Himal Southasian Podcast Channel

Geetanjali Shree's Our City That Year, translated by Daisy Rockwell (Penguin India, August 2024), is a tale of a city under siege, reflecting a society that lies fractured along fault lines of faith and ideology. First published in 1998, Our City That Year is loosely based on the communal riots and violence in the lead-up to the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in 1992 and its aftermath of rising uncertainty and dread. Twenty-six years after its original Hindi publication, the book's call to bear witness to India under the grips of religious nationalism is timelier than ever, speaking to the growing communal divisions in India and across the Subcontinent. Geetanjali Shree is the winner of the 2022 International Booker Prize, and of the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, for her novel, Tomb of Sand (Ret Samadhi in the Hindi original). The novel was also shortlisted for the Emile Guimet Prize. She has written four other novels, Mai (Mai: Silently Mother), Hamara Shahar Us Baras (Our City That Year), Tirohit (The Roof Beneath Their Feet), and Khali Jagah (Empty Space), and five collections of short stories. She writes essays and gives talks in both Hindi and English. Her work is translated into many Indian and foreign languages. Geetanjali has also worked on theatre scripts in collaboration with a Delhi based group, Vivadi, of which she is a founding member. Daisy Rockwell is a painter and award-winning translator of Hindi and Urdu literature, living in Vermont. She has published numerous translations from Hindi and Urdu, including Ashk's Falling Walls (2015), Bhisham Sahni's Tamas (2016), and Khadija Mastur's The Women's Courtyard. Her translation of Krishna Sobti's final novel, A Gujarat here, a Gujarat there (Penguin, 2019) was awarded the Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for a Translation of a Literary Work in 2019. Her translation of Geetanjali Shree's Tomb of Sand (Tilted Axis Press, 2021; HarperVia, 2022) won the 2022 International Booker Prize and the 2022 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation.

In 2019, Anura Kumara Dissanayake contested Sri Lanka's presidential election against the incumbent Gotabaya Rajapaksa. He won only three percent of the vote. In the parliamentary elections a year later, the National People's power – the coalition that includes Dissanayake's party, the Janata Vimukti Peramuna – won only three seats. The JVP was disparaged as the “three percent party.” In 2024, Dissanayake has turned the tables by winning 42 percent of the vote share. Meanwhile, Namal Rajapaksa, the son of former president and prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, secured only three percent. Dissanayake's meteoric rise to Sri Lanka's executive presidency, which marks a landmark shift in the country's politics, was powered in large part by the people's struggle or Aragalaya in 2022 and the simmering public dissatisfaction with the political class ever since. In this episode of State of Southasia, Ambika Satkunanathan, a lawyer and former commissioner of human rights in Sri Lanka, explains how sections of the populace, including the Tamil minority, are wary of Dissanayake, given the JVP's history of violent insurrections in the 1980s and its leftist economic outlook. However, she says, he has made the right moves in reaching out to business communities and showing an eagerness to work with everyone. State of Southasia releases a new interview every four weeks. This podcast is now available on Soundcloud, Spotify, Apple podcasts and Youtube.

On 19 August, the government of the Indian state of Kerala released 233 pages of a report on gender discrimination in the Malayalam language film industry based in the state. The government released the report six years after it was commissioned and more than four years after it was first submitted. The report has come to be called the Hema Committee report, named for the chairperson, the former judge K Hema. The other two members of the committee were the veteran actor T Sharada and the retired civil services officer K B Vasalakumari. The committee was constituted after a group of actors and artists called the Women in Cinema Collective petitioned the government to look into conditions in which women in the industry were made to work. Film journalist Anna M M Vetticad, who has followed the story for years, says that only the persistence of this collective has ensured the report's release. The report contains depositions from several senior and junior artists and workers, both women and men. Based on these depositions and their own inquiries, the authors of the report found rampant abuse – sexual harassment and assault, demands of sexual favours for entry into the industry, the lack of facilities like toilets and changing rooms on sets, the lack of security measures in transport and accommodation, gender discrimination in renumeration, silencing women with threats of bans and much more. Since the report was released, a number of women have made allegations of sexual misconduct against men in the industry, triggering another #Metoo wave. The government has constituted a special investigation team to look into the allegations. But Vetticad points out that the sexual abuse, while horrific, is only a symptom of larger systemic problems in an industry that needs structural change from the ground up. She speaks to Himal's Nayantara Narayanan in this episode of State of Southasia about the findings and flaws of the report, institutionalised misogyny in Malayalam cinema on-screen and on set, and why this is a moment of reckoning for all of India's film industries. This epsiode is now available on Soundcloud: https://on.soundcloud.com/HiEyJvoyFBBcVpYM6 Youtube: https://youtu.be/980k0zfDiGM Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4VQxaymMemJdweDZOAGz5z?si=nywQWUvEQtGzNEIAbe2UBg Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/state-of-southasia-09-anna-m-m-vetticad-on-the/id1464880116?i=1000669665201 https://www.himalmag.com/podcast/hema-committee-report-kerala-malayalam-film-industry-bollywood-women-in-cinema-collective Listeners like you make conversations like this one possible. Become a patron to support the State of Southasia podcast: https://www.himalmag.com/support-himal

In the three years since its return to power, the Taliban have excluded women and girls from almost every aspect of public life in Afghanistan, denying them access to education, employment, even speaking or showing their faces outside their homes. Published this August, My Dear Kabul: A Year in the Life of An Afghan Women's Writing Group (Coronet, August 2024) is the collective diary of 21 fiercely brilliant Afghan women writers, compiled using WhatsApp messages, offering courageous and intimate testimonies of the fall of Kabul in 2021 and its aftermath, of life under Taliban rule and far from home in exile. In August 2021 these women were in the process of publishing an anthology of short stories when their world was turned upside down. As they watched their cities fall, schools close, families and friends disperse and freedoms disappear, they stayed connected via WhatsApp messages, and established a space to keep their creativity alive, support each other and bear witness to the turmoil unfolding around them. My Dear Kabul is their story. My Dear Kabul is an Untold Narratives project, supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England and by The Bagri Foundation. Untold is a development programme for writers marginalised by community or conflict. It has been working with women writers in Afghanistan since 2020, where support for writers has been hampered by restrictions on freedom of expression and instability. Marie, among the 21 contributors to My Dear Kabul, was born in Afghanistan but her family lived in exile when she was a young child, returning home during the years of the Islamic republic. She studied for her first degree at Kabul University's Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences before completing a master's degree in India. In August 2021, Marie was in Afghanistan, working in the marketing department of a German aid agency while running her own women-led counselling service. In November 2021, she was evacuated from her family home to an apartment in Germany; she moved alone. Her story ‘The Café' was published in Moveable Type in 2023. Marie is also a contributor to My Pen Is the Wing of a Bird (MacLehose Press, 2021) and Rising After the Fall (Scholastic, 2023). Parwana Fayyaz, a translator and editor of My Dear Kabul, is a scholar and teacher of Persian literature at the University of Cambridge. She is also a poet and translator working with multiple languages. Her poetry collection, Forty Names (Carcanet Press, 2021), was a New Statesman book of the year and a White Review book of the year. Her translations promote the writings and culture of Afghan people around the world. Sunila Galappatti, an editor of My Dear Kabul, has worked with other people's stories as a dramaturg, theatre director, editor and writer: at the Royal Shakespeare Company, Live Theatre (Newcastle), Galle Literary Festival, Raking Leaves, Suriya Women's Development Centre, Commonwealth Writers, Himal Southasian and Untold Narratives. She spent five years working with a long-term prisoner of war in the Sri Lankan conflict, to retell his story in A Long Watch (Hurst, 2016). I should add I've had the privilege of working with Sunila at Himal - so I'm thrilled to be speaking with her today.

On 21 August, Afghanistan's Taliban rulers formally issued “vice and virtue” laws codifying rules of lifestyle and behaviour, entrenching their control over social interactions and the private lives of people in the country. Unsurprisingly, the strictest measures relate to the dress and demeanour of women. The laws say that Muslim women must cover their faces and bodies around non-Muslim women and all men who are not “mahrams” – their husbands, brothers, fathers, sons, grandfathers or uncles. They also deem a woman's voice to be intimate and say that it should not be heard singing, reciting or reading aloud in public. The diktat came a week after the Taliban celebrated three years of establishing the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in August 2021, after the withdrawal of US troops from the country and the fall of a republican government. Soon after the group took power, the Taliban government set up a ministry for the propagation of virtue and prevention of vice, which has issued edicts and enforced them through a “morality police”. A UN report from July said that such decrees had created a climate of intimidation and fear among Afghans. The decrees have disproportionately affected women, who have had severe restrictions placed on their movement, attire and education under the Taliban. Men have also been affected. For example, last week, the morality police dismissed 280 men who did not have beards from the security forces. The two most immediate and momentous fallouts of the change in Afghanistan's leadership in 2021 were the drying up of foreign-exchange reserves, leading to the collapse of the economy, and the crackdown on the freedoms of women. In this episode of ‘State of Southasia', Nayantara Narayanan speaks to Kate Clark, co-director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, a research organisation in Kabul, about how the Afghan people have been coping with deprivation under the repressive regime.

Welcome to the Southasia Review of Books Podcast from Himal Southasian, where we speak to celebrated authors and emerging literary voices from across Southasia. In this episode, Shwetha Srikanthan, assistant editor at Himal Southasian, speaks to Neha Dixit about her debut non-fiction book The Many Lives of Syeda X: The Story of an Unknown Indian. Neha is an independent journalist based in New Delhi. She has covered politics, gender and social justice in print, TV and online media for 17 years. She reports for Al Jazeera, The Washington Post, the Caravan, The Wire and others. She has won over a dozen international and national journalism awards including One Young World Journalist of the Year Award in 2020, the International Press Freedom Award in 2019 from the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Chaameli Devi Jain Award for Outstanding Woman Journalist in 2017, among others. In her book The Many Lives of Syeda X, Neha traces the life of one working-class Indian migrant woman, her friends and family over the course of thirty years, spanning from the early 1990s to the present day. This episode is now available on Soundcloud: Spotify: Apple Podcasts: Youtube:

In this episode of ‘State of Southasia', Nayantara Narayanan speaks to Ali Riaz, distinguished professor at Illinois State University, who studies democratisation, violent extremism, political Islam, and Southasian and Bangladeshi politics. Riaz details how, after the government displayed absolute disregard for people's lives, it has further lost legitimacy and seen the political ground shift in Bangladesh. State of Southasia releases a new interview every four weeks.

Welcome to the Southasia Review of Books Podcast from Himal Southasian, where we speak to celebrated authors and emerging literary voices from across Southasia. In this episode, Shwetha Srikanthan, assistant editor at Himal Southasian, speaks to the Colombo-based author Vajra Chandrasekera about his debut novel 'The Saint of Bright Doors' (July 2023) and his second and most recent novel, 'Rakesfall' (June 2024). In The Saint of Bright Doors, Vajra paints a vivid picture of a city on the brink – tracing Fetter's path from child assassin, raised to kill his saintly father to misguided adult with the ability to see devils, anti-gods and magical traces of their world – like the mysterious bright doors. In blending the mundane and fantastical with violence of colonialism, religious control, and the struggles against these systems – the book captures the complex of the power structures that shape us. But one lifetime is not enough to tell some stories. Rakesfall is a complex portrait of death and reincarnations. This cross-genre science fiction epic, following two souls as they reincarnate and echo across alternative realities, the mythic past to modern Sri Lanka, its long drawn civil war, to a far-future Earth abandoned by humanity. We see how those in power consolidate their hold on society, even to the point of strangling it again and again. It's about the rise and fall of empires. How every attempt to make imperial power last forever fails and is always vulnerable to rebellion. At its core, The Saint of Bright Doors and Rakesfall explore the connectedness of struggles for liberation and how they reoccur in different contexts of oppression. The Saint of Bright Doors has won the Locus, Nebula, and Crawford awards and is a finalist for the 2024 Hugo Award for Best Novel. Vajra's nonfiction, poetry and over 50 short stories have appeared in magazines and anthologies including Analog, Black Static, Clarkesworld, The Los Angeles Times, among others. He has worked as an editor for Strange Horizons and Afterlives: The Year's Best Death Stories, and as a judge for the Dream Foundry Writing Contest and the Salam Award. This episode is now available on Soundcloud: Spotify: Apple Podcasts: Youtube: youtu.be/VXuSQtHRDZk

In this episode of State of Southasia, assistant editor Nayantara Narayanan speaks to Harsh Mander, the peace activist and founder of Karwan-e-Mohabbat, a campaign in solidarity with victims of communal or religious violence. Mander says that over the past decade the Modi regime has normalised, legitimised, valourised and incentivised hate to such an extent that it is difficult to undo despite any kind of electoral setback to his party, and that much more is needed to defeat the social project of hate that is underway. State of Southasia releases a new interview every four weeks.

At Screen Southasia, we host monthly online screenings of compelling documentaries from the region, including Nepal, India, Kashmir, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Tibet, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Maldives and Sri Lanka. We present a diverse range of films, both classic and new, that showcase the unique cultures, histories and perspectives of Southasia. Screen Southasia is a partnership between Himal Southasian and Film Southasia. Film: Split Ends Country: Nepal Released: 2016 Q and A with director: 7 JUNE 2024 (FRIDAY) Time: 6 pm IST, 6:15 pm NPT, 5:30 pm PKT Synopsis: A barbershop becomes a place of refuge for Nepali migrants who travel to Portugal in search of the European dream. About the director: Rajan Kathet is a filmmaker based in Kathmandu working in both fiction and documentary films. Rajan's first feature documentary, "No Winter Holidays," premiered in the International First Feature Competition section of Sheffield DocFest 2023 and is the winner of the NATIVA Award at Alternativa Film Awards 2023 in Kazakhstan. His short fiction work, "Bare Trees In The Mist (2019)," was screened at several international film festivals, including the Toronto International Film Festival 2019, Tampere Film Festival, HKIFF, Encounters Film Festival, Dharamshala IFF, and Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia. Rajan collaborates with national and international filmmakers through his production company, Salpa Films. He has worked on projects such as the Taiwanese feature documentary “After The Snowmelt” by Yi-Shan Lo, which premiered at Visions du Réel 2024, and the TV documentaries "In the Land of Machines" by Heo Chul-nyung (South Korea), "Home Street Home" by Alan Lau for Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK), and "A Himalayan Endgame" by Deepak Chaturvedi (India), all of which are in post-production. Rajan is also engaged in film education and mentors young filmmakers through his involvement in local film schools and filmmaking workshops. He regularly contributes to the Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival DocLab.

Welcome to the Southasia Review of Books Podcast from Himal Southasian, where we speak to celebrated authors and emerging literary voices from across Southasia. In this episode, Shwetha Srikanthan, assistant editor at Himal Southasian, speaks to Siddhartha Deb about his novel 'The Light at the End of the World' and his latest book, 'Twilight Prisoners: The Rise of the Hindu Right and the Fall of India'. 'The Light at the End of the World', Siddhartha Deb's first novel in fifteen years, reinvents Southasian fiction for our time. The novel, beginning and ending in a dystopian future of authoritarianism and climate disaster, blurs the lines between realism and speculative fiction. It captures the puzzle of contradictions that is modern India today, and traces it back to the many moments of apocalypse in the Subcontinent's history. At its core, the story is also about how certain tragedies and certain kinds of violence are repeated. Over the past decade and a half, India has pivoted from a seeming success story, revealing itself to be a stranger than fiction-dystopia. In his recently published collection of essays, 'Twilight Prisoners', Siddhartha paints a damning picture of these darkest of turns in India's recent past. It is a powerful exploration of the rise of Hindu Nationalism and its impact on dissenting voices and marginalised communities. And most importantly, it's a timely reminder that those who resisted and are resisting – India's twilight prisoners if you will – are not forgotten. As long as there is resistance and remembrance, there is still hope. Born in Shillong, in northeastern India, Siddhartha Deb lives in Harlem, New York. His fiction and nonfiction have been longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award, shortlisted for the Orwell Prize, and been awarded the Pen Open prize. His journalism and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, The New Republic, Dissent, The Baffler, N+1, and The Caravan. Episode notes: This episode is now available on Soundcloud: on.soundcloud.com/LoWvGocG7fDagxrQ7 Spotify: spoti.fi/3KKdxsf Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3KMugLF Youtube: youtu.be/s8QAJGgY6zc

Welcome to the second edition of the Himal Fiction Fest, where we celebrated Southasian fiction in translation. Southasia's rich literary tradition spans hundreds of languages, cultures, regions and traditions – and translators play a vital role in bringing these works the exposure and recognition they deserve, and connect. To kick off the festival, we hosted an online reading of translated stories originally written in Bangla, Farsi, Hindi, Nepali, Punjabi and Tamil by their translators. These stories are published on our website. This was followed by a panel discussion on the future of Southasian fiction in translation, which featured the prize-winning translators Daisy Rockwell, Musharraf Ali Farooqi and Jayasree Kalathil, as well as the leading literary agent Kanishka Gupta. The event was held in partnership with the Armory Square Prize for Southasian Literature in Translation. The 2024 prize finalists read excerpts from their translations before the announcement of this year's winner. The event took place on Monday, 10 June 2024 Featured in the fest: My Sister, Life (excerpt) by Mahmudul Haque, translated from Bangla by Shabnam Nadiya and Mahmud Rahman Insects (excerpt) by Fauzia Rafique, translated from Punjabi by Haider Shahbaz Unknown by Mayilan G Chinnappan, translated from Tamil by Kalyan Raman Chowmein by Durga Karki, translated from Nepali by Sandesh Ghimire Lord Almighty, Grant Us Riots! by Anil Yadav, translated from Hindi by Vaibhav Sharma One Day Forever... (excerpt) by Lina Rozbeh Haidari, translated from Farsi by Laila Ghezal Azimi

In this episode of State of Southasia, Nayantara Narayanan speaks to Laxmi Murthy, a senior journalist and the editor of the report, about the important role of the media and the struggles of journalists working in crisis conditions in an especially important year for the region, when several countries in Southasia are holding elections. (Disclosure: Laxmi Murthy is a Contributing Editor for Himal Southasian.) State of Southasia releases a new interview every four weeks.

Welcome to the Southasia Review of Books Podcast from Himal Southasian, where we speak to celebrated authors and emerging literary voices from across Southasia. In this episode, Shwetha Srikanthan, assistant editor at Himal Southasian, speaks to the Siliguri-based poet, writer and essayist Sumana Roy about her latest book 'Provincials: Postcards from the Peripheries'. In Southasian literature, it seems that there might not be any other way to see the province except in contrast to the city. So much has been said about cosmopolitanism, but what of provincialism? Growing up in Siliguri, a sub-Himalayan town in Bengal, Sumana Roy's experiences have marked her understanding of the provincial reader's life: including the sense of belatedness, and the desire for pleasure in language. There's a constant search for writings that bring other worlds to the provincial readers' lives but also for glimpses of lives similar to theirs. In a series of “postcards” from the peripheries of Southasia and beyond, with writings ranging from Rabindranath Tagore to William Shakespeare, Bhakti poets to the Brontës, Sumana introduces us to the imaginative world of those who have celebrated provinciality. She challenges the dominance of the metropolis to reclaim the dignity of provincial life and challenges the imaginary barriers we tend to put between the rural and urban. Sumana Roy is a poet, writer, essayist and editor based in Siliguri. She is the author of several published texts, including her latest 'Provincials' (2024), 'How I Became a Tree' (2017), 'Missing' (2018), 'My Mother's Lover and Other Stories' (2019), and two poetry collections, 'Out of Syllabus' (2019) and 'VIP: Very Important Plant' (2022). Episode notes: https://www.himalmag.com/podcast/sumana-roy-provincials-postcards-southasian-peripheries-tagore-bengal-siliguri-literature Listen to the episode on Soundcloud: on.soundcloud.com/ZRR39EPSLv3Ptqa38 Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3UQD9IR Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/44SPnFd Youtube: youtu.be/yDxo2G_f0X8 Southasia Review of Books is a podcast and a monthly newsletter that threads together our latest reviews and literary essays, with curated reading lists and all things books-related from Himal's extensive archive. A special reading list curated by Sumana Roy will be featured in this month's Southasia Review of Books Newsletter. You can subscribe to the newsletter here:bit.ly/sign-up-southasia-review-of-books-newsletter. A new episode of the Southasia Review of Books Podcast will be available once every four weeks. If you like this episode, please share widely, rate, review, subscribe and download the show on your favourite podcast apps.

Extreme heat has immense economic and social impacts in Southasia, an area that is most vulnerable to heat, that is densely populated, and that has a large numbers of people living in poverty. Research says that extreme heat is here to stay and will likely only get worse. An analysis of the 2022 heatwave across India and Pakistan showed that human-induced climate change makes Southasian heatwaves 30 times more likely. In this episode of State of Southasia, Nayantara Narayanan speaks to Chandni Singh, a senior researcher at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements who works on climate change adaptation across Southasia. Singh talks about how the current Southasian experience of heat is unlike anything the region has seen in the past. State of Southasia releases a new interview every four weeks. Episode notes: Further reading from Himal's archives: As India's election heats up, soaring temperatures from climate change find little mention in mainstream media: https://www.himalmag.com/politics/india-election-rising-temperatures-heatwaves-risks-climate-change-journalism-mainstream-legacy-media Nepal's unescapable trap of migration, farming and climate change: https://www.himalmag.com/politics/nepal-himalaya-migration-rural-farming-agriculture-climate-change INTERVIEW: COP28, the transition from fossil fuels and the Loss and Damage fund: https://www.himalmag.com/podcast/cop28-dubai-climate-change-net-zero-simon-evans Climate change in Bangladesh is driving a dengue outbreak in winter: https://www.himalmag.com/video/climate-change-dengue-outbreak-in-winter-bangladesh Primacy and absence of climate change: https://www.himalmag.com/excerpt/primacy-and-absence-of-climate-change-bangladesh-threatening-dystopias-excerpt-2021 Chipko to climate change: https://www.himalmag.com/reportage/chipko-to-climate-change-2021

Welcome to the Southasia Review of Books Podcast from Himal Southasian, where we speak to celebrated authors and emerging literary voices from across Southasia. In this episode, Shwetha Srikanthan, assistant editor at Himal Southasian, speaks to the Karachi-based author Taha Kehar about his latest novel No Funeral for Nazia. https://www.himalmag.com/podcast/taha-kehar-no-funeral-for-nazia-karachi-pakistan-literature-southasian-mystery-novels * Rituals of mourning are a huge part of cultures across Southasia, but as a society we don't often speak about grief and death. The decision about what happens to us after death is one of the most personal choices we make, and it might be rooted in family wishes, cultural expectations, religious traditions, personal preference, or all of the above. But in No Funeral for Nazia, a richly imagined mystery set in Karachi, the author Taha Kehar presents an intriguing alternative. In her final days, the protagonist Nazia writes a diary of instructions for her sister, Naureen, as well as six letters to be delivered after her death. There is to be no funeral, instead, only six invitees are asked to attend a party, including one mystery guest, where various truths and long-held grudges are revealed throughout the night and we witness the entangled relationships between these characters and Nazia. The story also traces gender and class dynamics in Karachi society as well as past and present events of Pakistani politics, giving us a sweeping glimpse of the country's urban life – which we explore further in this conversation. * Taha Kehar is a novelist, journalist and literary critic based in Karachi. A law graduate from SOAS, London, Taha is the co-editor of a multi-author anthology titled 'The Stained-Glass Window: Stories of the Pandemic from Pakistan'. Taha is also the author of three novels, Of Rift and Rivalry, Typically Tanya, and his latest, No Funeral for Nazia. * Listen on Soundcloud: on.soundcloud.com/REg2ViHv83RpinXe8 Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4da4pdI Apple Podcasts: apple.co/49LR1t6 Youtube: youtu.be/IQseJRik6V4 Southasia Review of Books is a podcast and a monthly newsletter that threads together our latest reviews and literary essays, with curated reading lists and all things books-related from Himal's extensive archive. A special reading list curated by Taha Kehar will be featured in this month's Southasia Review of Books Newsletter. You can subscribe to Himal's newsletters here: http://bit.ly/sign-up-southasia-review-of-books-newsletter A new episode of the Southasia Review of Books Podcast will be available once every four weeks. If you like this episode, please share widely, rate, review, subscribe and download the show on your favourite podcast apps.

Over the last many decades, India has taken pride in an election process that, while allowing close to a billion people to exercise their franchise, has always been largely free and fair. However, Narendra Modi's government has taken a series of actions that have called the sanctity of the country's 2024 general elections into question. This includes a dubious scheme of electoral bonds that has allowed parties – Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party more than others – to raise funds from anonymous donors, as well as a reconstitution of the Election Commission that will likely favour the ruling party. The BJP has also dealt a hammer blow to the opposition by arresting two chief ministers on charges of corruption and freezing the largest opposition party's assets. In this episode of State of Southasia, Nayantara Narayanan speaks to Aakar Patel on how hard-won gains in democratic processes including elections have been squandered by the Modi government at great cost to the Indian republic. They also discusswhat the opposition's options are and what an unfree and unfair election in the world's largest democracy meansfor the rest of Southasia. State of Southasia releases a new interview every four weeks. Episode notes: Further reading from Himal's archives: The enduring personality cult of Narendra Modi: https://www.himalmag.com/politics/christophe-jaffrelot-gujarat-narendra-modi-bharatiya-janata-party-hindu-nationalism With an unfree and unfair election, Pakistan prepares to repeat its past: https://www.himalmag.com/politics/pakistan-unfree-unfair-election-military-nawaz-sharif-imran-khan State of Southasia #02: Ayesha Siddiqa on Pakistan's stormy election and its message for the military: https://www.himalmag.com/podcast/ayesha-siddiqa-pakistan-election-2024-imran-khan-shebaz-sharif-pml-nawaz-military In Bangladesh's sham election, the only real contest is geopolitical: https://www.himalmag.com/politics/geopolitics-us-europe-china-india-sheikh-hasina-awami-league-2024-bangladesh-election Prabir Purkayastha's fight against two Emergencies in India – under Modi and Indira Gandhi Every vote counts in Kashmir: https://www.himalmag.com/reviews/prabir-purkayastha-newsclick-arrest-emergency-india-indira-gandhi-narendra-modi

This Southasian Conversation looks at the costs of Reliance's wildlife ambitions, featuring conservationist M D Madhusudan, environmental lawyer Shibani Ghosh and journalist M Rajshekhar in conversation with Roman Gautam, Editor of Himal Southasian. Led by Anant Ambani and supported by the Indian government, the Reliance conglomerate's effort to shelter abused elephants has transmuted into an enormous wildlife centre – raising concerns over the sourcing of some animals as well as over India's wildlife management. Here we dive deeper into the past and disturbing present of wildlife conservation in India and beyond. Read M Rajshekhar's story 'The costs of Reliance's wildlife ambitions' here: https://www.himalmag.com/politics/reliance-ambani-anant-elephants-wildlife-vantara-radhe-krishna-trust-greens This online conversation was recorded on 4 April, 2024 at 7 PM IST. You can listen to this conversation on Soundcloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Youtube.

Welcome to the Southasia Review of Books Podcast from Himal Southasian, where we speak to celebrated authors and emerging literary voices from across Southasia. In this episode, Shwetha Srikanthan, assistant editor at Himal Southasian, speaks to the author Smriti Ravindra about her debut novel 'The Woman Who Climbed Trees' and the representation of the Madhesi community in the literary imagination of Nepal. The Nepali-Indian writer Smriti Ravindra is a Fulbright scholar and holds an MFA in creative writing from the North Carolina State University. Her fiction and journalism have been published in the United States and in India, and she is the author of The Woman Who Climbed Trees, a searing story of three generations of women and the challenges faced by them in traditional societies across India and Nepal. The novel begins with the story of a woman who climbed trees every night, and she gets labeled as a witch by her community. And the title also lets on, this is a story of women who break rules and will keep climbing trees despite the constraints of society weighing them down. With the lyrical use of folklore and mythology, Smriti Ravindra unravels the experiences of women who leave their parent's homes after marriage, and in the process become strangers to their own selves, and outsiders in these settings. The story, set partly in the late 1980s and early 1990s of Kathmandu, also traces the major political transitions of Nepal, addressing questions of ethnicity and corruption, and in doing so, the book sheds light on the long-ignored topic of the Madhesi experience, particularly that of women, in Nepali literature – which we explore further in this conversation. This episode is now available on Soundcloud: on.soundcloud.com/tnv3Tfpg39EG4sPC8 Spotify: spoti.fi/498g4Gv Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3TxYgyF Youtube: youtu.be/bX4IvY311-0 himalmag.com/podcast/smriti-ravindra-the-woman-who-climbed-trees-madhesi-women-identity-nepal-literature *** Southasia Review of Books is a podcast and a monthly newsletter that threads together our latest reviews and literary essays, with curated reading lists and all things books-related from Himal's extensive archive. A special reading list curated by Smriti Ravindra will be featured in this month's Southasia Review of Books Newsletter. You can subscribe to Himal's newsletters here: bit.ly/HimalNewsletters A new episode of the Southasia Review of Books Podcast will be available once every four weeks. If you like this episode, please share widely, rate, review, subscribe and download the show on your favourite podcast apps.

In this episode of State of Southasia, Nayantara Narayanan speaks to Ayesha Siddiqa, a political and military analyst from Pakistan and currently a senior fellow at the department of war studies at King's College in London. Siddiqa is also the author of Military Inc, a revelatory book about the Pakistan military's economic activities and their fallout. Ayesha Siddiqa discusses the support for Imran Khan in Pakistan's recent election, the formation of a new government under Shebaz Sharif and growing public disaffection with the military State of Southasia releases a new interview every four weeks.

Welcome to the Southasia Review of Books Podcast from Himal Southasian, where we speak to celebrated authors and emerging literary voices from across Southasia. In this episode, the novelist V V Ganeshananthan joins host Shwetha Srikanthan, assistant editor at Himal Southasian, to talk about the books that define her latest novel, Brotherless Night, and women's writing on Sri Lanka's long history of anti-Tamil violence. V V Ganeshananthan, also known as Sugi, is the author of the novels Brotherless Night (a New York Times Editors' Choice) and Love Marriage, which was longlisted for the Women's Prize and named one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post. She also teaches in the MFA program at the University of Minnesota, where she is an associate professor of English, and co-hosts the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast on Literary Hub, looking at the intersection of literature and the news. Brotherless Night, published in 2023, contends with the Sri Lankan civil war's end by returning to its beginning through the voice of Sashi, a young Tamil woman growing up in the northern city of Jaffna. As violence unfolds around Sashi, her four brothers and their friends, they navigate the complexities and contradictions of seeking political liberation while confronting the cruelty of the Sri Lankan government, Indian peacekeepers and Tamil militant groups. As the book's title lets on, there were huge costs to this war absorbed by young men in Sri Lanka's north and east, but there's also immense loss experienced by women - mothers, students, civilians and activists. Part of the success of Brotherless Night is that it's not only an essential contribution to writings on Sri Lanka's civil war, but it humanises the lived experiences of Tamil women and the ways in which they've been affected by anti-Tamil violence. Through Brotherless Night, Ganeshananthan poses urgent questions on whose stories are told and who gets to tell the stories and histories of conflict in Sri Lanka – which we explore further in this conversation. *** Southasia Review of Books is a podcast and a monthly newsletter that threads together our latest reviews and literary essays, with curated reading lists and all things books-related from Himal's extensive archive. A special reading list curated by V V Ganeshananthan will be featured in this month's Southasia Review of Books Newsletter. You can subscribe to Himal's newsletters at bit.ly/HimalNewsletters. A new episode of the Southasia Review of Books Podcast will be available once every four weeks. If you like this episode, please share widely, rate, review, subscribe and download the show on your favourite podcast apps.

At Screen Southasia, we host monthly online screenings of compelling documentaries from the region, including Nepal, India, Kashmir, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Tibet, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Maldives and Sri Lanka. We present a diverse range of films, both classic and new, that showcase the unique cultures, histories and perspectives of Southasia. Screen Southasia is a partnership between Himal Southasian and Film Southasia. In this Screen Southasia Q&A session, recorded on 5 February 2024, we speak with the filmmaker Jude Ratnam on his film 'Demons in Paradise' Synopsis Sri Lanka 1983 – Jude Ratnam is five years old. On a red train, he flees the massacre of Tamils instigated by the Pro-Sinhalese majoritarian government. Now a filmmaker, he takes the same train from South to North. As he advances, the traces of the violence of the 26-year-old war, which turned the Tamil fight for freedom into self-destructive terrorism pass before his eyes. He unveils the repressed memories of his compatriots, opening the door to a new era and making peace possible again. Demons in Paradise is the result of ten years of work. For the first time, a Tamil documentary filmmaker living in Sri Lanka is seeing the Civil war from the inside.

On 22 January 2024, as India's prime minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the new Ram temple in Ayodhya, a 32-year old film was recirculated across India on social media platforms. Many Indians felt the need to watch and share the documentary Ram ke naam made by Anand Parwardhan in 1990. The film captured the mobilisation of hundreds of Hindu activists who were made to believe that Ram was born at the exact spot where the 16th century Babri Masjid stood and, as a result, wanted a temple built there instead of the mosque. The film was released in September 1992 just months before a group of militant Hindu activists illegally tore down the Babri Masjid. In this episode of State of Southasia, our assistant editor Nayantara Narayanan speaks to Patwardhan about the making of Ram ke naam, why India ignored its warnings about religious fundamentalism and what lessons it still holds three decades later. State of Southasia releases with a new interview every four weeks.

Anil Varghese and Nawal Kishore Kumar discuss Bihar's caste survey and its implications for affirmative action In October 2023, the chief minister of Bihar, Nitish Kumar, released the results of a caste survey of his state – a landmark development given that India has not had a comprehensive count of its caste composition since 1931, and pushed through despite resistance from the central government under the Bharatiya Janata Party. Bihar's survey found that over two-thirds of the state's population of 130 million belonged to oppressed castes, establishing an essential fact in the wider battle for expanded affirmative action for oppressed communities. The results of Bihar's caste count will likely trigger more such exercises in other parts of India. In this edition of Himal Interviews, our Editor, Roman Gautam, interviews Anil Varghese and Nawal Kishore Kumar of Forward Press, a Delhi-based publishing house and website dedicated to anti-caste thought and caste emancipation. Varghese is the editor-in-chief of Forward Press, while Kumar is the Hindi editor. Varghese and Kumar also collaborated on an article for Himal Southasian, titled ‘India needs a caste census – and Southasia does too', published on 13 January. Why has a country-wide caste census in India been delayed for so long? How might Bihar's survey results impact the representation of oppressed castes in all spheres of Indian public life?

Southasiasphere is our roundup of news events and analysis of regional affairs, out every two weeks. If you are a member, you will automatically receive links to new episodes in your inbox. We are in the process of upgrading and improving our podcast offerings, including experimenting with different formats. We will continue to bring you news and analysis. Please stay tuned for more in the coming weeks. In this episode, we talk about two key members pulling out of the opposition-led India National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) months before elections, fisticuffs in Maldives' Parliament, Pakistan accusing India of targeted assassinations, Nepal's National Assembly poll results, the Taliban detaining an Afghan poet, Sri Lanka's passage of the Online Safety Bill, India's plans to fence the Myanmar border and Hindus being given leave to pray in the Gyanvapi Mosque.

Southasiasphere is our roundup of news events and analysis of regional affairs, now out every two weeks. If you are a member, you will automatically receive links to new episodes in your inbox. In this episode, we talk about escalating tensions between the Maldives and India, national elections in Bangladesh and Bhutan, justice for Bilkis Bano and the inauguration of Ram Mandir, PTI losing its cricket bat symbol, the continuation of Operation 1027 despite a China-brokered ceasefire, Nepal's former cricket captain receiving an 8 year sentence for rape, Iran launching a missile attack on Balochistan, the new Dhaka-Kathmandu bus service and escalating dengue cases in Bangladesh.  Episode Notes: Himal's future is in your hands! Become a member to support our work: http://www.himalmag.com/membership Share your feedback with this survey: https://us3.list-manage.com/survey?u=0c87df9f0948bcfa1bc80d2b4&id=ba236fbe73&attribution=false

Israel's brutal bombardment of Gaza has killed over 20,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 50,000 others since the 7 October attack by Hamas. While India strongly condemned the attack and expressed solidarity with Israel, India recently voted in favour of several draft resolutions in the United Nations that criticised Israel's conduct in Gaza and supported aid for Palestinian civilians, after initially abstaining on a resolution that had called for an immediate humanitarian truce and unhindered humanitarian access in the Gaza strip. This signifies that deeper shifts have taken place in India's approach to Israel. For most of independent India's history, New Delhi had no diplomatic relations with Israel. Today, Indian and Israeli flags are displayed together at rallies demonstrating solidarity with Israel. India and Israel under Narendra Modi and Benjamin Netanyahu have developed a significant military partnership and growing economic ties. In a review essay on Azad Essa's Hostile Homelands: The New Alliance between India and Israel, for Himal Southasian, Rohan Venkat explores the ideological convergence of Hindutva and Zionism, and the consequences for Kashmir and Palestine – and argues there is much more driving India and Israel's deepening ties. Rohan Venkat is a Non-Resident Visiting Scholar and Consulting Editor at the Centre for the Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania. He writes India Inside Out, a newsletter on Indian politics, foreign policy and history. In this edition of Himal Interviews, Rohan Venkat talks about how the most potent commonality between India and Israel isn't in the trade and defence ties they have been building over the past three decades. Instead, Rohan explores how the ideological movements that lie at the core of India and Israel's political leadership today serve to justify the excesses of both states, and the wider implications of this for Southasia. Rohan Venkat's recommendations: Hostile Homelands: The New Alliance Between India and Israel by Azad Essa Pluto Press (February 2023) The Evolution of India's Israel Policy: Continuity, Change, and Compromise Since 1922 by Nicolas Blarel. Oxford University Press (January 2015) India's Israel Policy by P R Kumaraswamy. Columbia University Press (July 2010) The Ezra Klein Show by The New York Times Minor Detail Adania Shibli. Fitzcarraldo Editions and New Directions Publishing (June 2017) The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit by Lucette Lagnado. Ecco (June 2007)

January 2024 - Updates and analysis from around the region Southasiasphere is our roundup of news events and analysis of regional affairs, now out every two weeks. If you are a member, you will automatically receive links to new episodes in your inbox. In this episode, we talk about truckers protesting India's proposed hit and run laws, Pakistan's Election Commission rejecting Imran Khan's nomination for upcoming elections, India's Space Research Organisation launching a rocket to study black holes, Nobel laureate Muhammed Yunus being convicted of violating Bangladesh's labour laws, protests in Balochistan, the resumption of work on a Chinese-funded deep seawater port in Myanmar, Sri Lanka's moratorium on Chinese research vessels, the deaths of two protesters in Kathmandu and the closure of the UNHCR office in Sri Lanka. Episode Notes: Become a Himal member to support our work: http://www.himalmag.com/membership Share your feedback with this survey. https://us3.list-manage.com/survey?u=0c87df9f0948bcfa1bc80d2b4&id=ba236fbe73&attribution=false

December 2023 - Updates and analysis from around the region Southasiasphere is our roundup of news events and analysis of regional affairs, now out every two weeks. If you are a member, you will automatically receive links to new episodes in your inbox. In this episode, we talk about flooding in Tamil Nadu, the mass suspension of India's opposition MPs and key bills passed in the Lok Sabha, Imran Khan using AI to participate in a virtual Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf rally, a large Bangladesh Nationalist Party rally ahead of Bangladesh's elections, Maldives ending a hydrographic survey of India, 56 Sri Lankans being held captive at the Thai-Myanmar border, Bhutan's upcoming national assembly elections, Myanmar overtaking Afghanistan as the world's largest opium producer and a landmark decision on caste discrimination in Nepal. Episode Notes: Himal's future is in your hands! Become a member to support our work: http://www.himalmag.com/membership Share your feedback with this survey: https://us3.list-manage.com/survey?u=0c87df9f0948bcfa1bc80d2b4&id=ba236fbe73&attribution=false

The 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference, more commonly known as COP28, was held from 30 November to 12 December in Dubai. This year the main focus was global progress on the Paris Agreement, a crucial legally binding climate change deal signed by the parties in 2015. For Southasia, the conference was primarily about finding financial assistance for their communities, who face the worst impacts of climate change and have the highest adaptation costs. At the end of COP28, participants agreed to transition away from fossil fuels for the first time. Another milestone was the establishment of a loss and damage fund to help countries vulnerable to climate change. However, many participants said the language of the agreement did not go far enough and left too many loopholes to ensure the delivery of commitments on climate change. Developing countries were also left disappointed by a lack of financial support to mitigate the impacts of climate change In this edition of Himal Interviews, Assistant Editor Nayantara Narayanan interviews Simon Evans, deputy editor and senior policy editor at Carbon Brief. Simon covers climate and energy policy and closely followed the negotiations in Dubai during COP28 and spoke to Himal Southasian about historical carbon emissions and what they indicate about the impact of colonialism on climate change.

Bangladesh's parliamentary elections are scheduled to be held on 7 January. In the run up to the elections, there have been escalating protests led by the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party calling for Bangladesh's prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, to resign and transfer power to a non-partisan caretaker government to ensure a free and fair election. Historically, Bangladesh's elections have been marred by violence and crackdowns on political opposition. This election has already seen a number of BNP party members and supporters being arrested by the Awami League government, and there are now calls from political opposition to boycott the election altogether. In this edition of Himal Interviews, Assistant Editor Nayantara Narayanan interviews Himal Southasian contributor Anupam Debashis Roy on Bangladesh's elections, the crackdown on political opposition and the impact of US-imposed visa restrictions. What is the atmosphere in Bangladesh like in the run-up to parliamentary elections? Anupam Debashis Roy's reading list: Bangladesh's blueprint for engineering an election - Ali Riaz Is Awami League heading towards a Pyrrhic victory? - Mahfuz Anam The Election Commission's credibility problem - Badiul Alam Majumdar We are heading towards another one-sided election - Badiul Alam Majumdar Has BNP served its supporters well? - Mahfuz Anam More than meets the eye: Essays on Bangladeshi politics - Ali Riaz

December 2023 - Updates and analysis from around the region Southasiasphere is our roundup of news events and analysis of regional affairs, now out every two weeks. If you are a member, you will automatically receive links to new episodes in your inbox. In this episode, we talk about Uttar Pradesh's halal ban, Myanmar's armed groups exposing the weakness of the military junta, the US uncovering a foiled assassination plot targeting the founder of Sikhs for Justice, an ongoing sit-in at the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, Maldives' former president Abdullah Yameen forming a new political party, the extension of the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor to Sri Lanka, Pakistan application to BRICS, the release of founding editor of The Kashmir Walla Fahad Shah and pro-monarchy protests tapping into public discontent with Nepal's government. Episode Notes: Become a member to support our work. Sign up for the Southasiasphere newsletter to make sure you don't miss future episodes. Aung Kaung Myat's reading list: Burma: Insurgency and the politics of ethnicity - Martin Smith Making enemies: War and state building in Burma - Mary P Callahan Myanmar's enemy within: Buddhist violence and the making of a Muslim ‘Other' - Francis Wade

Southasiasphere is our roundup of news events and analysis of regional affairs, now out every two weeks. If you are a member, you will automatically receive links to new episodes in your inbox. In this episode, we talk about armed groups challenging the military junta across Chin, Shan and Rakhine states, Sri Lanka's budget for 2024, the collapse of a tunnel in Uttarkashi, Nepal's TikTok ban, garment factory workers' strikes in Bangladesh, earthquakes in Nepal, the chequered legacy of Indian tycoon Subrata Roy, the International Cricket Council's suspension of Sri Lanka Cricket for government interference, and over 170,000 Afghan refugees fleeing Pakistan after a deportation order. This week, Himal Southasian interviews Sanaa Alimia, Assistant Professor at the Aga Khan University and the author of Refugee Cities, a history of Afghan migration to Pakistan since the 1970s, in light of Pakistan's deportation order impacting Afghan refugees. Episode Notes: Himal's future is in your hands! Become a member to support our work: http://www.himalmag.com/membership Sign up for the Southasiasphere newsletter to make sure you don't miss future episodes: https://himalmag.us3.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=0c87df9f0948bcfa1bc80d2b4&id=2c748501e0 Share your feedback with this survey: https://us3.list-manage.com/survey?u=0c87df9f0948bcfa1bc80d2b4&id=ba236fbe73&attribution=false Sanaa Alimia's reading list: Anila Daulatzai on refugee regimes Conversation with Paniz Musawi Natanzi Floating upwards from history: Afghan women's experience of displacement - Saba Gul Khattak Gender, sexuality and Islam under the shadow of empire - Sadia Toor Making Reliable Persons: Managing Descent and Genealogical Computation in Pakistan - Zehra Hashmi

Southasiasphere is our roundup of news events and analysis of regional affairs, now out every two weeks. If you are a member, you will automatically receive links to new episodes in your inbox. In this episode, we talk about Apple's alerts warning of potential state-sponsored cyberattacks targeting Indian opposition leaders and journalists, an explosion in Kerala targeting a Jehovah's Witness convention, Nawaz Sharif's return to Pakistan, advances by armed groups battling Myanmar's military junta in Shan state, arrests and deaths of Bangladesh Nationalist Party activists following a three-day blockade in Bangladesh, the launch of an India-Bangladesh railway link and the incoming Maldivian president Mohammed Muizzu's plan to evict Indian troops within a week of his inauguration. In this episode, Himal Southasian interviews Daniel Bosley, a journalist and blogger working on the Maldives, about the recently held Maldivian presidential elections (interview begins at 10:27). Episode Notes: Himal's future is in your hands! Become a member to support our work. http://www.himalmag.com/membership Sign up for the Southasiasphere newsletter to make sure you don't miss future episodes: https://himalmag.us3.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=0c87df9f0948bcfa1bc80d2b4&id=2c748501e0 Share your feedback with this survey: https://us3.list-manage.com/survey?u=0c87df9f0948bcfa1bc80d2b4&id=ba236fbe73&attribution=false Daniel Bosley's reading list: The Costliest Pearl: China's struggle for India's Ocean Stealing Paradise

Southasiasphere is our roundup of news events and analysis of regional affairs, now out every two weeks. In this episode, we talk about fresh scrutiny on the Adani group in the wake of recent reporting, Pakistan's deportation order impacting Afghan refugees, the release of two rights activists in Bangladesh on bail, China replacing the name ‘Tibet' with the Chinese romanised name ‘Xizang' on official documents, India's Supreme Court declining to legalise same-sex marriage, Southasian deaths and repatriation efforts in Israel and Gaza, an air strike on a camp for the internally displaced in Myanmar's Kachin state, and the reopening of an old sea route between Nagapattinam in Tamil Nadu and Kankesanthurai in the Jaffna peninsula. For this episode, we also interview Najibullah Sadid, an expert on water resources and the environment, to discuss the devastating recent earthquakes in Herat as well as the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. Episode Notes: Himal's future is in your hands! Become a member to support our work: http://www.himalmag.com/membership Sign up for the Southasiasphere newsletter to make sure you don't miss future episodes: https://himalmag.us3.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=0c87df9f0948bcfa1bc80d2b4&id=2c748501e0 Share your feedback with this survey: https://us3.list-manage.com/survey?u=0c87df9f0948bcfa1bc80d2b4&id=ba236fbe73&attribution=false Najibullah Sadid's Reading list: The Natural Resources in Afghanistan: Geographic and geologic perspectives on centuries of conflict - John F Shroder: https://www.sciencedirect.com/book/9780128001356/natural-resources-in-afghanistan Devastating earthquakes hit Afghanistan - Science in Action by BBC World Service: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct4scy Afghanistan earthquakes in Herat province: Situation report 15-16 October 2023 - Reliefweb: https://reliefweb.int/report/afghanistan/afghanistan-earthquakes-herat-province-health-situation-report-no-8-15-16-october-2023

In this episode, we talk about the Delhi Police raid on the office of the Indian news outlet Newsclick as well as numerous journalists' homes; and debates around delimitation and the women's reservation bill in India's parliament. In “Around Southasia in 5 minutes”, we talk about the presidential election results in the Maldives, the reimposition of an internet ban in strife-torn Manipur, the BJP MP Ramesh Bidhuri's Islamophobic language in the Indian parliament, concerns over the Online Safety Bill and antiterrorism legislation in Sri Lanka, price controls impacting farmers in Myanmar and a recent massacre of resistance fighters in the country, and brewing controversy around elections for the position of the World Health Organisation's South Asia regional director. For “Bookmarked”, we discuss the novel “The Laughter” by Sonora Jha. Episode Notes: BJP highlights NYT report linking NewsClick to China, targets Congress for defending news site: https://scroll.in/latest/1053926/bjp-highlights-nyt-report-linking-newsclick-to-china-targets-congress-for-defending-news-site A Global Web of Chinese Propaganda Leads to a U.S. Tech Mogul: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/05/world/europe/neville-roy-singham-china-propaganda.html The Maldives' ruling party is fighting itself and the opposition in the race for president: https://www.himalmag.com/maldives-presidential-election-ibrahim-solih-mohamed-nasheed-abdulla-yameen-mdp-ppm/ G20 summit in Delhi, new allegations on the Easter Sunday bombings, the return of Nawaz Sharif and more: https://www.himalmag.com/g20-summit-delhi-2023-easter-sunday-attack-nipah-kerala-bangladesh-dengue-nawaz-sharif-jawan/ 2023 Half-Yearly Report: Anti-Muslim Hate Speech Events in India: https://hindutvawatch.org/hate-speech-events-india/ He live-streamed his attacks on Indian Muslims. YouTube gave him an award: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/09/26/india-monu-manesar-viligante-social-media/ The Bajaur bombing, India's ban on rice exports, violence in Haryana and Gurugram and more: https://www.himalmag.com/bajaur-bombing-india-ban-rice-exports-communal-violence-haryana-gurugram-nuh-2023-rahul-gandhi-defamation/ Proposed Online Safety Bill: Sparking concerns over freedom of expression: https://www.themorning.lk/articles/kJoknFck7KnJZNZA6iG0 Myanmar junta slaps struggling farmers with price controls: https://www.irrawaddy.com/business/myanmar-junta-slaps-struggling-farmers-with-price-controls.html The Laughter: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/sonora-jha/the-laughter/ Southasiasphere is our roundup of news events and analysis of regional affairs, now out every two weeks.

Southasiasphere is our roundup of news events and analysis of regional affairs, now out every two weeks. If you are a member, you will automatically receive links to new episodes in your inbox. If you are not yet a member, you can still get episode links for free by signing up here. In this episode, we talk about the G20 summit in Delhi and allegations in a recent documentary by the UK's Channel 4 News about government involvement in Sri Lanka's 2019 Easter Sunday bombings. In “Around Southasia in 5 minutes” we talk about ransomware attacks impacting Tamil Nadu and Sri Lankan government data, the rollout of Bhutan's digital identification system, outbreaks of dengue in Bangladesh and of the Nipah virus in Kerala, new remittance rules impacting migrant workers in Myanmar, the Editors Guild of India's fact-finding report on Manipur and FIRs against the guild filed by the Manipur police, and former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif's imminent return to the country ahead of elections. For “Bookmarked”, we talk about Hindi action-thriller Jawan, starring Shah Rukh Khan and directed by Atlee. Episode notes: Sri Lanka's Easter bombing verdict is reshaping politics and power: https://www.himalmag.com/srilanka-easter-bombing-verdict-politics-and-power/ Nepal's biometric future: https://www.himalmag.com/biometric-future-identification-nepal-2022/ Unpacking Digital Bangladesh: https://www.himalmag.com/unpacking-digital-bangladesh-2021/ What's really behind Jammu and Kashmir's new family ID?: https://www.himalmag.com/behind-jammu-and-kashmir-new-family-id-surveillance/ Climate change in Bangladesh is driving a dengue outbreak in winter: https://www.himalmag.com/climate-change-dengue-outbreak-in-winter-bangladesh/ Election season in the Maldives and Pakistan, economic boycotts in Haryana, increased pressure on Pushpa Kamal Dahal and more: https://www.himalmag.com/pakistan-national-elections-2023-nuh-violence-jaranwala-incident-ceylon-electricity-board-manipur-internet-ban-pushpa-kamal-dahal/ The political fallout of violence in Manipur, Bangladesh's economic crisis, the crackdown on PTI supporters and more: https://www.himalmag.com/violence-manipur-bangladesh-economic-crisis-crackdown-pti-supporters/ Violence in Manipur, Imran Khan's arrest, the Karnataka elections and more: https://www.himalmag.com/violence-in-manipur-imran-khans-arrest-adani-myanmar-karnataka-election/ ‘Jawan' treads with caution in an India on edge: https://www.himalmag.com/jawan-shah-rukh-khan-atlee-politics-gender-modi-india-pathaan/

Southasiasphere is our roundup of news events and analysis of regional affairs, now out every two weeks. If you are a member, you will automatically receive links to new episodes in your inbox. If you are not yet a member, you can still get episode links for free by signing up here. In this episode, we talk about the blocking of The Kashmir Walla and the state of media freedom in Kashmir, and the pushback against China's controversial new map plus Bhutan–China boundary talks.  In “Around Southasia in 5 minutes” we talk about caste atrocities in Uttar Pradesh, India's path-breaking lunar and solar missions, the Taliban's ban on women visiting national parks in Afghanistan and the death of the Afghan female YouTuber Hora Sadat, pushback from the Editor's Guild of India against a proposed official fact-checking unit in Karnataka, an increase in HIV/AIDs cases in Sri Lanka, the deletion of acting BNP chairman Tarique Rahman's speeches from social media ahead of Bangladesh's elections, and a controversial Supreme Court judgment on child marriage in Nepal.  For “Bookmarked”, we discuss Don't expect anything, a short film directed by Didier Nusbaumer that led to Myanmar's junta arresting the cast and director for insulting Buddhist monks. Episode notes: The Bajaur bombing, India's ban on rice exports, violence in Haryana and Gurugram and more: https://www.himalmag.com/bajaur-bombing-india-ban-rice-exports-communal-violence-haryana-gurugram-nuh-2023-rahul-gandhi-defamation/ Memories of Galwan Valley: https://www.himalmag.com/memories-of-galwan-valley-2020/ The Doklam dispute, Rahul Gandhi's conviction, repression of journalists in Bangladesh and beyond, and much more: https://www.himalmag.com/doklam-dispute-rahul-gandhi-conviction-repression-of-journalists-bangladesh/ Don't expect anything!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpRm4wZ5i2g

Southasiasphere is our roundup of news events and analysis of regional affairs, now out twice a month. If you are a member, you will automatically receive links to the new episodes in your inbox. If you are not yet a member, you can still get it for free by signing up here. In this episode, we talk about upcoming elections in the Maldives and Pakistan, an economic boycott of Muslim traders in Haryana in the aftermath of communal violence, as well as communal violence targeting Christians in Pakistan's Faisalabad. In “Around Southasia in Five Minutes”, we talk about how unpaid electricity bills are revealing corruption among the political establishment in Sri Lanka, even in the aftermath of economic crisis; the capsizing of a boat carrying Rohingya refugees off the coast of Myanmar; Manipur's ongoing internet ban and Narendra Modi's recent statement on the crisis in the state; continued calls to release lhotshampa political prisoners in Bhutan; fractures in Nepal's ruling coalition amid corruption scandals; The Indian government's attempt to impose Hindi-language bills on non-Hindi speaking states; and the funeral of the controversial Jamaat-e-Islami leader Delwar Hossain Sayedee in Bangladesh. For “Bookmarked”, we discuss the second season of the Amazon Prime series Made in Heaven. Episode notes: The Maldives' ruling party is fighting itself and the opposition in the race for president: https://www.himalmag.com/maldives-presidential-election-ibrahim-solih-mohamed-nasheed-abdulla-yameen-mdp-ppm/ The political fallout of violence in Manipur, Bangladesh's economic crisis, the crackdown on PTI supporters and more: https://www.himalmag.com/violence-manipur-bangladesh-economic-crisis-crackdown-pti-supporters/ Violence in Manipur, Imran Khan's arrest, the Karnataka elections and more: https://www.himalmag.com/violence-in-manipur-imran-khans-arrest-adani-myanmar-karnataka-election/ The Rohingya refugee crisis at sea, and beyond: https://www.himalmag.com/the-rohingya-refugee-crisis-at-sea-and-beyond-struggle-for-justice/ Modi's US visit, Pakistani migrant deaths in the Mediterranean, Myanmar's flower strike and more: https://www.himalmag.com/modi-us-visit-pakistani-migrant-deaths-in-the-mediterranean-myanmars-flower-strike/ Made in Heaven: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lpxWzvII5k Sign up for Screen Southasia: https://himalmag.us3.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=0c87df9f0948bcfa1bc80d2b4&id=2d99bfd116

Southasiasphere is our roundup of news events and analysis of regional affairs, now out every two weeks. If you are a member, you will automatically receive links to new episodes in your inbox. If you are not yet a member, you can still get episode links for free by signing up here. In this episode, we talk about the recent suicide bomb attack on a political rally in the Bajaur district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and crossborder terrorism between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the impact of India's rice export ban in Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh, and communal violence in Haryana and Gurugram. In “Around Southasia in Five Minutes”, we talk about the suspension of the Indian National Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's defamation conviction, Sri Lanka's ongoing healthcare crisis, the official secrets amendment bill introduced in Pakistan, the burning of musical instruments in Afghanistan, the suspension of Kashmiri journalists' and activists' passports, and the sentencing of the Bangladesh National Party leader Tarique Rahman and his wife Zubaida. For “Bookmarked” we discuss Sarmad Khoosat's Zindagi Tamasha, a Pakistani drama film that was recently released on YouTube due to the director being unable to screen it in Pakistan theatres. Episode notes: Taliban regime under siege, within and without: https://www.himalmag.com/himal-briefs-taliban-regime-under-siege-afghanistan-2022/ The Doklam dispute, Rahul Gandhi's conviction, repression of journalists in Bangladesh and beyond, and much more: https://www.himalmag.com/doklam-dispute-rahul-gandhi-conviction-repression-of-journalists-bangladesh/ Sexual violence in Manipur, protests and repression in Bangladesh, Modi's Paris visit and more: https://www.himalmag.com/sexual-violence-manipur-protests-bangladesh-dhaka-bnp-bypoll-modi-paris-visit-rafale-rohingya-refugees/ Sri Lanka's exodus of healthcare workers: https://www.himalmag.com/sri-lanka-healthcare-governance-workers-migration-economic-crisis/ Bangladesh's BNP fights to make a political comeback: https://www.himalmag.com/bangladesh-nationalist-party-bnp-political-rallies-election/ Zindagi Tamasha: https://youtu.be/xUkJEnHCaos

Southasiasphere is our roundup of news events and analysis of regional affairs, now out twice a month. If you are a member, you will automatically receive links to the new episodes in your inbox. If you are not yet a member, you can still get it for free by signing up here. In this episode, we talk about the disturbing video footage of sexual assault coming out of Manipur, and the Dhaka by-polls and escalating violence and repression around protest rallies in Bangladesh. In “Around Southasia in Five Minutes”, we discuss a report highlighting corruption in Karnataka's health sector and recent deaths in Sri Lanka due to the import of inferior drugs from India, the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi's recent visit to Paris and renewed scrutiny of the controversial Rafale deal, the Sri Lankan president Ranil Wickremesinghe's visit to India and commitments to domestic power-sharing, continued cross-border terrorism in Pakistan, the formation of a new opposition coalition in India, and protests from indigenous groups in Nepal over the renaming of one of its provinces, as well as the recent arrest of 74 Rohingya refugees in Uttar Pradesh. For “Bookmarked” we discuss V V Ganeshananthan's novel Brotherless Night, a heartbreaking exploration of a family fractured by Sri Lanka's civil war. Episode Notes: Violence in Manipur, Imran Khan's arrest, the Karnataka elections and more: https://www.himalmag.com/violence-in-manipur-imran-khans-arrest-adani-myanmar-karnataka-election/ The political fallout of violence in Manipur, Bangladesh's economic crisis, the crackdown on PTI supporters and more: https://www.himalmag.com/violence-manipur-bangladesh-economic-crisis-crackdown-pti-supporters/ Bangladesh's BNP fights to make a political comeback: https://www.himalmag.com/bangladesh-nationalist-party-bnp-political-rallies-election/ Making Prothom Alo “the enemy” in Bangladesh: https://www.himalmag.com/media-prothom-alo-the-enemy-sheikh-hasina-awami-league-bangladesh/ Sri Lanka's exodus of healthcare workers: https://www.himalmag.com/sri-lanka-healthcare-governance-workers-migration-economic-crisis/ Modi's US visit, Pakistani migrant deaths in the Mediterranean, Myanmar's flower strike and more: https://www.himalmag.com/modi-us-visit-pakistani-migrant-deaths-in-the-mediterranean-myanmars-flower-strike/

At Screen Southasia, we host monthly online screenings of compelling documentaries from the region, including Nepal, India, Kashmir, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Tibet, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Maldives and Sri Lanka. We present a diverse range of films, both classic and new, that showcase the unique cultures, histories and perspectives of Southasia. Screen Southasia is a partnership between Himal Southasian and Film Southasia. In this Screen Southasia Q&A session, recorded on 3 July 2023, we speak with the filmmaker Shaheen Dill-Riaz, to discuss his documentary 'Sand and Water.' Synopsis: The middle section of the Jamuna, one of the three main rivers in Bangladesh, is called 'the deadly paradise'. This part of northern Bangladesh is home of the Gabshara Union, a small district comprising a group of tiny islands. Sand and Water shows how the people of these islands live in the most extreme natural conditions and cope with the 'moods' of Jamuna, which also provides them with their livelihood and fertile islands. Dill-Riaz describes this fragile world from a personal point of view using poetic images.

Southasiasphere is our roundup of news events and analysis of regional affairs, now out every two weeks. If you are a member, you will automatically receive links to new episodes in your inbox. If you are not yet a member, you can still get episode links for free by signing up here. In this episode, we talk about crackdowns on online publishers and activists in India, Sri Lanka and Myanmar, as well as Pakistan's IMF deal and Sri Lanka's domestic debt-restructuring process. For “Around Southasia in 5 minutes”, we talk about Aung San Suu Kyi's last appeal for reduced sentencing, Nepal's registration of same-sex marriage, increased incidents of mob lynching in Bihar and Maharashtra, the impact of the monsoon in India and Pakistan, and four Tibetan students' attempt to flee to India. For “Bookmarked”, we discuss the 2023 movie Polite Society, directed by Nida Manzoor. Episode Notes: “Yes, our son is gay”: A Nepali father's awakening: https://www.himalmag.com/yes-our-son-is-gay-a-nepali-fathers-awakening/ Crime and punishment: https://www.himalmag.com/crime-and-punishment/ Count your climate losses: https://www.himalmag.com/count-your-climate-losses-explainer-2021/ Southasia climate events tracker: https://www.himalmag.com/southasia-climate-crisis-events-tracker/ Transcript and more here: https://www.himalmag.com/crackdown-online-publishers-debt-restructuring-imf-pakistan-sri-lanka-nepal-same-sex-marriage/

Southasiasphere is our roundup of news events and analysis of regional affairs, now out every two weeks. If you are a member, you will automatically receive links to new episodes in your inbox. If you are not yet a member, you can still get episode links for free by signing up here. This episode, we talk about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent visit to the US, and the sinking of a trawler off the coast of Greece with almost 300 Pakistani refugees onboard. For “Around Southasia in 5 minutes”, we talk about communal violence in North and Northeast India, the encroachment of land in Sri Lanka for the building of Buddhist temples, progress on amendments to Nepal's citizenship laws, Myanmar's recent flower strike, the resurgence of Jamaat-e-Islami and the call for an ICC probe into war crimes allegations in Afghanistan. For “Bookmarked”, we discuss the 2022 movie “Kamli” from Pakistan, directed by Sarmad Khoosat. Episode notes: The political fallout of violence in Manipur, Bangladesh's economic crisis, the crackdown on PTI supporters and more: https://www.himalmag.com/violence-manipur-bangladesh-economic-crisis-crackdown-pti-supporters/ Nepal's citizenship battles: https://www.himalmag.com/nepals-citizenship-battles-2020/ Screen Southasia, ‘Sand and Water': https://bit.ly/ScreenSouthasia

At Screen Southasia, we host monthly online screenings of compelling documentaries from the region, including Nepal, India, Kashmir, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Tibet, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Maldives and Sri Lanka. We present a diverse range of films, both classic and new, that showcase the unique cultures, histories and perspectives of Southasia. Screen Southasia is a partnership between Himal Southasian and Film Southasia. For updates on future screenings and Q&A sessions, sign up here: https://bit.ly/ScreenSouthasia For our latest Screen Southasia Q and A session, recorded on 5 June 2023, we speak with Arun Bhattarai, co-director of the documentary film The Next Guardian – a love-filled portrait of a family in Bhutan. https://www.himalmag.com/arun-bhattarai-the-next-guardian/ Film synopsis: In a Himalayan village, Gyembo and Tashi, a brother and sister, lead a normal life as teenagers. They love soccer and their phones. Their father oversees a Buddhist temple that has been in the family for generations. He hopes his son, Gyembo, will one day take over his duties and leave his modern English-language school in favor of a monk school. In this thoughtful and tender portrait of a Bhutanese family, the generation gap is as large as their love for one another. Celibacy doesn't offer an enticing future to an adolescent boy, which Gyembo's father understands. Nonetheless, he still tries to convince his son that being a monk offers many advantages. Meanwhile, Tashi feels more like a boy than a girl, and dreams of a life as a pro soccer player. She wants to attend a soccer camp that would be the first step in being selected for the national team. Unfortunately, though happiness is high on the political agenda in Bhutan, not all wishes come true.

Southasiasphere is our roundup of news events and analysis of regional affairs, now out every two weeks. If you are a member, you will automatically receive links to new episodes in your inbox. If you are not yet a member, you can still get episode links for free by signing up here. In this episode, we talk about communal misinformation connected to the Odisha train crash in India and the abduction of the lawyer and activist Jibran Nasir in Pakistan. For “Around Southasia in 5 minutes”, we talk about developments in the wrestlers' protests in India, a poisoning incident involving primary schoolgirls and the drop of opium cultivation in Afghanistan, anti-China protests in Myanmar, amendments to legislation in Bangladesh limiting the Election Commissioner's powers, and the arrest of a Tamil MP in Sri Lanka and what it reveals about military surveillance in the country's North and East. For “Bookmarked”, we discuss the Al Jazeera Witness documentary “No Place Like Home”, tracing the roots of a potentially illegal adoption from Sri Lanka. Episode Notes: Southasiasphere: Issue #3: https://www.himalmag.com/southasiasphere-issue-3/ States of denial: https://www.himalmag.com/states-denial/ Marriage equality in India, fencing the Durand line, wrestlers' protests and more: https://www.himalmag.com/marriage-equality-india-durand-line-gurajat-nepal-earthquake-wrestlers-protests/ Opium den: https://www.himalmag.com/opium-den/ No place like home - Tracing roots from Norway to Sri Lanka: https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/program/witness/2023/5/31/no-place-like-home-tracing-roots-from-norway-to-sri-lanka Full episode and transcript: Listen to this episode on Soundcloud: Youtube: https://youtu.be/ZF2QOAF5Aq8 Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3X7hE75 Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3N5DfIp

Southasiasphere is our roundup of news events and analysis of regional affairs, now out every two weeks. If you are a member, you will automatically receive links to new episodes in your inbox. If you are not yet a member, you can still get episode links for free by signing up here. In this episode, we talk about the political implications of continued violence in Manipur, including growing calls from the Kuki community for a separate state, and explore the mounting economic crisis in Bangladesh. For “Around Southasia in 5 minutes” we talk about the controversial G20 meeting on tourism hosted by the Indian government in Srinagar, the investigations into a controversial pastor in Sri Lanka and the increasing use of the country's ICCPR Act to quash dissent, a new political party in the Maldives, a newly released report on the Adani Group by a Supreme Court-appointed investigative committee in India, the growing crackdown on PTI leaders and journalists in Pakistan and a new report on the terrible conditions facing migrant workers from Nepal. For “Bookmarked” we discuss the short film, “The tea is cold”, following the story of a researcher traveling to the North of Sri Lanka and the stories he uncovers. Episode notes: Violence in Manipur, Imran Khan's arrest, the Karnataka elections and more: https://www.himalmag.com/violence-in-manipur-imran-khans-arrest-adani-myanmar-karnataka-election/ Rebound or relapse: debt restructuring in a time of crisis: https://www.himalmag.com/debt-restructuring-imf-economic-crisis-southasia/ How a human rights law became a tool of repression in Sri Lanka: https://www.himalmag.com/iccpr-human-rights-law-repression-blasphemy-sri-anka/ The Maldives' ruling party is fighting itself and the opposition in the race for president: https://www.himalmag.com/maldives-presidential-election-ibrahim-solih-mohamed-nasheed-abdulla-yameen-mdp-ppm/ The hidden cost: https://www.himalmag.com/the-hidden-cost-migrant-worker-rights-world-cup-2022/ The tea is cold: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXLP_u5tccE This episode is now available on Soundcloud: https://on.soundcloud.com/mTtni Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6PgI8X7gYNJfiqwroMd1w5?si=QtWrzftJRY2UgkYljhdbJw Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-political-fallout-of-violence-in-manipur/id1464880116?i=1000615138637

In this episode, we talk about the violence in Manipur in the past few weeks, and the latest developments following Imran Khan's arrest in Islamabad. For 'Around Southasia in 5 minutes', we talk about the recently held Karnataka Assembly election and Adani Ports' recently completed sale of its port in Myanmar - at far below the value of the conglomerate's initial investment. We also talk about the impact of cyclone Mocha in Myanmar and Bangladesh, a string of high-profile arrests in Nepal in connection with what is being called the 'refugee scam', new statistics on rising poverty in Sri Lanka, and the recently held Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting in Goa. For 'Bookmarked', we talk about the movie 'Jinpa' by the renowned Tibetan filmmaker Pema Tseden, who passed away recently. Episode notes: Majoritarianism in Manipur https://www.himalmag.com/majoritarianism-in-manipur/ Politics and Pakistan's new army chief https://www.himalmag.com/himal-briefs-politics-pakistans-new-army-chief-2022/ Pakistan needs to go beyond the 18th amendment to end the military's role in politics https://www.himalmag.com/pakistan-military-beyond-18th-amendment-constitution-politics/ Adani in Southasia https://www.himalmag.com/adani-southasia-power-politics-diplomacy-myanmar-bangladesh-sri-lanka-india/ Jinpa https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDOHE7PclZc This podcast episode is available on Soundcloud: https://on.soundcloud.com/hrX2i Spotify: https://spoti.fi/41RNCoU Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3MedZiK And Youtube: https://youtu.be/G-xlfYvyWgY

At Screen Southasia, we host monthly online screenings of compelling documentaries from the region, including Nepal, India, Kashmir, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Tibet, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Maldives and Sri Lanka. We present a diverse range of films, both classic and new, that showcase the unique cultures, histories and perspectives of Southasia. Screen Southasia is a partnership between Himal Southasian and Film Southasia. For updates on future screenings and Q&A sessions, sign up here: http://bit.ly/ScreenSouthasia In our latest Screen Southasia Q&A session, recorded on 8 May 2023, we speak with the filmmaker Leena Manimekalai and Smile to discuss their 2017 documentary film 'Is it too much to ask?'.  Film synopsis: 'Is it too much to ask?' follows the journey of two friends, Smile and Glady, as they search for a rental apartment in Chennai. Along the way, they encounter obstacles and social stigma for being both single and transgender women. Their identities make them vulnerable to the caste-ridden, feudal and patriarchal landlords of the city, who deny them apartments and, in turn, deny their existence. Despite these challenges, Smile and Glady face every day with grace, humour and positivity, turning their anger and frustrations into songs, dances, plays and works of art that give them hope.

In this episode, we talk about ongoing court cases on marriage equality in India, decriminalisation of same-sex relationships in Sri Lanka, and recognition of foreign same-sex spouses in Nepal. We also talk about the fencing of the Durand Line between Pakistan and Afghanistan. For “Around Southasia in 5 minutes”, we'll be talking about April marking 10 years since the collapse of Rana Plaza in Bangladesh, and 8 years since the 2015 earthquake in Nepal, as well as developments related to the acquittal of 69 Hindus who were accused of murder during the 2002 Gujarat riots in India. We'll also be talking about Bhutan's cryptocurrency holdings, voter data theft and manipulation in the lead up to Karnataka‘s state elections, revelations around a bribe impacting the X-Press Pearl disaster litigation in Sri Lanka, wrestlers' protests in India, and the last photos of Japanese photojournalist Kenji Nagai, who was killed in Myanmar. For “Bookmarked”, we talk about Rima Das' 2018 film, Bulbul can sing, a coming of age story set in Assam. We also tease our upcoming edition of Screen Southasia, ‘Is it too much to ask?' directed by Leena Manimekalai, which will be screening from 5-8 May, with a Q and A on 8 May. Sign up to catch this and future screenings here: https://bit.ly/ScreenSouthasia Episode notes: The line Durand drew - Daniel Lak: https://www.himalmag.com/the-line-durand-drew/ Pashtuns will not be pawns in Pakistan's dangerous game with the TTP and Taliban - Hurmat Ali Shah: https://www.himalmag.com/pashtuns-protest-pakistan-peshawar-mosque-bast-swat-waziristan-ttp-taliban/ Tehreek-i-Taliban is making its way back in Pakistan: https://www.himalmag.com/tehreek-i-taliban-peace-talks-pakistan/ How hate works - Rakesh Shukla: https://www.himalmag.com/how-hate-works-gujarat-riots-rakesh-shukla-2019/ The Nepal earthquake, one year later - Himal Southasian: https://www.himalmag.com/the-nepal-earthquake-one-year-later/ Scandalising the supply chain - Dina M Siddiqi: https://www.himalmag.com/scandalising-the-supply-chain-bangladesh-2022/ Yameen's conviction, the Taliban ban on women's education, Kite Tales and more - Southasiasphere (January 2023): https://www.himalmag.com/southasiasphere-yameen-conviction-taliban-womens-education-rohingya-crisis-2023/ Bulbul Can Sing - A film by Rima Das: https://www.netflix.com/title/81026003 Episode transcript: https://www.himalmag.com/marriage-equality-india-durand-line-gurajat-nepal-earthquake-wrestlers-protests/

Southasiasphere is our roundup of news events and analysis of regional affairs, now out every two weeks. If you are a member, you will automatically receive links to new episodes in your inbox. If you are not yet a member, you can still get episode links for free by signing up here: https://bit.ly/3GVBb3o In this episode, we talk about recent airstrikes in Pazigyi village in Myanmar and new restrictions on women's rights from the Taliban, from restrictions in access to green space in Herat to a ban on UN women workers across Afghanistan. For “Around Southasia in 5 minutes”, we'll be talking about the debate around an antiterrorism bill in Sri Lanka, sexual harassment cases in south India and Bhutan, the controversial Adani-funded Godda plant which recently began power supply to Bangladesh, the hosting of G20 meetings in Kashmir in the backdrop of some explosive revelations from a former governor of Jammu and Kashmir, and a firing incident at the Bathinda army base in Punjab. For “Bookmarked” we talk about Joyland, an Urdu and Punjabi language film from Pakistan exploring queer relationships and desire in a multigenerational family. We also tease our upcoming film for Screen Southasia, our monthly documentary screening in partnership with Film Southasia - “Is it too much to ask?” by Leena Manimekalai. To catch this and future screenings, please register here: https://bit.ly/ScreenSouthasia Episode Notes: * Myanmar, Bangladesh and the global game over Rohingya repatriation: https://www.himalmag.com/myanmar-junta-bangladesh-united-states-china-rohingya-repatriation/ * Adani in Southasia: https://www.himalmag.com/adani-southasia-power-politics-diplomacy-myanmar-bangladesh-sri-lanka-india/ * Joyland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gy9bNgbZMJI * Screen Southasia: Is it too much to ask?: https://bit.ly/ScreenSouthasia Listen to this episode on Soundcloud: https://on.soundcloud.com/37VZi Spotify: https://spoti.fi/41I9cMT Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3UOXwp5 Youtube: https://youtu.be/0si430hz4Og Transcript: https://bit.ly/3UVgieD