Activities in Lund


Successful start for Spring 2012 SASNET Brown Bag seminar series

BrownbagOn 16 February 2012, the first SASNET Brown Bag lunch seminar for the spring semester 2012 was successfully held. It was also the first seminar organised in collaboration with Arbetarnas Bildningsförbund (ABF) Lund, and Lunds Konsthall, and quite a large crowd of people, both academic and non-academic, turned up at the wonderful public art gallery (Lunds Konsthall) in central Lund, to listen to Professor Emeritus Neelambar Hatti from the Department of Economic History, Lund University. He lectured on the ongoing gendercide, as he calls it, and deteriorating sex ratio figures in India, with the provocative title ”Where have all the girls gone?”. More information about Prof. Hatti’s lecture.

Kristina Myrvold, Magnus Larsson and Mariam Meynert.  

SASNET organises Brown Bag lunch seminars since 2011, but from the spring 2012 in a new format, in collaboration with ABF, Sweden’s  largest adult liberal education association, and the municipal art gallery of Lund (Konsthallen). As usual, lectures are given by eminent Lund University researchers working on South Asia related projects, and are held once a month on Thursdays. Coming seminars are held on 15 March (Kristina Myrvold), 19 April (Magnus Larsson), and 9 May 2012 (Mariam Meynert). Venue: Konsthallen, Mårtenstorget 3, Lund. 
More about previous and coming SASNET Brown Bag seminars.

Programme for the spring 2012 (as a pdf-file)


Sheba Saeed visited SASNET’s office in Lund

On Tuesday 14 February 2012, Sheba Saeed, PhD candidate in History, Film and Television at the University of Birmingham, UK, visited SASNET’s office in Lund to meet deputy director Lars Eklund. Sheba, a solicitor by profession, is a guest researcher at the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) in Copenhagen, during the month of February 2012. Her PhD research project focuses on the begging phenomenon in Mumbai, India, using criminological theory. A topic quite similar to her previous MPhil thesis project on Beggars of Lahore, which resulted in a documentary film as part of an audio-visual dissertation. This film, “Beggars of Lahore” (more information about the film), has been screened at international conferences and film festivals, and Ms. Saeed has also made a successful Beggars of Lahore photo exhibition, first shown in 2009. 
Sheba Saeed had been invited to visit Lund University by Teres Hjärpe, international co-ordinator at the School of Social Work, and she accompanied Sheba to SASNET. The School of Social Work is currently expanding its South Asia oriented activities and SASNET is actively promoting this development. 
(Teres Hjärpe and Sheba Saeed on photo)
More information about Sheba Saeed and her projects on her personal web page.

 


Second meeting to plan for joint Swedish masters programme in South Asian Studies

After a kick-off meeting in Lund that took place on 18 October 2011 (more information about this meeting), a second meeting was organised to discuss the creation of a Swedish masters program on South Asian studies. This time, the meeting took place at the Faculty of Arts in the University of Gothenburg in which Åke Sander, Clemens Cavallin and Sigridur Beck from the University of Gothenburg hosted the meeting. SASNET, who initiated the discussion about developing such a program in Sweden, was represented by its director, Anna Lindberg and its assistant webmaster, Julia Velkova. Kristina Miolin from the Division of External Relations, Lund University was also specially invited to share her expertise on the practical and administrative issues related to setting up a Masters program between several Swedish universities.
Other participants in the meeting were Per-Olof Fjällsby from the Department of History at Karlstad University, and Ferdinando Sardella, coordinator of the Forum for South Asian studies at Uppsala University.
After an intensive discussion there was made a preliminary draft of courses to be offered as part of the program. Important part of the discussion was also the structure and formal implementation of such a Masters program. The discussions will now continue online and it will be worked on developing a joint description and argumentation of the program.


SASNET seminar with Mohsin Saeed Khan on Pakistan’s HIV Epidemic

Dr. Mohsin Saeed Khan from Lahore, Pakistan, held a SASNET lecture on ”Selling sex without HIV – Pakistan’s HIV Epidemic” on Monday 6 February 2012, 13.15–15.00. The seminar was organised in collaboration with the Division of Social Medicine and Global Health, Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University in Malmö. Venue: Auditorium, Clinical Research Centre (CRC), Skåne University Hospital in Malmö (SUS Malmö). On photo along with Lars Eklund, SASNET, and Professor P-O Östergren, Head of Division of Social Medicine and Global Health.
Dr. Khan defended his doctoral dissertation entitled ”Poverty of Opportunity for Women Selling Sex in Lahore, Pakistan: Knowledge, Experiences and Magnitude of HIV and STIs” in 2011 at the Division of Global health (IHCAR), Karolinska Institutet (KI), Stockholm. More information.
In the seminar, Dr. Khan pointed out that the national prevalence of HIV in Pakistan is less than 1%. The HIV epidemic is concentrated among Injecting Drug Users (37%), and Hijras (Transvestities – 7.3%), meaning that the epidemic is concentrated among males. Has Pakistan been able to avert a heterosexual HIV epidemic? Is it a game of demand and supply or typologies of most at risk populations? The government of Pakistan has not financed the HIV programme since 2010. The contributions by global financing institutions have also decreased. Only 10% of the health care providers know how to correctly diagnose and treat STIs including Gonorrhoea and Syphilis. The hidden face of risky behaviours, denial, financial instability, global politics and security – have they contributed to the HIV epidemic in Pakistan. See the conference poster.
The audience consisted to a large extent of students and teachers from the Master's Programme in Public Health (MPH), run at the Division of Social Medicine and Global Health. This programme partly focuses on South Asia, and many of the students are from that area (Pakistani second-year students, Muhammad Ahsin, and Hafiz M Tayyab on photo to the left).

During his visit to Lund University, Dr. Khan also visited SASNET’s office in Lund, since he has had a special relation to SASNET. Till 2010, he was associated with SASNET as a member of its advisory South Asian Reference Group (more information).


Successful SASNET seminar on the 1947 Partition of Punjab

Ishtiaq Ahmed, Professor Emeritus at the Department of Political Science, Stockholm University, and Honorary Senior Fellow of the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore, held an interesting and highly appreciated SASNET lecture entitled ”The Punjab Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed: Unravelling the 1947 Tragedy through Secret British Reports and First Person Accounts” about the 1947 Partition of Punjab, on Thursday 2 February 2012. Professor Catarina Kinnvall, Dept of Political Science, Lund University, acted as a brilliant discussant at the seminar.
The lecture was based on Ishtiaq Ahmed’s recent book on the tragic events during and after Partition in the two Punjabs, a book that will get worldwide publication in February 2012 by Oxford University Press. In his lecture, Prof. Ahmed shedded light on how and why the Punjab, a Muslim majority province of British India with large Hindu and Sikh minorities, was partitioned in 1947. Read more about the seminar.


Successful SASNET social evening with film show and art exhibition

 Hosts for the evening: Henrik Hofvendahl from the Division of
 External Relations, Lund University; Anna Lindberg and Lars Eklund
 from SASNET; Raji and Gopal Karanth. 

More than 30 SASNET network members in Lund participated in a social gathering  with food (knytkalas) and film show on Wednesday 18th January 2012. The event was jointly organised by SASNET and the Division of External Relations, Lund University, and aimed primarily at the South Asian Erasmus Mundus scholarship holders – students and researchers – currently staying at Lund University, but many other interested people within or outside the university came for the evening.
The film to be screened was Girish Kasaravalli’s 2002 Kannada movie ”Dweepa” (The Island), a touching film that has been shown at several international film festivals, including in Gothenburg a few years back. The film was introduced by Professor Gopal Karanth, the honorary guest for the evening, and distinguished ICCR Professor at Lund University during the academic year 2011-12. More information about the film.
The event was arranged in Kyrksalen at Gamla Kirurgen, Sandgatan 3, Lund.


 

Besides the film show, and the good food shared by everybody, in the form of a typical Swedish ”knytkalas”, another highlight consisted in an art exhibition. 
SASNET proudly presented the sketches of a budding Lund based Indian artist, Pratiksha Halagi (photo). Pratiksha shared some of her works, representing what she observed as aspects of everyday life in India.  As a young artist aspriting to be an architecht, she was happy to receive comments and suggestions in her pursuits as a student of art and architecture. 
More information about the social evening.


SASNET celebrated Rabindranath Tagore’s 150th birth anniversary 2011

Gurudev

2011 was the 150th birth anniversary year of the great myriad-minded Indian/Bengali poet, philosopher and Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941). Celebrations were frequent in India and Bangladesh but also all over the world, including Scandinavia.
In Sweden, SASNET played a great role in organising a week-long Tagore celebration week in Lund already in March 2011, in collaboration with other organisations. Celebrations were then held in Gothenburg and Uppsala in May, and finally a week-long celebration tour with academic seminars and concerts, again efforts being coordinated by SASNET, were held in Copenhagen, Lund, Stockholm and Uppsala in September.
More information about the Scandinavian Tagore celebrations.
Professor William Radice, who participated both in the March and September events in Sweden, also took part in a large number of other grand Tagore celebration events held all over the world in 2011. 
”Kolkata, Santiniketan, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Delhi and Ahmedabad; Marbach, Copenhagen, Lund, Zagreb and Rijeka; London, Dartington, Cambridge, Birmingham and Hull; Stockholm, Leiden, Salamanca, Barcelona and Valladolid; Washington and Chicago; Kuala Lumpur and Singapore….Who would have thought when I started learning Bengali in 1972 that Bengali and Rabindranath Tagore would take me all over the world? The 150th anniversary of his birth has kept me and other Tagore specialists exceptionally busy in 2011, and the celebrations seem likely to continue, culminating with the centenary in 2013 of his Nobel Prize.”
In an article entitled ”Timeless Tagore”, published in the Indian magazine Frontline, 13 January 2012, he gives a broad overview of the exciting and fascinating events, and a hope that they will contribute to a new appreciation of Tagore as a thinker, and in the long run enhance the understanding of his creative achievements.
Go for William Radice’s article. 


SASNET seminar on Bangladesh: Politics, Economy and Civil Society

Coinciding with the 40th anniversary of Bangladeshi independence, the Victory Day of 16th December 1971, SASNET held a well-attended seminar on ”Bangladesh: Politics, Economy and Civil Society 40 years after Liberation” on Thursday 15 December 2011. The seminar was organised in collaboration with the Department of Sociology, Lund University at Edens Hörsal, Paradisgatan 5.
More than 40 people, including a large number of Lund University students and researchers, listened to the keynote speaker, David Lewis (photo), Professor of social policy and development at London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE). He spoke about ”Repositioning Bangladesh in the global imagination”, giving new perspectives on Bangladeshi development. It was based on his recently published book ”Bangladesh. Politics, Economy and Civil Society” – more information.

Khandker Masudul Alam, First Secretary & Head of Chancery at the Embassy of Bangladesh in Sweden, also participated in the seminar, giving a presentation on Bangladesh’s development from 1971 till today.
The seminar was moderated by Lars Eklund, SASNET deputy director, who also took part in the introductory singing of Bangladeshi songs along with Jasmine Zabbar and Bubu Munshi Eklund (photo). See them singing Muktiro Mandiro on Youtube! The two latter also served delicious home made Bengali snacks and sweets at the reception, that followed after the seminar.

More information about the seminar, with photos.  


Sanitation training programme participants visited SASNET

From left to right: Sepali Wickrematilake, Mathew Luckose, Veena Iyer and Lars Eklund.

On 5 December 2011, participants from the Sida funded training programme on ”Sustainable Urban Water and Sanitation – Integrated Processes”, managed by the Division of Water Resources Engineering, Lund University, visited SASNET’s office in Lund. The programme runs every year, and always include professionals in the field from South Asia. More information about the training programme. 

Mathew Luckose, Regional Manager for the international WaterAid organisation in Bhopal, India; Assistant Professor Veena Iyer from the Indian Institute of Public Health in Gandhinagar, India; and Dr. Sepali Wickrematilake, Consultant Community Physician, Regional Director’s Health Service Office, Kegalle, Sri Lanka, met SASNET’s deputy director Lars Eklund and discussed their respective work on water issues in India and Sri Lanka. It turned out that Dr. Iyer has several contacts with researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, such as Vishal Diwan and Ayesha d’Costa at the Division of Global health (IHCAR).


SASNET dinner for South Asian Erasmus Mundus scholarship holders

On Wednesday 9 November 2011, SASNET organised a social gathering for the South Asian Erasmus Mundus scholarship holders currently at Lund University.
They were invited for dinner in the residence of SASNET’s deputy director Lars Eklund and his wife Bubu Munshi Eklund.
Professor Gopal Karanth, ICCR Profesor at Lund University during the academic year 2011-12 was also invited as honorary guest to interact with the students and researchers coming from a large number of universities in South Asia.
Lund University coordinates one of the Indo-European Erasmus Mundus Action 2 programmes (lot 15/13), and one of the Asia Regional lots, the EMEA programme, involving universities in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal. Alltogether more than 30 South Asian scholarship holders, Masters students as well as PhD candidates and post-docs, are currently at Lund University. 
More information.

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