SWEDISH SOUTH ASIAN STUDIES NETWORK

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SASNET visit to World Water Week 2011 in Stockholm

Report by Julia Velkova

Between 21 and 25 August 2011, Julia Velkova from SASNET represented the Swedish South Asian Studies network at  the World Water Conference in Stockholm. It was a fruitful week in which she attended a number of South Asian related seminars and events, as well as visited the Embassy of India in Stockholm and several departments at Stockholm University.

The first day of the World Water Week Conference hosted a seminar convened by the World Bank and dedicated on the pollution problems of the Ganges river the management of which is shared between several South Asian countries.

Interesting presentations were delivered by Claudia Sadoff, Harshadeep Nagaraja Rao and Sanjay Pahuja who presented different parts of the major context that forms the problems of the river nowadays from cultural, political and religious perspectives. Accent was put on the Abu Dhabi Dialogue initiated in 2006 as an informal series of dialogues with representatives from Bangladesh, India, Nepal among others to discuss the problems of the water bassins in these countries. More information on the Ganges workshop.

Keynote speech by Sheela Patel

On the 22 September, an inspirational keynote speech was delivered by Sheela Patel, Chair of the Slum Dwellers (SDA) International Board. Read the full speech.
The main message of her speech was that the provision of basic services, the right to live in the city, and the right for the city for an inclusive planning must be seen as a public responsibility with regards to the slum dweller communities. SDA believes that the primary relationship that can transform this process is between the city and the poor, and especially the youth, otherwise the crime will become the only language that allows these people to be heard.

The keynote session was followed by a Mayor's Panel, with the participation of the Mayor of Stockholm, Mr. Sten Nordin; the Government of Andhra Pradesh in India in the face of Mr. M. Maheedhar Reddy, Minister for Municipal Administration & Urban Development, as well as representatives of governmental administrations of Rwanda, Philipinnes, China, USA, Brazil and Belgium. The mayors panel was led, recorded and transmitted by Euronews.

During the conference, Ms. Velkova met also Dr. Prakash Nelliyat (photo) from the Centre for Water Resources, Anna University, India who has a long-standing relation to SASNET and has visited Lund University a few years ago. Dr. Nelliyat isstrongly involved in the South Asia Consortium for Interdisciplinary Water Resources Studies, Saci WATERs. At the conference, he presented a paper on “Need for 'Integrated Water and Land Resources Management' approach for sustainable ecosystem and water security in Third World Cities”.
See his presentation.

Passionate speech by Sunita Narain

Sunita Narain in the centre along with Julia Velkova, Ambassador Ashok Sajjanhar, Dr. Nandita Singh and Mr. Prakash Singh.

On 25 August, Ms. Sunita Narain from the Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi, Stockholm WWW Prize winner 2005, delivered a passionate speech about the present challenges and opportunities in front of India's water in the context of a rapid urbanization. She spoke about climate change, and the need to accept that it is here, and start taking actions about it. She stressed that in India it is the monsoon that is the real governor of the country, and thus a climate change resulting in different than the usual behaviour of the monsoon can have catastrophic impact on India. Ms. Narain stressed also that pollution and sanitation is another critical challenge that together with climate change will become even more difficult, unless we can understand how we can live with the change. Her main messsage was that we all need to become more humble and live in balance with the nature. In the afternoon on the same day, Ms. Narain delivered a presentation on "Getting rich without water: The agenda for a new culture and practice". After the session, Ms. Julia Velkova met briefly Ms. Narain together with the Ambassador of India, Mr. Ashok Sajjanhar, as well as the KTH researcher Dr. Nandita Singh and her husband Mr. Prakash Singh.

Photo exhibition

During the whole conference week, Mr. and Ms. Singh exhibited a fascinating photo collection (photo) depicting the water problems in India's capital, New Delhi. Each photo had a story and a major context describing a specific problem. The photos were taken in unusual settings and places, depicting both the rich and the poor of Delhi in the struggle for a basic commodity – water and sanitation.

The conference hosted also several lectures on Bangladesh problems with water. An interesting lecture was delivered by Mr. Habibur Rahman from the Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology (BUET) who spoke about ”Water supply in Dhaka mega city: A strategic view”.
Read his presentation.

Visit to Embassy of India, and Stockholm University

Aside from attending the conference, Ms. Velkova also met Colonel Rajiv Edwards at the Embassy of India to discuss the coming Tagore Celebrations in Copenhagen, Stockholm and Uppsala (LINK), and other coming activities that SASNET is involved with during the fall 2011. More information.

Eva-Maria Hardtman and Beppe Karlsson, Dept. of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University with Julia Vewlkova from SASNET.

Ms. Velkova met also Associate Professor Henrik Berglund from the Dept. of Political Science at Stockholm University and had a fruitful discussion and update about ongoing projects at the department and new initiatives to come. An event of importance which the department is organising together with NIAS is the 5th Annual Nordic NIAS Council Conference & PhD Course that will take place at Stockholm University 21-25 November 2011 The theme for the conference will be “Political regimes, growth politics and conflict in Asia: Responses to changing environmental, economic and socio-cultural conditions”. The conference will be combined with workshop activities where doctoral candidates may present and discuss their research projects with senior researchers as well as other fellow doctoral candidates. The first two days will be devoted to panels and keynote speakers while the last two days will focus on workshops for doctoral students. The conference/workshop can be taken as a 7.5 ECTS credit course. More information.

After that, Ms. Velkova met Professor Willmar Sauter from the Dept. of Theatre and Dance Studies at Stockholm University with whom she discussed the coming Tagore Celebrations and the programme for Stockholm on 22nd September 2011. More information.

Finally, Julia Velkova met with Dr. Eva-Maria Hardtman and Dr. Bengt Karlsson from the Institute for Social Anthropology at Stockholm University. The meeting was also organised to update about the current SASNET activities, as well as new developments at the Institute for Social Anthropology.