SWEDISH
SOUTH ASIAN STUDIES NETWORK
Newsletter 68:
11
December
2006
| SASNET News | Educational News |
| Research Community News | |
| Conferences and workshops | Important lectures and seminars |
| Cultural activities | New items on the web site |
• SASNET
workshop in Stockholm
SASNET
successfully held a two-day workshop on the "Role
of South Asia in the Internationalisation of Higher Education in
Sweden" at Nobel Forum, Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm 28-29
November 2006.
It
was jointly organised by SASNET, Karolinska Institutet Medical University
and the Swedish Institute, and involved sessions with representatives
from 20 Swedish universities, and from the International Programme
Office for Education and Training; the Swedish National Agency for
Higher Education; STINT; the Government ministries of Education and
Foreign Affairs; and the South Asian embassies in Stockholm. Two invited
guests from South Asia also gave inspiring and critical talks, the
scientist Rubhana Raqib from ICDDR,B in Dhaka, Bangladesh (more
information about Dr. Raqiib); and the journalist/researcher in Didactics,
Sunandan Roy Chowdhury from Kolkata, India (more
information about Mr. Chowdhury).
The
workshop focused on experiences from masters and PhD programmes
in Sweden as well as in South Asia, with an aim to promote increased academic
exchange with South Asia. Many of the workshop presentations are
now available as pdf-files. Among the prominent
participants were Erland Ringborg (photo to the right)
from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (and former Head of the Swedish
Institute). In January 2006 he wrote an official report on the
issue of introducing university fees for foreign students in Sweden.
The conference was inaugurated by Lars Leijonborg, Minister of
Education, Government of Sweden. More
information about the workshop.
• Well-attended
SASNET seminar on the conflict in Afghanistan
The Danish journalist
Eva Arnvig held a SASNET lecture about ”Afghanistan:
Warlords, Taliban or who will rule in the future?” in Lund on
Wednesday 29 November 2006. The event was organised in collaboration
with the the Association of Foreign Affairs at Lund University and
the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA) in Lund. In her speech
Eva Arnvig presented a grim picture of the situation in the country
today. According to her view, the military occupation by Nato forces
has now turned the clock back to the situation in 1994, with bad governance,
murder and kidnappings. After the lecture, a discussion followed with
Anders Davidson from SCA Lund, and also several people in the audience.
Some of them with own first hand experiences from the Afghanistan-Pakistan
region, and also a large number of Masters students at Lund University
were given an opportunity to raise questions to Eva Arnvig. More
information.
• SASNET
lecture about political parties in South Asia
Prof. K. C. Suri from Nagarjuna
University in Andhra Pradesh, India, held a SASNET lecture in Lund
on Wednesday 6 December 2006. He talked about ”The
Emergence of coalitional politics in South Asia, with special reference
to India”. Prof. K.C. Suri is a specialist on Indian and
South Asian politics and also on agrarian economic and political issues.
The lecture was organised by SASNET in collaboration with the Development
Studies Seminar at the Dept. of Sociology. Before coming to Lund, Prof.
Suri participated in a conference on leadership in South Asia at the
University of Oslo. He also visited Stockholm where he met research
partners at the International Institute for Democracy
and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), involved in a research project
on ”State of Democracy in South Asia”, a regional assessment
to reflect citizens’ perceptions and experiences of democracy
in the region. A report combining quantitative data (surveys) along
with qualitative data (from case studies, dialogues and expert assessments)
will soon be published. More information
about the SASNET lecture (as a pdf-file).
•
Read Muhammad Yunus Nobel Lecture from the award ceremony in Oslo
On Sunday
10 December 2006, Prof. Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank were
awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. The
award ceremony took place at the Oslo City Hall in Norway. They were
given the prize because of their efforts to create economic and social
development from below first in Bangladesh and now also many other
countries around the Globe. Muhammad Yunus, formerly professor of
Economics at Chittagong University, founded the Grameen Bank in 1976.
It has become a pioneer of micro-credit lending schemes for the poor
in Bangladesh, especially women, so that they can launch their own
businesses. The winners receive a prize of 10m Swedish kronor. Read
Prof. Yunus’ Nobel Lecture held in Oslo.
While in Scandinavia, Prof. Yunus also makes
a short visit to Stockholm that includes two seminars on Wednesday
13 December, one organised by
the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, Sida, that
has given much support to Grameen Bank over the years, and another seminar
organised by Stockholm Institute of
Transition Economics (SITE) at Stockholm School of Business, in collaboration
with the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) and the Tällberg Foundation. More
information about the Stockholm seminars.
• KTH
opens up new university in Sialkot, Pakistan, in 2008
The Royal Institute
of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm is higly involved in setting up a new
technical university campus in the industral town of Sialkot in Pakistan.
It will be operational by the start of the 2008/2009 academic year,
according to Ramon Wyss, vice president of KTH in charge of International
affairs. The initiative comes from the Pakistani government, which
is eager to boost the number of university graduates in the country,
especially in the sciences. Pakistan will finance and build the campus,
whereas KTH will be responsible for course content, university management
and quality control. Fields of study will include electrical engineering,
information technology, chemical engineering, industrial economics
and mechanical engineering. KTH Sialkot University will also take in
20-30 PhD students per year. As for teaching resources, there are several
options: Some professors will be loaned from Sweden, others will be
jointly appointed in Sweden and Pakistan, and recently retired KTH
professors will also be tapped. In addition, says Wyss, there will
be a capacity building programme, with Pakistani students who acquire
master's and doctoral degrees being invited back to teach subsequent
intakes of undergraduate students.
Around
40-50 Pakistani students already study at KTH in Sweden each year – a
valuable resource for lecturers in Pakistan. The KTH-Pakistan university collaboration
has included a large delegation of professors from the KTH visiting Pakistan
in 2005 (more information), and a visit
by the HEC Chairman, Prof. Atta-ur-Rahman (photo to the left) in November
2006. More
information about KTH’s Pakistani University project.
Read
also article by Johan Myrsten in Svenska Dagbladet 15
November 2006 (only in Swedish).
• Asia-Link
programme decisions in February for the 2006 call for proposals
Over
350 proposals have been received for the 2006 call for proposals under
the Asia-Link programme. The deadline was 19 October, and
now the process of selecting proposals to benefit from the EUR 12.6
m that is available for funding has begun. It is planned that a final
list of the projects selected for funding will be available by the
end of February 2007. The Asia-Link Programme is an initiative by the
European Commission to promote regional and multilateral networking
between higher education institutions in Europe and developing countries
in Asia. The programme aims to promote the creation of new partnerships
and new sustainable links between European and Asian higher education
institutions, and to reinforce existing partnerships. Since 2002, the
Programme has funded 155 partnerships (see
the list of all 155 projects) that together involve over 700 higher
education institutions from Asia and Europe. More
information.
• SASNET funded workshop
held at Aga Khan University in Karachi
An
International workshop on Health Administration: Strategic Planning and Performance
Management was held at Aga Khan University (AKU) in Karachi, Pakistan, 22–24
November 2006. The workshop was organised by Dr. Fauziah Rabbani, Associate Professor
at the Dept. of Community Health Sciences, AKU (and a sandwich PhD candidate
at IHCAR, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm), and was partly being funded by a
SASNET planning grant. Participants came not only from Pakistan but also from
Afghanistan and East Africa. More information
about the workshop
• Time
to suggest panels for the ECMSAS conference in Manchester 2008
The 20th
European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies (ECMSAS) will be
held in Manchester, UK, 8–11
July 2008.
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. The conference is 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
about the Lund conference),
and in June 2006, the 19th ECMSAS conference was arranged in Leiden,
the Netherlands (read SASNET’s
report from the Leiden conference). Suggestions for panels at the
2008 conference are now actively considered. The conference will be
hosted by the School of Arts, Histories and Cultures at the University
of Manchester, and draws on the vibrant South Asian Studies programmes
in Humanities and Social Sciences at the University. Go
to the conference web site.
•
•
Lund University’s Masters programme in Asian studies goes Bologna
From
2007 the Master Programme in Asian Studies at Lund University follows
the Bologna model and runs for four consecutive semesters, consisting
of 120 ECTS credits. The
programme has been successfully run at Lund University since the
Fall 2003, but till now only for three semesters (as a so-called ”Magisterutbildning
med bredd”).
The Master programme in Asian Studies is interdisciplinary, focusing
on political, economic, social, and cultural issues in Asia. It is
the only English language programme of its kind in the Nordic countries.
The programme is aimed at students who after their undergraduate
studies want to gain area expertise on contemporary Asian societies. The
programme is divided into two tracks, one for East and South East
Asian studies, and one for South Asian studies, and is administered
by the Centre for East and South-East
Asian Studies (ACE) at Lund University. Deadline
for application for the Autumn 2007 intake is 1 February 2007. More
information.
• The
11th Summer Program in Punjab Studies to be held in Chandigarh
The
program will be held
in Chandigarh, India, 1 July – 11 August 2007. It is open to both
graduate and undergraduate students, provides six weeks of instruction
in Punjab Studies. The work includes the learning of Punjabi (50 hours),
and history and culture of the region (90 hours). The goal of the program
is to impart substantial academic information about the history and culture
of the region and provide an environment for discussion and exploration.
Application deadline is 2 March 2007. More
information.
• Swedish Gender and Development Network
organises conference in New Delhi
The
Swedish research network GADNET, Gender
and Development Network, organises a Global conference on
”A World in Transition – New Challenges for Gender
Justice” in New Delhi, India, 13–15 December
2006. It is organised in collaboration with the Centre
for Women’s Development Studies (CWDS) in New Delhi.
Keynote speakers include Dr. Vina Mazumdar, Founder of the Centre
for Women’s Development Studies, New Delhi; Prof. Jayati
Ghosh, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru
University, New Delhi; and Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana (photo to
the right), Director, Centre for Study the Study of Culture
and Society, Bangalore. The conference is only open for GADNET
members and by CWDS invited researchers.
• Asia-Sweden
Research Links conference on Magnetism in Kolkata
An Asia-Sweden Research
Links conference on Magnetism in Materials is held in Kolkata, India,
8–10 January 2007. The conference
is jointly organized by the Theoretical Magnetism
Group, Department of Physics at Uppsala University, and S. N. Bose
National Center for Basic Sciences in Kolkata (where the conference
will be held, see photo). It is a part of an Asian-Swedish
Research Links grant which has the duration of three years starting
from 1 January 2006. The idea of this meeting is to present results
of current research interests and exchange ideas between Indian and
Swedish researchers for future collaboration. More
information.
• WIDER
workshop in Beijing on inter-linkages between CIBS and the global
economy
The Helsinki based World Institute for Development
Economics Research (UNU-WIDER)
organizes a workshop titled ”Southern Engines of Global Growth:
China, India, Brazil, and South Africa (CIBS)”, in Beijing,
China on 12–13 January 2007. It is arranged in tandem with the Eighth
Annual Global Development Conference, also to be held in Beijing
a few days later. The workshop is part of a major UNU-WIDER research
project focusing on on the inter-linkages between CIBS and the global
economy. The main themes of the project include growth, trade, international
finance, international governance and geopolitics. More
information.
• Dhaka
workshop on Community Based Adaptation to Climate
Changes
An International Workshop on ”Community Based Adaptation
to Climate Changes” is held in Dhaka, Bangladesh, 11–16
January 2007. It is organised by the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced
Studies (BCAS), an independent, non-profit, non-government, policy,
research, and implementation institute working on sustainable development
(SD) at local, national, regional and global levels. More
information.
• Colombo
conference on Tropical Aquatic Research
An International conference
on ”Tropical Aquatic
Research Towards Sustainable Development” is held in Colombo,
Sri Lanka, 15–16 February 2007. The conference is organized by
the National Aquatic Resources Research & Development Agency (NARA)
and coincides wwith the commemoration of the 25th anniversary of NARA.
It is expected to attract participants from all over the globe to share
knowledge and experiences with regard to latest achievements in Aquatic
Research. The confernce is sponsored by the Icelandic International
Development Agency, ICEIDA. Venue: Auditorium, NARA, Crow Island, Mattakkuliya,
Colombo.
•
Nordic Gendering Asia Network meet in Iceland
The Nordic Gendering Asia
Network organises its next yearly conference in Akureyri, Iceland,
1–3
June 2007.
The conference is titled ”Gendered Modernity and Vulnerabilities
in Asia”,
, and the central theme will be how men and women – either
as individuals or groups – are positioned and also position
themselves in contexts of global change. One of the keynote speakers
is Dr. Naila Kabeer from the Institute of Development Studies at
the University of Sussex, UK. She will talk about "Reconfigurations
of Marriage and Markets in the Context of Globalisation: Reflections
on the Asian Context". The conference is jointly organised
by researchers from the Centre for Asian Studies,
Göteborg University; the Nordic Institute
of Asian Studies (NIAS) in Copenhagen; Centre
for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University; and the
Icelandic Centre of Asian Studies. More
information.
• 2007
World Water Week in Stockholm 12–18 August
The
World Water Week 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. Plenary sessions,
seminars, workshops, side events and special activities will take place
under the overarching theme "Progress
and Prospects on Water: Striving for Sustainability in a Changing World." The
First Announcement and Call for Abstracts is now available. The abstract
submittal deadline is February 1, 2007. More
information.
Important lectures and workshops
South Asia related culture in Scandinavia
• Mallika
Sarabhai gave dance performances in Göteborg and Stockholm
The
Indian Kuchipudi danseuse Mallika Sarabhai (photo)
and her Darshana Group visited Sweden during the first week in December
2006. They
performed in Göteborg on Saturday 2 December, and in Stockholm
on Monday 4 Decembe. Dr. Mallika Sarabhai is one of the most renowned
Kuchipudi and Bharatanatyam dancers in India today. Multi-faceted Mallika
besides being a known social activist is known for developing contemporary
definitions in acting, film-making, editing and television anchoring.
The Göteborg concert was held at Konserthuset, Götaplatsen,
and the one in Stockholm at Nybrokajen 11. Both events were organised
by the Indian Embassy in Sweden. More information (as
a pdf-file).
New and updated items on SASNET web site
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,
Scheelevägen 15 D, S-223 70 Lund, Sweden
Visiting address: Ideon Research Park, House Alfa 1 (first floor,
room no. 2040), in the premises of the Centre for East and South East
Asian Studies at Lund University (ACE).
Phone: + 46 46 222 73 40
Fax: + 46 46 222 30 41
E-mail: sasnet@sasnet.lu.se
Web site:
http://www.sasnet.lu.se
Staff: Staffan
Lindberg, director/coordinator & Lars
Eklund, webmaster/deputy director
SASNET - Swedish South Asian Studies Network/Lund
University
Address: Scheelevägen 15 D, SE-223 70 Lund, Sweden
Phone: +46 46 222 73 40
Webmaster: Lars Eklund
Last updated
2011-01-19