SASNET: Workreport 2009

6. Appendices delivered along with the printed work report (as pdf-files):

1. Introduction and Summary

• 2009 was a turbulent year for SASNET, with many wonderful events, but also some problems. Let us begin with the highlights… The network grew tremendously. Our web site presented more than 250 Swedish university departments where some form of South Asia-related research or educational collaboration projects are going on, and our newsletters reached 2,000 recipients. SASNET’s searchable database for Swedish and Nordic researchers doing work on South Asia was updated during the year, and the graphic design of all major web pages was reworked by Geoffrey Gardella.
In September, SASNET’s recently catalogued Mahatma Gandhi book collection was inaugurated and we officially launched the Gandhi web site that was constructed by librarian Erik Svanström.

• The interactive SASNET Student Forum created by Malin Gregersen in 2008 became a more effective platform for discussion. It proved especially useful in arranging a conference at Falsterbo on August 17–19 for young Nordic scholars working on South Asia-related projects. The success of the conference was such that it will be followed up with a similar one in 2010.
Another conference/workshop entitled “Women and Migration in South Asia: Health and Social Consequences” was organised by SASNET in Colombo, Sri Lanka, at the beginning of February in collaboration with the University of Sri Jayewardenepura (SJP) in Colombo, and the Division of International Maternal and Child Health (IMCH) at Uppsala University. Researchers in this field were invited from all over the South Asian region as well as from Swedish institutions. SASNET’s director Anna Lindberg and deputy director Lars Eklund both participated in the conference, as did members of SASNET’s South Asian Reference Group, who travelled from Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka to attend. One of its members, Dr. Kumudu Wijewardena, chaired the Colombo workshop.

• On his way to Colombo, Lars Eklund made a stop in the Maldives, where he met Minister of State for Education, Dr. Ahmed Ali Maniku. Meanwhile, Anna Lindberg proceeded from Columbo to Kerala, India, where she joined in discussions about the development of the new “Sustainable Kerala Network”, a Swedish South Asian network on sustainable development. She also met with representatives of the Centre for Research and Education for Social Transformation (CREST), in Kozhikode, and the NGO Kabani, based in Wayanad.
In March, Lars Eklund and Stig Toft Madsen, who worked at SASNET’s office in the spring, participated in a
brain-storming and awareness-raising workshop on “Contemporary India Study Centres in Europe” organised by Sciences Po/CERI in Paris.

• SASNET’s networking activities within Sweden consisted of visits by Lars Eklund to the universities of Jönköping, Växjö, Skövde, and Västerås. In September, he also travelled to the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, in connection with the first consortium meeting for the new Indo-European Erasmus Mundus External Cooperation Window (EMECW) mobility programme “EURINDIA”, coordinated by KTH.
This EMECW programme is in addition to the much larger Erasmus Mundus External Cooperation Window (EMECW) mobility programme coordinated by Lund University (with Karolinska Institutet as the second Swedish partner university), a programme that was awarded to Lund University by the European Commission in 2008 after hectic groundwork was laid by Anna Lindberg and Lars Eklund.

• In May, SASNET organised a visit to Lund and Malmö by the new Ambassador of India to Sweden, Mr. Balkrishna Shetty. During the ambassador’s stay he met with researchers, teachers, students, and international coordinators involved in India-related projects at Lund University. He was also the main speaker at an India seminar that SASNET co-organised with the Sweden-India Business Council (SIBC) and Ideon Research Park.
On September 29, Anna Lindberg participated in a seminar entitled “India Today”. It was arranged by Centre for Development and the Environment, part of the Institute for Cultural Studies and Oriental Languages at Oslo University.

• In September, Ambassador Shetty returned to Lund University at SASNET’s invitation to inaugurate the Mahatma Gandhi Book Collection (part of the Karl Reinhold Haellquist Memorial Collection). The ambassador used the occasion to donate another 120 volumes of Mahatma Gandhi literature to Lund University and SASNET on behalf of the Indian government,. These were either works written by Gandhi or books focusing on him. Ambassador Shetty also participated in a seminar on “The Role of Mahatma Gandhi in Today’s Society” along with David Arnold, Professor of Asian and Global History at the University of Warwick, UK.
The following week, another high-profile seminar entitled “Political Transitions Affecting the Peace Process in Nepal” was organised by SASNET in collaboration with the Association of Foreign Affairs at Lund University (UPF). The distinguished participants included the Nepalese Ambassador to Scandinavia, Mr. Vijaykant Lal Karna, and Anjoo Sharan Upadhyaya, Professor of Political Science and Director, Centre for the Study of Nepal, Banaras Hindu University (BHU), Varanasi, India.
On visits to Stockholm, Anna Lindberg and Lars Eklund also met the Ambassador of Pakistan, Mr. Nadeem Riyaz, and the outgoing Ambassador of Bangladesh, Mr. Muhammad Azizul Haque, to discuss the future of SASNET and the possibility of cooperation between South Asian institutions.

• During the year, many other seminars with guest speakers were arranged by SASNET, some in collaboration with other organisations. The lecturers included (besides those mentioned above):
– Dr. Walter Andersen, Associate Director of the South Asia Studies Program at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Washington, D.C., USA
– Prof. Ravinder Kaur, Dept. of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, India
– Dr. Daya Kishan Thussu, Communication and Media Research Institute, University of Westminster, UK
– Prof. Dipak Malik, Director of the Gandhian Institute in Varanasi, India
– Dr. Tabish Khair, Dept. of English, University of Aarhus, Denmark
– Tabla player Subrata Manna; classical singer Sudokshina Chatterjee Manna; and Kathak dancer Sohini Debnath. All were from Kolkata, India. They took part in a well-attended academic seminar on intercultural educational research held in Malmö, and performed for SASNET’s audience.
– Prof. Ishtiaq Ahmed, Visiting Research Professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), National University of Singapore
– Dr. Rubya Mehdi, Carsten Niebuhr Institute, University of Copenhagen
– Dr. Ruby Sain, Dept. of Sociology, Jadavpur University, India
– Prof. Priyankar Upadhyaya, Malaviya Centre for Peace Research, Benaras Hindu University (BHU), Varanasi, India

• The most remarkable visitor to accept an invitation from SASNET to hold a seminar at Lund University was Her Excellency Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister of Bangladesh. Under high security, she came to Lund University on 19 December to deliver a speech on “Climate Change in Bangladesh – Facing the Challenges”. She was hosted by Lund University Vice-Chancellor Per Eriksson. The prime minister’s entourage consisted of a large delegation of ministers and some twenty members of the Bangladeshi parliament who had been attending the COP 15 climate conference in Copenhagen. The SASNET event was covered by several Bangladeshi newspapers and TV journalists.

• Other South Asian visitors to SASNET’s office in Lund included Prof. Shariff Enamur Kabir, Vice Chancellor, Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh; Prof. Pradeep Mathur, Dept. of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Mumbai, India; Prof. G.N. Tiwari, Centre for Energy Studies, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, India; and two members of SASNET’s South Asian Reference Group, Kumudu Wijewardena, Dept of Community Medicine, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka, and Mohsin Saeed Khan, Health Specialist, Islamabad, Pakistan, who is also a Ph.D. candidate in a combined programme with the Division of Global Health (IHCAR) at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm.

• In 2009, SASNET awarded networking/planning grants to five new research projects. Financial support was also given for three programmes in which a guest lecturer from South Asia will be invited to visit more than one Swedish university, as well as to two South Asia-related interdisciplinary research workshops to be held in Sweden or South Asia. The total amount distributed was SEK 525 000.
Grants were awarded to researchers at the following universities:

• In February, two students from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Mumbai visited SASNET and Lund University. They were the winners of a Nobel Prize quiz competition organised by the Embassy of Sweden in India in October 2008. The winners received a one week all-expenses paid trip to Sweden and the opportunity to visit Swedish universities and major technology companies in Lund, Gothenburg, Linköping, Sandviken, and Stockholm. SASNET arranged their visit to Lund University, which included a tour of the nanoscience laboratory at the Dept. of Physics.
SASNET also sponsored a exhibition of photographs by second-year students from Lund University’s Masters programme in Development and Management (LUMID) 2007–2009 that ran from 25 May to 4 June 2009, illustrating their fieldwork in Asian and African countries.

• In addition to our regular activities, we spent a great deal of time seeking new funding to replace the subsidy that Sida/SAREC had generously provided for the ten-year period that ended on December 31, 2009. Despite an enormous number of phone calls, meetings, letters, and e-mails trying to resolve this problem, our mission seems to have failed. We approached every possible governmental body and appealed for support to universities other than Lund but we were not able to find a way to replace the Sida/SAREC funding.
On the positive side, Lund University promised to continue their underwriting, which had previously comprised about one-third of our budget. We continued to negotiate with the University for additional funds, and finally in March 2010 this resulted in an extra subsidy for SASNET. We are most grateful for this support, as it makes it possible for us to keep our doors open through 2010.

• The financial balance sheet for 2009 showed a positive result of SEK 45 000. The administrative capital (myndighetskapital) that had been negative after 2008 (SEK 43 000) was replenished.

• These activities and results lead us to believe we reached the goals and fulfilled the directives of SASNET’s Board at its meetings on 27 January, 22 September, and 9 December 2009.

2. Organisation

During 2009, the Board held three meetings. Decisions taken at the Board meeting on 5 February guided most SASNET activities in 2009. For the minutes, see Appendix 5
For the Minutes of 22 September, see Appendix 6
For the minutes of 9 December, see Appendix 7

Anna Lindberg worked as Director and Coordinator on a 50% basis from January to April and 100% during the rest of the year (however, on 50% sick leave during September–December). In November 2009, Lund University Vice-Chancellor reappointed her as SASNET’s Director for the period January 1, 2010 – December 31, 2012.
Lars Eklund worked as full-time Webmaster and Deputy Director throughout the year.
Stig Toft Madsen was employed on a 25% basis as an Assistant Director from January to May.
Nihat Ulusoy worked as unpaid intern from September through December.
Karin Andersson, Office of Analyses and Projects (UPV), Lund University, assisted SASNET in managing our payments and accounts

The Internet Gateway has now been established as an authoritative source of information for students, researchers, and others interested in South Asian studies. It has received worldwide recognition for its wealth of information. In 2009, SASNET’s website logged 40,159 unique visitors. Since this is SASNET’s main tool of communication, considerable time was spent updating and developing its content. New information is added daily and it is maintained according to the standards of professional journalism. On 16 April 2010, the
website contained 1,670 pages, with 2,950 photos and 14,786 external links.

On 18 March 2010, Lund University decided to give SASNET SEK 830 000 as extra budget funds, in addition to the basic funding of the same amount already provided to SASNET for 2010. The additional subsidy comes from the Vice-Chancellor’s strategic research funds and is earmarked for the preparation of a study of Lund University’s common and long-term strategy on collaboration with South Asia. The task includes exploring possibilities to find external collaboration partners and secure new external funding for SASNET’s continued South Asia-related activities. A report is to be be delivered to the Vice-Chancellor by 30 June 2011. In awarding the funds, the Lund University management stated that it highly values SASNET’s Internet gateway, newsletters, and data bases built up over the last ten years. These are to be kept intact and continue to be maintained.

Anna Lindberg will take part in an official Lund University delegation to India during the last week of April 2010. The group is led by Eva Åkesson, Lund University Pro Vice-Chancellor, who will participate in the Universitas 21 Symposium held at Delhi University. Anna and the other representatives will also visit a number of other universities in Delhi, Mumbai, and Kanpur to explore further collaboration with Lund University in different research fields.

On Thursday 4 March 2010, Anna Lindberg and Lars Eklund visited the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS), and the Asia Research Centre (ARC) at the Copenhagen Business School in Copenhagen. At NIAS, fruitful discussions were held with Director Geir Helgesen, and at ARC a meeting was organised with Research Director Anthony D’Costa, Professor of Indian Studies; Kjeld Erik Brødsgaard, Director of the Asia Research Centre; Ms. Bente Faurby, ARC Administrator; and Dr. Sudipta Bhattacharyya, holder of the first visiting ICCR Chair in Indian Economics at ARC for the academic year 2009–2010.

The SASNET visit to Copenhagen was part of an ongoing effort to strengthen collaboration with Nordic institutions engaged in South Asia-related research and activities. On a previous occasion, Anna Lindberg and Lars Eklund met with researchers at the University of Copenhagen, and representatives of the university’s Asian Dynamics Initiative (ADI).

Lars Eklund continues to visit Swedish South Asia research institutions. On March 31st, he travelled to the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) at Kräftriket in Stockholm, and on May 11th he will be at the Centre for Sustainable Development (CSD) at Uppsala University.

In November 2008, Lund University Vice-Chancellor Per Eriksson decided to prolong extend the current SASNET board’s tenue by nine months until September 30, 2010. Some activities for 2010 were discussed by the board at its meeting on 9 December 2009. For minutes, see Appendix 7.

A second Nordic South Asia Conference for Young Scholars is planned for 18–20 August in Höllviken. For details, see the conference web page, http://www.sasnetconference.se/. External funding is required and has been applied for. Julia Velkova, a graduate student at the University of Gothenburg who did an excellent job last year, is once again in charge of planning.

A Nordic Conference on the Development of Nepal is being organised by Anna Lindberg and researchers at the Institute for Security and Development in Stockholm, in collaboration with the Embassy of Nepal to Scandinavia. It is tentatively scheduled for November 2010.

SASNET has established cordial relations with the Embassy of India to Sweden and has been promised support for a number of seminars on Indian themes in 2010. The first of these will be held on 19 April 2010 and will feature Anthony D'Costa, Professor of Indian Studies at the Asia Research Centre (ARC) of the Copenhagen Business School. He will speak about ”India's Changing Role in the Global Political Economy”. The series will be inaugurated with opening remarks by the Indian Ambassador to Sweden, Mr. Balkrishna Shetty.

SASNET is also involved in organising other seminars and workshops in collaboration with partner institutions at Lund University and other Swedish universities:
– Professor Yogendra Yadav, Senior Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, India, held a SASNET lecture on ”Democracy and Poverty in India”, on 18 March 2010. It was presented in collaboration with the Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies.
– A seminar on Arsenic in Drinking Water will be held at Lund University on Wednesday 5 May 2010. The seminar has been organised by SASNET and the Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies; the Division of Water Resources Engineering, Lund University; KTH-International Groundwater Arsenic Research Group at the Dept. of Land and Water Resources Engineering, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm; and The Swallows India-Bangladesh section. Funding has been provided by Swedish Water House (SWH) in Stockholm, and Sydvatten AB in Malmö.
– Nils Finn Munch-Petersen, senior scholar at NIAS in Copenhagen, Denmark, holds an open SASNET lecture at Lund University on 27 April 2010. His topic, ”The Maldives – Paradise Lost?”, will focus on current developments in the Indian Ocean republic, which is claimed to be threatened by a rise in sea level due to anticipated global warming.
– A seminar on Microcredits in India and Bangladesh is planned for October 2010. It will presented in collaboration with researchers at Lund and Uppsala universities, and The Swallows India-Bangladesh section.

3. Networking Activities

During 2009 we interacted with a great number of researchers, teachers, and students by exchanging e-mails and telephone calls. In all these contacts we used our Internet Gateway as a source of information. Some of the more important activities are listed in Section 4 below.

SASNET distributes newsletters and updates its Internet Gateway on a daily basis. The distribution list presently contains about 2,000 e-mail addresses.

All the newsletters can be found at: http://www.sasnet.lu.se/sasnet.html. They represent a detailed archive of SASNET’s major activities in SASNET during the year, with links to relevant documents and homepages.

The last date for applications was 15 June 2009. By that time 30 applications were received for SASNET planning grants. The total amount applied for was SEK 2.35 million.
On August 28, 2009, the SASNET reference group composed of Arild Engelsen Ruud (Institute for Cultural Studies and Oriental Languages, University of Oslo), Ewa Wäckelgård (International Science Programme, Uppsala University), and Jytte Agergaard Larsen (Department of Geography, University of Copenhagen), determined grants for the following persons, projects, and programmes. Their decisions were then approved by SASNET’s board on 22 September.
(See http://www.sasnet.lu.se/grants.html):

The Masters Programme in Asian Studies at Lund University began on 1 September 2003 at the Centre for East and Southeast Asian Studies (ACE). The South Asian Studies track has had up to 15 students in its programme every year between 2003 and 2009. The SASNET root node has participated in the programme with Stig Toft Madsen teaching courses on region-specific development and supervising some students.

SASNET’s Student Forum, launched in 2008, was further developed during 2009 by Malin Gregersen, Dept. of History, Lund University, who is the coordinator of the forum.
The SASNET conference for young Scandinavian scholars held in Falsterbo in August 2009 was a great success, with many Ph.D. and masters students coming from Sweden and other Nordic countries. A working committee led by Kristina Myrvold, Lund University, Julia Velkova, Gothenberg University, and Ferdinando Sardella, Gothenburg University, planned the conference

Articles about SASNET, including an interview with Anna Lindberg, appeared in Lund University’s magazine LUM.
Lars Eklund wrote an article entitled “SASNET Builds Up Indo-Swedish Collaborations” about SASNET’s achievements over its nine years of existence. It appeared in the 2009 edition of India-Sweden in Focus, published in August. The glossy magazine was produced by Krest Publications in New Delhi, India, on behalf of the Embassy of India in Sweden. It featured articles on other important Indo-Swedish collaboration initiatives in business, research, and culture. Read the article.

Throughout the year, meetings and phone calls were held with SIDA, other funding agencies, and representatives of Swedish universities in an attempt to secure continued national funding for SASNET after 31 December 2009. A crucial meeting was held at the Ministry of Education in Stockholm on 30 November 2009. Anna Lindberg was accompanied by Ann-Katrin Bäcklund, Dean of the Faculty for Social Sciences, Lund University, and SASNET board member Dr. Camilla Orjuela from PADRIGU, School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg.
They met with Katarina Bjelke and Mattias Jennerholm from the Division of Research Policy (forskningspolitiska enheten) within the Ministry of Education. Although the the Division of Research Policy was very positive to SASNET's activities, the meeting did not lead to the funding that we had hoped for.

On 3–4 August 2009, SASNET’s director Anna Lindberg and deputy director Lars Eklund went to Stockholm to meet the ambassadors of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, as part of ongoing discussions about the future of SASNET and the possibilities of cooperation between South Asian institutions. At the Embassy of India they were received by Ambassador Mr. Balkrishna Shetty and First Secretary Mrs. Madhumita Bhagat; at the Embassy of Pakistan they were received by the new Ambassador Mr. Nadeem Riyaz; and at the Embassy of Bangladesh they were received by outgoing Ambassador Mr. Muhammad Azizul Haque. Fruitful discussions were held at all three embassies.
On 31 August 2009, Anna Lindberg and Lars Eklund went to Hellerup, north of Copenhagen, to meet the Ambassador of Nepal to Scandinavia, Mr, Vijaykant Lal Karna.

Indian Ambassador Mr. Balkrishna Shetty visited Lund University twice during 2009 at the invitation of SASNET. His first visit was on 14 May 2009, when he met with the University Director Dr. Marianne Granfelt and participated in a seminar with researchers, teachers, students, and international coordinators involved in India-related projects at Lund University. Mr. Shetty was accompanied by Mrs. Bhagat, First Secretary (Commercial, Consular, Culture), Embassy of India. The ambassador listened to a few selected presentations: Dr. Sidsel Hansson presented the Erasmus Mundus External Cooperation Window lot 15 programme, coordinated by Lund University; Prof. Baboo Nair, Dept. of Applied Nutrition and Food Chemistry, discussed the SASNET Fermented Foods project; and Prof. Olle Qvarnström spoke about the Division of Indic Religions at the Centre for Theology and Religious Studies, Lund University.
SASNET also co-hosted an India seminar in cooperation with the Sweden-India Business Council (SIBC) and Ideon Research Park, where the Ambassador was the main speaker. The seminar also included a presentation by Prof. Baboo Nair. The moderator was Anna Lindberg.
During his stay, the Ambassador also met with the Mayor of Lund, Ms. Annica Annerby Jansson, and visited Lund University’s Faculty of Engineering – especially its Department of Electrical and Information Technology. In the evening Mr. Shetty went to Malmö, first to visit the Bollywood cinema hall in Limhamn, and then to host a reception at Hipp for 100 invited guests, mostly from the Indian community in Malmö/Lund, but including a delegation from Malmö University and people working on India-related projects in art, music, and theatre.

The Indian Ambassador again visited Lund on 10 September 2009 on the occasion of the formal inaugurauon of the Mahatma Gandhi Book Collection (part of the Karl Reinhold Haellquist Memorial Collection). The Ambassador also took the opportunity to donate to Lund University and SASNET another 120 volumes of Mahatma Gandhi literature on behalf of the Indian government. The function, which included a puja ceremony by Ms. Bubu Munshi-Eklund, took place at Lund University’s Asia Library. A large number of Lund University faculty, as well as Indian students and guest researchers at Lund University through the Erasmus Mundus External Cooperation Window India lot 15, participated. Lund University was officially represented by the Assistant Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Sven Strömqvist. The daily newspaper, Sydsvenskan, reported on the event, as did the Lund University magazine LUM in its issue of 8/2009.
Later that evening, the Ambassador participated in a well-attended SASNET seminar on ”The role of Mahatma Gandhi in today’s society”.

The Nepalese Ambassador, Mr. Vijay Kant L. Karna, was invited to participate in a seminar on ”Political Transitions affecting the peace process in Nepal” held on 23 September 2009. He also had lunch with the University Director Marianne Granfeldt.

SASNET was a member of the Sweden-India Business Council (SIBC) in 2009. On 14 May, an India seminar was carried out in collaboration between SASNET and SIBC.

4. SASNET’s Root Node Activities 2009

9–11 February 2009. SASNET co-organised an international workshop on ”Women and migration in South Asia. Health and Social Consequences” that was held in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The workshop was organised in collaboration with the University of Sri Jayewardenepura (SJP) in Colombo, and the Division of International Maternal and Child Health (IMCH) at Uppsala University. Researchers in the field were invited from all over the South Asia region and from Swedish institutions. Anna Lindberg and Lars Eklund both participated in the workshop. The focus was on the consequences of migration for women, their children and families in South Asia. The themes to be covered were the effects of such migration with respect to: social consequences, gender perspective, economy at family level, health including sexually transmitted diseases, and child development and psychology.
The workshop was also the first effort to realise the concept of SASNET sub-networks, put forward at the informal meeting by SASNET’s South Asian Reference Group held in Delhi in November 2007, later decided upon by SASNET’s board. One of the reference group members, Dr. Kumudu from the University of Sri Jayewardenepura (SJP) in Colombo chaired the Colombo workshop. A separate meeting was held with SASNET’s South Asian Reference Group on Tuesday 10 February.

23 February 2009. Two smart quizz winning Indian students from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Mumbai, Rahul Singh (from Jamshedpur) and Haripriya Mukundarajan (from Bangalore), visited SASNET and Lund University. They were the winners of a Nobel prize quizz competition organised by the Embassy of Sweden in India in October 2008. The winners’ prize was an all-expenses paid, weeklong trip to Sweden where they would get an opportunity to visit Swedish universities and major technology companies in Lund, Göteborg, Linköping, Sandviken and Stockholm. SASNET’s deputy director Lars Eklund organised their visit to Lund University, that included visiting the Nanoscience laboratory at the Dept. of Physics (photo above).

26 February 2009. Dr. Daya Kishan Thussu from the University of Westminster, UK, was invited by SASNET to lecture at a Focus Asia conference on ”Media Cultures and Politics in Asia and Beyond” that was held at Lund University 26–27 February 2009. Focus Asia is a yearly event organised by the Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies (ACE) at Lund University, and this 10th Focus Asia event brings together leading media scholars who discussed media in Asia and beyond. Several of the lectures at the Focus Asia conference addressed the relationship between media, democracy and the public sphere in different national and regional contexts. Dr. Thussu talked about ”Infotainment – Indian Style: Changing Contours of TV News in the World’s Largest Democracy”.

11 March 2009. Professor Ravinder Kaur from the Dept. of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi held a SASNET lecture at Lund University on Wednesday. Prof. Kaur talked about ”Strangers as Spouses: Marriage Implications of India’s Skewed sex Ratio”, focusing on the continuing gender imbalance and the recent steep declines in the child sex ratio in India. The presentation was based on extensive fieldwork consisting of interviews with cross-region couples in the state of Haryana with additional evidence from Uttar Pradesh. Some fieldwork-based evidence has also been obtained from the bride-sending states of West Bengal and Kerala. An interesting finding and a hopeful sign is the positive sex ratio of the offspring of such marriages. The lecture was organised in collaboration with Lund University’s Dept. of Economic History, and Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies (ACE).

16 March 2009. Dr. Walter Andersen, Associate Director of the South Asia Studies Program at Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Washington, D.C., USA held a joint SASNET/UPF (Lund University Association of Foreign Affairs) lecture in Lund. Dr. Andersen, who has a PhD in Political Science from the University of Chicago, lectured on ”Islamic militancy in India: A domestic issue with significant foreign policy implications” He has recently retired as chief of the U.S. State Department's South Asia Division in the Office of Analysis for the Near East and South Asia. Venue for the seminar: Café Athen, Sandgatan 2, Lund.

25 March 2009. The Vice Chancellor from Jahangirnagar University in Bangladesh, Prof. Shariff Enamur Kabir, visited SASNET’s root node office in Lund on. He was accompanied by Professor Pradeep Mathur from the Dept. of Chemistry at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Mumbai, and Dr. Ebbe Nordlander, Dept. of Chemical Physics, Lund University. The three researchers are involved in a joint reserach project on ”Modelling of hydrodesulfurization reactions and development of new molecular hydrodesulfurization catalyst” that received a SASNET planning grant in 2008, the planning of which was carried out during the stay in Lund. During the visit in Lund, Prof. Shariff Enamur Kabir also met with Lund University’s Pro vice-chancellor Eva Åkesson to discuss a possible Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Lund University and Jahangirnagar University.

11 May 2009. Prof. Dipak Malik, Director of the Gandhian Institute in Varanasi, India, held an open SASNET lecture at Lund University on ”Riots and Elections in India”. Prof. Malik, also working at the Dept. of Commerce, Banaras Hindu University (BHU) in Varanasi, discussed the multi-faceted factors deciding the outcome of the ongoing elections for the Indian parliament, Lok Sabha (results to be announced on May 16th), and the profile of Indian communal riots, now and in the past. The seminar was organised in collaboration with the Research group on Development and Environment at the Dept. of Sociology, Lund University, being part of a Swedish guest lecture tour that also brought him to the universities of Gothenburg and Karlstad (funded by a SASNET grant). Venue: Conference room 1 (335), Dept.of Sociology, Lund University.

14 May 2009. SASNET organised the visit to Lund and Malmö by the new Ambassador of India to Sweden, H.E. Mr. Balkrishna Shetty. During his stay in Lund he had discussions with SASNET’s director Anna Lindberg and deputy director Lars Eklund. He also met with the University Director Dr. Marianne Granfelt and participated in a seminar with researchers, teachers, students, and international coordinators involved in India related projects at Lund University.
SASNET also co-hosted an India seminar in co-operation with SIBC (Sweden-India Business Council) and Ideon Research park, where the Ambassador was the key speaker. With his wide experiences he gave an interesting presentation. In recent years he has been posted at the Embassy of India in Paris, as Minister (Economic), dealing with all bilateral economic matters and relations with Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). He has also been associated with the establishment of TEAM–9 (Techno-Economic Cooperation for Africa–India Movement), a regional economic cooperation mechanism between India and eight West African countries. From September 2005 to January 2009, he was Ambassador of India to Bahrain. Besides the speech by the Ambassador, the seminar also included a presentation by Prof. Baboo Nair, who talked about ”Doing Business in India”. SASNET’s Director, Dr. Anna Lindberg, was the moderator.

18 May 2009. Dr. Tabish Khair from the Dept. of English, University of Aarhus, Denmark, held a SASNET lecture in Lund on ”The Gothic and Postcolonialism: Alterity, Difference and Narration”. The seminar was co-organised by Prof. Claes-Göran Holmberg, Dept. of Comparative Literature, Lund University. Born and educated mostly in Gaya, India, Tabish Khair is the author of various books. His honours and prizes include the All India Poetry Prize (awarded by the Poetry Society and the British Council). Academic papers, reviews, essays, fiction and poems by Khair have appeared in Indian, British, Danish, American, German, Italian, South African, Chinese and other publications. Khair has just finished a study, entitled ”The Gothic, Postcolonialism and Otherness”, which will be published in USA and UK by Palgrave (Macmillan) in August 2009. Venue for the Lund seminar: Room L 201, Lund University’s Centre for Languages and Literature (SOL-Centrum), Helgonabacken 14, Lund.

19 May 2009. Professor G.N. Tiwari from the Centre for Energy Studies at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi visited SASNET’s root node office in Lund. He was accompanied by Professor Krister Håkansson, Dept. of Psychology, Växjö University, with whom Prof. Tiwari is involved in a collaboration project to organise research and a conference on hybrid photovoltaic-thermal technology (H-PV/T), to be held in New Delhi. The conference, entitled ”Implementation strategies for the transfer of hybrid photovoltaic-thermal technology (H-PV/T) from research to lab to field” should have been held already in March 2009, but due to the Indian elections it was postponed, and new dates will be in the end of August. Prof. Tiwari is a leading expert in the research on how solar energy can be introduced in Indian villages without electricity. In 2007 he organised the 3rd International Conference on Solar Radiation and Day Lighting, ”SOLARIS 2007” at IIT Delhi. Then he established contact with Dr. Om Prakash at the School of Technology and Design, Växjö University, and originally they were supposed to plan for the new conference. But due to illness, Dr. Prakash had to give up the project, and he gave it over to Christer Håkansson. Being a psychologist, Håkansson is interested to launch a broader interdisciplinary research project on issues widely connected to village development and the introduction of solar energy in India.

22 May 2009. PhD candidate Malin Jordahl, Division of International Maternal and Child Health (IMCH), Uppsala University, visited SASNET’s root node office in Lund on Friday 22 May 2009, and had a meeting with the Director Anna Lindberg. It was a follow-up meeting of a discussion that took place in February 2009 at the SASNET conference in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Malin and Anna now discussed the possibility of creating a sub-network within SASNET on the topic for the Colombo workshop, viz., Migration, Gender, and Health. PhD candidate Malin Gregersen, Dept. of History, Lund University, and Dr. Kristina Myrvold, Dept. of History of Religions, Lund University, participated in the meeting as well.

26 May 2009. The Tabla player Subrata Manna, the classical singer Sudokshina Chatterjee Manna, and the Kathak dancer Sohini Debnath, all from Kolkata, India, participated in an well-attended academic seminar on intercultural education research in Malmö. They gave a presentation titled ”Application of Classical Indian Music in World Music of today”. The artists visited Scandinavia as part of a European tour (with concerts in Copenhagen on May 26th and in Lund on May 27th). The Malmö seminar was jointly organised by Lund University Intercultural Education Research Forum (since November 2008 coordinated by the International Art and Cultural Education Competency Centre, KIKK, at Malmö Academy of Music), and SASNET.
Besides the three Indian artists, who discussed Indian forms of music and dance and show their skills, two presentations of ongoing research projects at Lund University were given. Dr. Bosse Bergstedt, Dept. of Education talked about ”The Genuine Voice – on a Prelinguistic Fellowship”; and Senior Lecturer Eva Sæther, Dept. of Music Education Research talked about ”To play oneself Persian or Swedish – or?”. Venue: Musikhögskolan i Malmö, Ystadvägen 25.

28 May 2009. Lars Eklund visited the University of Skövde on 28 May 2009. He was invited to participate in the signing ceremony of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the universities of Skövde and Rajshahi, Bangladesh. The MoU focuses on student exchange and research collaboration within Biomedicine, Bioinformatics, Ecology, Molecular Biology, Physiology, and Systematic Biology. The initiative comes from Dr. Abul Mandal and his colleagues at the School of Life Sciences, University of Skövde. SASNET has been instrumental in promoting the Skövde–Rajshahi collaboration by providing a planning grant for a project on ”Development of new varieties of crops for avoiding loss of harvest caused by climatic instability in Bangladesh” in 2008 (more information). To further celebrate the visit to Skövde by a delegation from the University of Rajshahi, a “Bengali Evening” was held at 20.15 with a cultural programme that included a Bharata Natyam performance by Ms. Shivapriya Bagchi from Kolkata, India.

29 May 2009. SASNET sponsored a photographic project set up by second-year students from Lund University’s Masters programme in Development and Management (LUMID) 2007–09 batch. During the period 25 May – 4 June 2009, they exhibited photos from their fieldworks in Asian and African countries. The exhibition was part of the LFA (LUMID Fotographic Art) Project, as it is called. A festive vernissage that was held on Friday 29 May 2009. Anna Lindberg, Lars Eklund and Stig Toft Madsen from SASNET participated in the event. Venue: Wickmanska gården, Bredgatan 2 in central Lund (close to the City Library.

17–19 August 2009. SASNET successfully organised a Nordic conference on South Asian Studies for young scholars at Falsterbo Kursgård in Höllviken (south of Malmö). The aim of the conference was to gather masters students, PhD candidates, and young post-docs in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Norway who focus on South Asia in their research studies. 45 participants came to the conference, that had been planned by an organising committee led by Dr. Kristina Myrvold, Dept. of History of Religions, Lund University, and Ms. Julia Velkova, MA in Eastern Philosophy and Culture from the University of Sofia, Bulgaria. The aim behind the conference, which was very much similar to another successful conference that SASNET organised in Marstrand in October 2002, was to provide an opportunity for young scholars to present their future and ongoing research projects, establish contacts with colleagues in the Nordic countries, and discuss common challenges and opportunities when conducting research in South Asia related studies.
Prof. Vinayak Chaturvedi, University of California Irvine, had been invited to be the keynote speaker. He lectured about ”Dialogues with M.K. Gandhi on History and Violence in India”. Prof. Pamela Price, Oslo University, was another principal speaker. She talked about ”Being a South Asianist in the Nordic countries: Being Glocal”. Dr. Mirja Juntunen, Uppsala University, coordinator of the Nordic Center in India (NCI), talked about ”A Nordic Perspective on Prospects and Challenges for Scholarly Interaction with South Asia”; and Mr. Teddy Primack, Editor, Academic Documents Associates, New York, made an exciting and useful presentation entitled ”How to displease an editor” about how to deliver manuscripts for scientific publishing. A number of thematic sessions were led by Prof. Knut A. Jacobsen, University of Bergen (History, Religion, and Culture I); Dr. Peter B Andersen, Copenhagen University (History, Religion, and Culture II); Dr. Catarina Kinnvall, Lund University (Society, Development, and Gender); Dr. Per Hilding, Stockholm University (Nature, Health, and Environment); and Dr. Per Knutsson, Gothenburg University (Technology, Economics, and International Relations).

10 September 2009. The Mahatma Gandhi Book Collection (part of the Karl Reinhold Haellquist Memorial Collection) was formally inaugurated by the Indian Ambassador to Sweden, Mr. Balkrishna Shetty. On behalf of the Indian government, the Ambassador also took the opportunity to donate to Lund University and SASNET another 120 volumes of Mahatma Gandhi literature, either works written by Gandhi himself or books focusing on him. The function, including a puja ceremony by Ms. Bubu Munshi-Eklund, took place at Lund University’s Asia Library at Scheelevägen 15. A large number of Lund University professors and researchers, and also Indian students and guest researchers who have come to Lund University through the Erasmus Mundus External Cooperation Window India lot 15, participated. Lund University was officially represented by the Assistant Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Sven Strömqvist. The daily newspaper Sydsvenskan carried a report from the inauguration, and also Lund University magazine LUM in its issue No. 8/2009.
Ms. Inger Sondén Haellquist was the guest of honour since she is the person who in 2004 donated the extensive private book collection of her late husband, Karl Reinhold Haellquist, to Lund University. This collection, consisting of nearly 7 000 volumes of South Asia related literature, was selected by Lund University researchers Neelambar Hatti and Jan Magnusson, and has since been catalogued by SASNET. A small part of the collection, primarily the Mahatma Gandhi collection, is exhibited in the Asia Library. More information about the Karl Reinhold Haellquist Memorial Collection.
After the inauguration ceremony, and the presentation of the new book donation by the Indian Ambassador, a 45 minutes documentary on the life of Mahatma Gandhi was shown. The film, entitled ”Mahatma – A Great Soul of the 20th Century”, has been jointly produced by the Public Diplomacy Division, Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India; and the Gandhi Films Foundation. Not only the book collection was inaugurated. Also SASNET’s web site on the Mahatma Gandhi collection (www.sasnet.lu.se/gandhi) was officially launched. The web site has been prepared for SASNET by the librarian Erik Svanström.

10 September 2009. SASNET’s seminar on the Role of Mahatma Gandhi in Today’s Society became a major success. More than 120 people, Lund University professors, researchers and students but also many interested persons from outside the academic world, gathered for the seminar featuring David Arnold, Professor of Asian and Global History at the University of Warwick, UK, and the Indian Ambassador to Sweden, Mr. Balkrishna Shetty. The two-hour seminar was held at Lund University’s Centre for Languages and Literature (SOL-Centrum) and was moderated by SASNET’s Director, Dr. Anna Lindberg.
The Ambassador, Mr. Balkrishna Shetty, was the first speaker, and he gave a personal narrative on Mahatma Gandhi’s life, the important role he has played in history, and the basic values that he stands for, values that should still play an important role. Prof. David Arnold came next. His presentation, entitled ”Gandhi: The Mahatma and the Machine”, differed in its specific focus on Mahatma Gandhi’s complicated relation to machines. Whereas Gandhi was well-known for his resentment against modern industrial inventions that robbed people of their employment, he was still very much dependent on the radio transmitters, microphones, and trains, in order to reach out to the masses with his message. After the seminar, a rich vegetarian buffet dinner from Restaurant Govinda was served to all participants in the foyer of SOL-Centrum.

16 September 2009. Dr. Ruby Sain from the Dept. of Sociology, Jadavpur University, India, held an open lecture at Lund University. The seminar was jointly organised by the School of Social Work at Lund university, Vårdalinstitutet and SASNET. Dr. Sain, who mostly works on health, illness, ageing, religion and research methodology issues, talked about “Depression – a social problem of the elderly population in India”. She is the founding editor of the Jadavpur University Journal of Sociology, and her forthcoming books are titled ”Contemporary Social Problems in India-Vol I” (ed.) and ”Folk Religion in Bengal”. Besides, Dr Sain is secretary of the International Forum for the Study of Society and Religion (IFFSR), a forum that links researchers and scholars from Jadavpur University, University of Gothenburg and the Oxford Center for Hindu Studies. She came to Sweden on a SASNET guest lecture programme grant, invited by the Department of Literature, History of Ideas, and Religion, Gothenburg University. Venue for the Lund seminar: Edebalksalen, School of Social Work,

16 September 2009. The joint SASNET/UPF (Association of Foreign Affairs at Lund University) seminar on ”Contemporary Pakistan: Islamism, Human Rights and Terrorism”, drew an audience of more than 100 people. The speakers were Prof. Ishtiaq Ahmed, working as Visiting Research Professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), National University of Singapore; and Dr. Rubya Mehdi, University of Copenhagen. Prof. Ahmed is currently on leave from the Dept. of Political Science, Stockholm University. At ISAS, he is working on a research project ebtitled ”Is Pakistan a Garrison State?”

21 September 2009. Lars Eklund participated in the first consortium meeting for the new Erasmus Mundus External Cooperation Window (EMECW) mobility programme entitled ”EURINDIA”, one of the four programme 13 lots devoted to mobility interaction between universities in Europe and India selected in 2009. This programme is administered by the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm and involves another 9 universities in Europe and 8 universities in India, plus 3 associated partners. The meeting was held at KTH in Stockholm, and Lars met with the programme coordinator, Ms. Alphonsa Lourdudoss, based at KTH, as well as representatives from the Indian partner universities. They include Anna University, Chennai; Anurag Narayan College, Gaya (affiliated to Patna University); Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati; Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee; National Law School of India University, Bangalore; Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), Coimbatore; University of Kalyani, West Bengal; and University of Pune.

23 September 2009. A joint SASNET/UPF (Association of Foreign Affairs at Lund University) seminar on ”Political Transitions affecting the Peace Process in Nepal” was held in Lund. Anjoo Sharan Upadhyaya, Professor of Political Science and Director, Centre for the Study of Nepal at Banaras Hindu University (BHU) in Varanasi, India, participated in the seminar along with Mr. Vijaykant Lal Karna, Nepalese ambassador to Scandinavia (based in Denmark) who is also a political scientist by profession, having worked at Tribhuvan University for 20 years. The audience consisted of more than 70 people, mostly Lund University students, but also visiting Nepalese students.

24 September 2009. Professor Priyankar Upadhyaya from Benaras Hindu University (BHU), Varanasi, India, held a lecture at Lund University on ”Religious Peace Building in India”. The seminar was jointly organised by the Dept.of History of Religions, Lund University, and SASNET. Prof. Upadhyaya is Director at the Malaviya Centre for Peace Research at BHU. He holds a PhD of Jawaharlal Nehru University, and Advance International Diploma(s) in Conflict Resolution from Uppsala University, Sweden. In Sweden, he has also served as a Visiting Professor at Karlstad University. During September 2009 he has been based at the International Peace Research Institute (PRIO) in Oslo. Venue: Room 438, Centre for Theology and Religious Studies (CTR).

22 October 2009. SASNET invited Lund University Masters students, Ph.D. candidates and senior researchers interested in studies and research related to South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, and Maldives) to an open meeting. Nearly 50 people turned up for the meeting that was intended to increase the interest in pursuing South Asia related education and research at Lund University. Eminent researchers involved in South Asia related projects, including Prof. Baboo Nair, Dept. of Applied Nutrition, Prof. Staffan Lindberg, Dept. of Sociology, Prof. Rajni Hatti Kaul, Dept. of Biotechnology, and Dr. Catarina Kinnvall, Dept. of Political Science, gave presentations on their work. Dr. Vipin Negi, Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, and Dr. Gupinath Bhandari, Lund University Centre for Risk Assessment and Management (LUCRAM), also told about their experiences being scholarship holders through the Erasmus Mundus External Cooperation Window Programme. After the meeting, the participants stayed on for snacks and refreshments. Venue for the meeting: Kårhuset, Hörsalen, John Ericssons väg 3, Lund.

24 November 2009. Kumudu Wijewardena and Mohsin Saeed Khan, two members of SASNET’s South Asian Reference Group visited Lund on Tuesday 24 November 2009. The purpose was to have informal discussions with Anna Lindberg and Lars Eklund about the future direction of SASNET from 2010. Both Kumudu and Mohsin had spent the recent months in Sweden. Professor Wijewardena from the Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of Sri Jayewardenepura in Sri Lanka, has been involved in a long-standing collaborative research programme on ”Health and Social Care for the Socially Marginalized People” with the Division of International Maternal and Child Health (IMCH) at the Dept. of Women’s and Children’s Health, Uppsala University. This programme is now near its completion. Mohsin Saeed Khan is a Health Specialist from Islamabad, Pakistan, but also PhD Candidate in a sandwich programme with the Division of Global health (IHCAR) at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. His doctoral thesis project deals with ”HIV and STI infections among Female Sex Workers in Lahore, Pakistan”, and is in its final stage.

19 December 2009. Her Excellency Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister of Bangladesh, visited Lund University to hold a public lecture on ”Climate Change in Bangladesh – Facing the Challenges”. Sheikh Hasina was invited to visit Lund by SASNET and the Association of Foreign Affairs at Lund University (UPF), and was hosted by Lund University Vice Chancellor Per Eriksson. A large delegation of ministers and around 20 members of the Bangladeshi parliament (who have attended the COP 15 climate conference in Copenhagen) accompanied the Prime Minister from Copenhagen during this high-security visit to Lund. The interest from Lund University students and researchers, as well as from the local Bangladeshi community was overwhelming. The lecture hall was crowded, and the event was documented by a couple of Bangladeshi TV company crews.

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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 2010-04-22

SWEDISH SOUTH ASIAN STUDIES NETWORK

SASNET Work Report 1 January – 31 December 2009:

Swedish South Asian Studies Network, Lund University – Administrative Report No. 10

Lund 20 April 2009

1. Introduction and Summary

2. Organisation

3. Networking Activities

4. SASNET’s Root Node Activities 2009