Dr V Selvakumar gives us a rare glimpse of the "Ships and Watercraft of Ancient and Medieval India".
Dr Pius Malekandathil, who literally wrote the book on this subject, speaks on 'The Maritime History of Malabar', a region that has had a long and infuential maritime presence in Indian and world history.
Dr V Selvakumar is a faculty member in the Department of Maritime History and Marine Archaeology, Tamil University, Thanjavur. Earlier he was a faculty member in the Department of Epigraphy and Archaeology. He completed his doctoral research and post-doctoral research from Deccan College, Pune. He was a faculty member at Centre for Heritage Studies, Tripunithura, Kerala and a Visiting Researcher at the Centre for Maritime Archaeology, Southampton University. His research interests include archaeology of India, prehistory, heritage management, maritime history and archaeology, archaeological theory, heritage management, history of science and technology, Indian Ocean Cultural interactions, and ecocriticism.
Dr Pius Malekandanthil is a former Professor at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He completed his research in Lisbon and post-doctoral research at South Asian Institute of Heidelberg University, Germany. He has taught at St.Thomas College, Pala, Goa University and Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit at Kalady-Kerala. He was the Sectional President of Maritime History and Historiography of South Indian History Congress, Anantpur. He was also the President of Economic History Section of Kerala History Conference. He has also been a Member of Academia de Marinha of Lisbon, Portugal and a former Syndicate Member of Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit at Kalady, Kerala. He is also an editor of Studies in History. He has won the prestigious KCBC Media Commission’s Vaijnanika Award (2021) for his philosophical and intellectual contributions.
He has several major publications to his credit, inluding The Germans, the Portuguese and India, Portuguese Cochin and the Maritime Trade of India, 1500-1663, Maritime India: Trade, Religion and Polity in the Indian Ocean and Maritime Malabar: Trade, Religion and Culture.