May 2010

Analysis

The politics of boycott

By: Htet Aung

How will the decision by Burma’s main opposition party to sit out the elections affect the larger efforts towards democracy?

A record victory, poorly attended

By: Tisaranee Gunasekara

How will the April election results affect the prospects for sustainable peace in Sri Lanka?

A deal is a deal

By: B Skanthakumar

With the suspension of preferential trading access, the European Union has sent a strong message to the Sri Lankan authorities.

Coca-Cola care

By: Joe Thomas

Decentralised funding is the only way to reduce Southasia’s continued sky-high infant mortality.

On the way up

Sourcing Haidarabad

By: Kanak Mani Dixit

Review

Buddha minus god

By: Alok K. Bohara

Comic rectitude

By: Diwas Kc

Are we 'post-Hindu' yet?

By: Meera Nanda

Commentary

Bedlam and belligerence

'Fecund'

Democracy redux

Pakistan's 18th Amendment, restoring key powers to the office of the Prime Minister, is a move towards solidifying democracy.

Re-igniting a sense of wonder

Once loosened from the dominion of pedagogy, Southasian children’s literature finds its purpose – placing imagination and wonder in the fore.

Bookshelf

Reviews of the latest books from and on Southasia

Mediafile

Tidbits of the region's media

Fiction

Religious visa

By: Tsering Namgyl

Reflections

Jungle theatre

By: Ajay Joshi

Even in an age of multimedia, Zhadipatti theatre remains extremely popular in Maharashtra.

Opinion

Running tourism

By: Roger Henke

Why are running trails in Southasia not yet a popular form of adventure tourism?

A diaspora begins

By: T P Mishra

Has resettlement given a fillip to the cause of democracy in Bhutan? Will the right of return be far behind?

Cover

Beyond the 'national child'

By: Deepa Sreenivas & Deeptha Achar

How to create storybooks for a plural world.

Books that teach nothing

By: Anushka Ravishankar

Let children read to be enthralled, not educated.

Between literacy and reading

By: V Geetha

The story of one publisher’s ‘new’ genre: the Tamil picture book.

Three decades later

By: Rumana Hussain

Pakistan’s publishing industry has made great strides in children’s literature – though there is still a long way to go.

The troll of children's literature

By: Tabish Khair

Writing for children entails reaching out for the imaginative and enchanting in one’s own life.

Making children with literature

By: Aunohita Mojumdar

In Afghanistan, radio stories are helping to mend childhoods.

Small-town chest-puff

By: Sumana Roy

Revisiting Narayan Debnath’s Batul the Great.

Bangla bizarre

By: Harjinder Singh

Sukumar Ray’s fantasy world and deft use of language remain popular with today’s children.

Suntali's strange travels

By: Kanak Mani Dixit

The continuing adventures of Suntali the Jogging Buffaloe running the mountain tracks.

Interview

Befriending the yakas

By: Richard Boyle

Richard Boyle interviews Grataien Prize winner Prashani Rambukwella, author of Mythil's Secrets.

Since superstition is an important facet in Sri Lanka, Prashani Remvukwella, a Sri Lanka-born writer currently working in Hongkong has used yakas, or devils as a central ingredient of her children's novel, Mythil’s Secret (2009).

Climate damage control

By: Smriti Mallapaty

Prof Jack D Ives discusses the aftermath of the global climate-change summit in Copenhagen.

Southasiasphere

Naxalites, narcissists and nihilism

There is no statuette
to measure the miles lovers
cover to torch a police station,
their down or breasts not fully grown
as the ideals they die for.
Hunger too dies.
-Rabindra K Swain, Taking Sides

Essay

The idea of Punjabiyat

By: Pritam Singh

Despite fragmentation for centuries, the Punjabi identity today is engaged in a remarkably active attempt at consolidation.

Mail

Comments from readers

Southasian Briefs

Round-up of regional news

Voices

Opinions from the region

Web Exclusive

New riverbed carved through Choglamsar

Where once stood houses by Dilip D’Souza

Ladakh after the flood.

The Kashmiri and the Indian – Shivam Vij writes about how (and why) people-to-people dialogue is the best way out of the Kashmir logjam.

.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.