Lent Term 2022

GEOPOLITICS BEYOND BORDERS #5

QUAD-AUKUS & the Rise of the Indo-Pacific

Thursday | 31 March 2022 | 3.30pm UK 

Roundtable to discuss the strategic focus on South Asia in the QUAD-AUKUS alliance, in the larger geopolitical intentions of superpowers.

Speakers: Frédéric Grare (@fgrare) is Senior Policy Fellow, Asia Programme, at the European Council on Foreign Relations, with expertise in security issues concerning South Asia, the Indo-Pacific, and related issues; Yuka Koshino (@YukaKoshino) is Research Fellow for Security & Technology at The International Institute for Security Studies (IISS), London, and an expert on Japanese security, economic security & technology policy; Harsh V Pant is Professor of International Relations, King's India Institute, King's College London, and Director, Studies & Head, Strategic Studies Programme, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi; Peter Watkins is Visiting Senior Fellow at LSE IDEAS, and was formerly Director General Strategy & International (2017-18) & Director General Security Policy (2014-17), Ministry of Defence, United Kingdom.

Discussant: Christopher Coker is Professor & Co-Director of LSE IDEAS (LSE's Foreign Policy think tank), an expert on US security issues, the author, most recently, of Why War? (2021), and member of the Faculty Advisory Group of LSE South Asia Centre.

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

This event is part of our Geopolitics beyond Borders series in collaboration with LSE IDEAS.

Image: Oliver Dumoulin, 'Pacific Beach Pier', 2019, Unsplash.

Please click here to watch a recording of the event.

SRI LANKA: Has Peace brought Reconciliation?

Thursday | 17 March 2022 | 3.30pm UK

Roundtable focusing on the post-LTTE socio-political dynamics, especially in northern Sri Lanka.

Speakers: Thiruni Kelegama (@tkelegama) is Departmental Lecturer in South Asian Studies, Oxford School of Global & Area Studies, University of Oxford, and researches political & infrastructural transformations triggered by development in the Global South, especially in Sri Lanka;  Bart Klem (@BartBklem) is Senior Lecturer in the School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg, and a specialist in political order amidst & after civil war, with a particular interest in Sri Lanka; Ambika Satkunanathan (@ambikasat) is a Human Rights lawyer, Fellow at the Open Society Foundation (2020-22), and was until recently Commissioner of the Human Rights Commission in Sri Lanka; Mahendran Thiruvarangan  (@t30m2) is Senior Lecturer, University of Jaffna, is interested in radical democracy as an area of research, and member of the Jaffna People's Forum for Coexistence.

Discussant: Rajesh Venugopal  (@rajeshvenugopal) is Associate Professor in International Development at LSE, and author of Nationalism, Development and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka (2018).

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

Image: Tomás Malík, 2019, Unsplash.

Please click here to watch a recording of the event.

NEPAL: Rebuilding from Disaster, Preparing for the Future

Thursday | 10 March 2022 | 4.30pm UK

Roundtable focusing on disaster governance in Nepal, on how the earthquakes of 2015 have shaped policy to mitigate future disasters.

Speakers: Nimesh Dhungana  (@NimeshDhungana) is Lecturer in Disasters & Global Health at the Humanitarian & Conflict Response Institute, University of Manchester. His doctoral research (2019) examined the politics of citizen participation and accountability following the 2015 Nepal earthquakes; Katie Oven  (@KatieOven) is Vice-Chancellor's Senior Fellow in Geography & Environmental Sciences at Northumbria University, researching social vulnerability & resilience to disasters with a particular focus on earthquakes & landslides, with empirical research in Nepal, India & Kazakhstan; Shobhana Pradhan  (@ShobhanaGP) is Nepal Country Director at BBC Media Action, the BBC's international development charity; Sara Shneiderman  (@sshneiderman) is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology & the School of Public Policy & Global Affairs/Institute of Asian Research at the University of British Columbia, and is currently involved in a transdisciplinary research project on Nepal's post-earthquake reconstruction, amongst others.

Discussant: Romola Sanyal is Associate Professor in Urban Geography at LSE, and member of the Faculty Advisory Group of LSE South Asia Centre.

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

Image: Shefali Lincoln, Unsplash.

Please click here to watch a recording of the event. 

DO SOUTH ASIANS MAKE BETTER CEOs?

Wednesday | 2 March 2022 | 3pm UK

Several top bosses at global enterprises are South Asians. This Roundtable will explore possible reasons for this dominance.

Speakers: Jackson G. Lu is the Mitsui Career Development Professor, & Assistant Professor of Work & Organization Studies, MIT Sloan School of Management; Munazzah Malik is Head of Strategic Initiatives, Habib Bank Ltd, Pakistan; Janmejaya Sinha is Managing Director & Senior Partner, Chairman for India, and a member of Boston Consulting Group's (BCG) Henderson Institute Innovation Sounding Board which is dedicated to supporting, inspiring, and guiding upstream innovation at BCG.

Chair: Alnoor Bhimani (@AlnoorBhimani) is Director, LSE South Asia Centre, and Professor of Management Accounting at LSE.

Image: Pablo Varela, 'Business & Work', 2019, Unsplash.

Please click here to watch a recording of the event.

PAKISTAN: Protest, Solidarity & Democracy

Thursday | 24 February 2022 | 3.30pm UK

Roundtable on protest & solidarity movements, focusing on the unique annual 'Aurat March', and their impact on Pakistan & its democracy.

Speakers: Asma Barlas is Professor Emerita in Politics, Ithaca College, New York, and author of Believing Women in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qur'an (2002; rev. 2019); Ammar Ali Jan (@ammaralijan) is a historian, activist, member of the 'Haqooq-e Khalq' progressive movement, and author of Rule by Fear: Eight Theses on Authoritarianism in Pakistan (2021); Nida Kirmani (@NidaKirmani) is a feminist sociologist working on gender and urban marginality in South Asia, Associate Professor at Lahore University of Management Sciences, and author of Questioning the 'Muslim Woman': Identity & Insecurity in an Urban Indian Locality (2013); Reema Omer (@reema_omer) is Senior Legal Adviser (South Asia), International Commission of Jurists. 

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

Image: Amir Geshani, 'Mirror', 2018, Unsplash.

Please click here to watch a recording of the event.

SOUTH ASIA: Art, Religion & Activism

Thursday | 10 February 2022 | 3.30pm

Roundtable to discuss art activism, focusing especially on art/religion as representational forms of social & political protest.

Speakers: Salima Hashmi is a Pakistani artist, retired professor, essayist & anti-nuclear war activist; Santhosh Sadanadan is an art historian & cultural theorist, and Assistant Professor in the School of Culture & Creative Expressions, Dr B. R. Ambedkar University, Delhi;  Davinder S. Toor (IG: davinder.s.toor) is a UK-based Indian & Islamic art collector & dealer.

Chair: Alnoor Bhimani (@AlnoorBhimani) is Director, LSE South Asia Centre, and Professor of Management Accounting, LSE.

Image: Zach Key, 'Art', 2017, Unsplash.

Please click here to watch a recording of the event. 

MYANMAR: Education & the Future

Thursday | 3 February 2022 | 3pm UK

Roundtable on the future of education in Myanmar in the triple crises of the military coup, conflict & Covid, and how it can bring change.

Speakers: Sai Sam Kham is former Executive Director of Metta Development Foundation, currently doctoral researcher at IISS (Erasmus University Rotterdam) where he is studying land politics, rural democratisation & regime change in Myanmar; Khin Ohmar (@khinohmar) is a former 1988 Generation student leader and the founder of Progressive Voice (@PVamplify), a Myanmar human rights research and advocacy organisation; Martin Smith is Senior Advisor to the Transnational Institute and author of Burma: Insurgency and the Politics of Ethnicity (1999) and other publications on social and political affairs in Myanmar; Yin Min Tun is an academic researcher affiliated with the University of Manchester engaged in educational development projects in Myanmar during the past decade with a focus on interdisciplinary educational and environmental programmes.

Discussant: Jürgen Haacke is Associate Professor in International Relations at LSE, and author of Myanmar's Foreign Policy: Domestic Influences and International Implications (2006).

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

This event is in collaboration with Prospect Burma (@ProspectBurma), an educational charity based in London.

Image: Hkun Li, 'School students sit their exams in an IDP camp, Kachin State', 2018. Used with permission. 

Please click here to watch a recording of the event. 

INDIA: CoP26, Coal & The Years Ahead

Thursday | 27 January 2022 | 3.30pm UK

Roundtable on implications of India's continuing use of coal, after it succeeded in asking for its phasing 'down' (not 'out') at CoP26.

Speakers: Vaibhav Chaturvedi is Fellow, Council on Energy, Environment and Water (@ceewindia), New Delhi, and has been part of various committees & groups of the Government of India concerning India's energy and climate policy; Navroz K. Dubash (@NavrozDubash) is Professor, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, and publishes on climate change, energy, air pollution, water policy, and the politics of regulation in the developing world; Shweta Narayan (@CemShweta) is a climate and health campaigner at Health Care Without Harm (HCWH), based in India; Rahul Tongia (@DrTongia) is Senior Fellow, Centre for Social and Economic Progress, New Delhi, and co-editor of Future of Coal in India: Smooth Transition or Bumpy Road Ahead? (2020)

Discussant: Swati Dhingra (@swatdhingraLSE) is Associate Professor in Economics at LSE.

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

Image: Amrit Leone, 'A Coal Bonfire in Dark Surroundings', 2019, Unsplash.

Please click here to watch a recording of the event.

TOUGH TALK #4

Should we Apologise for the Past?

Thursday | 20 January 2022 | 3.30pm UK

This Tough Talk asks: should we apologise/ask for apologies for the past, or should we let the past be, and work towards a better future?

Speakers: Tom Bentley (@TomJBentley) is Lecturer in the Department of Politics & International Relations, University of Aberdeen, and is the author of Empires of Remorse: Narratives, Postcolonialism and Apologies for Colonial Atrocity (2016); Vanessa Holburn (@vanessaSH) is a journalist, and author of The Amritsar Massacre: The British Empire's Worst Atrocity (2019); Claus Leggewie is Ludwig Börne Professor at Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen, and has written on cultures of remembrance, conflicts & historical memory; Rasul Bakhsh Rais (@RasulRais) is Professor of Political Science at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), and author most recently of Islam, Ethnicity & Power Politics: Constructing Pakistan's National Identity (2017); Ali Raza (@tareekhdaan) specialises in the history of modern South Asia, is Associate Professor at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), and is currently developing a digital archive of the 1971 war between Pakistan & Bangladesh; Ali Riaz is Distinguished Professor in Politics & Government at Illinois State University, and has spoken publicly about an apology from Pakistan to Bangladesh for 1971 (Bangladesh's War of Liberation); Shalini Sharma is Senior Lecturer in South Asian History at Keele University, and has been closely involved with the demand from the British government to apologise for 1919 (Jallianwala Bagh) in India. 

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

Image: 'Fists in the Air', PikPng.

Please click here to watch a recording of the event.