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South Asia Research Community News |
 A networking project within the broad field of environmental history was initiated between researchers in Uppsala and Delhi in early 2007. The network, now entitled Uppsala-Delhi Ecology and Society Network, is co-ordinated by Dr. Gunnel Cederlöf, Dept. of History, Uppsala University (and chairperson of SASNET’s board);
and Prof. Mahesh Rangarajan at the University of Delhi.
Once fully established, it will function through workshops, lectures,
publications, and a website. It will further provide PhD students with
external supervision and may also channel other information which is
useful for pursuing research studies. Researchers involved in
the network are employed at Uppsala University, the
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala (SLU), Delhi University,
Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Delhi School of Economics, Delhi
Institute of Economic Growth, and Jamia Millia Islamia University.
A one-day workshop, on ”Environmental History: Past and Present”, was held at Delhi
University in November 2008, and on 13 March 2010, the Uppsala-Delhi Ecology and Society Network will hold another workshop, funded by the Swedish Research Council, at JNU in New Delhi. The title of the Workshop is 'Understanding Global Environmental
Change: the South Asian Challenge' and it will feature six academic
papers from Indian and Swedish scholars, followed by discussions.
The three Swedish presenters are Dr. Gunnel Cederlöf herself; Dr. Pernille Gooch, Division of Human Ecology, Lund University; and Dr. Fiona Rotberg, Dept. of Eurasian Studies, Uppsala University. Approximately 70-80 scholars and faculty are expected to attend the
workshop. Registration is open to all, but there are limited number of slots for
participation. Please register soon by writing to Dr. Asmita Kabra at the Dept. of Economics, Ramjas College, University of Delhi. 
 On 1 January 2010, Stockholm University closed down its Center for Pacific Asia Studies (CPAS). It was first established in 1976 as a Centre for Japanese Studies, but changed name and became CPAS from 1984. In spite of its main focus on East and South-East Asia, CPAS has over the years also been involved in research related to India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and other parts of South Asia as well, especially during a period when Dr. Ravinder
Pal Singh worked as a Senior Fellow at CPAS. Besides research, one of its chief aims has also been to reach beyond the university
in order to bring scholars and students into contact with other groups
with an active, professional interest in the Pacific Asian region. CPAS has regularly organised Wednesday lectures, seminars and workshops on important issues, including a high-profile 2003 workshop on India-Pakistan
tensions (more information).
CPAS has been an autonomous research unit under the Dept. of
Oriental Languages, but now its staff (including the director, Prof. Masako
Ikegami) has been transferred to the Dept. of Political Science. The budget for Asian research activities
has also been transferred, which gives the former CPAS researchers a possibility to carry out
strictly social scientific research on Asia
together with other departments within the faculty of Social
Sciences, Stockholm University (facilitated by an academic board
for inter-disciplinary research among the
departments). Hopefully, after some time the
activities that CPAS used to conduct, such as
seminars, workshops and publications, will also be restored within the new framework.
 Many interesting South Asia related research papers were presented at the international conference that the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) hosted in November 2009. The conference, held in Geneva, Switzerland, had an aim to better understand the social and political dimensions of the current crisis and subsequent policy and institutional reforms, and their implications for developing countries. Full information about the 2009 UNRISD conference.
The draft papers presented at this conference are now available on the Internet. Some of the most interesting papers specifically refer to South Asia, such as the following:
– ‘Financial Risk, Risk and Vulnerability among the Extreme Poor' presented by Azim Manji, Shiree and Josef Devine, University of Bath, UK.
– ‘Redistribution and Social Protection: Contrasting Experiences of Thailand (1990s) and India (2009)' presented by Govind Kelkar, United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) India, and Dev Nathan, Institute for Human Development, New Delhi.
– ‘Emerging Constraints on Smallholder Agriculture in Developing Countries under Neoliberalism and Crisis: Evidence from the Rural Economy in India’ presented by Arindam Banerjee, Centre for Development Studies (CDS), Thiruvananthapuram, India.
– ‘Restructuring Development during Global Financial Crisis: Lessons from India’ by Indira Hirway, Centre for Development Alternatives, Ahmedabad, India, and Seeta Prabhu, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) India.
 The Afghanistan Conflict Monitor, and the Pakistan Conflict Monitor, are initiatives of the Human Security Report Project (HSRP) at the School for International Studies at Simon Fraser University, Canada. The HSRP staff systematically monitor over 1,500 websites, as well as dozens of e-mailing lists and academic journals. They keep an extensive online database of human security-related resources.
The Afghanistan and Pakistan Monitors highlight new research and analysis on the conflicts, and in addition to the conflicts themselves, the Monitors focus on a broad set of related issue-areas, including health, development, displacement, governance, gender, small arms, landmines, human rights and transitional justice. The Monitors provide summaries of academic articles and reports, and links to key documents, publications, organizations, and data.
Besides, the Afghanistan Conflict Monitor is also complemented by an email news service, Afghanistan Security News (ASN). Published each Monday, the ASN combines news stories with related research reports, academic articles, maps and factsheets.
Go to the Afghanistan Conflict Monitor.
Go to the Pakistan Conflict Monitor.
 Applications are now invited for the a new round of the Erasmus Mundus Action 2 Partnership programme (previously entitled Erasmus Mundus External Cooperation Window – EMECW). Just like previous years, this European Commission (EC) funded programme is aimed at fostering structured cooperation between European and Third Country higher education institutions through the promotion of mobility at all level of studies for students (undergraduates and masters), doctoral candidates, researchers, academic and administrative staff. More information about the several Indo/European and South Asia regional/European EMECW programmes already running.
In the new Call for Proposals (29/09), only one lot (No. 11) is devoted to Asia. Any proposal must include universities in at least three of the following group A countries: Afghanistan, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, and Bangladesh; and at least two of the following group B countries:
Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Maldives, Philippines, Thailand, China, and North Korea.
Lot 11 will consist of 5 projects to be selected, and each partnership project will have a mobility flow of 100 individuals, and a budget of Euro 2.475 m. Moreover, it will differ from the previous EMECW programmes in being a strictly one-way mobility programme, from Asia to Europe. The programme is again managed by EC’s Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA).
Deadline for submission of applications is 30 April 2010. The planned duration of a project cannot exceed 48 months. Eligible activities, including preparatory activities, can start on 15 July 2010. Full information in the Guidelines.
 If you plan to attend the 2010 Nordic Association for South Asian Studies conference and PhD workshop, that will be held 26–29 May 2010 in
Helsinki, Finland, remember to send your paper abstracts by 31 January 2010. The theme for the conference will be ”Globalizing South Asia”, and it is
organised by the University of Helsinki. The conference aims to bring
scholars from different fields within humanities and social sciences
(history, anthropology, sociology, economics, geography, environmental
science, development studies and political science) together to analyze
cultural, economic, political and environmental connections in South
Asia. Both Nordic and non-Nordic scholars are invited to participate in
the conference that is meant to stimulate networking and exchange, and
to create a forum for discussions for scholars and doctoral students
within and outside the Nordic countries. The abstracts should be
e-mailed to both the convenors, Dr. Sirpa Tenhunen, and Dr. Klaus Karttunen.
The keynote speakers will be Professor Steve Derne, State University of New York at Geneseo, USA; Prof. Bishnupriya Ghosh, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA; Prof. William Mazzarella, University of Chicago, USA; and Prof. Himanshu Rai, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), India. A peer-reviewed volume of selected papers will be published after the
conference.
Full information about the 2010 NASA conference.
 Scholars and students from any field of research related
to the South Asian region are invited to participate in
the 21st European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies
(ECMSAS) in Bonn, Germany, 26–29 July 2010. The ECMSAS is the largest gathering of South Asia oriented researchers in Europe, covering all fields from the humanities and social sciences to technology, natural sciences and medicine. For many years, it has been an important platform
and indicator of contemporary trends in South Asian
studies worldwide. The 21st ECMSAS will host 44 panels,
covering a broad range of research subjects. Hosting agency is the Institute for Asian and Oriental Studies,
University of Bonn. The university’s chair of indology,
the first of its kind in Germany, was established already in the
year of the foundation of the university, in 1818.
The ECMSAS conferences are held biannually under the aegis of the European Association of South Asian Studies (EASAS), a professional, non-profit organisation of scholars engaged in research and teaching concerning South Asia with regard to all periods and fields of study.
SASNET organised the 18th ECMSAS conference in Lund in 2004 (more information). The 2006 conference was held in Leiden, the Netherlands (read SASNET’s report); and the 2008 conference was organised by the University of Manchester, UK.
Researchers from Europe and all over the world are invited to contribute with papers
for presentation at the 2010 ECMSAS conference in Bonn. Suggestions should be forwarded directly to the convener of the specific panel your paper might fit into. Conveners are free to decide whether a paper will be accepted or not. Full information on the Bonn conference web site.
Two panels are convened by Swedish scholars:
 – Panel No. 23, the Bengal Studies Panel, is convened by PhD candidate Kerstin Andersson (photo), School of Global Studies/Anthropology, University of Gothenburg (along with Manjita Mukharji from SOAS in London). The ECMSAS Bengal Studies panel has through the years developed into an important forum for scholars working on Bengal and Bengali studies. As the number of scholars is quite limited and the group is scattered all over the world, the panel provides a meeting point and an opportunity to share research for all with an interest in the culture and society of West Bengal and Bangladesh – and the Bengali Diaspora worldwide. The interdisciplinary approach of the panel welcomes papers on diverse topics such as past and present, literature and media, religion and secularity, women and men, tradition and culture, and on theory and methods in a specifically Bengali context. More information about Panel 23.
 – Panel No. 37, on Confrontations in Sri Lankan politics. Origins and present developments, is convened by Prof. Peter Schalk (photo), History of Religions, Faculty of Theology, University of Uppsala. The panel focuses on the radical changes observed in Sri Lanka during the last year, with more than hundred thousand refugees being caught in the armed struggle of the Sri Lankan armed forces and the LTTE. The LTTE suffered a military defeat but at the same time a resilient Tamil Diaspora in Canada, Australia and the EU demonstrated the LTTE's defiance. Scholars are invited to elaborate on and explain the radical changes and its consequences for the economic development and for the possibilities of reconciliation for peace. More information about Panel 37.
Among other interesting ECMSAS 2010 panels, can be mentioned Panel 2: The History of Alcohol and Drugs in Modern South Asia (18th-20th Century), convened by Dr Harald Fischer-Tiné, and Jana Tschurenev; Panel 6: Uttar Pradesh: Development Failure and Identity Politics, convened by Jens Lerche, Roger Jeffery, and Craig Jeffrey; Panel 34: Communism Compared: Andhra Pradesh and Kerala in the 1950s, convened by V Rajagopal, and Margret Frenz; and Panel 36: Taliban, Durand Line and Refugees: The Afghan-Pakistan Border Region under Stress, convened by Conrad Schetter. More information about the ECMSAS 2010 panels.
 Swedish research
on how folate/B12 deficiency among South Asian women may lead to vascular endothelial dysfunction has received wide international recognition with rising citation rates. In 2005 a research paper based on a study in Lahore supported by a SASNET planning grant was being published in the peer reviewed magazine Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica (2005:84:1055-1061). It was based on research by Bo Lindblad (photo),
Professor Emeritus of International Child Health, Division of Global Health (IHCAR), Karolinska Institutet (KI), Stockholm; Dr Shakila Zaman, Dept. of Social and Preventive Peaditrics, King Edward Medical College, Lahore, Pakistan; and a number of other KI researchers (Helena Martin, Anna Mia Ekström,
Arne Holmgren and Mikael Norman).
The paper, entitled ”Folate, vitamin B12, and homocysteine
levels in South Asian women with growth retarded fetuses” shows how in intraurerine growth, retardation folate levels
were half that in cord blood and mothers as compared to local controls.
Two years later, a second paper on the same issue, again written by Bo Lindblad, Helena Martin, and Mikael
Norman, was published in Pediatrics (2007:119:
1152-58). In the paper, entitled ”Endothelial function in Newborn Infants”, the researchers for the first time convincingly show the correlation of folate levels
to vascular endothelial dysfunction (still there at 9 years of age being a known condition leading to arteriosclerosis, hypertension and
stroke).
Recently, Prof. Lindblad’s hypothesis of folate/B12 deficiency in the pathogenesis of
preeclampsia has also been supported by four new papers focusing on folate supplementation to
pregnant women in Canada and the USA. Obviously being at the research
front, Prof. Lidblad and his colleagues are now discussing how to proceed with research for supplementation in India and
Pakistan. There is a need for both basic
science, biochemical and genetics, as well as controlled
supplementation studies in developing regions with known folate and
B12 deficiency.
 South Asian History and Culture is a new peer-reviewed South Asian studies journal, launched by Routledge. The first issue was published in January 2010, and being the first issue, it is provided online free access (go to www.tandf.co.uk/journals/rsac). The academic editors are
David Washbrook, University of Cambridge, UK;
Boria Majumdar, University of Central Lancashire, UK;
Sharmistha Gooptu, South Asia Research Foundation, India; and
Nalin Mehta, The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, Geneva Book. The journal aims to bring together research on South Asia in the
humanities and social sciences, and to provide scholars with a platform
covering, but not restricted to, their particular fields of interest and
specialization.
The idea is to try to achieve a truly multidisciplinary journal of South
Asia under the aegis of which the established disciplines (e.g. history,
politics, gender studies) and more recent fields (e.g. Indian sport
studies, sexuality studies) will enmesh with each other. A focus will also
be to make available to a broader readership new research on film, media,
photography, medicine and the environment, which have to date remained
more specialized fields of South Asian studies.
 The third annual issue of South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal (SAMAJ). This peer-reviewed, on-line journal, devoted to social science studies on South Asia, was launched in 2007 by the Association pour la Recherche sur l’Asie du Sud in France, with an aim to publish scholarly articles written by professional academics as well as doctoral students. Its scope is multidisciplinary, covering studies in history, geography, anthropology, sociology, political science, and economics. More information about SAMAJ on-line journal.
The 2009 Thematic Issue focuses on ”Contests in Context: Indian Elections 2009”, and includes the following contributions: Balveer Arora and Stephanie Tawa Lama-Rewal: Contextualizing and Interpreting the 15th Lok Sabha Elections; Christophe Jaffrelot and Gilles Verniers: India's 2009 Elections: The Resilience of Regionalism and Ethnicity; Bertrand Lefebvre and Cyril Robin:
Pre-electoral Coalitions, Party System and Electoral Geography: A Decade of
General Elections in India (1999-2009); Rekha Chowdhary: Electoral Politics in the Context of Separatism and Political Divergence:
An Analysis of 2009 Parliamentary Elections in Jammu & Kashmir; and Stephanie Tawa Lama-Rewal: Studying Elections in India: Scientific and Political Debates. Go for the SAMAJ Special Issue No. 3.
 In December 2009, the Indian Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) awarded Prof. Hanumantha Rao (photo), Division of Mineral Processing, Department of Chemical Engineering and Geosciences, Luleå University of Technology, Sweden, the title Distinguished Foreign Scientist (DFS). Prof. Rao received his award letter while visiting the Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology (IMMT) in Bhubaneshwar where he presented a course on Colloids & Interface Science to post-graduate students of a new Research Training Programme on Materials Resource Engineering initiated by CSIR. The students at this two-year programme are being paid Rs 25 000 per month during their studies, and 15 students have been chosen among 17 000 applicants. They are trained according to the needs of CSIR laboratories. Several such educational programmes have been initiated by different CSIR laboratories in the subject areas of respective laboratory interests.
On 26 January 2010, the Government of India among its Republic Day
honors, awarded Padma Shri to two well-known international scholars – Hermann Kulke, Professor of South and Southeast Asian History at the Dept. of History, Kiel University, Germany; and Sheldon Pollock, regular visiting faculty to various Indian universities, and Professor of Sanskrit and Indian Studies at Columbia University, New York, USA. They were selected for Padma Shree in the Literature and Education category. More information.
At the same time, a Padma Bhushan – the third highest civilian honour by the government of
India was conferred on Prof. Tan Chung, retired Professor of
Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and the University of Delhi, now living in the USA. Tan Chung is an authority on Chinese history, Sino-Indian relations and cultural exchange. Chung has been a doyen of Chinese cultural studies in India for nearly half a century.
 William
Smith, Professor of South Asian languages
and cultures at the Department of Linguistics
and Philology, Uppsala University passed away on 19th December 2009. Prof. Smith was the one of the most capable and respected indologists in Scandinavia, and a valued member of the SASNET network. His work is appreciated worldwide. His untimely death is a loss for indological and South Asian studies.
The funeral was held on Tuesday 26 January 2010 in Lötsjökapellet, Hallonbergen, Stockholm.
Dr. Heinz Werner Wessler, currently a guest teacher at the Dept. of Linguistics and Philology, Uppsala University, has written an obituary for SASNET. Read his obituary text.
 A SASNET supported projects seems to have far-reaching effects against the eviction of the Dharavi slums in Mumbai, India. The book Dharavi: Documenting Informalities, launched in 2008, was a
project made by ten artists, architects and academics at the Dept. of Art & Architecture, Royal University College of Fine Arts (KKH) in Stockholm. The book contained 300 pages of drawings,
photographs and articles on the informal settlement Dharavi in the
centre of Mumbai, India. Texts by Saskia Sassen and Arjun Appadurai accompany
the articles. More information about the book project.
The KKH group behind the book, led by Dr. Maria Lantz, Senior Lecturer, was rewarded a SASNET
planning grant in August 2008. The idea was to travel back to Mumbai
and Dharavi in order to organise a workshop with an aim to evaluate the book and investigate how the
material collected for it, could be used on location.
 The project group could never have guessed how things should move on. In November 2009 an Indian
edition of the book was released and an exhibition in Prince of Wales
Museum opened. Here, artist-talks and debates were conducted by the
artists and the slum-dwellers organisations.
Gautam Chatterjee, Vice President and Chief Executive Officer of
the Maharashtra Housing & Area Development Authority (MHADA) participated in the event along with the Swedish Ambassador to India, Mr Lars-Olof Lindgren, and Mr. Dan Ericsson, State Secretary to the Swedish Minister for Local Government and Financial Markets.
Most interesting was the speech then held by Mr. Chatterjee at the book
release function. He now claimed that the book Dharavi: Documenting Informalities helped him to
make a decision to stop the ongoing plans to evict the inhabitants of
Dharavi and sell out the land. A decision that was taken by the previous CEO
of MHADA. This fact was loudly applauded by the Dharavi representatives who
have long struggled to improve their livelihood on locations, but has refused to accept
evictions from this uniqe place – a vernacular city, created and planned
by people themselves.
 Mr. Manish Thapa (photo), Regional Coordinator for the South Asian Regional Cooperation Academic Network (SARCAN) based in Kathmandu, Nepal, has received the Robert McNamara Fellowship from the World Bank which makes it possible for him to work on his doctoral dissertaion project entitled ”From Bullet to Ballot:
The Politics of Peacemaking in Nepal” at the Dept. of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University, during the period January – June 2010. His supervisor is Professor Thomas Ohlson.
Mr Thapa has previously been a Visiting Fellow at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA.
 A warning that climate change will melt most of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035 is likely to be retracted after a series of scientific blunders by the United Nations body that issued it. In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a benchmark report that was claimed to incorporate the latest and most detailed research into the impact of global warming. A central claim was the world's glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035. Read the IPCC report on the issue.
After facing severe doubts of the validity of these claims, the scientists behind the warning in mid-January 2010 admitted that the report was based on a speculative news story in the New Scientist, a popular science journal, published eight years before the IPCC's 2007 report. It has also emerged that the New Scientist report was itself based on a short telephone interview with Syed Hasnain, a little-known Indian scientist then based at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi.
 After the news about the erroneous report was exposed, the IPPC chairman Dr. R K Pachauri came under strong attack in India, and strong demands have been raised for his resignation. Dr. Pachauri is also Director-General for the prestigeous Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in New Delhi, an institute that in the recent past have procured large international funding for research based on the false claims in the 1997 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. More information.
 INFORM (International Network for Online Resources & Materials) is a Swedish-based networking programme that provides onsite information training in low-income countries. The programme is led by Dr Martha Garrett (photo), researcher at International Maternal and Child Health (ICMH), Dept. of Women’s
and Children’s Health, Uppsala University; and Anders Wändahl, a librarian at Karolinska Institutet. INFORM has been increasingly active in Asia during the past two years, partly with SASNET support, and now plans to expand its Asian activities even further.
Academic professionals who go through the INFORM training become familiar with dozens of access routes and ‘gateways’ into free, online information resources, as well as hundreds of specific resources to support research, teaching and practice within their own disciplines. The programme was established at the request of foreign researchers who had received their PhDs at Swedish universities and returned to their home countries, where they were frustrated by their apparent lack of access to information. Since it was established in 2004, INFORM has provided national workshops in 20 countries, as well as several regional workshops. Most of the training has been about information resources for medicine and health, although some has dealt with information resources relevant to other subjects, such as physics and mathematics.
 INFORM’s first training in South Asia was commissioned by Professor Kumudu Wijewardena at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura in Sri Lanka. Photo from an INFORM workshop in Sri Lanka held in 2006.
INFORM trainers have also been involved in information training workshops in other SASNET countries, including India (for the Reproductive and Child Health and Rights Network in Jaipur, Rajasthan), Afghanistan (for the Afghanistan Midwives Association), and Pakistan (for the Higher Education Commission at Dow Medical University in Karachi and for the Ministry of Health at the Health Services Academy in Islamabad). Grants from SASNET both in 2002 and 2007 have helped to finance some of this work. More information.
Outside the SASNET region, INFORM has provided information training in China for the Raoul Wallenberg Institute—on the topic of international law and human rights—and in Vietnam, where INFORM-trained master trainers are now providing workshops for doctors throughout the country.
INFORM’s next major activity will be a regional programme in Asia. Health professionals working on reproductive health and maternal-and-child health in 10-12 Asian countries, mostly in south Asia, will receive intensive training about where to find free, high-quality materials for teaching, clinical practice and policy formulation. After the training, they will carry out their own information projects and also exchange information through an online forum. INFORM has invited SASNET to be a partner in the programme.
More information about INFORM can be found online at the programme’s new website at http://www.inform-network.org. Some of INFORM’s many sourcebooks are also available at the same site and can be downloaded free-of-charge.
 Prof. Rajni Hatti Kaul from the Dept. of Biotechnology, Lund University, receives the 2010 SKR (Association of Swedish Chemical Engineers) Award. She gets the award because of her outstanding research on sustainable
technology through GREENCHEM. This is a major research program, funded by MISTRA (Stiftelsen
för Miljöstrategisk Forskning) aimed at using modern biotechnology for
production of biodegradable chemicals from renewable resources. The award will be distributed at a ceremony in Stockholm on 5 February 2010. More information (only in Swedish).
A large number of individual Swedish researchers received research grants/scholarships for their projects in November-December 2009. Grants were distributed by the Swedish Research Council (mainly through its Swedish Research Links programme), the Swedish International Development Cooperation
Agency (Sida), and Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation. More information on these South Asia related funded projects.
On December 1, 2009, the Research Secretariat at the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) decided to grant funding to Swedish research networks with a mission to bridge the gap between researchers and development work practitioners. Four networks will be provided funding for the period 2010–2012.
 – The Gender and Development
Network (GADNET), based at the School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg, receives SEK 500 000 to develop its sub-network entitled GADIP – Gender and Development in
Practice. Main applicant is Dr. Gunilla Blomqvist Sköldberg (photo), the GADNET coordinator.
– The Division of Epidemiology and Public Health Sciences, Umeå University, receives SEK 1.5 m to establish VAW, the Global Network for Research Collaboration on Violence Against Women. Main applicant is Dr. Maria Emmelin.
– Stiftelsen Chalmers Industriteknik receives SEK 1.5 m to establish a network on ”Sanitation and Water Supply in Peri-Urban Areas in Developing Countries”. Main applicant is Dr. Anna Norström.
– The Research Policy Institute (FPI) at Lund University receives SEK 1.5 m to establish a network on ”Universities in Inclusive Systems of Innovation: Challenges for the 2015 Millenium Development Goals”. Main applicant is Dr. Bo Göransson.
See the list of networks supported by Sida 2009.
 In October 2009, the European Commission (EC) decided to select Manipal University in the state of Karnataka, India, to set up a Centre for European Studies, the first of its kind in India (more information). Now, Manipal University has a plan to launch a Post Graduate (PG) Diploma Programme in Gandhian & Peace Studies during the second week of February 2010. The duration of the course would be one year consisting of two semesters. International students are welcome. The broad objective of the course would be to make a modest attempt in analyzing the various Gandhian concepts and relate those concepts to the current problems and concerns of the international security environment. It would be 40 credit course, which will also have a component of 8 credits assigned to the field work conducted in Rural India either attached with some NGOs or to the ongoing rural development programmes in India. More information about the new Diploma Programme.
 Prof. B B Bhattacharya, Vice Chancellor, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, India, visited Sweden (Stockholm and Uppsala), Norway (Oslo) and Finland (Jyväskylä) in the last week of October 2009. He had been invited by the Nordic Centre in India university consortium (NCI). In Stockholm, a student exchange agreement was signed during a meeting with Pro-Vice-Chancellor Lena Gerholm. This agreement is a complimentary to the general Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that was signed between the two capital universities in March 2009. The MoU between Stockholm University
and JNU covers a wide range of disciplines, including Political Science, Environmental Studies, Energy and Security, Social Anthropology, Physical and Human Geography and Regional Development, Gender Studies, Central and South Asian Studies, Economic History and International Relations, and International Law. Psychology, History, and Sociolinguistics may also be included.
Among other things, JNU and SU now plan for common workshops. The coordinator for the Indo-Swedish collaboration on the Swedish side is Dr. Per Hilding, Dept. of Economic History, Stockholm University, a member of SASNET’s board.
 The University of Copenhagen has established a Centre of Global South Asian Studies. This new trans-disciplinary research centre has been realised through the university’s ambitious Asian Dynamics Initiative (ADI), and its role should be to facilitate research and teaching on India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka at the University of Copenhagen. It does not confine itself to the study of the region, rather exploring the historical and contemporary connections within the Global South that underpin the modern formations of society, culture and politics within South Asia and its diaspora. The Centre is a completely new initiative, that soon will be formally inaugurated.
The Centre is located in an international scholarly network that brings together partners through research programmes from University of Delhi, and Jawaharlal Nehru University, India; University of Oxford, UK; New York University, and Columbia University, USA; CERI-Sciences Po, Paris, France; and in Denmark, Århus University and Danish Institute of International Studies (DIIS).
 Dr. Ravinder Kaur (photo) at the Dept. of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen, has a key role behind the new centre. Recently, she was awarded DKK 3.9 m for a collective research programme entitled ”Nation in Motion: Globalization, Development and Governance in 'New' India”, from the Danish Council for Social Science Research. The programme will run from 2010-2014.
Abstract: This interdisciplinary research program concerns the nature, effects and fragilities of India’s imminent global ‘rise’. Through three integrated studies on recent development interventions and new governing practices, the researchers explore different processes of globalization that are shaping ‘new’ India within and how India itself is being projected outside as a global power. The program will generate fresh empirical data from two locations in urban Delhi and rural West Bengal in order to map out the historical and contemporary patterns of inequality emerging in the making of global India, and the ways in which they are leveled, projected and even subverted on a global scale. Theoretically the project aims to break fresh ground in the interface of globalization and nation-state by showing how the ‘global’ nation is manufactured in specific locations, and how a new species of relations conjugate the nation and the state in a global context.
More information about the Centre of Global South Asian Studies.
The Asia Research Centre (ARC) at Copenhagen Business School is another ambitious Danish initiative to undertake high-quality research on current developments in the Asian region, including India and South Asia. ARC organises workshops, international conferences and guest lectures on Asia. On Monday 23 November 2009, ARC holds an opening reception at its brand new premises in a beautifully restored building that used to be the heart of the Royal Copenhagen Porcelain Factory (now being part of Copenhagen Business School) at Porcelænshaven 22, Frederiksberg. More information.
 Starting from the fall of 2009, Senior Visiting Professors from India play an important role at Copenhagen Business School (CBS). On 16 July 2009, CBS President Finn Junge-Jensen and the Indian Ambassador to Denmark, Yogesh K. Gupta, signed a Memorandum of Understanding on a visiting professorship scheme (photo from the signing ceremony). Each year the Government of India (through the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, ICCR) in consultation with CBS will appoint a new Senior Visiting Professor in Indian Economics or Social Sciences. They are hosted by the Asia Research Centre. More information.
 The initiative came from
Professor Anthony D'Costa (photo), CBS' first Professor of Indian Studies and engaged in researching the political economy of Indian development and industry. He has spearheaded the initiative in establishing a world class research environment on Contemporary India and promoting serious scholarship on India.
ICCR has similar agreements with around 30 other universities all over the world, such as Sorbonne University in Paris, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA, and University of KwaZulu Natal, Durban, South Africa. The Indian Professors are selected among candidates from India's leading universities and business schools.
The Asia Research Centre also coordinates the CBS India Portal, an Internet gateway providing detailed information about all India related activities at the Copenhagen Business School. Here you can find information about researchers working on India, classes, seminars and workshops about India, India related projects, publications and activities, as well as information on networking. Go to the CBS Asia Portal.
 The India Water Portal is an open, inclusive, web-based platform for sharing water management knowledge amongst practitioners and the general public. It is a voluntary effort being coordinated by Arghyam, a Bangalore based non-profit trust that works in the area of water. The Water Portal grew out of the felt need for a single location pulling together various resources in the area of water. This was one of the themes that came out of the First Arghyam conference held in February 2005. The National Knowledge Commission (NKC) has been a strong proponent of the idea of knowledge portals in various areas, including water. NKC has been a strong supporter in the creation of the water portal, creating regional language water portals, and working with government departments related to water.
An updated version of the India Water Portal has now been released. It has become more user-friendly, participative
and fun resource, including flickr,
Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube links.
Go to the updated India Water Portal.
 From 1 January 2010, the Swedish Program for ICT in Developing Regions (SPIDER) will be hosted solely by Stockholm
University. SPIDER was created
in 2004 by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency
(Sida). It has been jointly hosted by the Royal Institute of Technology
(KTH) and Stockholm University.
However, due to reorganization at KTH, SPIDER will henceforth be hosted by Stockholm
University only. It remains to be a
centre within the Dept. of Computer and Systems Sciences (DSV), which until now has been a department of both KTH and
Stockholm
University. SPIDER was also created with a view to act as a Swedish resource base in the area of ICT, and thus one of its important functions has been to provide advice and assistance to Sida, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the Swedish Embassies in developing countries. During the funding period 2007-2009, Sida
has contributed SEK 55 m and KTH an additional SEK 5 m for
the core funding of SPIDER. More information about SPIDER.
 Ms. Ida Nicolaisen, Senior Researcher at the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) at University of Copenhagen took part in the third mission by the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) Commission, on 10–18 August 2009. A report has now been published, setting out the activities of the Commission, following steps taken by the Awami League-led Bangladeshi Government to implement provisions of the CHT Accord of 1997.
The report also follows up on the issues and recommendations raised in the report of the CHT Commission’s second mission in Bangladesh in February 2009. The third mission aimed at assessing the situation in the CHT with regard to ongoing reports of human rights violations and monitoring the implementation of the different provisions of the CHT Accord. It also aimed at following up on recommendations made during the previous missions and engaging in dialogue with concerned parties. Accordingly the mission held high-level meetings with the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed and concerned Ministers, the CHT Land Commission and the Law Commission. It also met brigade commanders, senior police officers, political party and civil society representatives and interviewed victims of human rights violations among the indigenous peoples in the CHT. Read the Report of the CHT Commission’s third mission to Bangladesh.
 Amnesty International has launched a bus tour, together with partner organisations – the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal and the Bhopal Medical Appeal, which travels throughout Europe for eight weeks from 17 October until 2 December – the day of the 25th anniversary of the tragic Bhopal disaster. The tour stops in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, France and the United Kingdom. Activists from Bhopal, who were directly affected by the disaster, are travelling on the bus and share their experiences of how the gas leak has affected their lives and how they’ve been campaigning for justice for 25 years. In Sweden, the Bhopal Bus Tour visits Stockholm on 15th and 18th November, Gothenburg on 18–19 November, and Lund on Friday 20 November. In Denmark, the bus visits Copenhagen on Saturday 28 November. More information about the Bhopal Bus Tour.
Informal Cities, the project spearheaded by a group of professional artists and
architects from the Dept. of Art & Architecture, Royal University College of Fine Arts (KKH) in
Stockholm, and planned in collaboration with the Society for the
Promotion of Area Resource Centres (SPARC) in Mumbai, has exhibited its results in India.
In 2008,
Dr. Maria Lantz from KKH received a SASNET planning grant to arrange this interdisciplinary workshop on DHARAVI: Documenting Informalities.
During the period 31 October – 8 November 2009, the project was exhibited in Coomaraswamy Hall at the
Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalay (former Prince of
Wales Museum) in Mumbai. The exhibition served as a backdrop for two seminars, the first
looking at the ethics, responsibility and communication of
professionals working with informal cities, and the second focusing on
redevelopment in Dharavi and internationally.
The exhibition also marked the formal release of the Indian edition
of Dharavi: Documenting Informalities, a book produced by KKH, and resulting from past collaboration with SPARC and
residents of Dharavi. More information.
 The Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education (STINT) supports the internationalisation of Swedish research and higher education, and encourages participation in its programmes. STINT is part of a group of Swedish research foundations that were formed in 1994. The foundation's mandate is to internationalize Swedish higher education and research. This mandate covers all academic fields and disciplines. International contacts and genuine experience working in academia abroad should be viewed as a natural and necessary feature of higher education. Currently STINT offers several types of scholarships and grants that can have relevance to South Asia related research.
Institutional Grants for Younger Researchers is a new programme introduced in 2008, with a purpose to expand the opportunities for especially promising young Swedish researchers to collaborate with prominent foreign research groups. The programme is aimed at young researchers who early on in their career wish to build up international cooperation with foreign colleagues in a similar position. The intention with this programme is to help to create more attractive Swedish research environments and allow for younger researchers to develop lasting international networks.
Deadline for applications for 2010 is Friday 16 October 2009. Decisions will be given by the STINT board in the beginning of 2010. More information.
Other grants that STINT distribute are Institutional Grants for long-term collaboration between Swedish and foreign research groups, and Scholarships for Swedish doctoral candidates for doctoral studies at a foreign academic institution. Deadline for applications for both programmes for 2010-11 is 15 December 2009. Decisions will be taken in April 2010. Finally STINT distributes Networking Grants for the Humanities and Social Sciences, and Short term stipends giving an opportunity for faculty at Swedish universities to spend a maximum of three months at a foreign academic institution. These programmes can be applied for all through the year. More information about all South Asia related STINT grants.
 The India-EU Study Centres Programme (IESCP) now invites ”Expressions of Interests” from Indian and EU Institutions of Higher Education to strengthen existing EU Study Centres in India, and Modern India Study centres in member states of the European Union (EU). The India-EU Study Centres Programme (IESCP) was set up by the European Commission in 2008 as an integral part of the India-EU Joint Action Plan adopted in 2005. More information.
The present call for Expression of Interest (EOI) was launched on 1 October 2009. It covers the provision of international technical assistance (TA) to existing study centres in both India and EU member states. Such technical assistance is aimed at academic, adminstrative and /or instituitional capabilities so that they are better equipped to promote and sustain their teaching, research and institutional provision in terms of EU Studies in India and Modern India Studies in the EU. International technical assistance will be tailored to meet the needs of individuals centres. Deadline for the submission of applications is 30 November 2009. More information to be found in the Call for Expression submission form and guidelines. Go for the Call for Expression (as a pdf-file)
 The Delegation of the European Commission to India, Bhutan and Nepal has launched a new website presenting comprehensive information on all forms of collaboration between the European Union and India, Bhutan & Nepal. For university students and researchers, useful information is found regarding the Erasmus Mundus scholarship programmes. Go to the new web page.
The European Commission (EC) has separate Delegations for the other South Asian countries. They have all informative web pages:
 The third workshop in the Nordic Summer University (NSU) project on ”South Asia in the 21st Century: Explorations in Multidisciplinary Methodology” will be held at Falsterbo, south of Malmö, Sweden, 2–3 February 2010. The topic is ”Environmental
Challenges, Politics and Food Production in South Asia”. A Call for papers from Nordic researchers has now been published.
The workshop will focus on looking into the question of food production
under changing conditions in South Asia. Those conditions are presently
characterised by uncertainty, since we do not have models for future
climate change on the local level as yet, and since we do not know what
will be the position of South Asian countries in the coming WTO
negotiations of world food trade liberalisation. One of the goals of the
workshop is to analyse strategies for research into the politics of food
production. To this end the organizers of the workshop will invite
participation not only from rural sociologists/anthropologists and human
geographers, but also scholars working on state and national politics as
well as political capacity in South Asia. NSU hopes to fund accommodation and travel costs for 12 paper presenters. Candidates should send their abstracts (not more than half a page) of your proposed presentation to Ingfrid Knudegaard by Wednesday 21 October 2009. Full papers should be delivered by 5
January 2010.
The Falsterbo workshop can be seen as part of the on-going effort to establish a
Nordic Network on the Study of Environmental Challenges in South Asia. If you would like to join the network, please send an e-mail to Prof. Pamela Price, University of Oslo, and indicate the nature of your interest(s). Prof. Price is one or three Nordic researchers that constitute the organizing committeee for the Falsterbo workshop, the others being Dr. Pernille Gooch, Lund University, and Prof. Tor Aase, University of Bergen.
 ”South Asia in the 21st Century: Explorations in Multidisciplinary Methodology” is one of the themes for the Nordic Summer University (NSU) programme during the period 2009–11. For more than 50 years NSU has been known to develop academic and intellectual debates that has involved several leading intellectuals, politicians, and scholars of the Nordic countries. The organization is sponsored by the Nordic Council of Ministers.
The Falsterbo workshop is the third out of six workshops that are being held within the South Asia theme.
A cluster of Nordic researchers in South Asian studies prepared a proposal for these multidisciplinary NSU seminars that was accepted in 2007. The aim was to connect presently dispersed scholars on South Asian studies and upgrade the existing mass of Nordic PhD students and younger researchers in the Nordic Summer University activities. Read the full proposal for the South Asia in the 21st Century NSU programme.
The first workshop was held in Copenhagen 13–15 March 2009. The theme was ”Democratic Values and Political Practices in South
Asia”, and it was coordinated by
Stig Toft Madsen, SASNET; Kenneth B Nielsen, University of Oslo; and Arild Engelsen Ruud, also University of Oslo. Full information about the March 2009 workshop, including a list of papers presented.
The second workshop was held in Tyrifjord, Norway, 19–26 July 2009. The theme for this workshop was ”South Asian Migration and Diaspora”, and it was coordinated by Peter B. Andersen, University of Copenhagen; Knut A. Jacobsen, University of Bergen; Igor Kotin, Kunstkamera, St. Petersburg, Russia; and Marianne
Qvortrup Fibiger, University of Aarhus.
Later workshops in the NSU seminar series will focus on ”Religion and conflict in South Asia” in the summer 2010; on ”Releasing the Indian tiger – economical and political
implications globally and regionally of the opening of the Indian economy” in the winter 2010/11; and a final workshop in the summer 2011 on a theme not yet decided upon.
 Prof. Elinor Ostrom, Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Government, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA, has been awarded the 2009 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (sharing the prize with with Oliver E. Williamson). Prof. Ostrom is the first woman to win the prize in this category. She is considered one of the leading scholars in the study of common pool resources. In particular, Ostrom's work emphasizes how humans interact with ecosystems to maintain long-term sustainable resource yields. Common pool resources include many forests, fisheries, oil fields, grazing lands, and irrigation systems. Her current work emphasizes the multifaceted nature of human–ecosystem interaction and argues against any singular ”panacea” for individual social-ecological system problems. She has a Swedish connection in the fact that she has been a member of the Expert Group on Development Issues, EGDI (on behalf of the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs).
In September 2001, Elinor Ostrom was a keynote speaker at a SASNET symposium and workshop held in Lund on ”Managing Common Resources – What is the solution?” (co-organised by the Dept. of Economy, and Dept. of Sociology at Lund University). More information about the 2001 symposium.
 • A Centre for Globalization and Development (CGD) was launched at Gothenburg University in July 2009. This transdisciplinary initiative has a base grant of SEK 7.5 million per year during three years, and has a steering committee with representatives from many departments at Gothenburg University. The Centre aims to promote research on how globalization processes affect development in the global South, and seeks to identify appropriate domestic and international policy responses. The interrelated processes that are analyzed are the economic process of international economic integration, the political process of global governance, and the social and cultural processes of increased global interaction. How these processes affect development in countries in the South depends on its resources, institutions, and policies as well as the ability to deal with conflicts and environmental challenges.
The Centre supports research on the following six themes:
1. International Integration and Development in the South
2. The International Organization of Production
3. Global Social Relations
4. Peace, Development and Security
5. Environmental Sustainability and Climate Change
6. Global Governance
CGD now invites applications for four postdoctoral research fellowships for an initial period of 1 to 2 years with possibility of extension. Apart from persons who have completed their PhDs within the last three years, students who are near completion of their thesis are also welcome to apply. Deadline for submission is 1 December 2009. More information.
The Centre also invites to an Inaugural Conference on ”Globalization and Development”, to be held
29–30 October 2009 in Gothenburg. The participants include Prof. Jan Scholte,
Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation, University of Warwick, UK, who will talk about “Building Global Democracy? Civil Society and Accountable Global Governance”; and Professor Naila Kabeer,
Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK, who will talk about “Changing Patterns of Motherhood, Marriage and Masculinity in the Context of Globalization”. Venue: Linnésalen, Campus Linné, Mediehuset, Seminariegatan 1 B, Gothenburg. As a side event, there will be held a seminar for PhD candidates and post-docs with short presentations of ongoing research and informal discussions about opportunities for research collaboration across disciplinary boundaries. More information about the conference.
 PUKAR (Partners for Urban Knowledge, Action and Research) based in Mumbai, India, is an innovative and experimental initiative that aims to contribute to a global debate about urbanization and globalization. The organisation supports a number of multi-disciplinary projects with research and expositionary dimensions. Its research activities are collaborative, cross-disciplinary initiatives involving two or more Associates, working out of different professional and disciplinary backgrounds. The projects currently supported by PUKAR involve a complex mix of traditional and non-traditional methods, positing documentation and resource-building as forms of intervention. They include projects on ”Gender and Space” (funded by the Indo-Dutch Programme on Alternatives in Development
2003–2006); and ”Post Industrial Landscapes”.
 PUKAR’s team consists of a group of scholars, social and cultural activists and professionals in the fields of art, journalism, film, architecture, urban planning and social sciences. The organization was founded in 2001 by Professor Arjun Appadurai (photo), Senior Vice-President for Global Initiatives, New School University, New York, USA, who serves as the President of its Board of Trustees.
Among PUKAR initiatives should be mentioned a Youth Fellowship Programme, and its PUKAR Advanced Level Research Fellowship Programme. The latter aims at producing urban
research outside of academia, by youth fellows on themes directly
relevant to their personal interests.
 Facts on File, a US-based award-winning publisher of print and online reference materials for the school and library market, announces the preparation of a new general reference, Encyclopedia of Global Environmental History. It will be published under the General Editorship of Brian Black, Professor of History and Environmental Studies at Pennsylvania State University in Altoona, USA. In particular, this volume is organized around specific issues, events, or people that have been contingent in patterns of world environmental history. Potential contributors are encouraged to send brief cv‘s with a description of your specific area of specialization/interest. Facts on File will then supply an up-to-date selection of possible topics. Each entry will be signed and contributors will be paid a small honorarium upon publication. Send correspondence to: bbfof@atlanticbb.net
 DevNet, The Swedish Development Research Network on Nature, Poverty and Power, has launched a grants programme to support seminar activities on sustainable development at Swedish universities. Devnet is a national Swedish research network on sustainable development based at the Uppsala Center for Sustainable Development (jointly managed by Uppsala University and the Swedish Agricultural University, SLU). The network is financed by a Sida research network grant for the period 2009–2011. Four grants of SEK 10 000 each have now been announced. The seminar activities should have a focus on the concerns and interests of people living in poverty, highlighting the interrelation between poverty, power and the use of natural resources. Especially newly examined researchers and PhD students at Swedish universities and university colleges are invited to apply. Last date for application was November, 15, 2009. More information.
 The Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI) is involved in a research programme on Asian Security Studies. Within this broad framework, FOI has initiated a number of sub-projects dealing with India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. During the past two years FOI has also organised a number of workshops and conferences on Afghanistan and Pakistan in Stockholm, to which participants have been invited from different Swedish universities, research institutes and government agencies. As a result, FOI now issues reports. In January 2009, a report by Kristina Zetterholm, entitled ”Pakistan – Consequences of Deteriorating Security in Afghanistan” was published, and in September 2009, FOI published an interesting report on the information war in Afghanistan between the Taliban and the Afghanistan government supported by western troops, entitled ”Kampen om ‘hearts and minds’ i Afghanistan”. It is written (in Swedish only) by Dr. Stefan Olsson, a political scientist previously working at Uppsala University. He has an interest in the information war in Afghanistan between the Taliban and ISAF/Nato, but is also working with issues concerning crisis management in the European Union. More information.
 On 11 August 2009, the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore
established a new Centre, named the Nalanda-Sriwijaya Centre. It will
undertake research on historical interactions among Asian societies and
civilizations. The Centre aims to serve as a forum for comprehensive study
of the ways in which Asian polities and societies have interacted over time
through religious, cultural, and economic exchanges as well as diasporic
networks. The Centre was officially inaugurated by Nobel Laureate Professor
Amartya Sen and Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo. The Centre also plans to examine the manifestations of hybridity,
convergence and mutual learning in a globalizing Asia. It sees the following
as its major aims:
– To develop the ”Nalanda idea” of building for contemporary Asia an
appreciation of Asian achievements and mutual learning, as exemplified
by the cosmopolitan Buddhist centre of learning in Nalanda, as well as
the ”Sriwijaya idea” of Southeast Asia as a place of mediation and
linkages among the great civilizations.
– To encourage and develop skills needed to understand the civilizations
of Asia and their interrelationships.
– To build regional research capacities and infrastructure for the study
of the historical interactions among the civilizations and societies of
Asia.
The Centre, which is headed by Professor Tansen Sen, is an affiliate project
of the program to revive Nalanda University in Bihar, India, a Buddhist
university which thrived from the 7th to the 13th centuries. The revived
University is a joint undertaking by the regional East Asia Summit (EAS)
grouping of countries, and the project will be discussed at their next
Summit, scheduled to be held on 25 October 2009 in Phuket, Thailand.
Go to the web page of the Nalanda-Sriwijaya Centre.
 The British Association for South Asian Studies (BASAS) supports a number of autonomous research groups. These groups – effectively think tanks with members from many European and South Asian nations – are designed to generate distinctive research initiatives. These initiatives may be submitted to grant-awarding bodies in the UK.
These are the current Research Groups (September 2009):
– Ancient and Mediaeval Gandhara, convened by Dr Nasim Khan and Dr Cameron Petrie
– Circle of Tibetan and Himalayan Studies, convened by Dr Ulrich Pagel
– Contemporary Economics and Business: International Business, Trade and Investment, convened by Professor Rajneesh Narula, Professor Kunal Sen, Mr. Arif Zaman, and Mr. Mohammad Razzaque
– Diaspora and Development, convened by Pushpa Arabindoo
– Early Modern South Asia, convened by Professor Christopher Minkowski and Dr Polly O'Hanlon
– Geography and Environment, convened by Professor Graham Chapman, Professor Kunal Sen and Dr. Arif Zaman
– Landscape, Population and Subsistence, convened by Dr Dorian Fuller and Dr Michael Petraglia
– Pakistan Studies Group, convened by Steve Lyon and Kaveri Harriss
– Ports and Indian Ocean Exchanges, convened by Dr R Tomber and Prof P J Cherian
– PRASADA, convened by Dr Adam Hardy
– Relics and Relic Worship in the Early Buddhism of India and Burma, convened by Professor Janice Stargardt
– Social Science and Science of Climate Change in South Asia, convened by Dr Emma Mawdsley and Professor Barbara Harriss-White
– South Asian Governmentalities, convened by Deana Heath and Stephen Legg
– South Asian Language and Literature, convened by Dr Imre Bangha
– South Asian Medicine, convened by Dr Dominik Wujastyk
– Vidisha Research Group, convened by Dr Michael Willis
– Writing British Asian Cities, convened by Dr Seán McLoughlin, Dr William Gould, Dr Ananya Kabir, and Dr Emma Tomalin.
Full information about BASAS Research Groups.
The Columbia Undergraduate Journal of South Asian Studies (CUJSAS) is a brand new web-only academic journal based out of Columbia University, USA. The journal is a space for undergraduates to publish their original research on South Asia (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka) from both the social sciences and humanities. As such, CUJSAS is multi-disciplinary, which primarily reflects the movement of the field of South Asian studies to avoid notions of academic provincialism.
CUJSAS now invites undergraduate students at a
college or university, or someone that has attained his/her undergraduate degree within
the past year, to deliver
papers for its inaugural issue. More information.
 ”Getting Published.
A Companion for the Humanities and Social Sciences” is the title of a new book by Gerald Jackson & Marie Lenstrup, published by NIAS Press in Copenhagen. The book provides a valuable practical guide to success as an academic author with clear
step-by-step guidance on how to plan and produce a manuscript, get it
accepted for publication, work through book production, and promote the book
for maximum success. This handbook is unique in its international outlook,
its focus on the humanities and social sciences, and its integration of
issues surrounding new technology, Open Access, etc. It aims to maximise would-be authors’ chances of success in the race to get published. The key concerns are to increase authors’ knowledge and understanding of how the academic publishing industry works; to show authors how they can integrate this understanding into every stage of their work on a publication project; and through this to give them control over the fate of their work. The book also discusses the current state and challenges of academic publishing and indicates where new technology is taking the industry.
Gerald Jackson has guided hundreds of authors through to publication as editor in chief of NIAS Press, Denmark, and is committed to keeping the Press at the forefront of technological developments. Marie Lenstrup has worked in academic book marketing for many years and now runs ASBS, Netherlands, a consultancy and marketing agency for academic publishers. More details about the book.
The Dept. of History, GC University, Lahore, Pakistan invites research
papers for publication in The Historian, a referred bi-annual research
journal. The next issue (Volume: 8 Number. 1, January-June 2010) is
intended to examine the relationship between culture(s) and the Pakistani
state. The papers should examine the institutional and pedagogical
practices in the post-partition Pakistani society. We would keenly welcome
theoretically innovative papers analyzing the nexus of culture and the
state-craft in the contemporary Pakistan.
Possible areas of study may be:
Institutional Matrix in Pakistan (Military, Police, Bureaucracy); Education as a controlling technology; Extremism, Modernity and Tradition; Pakistani Bureaucracy/Military as a cultural Elite; and Pakistani institutionalization and cultural homo/heterogeneity. Contributors may also discuss other themes with the editor Dr Tahir Kamran, The
Historian, before submitting their papers. Deadline for mailing papers is 15 December 2009. to the editor. More information.
 The Endangered Archives Programme at the British Library is now accepting
applications for the next round of funding. The deadline for receipt of
preliminary grant applications is 6 November 2009. Since it was established five years ago, the Programme has so far funded 120
projects in 52 countries in grants totalling £3.3 million. The Programme is
funded by Arcadia (formerly known as the Lisbet Rausing Charitable Fund, a grant-making fund established in 2001), in pursuit of one of its charitable aims to preserve and
disseminate cultural knowledge and to promote education and research. The
aim of the Programme is to contribute to the preservation of archival
material worldwide that is in danger of destruction, neglect or physical
deterioration. The focus of the Programme is on the preservation and copying of important but vulnerable archives throughout the world. More information.
 In South Asia, 26 projects in Bhutan, India and Nepal are currently supported by the Endangered Archives Programme. They include projects on digital documentation of manuscripts at Drametse and Ogyen Choling monasteries in Bhutan (photo from Drametse); a digital archive of north Indian classical music at Jadavpur University in Kolkata; and a project to preserve historic and rare monographs and periodicals in Nepal. More information about the South Asian projects.
 On 17 June 2009, the decisions on Erasmus Mundus External Cooperation Window (EMECW) programme proposals regarding mobility activities between Europe and India/South Asia starting in the academic year 2009–2010 were announced. The decisions were taken on behalf of the European Commission (EC) by its Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) in Brussels.
This year, two geographical window lots are dedicated to South Asia. Lot 13 focuses entirely on collaboration with India, whereas Lot 11 includes collaboration also with Afghanistan, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Four university consortia have been selected to run programmes under the India lot 13, and two consortia have been selected under the South Asia lot 11. Each selected Erasmus Mundus External Cooperation Window programme will have a budget of roughly around EUR 5 million per year to spend on mobility for students, teachers, researchers, and academic staff in both directions between Europe and India/South Asia.
The selected programmes are the following:
Lot 11 (South Asia),
programme 1
 Consortium entitled ”Erasmus Mundus Mobility for Life” formed by 8 universities in Europe, and 11 universitites
in Asia ((Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology,
Asian University for Women, and
Chittagong University, Bangladesh;
Royal University of Bhutan;
Institute of Engineering at Tribhuvan University, Nepal;
Mehran University of Engineering & Technology in Jamshoro, Sindh, Pakistan;
Kabul University, Afghanistan;
University of Calcutta, and
Sinhgad Institute of Technology in Lonavala, Maharashtra, India;
Bandung Institute of Technology, Indonesia; and
Mae Fah Luang University, Thailand).
 The programme is coordinated by Aalborg University, Denmark. Prof. Ramjee Prasad (photo), Dept. of Communication Technology, Aalborg University, is the main coordinator. Mobility flow: 179 individuals. More information about the programme.
The application window was open from November 15, 2009 to December 31, 2009. More information on the consortium web site, http://www.erasmus.mobilityforlife.aau.dk/
Lot 11 (South Asia), programme 2
Consortium formed by 11 universities in Europe, and 9 universitites in Asia (Kabul University, Afghanistan; Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology, and
University of Dhaka,
Bangladesh; Royal University of Bhutan;
Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad, India;
Airlangga University,
Indonesia;
Tribhuvan University,
Nepal;
International Islamic University, Islamabad, and
Hajvery University, Lahore, Pakistan). The programme is coordinated by Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium. The coordinator is Mr Filip Callewaert. Mobility flow: 240 individuals. More information about the programme (as a pdf-file).
The consortium web page has now been opened. Applications for BA/MA students, Postdoc researchers and Academic staff opened 1 November 2009.
Results to be announced during December 2009. More information on the consortium web site, http://www.lot11.emecw.com/
Lot 13 (India), programme 1
 Consortium formed by 9 universities in Europe, and 8 universities in India (Amrita University, Coimbatore; Anna University, Chennai; Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi; Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata; Jadavpur University, Kolkata; Kakatiya University, Warangal; University of Pune; and Centre of Environmental Planning and Technology, Ahmedabad). The programme is coordinated by Politecnico di Torino, Italy. Mobility flow: 200 individuals. Nordic partner universities in the consortium: Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm; and Helsinki University of Technology, Finland. The coordinator is Bianca Buttiglione at Politecnico di Torino. More information about the programme (as a pdf-file).
The call for application for the 2009/10 Academic Year was open till 6 December 2009. More information on the consortium web site, http://www.india4eu.eu/
Lot 13 (India), programme 2
 Consortium formed by 12 universities in Europe, and 8 universities in India (University of Delhi; Jadavpur University, Kolkata; University of Pune; University of Kerala; Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur; Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai; Pravara Institute of Medical Sciences, Loni, Maharashtra; Anand Agricultural University, Gujarat). The programme is coordinated by Lund University, Sweden.
 Dr. Sidsel Hansson (photo), Division of International Relations, Lund University, is the main coordinator. Mobility flow: 183 individuals per year. Other Nordic partner universities in the consortium: Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm; and Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim. More information about the programme (as a pdf-file).
This programme was also selected last year (2008) along with three other India/South Asia related EMECW mobility programmes. The Lund University programme was then entitled Lot 15, and included a much wider mobility scheme between Europe and India than the new Lot 13 lots.
The partnership programme that was selected in 2008 is currently running at full speed from the Summer 2009. The mobility of approximately 340 individuals consisists of a flow by 75 % from India to Europe, and 25 % from Europe to India. More information on the consortium web site.
A new Call for Mobility applications was issued for the Erasmus Mundus External Cooperation Window (EMECW) lot 13 programme coordinated by Lund University. This second round will award 183 scholarships for all mobility groups starting in 2010 (with start dates between April 1 and September 1, 2010). The
Call opened on 1 September 2009, and closed on 1 December.
Duration of the scholarships vary from 1 to 34 months. The scholarships cover travel, insurance, possible tuition, living expenses and housing costs. More information about the application procedure, target groups, admission requirements, and selection process.
Each university in the consortium has decided which courses they offer for scholarship holders. Search for which courses are offered at different levels.
Lot 13 (India), programme 3
 Consortium entitled ”EURINDIA” formed by 10 universities in Europe, and 8 universities in India (Anna University, Chennai;
Anurag Narayan College, Gaya (affiliated to Patna University); Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati; Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee;
National Law School of India University, Bangalore;
Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), Coimbatore;
University of Kalyani, West Bengal;
and University of Pune). Three associated institutions are also part of the project, one in Europe and two in India – CII-S Godrej Green Business Centre, Hyderabad; and Mahratta Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture.
 The programme is coordinated by Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden. Ms. Alphonsa Lourdudoss (photo) at the International Office, KTH, is the main coordinator. Mobility flow: 201 individuals. More information about the programme.
The EURINDIA programme held its first Consortium Meeting at KTH in Stockholm 21–23 September 2009. Representatives from the European and Indian partner universities met to discuss practical details around the launch of the mobility programme.
The scholarships are intended for undergraduate, master's and doctorate students, as well as post-doc researchers and academic staff. The application deadline was Thursday 29 November 2009. More information on the EURINDIA consortium web page: http://intra.itm.kth.se/kth-informerar/planering-uppfoljning/
Lot 13 (India), programme 4
 Consortium entitled ”WILLPower, Window India Learning Link Power” formed by 10 universities in Europe, and 7 universities in India (Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore;
Anna University, Chennai;
University of Delhi;
Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, Chennai; Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati; Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur; Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Rajasthan). The programme is coordinated by Ecole Centrale Nantes, France. Mobility flow: 210 individuals. The Co-ordinator is Yvon Riou at Ecole Centrale Nantes. More information about the programme (as a pdf-file).
The call for application was opened on October 5, 2009, and closed on November 20, 2009. The mobility will start by February 2010, in the beginning of the second half of the European academic year. The latest individual mobility will start before september 1, 2010. More information on the WILLPower consortium web page: http://www.willpower.fr/
Another three South Asia partnership programmes were selected in 2008, and are fully running during 2009. One of them is coordinated by a Swedish university, namely Mälardalen University.
Mälardalen University in Västerås, Sweden coordinates what used to be entitled Lot No. 12. The university consortium behind this programme comprises of 16 universities, nine in Europe and seven in South Asia – out of which 4 are in India, and 1 each in Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The programme is entitled EURECA ( European Research and Collaboration Project with Asia), and has a mobility flow of 320 fully funded students, researchers and academic staff. Prof. Sasikumar Punnekat at the School of Innovation, Design and Engineering, Mälardalen University, is the main coordinator. The programme did not receive continued funding for its 2009 application. More information on the EURECA web page.
University of Bradford, UK was selected in December 2008 to coordinate what is known as the Asia Regional programme 1. The consortium consists of 5 universities in Europe and 6 universities in Asia – including Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Pakistan. The programme has a mobility flow of 344 fully funded students, researchers and academic staff.
The consoritum/programme is built upon a previous European Commission funded collaborative project named eLINK. More information on the eLINK web page.
University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France was also selected in December 2008 to coordinate what is known as the Asia Regional programme 2. The consortium consists of 9 universities in Europe and 8 universities in Asia – including Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. The consortium is named EMMA (Erasmus Mundus Mobility with Asia). More information on the EMMA programme’s web page.
 |
A Training and Awareness Program cum Workshop
on
”Implementation strategies for the transfer of hybrid photovoltaic-thermal technology (H-PV/T) from research laboratory to field” was held in New Delhi, India, 25–28 August 2009. The successful conference was jointly organised by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, the Bag Energy Research Society (BERS) in India, and Växjö University, Sweden, and funded by a SASNET interdisciplinary workshop grant in 2007 (more information). The convenors were Prof. G N Tiwari, BERS and IIT Delhi, and Dr. Krister
Håkansson, University of Växjö. The main objective was to create a platform at IIT Delhi for interaction amongst scientists, academicians, manufacturers, potential users/farmers, maintenance engineers, executives of NGO, social workers that are working in area of renewable energy particularly in the area of Photovoltaic (PV) systems, Photovoltaic Thermal (PV-T) and Solar Thermal systems. The participants came from all over India, and included farmers from rural areas, maintenance engineers, social scientist/workers, technical experts and representatives of different NGO:s. Read the conference report (as a pdf-file).
Krister Håkansson has also kindly contributed with an article on the workshop in Swedish, specially written for SASNET. Read the article entitled ”Nygammal teknik för långsiktig överlevnad”.
 In addition to its already existing BA programmes in Sanskrit, Hindi, Bengali, and South Asian Studies, the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London now offers a BA programme in which
Nepali language, literature and culture can be studied in combination
with another social science or humanities subject. This programme is probably unique in the Euro-American world, and is organised by Michael Hutt,
Professor of Nepali and Himalayan Studies, and
Dean, Faculty of Languages and Cultures, at SOAS.
More information about SOAS’ BA programme in Nepali.
See a brochure announcing the existence of the programme (as a pdf-file)
 On 19 August 2009, Mistra – the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research – decided to give funding to Gothenburg University and Chalmers University of Technology to establish an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary world leading centre focusing on Sustainable Urban Development. The new centre, ”Mistra Urban Futures: The Göteborg Center of Excellence for Sustainable Urban Futures”. According to plans, it will be fully established by January 2010. The Mistra Centre for Urban Futures should act as a cluster for development of knowledge and innovation for urban sustainability, form a resource base for case studies and scientific analysis, ensure a strong chain from international disciplinary excellence to local knowledge, and serve as ‘showcases’ for other cities and countries. Read the winning proposal, and Mistra’s evaluations on the other two proposals (Stockholm, and Lund/Malmö) made for the new centre.
  The proceedings from the Sida financed conference ”Meeting Global Challenges in Research Cooperation”, held in Uppsala in May 2008, have now been published. All the keynote speeches, discussion summaries, papers on thematic and trans-disciplinary research, and close to 200 abstracts are included in the conference report, a publication of 651 pages, published as a pdf-file on the web. The report also includes draft research priorities from the parallel conference sessions. The report has been edited by Ingrid Karlsson and Kristina Röing de Nowina from Uppsala Centre for Sustainable Development. Go for the extensive conference report.
The conference, the fourth in a row
of conferences focusing on current Swedish development research, was as usual initiated by Sida/SAREC – the unit for research cooperation within the the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency Sida, but this time hosted by the Centre for Sustainable Development in Uppsala, an inter-disciplinary centre for education and research on sustainable development, jointly run by Uppsala University and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) in Uppsala.
The general theme for the three-day conference was “Meeting Global Challenges in Research Cooperation”. Researchers and development professionals were invited to gather and discuss key themes at the frontiers of research and global development issues.
Previously Sida has initiated three similar conferences, the first one in Gothenburg in 2000, the second in Lund in 2003 (more information), and a third one, focusing on ”Structures of Vulnerability:
Mobilisation and Resistance”, in Stockholm in 2005 (more information).
The well-attended Uppsala conference – it drew more than 450 participants – consisted of panels, focusing on topics such as sustainable energy systems, maternal and child health, water and sanitation, soil degradation, sustainable agriculture, survival strategies of the poor, conflicts over natural resources, housing and infrastructure, human rights, democracy, global trade and climate change.
Lars Eklund from SASNET participated in the 2008 Uppsala conference. Read his report, focusing on the South Asian elements.
 An initiative has been taken to form a Danish Network for Pakistani Studies (DNPS). Researchers within the fields of history, culture, language studies, journalism, conflict studies, development studies, islamology, etc. were invited to participate in a meeting at Copenhagen University on Thursday 1 October 2009. The meeting has been convened by Iram Nisa Asif, PhD Fellow at the Dept. of History of Religions,
Institute for Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen. More information about the proposal (only in Danish).
 In June 2009, Sweden and India decided to jointly support research in tuberculosis. The Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems (VINNOVA) and the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Ministry of Science and Technology, India, agreed to support top level research co-operation between Indian and Swedish scientists in the field of ”Biology, diagnosis and treatment of Tuberculosis”.
The programme is one of the first bilateral co-operations, based on joint funding, between the two countries. Under this scheme, VINNOVA will fund the Swedish research teams and DBT the Indian side. VINNOVA is committing around SEK 16 million to this program.
Four Indo-Swedish projects, out of a total of 15 proposals, have been selected by DBT and VINNOVA and will receive funding for the coming three years. These are:
– Doctors office diagnostic instrument for detection of M. tuberculosis under ”in the field” conditions adapted for use by unskilled personnel.
Project leaders: Dr. Dag Ilver, Imego AB, and Dr. Vijay. K. Chaudhary, University of Delhi, Department of Biochemistry, Delhi.
– Mechanisms of protein synthesis and ribosome targeting antibiotic drugs in Mycobacteria.
Project leaders: Dr. Måns Ehrenberg, Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Uppsala University, and Dr. Umesh Varshney, Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.
– Biology of gene-deleted M. tuberculosis strains – immunological marker profiling.
Project leaders: Dr. Nagaraja Valakunja, Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and Dr. Markus Maeurer, Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology (MTC), Karolinska Institutet.
–
Structure-guided design of new antibacterial agents against dormant Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
Project leaders: Dr. D. Sriram, Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Hyderabad and Dr. Gunter Schneider, Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics, Karolinska Institutet.
More information about the Indo-Swedish collaboration.
  An appeal/invitation has come from Prof. Kalyanakrishnan Shivi Sivaramakrishnan (photo) of Yale University and Vice President of the American Association of Asian Studies (AAS); and Assistant Professor Ramya Sreenivasan of the University of Buffalo and Chair of the South Asia Council of the AAS, for panel proposals for the next two meetings of the AAS from the Swedish South Asian Studies Network. They also seek to encourage more participation from individual members of SASNET. This is part of an effort to boost South Asianist participation at the AAS, since South Asian Studies and scholars from South Asia have often been under-represented at the AAS annual meetings, as well as more European involvement. The next AAS annual meeting will take place in Philadelphia, March 25–28, 2010 (more information), and the 2011 AAS annual meeting will be held in Honolulu, March 31-April 4, 2011. Read the appeal from AAS.
 • From 1 January 2008, the Dept. of Educational Work, Organisation and Society at Karlstad University coordinates an international educational project, the Masters Programme in Educational Research and Development (MAP). It is an institutional cooperation project between the universities of Karlstad, Sweden; Tampere, Finland; Bochum, Germany; Kathmandu University, Nepal; and Nangarhar University, Jalalabad, Afghanistan. The Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA) is an associate partner in the project. The project is funded since 2007 by an Asia Link Programme
grant from the European Commission, and as the project name implies, the goal is to provide a high-quality Masters Programme in Educational Research and Development at the Nangarhar University in Afghanistan.
Till recently, the project was coordinated by the Institute of International Education (IIE) at Stockholm University, where the groundwork for the project was carried out by Dr. Pia Karlsson, Dr. Amir Mansory and Prof. Holger Daun from 2005.
MAP was formally inaugurated at the Faculty of Education at Nangarhar University in May 2008.
The programme is unique first of all because it is the first time that an educational training at this level has been implemented in Afghanistan. Secondly, it has a unique study plan, which includes not only theoretical courses but also practical research work in the field. It is also unique because it involves university cooperation between Asia and Europe.
The teaching of courses, and managing the fieldwork, is carried out by a group of teachers from the universities involved. Besides Pia Karlsson, Amir Mansory and Holger Daun from Sweden, the staff also consists of Prof. Christel Adick, holding the Chair of Comparative Education at the University of Bochum; Prof. Mahesh Parajuli, Kathmandu University; and Prof. Tuomas Takala, Dept. of Education, University of Tampere.
Full information about the Masters Programme in Educational Research and Development (MAP) at Nangarhar University.
 • On 11 July 2009, Dr. Mahinda Kommalage who defended his PhD at the Dept. of Neuroscience, Uppsala
University, in 2005, published an article in the international medical journal Lancet. The article, written along with a colleague at the University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka, where Dr. Kommalage is now working, is entitled ”Sri Lanka: the aftermath”. It is based on their own experiences from the situation on the ground among internally displaced people in Sri Lanka while working in a field clinic in a camp for internally displaced people in May, 2009. The two researchers were members of a voluntary health-care team, among the approximately 171 000 internally displaced people who had fled the conflict zone in northern Sri Lanka during April 2009. Read the article in Lancet (as a pdf-file).
 On Friday 21 August, the 2009 World World Water Week participants in Stockholm unanimously decided to support
a resolution entitled ”Stockholm Statement on Water, Climate Change, and Adaptation” (photo from the meeting). The statement
argues that water must be included in the COP-15 climate negotiations that will be held in Copenhagen in December 2009. At various sessions throughout the Week, a number of organizations and officials articulated the reasons why water needs to be an integral part of the negotiation process on climate change and adaptation. Those reasons became key points of the Stockholm Statement. Read the Stockholm Statement text.
The 2009 World Water Week in Stockholm was held 16–22 August 2009. The theme for 2009 has been ”Water – Responding to Global Change: Accessing Water for the Common Good with Special Focus on Transboundary Waters”. The World Water Week, organised by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) is
the leading annual global meeting place for capacity-building,
partnership-building and follow-up on the implementation of international
processes and programmes in water and development, with large relevance
to South Asia. Every year, a large number of the particiants come from South Asia. It is filled with plenary sessions, seminars, workshops,
side events and special activities. The Scientific Programme Committee (SPC) planning for the conference is chaired by Prof. Jan Lundqvist, Dept. of Water and Environmental Studies, Linköping University.
 The 2009 Stockholm Water Prize awarded Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak, founder of the Sulabh Sanitation Movement in India. The award ceremony was held on Thursday 20 August 2009. Dr. Pathak also delivered the annual Stockholm Water Prize Laureate lecture at the Opening Plenary Session of the Week. As the founder of the Sulabh International Social Service Organisation, Dr. Pathak is known around the world for his wide ranging work in the sanitation field to improve public health, advance social progress, and improve human rights in India and other countries.
His accomplishments span the fields of sanitation technology, social enterprise, and healthcare education for millions of people in his native country, serving as a model for NGO agencies and public health initiatives around the world.
Since he established the Sulabh Sanitation Movement in 1970, Dr. Pathak has worked to change social attitudes toward traditional unsanitary latrine practices in slums, rural villages, and dense urban districts, and developed cost effective toilet systems that have improved daily life and health for millions of people. He has also waged an ongoing campaign to abolish the traditional practice of manual ”scavenging” of human waste from bucket latrines in India while championing the rights of former scavengers and their families to economic opportunity, decent standards of living, and social dignity. More information about Dr. Pathak and the award.
More information about the 2009 World Water Week.
 PIPS Journal of Conflict and Peace Studies is a new quarterly research dissemination by the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS), Islamabad, in its key mandated areas. The research journal is published quarterly and provides a forum for those around the world undertaking research in the areas of:
• Conflict and peace (Inter-state and Intra-state conflicts in South Asia); • Security and development;
• Radicalization;
• Media for peace and democracy;
• Political violence and terrorism;
• Counter terrorism; • Economic strategic issues; and • International relations and foreign policy.
PIPS Journal of Conflict and Peace Studies is a primary scholarly journal in its area. Dr. Catarina
Kinnvall, Dept. of Political Science, and member of SASNET’s board, belongs to its advisory board. The magazine publishes broadly on issues of conflict and violence. Presently, it focuses on radicalization and talibanization. More information at its web page.
 In May 2009, the Swedish Masters student Petra Bergquist was selected for Internship at the Centre for Research and Education for Social Transformation (CREST) in Kozhikode, India. CREST is an autonomous institution under the Government of Kerala that is
involved with research and educational programmes for marginalized communities. Petra spends three months at CREST, working with a group of 40 graduates from Dalit/Adivasi and other minority communities of Kerala who are taking a Post Graduate
Certificate Course for Professional Development. The main aim of the internship is learning by teaching through an exchange of experiences and ideas. The students come from various disciplinary backgrounds including natural sciences as well as social sciences and history. During Petra’s 3 months stay at CREST she conducts lectures focusing on women and development, arranges daily afternoon sessions on general knowledge, and supports students in their communication skills. Read her report from the internship.
– Internship opportunities are now again offered to Swedish students, to work at CREST during the Fall 2009. More information.
 Blekinge Institute of Technology (BTH) is working hard to further expand its exchange programmes with South Indian universities on both education and research. BTH is
one of the youngest and smallest universities in Sweden with just
about 3 500 full time students and a staff of about 500.
BTH is spread over 3 campuses at Karlskrona, Ronneby and Karlshamn
and focuses on applied IT technology. It attracts a great many
foreign students in its various programmes.
Since 2006, BTH has also developed formalised exchange programmes with several universities in India, especially in Hyderabad and Chennai. Gurudutt Velpula, a recent BTH graduate from Andhra Pradesh was greatly involved in the issue, and he was hired to investigate on-site opportunities for cooperation with universities in the Andhra Pradesh region. In 2007, MoU’s on joint Double Diplomas in the fields of Signal Processing and Software Engineering was signed with both JNTU and Andhra University. In the spring of 2008 about 40 Indian students arrived as the first to participate in the cooperation project with BTH. During the 2007-2008 academic year another Double Diploma programme was created in Telecommunication Systems with JNTU and Andhra University, respectively. During the spring of 2009 about 80 Indian students are expected to arrive at BTH in the six Double Diploma programmes. More information about the educational collaboration with Indian universities.
 BTH’s efforts are part of a larger scheme run by the regional administration in the South-East Swedish region of Blekinge, to develop links not only regarding education and research but also in business between Blekinge and the South-East region of India, the states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, an area of India where the on-going industrial and economic expansion is extremely high, especially concerning the IT- and telecommunication industry. The India project in Blekinge, as it is called, started in May 2008 and will continue throughout December 2009. In February 2009, a big delegation from Blekinge Institute of Technology (BTH), led by the Vice Chancellor Ursula Hass, went on an official week-long tour to India. The aim of the BTH tour to India was to strengthen the existing ties regarding research collaboration and student exchange. The Governor (landshövding) of Blekinge therefore accompanied the university delegation to India. Full information about the Blekinge India Project, with a link to the delegation’s India blog page.
Through the India Project, BTH has also been able to enhance cooperation in collaborative research between researchers at BTH and the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M) in Chennai. A formal cooperation agreement was signed in November 2008. The collaboration project is funded by the Swedish Research Council and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) via the Swedish Research Links Asia programme. The collaboration partner institution on the Indian side is the interdisciplinary TeNeT (Telecommunications and Computer Networking) Group at IIT-M, headed by professor Ashok Jhunjhunwala. The TeNeT Group has an explicit mission: to provide people living in rural areas in India with robust, affordable and easily accessible internet access and e-services which can contribute to good quality of life for individuals and sustainable development and growth for India and the rest of the world. More information about the research collaboration with IITM.
Read also a SASNET report from a visit to BTH in 2007
 A delegation from the University of Rajshahi, Bangladesh visited the University of Skövde during the period 25–28 May 2009. The main purpose of this visit was to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between these two institutions within the fields of Microbiology and related topics. The signing ceremony was held on Thursday 28 May 2009. It was signed by the Vice Chancellor of Skövde University, Mr. Leif Larsson, and Prof. Ananda Kumar Saha, Dept. of Zoology, representing the University of Rajshahi. SASNET’s deputy director Lars Eklund participated in this event. Venue: Conference room, Administrative Building, University of Skövde, 2nd Floor. To further celebrate the occasion, a “Bengali Evening” was held at 20.15 with a cultural programme that included a Bharata Natyam performance by Ms. Shivapriya Bagchi from Kolkata, India. More information.
 Model ASEM is a simulation of an Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), aiming at fostering relations between Asian and European countries. Created by ASEFUAN (graduates of the 2-week ASEF University scholarship programme), it is a chance for students interested in international relations to engage in intense discussions on issues which are high on the ASEM agenda and to give them insight into the development of international relations. This year, Model ASEM is being co-organized by one of Europe's most prestigious political sciences' institutions, l'Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po),. It will be held 10–14 November 2009 at the Euro-Asia Campus of Sciences Po Paris in Le Havre, France. Many extremely qualified applications have already been received from e g Pakistan, but applicants are still lacking from India, Denmark, and Finland. Deadline for applications was Sunday 31 May 2009. More information.
 The Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures (EWIC) is an
interdisciplinary encyclopedia project focusing on women and Islamic
cultures. This 6-volume, 1,246 articles interdisciplinary encyclopedia print project is a result from a unique collaboration by more than 1,000 scholars from around the world, crossing historical, geographical borders and disciplines, reflecting the very latest research on gender studies and the Islamic world, including South Asia. It was published during the period 2003–2008 by Brill publishers in Leiden, the Netherlands, and with Dr.
Suad Joseph from University of California, Davis, being the general editor. More information about EWIC.
The EWIC project now also invites interested
scholars, including graduate students, to present their research through the free, on-line searchable EWIC Scholars’ Database. It may also be possible for them to contribute with articles to EWIC On Line. If your research and expertise is relevant to women and Islamic cultures and you are interested in being included in the EWIC Scholars Database, please fill out the contributor template, reachable from Dr. Suad Joseph's website, http://sjoseph.ucdavis.edu/ewic/.
The University of California Press, the University of Chicago Press, and Columbia University Press are combining their resources to launch a major new series devoted principally to high quality books in the vibrant field of South Asian Studies.
The series is entitled ”South Asia Across the Disciplines”. It is edited by Dipesh Chakrabarty, Sheldon Pollock, and Sanjay Subrahmanyam. The Editorial Board also includes renowned researchers such as Vasudha Dalmia, Sudipta Kaviraj, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.
The aim behind the series, that will consist of six monographs per year, is to raise innovative questions on the relationship between South Asian studies and the disciplines; the conversation between past and present in South Asia; the history and nature of modernity, especially in relation to cultural change, political transformation, secularism and religion, and globalization. Above all, the series showcases monographs that strive to open up new archives, especially in South Asian languages, and suggest new methods and approaches, while demonstrating that South Asian scholarship can be at once deep in expertise and broad in appeal. Manuscripts are invited from art history, history, literary studies, philology or textual studies, philosophy, religion, and the interpretive social sciences, especially those that show an openness to disciplines other than their own.
The first books being published in the series are Everyday Healing: Hindus and Others in an Ambiguously Islamic Place by Carla Bellamy, The Social Space of Language: Vernacular Culture in British Colonial Punjab by Farina Mir, and Unifying Hinduism: The Philosophy of Vijnanabhiksu in Indian Intellectual History by Andrew Nicholson. Authors interested in submitting a book manuscript to the series should send an initial inquiry and prospectus to Avni Majithia. All manuscripts should be complete at the time of submission. More information (as a pdf-file)
 The two American researchers Peter Gottschalk, Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, and Mathew Schmalz, College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, have created an interesting virtual Indian village website. It is called ”A Virtual Village (in the State of Bihar, India)”, and it allows students to
interactively explore the social worlds of a north Indian village
through its material culture. This free, online website provides a
variety of background materials regarding the pseudonymic 'Arampur,'
including updates on changes to its physical conditions. But the
central feature allows students to virtually 'roam' within this
village in the state of Bihar through a series of interconnected
images.
 Hotspots on the scenes allow the user to enter buildings,
closely examine objects, and 'interview' residents with a list of
prescribed questions. As they roam, students can observe how the many communities in
Arampur express their identities through the images, buildings,
apparel, and household objects found in streets, homes, stores, and
places of worship. Moreover, users can also witness through the
interviews how individuals may belong simultaneously not to one but
to many communities. These experiences help destabilize the
prevailing bifurcation of 'Hindu' and 'Muslim.'
The website was existed for almost 10 years, but a major redesign of “A Virtual Village” was done in 2004 and it has been updated constantly since then. Go for the Virtual Village of Arampur.
 Dr. Jan af Geijerstam, who defended his doctoral dissertation titled ”Landscapes
of Technology Transfer. Swedish Ironmakers in India 1860–1864” in 2004, is no longer connected to the Division of History of Science and Technology at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm. Instead he works mostly as a kind of free-lance
researcher focusing on studies on Swedish Industrial History.
He has however kept his international contacts, now coordinating a collaboration between the International Committee for the Conservation of the Industrial Heritage (TICCIH) and the Modern Asian Architecture Network (mAAN). The latter organisation was established in 2000 as a loosely knit network of architectural researchers and specialists committed to study, preserve, and rehabilitate the modern architecture, townscape, and civil-engineering heritages in Asia. Its latest conference was held in New Delhi in February 2009, with the theme ”Asian Cities — Legacies of Modernity” (more information).
 Dr. af Geijerstam is currently involved in an initiative to develop a collaboration project between Swedish and Indian artists and proponents of saving industrial heritage environments in mid-Sweden (Ådalen) and in Bhopal, India. They support NGO’s and activists in Bhopal that demand from UNESCO that the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal (photo) should be declared a heritage memorial building. This is a very sensitive issue that touches upon the whole question of sustainable and environmental friendly agriculture in India vs. chemical dependent agriculture that Union Carbide/Dow Chemicals represent.
Research results on polluting pharmaceutical companies in India by Associate Professor Joakim Larsson and his research group from the Endocrinology Division, Dept. of Physiology at Sahlgrenska Academy, Gothenburg University, have made international headlines. For several years, Dr. Larsson and his team have studied the environmment around the Patancheru Enviro-Tech Ltd plant (PETL) in Hyderabad , India. In January 2009 they presented shocking results in a scientific report that raise concerns for the health of wildlife and ecosystems in the region, as well as underscoring little-studied potential effects on human health. The report was highlighted by the Associated Press (AP) news agency. Its medical reporter Margie Mason wrote an informed article from Patancheru, titled ”World's Highest Drug Levels Entering India Stream”. Read the full article.
The effect of the AP article was phenomenal. The article soon appeared in many leading newspapers all over the world. According to Google it was soon republished on more than 2 million web pages. It has also been presented in the Nature Magazine.
In India, the Times of India took up the thread, and wrote several articles on the issue, front page articles that gained wide attention in the country. The paper revealed that after the publication of the report, the office of prime minister Manmohan Singh had asked the local pollution board to start collecting data on pharmaceuticals in Patancheru's waters immediately. More information on Dr. Larsson and the Patancheru research.
The Gothenburg University research on the environmental problems at Patancheru will continue. In November 2008, the project now titled ”Microbial Diversity and Development of Antibiotic Resistance Associated with Industrial Wastewater Treatment” was given SEK 750 000 as a three-years grant for the period 2009–11 from the Swedish Research Links programme (funded by Sida and the Swedish Research Council). The main applicant was Prof. Edward Moore, Department of Clinical Bacteriology,
Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Gothenburg University, but Dr. Joakim Larsson is also behind the successful application. More information on the Swedish
Research Links project.
 Jönköping University has taken over the responsibility to set up a new technical university, Sialkot University of Engineering Sciences & Technology, in the
industrial town of Sialkot in northern Pakistan. Previously the project was administered by the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, but due to the worsening security situation in Pakistan the KTH board last year decided to withdraw from the project. The Sialkot initiative originally came from the Pakistani government, which is
eager to boost the number of university graduates in the country,
especially in the sciences. Pakistan has taken upon itself to finance and build the
campus, whereas Swedish partners will be responsible for course content, university
management and quality control. Fields of study are supposed to include
electrical engineering, information technology, chemical engineering,
industrial economics and mechanical engineering. The Sialkot
University should also take in 20-30 PhD students per year. It was supposed to have been fully operational
already by the start of the 2008/2009 academic year,
 Prof. Ramon Wyss (photo) has been in charge of the Sialkot project first at as Vice President of KTH and later at Jönköping University, where he got a position as Vice-president for International Affairs at the Jönköping International Business School, JIBS, in 2008. Prof. Wyss is however now back to KTH.
The ambition behind the Sialkot programme has been capacity
building, with Pakistani students who acquire master's
and doctoral degrees being invited back to teach subsequent intakes
of undergraduate students. It has also included ideas of establishing an associated Industrial Park and a Business School,
and a Medical School. If all pieces
in the puzzle come together, the campus will grow into a university
town.
The Swedish involvement in the Sialkot university has been part of a larger effort by the Government of Pakistan to improve the quality of higher
education in the country to the benefit of society. International cooperation was initially invited to establish nine new Universities
of Engineering Science & Technology
in Pakistan (UESTP). France, Germany, Austria, Italy, South
Korea, China and Japan were approached besides Sweden.
 It was a virtual throwback to the 1960s when friends, family and colleagues came to felicitate the Danish senior development researcher Steen Folke on Thursday March 5, 2009 at the Danish Institute of International Studies in Copenhagen on the eve of his retirement. Steen Folke sailed for India in 1959 with his parents, who worked on one of the first Indo-Danish projects in Karnataka. At the reception, Steen mentioned that he later made a critical evaluation of this project. It was perhaps the first evaluation to be made by the Danish International Development Assistance (Danida). A human geographer by profession, Steen subsequently evaluated a range of projects in India, Bangladesh and elsewhere. In an edited volume from 2006 titled ”Den rige mus og den fattige elefant” he has collected essays illustrating the entire history of Indo-Danish development collaboration (more information).
His latest evaluation concerns Danida support to the Private Sector in India. The evaluation concludes that the programme did help boost the Indian private sector, while also – as intended? – helping to boost the Danish private sector.
Steen Folke was a member of the Danish parliament representing the Left Socialist party from 1975 to 1984. He remains active in Action Aid and Mellemfolkeligt Samvirke as well as elsewhere. More information on Steen Folke.
Grants
to support Swedish development research are provided by the Swedish
International Development Cooperation Agency, Sida,
through its Developing
Country Research Council (u-landsforskningsrådet).
These so-called uforsk grants belong to the most
important ways of financing Swedish research projects related to developing
countries, including South Asia. The aim is to establish and maintain
a knowledge base of relevance to aid and development issues, plus
capacity for developing country research in Sweden. Deadline for applications for the period 2010–2012 was Thursday 2 April 2009 (except in the case of applications for networks on development issues, where the applications round did not open until 3 April, and the deadline was 24 August 2009). More information.
Researchers working at universities/colleges or other
research institutions in Sweden may apply for grants. Swedish citizens
working at the Nordic Institute for Asian Studies (NIAS) in Copenhagen
may also apply.
 Among the new stipulations set up by Sida for the period 2010–12 are requirements that the proposed research projects should have a clear relevance for Sweden’s policy for global development (PGD, decided upon by the Swedish government in 2008, more information); and have a land focus in accordance with the Swedish government’s priorities – which in the South Asia case means primarily Bangladesh and Afghanistan and in a selective mode also India.
In accordance with the PGD, Sida has been instructed to make priority to projects dealing with poverty reduction. Focus has been put on three preferential thematic areas, namely: – Democracy and human rights; – Gender equality and women’s role in development; and – Environment and climate change.
As an additional preferential focus area in the 2009 applications, the Swedish government has decided to contribute to set up a long-term action plan for the global fight against contagious diseases, and support research within this field with specific funds.
Further, Sida wants to encourage increased collaboration between researchers at different Swedish universities, opening up the possibility for groups of researchers to apply for grants up to SEK 3 M over a three-years period. The maximum amount for planning grants has been increased to SEK 100 000.
Finally, the term ”research networks” that groups of researchers can apply for will be changed into ”networks on development issues”, where the focus is more oriented towards meetings and an exchange of knowledge between researchers and practitioners/decision makers. Still, the main applicant should be connected to a Swedish university. The maximum annual amount to apply for regarding these networks will be SEK 500 000.
More information on the changes in the Uforsk programme (as a pdf-file, in Swedish only).
 The European
Alliance for Asian Studies is a co-operative framework of some leading
European institutes specializing in Asian Studies. It was established in 1997. Till 2007, the European Alliance for Asian Studies focused exclusively on East and South-East Asia. Since then it has opened up for India and Pakistan, but still excludes the rest of South Asia in its activities. The partner institutions are the Nordic
Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) at Copenhagen University, Denmark; International Institute
of Asian Studies (IIAS), Leiden University, Netherlands; Centre for International Studies and Research (CERI-Sciences-Po),
Paris, France; European Institute for Asian Studies (EIAS),
Brussels, Belgium; Centro de Estudios de Asia Oriental (CEAO),
Madrid, Spain; School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS),
London, UK; GIGA Institute
of Asian Studies, Hamburg, Germany; and the Swedish School of Advanced Asia-Pacific
(SSAAPS), Stockholm, Sweden.
 Together with the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) in Singapore, the European Alliance for Asian Studies invites annual applications for workshop grants through the so-called Asia-Europe Workshop Series (more information). This is a way to stimulate innovative research on contemporary topics of interregional and multilateral importance to both Asia and Europe. The programme is open for researchers in the 43 so-called ASEM (Asia-Europe
Meeting) countries – since 2007 also including India and Pakistan. Junior and senior researchers from
academic institutes in the ASEM member
countries are eligible to apply for grants. The proposed workshops should have an innovative and cross-disciplinary
topic, address shared interests of Asia
and Europe, and stimulate interregional
dialogue. Deadline for applications for the Asia-Europe Workshop Series 2010 was Wednesday 1 July 2009. For full information, see the Call for Proposals (as a pdf-file).
 The Embassy of India in Stockholm has outsourced most of its handling of tourist, student, business and other visas to India. From December, 1, 2008, the Embassy of India in Stockholm has contracted the private company TT Services AB to handle visa applications at a new Indian Visa Application Center (IVAC) located at Kungsgatan 36 (2nd floor) in Stockholm (more information about TT Services AB). If visa applications are complete and payment is made in person at the visa counter of IVAC in Stockholm, visas are supposed to be granted within two working days for all eligible applicants. However, for people not going to Stockholm in person and who send their applications by post, processing time for applications is much longer. Only after the payment etc are confirmed the processing will start, and it may take up to 25 working days to complete the process. It should also be noted that IVAC charges an extra fee of SEK 212 in addition to the applicable visa fees (SEK 440 for a tourist visa, SEK 820 for a student visa and SEK 1 320 for a business visa). Swedish journalists still have to apply for their visas directly from the Embassy of India, and the same procedure applies to any person of Pakistani or Aghani origin. Full information about visa rules by the Embassy of India in Sweden.
OpenDOAR is an authoritative and useful directory of academic open access
web based library repositories launched in 2005. It was started and initially developed by the University of Nottingham, UK and Lund University, Sweden. OpenDOAR has opted to collect and provide information solely on sites that wholly embrace the concept of open access to full text resources. Thus sites where any form of access control prevents immediate access are not included. Each OpenDOAR repository has been visited by project
staff to check the information that is recorded. Go for OpenDOAR.
South Asian repositories included in OpenDOAR include (October 2008): Afghanistan Centre at Kabul University (ACKU) Library Catalogue; International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research Digital Repository, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B); DSpace at Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode; Eprints@Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (IITD); and many other Indian institutions; E-prints from Higher Education Commission Pakistan (HEC).
In order to improve the services to applicants and facilitate visa processing, the Embassy of Sweden in India has commissioned a private company, VFS Global Services, to operate the Swedish Visa Application Centre (VAC) in New Delhi from 15 October 2008.
The VFS Swedish Visa Application Centre located at No. 5, S-1 Level, E-Block, International Trade Tower, Nehru Place, New Delhi-110019, will accept visa applications from all country nationals who wish to travel to Sweden.
VFS shall accept applications for Tourist, Relative/Friend, Business, Conference, and Transit Visa categories maximum of 90 days duration in a six months period.
Processing time will be of five working days (including day of submission at VFS) for Business/Conference and Transit visas and eight Working days (including day of submission at VFS) for Tourists, Visiting Friends and Relatives.
Those who wish to submit their visa applications at the Embassy, should note that the processing time will be 10 working days for Business/Conference and Transit Visas and 15 working days for Tourists, Visiting Friends and Relatives.
Applications for stay in Sweden exceeding 90 days, or Residence and/or Work Permit, still need to be submitted at the Embassy in New Delhi or Consulates in Chennai, Kolkata and Mumbai. More information.
The Copenhagen South Asia Research Network is a new multidisciplinary home to South Asia based research in Denmark. The network aims to collate and disseminate research in both popular and scholarly forums. It also facilitates international exchange and collaboration through workshops, conferences and lectures where younger scholars are particularly encouraged to participate. The network draws researchers from Copenhagen Business School (CBS), Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS), University of Copenhagen (KU), Aarhus University (AU), Roskilde University (RU), and Danish Institute of International Studies (DIIS) among others. To join the mailing list or to receive further information, please send an e-mail to Dr. Ravinder Kaur, Roskilde University.
On Friday 26 September 2008, a meeting of interested Swedish parties in Afghanistan was held at the Swedish Foreign Ministry in Stockholm. The meeting, which was chaired by the heads of South Asia and Afghanistan desks at the Foreign Ministry, was attended by representatives from major Swedish governmental institutions as well as Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) such as Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA); Swedish Red Cross; Save the Children Sweden; Swedish Church’s Mission; Swedish Rescue Services Agency (SRSA); Hand in Hand Afghanistan Organization (HiHAO); Forum Syd; Swedfund; Swedish Army; Justice Department; Swedish Embassy in Kabul, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and Swedish South Asian Studies Network (SASNET). PhD Candidate Ahmed Gholam, Division of Islamology, Centre for Theology and Religious Studies, Lund University participated in the meeting as SASNET’s representative. Read his report from the Stockholm meeting (as a pdf-file).
The efforts to create INSTEC, a national network centre for Indo-Swedish Cooperation on Technical Research and Education, are proceeding well. The networking initiative, originally an idea born out of a contact journey by a Royal Institue of Technology (KTH) delegation to India in 2002, now consists of eight Swedish universities (Blekinge Institute of Technology; Chalmers University of Technology; Linköping University; Luleå University of Technology; Lund University, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences; and Uppsala University, besides KTH), and one research institute – IVL (Swedish Environmental Research Institute). INSTEC is funded by the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems, VINNOVA. More information about INSTEC.
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In order to develop INSTEC further, a delegation representing the member universities/institutions made a tour to India in March-April 2008. The tour was organised in the form of a Mobile Workshop, held at three different locations, Hyderabad, Pune and New Delhi. The workshop focused on the aspect of sustainable urban development, comprising system and technology aspects. Sustainable urban development comprises areas of energy, transportation, water, sewage, waste and ecosystem services.
Besides, the delegation also visited Kerala, and had fruitful meetings with the KSCSTE, Kerala State Council for Science Technology and Environment. Read the complete report from the 2008 INSTEC tour to India.
 In December 2008, INSTEC organised an international workshop on “The Sustainable City (Sustainable Environmental Technology for
Urban Development)” in Kochi, Kerala, India. The workshop was organised in collaboration with Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and Environment in Thiruvananthapuram, and Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT) in Kochi. The objective of the workshop is to bring together interested parties from universities, research organizations, industry and governmental organisations, with the purpose of initiating broad and diverse collaboration on development and implementation of environment technology and system solutions for sustainable urban development. The workshop will, apart from knowledge sharing, promote all forms of cooperation, from relatively small and short-term to long-term strategic cooperation and joint-ventures. Full information.
 Asia-Studies Full-text Online is a premier database for the study of modern Asia-Pacific, acting as the exclusive licensee for some of the region’s most prestigious research institutions. Asia-Studies.com brings together thousands of full-text reports covering 55 countries – including the 8 South Asian nations – on a multitude of business, government, economic, and social issues. Examples of specific subject coverage include finance, trade, environment, human resources development, best practices in government, fisheries, tourism, education and women's studies to name a few. The average study is 50 pages long, and contains statistics, research, analysis, and forecasts. Most contain statistical tables, charts, and/or graphs. All documents are simultaneously permanently archived into the Asia-Studies Full-text Online service, available by subscription (more information). Asia-Studies.com is compiled by International Information Services, a publisher and distributor of scholarly electronic databases. The study report providers include the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and Silk Road Studies Program, a joint Transatlantic Research and Policy Center between Johns Hopkins University and the Institute for Security and Development Policy (ISDP) in Stockholm. South Asian institutions participating in the collaborative effort include the
Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS) in Dhaka, and the
Centre for Bhutan Studies (CBS) in Thimphu. Go for the Asia-Studies Full-text Online.
In addition the Asia-Studies website offers the free Asia-Studies Monthly. This is an e-journal sent out with a dozen articles selected from the many added to the Asia-Studies Full-Text Online Database each month. Please sign up to get your free Asia-Studies Monthly.
 Swedish Sustainability Foundation is an organisation that supports innovative science-based projects in the area of environmental ecology and health. The purpose of the foundation is to promote sustainable technology for improvement of wellfare in poor areas of the world. The foundation shall achieve its purpose by raising funds and use those funds to enable sustainable commercial and social undertakings, private or community owned, that are consistent with the promotion of the purpose. The solutions supported by the company shall be sustainable in the long term considering the technological, medical, economic, political, environmental and commercial circumstances. The board includes one member affiliated with the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, and one affiliated with Karolinska Institutet Medical University.
To be selected for support, projects must be sustainable in the long term perspective in technical, medical, ethical and ecological terms, have long term economical soundness and further long term social development, equality and welfare. To be elected the projects must be likely to become economically
viable within a few years or sooner without further economical support
from the foundation. More information about Swedish Sustainability Foundation.
 One project already supported for two years deals with arsenic in drinking water in Bangladesh. Viola Vitalis, a Bangladeshi origin nutraceutical company, gets support for its efforts to create mobile clinics for treatment of arsenic poisoning. The company, based in California, has developed medication consisting of Arsenicure, an ointment for treatment of external symptoms and Ars-detox, a capsule formulation to neutralize the accumulated arsenic inside the body. The founder of Viola Vitalis is Dr. Abdul Kader (photo) who holds an MSc in Microbiology,
an MBA in marketing and a PhD from Karolinska Institutet in Molecular Microbiology. For the first time, the Swedish Sustainability Foundation now reach out for assistance from outside donors. More information about the project.
Essays.se is a new digital resource which enables you to search and download thousands of English-language university essays from Sweden. The web site gives non-Swedish speakers access to essays published at Swedish universities. At the moment you will find 8616 essays through this website, but more are added each week – as soon as they are finished by the students and submitted by the Swedish universities. Essays.se is the English language version of a website titled Uppsatser.se. At this main site, there are currently links to more than 45.000 essays and final theses, most of them however written in Swedish. At Essays.se you will only find the English-language essays. More information about Essays.se.
 The University of Copenhagen has launched an Asian Dynamics Initiative (ADI), a new interdisciplinary cross-faculty Asia focus. ADI aims at creating a common platform for the study of social, economic, political, cultural, and religious complexities in Asia.
The overall purpose of the initiative is to strengthen and develop research and teaching on modern Asia at the University of Copenhagen through interdisciplinary research activities, courses, seminars and workshops. The Asian Dynamics Initiative revolves around a number of themes that have been identified as anchor points for cutting edge research and teaching between the Social Sciences and the Humanities. The seven themes are: •
Knowledge in transit; • Security at global and local levels; • Borders, territorialisation and regionalization; • Belonging, citizenship and identities; • Local responses to global challenges; • The economics of the Asian challenge; and • Political institutions and cultures.
Cross-disciplinary topics such as nationalism, environment, climate change, media, religion, minority groups, gender and migration will be integrated in all the above mentioned anchor points.
With the launch of ADI, the University of Copenhagen aims to strengthen its position as a major strategic source of knowledge regarding Asian societies and communities, and five new full professorial positions have been selected within the initiative:
- Professorship in Modern Indian/South Asian studies.
- Professorship in Asian Security Studies.
- Professorship in International Economics with focus on Globalization and Emerging Asian Economies.
- Professorship in the Anthropology of Asia.
- Professorship in Western China/Central Asia.
More information through the new Asian Dynamics Initiative hompage.
 Dr. Kris Rao and Dr. Ian Beadham has written a book titled ”Living and Working in India: The Complete, Practical Guide to Expatriate Life in the Sub Continent” The book, based on personal experiences, tries to ease the
transition between Western and Indian cultures, giving a wealth of advice in
terms of language, culture, lifestyle, education, health, housing,
immigration, working practices and regulations. Excerpts from the book are available online on Dr. Rao’s blog page (go for it!). The authors have decided to donate the proceeds to Cancervive, a charity providing support to children with cancer in Mangalore on the Indian west coast (Dr. Rao is an alumni of Mangalore University). More information.
 The South Asia sub-region is in the forefront of the Open Access movement within developing countries in the world, with India being the most prominent partner in terms of its successful Open Access and Digital Library initiatives. Institutional and policy frameworks in India also facilitate innovative solutions for increasing international visibility and accessibility of scholarly literature and documentary heritage in this country. A number of UNESCO-supported international conferences and workshops have been held in India – the 4th International Conference of Asian Digital Libraries in Bangalore 2001, the International Conferences on Digital Libraries in New Delhi 2004, and the International Workshop on Greenstone Digital Library Software in Kozhikode 2006. As a result, a book titled ”Open access to knowledge and information: scholarly literature and digital library initiatives; the South Asian scenario” (UNESCO publications 2008) has now appeared, where many information professionals of the sub-region demonstrates their successful Digital Library and Open Access initiatives. It has been authored by Anup Kumar Das, and edited by Bimal Kanti Sen, Jocelyne Josaih. More information about the book.
 The European Network for Contemporary Academic Research on India (ENCARI) organised a Round Table & EU-India Think Tank Dialogue conference in Brussels, Belgium, 13–14 November 2007. The theme for the conference was ”EU–India: Deepening the Strategic Partnership”. ENCARI, formally launched in 2006 (more information), has been assigned a role to offer policy formulation support for the EU Commission's services engaging India and developing EU-India political and economic cooperation. Since May 2006, nine ENCARI Briefing Papers on specific topics have been prepared, covering a broad range of crucial issues in EU–India relations. These policy papers provided the key input for the ENCARI Round Table, that was convened at the European Commission in Brussels. See the complete
Round Table and Think Tank Dialogue proceeds, with programme, audio clips, video and powerpoint presentations.
ENCARI’s member organisations were invited to participate in the conference, and SASNET sent three Swedish representatives to Brussels (Dr. Sidsel Hansson, Centre for East and South East Asian Studies, Lund University;
Dr. Per Hilding, Department of Economic History, Stockholm University; and PhD Candidate Ferdinando Sardella, Department of Religious Studies and Theology, Gothenburg University). Read their extensive conference report (as a pdf-file).
An Indo-Swedish so-called Facility
for Environmental Initiatives and Innovations (”the Facility”)
was set up by Sida, the Swedish International Development Cooperation
Agency, in December 2006. The aim is to encourage knowledge
sharing and co-operation on development of new technical solutions
between India and Sweden, and to evolve best practices in the
environmental field. The Facility offers funds to apply for,
and is open to Swedish and Indian public institutions, the private
sector, civil society and research and academic institutions.
On the Swedish side it is administered by an officer at the Swedish
Embassy in New Delhi. From 2007 the Facility is fully operational. More
information, including guidelines and full background material.
 The
first Swedish researcher to receive funding from the Facility for
Environmental Initiatives and Innovations was Prof. Bo Mattiasson
(photo to the right), Dept. of
Biotechnology, Lund University. Prof. Mattiasson leads a major
applied research project on biodegradable methods to treat
the waste water emanating from the textile industries in
the South Indian city of Tiruppur. The project, titled ”Development
of Process Technology for Treatment of Wastewaters from Greeting
Knit Wear in Tirupur, India”, was given SEK 600 000 as
a grant from the Facility. More information (as a pdf-file)
 The
Swedish Institute for Growth Policy Studies, ITPS, is the Swedish
Government's agency for understanding growth and for evaluating
government policies. From the
middle of August 2007, ITPS has a permanent representative in India, Dr. Stefan
Jonsson (photo
to the right), based at the
Swedish Embassy in New Delhi where he works as Counsellor
for Science and Technology. Dr. Jonsson has a background in Economics
at the Centre
for Research on Innovation and Industrial Dynamics (CIND),
Uppsala University and most recently at Stockholm
School of Economics. In the early 1990s he was working for
some years with the Swedish Sida supported Social Forestry project
carried out in the Indian state of Orissa. His mission for ITPS
consists in establishing contacts within the fields of research
and science, to assist in implementing the 2005 Indo-Swedish MoU
on Science and Technology, and work on an analysis of the economic
and industrial development of India.
 The
Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies (OCHS) at the University of Oxford
has a unique Online Library of over 100
MP3 recordings of lectures and seminars. Anyone with
a computer and an internet connection now has free access to
the best of Oxford's teaching about Hindu Culture. The themes
vary from Female Yoginis to Christian Ashrams, from Hindu Psychology
to the history of NRIs. The OCHS
is committed to the idea that academic insights are meant for
everyone. The Online Lecture Library is another step in the effort
to develop the field of Hindu Studies by sharing the insights
of leading professionals in the field who have visited OCHS over
the years. Stretching from 2003 to the present and growing with
each new term, the library ranges from introductory surveys of
major Hindu themes, texts and traditions; single lectures on
topics like Women in the Mahabharata or Poetry in the Vedas;
discussions with Jewish, Muslim, and Christian Scholars, and
seminars on Hindi Cinema. Listen to Sir Mark Tully talk about
the importance of India's 'Middle Way' approach to cultural tolerance
or hear a whole lecture given in Sanskrit. More
information, with links to upload OCHS’ lectures and seminars.
The British Foreign
& Commonwealth Office (FCO) gives advice on safety aspects
on travelling to all countries in the World, much more
detailed than the recommendations
provided by the Swedish Foreign Office. SASNET follows the
FCO’s shifting recommendations on the situation in the eight
South Asian nations, and presents its constantly updated information
on our Travel information page. Read
the security alerts regarding travelling in South Asia.
It is possible to subscribe for updated e-mail alerts on the security situation
in any given country, directly from the British Foreign
& Commonwealth Office. Go
to FCO’s registration page.
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A formal agreement on collaboration in research
and research training between Pakistan and Sweden was signed on
1 November 2004. Dr Atta-ur-Rahman,
eminent Pakistani scientist within the field of chemistry and Chairman
of the Pakistani Commission of Higher Education, HEC, visited Stockholm
1–2 November 2004. A Memorandum of Understanding was signed
between HEC and the Swedish Institute about sending 200 students
annually from Pakistan to Sweden for Masters and PhD studies financed
by the Pakistan Government. SASNET has been involved in the preparations
for launching this programme (read our
meeting report with Atta-ur-Rahman in Karachi, November 2003).
In Stockholm Atta ur-Rahman visited Karolinska Institutet Medical
University and the Royal Institute of Technology, KTH; institutions
that are likely to house a large number of the Pakistani Masters
and PhD students.
 The
Digital Library is now a cornerstone of new Pakistani university strategy.
In 2004, the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (HEC) entered
into a collaborative programme with the National Academy of Sciences (USA)
to enhance the content of the Digital Library resources. The project involves
the negotiation and acquisition of scientific literature and academic
(journal) databases from selected American Scientific Societies to meet
the specific information requirements of the research sector in Universities
in Pakistan. The project is part of the Digital
Library Program and is
considered to beone of the cornerstones of a strategy to capitalize on
the potential of ICT to turn the universities of Pakistan into world-class
seats of learning. LiveWire, a journal published by the American Chemical Society,
in March 2005 made an interview with Kamran Naim (photo to the right),
coordinator for Pakistan’s Digital Library project. Read
the article (as a pdf-file).
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SASNET’s searchable database for Swedish and Nordic researchers involved in any kind of South Asia related research.
Update SASNET’s database!
Nordic researchers are kindly requested to also check the information
already given in the database, and do necessary corrections and updates.
If you are not yet represented
in our database, please go to New entry and follow the instructions.
|
Links to Other SASNET Pages |
263 Swedish university
departments
engaged in South Asia related
research and/or education
South Asia related
conferences and workshops in Scandinavia
and all over the World
Important South Asia
related lectures
and seminars in Scandinavia
Summer/Winter schools
related to South Asian studies
Funding agencies for
research grants/scholarships for
South Asia related research in Sweden
South Asia related doctoral
theses
at Scandinavian universities
Recommended reading for
South Asia
researchers and students
Articles published on the Internet
South Asia
research departments
in countries all over the World
Important universities
in the South Asian countries
Other important
research institutions in South Asia
SASNET
activities in Sweden
and contact journeys in Asia
18th ECMSAS Conference
organised by SASNET in 2004
Web
site on Swedish Research
FORSKNING.SE is
a web
site on Swedish research, developed by four national research councils:
• the Swedish
Council for Working Life and Social Research (FAS);
• the Swedish
Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial
Planning (Formas);
• the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet);
and
• the Swedish Agency for Innovation Systems (VINNOVA).
South Asia related mailing lists/blogs |
 H-ASIA is a vibrating well-run discussion forum on Asian History and Studies, part of the Humanities & Social Sciences OnLine network (H-Net). The primary purpose of H-ASIA, that was launched already in 1994, is to enable historians and other Asia scholars to easily communicate current research and teaching interests; to discuss new articles, books, papers, approaches, methods and tools of analysis; to test new ideas and share comments and tips on teaching. H-Asia is especially committed to discussing region wide, comparative and professional issues important to scholars of Asia. H-Asia is administered by Frank F. Conlon, Professor Emeritus of History, South Asian Studies & Comparative Religion at University of Washington, USA.
Full information about the H-Asia Discussion Network.
How to join H-Asia?
1. Send a post (with subject line empty) to listserv@h-net.msu.edu with the message. ”SUB H-ASIA Your first name Your surname, your institution (e.g. SUB H-ASIA Charles Bengtsson, Stockholm University). Note that the comma appears only between your surname and your institution.
2. This post will generate an automated acknowledgement containing arequest for subscriber information which must be completed and returned to the subscription editor. When this has been done the subscription editor will add your name to the H-ASIA list.
 The International Dalit Solidarity Network (IDSN), based in Copenhagen, Denmark, works on a global level for the elimination of caste discrimination and similar forms of discrimination based on work and descent. It is an international network consisting of National advocacy platforms in caste affected countries,
Dalit solidarity networks in Europe,
International associates, and
Research associates. IDSN publishes a monthly newsletter, and it is also possible to subscribe for IDSN News RSS feed. More information.
South Asian Regional Cooperation Academic Network (SARCAN) mailing list, established in May 2008. SARCAN, based in Kathmandu, Nepal, aims to bring together the diverse groups of academics,
organizations and practitioners working on multi-faceted issue areas of South Asian regional
cooperation around the world by putting together a large online and searchable database of
academic work, publications, organizations and their work profiles into one central site, where
they can come together, increase their online presence and share information. Information about publications, seminars and conference announcements, grants, fellowships and job announcements etc, will be provided through the mailing list. More information about the SARCAN mailing list.
NoFSA-NET,
the Nordic Forum for South Asia (originally the
Norwegian Forum for South Asia),
is a non-partisian, apolitical mailing-list providing members
useful information about current events and interesting reading
to people in the Nordic countries who deal with South Asia in
some capacity (researchers, students, volunteer organizations,
journalists, etc.). NoFSA-NET, administered from Oslo, works
in close collaboration with SASNET.
More information about NoFSA-NET
Application
form to join NoFSA-NET.
 Asiapeace – ACHA
electronic discussion group is a Yahoo newsgroup
launched in 2001 by the non-profit and non-political Association
for Communal Harmony in Asia (ACHA), based in Oregon, USA, an
organisation dedicated to promote peace in South Asia and harmony
among South Asians everywhere they live. Asiapeace distributes
lots of valuable articles and other material about India, Pakistan
and Bangladesh through e-mail every day. Till 2004 the discussion
group was moderated by Dr. Ishtiaq Ahmed, Dept
of Political Science,
Stockholm University, but the role has now been taken over by
Dr. Omar Ali, a Pakistani-American
physician, currently Assistant Professor of Pediatric Endocrinology
at the Medical College of Wisconsin.
More
information about ACHA and its discussion groups.
Application
form to join Asiapeace.
 AfghanNews is
a very active Yahoo newsgroup on Afghanistan.
The list server is administered by the Institute
for Afghan Studies (IAS), a non-profit, non-political
and independent organization, founded and run by young Afghan
scholars from around the globe. AfghanNews is moderated by
the islamologist Ahmed Gholam from the Dept.
of History of Religions, Centre for Theology and Religious
Studies, Lund University. AfghanNews provides many articles and
other material about Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia from
various sources worldwide on a daily basis.
More
information about AfghanNews.
NorthEastIndia
Interest Group. This Yahoo discussion group, created
in 2003, aims at promoting and further the cause of professionals
and students from the Northeastern parts of India, and create an
online society of a professional network and a students’ network.
It consists of one subgroup, NorthEastIndia@yahoogroups.com
solely dedicated to professionals, while NorthEastIndiaStudents@yahoogroups.com
is for the students with special emphasis on their career needs.
Like other yahoo groups communication it is based on e-mails,
but messages are also available for registered group members through
the web page http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NorthEastIndia/
Globe Award
Blog is a blog
introduced in February 2007 jointly by Globe
Forum, PriceWaterHouseCoopers,
and CSR (Corporate Social
Responsibility) Sweden, dealing with CSR and Sustainable Development.
Experts, students and professionals are invited to share their
concepts, and texts in the blog.
Grants to Swedish research projects in South Asia
2008 and 2009 |
More information about
funding
agencies
for research grants/scholarships for
South Asia related research in Sweden
 On 15 December 2009, Swedish
Research Links grants for the period 2010-12 were decided upon
for a large number of Asia related research projects. Sida and the Swedish Research Council
initiated the Swedish Research Links programmes in 2002, and
within this framework the Asian–Swedish Research partnership
programme specifically aims to stimulate contacts between
Swedish researchers and researchers in Asia. Maximum grants, SEK 750 000 as International Collaborative Research Grants, are given to Dr. Anna Godhe (photo), Department of Marine Ecology, University of Gothenburg for the project ”Mitigating effects of harmful algal blooms in the Arabian Sea”; and Prof. Anna Norrby-Teglund, Center for Infectious Medicine (CIM), Department of Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, for the project project ”Pathogenic mechanisms of meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus”.
Prof. Hanumantha Rao (photo), Division of Mineral Processing, Department of Chemical Engineering and Geosciences, Luleå University of Technology, also receives SEK 750 000 for the project ”Particle size effect in flotation and agglomeration as a novel source of enhancing surface selectivity and pellet quality”; and the same applies to Prof. Maria Lerm, Department of Medical and Health Sciences, Linköping University, for the project ”Latency of Mycobacterium tuberculosis: evaluating drugs and drug targets using innovative models”.
Another 11 South Asia related projects receive International Collaborative Research Grants varying from SEK 600 000 to SEK 730 000, and four projects receive a one-year International Planning Grant worth SEK 75 000. Go
for SASNET’s list of South Asia related projects given
Swedish Research Links grants 2009
 On 12 November 2009, the Swedish International Development Cooperation
Agency, Sida, decided
upon the 2009 development research grants applications. Some of the
projects that get funding for the period 2010–12
deal directly with South Asia related research.
The recipients include Dr. Louise Olsson (photo), Dept. of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University, who receives SEK 3.6 m for a project entitled ”Opportunities and Obstacles: Local Ownership of Development and Stability in Northern
Afghanistan”; and Dr. Camilla Orjuela & Dr. Jonas Lindberg, Dept. of Peace and Development Studies (PADRIGU), School of Global Studies, Gothenburg University, who receive SEK 2.8 m to develop their project on ”Corruption and Conflict: Links and Experiences in Post-War Sri Lanka”.
 Prof. Christer Bengs & Dr. Erik Johansson (photo), Division of Housing Development and Management (HDM), Dept. of Architecture
and Built Environment, Lund University, receive SEK 1.95 m for a project entitled ”Informal settlement planning – land use, climate and energy; the cases of Guayaquil, Dar es
Salaam and Pune”.
Other Swedish researchers with South Asia related projects that receive funding from Sida this time are Dr. Joyanto Routh, Dept. of Geology and Geochemistry, Stockholm University; Dr. Mattias Larsen, Dept. of Peace and Development Studies (PADRIGU), Gothenburg University; Prof. Birgitta Agerberth, Dept. of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics, Karolinska Institutet; Dr. Pedro Gil, Malaria Research Unit, Department of Medicine, Karolinska Institutet; Prof. Anne-Marie Svennerholm, Dept. of Microbiology and Immunology, Institute of Biomedicine
at Sahlgrenska Academy, Gothenburg University; and Prof. Bo Mattiasson, Dept. of Biotechnology, Lund University. Go
for SASNET’s list of South Asia related projects funded
by Sida/SAREC 2009.
 On 21 October 2009, Professor Cecilia
Stålsby Lundborg, Division of Global health
(IHCAR), Karolinska Institutet Medical University, Stockholm, received SEK 2 250 000 as a three-years project grant (2010–10)
from the Swedish Research Council for
research within the field of Medicine, for a project entitled ”Antibiotic pollutants in waters and resistance in rural India – Interventions to improve antibiotic resistance management”. This is a continuation of a project on antibiotics resistance that Prof. Stålsby Lundborg has conducted since 2007. More information.
 One South Asia related project was given a three-years grant for the period 2010-12 from the Swedish Research Council for
research within the fields of Humanities and Social Sciences
2009. The decision was taken on 14 October 2009. Prof. Sten Widmalm, Dept. of Government, Uppsala University, was awarded SEK 3.9 m for a project entitled ”Tolerance
in Challenging Political Environments in Uganda, Kenya, India and Pakistan” . Already in 2006, Prof. Widmalm received a SASNET
planning grant for this project. The planning grant was used for carrying
out a preparatory visit to India and Pakistan (a planning grant for the
pilot survey in Uganda and Kenya was given bySida/Sarec).
Research partners in South Asia have been Dr. Sarwar
Bari Pattan, Islamabad,
Pakistan; Dr. Yogesh Kumar, Director for
Samarthan, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India; and Professor Raman
Kutty, Health Action
by People, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India.
 On October 22, 2009, Dr. Marie Larsson, Dept. of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University, was awarded SEK 1.985 M as a three-year grant (2010-12) by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation (Stiftelsen Riksbankens jubileumsfond), for a new research project entitled ”The Invisible labourers! Transnational and local activism among home-based women workers in Manila, Leeds and Ahmedabad”. In India, Dr. Larsson focuses on SEWA (Self-employed Women's
Association, and its role in the network entitled Homenet South Asia (with an office in Ahmedabad).
Marie Larsson defended her doctoral dissertation about
mobilisation among women against men’s alcohol consumption
in Andhra Pradesh in 2006. The thesis is
titled ”When Women Unite!. The
Making of the Anti-Liquor Movement in Andhra Pradesh, India”. More information.
On Tuesday 22 September 2009 the SASNET board decided upon the SASNET planning grants for 2009.
The following researchers were awarded SASNET planning grants in order to network for new research
projects:
 • Pernille Gooch, Dept. of Human Ecology, Lund University (photo): ”Water, Climate Change and Rural Livelihoods: Assessing Socio-economic Vulnerability and Potential Adaptive Strategies in Sikkim, India.” SEK 75 000.
• Andreas Mårtensson, Malaria Research Unit, Dept. of Medicine, Karolinska Institutet Medical University, Stockholm: ”Molecular characterization of Plasmodium falciparum malaria in Madhya Pradesh, India – implications for rational use of anti-malarial drugs”. SEK 50 000.
• Adam Pain, Dept. of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Uppsala: ”Development of a Rural Development Network between the College of Natural Resources (CNR), Royal University of Bhutan, and the Division of Rural Development, SLU, Uppsala”. SEK 70 000.
 • Leslie Paul and Sadhna Alström (photo), Dept. of Forest Mycology and Pathology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Uppsala: ”Development of a collaborative research project between Indian and Swedish researchers towards sustainable production of Cocos nucifera”. SEK 70 000.
• Joyanto Routh, Dept. of Geology and Geochemistry, Stockholm University: ”High-resolution Holocene paleoclimate records in glacial lakes from the northeastern Himalayas in Bhutan”. SEK 75 000.
The following researchers were awarded SASNET planning grants in order to organise an interdisciplinary workshop:
• Willmar Sauter, Dept. of Musicology and Performance Studies, Stockholm University: ”Interdisciplinary Approaches to Marginalised Performance Practices in India”. SEK 75 000
• Wimal Ubhayasekera, MAX-Lab, Lund University: ”Introduction to protein structures and homology modeling.” SEK 50 000
The following researchers were awarded SASNET Guest Lecture Programme grants:
• Sara Eriksén, School of Computing, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Ronneby: ”Invitation of Aarti Kawlra, Principal Project Officer, Indo-UK Consortium on Advanced Communication Technology, IC&SR Project, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Channai, India.” SEK 20 000
 • Anders Hydén, Dept. of Caring Sciences and Social Work, Gävle University: ”Invitation of Prabhavati N Tirmare (photo), College of Social Work, Mumbai University, India.” SEK 20 000
• Margareta Petersson, School of Humanities, Växjö University: ”Invitation of Somdatta Mandal, Viswa Bharati University, Santiniketan, India.” SEK 20 000
In 2009, Nordic researchers have been granted Euro 600,000 from the Joint Committee for Nordic Research Councils for the Humanities and the Social Sciences (NOS-HS) for the Nordcorp project ”Sikh Identity Formation: Generational Transfer of Traditions in the Nordic Countries”. The project leader is Dr. Kristina Myrvold, Division of Indic Religions, Department of History and Anthropology of Religion, Lund University, and other Nordic participants are Prof. Knut Jacobsen at Bergen University, Dr. Ravinder Kaur at Roskilde University, Prof. Hanna Snellman at University of Jyväskylä, and PhD Candidate Laura Schwöbel at University of Jyväskylä.
 On 20 March 2009, decisions
were taken about Linnaeus Palme exchange programme grants
for 2009-10.
The ninth round of applications for Linnaeus Palme grants,
for the contract period 1 July 2009–
30 June 2010, were decided upon by the Swedish International Programme
Office for Education and Training. Out of 260
projects given grants, 3 are with Bangladesh, 24 with India, 2
with Nepal, 2 with Pakistan, and 4 with Sri Lanka. Go
for the full list of Linnaeus Palme grants 2009 (as a pdf-file).
See
separate SASNET list on South Asia related projects.
On 21 November 2008, Sida’s (Swedish International Cooperation
Development Agency) U-landsforskningsråd, as it is called, decided
upon applications for research networks – sister networks to SASNET. The following network applications were granted:
Swedish Research Network for Sustainable Agriculture and Forestry for Development – RENSAD, applied for by Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (Lisa Sennerby Forsse). For three years (SEK 1.15 m+1.6 m+1.6 m).
 DevNet: The Development Research Network on Nature, Poverty and Power, applied for by Uppsala University (Heidi Moksnes, photo). For three years (SEK 750 000+750 000+750 000). More information about DevNet, established in January 2008.
The Swedish Network of Peace, Conflict and Development Research, applied for by Gothenburg University (Joakim Öjendal). For three years (SEK 750 000+750 000+600 000). More information about the PeaceNetwork, established in 2005.
 Child survival – reaching the target. A thematic network to promote research and advocacy, applied for by Uppsala University (Lars Åke Persson, photo). For two years (SEK 700 000+700 000).
RESELA (Red Sueca de Estudios Latino Americanos) - Swedish Network for Latin American Studies, applied for by Stockholm University. For one year (SEK 400 000).
 In November 2008, the Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning (Formas), decided
upon the 2008 grants applications. At least one South Asia related research projects was given funding. Dr. Jonas Lindberg, Dept. of Human and Economic Geography, School of Business, Economics
and Law at Gothenburg University was given SEK 700 000 as a two-years grant for a project titled ”Diversifying within or away from poverty? Understanding implications for wellbeing of rural livelihood diversification. Cases from southern Sri Lanka”. More information about the project.
In december 2008, Dr. Kristina Myrvold, Division of Indic Religions, Department of History and Anthropology
of Religions, Lund University, was granted SEK 150 000 from Erik Philip Sörensens foundation for starting up a project at Lund University titled ”Becoming Swedish Sikhs: Religious Socialization of Second Generation Sikh Youth in Sweden”. The purpose behind the project is to investigate how the second generation Sikhs gravitate towards religious identification and shape understanding about religion and identity in attempts to carve out a place for themselves in the Swedish society. The project will be conducted in close cooperation with other Nordic scholars and members of the academic network Sikhs-in-Europe.
 In April 2008, the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research (MISTRA) decided to award SEK 5.1 million to a research project titled titled ”The Urban Mind: Cultural and Environmental Dynamics”. The project is coordinated by professors Paul Sinclair and Gullög Nordquist at the Dept. of Archaeology and Ancient
History, Uppsala University, but involves more than 40 researchers from different departments at Uppsala University, and also
Stockholm University and the
Royal Institute of Technology (KTH).
The two-year research project (2008-09) derives a new concept, the ‘Urban Mind’, and this concept will be assessed
with a specific case study: Byzantium-Istanbul. The project has however also a more global relevance, and the Urban Mind concept will
be illustrated with ongoing studies of cognitive aspects of urbanism and climate change in Africa,
Eurasia (including South Asia) and the Americas. More information.
 In December 2007, Dr. Prosun Bhattacharya, Dept. of Land and Water Resources
Engineering, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, received SEK 9.4 million as a major grant from the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment within the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), for a four-years project (2007-10) titled ”Sustainable Arsenic Mitigation (SASMIT). Community driven initiatives to target arsenic safe groundwater as sustainable mitigation strategy”. The project will be carried out in collaboration with the University of Dhaka, the NGO Forum for Drinking Water Supply & Sanitation (based in Dhaka, Bangladesh), other partners at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, and the private company Ramboll Natura AB. The main objectives of the
project are to i) increase global awareness of the problems associated
with high arsenic groundwater of geogenic origin, ii) exchange
experiences regarding feasibility of mitigation options and iii) develop a
sustainable option for safe drinking water for rural and disadvantaged
communities, through targeting safe aquifers in regions with high
arsenic groundwater of geogenic origin for installation of community
hand tube wells. Action research will be conducted in Matlab Upazila,
Bangladesh. More information.
Earlier the same year, in June 2007, Dr. Bhattacharya also received a so-called Joint Formas–SAREC grant for research on sustainable development in developing countries for a three-years project (2007-09) titled ”Groundwater arsenic in Chhattisgarh, Central India and options for sustainable arsenic-safe drinking water supplies”. The project will be carried out in collaboration between the KTH-International Groundwater Research Group (GARG), and Pandit Ravi Shankar Shukla University (PRSU) in Raipur, Chattisgarh state, India. More information, with a project summary.
SPIDER, the Swedish Program for Information and Communication
Technology (ICT) in Developing Regions,
was established in 2004. Since then, a number of South Asia related collaboration projects have been given SPIDER funding. For the period 2007–09, SPIDER has given SEK 1.6 million as a grant to the Dept. of Applied Information Technology (2IT) at the Campus IT University in Kista for a project on ”ICT in rural development in Bangladesh”, carried out in collaboration with Grameen Communications; Grameen Phone; Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, all in Bangladesh; and the International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) in Hyderabad, India.
Other South Asia related collaboration projects that have been given SPIDER funding for the period 2007–09 are:
A project titled ”Bangladesh Virtual Classroom sustained”, carried out by the Dept. of Business, Economics, Statistics and Informatics (ESI), Örebro University. The project has been given SEK 1 million by SPIDER.
A project on ”Agricultural market information for farmers”, also coordinated by ESI, Örebro University. This project, also focusing on Bangladesh, has equally been given SEK 1 million.
A project on ”Mobile ATMs for Developing Countries”, carried out by the Dept. of Computer and Systems Sciences, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. This project, focusing on Sri Lanka, has been given SEK 800 000 from SPIDER.
More information on SPIDER and its funding programme.
 On 9 October 2007, the Swedish Research Council decided to award SEK 11.5 million to Umeå University and its International School for Public Health (UISPH) to administer a new Research School for Global Health during a period of five years. The research school will be run in collaboration with Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, and focus on global diseases like HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria. The goal is to find strategies to obtain improvements in sexual and reproductive health, and to study rights issues such as health systems and health economics. Ill-health among children will also become an important issue, and include studies of nutrition, immunisation programmes and other preventive measures. 20 PhD Candidates will be accepted to participate in the research school, announcements will soon be made. More information (in Swedish only)
 In June 2007, a number of South Asia related research projects were given funding from the so-called Joint Formas – Sida/SAREC programme for research
on sustainable development in developing countries. The programme aims
to promote participation of scientists from Sweden in sustainability
research in developing countries, with an overall intention to contribute
to global sustainable development in the spirit of the UN Conference
in Johannesburg 2002, and is administered by Formas, the Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning.
 The recipients of grants include Dr. Abul
Mandal (photo to the left), School of Life Sciences,
Skövde University, with a project on ”Genetic modification and development of a new variety of rice (Oryza sativa), the staple food in Bangladesh, for effective prevention of people and their environment from arsenic contamination”; Dr. Åsa Sjöling, Division of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, Institute of Biomedicine, Gothenburg University, with a project on ”Detection and characterisation of pathogenic bacteria in water samples in Bangladesh”; Dr. Anna Godhe, Marine Botany, Department of Marine Ecology, Gothenburg University, with a project on ”Inter-relation between bacteria and phytoplankton blooms in the Arabian Sea”; Dr. Gunaratna
Kuttuva Rajarao, Department of Applied Environmental Microbiology, School of Biotechnology,
Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, with a project on ”Development of sustainable, simple and inexpensive purification process using plant materials for safe drinking water for rural India”; Prof. Marie Vahter, Division of Metals & Health, Institute of Environmental Medicine;
Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, with a project on ”Implementation of collaborative efforts to assess sources and consequences of exposure to toxic metals, with the aim to improve a sustainable development in Bangladesh”; Dr. Prosun Bhattacharya, Dept. of Land and Water Resources
Engineering, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, with a project on ”Groundwater arsenic in Chhattisgarh, Central India and options for sustainable arsenic-safe drinking water supplies” (presented above); and Dr. Johan Burman, Marine Geology, Department of Earth Sciences, Gothenburg University, with a project on ”Indian paleomonsoon dynamics; linking high-resolution terrestrial and marine records”. More information.
 On 12 April 2007, the Swedish Foundation
for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education (STINT) decided to award Institutional Grants, in support of long-term collaboration between Swedish and foreign research groups, to 17 new projects. Two of the projects to be funded relate to collaboration with partners in South Asia. Dr. Devdatt Dubhashi (photo to the right) at the Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering, Chalmers
University of Technology, Gothenburg, was awarded SEK 800 000 to establish research collaboration with Prof. Krithi Ramamritham at the Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Mumbai; and Dr.
Gunilla Krantz, Dept. of Social Medicine, Institute of Medicine, The Sahlgrenska Academy, Gothenburg University, was awarded SEK 600 000 to establish research collaboration with
Dr. Tazeen Saeed Ali, School of Nursing, Aga Khan University, Pakistan.
Vacant research positions/fellowships |
 The PhD-school in Society and Globalisation at Roskilde University in Denmark announces three PhD scholarships for employment from the 1st of April 2010 or soon after. The applications should address one or more of the following three research themes:
1. Collaborative innovation in the public sector: New welfare – new forms of governance.
2. The challenge of globalisation in Western Europe.
3. The changing relations between the Global North and the South.
While scholarship 1 and 2 will be enrolled in the PhD program ‘Governance, Welfare and Citizenship’, scholarship 3 will be enrolled in the PhD program ’International Development Studies’. Information on the Graduate School.
Deadline for applications is 1 March 2010. More information.
The Nordic Institute for Asian Studies (NIAS)
offers scholarships for visiting Nordic MA students and PhD
candidates to its research centre and library in Copenhagen,
through the so called NIAS SUPRA programme (Support
Programme for Asian Studies). Students affiliated with institutions
that are members of the Nordic NIAS Council (see www.nias.ku.dk)
are offered full scholarships that cover travel expenses,
accommodation and full board at the ”Nordisk
Kollegium”, whereas students from non-members of
Nordic NIAS Council will have to pay for accommodation and
transportation themselves. For students from Lund University
there is also an alternative, namely Öresund Scholarships.
In this case NIAS reimburses daily commuting costs to/from
Copenhagen. Application deadlines for SUPRA scholarships
are three times a year. More
information.
The UK Development Studies Association (DSA)
works to connect and promote primarily the development research
community in UK and Ireland. Through DSA’s
web site (based at the University of Bath) universities and
organisations regularly advertise vacancies regarding positions
and scholarships within the field of development studies.
Well worth to search even for non-British scholars and students. Go
for DSA’s Jobs and Grants page.
Fellowships are available at the Library of
Congress John W. Kluge Center. The Library of Congress
in Washington D.C, USA, invites qualified scholars to conduct
research in the Center using the Library of Congress collections
and resources for a period of up to eleven months. The Kluge
Center especially encourages humanistic and social science
research that makes use of the Library's large and varied
collections. More information.
Research collaboration appeals |
Now and then, SASNET publishes specific appeals from South Asian
researchers interested to proceed with projects in collaboration
with partners in Sweden, and vice versa.
PhD Candidate Anoop Sadanandan, Dept. of Political Science at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA, is working on a dissertation project on decentralization in Indian states. Now, he invites observers of decentralization in India to comment on his ranking of states, into which he has given greater significance to democratic decentralization and devolution of decision-making powers than to fiscal devolution. His theoretical interest is in democratic decentralization – bringing governance closer to people. Mr. Sadanandan also asks whether his ranking reflects the ground realities of decentralization in India faithfully, if there are other important factors that he should consider while calculating the measure, an whether there exists a better measure of decentralization. Comments, questions and suggestions should be sent to anoop.sadanandan@duke.edu. Any help received would be much appreciated and duly acknowledged. Read his full appeal for feedback.
 Professor A.P. Das, Department of Botany, University of North Bengal, Siliguri, West Bengal, India, is looking for partners at Swedish botany departments for research collaboration. His main interest is within the fields of Plant Taxonomy, and Exploration and Conservation of Biodiversity. Prof. Das has a teaching experience of more than 32 years and has a special fascination for the Swedish botanist Carl von Linné. During the Linnean Tercentenary year 2007, he delivered a number of special lectures in different Indian universities, colleges and other interested organisations. Prof. Das would now appreciate to work with colleagues at Swedish Universities. He also offers the possibility to receive Swedish students to visit his university, in order to study the flora and vegetation of the Eastern Himalayas. Contact Prof. Das for more information.
 Dr. Md. Aktarul Islam Chowdhury,
Head of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet, Bangladesh, wants to make academic linkages and research collaboration in the field of environmental engineering and environmental management. He is interested in institutions located throughout the world that handle and manage the emerging environmental issues such as climatic change, water crisis, water management, sanitation (specially ecological sanitation), waste water management (specially industrial effluent treatment), wetland management, solid waste management, integrated environmental management, assessment and conservation of biodiversity, socio-economic aspects of environmental management etc. properly and in time. It should be mentioned that Dr. Chowdhury’s department was the first academic faculty in the entire South Asia to offer a B.Sc. Engineering degree in Environmental Engineering already in 1996. More information from Dr. Chowdhury’s CV.
In December 2008, the Union government of India approved the establishment of the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) through an Act of Parliament. SERB is being set up for promoting basic research in Science and Engineering in India and to provide financial assistance to scientists, academic institutions, R&D laboratories, industrial concerns and other agencies for such research. It was established nearly four years after the Prime Minister’s Science Advisory Council (SAC-PM), India’s apex science advisory body, recommended the creation of an autonomous research-funding agency free from bureaucratic controls, on the lines of the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the United States.
The SERB, located in Delhi, is chaired by the Secretary to the Government of India in the Department of Science and Technology and have other senior government functionaries and eminent scientists from different fields of science and technology as members. The journalist R. Ramachandran has written a lenghty article on the creation of SERB, ”Funds aplenty”, published in Frontline 13 March 2009. Read the article.
 The idea of a multi-campus South Asia University (SAU) with its epicentre in India (Delhi) was mooted by the Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh during the 13th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit held at Dhaka in November 2005. The idea was accepted in principle and Prof. Gauhar Rizvi, from Bangladesh, (Professor at Harvard) was assigned the job of developing the draft of the university. The draft was approved and the Government of India have allotted 100 acres land (beside the Indira Gandhi National Open University, in Maidan Garhi, New Delhi) for establishing the campus of SAU. The foundation was laid by Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee on 26 May 2008.
The South Asian University will be set up on the lines of American Ivy League universities, and also induct students and recruit faculty from across the globe. The governance structure of SAU, with link campuses in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Afghanistan, will be laid down by February 2009. Prof. Rizvi, who was entrusted with the task of preparing the university's concept note, has advised a middle path between government-funded and private education. The role of the SAARC nation governments will be confined to providing annual subsidies and grants, the concept note has recommended. More information.
 For the academic session 2007–08, more than 500 Indian students and scholars from all over India secured admission to a large number of European universities spread all over the 27 EU Member States thanks to the Erasmus Mundusť (EM) scholarship funded by the European Union. The European Commission and the Government
of India in February 2005 signed an agreement through which 900
scholarships will be offered for Indian graduate students to
study at Europe's finest universities. The EC has provided Euros
33 Million to finance the scholarship programme, that is part of
the Erasmus Mundus programme, providing scholarships for graduate
students from third countries to study in Europe. Graduate students
can apply for a scholarship directly to the European Erasmus Mundus
Degree which interests them, a number of which includes Swedish
universities, see above. For the academic year of 2005/2006, 133 scholarships for Indian students under the India Window were approved. In 2006–07 this number rose to 288 and in 2007–08 to 403. In addition to this, 81 Indian students and 27 scholars received scholarships under the general EM programme in 2007–08. More
information.
Swedish universities are involved in at least eight out of the 36 Erasmus
Mundus programmes selected by the European Commission (EC).
The
Erasmus Mundus programmes, providing scholarships for graduate
students from third countries to study in Europe, has a budget
for 230 Million Euros for the period up to 2008. In 2004 the EC
selected the first 19 Erasmus Mundus masters courses, involving
82 European universities, to start at the beginning of the academic
year 2004-2005, and in February 2005 the EC selected a further
17 Erasmus Mundus master’s courses, involving 69 European
universities new to the scheme for courses will start at the beginning
of the next academic year (2005-2006). More information
on the Erasmus Mundus programmes available at Swedish universities.
An extensive web site giving
environmental data, useful for researchers, has been launched
by the Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests. It
is called EIC, the Environmental Information Centre, and includes
an integrated environmental database on India, derived from using
the Geographical Information System (GIS), and also includes pollution
data. The aim of the EIC is to provide high quality environmental
information on India in a timely and cost-effective manner, to
improve Environmental Studies and the decision-making process. Go
to the EIC website!
The Indian Government on 31 January
2003 issued new guidelines to all central universities, directing
them to take permission from the Ministry of Human Resources Development
(HRD) for ‘‘all forms of foreign collaborations
and other international academic exchange activities’’
taking place in the country – seminars, conferences, workshops,
guest lectures, research, etc. The new guidelines, for the first
time, give the HRD ministry full control not only over foreign exchange
programmes but also over the selection and monitoring procedure
for foreign scholar/students coming to India for any form of academic
activity. More information in an article by Santwana Bhattacharya
in Indian Express 25 March 2003. Read
the article!
SciDev.Net’s Regional Gateway for South and East Asia,
presents news, feature articles and Opinion texts, including Research
papers, on Science, Technology, and Development. Very useful service,
sponsored by Nature and Science
magazines, in association with the Third World Academy of Sciences.
SciDev.Net is published with financial support of the UK Department
for International Development, the Swedish International Development
Cooperation Agency, and the International Development Research Centre
in Ottawa, Canada.
Experiencedevelopment.org
is a British web based information resource set up independently
for students looking to enter the international development sector
professionally. It was set up as a non-profit enterprise, funded
by five university departments and an NGO eager to help students
acquire up to date information. It now acts as a central British
portal bringing together comprehensive information on the many different
aspects of international development, providing up to date listings
and links including Jobs, UK NGOs, Research Sources, Universities,
Statistics, News and Events.
UNRISD
ON-LINE is the web site of UNRISD (The United Nations Research
Institute for Social Development), an autonomous UN agency established
in 1963 which carries out research projects on the social dimensions
of contemporary problems affecting development. These projects end
up in papers presented on the site. Right now selected papers from
the programme on ”Democracy,
Governance and Human Rights” are published, among them
”Liberalism and Its Discontents: The Politics of Gender,
Rights and Development in a Global Age”, by Maxine Molyneux
and Shahra Razavi.
Nordic Centre in India (NCI) |
 Since September 2006 Dr. Mirja Juntunen,
Uppsala University, has been the NCI Director on a 50 % basis. She is based at the Dept. of Government, Uppsala University.
As Director she is responsible for the daily activities at the NCI, including the follow-up of ongoing programmes as well as to develop new projects according to the directives of the NCI board and general assembly. Journeys to India and within the Nordic countries constitute a regular part of this work. More
information about Dr. Juntunen.
 At the NCI General Assembly held in Oslo in the Fall 2007, Jussi Kauhanen,
Professor of Public Health,
University of Kuopio, Finland, was elected new Chairman of the NCI board. Prof. Kauhanen is also Director for the School of Public Health and Clinical Nutrition at his home university. He succeeded Dr. Neelambar Hatti, Lund University, who was the first chairman of NCI board.
Full information on the NCI organization.
The Nordic Centre in India (NCI) Consortium now consists
of 22 member universities in the Nordic countries (5 in Sweden,
3 in Norway, 4 in Denmark, 8 in Finland, 1 in Iceland, plus NIAS in Copenhagen).
NCI aims at supporting collaboration on research and education
between the Nordic countries and India.
 The Nordic Association
of South Asian Studies (NASA) first discussed the possibilities
of establishing a center at its General Meeting in Oslo in 1995.
NCI secured its official clearance from the Indian government only
in October 2004, and now heads for a more expansive phase. An Indian
consultant, Mr. P.N. Malik (photo to the right), works part-time for NCI in New Delhi, assisting
with research visa applications and arranging meetings, besides
being responsible for the NCI flat for visiting Swedish researchers
and academics in Nizamuddin East. More
information on the Nordic Centre in India.
The Nordic Centre in India is engaged in
arranging four-weeks 7.5 ECTS summer courses for Nordic students in Hyderabad, Bangalore and Mumbai, and also full semester
course in Hyderabad (organised by the Study
India Programme at the University of Hyderabad). The courses are
open to students from all Nordic universities and institutions
of higher learning, but students from the NCI member institutions
join the course at a much reduced cost compared to other participants. More
information on the courses.
During the Summer 2010, NCI organises four summer
courses. Besides the 'Contemporary
India' course again held in Hyderabad, a course titled 'Approaching
the Environment' will be held in Bangalore (at the Institute
for Economic and Social Change, ISEC), and
a course titled 'Demography, Gender and
Reproductive Health' will be held in Mumbai (at the International
Institute for Population Sciences, IIPS). A multidisciplinary training programme titled 'Methods and Applications in Social Science Research' will be held at ISEC in Bangalore. The
deadline for applications is 15 March 2010. Each member university
nominates candidates and reserves for each course. More
information about the courses on NCI’s website.
 Conditions for renting rooms. The flat
located at C-7, Nizamuddin East, New Delhi – 110
013, is located in a quiet and upper middle class residential
compund in South Delhi, close to Humayun’s Tomb and Nizamuddin
Railway Station. It has two single and one double bedrooms, and
a sitting area with a television and a kitchen. Two PCs are available,
as well as a telephone connection with the facility of International
phone calls as well as internet connection (broadband)
– available to residents on payment. The telephone number
to the Nordic Centre is +91 (0)11 5182 5351. The charge for the
first five days is 300 Norwegian Kronor per person and night.
For longer periods reduced prices are offered. For reservation
of rooms please contact the NCI consultant Mr P
N Malik
via e-mail or phone: +91
(0)11 2577 1402 (landline) or +91 987 136 2910 (mobile). Payment
should be made to NCI's Uppsala office, details will be given
on the bill prepared by Mr Malik, but final invoice will be sent
out from the Uppsala office. More
information.
Nordic Institute for Asian Studies |
 AsiaPortal – Nordic Perspectives on Modern Asia, was established in 2007 as a gateway to information on modern Asia and a
platform for Nordic researchers working on Asia. It is a collaborative venture between NIAS and the Nordic NIAS Council which includes
25 Nordic universities and research institutes. The AsiaPortal is maintained by NIAS Library & Information Centrein Copenhagen, Denmark. The AsiaPortal gives
free (and membership based) access to a large amount of resources on
Asia – searchable according to geographical areas and subjects.
It features 'Nordic Perspectives' with an 'Event Calendar' that includes
activities related to Asia in the Nordic region (and elsewhere) as
well as searchable open access publications and presentation of
Nordic researcher working on Asia. The AsiaPortal also provides a 'Newsroom', highlighting the latest
news from Asia; 'Academic Resources' giveing access to numerous
online resources on modern Asia, with full-text access to member
institutions; an 'In Focus' section that introduces topical Asian issues with an
in-depth analysis by a Nordic expert and includes extensive
background information and related news. Go for the AsiaPortal.
The University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen Business School and Lund
University share the ownership of the Nordic Instute
for Asian Studies (NIAS) in Copenhagen. The official agreement
between the three partners was signed at a reception at the Nordic
Council of Ministers (NIAS' previous owner), in Copenhagen on Wednesday
6 October 2004, and the new ownership of NIAS has been effective
since 1 January 2005. The Institute has a Nordic Board of directors but is is administratively
integrated with the University of Copenhagen. More
information on the Nordic Institute for Asian Studies.
 A joint Nordic research school on Asia was established
in 2005 by the Nordic Institute for Asian Studies in Copenhagen
(NIAS) in collaboration with Nordic partners. The so
called
”Asian Century Research School”
is envisioned as a “network research school”, based
on the exchange of teachers, students, and other research resources
at a Nordic level to facilitate a much-needed “critical
mass”,
and ensuring a better education and training of future scholars
in the Asian fields.
Within the framework of the Asian Century Research School the intention
is to facilitate creation of a number of research clusters, accommodating
the different needs and interests in research and research training
of Nordic scholars and students. The Gendering
Asia Network and the South Asia Research
Training (SARTrain) are examples of research clusters
that are in the process of being organised. More
information on the Asian Century Research School.
NIAS offers Guest Researcher Scholarships;
Contact Scholarships for Nordic Graduate Students; and Øresund
Scholarships (the last one reserved for researchers and
students from Lund and Roskilde universities) through the so called
NIAS SUPRA programme (Support Programme
for Asian Studies). Applications for all scholarships are assessed
three times per year. More
information on SUPRA Nordic scholarships.
Asian Century Research School Network and NIAS
SUPRA comes together. In
2007 NIAS merged two of its
main initiatives: the Asian Century Research School Network (ACRSN)
and the Support Programme for Asian Studies (SUPRA), with an ambition
to create a Nordic student community within Asian studies. The
merger will strengthen NIAS’s
focus on our activities towards MA and PhD students. This will
help to create a stronger community between students in the Nordic
region and expectantly this will be followed up by more mobility
between the students in the region including more student visits
to NIAS. http://www.asiancentury.nu is
the official SUPRA+ACRSN homepage and it is continuously updated.
NIAS offers paid sabbatical leave for externally funded
researchers. The Nordic Institute for Asian Studies, Copenhagen,
Denmark, offers a chance for externally funded researchers,
who should be scholars on contemporary Asia, to apply for a
paid sabbatical leave to base themselves at NIAS in Copenhagen,
where excellent research facilities are available. Please note
that the scholarships are primarily designed for senior researchers
and post-docs from member institutions of the so-called Nordic
NIAS Council, who are invited to visit NIAS on a fully funded
stay for periods of two or four weeks. More information.
In December 2006, an international evaluation team
concluded that the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies in Copenhagen
provides and communicates accomplished research on Asia.
According to the evaluation, NIAS research is timely in addressing
issues of great international concern. In addition, NIAS successfully
supports students and scholars in the Nordic region and NIAS
researchers act as expert advisors to Nordic governments and
firms and as commentators and disseminators in the mass media
as well. The fact that NIAS in reality puts very little effort
to South Asia related research is mentioned only in passing – with
a formulation that ”in other institutions, some Asia-area
specialists feel that their specific countries are not adequately
emphasized by NIAS, forcing them to compensate by devoting resources
to their own activities, such as the South Asian Network organized
at Lund”. Read
the full evaluation report (as a pdf-file).
Nordbib, a Nordic funding
programme for research libraries concerning development of access
to scholarly and scientific information, has decided
to support the Nordic Institute
for Asian Studies (NIAS) in Copenhagen with DKK 560.000. The grant
from Nordbib is given for a project titled NIAS LINC, that aims
to develop a joint approach to Open Access and research communication
within the Nordic
NIAS Council member institutions. The project
includes building a common Internet based communication platform
(an extension to NNC’s open AsiaPortal)
and build on existing social networking and authentication web
tools. The project will run during a two year period as a co-operation
between NIAS and Nordic NIAS Council member institutions. During
the project period NIAS will facilitate two workshops with the
aim of discussing a joint NNC approach to Open Access and research
communication. More
information (as a pdf-file).
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