Where Behavior and Brain Intersect

Tarun Das (left) with
Shimon Peres
From New Delhi
to Tel Aviv
From left:
Israel Makov,
Chairman of
Netafim and
Given Imaging;
Prof. Stanley
Fischer; and Dr.
Gary Sussman
TAU hosts second annual
India-Israel Forum to
promote bilateral relations
Following the success of last year’s
meeting in New Delhi, this year’s
India-Israel Forum, “India-Israel Relations
in a Global Age,” held jointly by
TAU’s Harold
Hartog
School of
Government
and
Policy and
the Confederation
of Indian
Industry (CII), brought together business
people, experts and academics
to further discuss collaborations between
the two countries in the areas
of trade, agriculture, economics, real
estate, technology, education and
more. Guests of honor at the event
were Minister of Finance and TAU
graduate Dr. Yuval Steinitz, National
Infrastructure Minister Dr. Uzi Landau
and Governor of the Bank of Israel
Prof. Stanley Fischer. In addition, the
delegation visited the President of the
State of Israel Shimon Peres in his
Jerusalem residence.
The co-chairs included Stanley M.
Bergman, CEO and Chair of Henry
Schein; Tarun Das, President of the
Aspen Institute India and Chief Mentor
of the CII; Aharon Fogel, Chairman
of Migdal Insurance, Financial
Holdings Ltd. and Ness Technologies;
and Hari Bhartia, Vice President of the
CII and Co-chairman and Managing
Director of Jubilant Organosys Ltd. In
a message to this year’s delegates,
they wrote that they “aim to build on
last year’s event, thereby serving to
further strengthen bilateral relations
between India and Israel.”
Since last year’s meeting, said
Navtej Sarna, India’s Ambassador to
Israel, two-way trade between the
countries crossed the $4 billion mark
for the first time, a significant achievement
in a depressed economy. He
also noted that India is now Israel’s
third largest trading partner in Asia.
The forum is designed to strengthen
ties, increase dialogue, and serve
as a networking opportunity. Each
session was co-chaired by members
of the Israeli and Indian delegations,
and dealt with a topic of interest and
potential cooperation, such as green
energy. This year’s gathering was
supported by the Stanley and Marion
Bergman Family Charitable Trust, the
Pears Foundation, the Aimwell Trust,
Berwin Leighton Paisner and Ness
Technologies.
Mark Sofer, Ambassador of Israel to
India, called the forum a “meeting of
the minds,” and said he was confident
that the meeting would reveal
“new avenues for economic, technological
and academic collaboration.”
“Performance
of Musical Angels”
Vice Chairman of the TAU Board of Governors, Dr.
h.c. Josef Buchmann (second from left), presented
one of ten merit awards to a young orchestra player
during a gala concert in Tel Aviv of TAU’s Buchmann-
Mehta School of Music Symphony Orchestra in
cooperation with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.
The all-Tchaikovsky program was described by the
Haaretz music critic, Noam Ben-Zeev, as a “performance
of angels.” Fifteen of the 95 orchestra members
are enrolled in the Adler-Buchmann International
Program for Outstanding Foreign Music Students, and one of them, violinist Petteri
Iivonen of Finland, was personally selected for the soloist’s role by conductor Zubin
Mehta (second from right), the school’s Honorary President. Head of the Buchmann-
Mehta School Prof. Zeev Dorman is pictured right.
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