ANNUAL ENDOWMENT LECTURE 2025
The Annual Endowment Lecture of Indian Social Institute, Bangalore (ISI B) for the year 2025 was held on November 15, 2025 at ISI B premises. It started with refreshment and registration of the participants and about 150 people participated in the lecture.
This is one of the important events in the annual calendar of ISI B. The institute holds this lecture every year to gather academicians, civil society members, students and other socially conscious people to inform and engage them on impending issues that affect the poor and marginalized. ISI B took for this year endowment lecture the topic, “From Droughts to Deluges: Understanding Climate Variability and Labour Migration in India”.
Prof. Anuradha Nagaraj, a journalist, academic and founder of The Migration Story, India’s first newsroom that reports on the country’s migrant population working at Azim Premji University was the main speaker who constructed her talk on the climatic change and the ensuant drought as one of the main causes for forced migration. Her lecture was duly responded by Dr. Fr. S. Maria Packiam, SJ, Assistant Professor and Research Supervisor for M.Phil. and Ph.D. scholars, Loyola College, Chennai. In his response he also suggested various ways and means to protect the nature and replenish it so that farmers and marginal labourers are protected and stay in their native lands. The session was ably moderated by Ms. Bhargavi S Rao, a journalist and independent researcher and educator with over 25 years of experience working at the intersection of community action, law, policy, and environmental and social justice. She coordinated the lecture and led the floor very lively by encouraging them to speak out on issues that affect distress migrants. After a lively discussion and interaction from the floor the endowment lecture came to an end around 06.45. pm.