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August 2008 Vol 21 No 8

southasia exists The following is a compendium of 75 contributions by a spectrum of Southasian thinkers on who we are, how we should organise, and the possibilities ahead. As the SAARC organistaion enters its 23rd year, it is time to delve seriously into concepts surrounding regional identity.

This special issue has been supported by Panos South Asia.


Cover Stories

Does the past matter?

The ragged backdrop
      By: Ghazi Salahuddin
Counting the people
      By: Haris Gazdar
Alternative to the Westphalian rashtra
      By: Navnita Chadha Behera
inchme and pinchme
      By: allan sealy
Hate thy neighbour, hug thy enemy
      By: I A Rehman
The wait for the statesman
      By: Dinesh Mishra
Uniting the monsoon lands
      By: B G Verghese
Kalidasa's cloud
      By: Sadanand Menon
Victims to perpetrators
      By: Suhas Chakma
The colour of fringe histories
      By: Sanjay Barbora
Rise of the nuovo-rajas
      By: Jayanta Bandyopadhyay
Can art be called Islamic?
      By: A R Nagori

Who is a Southasian?

Brown bag
      By: Paromita Vohra
Live the present
      By: Pushpesh Pant
Asha or Lata?
      By: Amitava Kumar
Geography that binds
      By: Khalid Ansari and Sangeeta Lama
FAQs
      By: Anmole Prasad
Being South-Southasian
      By: A S Panneerselvan
Southasian Tibet
      By: Tenzing Sonam
Identity vs identification
      By: Pratap Bhanu Mehta
Six shared seasons
      By: Kaiser Haq
Between South and Central Asia
      By: Aunohita Mojumdar
Children of '65
      By: Vijay Prashad
The profanity of sameness
      By: Sankarshan Thakur

Integration from above

Lessons from the EU
      By: Muttukrishna Sarvananthan
Economy and identity
      By: Faisal Bari
Abandon ship
      By: Bibek Debroy
The learning curve
      By: Surendra Mohan
India-A and India-B
      By: Sukumar Muralidharan
Towards a New World Symphony
      By: Nihal Rodrigo
Lighting us up
      By: Bikash Pandey
Cheap talk
      By: Rohan Samarajiva
A postcolonial solidarity, finally
      By: Jayadeva Uyangoda
No more talk fests
      By: Sushil Khanna
The boy in Gaforgaon
      By: Shahidul Alam

Integration from below

Democratic enlightenment and cultural production
      By: Partha Chatterjee
Media gang-up
      By: Sevanti Ninan
Barriers big and small
      By: Graham Shaw
Beyond countryhood
      By: Samrat Upadhyay
Redefining education
      By: Sudharshan Seneviratne
Arrested development
      By: Nalaka Gunawardene
Big Brother statism
      By: Dolly Kikon
Healing Southasia
      By: Sanjeev Jain
Sausages on curfew break
      By: Naeem Mohaiemen

SAARC-ological gardens

The stranded cyclist
      By: Jawed Naqvi
Not by vision alone
      By: Shamshad Ahmad
No common wealth
      By: Peter J Karthak
The charm and logic of connectivity
      By: C Raja Mohan
The tautology of cultural collaboration
      By: Abhi Subedi
Prosperity in aligned solidarity
      By: Kul Chandra Gautam
Traditional SAARC, modern Southasia
      By: Saman Kelegama
The reality of proximity (or not)
      By: Zafar Sobhan
Venerating localism
      By: Chandra Bhan Prasad
Against Southasia
      By: Mukul Kesavan
Collective accountability
      By: Jennifer Latheef
Between rhetoric and reality
      By: Mahendra P Lama
Seven proposals
      By: John Samuel
Two hands to clap
      By: Mark Tully

Reaching southasia

Family resemblance
      By: Antara Dev Sen
The road from Kabul to Kathmandu
      By: Shahir A Zahine
Locating the social capital
      By: Sanjib Baruah
A Southasian Charter of Human Rights
      By: Neera Chandhoke
The people's eye
      By: Aruna Roy
Hope amidst indifference
      By: Chandni Joshi
What neighbourhood?
      By: Vinod Mehta
Someone else's weapons
      By: Zia Mian
The organic identity
      By: Dilip Simeon
A new belonging
      By: Amrita Shah
One voice
      By: Rubana
Policy of happiness
      By: Kinley Dorji
Drop by some time...
      By: Farjad Nabi
A more harmonious clash
      By: Siddiq Wahid
An existential matter
      By: Kanak Mani Dixit

Rest of the magazine

Analysis

A profitable education

      By: Sadhna Saxena

While India’s new Right to Education Act seeks to bring free and compulsory education for all children, it seems to short-change them through an unrealistic vision of the private sector’s involvement.


Report

An inevitable disaster

      By: Hermann Kreutzmann

The landslide-caused glacial lake in the Hunza Valley has put the Pakistani authorities on an emergency footing, but this catastrophe had been predicted for years.

Polarised polity

      By: Bidushi Dhungel
A week-long general strike called by Nepal’s Maoists was significant in its control and composure, but was called off before it could deliver the planned results – the fall of the Madhav Kumar Nepal government.


Southasiasphere

Forgotten addresses

      By: C K Lal

Even if the dish is small,
Give away one cup, or half,
To whoever asks.
Happiness isn’t in short supply.

– Shailesh Bohare ‘Sanjariya’ in
 Bantane se mithata hai sukh


On the way up

Sad metropolis

      By: Kanak Mani Dixit

Opinion

Kacha Garhi to the Kensington Oval

      By: Mujib Mashal

Being forced to choose between supporting the Indian or Pakistani team is now a thing of the past for cricket-crazy Afghans.





Profile

A high, late honour

      By: Jessica Mudditt

Syed Yusuf Hasan, a renowned Urdu-language scholar, finally gets his due in Bangladesh.


Interview

Raja Devasish Roy

      By: Hana Shams Ahmed

Essay

A republican agenda

      By: Shashank Kela

If democracy in India is to survive, it must move away from the paternalism of its founders.



Fiction

Small revolutions

      By: Deepika Arwind

Reflections

The Road to Brazil

      By: Roman Gautam
Building on mutual trade interests between India and Brazil may depend on both economic realities and cultural whimsy.

Sighting

Preserving the 'little bastards'

      By: Richard Boyle

A first lot of Sri Lanka’s documentary-film heritage has been saved in the nick of time.


Time and a place

A fatal intersection

      By: Liyanage Amarakeerthi

Three small shops in northwestern Sri Lanka no longer exist.




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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