The Vasant J. Sheth Scholarships
Annual scholarships were awarded to the following candidates

The Thirteenth Vasant J. Sheth Memorial Lecture, 2011

2010 Pulitzer Prize winner for History, author of the book Lords of Finance: The Bankers who Broke the World and noted investment advisor, Mr. Liaquat Ahamed, delivered the 13th Memorial Lecture in January 2011.

Mr. Ahamed was an investment manager for 25 years and has previously worked at the World Bank in Washington DC. He is on the boards of the Brookings Institution and the New America Foundation. He is currently working on his second book, based upon the conflict between American politicians and bankers in the early 1800s.

Titled Financial Crises: Lessons of History, the lecture traced the history of financial crises dating back to the Roman Empire. Mr. Ahamed talked about major crises, such as the South Sea Bubble of 1720 and the Great Depression of 1929 and discussed how to spot and correct factors that could potentially lead to another global economic crisis. A packed house of students, policy makers, economists and heads of corporations alike attended the lecture.

Email us at vjsmf@greatship.com for printed copies or a video of the lecture.

The Maritime Heritage Support Programme

Since its inception the Foundation has worked continuously towards creating awareness of India’s maritime heritage among her peoples. Having already conducted exhaustive documentation of heritage buildings and sites dotting the coast of India, the Foundation has formed the Maritime Heritage Support Programme, in collaboration with the Krutha Heritage Organisation’s Debashish Nayak.

The objectives of the Maritime Heritage Support Programme are as follows:

1. To strengthen peoples’ understanding of India’s maritime heritage.
2. To initiate empirical research and field programs related to maritime heritage.
3. To document, preserve, restore and re-habituate historically prominent maritime properties.
4. To initiate the documentation of maritime folklore, rituals and practices in an effort to preserve them.
5. To generate mass awareness and create a healthy perception of maritime heritage and history through popular media.

Gujarat and the Sea

Supported the conference Gujarat and the Sea that took place in Mandvi – Kutch, from 1st to 3rd October 2010, organised by the Darshak Itihas Nidhi. The conference focussed on the rich maritime heritage of Gujarat, and covered varied topics under the technological, archaeological as well as social development of maritime Gujarat, till the early 1700s. The conference also included visits to the boat building docks in Mandvi, and a trip to the excavated Harappan sites in Lothal, Gujarat. The conference was attended by scholars from across the world and covered a wide range of topics relating to Gujarat’s maritime history.

Twelveth Vasant J. Sheth Memorial Lecture, 2010
The speaker for the 12th Memorial Lecture, Paul Smith, British diplomat and Shakespearean scholar, presented a lecture titled "Full Fathom Five: Shakespeare’s Old Seas and New Oceans".

Educated at Queen’s College, Cambridge, Mr. Smith taught Literature at St. Stephen College in Delhi, from 1978 – 1980. He joined the British Council in 1983 and has had postings in Nigeria, Myanmar, Chile, Germany, Bangladesh, New Zealand and Egypt. He then returned to the UK as Director, Arts, before taking up a five year posting as Director of the British Council West India based in Mumbai. He has held directorial posts with the British Council since and is now posted in Afghanistan. He has directed numerous Shakespearean productions in various countries and has been published widely. He was awarded the OBE in 1999.

The lecture charted William Shakespeare’s increasing use of the seas and oceans as a metaphor for the core emotions in his plays and writings. Through his talk, Mr. Smith spoke of the increase in maritime trade and the wealth of maritime discoveries by European sailors as apparent in Shakespeare’s writing. The lecture was accompanied by an audio-visual presentation of clips from films based on Shakespeare’s plays. The lecture was well received and has been published as a monograph.

India’s Underwater Treasures: Shipwreck
India’s Underwater Treasures: Shipwreck is a documentary funded by the Vasant J. Sheth Memorial Foundation. The film was produced by news-channel New Delhi Television (NDTV), created by its senior anchor Vishnu Som. The film documents the wrecks of the SS Colombo and the freighters SS Thrunscoe & the SS Duffryn Manor, lost to the seas in the mid-1800s; they have now become part of the Lakshadweep archipelago’s rich coral reefs, just off the idyllic Minicoy Islands. The crew explores and pieces together the stories of the three wrecks as they dive under water to capture never before seen footage of the sites, and present a fuller picture through video and notes from the ship’s logs. The film premiered on NDTV in June 2010, and is to be presented at the Asian Television Awards at Singapore, in December 2010. Copies of the film or further information can be made available through the Foundation.

Documentation of Maritime Heritage Sites (2007 – 2010)
Collaborated with Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) to document maritime heritage sites across all the coastal states of India – West Bengal, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Maharashtra & Goa and Gujarat. These sites include villages or towns where a particular way of coastal living needs to be preserved to monuments and buildings of maritime heritage importance.

Teachers Heritage Training Workshop
Collaborated with INTACH and the Fox History Channel to hold a teachers’ training workshop for middle school teachers from various suburban schools to help them start heritage clubs with the children they teach. The programme trained the teachers on making children aware of local and national heritage through various activities, field trips to local heritage sites and the use of appropriate resource material & multimedia to impart this information to the children.

Blue Brigade
Supported a project by Mumbai-based NGO, ReefWatch, executed in collaboration with Srushtidnyan. The project implemented a teaching module created for middle-school children to create awareness and impart information about Mumbai’s marine ecology and the need to conserve and protect it. The module involved lessons, presentations of films, lectures as well as field visits where children learned about mangroves and sea-life.

Fisheries Culture Exhibition
The Foundation supported an exhibition organised by the Dakshin Foundation & the Madras Crocodile Bank Trust at the Annual Turtle Symposium, Goa in April 2010. The exhibition promoted awareness about the lives of the various fishing communities living along the Indian coast. Marine conservationists from across the world attended the symposium.

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