On Tuesday 18 October 2011, SASNET hosted a meeting at Lund University between representatives of South Asia oriented research within Humanities and Social Sciences at the universities of Stockholm, Uppsala, Gothenburg and Lund. The constructive meeting aimed to discuss increased collaboration on South Asian studies between these four major Swedish universities, and possibilities for launching a joint Swedish Masters programme in South Asian studies.
At Uppsala University a Forum for South Asian Studies was formed recently (more information), and at Stockholm University a Forum for Asian Studies was formed in 2010 (more information). At University of Gothenburg the researchers are involved in the Go:India project launched in May 2011 (more information); and at Lund University SASNET is the driving force in connecting researchers working on South Asia related projects in all disciplines.
On the photo from left to right: Lars Eklund, SASNET/Lund University; Henrik Berglund, Stockholm University; Åke Sander, University of Gothenburg; Julia Velkova, SASNET/Lund University; Kristina Myrvold, Lund University; Anna Lindberg, SASNET/Lund University; Gunnel Cederlöf, Uppsala University; Pernille Gooch, Lund University; Jan Magnusson, Lund University; and Sigridur Beck, University of Gothenburg.
• SASNET co-organised Fifth European PhD workshop in South Asia Studies in Paris
The Fifth European PhD workshop in South Asia Studies was held in Paris at the Centre d’Etudes de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud (CEIAS) from 22 to 24 September 2011. Previous PhD workshops have been jointly organised by Heidelberg University, Germany; Ghent University, Belgium; University of Edinburgh; UK: and Le Centre d'Études de l'Inde et de l'Asie du Sud (CEIAS), Paris, France, but from 2011, SASNET is also being a co-organiser.
Read a report from the Paris workshop.
• SASNET/Swallows seminar on Violence, Caste Discrimination and Resistance
A seminar on ”Violence, Caste Discrimination and Resistance – The situation of Dalits in India” will be held at Lund University on Thursday 3 November 2011, 13.15–16.00. It is jointly organised by SASNET, Lund University and the Swallows India Bangladesh, an organisation based in Lund. 
Dr. Aase Mygind Madsen will give a presentation on ”Dalits in the caste system”, focusing on the social and economic discrimination they face in India, and the prospects of change.
Aase works as Associate Professor at the Department of Social Work, VIA University College in Aarhus, Denmark. Her main field of research interest is on processes of social exclusion and integration. In 1996, she defended her doctoral dissertation entitled ”Untouchables: Stuck at the Bottom or Moving Upward? A Study of Changing Conditions for the Scheduled Castes in five Villages in Karnataka, South India”.
Over a period of 30 years she has been engaged in activities related to social problems in the 3rd world as well as taken part in Danish, Nordic and European Development Researchers' network. She has also worked on gender issues in Denmark and the Third World.
Kathir and Thilagam from the Indian non-governmental organisation Evidence will talk about their work to support victims of caste based violence and discrimination and how they advocate for change. Evidence is a Madurai based organisation working in the state of Tamil Nadu, and involved in collaboration with the Swallows India Bangladesh. Its aim is to create a society that ensures equality and justice to all. Activities include undertaking fact finding missions following incidents of atrocities against Dalits and Tribals in order to establish the facts of an incident and compile the necessary documentary evidence enabling the victims/survivors to access formal justice through the law. More information.
Venue for the seminar: Edebalksalen, School of Social Work (Socialhögskolan), Bredgatan 26, Lund. See SASNET's poster for the seminar.
• Afghanistan Evening at Doc Lounge Lund on 8th November
In 1989, Swedish journalist, Khazar Fatemi fled the war torn country of Afghanistan with her life. Twenty years later, the former refugee returned to the place that has always remained in her heart. She has now produced the documentary ”Where My Heart Beats”.
This film follows Khazar’s dangerous, painful, and inspirational journey back home to reconnect with the amazing people of this broken nation. Behind the shadow of war and devastation, Khazar shows us a window into Afghanistan life that most people never see in the media… A window into the lives of a nation with unimaginable struggles, and an unwavering will to survive.
On Tuesday 8 November 2011, at 19.00, a Doc Lounge event focusing on Afghanistan will be held at Mejeriet, Stora Södergatan 64 in Lund. It is co-organised by SASNET. To this event, ”Where My Heart Beats” will be screened, and the director Khazar Fatemi (photo) will participate in a discussion with Anders Fänge, representing the local section of the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA). Fänge was for 20 years SCA’s head of office in Kabul until he retired last year and settled in Skåne.
The poet and singer/songwriter Thomas Wiehe will also perform during the evening. Entrance fee for the programme is SEK 60.
More information about the Afghanistan Evening at Doc Lounge.
See SASNET’s poster for the Doc Lounge event.
• SASNET Brown Bag seminar on Indian Food System Transformation with Olle Frödin on November 10th
On Thursday 10 November 2011, at 12.00, SASNET holds its third Brown bag lunch seminar during the fall semester 2011. Dr. Olle Frödin from the Department of Sociology will talk about ”Modernization, Neoliberal Globalization or Variegated Development: the Indian Food System Transformation in Comparative Perspective”. The lecture reviews three theoretical approaches to agro-food system change, placed at different levels on the ladder of generality. It then considers these approaches in relation to Indiaâs changing agro-food system. Finally, it examines the general and the particularistic features of the Indian case, and discusses their implications for theories relating to global governance and international political economy.
See the seminar poster.
The aim of SASNET’s Brown Bag seminars, introduced in January 2011, is to present and disseminate the eminent South Asia related research that is carried out in so many departments at Lund University.
The seminars are open to the public, and during the fall 2011 they are held once a month at Thursdays at Murbeckssalen, Gula Villan (inside the Botanical Gardens), Östra Vallgatan 14, Lund.
More information about the seminar series.
• SASNET seminar on Pakistani History, Politics and Society
Dr Henrik Chetan Aspengren holds a seminar at Lund University on ”Pakistan – History, Politics, Society” on Thursday 17 November 2011, 13.15 - 15.00. The seminar is jointly organised by SASNET, the Lund University Master in International Development and Management programme (LUMID) and ABF Lund. Venue: Geocentrum, Flygeln, Sölvegatan 10, Lund.
See the seminar poster.
Pakistan is a country of paradoxes. It is a country rich in culture and human and natural resources, where poverty and illiteracy is rising. Democracy is shallow and easily manipulated, military power is entrenched and religious and political violence is commonplace. Pakistan was born out of an idea of safeguarding Muslim interests in a decolonised South Asia, but many of its citizens now feel let down. Yet all around the country there are social movements and committed individuals working for positive change. Dr Aspengren, author of the book “Pakistan – Upprorens land” (Norstedts, 2011), will in this lecture put developments in Pakistan in their broader social, political and historical context.
In his book, Aspengren mixes writings on South Asian history with travel writing. Through detailed descriptions on life in, for example, a Sufi-shrine in Sindh, or a village of land less peasants in Malakand close to the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, Aspengren discusses a wide range of topics: the Pakistani military’s role in politics; struggles for women’s rights, democracy, or land rights; religious tolerance and extremism. As such, the book provides social and historic context to events reported in the news. More information on the book.
In January 2010, Henrik Chetan Aspengren was awarded a PhD from the Dept. of Politics and International Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, UK for a thesis entitled ”Social Imperialism – And how it was applied in the Bombay Presidency, 1895–1925”. Since then he has been living in Geneva , Switzerland, but has now returned to Sweden, where he is to some extent connected to the Dept. of History, Uppsala University.
More information about his research.
• SASNET/Lund University visit to Ambassador of Nepal
On Thursday 20 October 2011, Anna Lindberg and Lars Eklund from SASNET were invited to visit the Ambassador of Nepal to Sweden and Denmark, Mr. Vijaykant L. Karna, in his Hellerup residence. The Ambassador has a close relation to SASNET, having participated in a number of important seminars at Lund University in recent years.
Ms. Elisabeth Axell from Lund University’s division of International Relations was also invited to the Ambassador, since she is the coordinator of an Erasmus Mundus Asia regional mobility programme involving Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu (more information).
G K Karanth, ICCR Guest Professor at the 
The 4th National Training Program (NTP), India on Youth Friendly Health Services was held over a period of 3 weeks from 19th September, 2011 to 7th October, 2011, part of it in India, and the rest in Sweden.
SPIDER, a Swedish resource center for ICT for Development (ICT4D) established in 2004 and based at Stockholm University, has launched its 2.0. Strategy and Roadmap 2011-2015. The aim of SPIDER is to support the use of ICT for development and poverty reduction, and it is to a large extent (90 %) funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida). Previously, many projects focused on Sri Lanka, but during the coming years the only country in South Asia involved in SPIDER projects is Bangladesh. 
The 
In an 24th October 2011 article published by the Allianz Knowledge Site, Neelambar Hatti (photo) of the 
In November 2011, Ashgate publishes a volume on ”Sikhs in Europe. Migration, Identities and Representations”, edited by renowned Scandinavian researchers Knut Jacobsen, Professor of History of Religion, University of Bergen, Norway; and Dr. Kristina Myrvold, Dept. of 
David Lewis, Professor of social policy and development at the London School of Economics & Political Science, has written a book on Bangladeshi society with a new perspective. The book entitled ”Bangladesh. Politics, Economy and Civil Society” will be published in December 2011 by Cambridge University Press in UK.
Professor Lewis has a Swedish connection, in being an adviser to the Bangladesh Reality Check Approach initiative set up by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and the Swedish Embassy in Dhaka in 2007. The Reality Check Approach is an effort to find out how policymakers know what effect their policies are having on the people they serve. Field teams visit and spend quality time with ordinary households living in poverty in different parts of the country, listen to their stories, and document their experiences. These are written up into an annual report for policy-makers and widely circulated (
Besides them, two new consortia were selected:
From September 2011, the Centre for South Asian Studies at the University of Edinburgh introduced a new MSc programme in South Asia and International Development. It is the only UK postgraduate international development programme with an explicit South Asia focus. This programme is linked to the University of Edinburgh's Global Development Academy, which fosters a dynamic interdisciplinary community of scholars who are working in partnership throughout the world to tackle the most important issues facing international development. Courses provide analytical skills to help students to understand the processes that have shaped poverty and underdevelopment with particular reference to India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. The programme is interdisciplinary, combining rigorous training in analytical and qualitative methods with an emphasis on policy and practice as they relate to international development. It has two compulsory, core courses. They are ”Politics and Theories of International Development” and ”South Asia: the Roots of Poverty and Development”.
Dr. Manabi Majumdar, Fellow in Political Science at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences (CSSS) in Kolkata, gives two public guest lectures at University of Copenhagen 16–17 November 2011. The seminars are organised by the Centre of Global South Asian Studies, with support from the Copenhagen University. Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies (ToRS), Asian Dynamics Initiative (ADI) and Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS).
The theme of the conference’s workshop no. 9 is ”Nordic Perspectives on South Asian Development”.The workshop is organised by Kenneth Bo Nielsen, Centre for Development and the Environment, University of Oslo; Dayabati Roy, Dept. of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen; and Annika Wetlesen, Dept. of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo. University of Oslo has decided to merge its annual contemporary India seminar this year with the joint Nordic conference on development research in Copenhagen and its workshop no. 9. At the same time broadening the focus for the seminar somewhat, opening up for contributions that focus on other parts of South Asia as well. 
The Institute of Social and Policy Sciences (
The 
The University of Western Australia in Crawley organises a symposium on the local politics of global economic and ecological fragility, 2–3 February 2012. The purpose of this symposium, entitled ”India And The Age Of Crisis” is to consider how politics in India are likely to be shaped by global economic and ecological crises. In particular, the organisers seek contributions that address one or more of the following sub-themes on the intersections between global crisis and the specificity of politics and society in India:
A two-day Indian National Seminar on ”Civil Society in the Era of Globalization” will be held at Allahabad, India, 24–25 February 2012. It is organised by the Rajiv Gandhi Chair in Contemporary Studies at University of Allahabad (the Chair being established by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India.
The Asian Dynamics Initiative (ADI) at University of Copenhagen, Denmark, invites participants to an international conference entitled ”Rising Asia – Anxious Europe” to be held at the University of Copenhagen on 2–3 May 2012.
The conference features distinguished keynote speakers including Professor Peter van der Veer (photo), Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity at Göttingen, Germany, and paper presentations from an inter-disciplinary group of scholars, focusing on Europe's ‘new' relationship with Asia or the changes in Europe and Asia against the backdrop of such changing relationships.
Ghent University organises an interdisciplinary conference on "Crossroads between Empires and Peripheries – Knowledge Transfer, Product Exchange and Human Movement in the Indian Ocean World" to take place between 21–23 June 2012 in Ghent, Belgium. The main focus of the conference will be to explore the dichotomy between legal and illegal (contraband), private and official exchange, anchored in the following five topics: – Private and official commercial exchange; – Exchange of knowledge, technology, and ideology; – Human movement and migration (including slave trade); – Controversy or parallelism of tribute and trade; – Indirect impacts of IOW global exchange (e.g. diseases, espionage, creolization, etc.). 
Lund University arranges a seminar entitled ”Towards a more healthy world – change is possible. Important investments in the Global Development of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights” in Stockholm on Friday 11 November 2011. The half-day seminar will be organised in collaboration with the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and 120 colleagues from 22 participating countries.
The Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS) invites to a Bangladesh related seminar in the fall 2011 seminar series on Elites, Production and Poverty (EPP) on Wednesday, 16 November 2011, 14.00-16.00. Venue: DIIS, Main Auditorium, Strandgade 71, ground floor, Copenhagen. 
This year’s invited speaker is Hina Jilani, lawyer practicing at the Supreme Court of Pakistan, and is the Director of AGHS Legal Aid Cell, a legal aid and human rights NGO in Pakistan. She will hold a lecture entitled ”Protection of Human Rights in Situations of Crises: A Defender’s Perspective”. Ms. Jilani established Pakistan’s first all-women’s law firm in 1980, and cases she has conducted have on numerous occasions become landmarks for setting standards for human rights in Pakistan. In 1992 she was appointed Advocate of the Supreme Court in Pakistan. Special areas of concern in her work have been the rights of women, minorities, children and prisoners, including political prisoners.
A documentary film festival entitled ”Persistence Resistance 2011: Documentary Practices in India” will be held 1–8 November 2011. The festival , held for the fourth year, is premised on the belief that documentary practices in any place actively participate in the shaping of our times. The strong history of documentary filmmaking in India and the continued explorations and experimentations with documentary form offer an extensive intellectual and creative platform to think through and debate current urgencies in South Asia as well as in the UK, Europe and elsewhere internationally.
The eighth Planeta Festival will be held in Gothenburg and nearby places on the Swedish west coast 2–6 November 2011. Planeta is a unique festival, organised by a network of 23 organizations and associations keen to endeavour exciting encounters between people from all over the world.
The 2011 Planeta Festival includes a classical Indian concert performance by the Anubhab group (photo) from Kolkata, consisting of Preetam Bannerjee (Sitar), Debashish Bhattacharjee (Tablas), and Subho Bhattacharya (Vocals). Their concert will be held on Thursday 3 November at 19.00. Venue: Kulturhuset Kåken, Kålltorpsgatan 2, Gothenburg.
Iqbal Academy Scandinavia commemorates the birthday of the great poet and philosopher Dr. Allama Muhammad Iqbal with two events in Copenhagen in November 2011. On 12th November, an Iqbal Seminar will be held at the Faculty of Theology, University of Copenhagen, and on the 19th November 2011, Iqbal Day will be celebrated with a cultural programme exclusively relating to the poetry of Dr. Iqbal. Renowned Ghazal singer Najma Akthar will present a musical programme with selected ghazals of Allama Iqbal and songs/ghazals written by other famous poets of the subcontinent. 
Initiative Asia (iA) is a Stockholm based organization dedicated to friendship and cooperation among Swedes, particularly Swedes with South Asian origins. iA now invites to its South Asia Friendship Event 2011, that will be held on Sunday 20 November, 15.30–19.00 at Åsö Gymnasium, Skanstull, Stockholm. The programme includes Bengali songs, Kathak and Bollywood dance, Ghazals, and Dandia stick dance. The Ambassadors of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh will all participate.
