this event. Read more...
Capital Markets Conference
Deutsche Börse Group and the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce in Mumbai invited Indian financial market players to meet their German counterparts at the Capital Markets Conference. The conference was designed as an exclusive dialogue of the financial centres between Mumbai, India and Frankfurt, Germany. Read more...
13th Asia-Pacific Conference
More than 750 delegates from 25 countries attended the 13th Asia-Pacific Conference of German Business (APK) held in Gurgaon, Delhi from November 1st to November 3rd, 2012. The Conference was addressed by German and Indian Ministers, the former Prime Minister of Korea, as well as CEOs and Members of Boards of not only some of the largest German companies but also SMEs. The APK was held under the aegis of "Germany and India 2011-2012: Infinite Opportunities" and prior to the conference, the delegates visited the Indo-German Urban Mela held in Delhi at the same time. The panel discussions of the APK also covered topics related to sustainable, innovative and futuristic technologies and solutions, and a diplomatic perspective of security and stability in the Asia-Pacific region. Read more...
Youth University in Bangalore
As part of the Indo German Urban Mela Bangalore, Goethe-Institut organised a platter of activities related to the language and culture of Germany. One of the activities was the presentation of an exciting and far reaching project, “The Urban Mela Youth University” – a series of lectures and talks - with the motto “Discover science and economy’’. The project wished to arouse curiosity and a thirst for knowledge among the young people through attractive and fascinating offers, promised to be a fun learning experience through various experiments and trigger an interest in unfamiliar areas of education, research and German enterprises based in Bangalore. Read more...
The Chennai Urban Campus
It was one of the events during the Indo-German Urban Mela in Chennai (August 24-Spetember 2, 2012). The Urban Campus was held in four sessions - Our Water/ Our Waste/ Our City - and the participation focused on making our cities liveable. The critical urban talk series was organised around a survey and practical design of urban development. In particular, the talks questioned the existing status quo of urban planning and critically address various issues related to urban transformation in Chennai and India in applied and innovative ways. Read more...
Indo-German Science Slam
Marking the inauguration of the DWIH in India, the German Embassy New Delhi and the German Research Foundation (DFG) organised a Grand Science Slam on October 27th, 2012 at one of the highlights of the “German Year in India 2011-2012”, the Indo-German Urban Mela in New Delhi. Six finalists presented their slam topics at the Indraprastha "Millennium" Park, Sarai Kale Khan. Vikas Shabadi from Technische Universität Darmstadt won the eminent Jury Award, while Japleen Kaur Pasricha of Jawaharlal Nehru University won the Audience Award. Debdoot Sheet from IIT Kharagpur bagged the Fraunhofer Application Award. Read more...
Opening of German House for Research and Innovation
On October 27th, 2012, the German and Indian research communities came together to inaugurate the German House for Research and Innovation, DWIH New Delhi (Deutsches Wissenschafts- und Innovationshaus-DWIH). Several prominent names were present at the opening, including State Secretary of German Foreign Office Dr. Emily Haber, German Ambassador to India Michael Steiner, DFG President Prof Matthias Kleiner, Member of Upper House of Parliament and President of Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) Dr. Karan Singh, and Secretary, Department of Science & Technology Dr. T. Ramasami. The DWIH New Delhi brings 14 German institutions and organisations under one roof and will serve as a 'one-stop shop' for interested students, researchers and potential partner institutions, and disseminate information about the German higher education and research landscape and funding sources. Read more...
POLITICAL VISITS
German Chancellor Angela Merkel inaugurates "Year of Germany" in India
German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrived in New Delhi on May 31st, accompanied by four cabinet ministers and high-ranking officials, members of the German parliament, as well as representatives of German business, education and research organisations. In New Delhi, the Chancellor and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh led the first Indo-German government consultations. Apart from political consultations, the other important highlights of the visit were the launch of the "year of Germany in India" and the presentation of the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding to Chancellor Merkel. Read more...
Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit visits India
With a view to deepen relations between India and the city of Berlin, the Governing Mayor of Berlin Mr. Klaus Wowereit visited India in March 2012. He travelled to Delhi and Mumbai. During his visit, Mr. Wowereit held talks with Delhi Chief Minister Mrs. Sheila Dikshit, Lt. Governor Mr. Tejendra Khanna and the Minister for Urban Development Mr. Kamal Nath. With this visit, Mr. Wowereit aimed to explore new avenues of cooperation in the fields of economy, culture and tourism. Mr. Wowereit was accompanied by a high-profile business delegation from different infrastructure-related industries. Read more...
Dr. Guido Westerwelle, German Minister for Foreign Affairs, visits India in June, 2012
German Minister for Foreign Affairs Dr. Guido Westerwelle and former External Affairs Minister SM Krishna met in Bangalore and had wide-ranging talks on pressing regional and global issues such as the developments in the Eurozone, the evolving situation against the backdrop of the recently concluded Afghan summit and India's ever-increasing strategic role in Asia's security architecture. The talks between the two ministers, among others, focussed on enhancing bilateral trade, strengthening cooperation in the fields of green technologies, environmental protection, as well as higher education, IT sector and the recently launched Blue Card scheme of the German government. Read more...
German parliamentarian and foreign/defence policy expert on a visit to India
Dr. Andreas Schockenhoff, Member of Germany’s lower House of Parliament (Bundestag) representing Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) — Germany’s largest parliamentary group — was on a four-day visit to New Delhi and Chennai. Dr. Schockenhoff is Deputy Chairman of the CDU/CSU Parliamentary Group in the Bundestag for Foreign Affairs, Affairs of the European Union and Defence Policy. In India, Dr. Schockenhoff discussed the impact of the Eurozone debt crisis, the shape of the European Union in context of challenges it faces today, and the EU and Germany’s position on global foreign and security policy. Read more...
German Economics Minister Philipp Rösler arrives in New Delhi
The Federal Minister of Economics and Technology, Dr. Philipp Rösler, arrived in India on November 1st to attend the Asia-Pacific Conference of German Business. He was accompanied by a host of business representatives and members of the German Bundestag. He met representatives from business and politics from the Asia-Pacific region for bilateral talks and also visited a Delhi metro construction site to see the successful business partnerships between Germany and India. The next day, Minister Rösler joined the chairman of the Asia-Pacific Committee of German Business and CEO of Siemens AG, Mr. Peter Löscher, to open the 13th Asia-Pacific Conference of German Business in Gurgaon. Read more...
Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit for maestro Zubin Mehta
In July 2012, German Ambassador to India Michael Steiner hosted a festive ceremony at his residence to bestow the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany on maestro Zubin Mehta. Through this high Order, Germany acknowledged the outstanding contribution of Mr. Mehta in the field of classical music and promoting bilateral relations between India and Germany. From 1998 to 2006, Zubin Mehta was the admired Music Director of the Bavarian State Orchestra in Munich. At the age of 25, he was the youngest conductor directing the Berlin philharmonic orchestra in 1961 and has been associated with the ensemble for the past 50 years. In 2005, the maestro brought the Bavarian State Orchestra to India. In 2011, he directed a benefit concert in Berlin by the city’s reputed ‘Staatskapelle’ to support WWF’s sustainability projects in the Indian states of Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. Read more...
Germany's Order of Merit for psychoanalyst and writer Sudhir Kakar
Deputy Chief of Mission Mr. Cord Meier-Klodt handed over the prestigious Bundesverdienstkreuz (Germany’s Order of Merit) to psychoanalyst and writer Sudhir Kakar. Through this Order, Germany acknowledged the significant contribution of Mr. Kakar to the mutual friendship and respect between Indians and Germans, thus promoting the bilateral relations between the two countries. Mr. Kakar has won several honours, including the Goethe medal for his contribution towards German language in India. The German weekly Die Zeit portrayed Sudhir Kakar as one of the 21 important thinkers for the 21st century. One of his best known books, "Die Inder", was first published in the German language. Read more..
Prof. Ummu Salma Bava conferred with Bundesverdienstkreuz
In a ceremony held at the German Embassy New Delhi in January 2012, the Chargé d'Affaires Mr. Cord Meier-Klodt handed over the prestigious Bundesverdienstkreuz (Germany’s Order of Merit) to Prof. Ummu Salma Bava. Prof. Bava is Chairperson and Professor of European Studies at the Centre for European Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. She is also an Associate Fellow with the Asia Society, New York. Through this Order, Germany acknowledged the personal commitment and contribution of Prof. Bava towards Indo-German relations over the past decades. The Order was conferred by the then President of the Federal Republic of Germany Christian Wulff. Read more...
