Events

SRI LANKA: Strategies for Resilient Entrepreneurs

Monday | 23 February 2026 | 9.30am onward

ON-SITE in Colombo

This half-day Workshop + Roundtable will explore new research and ideas, combining data with strategy, to think through governmental and sectoral support, to revitalise entrepreneurship and businesses in Sri Lanka.   

SPEAKERS: Dr Luke Heslop (Brunel University of London), Animesh Jayant (LSE), Professor David Lewis (LSE), Abhilash Puljal (Country Director, India at Expectation State Ltd (UK) & Director, LSE India Foundation), Professor Naufel Vilcassim (LSE), Dr Dushni Weerakoon (Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka, Colombo), Anushka Wijesinha (Centre for a Smart Future, Colombo).

CHAIR: Professor Naufel Vilcassim (LSE) is Director, LSE South Asia Centre. 

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PLEASE NOTE that places are limited for this event. Please e-mail events@dilmahtea.com to register free; further details will be sent to attendees depending on availability of spaces closer to the date of the event.

This event is in collaboration with GENESIS, the Dilmah Centre for a Sustainable Future, Colombo. 

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Image © Diego PH, Toluca, 2017, Unsplash.

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NEPAL: 6 Months On

Wednesday | 11 March 2026 | 3pm UK | 8.45pm Nepal

ONLINE only

Citizens' ownership of democracy has been particularly visible in South Asia in recent times — most recently in Nepal where there is a Constitution and an Interim Government in place. With elections on the horizon, how has the country fared in the last 6 months, and have the aspirations of the people been addressed? 

SPEAKERS: Subel Rai Bhandari (@svbel) is a journalist, and was formerly Nepal analyst at International Crisis Group; Dr Sucheta Pyakuryal (@suchetap1) teaches in the Department of Gender Studies at Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, and is Director, Centre of Governance at the Institute of Integrated Development Studies in Kathmandu; Dr Rudra Sharma (@RudraSh64265741) is Advocate in the Supreme Court of Nepal, and Managing Partner of Transnational Law House, Kathmandu.

DISCUSSANT: Sk Tawfique M Haque is Professor & Director, South Asian Institute of Policy and Governance at North South University in Dhaka, and editor of Policy Response, Local Service Delivery, and Governance in Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka (2021).   

CHAIR: Dr Nilanjan Sarkar is Deputy Director, LSE South Asia Centre (@SAsiaLSE). 

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Please e-mail southasiacentre@lse.ac.uk to register free for this event; the livestream link will be sent to all registered attendees on the day of the event.

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Image © Sushanta Rokka, Nepal, 2025, Unsplash.

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PERIYAR: Sovereign Selves

Tuesday | 17 March 2026 | 3.30pm UK | 9pm India

ONLINE only

E V Ramasamy Naicker 'Periyar' (the 'Revered One') remains one of the most dynamic thinkers of modern India. His relentless, iconoclastic thought and writings, his charge of the 'Self Respect Movement' (1920s), are central to realising the sovereignty of the self. This panel discussion will focus on the myriad ways and forms of these selves.    

SPEAKERS: Sarah Hodges is Professor of Global Health & Social Medicine at King's College London with research interests in Tamil Nadu, and author of Contraception, Colonialism and Commerce: Birth Control in South India, 1920-1940 (2008); Dr Karthick Ram Manoharan (@KRManoharan) is Assistant Professor of Social Sciences at National Law School of India University in Bengaluru, currently Smuts Visiting Research Fellow at University of Cambridge, and co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to Periyar (2025); Swarnavel Eswaran Pillai, an accomplished filmmaker, is Professor of English and Journalism at Michigan State University, and author most recently of 'Periyar, Art and Cinema' (2025); Dr Vignesh Rajahmani (@krvtweets) is Research Affiliate at King's India Institute, King's College London, and author of The Dravidian Pathway: The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the Politics of Transition in South India (2025); V M S Subagunarajan (@agampuram) is an independent researcher based in Chennai, and editor of Caste and the Crisis of Dignity: Periyar E. V. Ramasamy Speaks (2025).

CHAIR: Dr Nilanjan Sarkar is Deputy Director, LSE South Asia Centre (@SAsiaLSE). 

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Please e-mail southasiacentre@lse.ac.uk to register free for this event; the livestream link will be sent to all registered attendees on the day of the event.

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Image: Postage Stamp issued by Department of Post and Telegraph, Government of India in 1978 to mark Periyar's birth centenary. 

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FACT & FICTION

AFGHANISTAN: Being Pashtun, Becoming Taliban

Wednesday | 25 March 2026 | 3pm UK | 7.30pm Afghanistan

ONLINE only

Academic engagement with the Taliban has been almost entirely through the prism of global/regional (in)security and extremism. This event will focus on the recently published The Pashtun Borderland: A Religious and Cultural History of the Taliban (2024), an analysis of a wide range of actors and ideologies, refracting Afghanistan's present moment through the lens of its long cultural and religious history.

SPEAKERS: Dr Sonia Ahsan-Tirmizi (@sonia_tirmizi) is a historical anthropologist specialising in gender & environmental governance, and author of Pious Peripheries: Runaway Women in Post-Taliban Afghanistan (2021); Robert Crews (@RobertCrews22) is Professor of History at Stanford University, and author of Afghan Modern: The History of a Global Nation (2015); Dr Jan-Peter Hartung is Research Associate at the Centre for Islam and Law in Europe, Friedrich-Alexander-Universiteit in Erlangen (Germany), and author of The Pashtun Borderland: A Religious and Cultural History of the Taliban (2024); Iftikhar H Malik is Professor Emeritus in History at Bath Spa University (UK), and author of Pashtun Identity and Geopolitics in Southwest Asia: Pakistan and Aghanistan since 9/11 (2016); Dr Omar Sharifi is Senior Research Fellow & Kabul Director of American Institute of Afghanistan Studies, Assistant Professor of Social Sciences at American University of Afghanistan, and co-editor of Power and Authority in Afghanistan: Rethinking Politics, Intervention and Rule (2025).   

CHAIR: Dr Nilanjan Sarkar is Deputy Director, LSE South Asia Centre (@SAsiaLSE). 

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Please e-mail southasiacentre@lse.ac.uk to register free for this event; the livestream link will be sent to all registered attendees on the day of the event.

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