- 2009 - “Mystic India in the Age of Global Warming” by Edward Luce, Washington Bureau Chief for the Financial Times and author of In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India.
- 2008 - “Soaring, Nuclear Weapons, and World Peace” by Martin Hellman, Professor Emeritus, Stanford University.
- 2007 - “Globalism, Terrorism, and the Human Imagination” by author Shashi Tharoor, global affairs expert, and award-winning author.
- 2006 - “The Tyranny of Identity” by Amartya Sen, Nobel Prize Laureate, Lamont Professor of Economics and Philosophy, Harvard University, with a screening of The Home and the World.
- 2005 - “The Poetic Reality of Satyajit Ray” by Indian art historian Dr. Partha Mitter and film actress Ms. Sharmila Tagore, with a screening of Panther Panchali.
- 2004 - “From Music Room To Talk Room” by UCLA Professor Emeritus Nazir Jairazbhoy with a vocal performance by Purnima Chaudhuri and a screening of The Music Room.
- 2003 - “Islam and California: A Cultural Romance” by Pico Iyer with a screening of Devi.
- 2002 - “Twenty Years of Reality Shows” by Wlad Godzich, Dean of Humanities at UCSC, with a screening of Charulata (The Lonely Wife).
- 2001 - Inaugural Sidhartha Maitra Memorial Lecture: “Friendship and Poetry” by author Vikram Seth.
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