SWEDISH SOUTH ASIAN STUDIES NETWORK
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SASNET News:
• The EU–India Think Tank Seminar took place in Brussels, Belgium, on 15–16 October, 2001, with representatives from a large number of Universities and Research institutions in Europe and India. More information on the seminar, in which SASNET was represented by its director Staffan Lindberg. The second Swedish representative at the seminar was Dr Hanumantha Rao, Dept of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering, Luleå University of Technology.
• Networking Grants. Reminder!
SASNET invites applications for networking grants for planning, as well as continued activities in inter- or intra-disciplinary research and/or education programmes. Last date for applications is November 15, 2001. The allocation of grants will be decided by the end of January, 2002.
• Research papers presented at the symposium and workshop on ”Managing Common Resources – What is the solution?”, partly arranged by SASNET, on 10-11 September, 2001, at Lund University, are now available on SASNET web site.
• SASNET arranges a concert with the Indian classical singer Sandipan Samajpati, on Monday, 29 October at 19.00 in Lund. Venue: Magasinet (above the bookstore Arken), Kungsgatan. More information on this and other locla arrangements which SASNET root node in Lund has been engaged in recently. Advertisement for Samajpati´s concert (as a pdf-file).
• Dr Suman Khanna Aggarwal, professor of philosophy at Delhi University, holds a SASNET lecture at Lund University, Wednesday 24 October, 15.15–16.30, on ”Terrorism – a Gandhian Perspective”. Venue: Conference room, International Secretariat, Gamla Kirurgen, 2nd floor, Sandgatan 3. Dr Aggarwal is a peace researcher, who has worked with Gandhian philosophy and theories for a long time. She is presently on a Swedish tour, where she has also conducted a workshop at Padrigu, Göteborg University.
Recent dissertations
• Eldrid Mageli, at the Institute of History at Oslo University, defends her doctoral thesis on ”NGO Activism in Calcutta 1973–1997. Exploring Unnayan”, on 3 November, 2001. Faculty opponent: Prof David Gilmartin, North Carolina State University, USA. More information.
• Anna Lindberg, at the Dept of History, Lund University, defended her doctoral thesis on ”Experience and Identity: A Historical Account of Class, Caste and Gender among the Cashew Workers of Kerala, 1930–2000”, on 13 October, 2001. Faculty opponent was Umadevi Sambasivan, Professor, Department of Economics at Kerala University, India. Abstract of dissertation.
• Viveka Persson at the Dept of Women's and Children's Health, at Uppsala University, defended her doctoral thesis: ”Vitamin A intake, status and improvement using the dietary approach, Studies of vulnerable groups in three Asian countries” on Monday 8 October, 2001. Abstract.
• Axel Kristian Strøm, Dept of Social Anthropology at Oslo University, defended his doctoral thesis on ”Continuity, Adaptation and Innovation: Tibetan Monastic Colleges in India”, on October 3, 2001. Faculty opponent was Charles Ramble, Faculty of Oriental Studies, Oxford University. More information.
• Sidsel Hansson, at the Dept of History of Religion, at Lund University, defended her doctoral thesis on September 28, 2001. The title of the thesis is ”Not Just Any Water. Hinduism, Ecology and the Ganges Water Controversy”. Faculty opponent was Prof Alan Babb, Amherst College, Massachusets. Abstract.
Community News and conferences:
• The Nordic Centre in New Delhi will be inaugurated on 19 November, 2001. The application to open the centre is still lying with the Indian Ministry of Human Resources Development, but it is expected that the ministry will clear the application in a short while from now.
In case you are present in New Delhi on 19 November you are welcome to take part in a small inauguration function, after informing either Mr Stig Toft Madsen or Mr PN Malik.
• NASA, Nordic Association for South Asian Studies, held a successful conference on ”Waters of Hope”, at Fleischer´s Hotel, Voss, Norway 20–22 September, 2001.
• The American Social Science Research Council offers funding opportunities for research and training on ”The underlying causes and conditions of conflict and insecurity”, to researchers anywhere in the World, through its Global Security and Co-operation Program as well as through its South Asia/Bangladesh Program. More information.
• The Center for Pacific Asia Studies (CPAS) at Stockholm University, arranges a lecture on ”Challenges ahead: Global Environmental Change and Human Security. A Seminar on Central Asia and International Security”, on wednesday 24 October, 13.00 – 17.00. The lecturers are Ashok Swain, Dept of Peace and Conflict research, Uppsala University, Prof Gennady Chufrin, SIPRI, and Prof Kai Wegerich, SOAS. Venue: Institute of Oriental Languages, Kräftriket 4A.
• Professor David Gilmartin, North Carolina State University, USA, holds a lecture on ”The Struggle for a Muslim Community: the Making of Pakistan”, at the University of Oslo, Blindern, on 1 November 14.15. Venue: Aud. 2, Georg Sverdrups hus. Gilmartin is an outstanding scholar of colonial Pakistan, and the author of numerous articles and has edited a volume on the idea of community in medieval South Asian Islam. In 1988 he published the book ”Empire and Islam: Punjab and the Making of Pakistan” and is this year completing a book on ”Blood and Water: Irrigation and Colonialism in the Indus Basin”, as a research fellow at the National Humanities Center in North Carolina.
• Events in Oslo. Several seminars connected with South Asia takes place regularly at Oslo University. More information to be found at Asianettverket.
• The Norwegian Association for Development Research (NFU) will hold its 2001 conference on ”Diversity in Development – Universal and Local Discourses” in Tromsø 13–14 November, 2001. More information.
The Indian Society For Development Research and Action, SDRA, organises a Seminar on Human Migration, on 10–11 November, 2001, at Udaipur in Rajasthan. The Seminar covers aspects such as the historical evolution of migration and immigration processes and the impact of migration on people at origin and destination. For more information contact Prof Ravindranath Vyas.
• The 5th International Congress on Traditional Asian Medicine is scheduled to be held from August 18 to 24, 2002 at Martin-Luther-Universität in Halle in Germany. More details.
• The 12th World Sanskrit Conference will be arranged in Helsinki, Finland, 14–19 July, 2003. The conference is organized by the International Association of Sanskrit Studies, and the Department of Indology, Institute for Asian and African Studies, University of Helsinki.
New and updated items on SASNET web site
• The searchable register for individual Swedish researchers connected to research on South Asia is now working properly. Go to Search.
The register needs updating, though, and we kindly request the researchers to check the information given on themselves, and send a mail with corrections and/or additional information to the SASNET webmaster. This is so far the procedure to follow in order to make changes in the register.
• In case you are not at all represented in the register, it is now extremely easy to make a new entry, by simply filling in the form available on Internet. Go to New entry and follow the instructions.
• The presentation of Swedish Research institutions and departments where research on South Asia is going on, gradually becomes more and more exhaustive. Still some important Swedish research environments are missing, but in the last month the following new entries have been made to the list (see also the full list).
ƒ Dept of Public Health Sciences, Division of International Health (IHCAR), at Karolinska Institutet Medical University, Stockholm
ƒ Dept of Water and Environmental Studies, at Linköping University
ƒ Dept of Housing Development and Management, at Lund University
ƒ International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics, IIIEE, at Lund University
ƒ Dept of Rural Development Studies, at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Uppsala
• No graphics version. We have decided not to make a double set of SASNET web pages, which we initially had planned for. Instead we are providing a short guide on how to configure the web reader programmes in order to exclude pictures and graphics.
• Scholars at Chr Michelsen Institute in Bergen are active in writing articles for Norwegian newspapers on the current war situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan. We offer a link to the articles available on Internet.
• Extensive news coverage of the situation in South Asia is offered through SASNET´s recommended news sources, as well as by selected journals, magazines and news media on South Asia, in Sweden and worldwide.
• Many more links. Lots of new useful links to South Asia related academic institutions, worldwide and in Sweden, has been added to the list. We have also a separate page with major South Asian Universities, and a new page introducing other Research Institutions, and Websites connected to South Asian Research, so far only for India and Sri Lanka.
• Country facts. The information on the individual countries is updated as things are happening. On the Bangladesh page you now find the final results from the elections to Jatiya Sangsad in October, 2001.
Practical information. On this page you now find also information on the malaria situation in all the South Asian countries.
and finally:
SASNET organisation: The page giving details on SASNET board and staff is given a new design. There you can meet us!
Best regards
Staffan Lindberg Lars Eklund
SASNET/ Swedish South Asian Studies Network
SASNET is a national network for research, education, and information about South Asia, based at Lund University. The aim is to encourage and promote an open and dynamic networking process, in which Swedish researchers co-operate with researchers in South Asia and globally.
The network is open to all sciences. Priority is given to co-operation between disciplines and across faculties, as well as institutions in the Nordic countries and in South Asia. The basic idea is that South Asian studies will be most fruitfully pursued in co-operation between researchers, working in different institutions with a solid base in their mother disciplines.
The network is financed by Sida (Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency) and by Lund University.
Postal address: SASNET – Swedish South Asian Studies Network, International Office,
Lund University, P O Box 117, S-221 00 Lund
Visiting address: Gamla Kirurgen, Sandgatan 3, first floor, room no. 230
Phone: + 46 46 222 73 40
Fax: + 46 46 222 96 65
E-mail: sasnet@sasnet.lu.se
Web site: http://www.sasnet.lu.se
Our office is manned weekdays 9-17, and open to visitors.
Staff: Staffan Lindberg, director/co-ordinator &
Lars Eklund, webmaster/programme secretary
