Reviews of the latest books from and on Southasia

HIMALAYAN   PILGRIMAGE by David  Snellgrove
ShambhalalRandom House 1989, U$ 14.95
This reprint of Snellgrove´s classic on Himalayan culture and Buddhism, now available in paperback, takes the reader on a seven-month trek through Dolpo, Mustang and the Kali Oandaki region of Nepal. The journey described was undertaken in 1956, just a few years after Nepal was opened to foreigners. "Everyday life has changed comparatively little in the remote northern frontier regions of the Himalayas," the author notes in his new preface. Little has been added over the years to the limited fund of information about "the interesting Tibetan-speaking lands" which lie within Nepal, he says. Snellgrove, who is now Professor Emeritus of the University of London´s School of Oriental and African Studies, laments that Tribhuvan University "displays no actual interest in Tibetan studies despite the fact that so many of Nepal´s citizens are Tibetan-speaking and many of them thoroughly literate in Tibetan." With so many Tibetan speaking people in the country, he notes that no one in Kathmandu has worked on the creation of a Nepali-Tibetan dictionary.
JOINT HYDROPOWER DEVELOPMENT
Department of Technical Co-operation for Development United Nations, New York 1988, price unlisted
This study seeks to publicise and promote the "transfer of experience" in relation to joint hydropower projects (JHD) by highlighting regional and bilateral mechanisms which have worked in the sharing of water resources in Latin America. The study hopes that the experience of countries such as Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay in negotiating and implementing projects to harness the international river systems of South America will be helpfut to other regions. The paper describes the scope, development and contents of the agreements undertaken by Latin American countries and covers these main topics: legal aspects, institutional and organisational agreements, financial and economic feasibility, tariffs and taxing aspects, environmental feasibility and contribution to social development.
 
SECURITY IN SOUTH  ASIA:
INTERNAL   AND    EXTERNAL
DIMENSIONS
by Chitra K. Tiwari
University Press of America 1988, U$28.50
The book offers a detailed analysis of South Asian security issues, including the perceptions of Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Maldives. The author discusses the possibility of a security regime emerging in South Asia. In its twelve chapters, the book also delves into internal security questions and discusses the sources and patterns of conflict/co-operation and the roles of the extra-regional powers — China, Soviet Union and the United States — in the context regional and internal conflicts in South Asia.
BIOGRAPHIES OF THE PANCHEN   LAMAS by Ya Hanzhang
Tibet People´s   Publishing House 1988, price unlisted
This book, which comes from China, starts with Panchen Lama Kedruje (1385-!438) and ends with the tenth Panchen Lama who died two months ago. The writer, Ya Hanzhang, is a sociologist and former head of the Nationalities Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He is said to have spent eight years in Tibet. According to a review which appeared in the periodical China Reconstructs, the book deals in detail with the lifetime of the fourth Panchen, Loisang Gyalcan (1570-1662); it describes the journey of the sixth Panchen to the Beijing durbar, where he died; it also devotes extensive space to the life of the ninth Panchen, Choki Nyima (1883-1937).
RECENT RESEARCH ON NEPAL Edited by Klaus Se eland Weltforum   Verlag 1986, DM 59
The contributions to this volume are part of the proceedings of a conference held at the Universitat Konslanz, West Germany, on research relating to Nepal. The presentations, by ethnologists, geographers, an Indologist, an architect, a development expert and a sociologist, show that research on Nepal´s peoples is becoming increasingly multidisciplinary. Among the subjects deals with are ascetic children, "protocol of a Brahamanic   curse",  mutual   farm
 
assistance among Tamangs, the sacred world view and ecology, ethnography of religiousdancersof Kham-Magar, environmental knowledge and adaptive mechanisms of high altitude populations, tourism and socioeconomic change in Rolwaling Valley, the Nepali law of succession, and interpretation of cadastral maps and land registers of Kathmandu Valley and Gorkha District. The 351 page paperback volume also contains a bibliography with about 2,300 titles, encompassing research on Nepal between 1975 and 1983.
ENVIRONMENTAL
IMPACT ASSESSMENT
IN DEVELOPING  COUNTRIES
Edited by  Asit  K. Biswas
and Qu  Geping
UN UniversitylTycooly
International
1988,    price unlisted
A unique contribution to the literature on development and environmental impact, this study focuses on the question of how to carry out environmental impact assessments (ElA) effectively in developing countries. The book features case-studies from Thailand, China, India and Egypt, and a comprehensive guide for planners and decision makers to the application of EIA techniques and principles in developing countries. (Development Forum)
HIMALAYAN   ECOLOGY by  S.K.   Chadha
Ashish Publishing House
1989,    IRslQO
The Himalayan ecosystem is both extremely complex and vital, supporting as it does millions of mountain people. An earnest effort at sound ecological planning is required, says the author, to prevent further deterioration of the natural resources, fauna, flora and physical features of the Himalaya. Poor environmental management has already begun to create shortages of food, fuel and fodder. Rapid deforestation is causing soil erosion, flash floods, sheet erosion, landslides, soil seepage and other problems. The population explosion and urbanisation has already destroyed the Himalayan ranges, "the lifeline of India". The author makes a plea for a programme to enhance environmental consciousness, as a small beginning to restore the ecological balance in the Himalaya.
MOUNTAIN   RESEARCH AND  DEVELOPMENT Volume  9,Number 1,  February 1989 Edited by Jack D.  Ives International Mountain Society Boulder, Colorado
The latest issue of this quarterly magazine on mountain environments, resource development and human welfare, includes a study of landslides along a hill road in Nainital District; a discussion of the environmental and socioeconomic "stress factors" perceived by peasant farmers of the Andes; and an analysis of the impact of tourism in general, and glacier skiing in particular in the Austrian Alps. Mukul Sanwal, Director of the Administrative Training Institute in Nainital, argues in an article that mountain development strategies should deal not with questions of "technical production but of institutional issues of distribution and equal access". Sanwal´s paper provides a framework for policy-focussed reform and a new perspective on common property, investment priorities and institutional arrangements. An article by Lauchlan T. Munro of McGill University, Montreal, argues that because of the highly unusual macro-economic and environmental features of Bhutan, the labour intensive technologies appropriate for most developing countries are, in fact, inappropriate for Bhutan. After a sectoral analysis of Bhutan´s economy, Munro suggests that the country needs labour saving technologies which are economical in their use of capital and relatively intensive in their use of land, and which help generate government revenue. (Subscription information: PO Box 3128, Boulder CO 80307, USA)
RETHINKING VISUAL  LITERACY HELPING PRE-LITERATES LEARN
UNJCEF-NEPAL 1989. price unlisted
This study explores how quickly villagers can improve their level of visual literacy, through exposure to illustrations or through instruction in how to interpret picture clues like emotion, motion, sequence and perspective. Due to the high illiteracy in Nepal, social change through the media can best be brought about through images and posters rather than the written word. Even then, villagers without access to regular "print media stimulation" have difficulty interpreting what to the urbanite would be a perfectly understandable poster or cartoon or photograph. This Unicef study, conducted by the Centre for Development Communication, is among the first  attempts   to try to make visual
 
literacy relevant to the "preliterate villagers" and thus help development communication become more effective.
WATER IN NEPAL by Dipak Gyawali
East-West Environment and Policy Institute, Hawaii 1989, price unlisted
This monograph is an inter-disciplinary study of the social and physical concerns that have a bearing on Nepal´s use of its water resource. Casting a broad net, it analyses the whole process of development, "this new religion of our times", in a small nation rich in water resources but with limited capital and social infrastructure. The writer discusses the difficulties that arise when expatriate donor and technical assistance agencies dominate the development process. He calls for increasing the primary scientific databases on water and recommends that the administrative structure of the Ministry of Water Resources reflect a "basin-wise" approach. He says the Government must allow private power generation and supply companies. Rather than pursuing collossal all-or-nothing hydro schemes, Kathmandu´s planners must set up smaller units and arrange one-on- one deals with individual states and companies in India.
LAND-LOCKED  STATES AND  INTERNATIONAL  LAW by Almeen   Ali
South Asia Publishers 1989, NRslSO
This book deals with the question of access to the sea for land-locked states, with special reference to the situation of Nepal. As such, the publication is especially timely in the present context of Indo Nepal relations. The author, from  the Benaras   Hindu  University,
 
states that even as the number of land locked states increased after the Second World War as a result of the decolonisation process, particularly in Africa, the problems faced by these emerging nations increased in scale and complexity. The book contains a broad and critical study of relations between land-locked Stales and transit states, and about Nepal´s policy regarding access to the Bay of Bengal and other facilities it requires from India. The author also describes Nepal´s role and altitudes in international forums as regards trade and transit rights, especially in relation to the country´s development process. The book is divided into seven chapters and contains references and a bibliography.
1988   ASIA   AND   PACIFIC
ATLAS   OF CHILDREN
IN NATIONAL   DEVELOPMENT
UNfCEF/ESCAP 1988, price unlisted
This joint effort of two United Nations agencies provides updated economic and social data that go to show the status of children within the context of overall national development of Asian states. The Atlas is one of the few available publications which stresses sub-regional data within countries. Showing the distribution of socioeconomic indicators on a geographic basis assists in understanding social development, which helps in targetting "interventions". The section for Pakistan, for example, contain data, maps and graphs on, among other things, the situation of children by administrative unit, population growth rate and density by district, birth rate, infant mortality rate, DPT immunization coverage, water supply figures, female iiterace rates and girls´enrollment in primary schools. There is also comparative data for the whole Asia-Pacific region.