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Table Of Contents

June 2007

Analysis

A soundtrack for a foreign existence

      By: Rahul Giri

For a new generation of Southasians, particularly those growing up in the diaspora, music plays an important role in adapting old traditions to new realities

The Vaan Puligal takes off

      By: D.B.S. Jeyaraj

By demonstrating their air capability, the Tamil Tigers have succeeded in changing the dynamics in Sri Lanka’s conflict – momentarily, it seems.

King Mayawati

      By: Pratap Somvanshi

Mayawati has turned India’s electoral politics on its head, and not many saw it coming. She now has her sights focused on the larger prize – prime minister of India.





On the way up

Atoll before the storm

      By: Kanak Mani Dixit


Cover

The anger of Bangladesh’s non-elite

      By: Afsan Choudhary

Very little can shock Bangladeshis today and so they watch with bemusement the games among those who would rule. With Parliament never having been functional, the true meaning of ‘political democracy’ needs better explanation before the country’s poor will appreciate its inherent promises.

Inflation up, government down

      By: Amer Ahmed

The survival of Bangladesh’s unelected interim government will be based largely on its stewardship of the country’s economy

Testing time for Dhaka’s media

      By: Asif Saleh

Bangladeshis have been looking to the press for leadership in a time of military rule, but the journalists have allowed themselves to be bullied by populism and cowed by fear of authority.

Secretly selling Biman

      By: Joseph, Rubana, Mashuqur Rahman, Shameran Abed, Timothy Sowula

Essay

Dreaming without subtitles

      By: Sumana Roy

‘Fusion music’ is a much-abused, little-understood term. But at least Amit Chaudhuri understands its inherent promise, as he presents the music of the early-21st-century urban Indian.


Opinion

Southasian mea culpa

      By: Jawed Naqvi

Self-criticism came more readily to our forebears.


Report

12 May: the bloodshed and watershed

      By: Q Isa Daudpota

With his miscalculation over the sacking of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, General Musharraf may have hastened the end of his reign.




Southasian Briefs

Tidbits from Southasian region


Southasiasphere

Remember the farmer


Special Report

Repatriation or resettlement, Resolving the Lhotshampa dilemma

      By: Himali Dixit

Seeking a win-win-win solution: An interview with Mirwaiz Umar Farooq

Remember the farmer

Seeking a win-win-win solution: An interview with Mirwaiz Umar Farooq

Marking time in Kashmir’s beautiful prison

      By: Riyaz Masroor

The ‘Pakistani line’ is finding favour in Kashmir, with the demand for demilitarisation and self governance blurring the divide in the Kashmiri polity between pro-India and anti-India camps


Time and a place

Monsoon memories



Web Exclusive

Graffiti that reads Azaadi or Freedom on the footbridge over River Jhelum in Srinagar.
  
Dilnaz Boga

 The Kashmiri and the Indian by Shivam Vij

People-to-people dialogue is the best way out of the Kashmir logjam.

More
The battle for bauxite Sudha Ramachandran writes about the Dongria Kondhs of southern Orissa who are up in arms on the grounds that their land, culture and way of life, their very survival as a distinct tribe, is under serious threat from UK mining giant Vedanta Resources.
Delayed transit Saad Hammadi on the Nepal-Bangladesh transit trade agreement, the modalities of which have finally been worked out between the two countries. What remains to be seen now is how soon these agreements will be implemented.
More

Online Poll

Bandhs: 'Coercion' or 'Democratic protest'?
Coercion & blackmail
My democratic right.
I sit on the fence.
Holiday! :-)
 
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