Nation & World

Harvard Kennedy School’s Indonesia Program is using a combination of faculty research, student backing, and direct engagement with Indonesia’s elected officials to learn about and support the sprawling island nation’s democratic efforts.

In an ever-more-crowded media landscape, journalists and academics alike must think creatively about how to bring overlooked human-rights issues to Americans’ attention, said Nicholas D. Kristof ’81 as he accepted the Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism at the Harvard Kennedy School.

During an appearance on campus, Michelangelo D’Agostino explained how he worked to mine fundraising data, helping President Barack Obama win re-election.

A Harvard Divinity School panel explored the workings of Shariah law and the rights of women under its rules, in part through the eyes of its first female judge.

Berkman Center Fellow Ruha Devanesan described some of her research on the “Kony 2012” campaign in a recent talk and in an interview with the Gazette.

Harvard President Drew Faust’s coming trip to South Korea and Hong Kong is framed against a long history of Harvard’s engagement with Asia’s many nations.

At India’s Kumbh Mela, the largest temporary city in the world, public health researchers from Harvard and beyond staged a small but nimble operation to follow health measures and disease outbreaks. The results will hold lessons not just for future Harvard students, but for urban health planners in India and elsewhere.

With the sequester closing in, the Gazette asked Harvard analysts to weigh in on how the dramatic spending cuts might affect the economy, politics, and the funding of research universities.

By the end of the conference, “Governance of Tobacco in the 21st Century,” a few recommendations for international controls stood out: Consider public health a basic human right, and tobacco promotion a violation of that right.

A team of students with the Harvard College Engineers Without Borders is working with residents in a tiny town to improve both access to water and its quality.

An Institute of Politics panel at the Harvard Kennedy School — including a politician, a soldier, and an activist actor — praised the resilience of post-earthquake Haiti but acknowledged the country’s long road ahead for recovery and stability.

In remarks at Harvard Law School, Professor Lawrence Lessig eulogized Internet pioneer Aaron Swartz and proposed a closer examination of minor versus major cyberspace crimes and what he called “extremism in prosecuting computer laws.”

Anson Chan, the former chief secretary for administration for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, outlined her hopes for a more democratic China when she delivered the Rama S. Mehta Lecture at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

The Kumbh Mela, the world’s largest religious gathering, spawns a city of millions virtually overnight — and with it, a thriving ecosystem of commerce large-scale and small. Harvard Business School researchers traveled to India to search for the festival’s unlikely lessons in infrastructure, governance, and informal networks.

NRA President David Keene and Jonathan E. Lowy presented their views on gun policy during visits to Harvard.

Gazette staff writer Colleen Walsh spoke with budgeting expert Linda J. Bilmes, a Harvard Kennedy School senior lecturer in public policy, about the looming government sequestration, and some possible ways to avoid it in future.

One forum, one stage, and one podium — it’s potentially deadly territory for photographers to document night after night. Yet over the years, four Harvard University Photographers — Jon Chase, Rose Lincoln, Stephanie Mitchell, and Kris Snibbe — have made the most of the multitiered space of the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum at Harvard Kennedy School.

The Sangam — the point where the Ganges, Yamuna, and the mythical Saraswati rivers meet — is one of the holiest spots in India, drawing millions of Hindus for the Kumbh Mela festival. As a group of Harvard students learned, it’s also a place where centuries-old religious practices and modern-day environmental politics collide.

Professor Charles J. Ogletree joined writer-director Eugene Jarecki for a Q&A after a screening of Jarecki’s documentary, “The House I Live In,” Feb. 5 at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum.

After Tuesday night’s State of the Union address, Harvard College students at the Institute of Politics watch party offered their first impressions of President Obama’s second-term agenda.

The Gazette asked Francis Schüssler Fiorenza, a professor of Roman Catholic theological studies at the Divinity School, to weigh in on the decision by Pope Benedict XVI to step down.

Nine years after he helped Harvard roommate Mark Zuckerberg launch Facebook, Chris Hughes ’06 returned to campus to discuss his latest underdog venture: his plan to reinvigorate the ailing but venerable magazine The New Republic.

Republicans must accept a broader definition of their party, finding a way to embrace young voters, women, African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, and environmentalists, if they are to avoid repeating the losses of the 2012 election, panelists at an Institute of Politics forum said.

Songs of struggle and freedom filled the vast sanctuary at Harvard’s Memorial Church on Monday as part of a celebration of the life and message of Martin Luther King Jr. The event marked the start of the University’s third annual Interfaith Awareness Week.

In Turkey, the concept of a free press has devolved to a “Pravda-like” state, with 91 journalists in jail on charges of terrorist activity, and stories of corruption suppressed by the government, a prominent former editor says.

Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg sat down with Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow to reflect on her 20-year tenure on the Supreme Court.

The temporary city that supports the Kumbh Mela, India’s gathering of millions of Hindus, is planned and built in just three months. A team of students, architects, and photographers from the Harvard Graduate School of Design set out to map the insta-metropolis in one week.

A panel of leading thinkers shared five visions of education’s future during an Askwith Forum on Tuesday at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The scenarios ranged widely, from redefining the function of schools and teachers to adopting learning models from other nations.

Panelists convened at the Harvard Kennedy School on Monday to discuss individuals’ motivations to risk their lives to fight for democracy.

Volunteerism — not whether, but how best to give back — was at the forefront of the “Alumni Think Big” conference session on Saturday, as eight Harvard graduates and one visiting practitioner presented their “Big Ideas That Will Change the World” at a Wintersession forum.