Winter Term 2026

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

Please click here to watch a recording of the event. 

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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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Image © Sushanta Rokka, Nepal, 2025, Unsplash.

Please click here to watch a recording of this event.

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SRI LANKA: Strategies for Resilient Entrepreneurs

Monday | 23 February 2026 | 9am 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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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.

A recording of this event will be available in due course. 

MYANMAR: Economies of Child Labour

Wednesday | 18 February 2026 | 3pm UK | 9.30pm Myanmar

ONLINE only

Child labour remains a global problem, exploiting poverty for profit, mostly through informal practices of employment. But the legal identification of 'adult' can differ across the world; Myanmar is a case in point. This panel will discuss the different economies of this sector, and efforts to mitigate it through remediation and rehabilitation.  

SPEAKERS: Kyawe Phyo Phyo Aye is Founding Director of ProEthics Solutions in Yangon which specialises in child labour prevention, young worker protection and social compliance audits, and was Charles Wallace Burma (Myanmar) Trust Fellow at the LSE South Asia Centre in Sep-Nov 2025 where she worked on child labour prevention & remediation in Myanmar's garment sector; Jacob Andrew Clere is Head of Branch Office, sequa gGmbH, Yangon, and has worked extensively with the garments industry in Myanmar; Dr Ashley Graham Kennedy is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Florida Atlantic University, and author of 'Understanding Child Labor in Myanmar' (2019); Isidro Maya Jariego (@isidromj) is Professor of Social Psychology at the Universidad de Sevilla, and author of Community Prevention of Child Labor: Evidence-based Practices to Promote the Psychological Well-being of Minors (2021).   

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

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Image © Shimmerx Lyan, Yangon, 2023, Unsplash.

This event was not recorded.  

FACT & FICTION

PAKISTAN: Writing Histories

Monday | 2 February 2026 | 4pm UK | 9pm Pakistan

ONLINE only

History, old and new, has long been understood as a textual archival practice. This event will discuss Towards Peoples' Histories in Pakistan: (In)audible Voices, Forgotten Pasts (2023), a novel multi-disciplinary collection of "peoples'" histories — those that do not find place, nor get recorded, in standard historical archives.

SPEAKERS: Asad Ali is an independent scholar based in the United Kingdom, and co-editor of Towards Peoples' Histories in Pakistan: (In)audible Voices, Forgotten Pasts (2023); Kamran Asdar Ali is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin, and co-editor of Towards Peoples' Histories in Pakistan: (In)audible Voices, Forgotten Pasts (2023); Fatima Zahid Ali (@FatimaZahidAli) is Doctorand at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and author of 'Gender Dysphoria and Transphobia in Pakistan's Digital Sphere' (2022); Amar Farooqui retired as Professor of History from University of Delhi, and is author of The Establishment of British Rule: 1757-1813 (A People's History of India #23, 2016); Naveeda Khan is Professor of Anthropology at Johns Hopkins University, and author of Muslim Becoming: Aspiration and Skepticism in Pakistan (2012).

DISCUSSANT: Dr Chris Moffat is Senior Lecturer in South Asian History at Queen Mary University of London, and co-editor of Lahore in Motion: Infrastructure, History and Belonging in Urban Pakistan (2025).    

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

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This event is in collaboration with South Asia Forum, Queen Mary University of London, and is part of the UK-South Asia Network. 

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Please click here to watch a recording of the event.

GEOPOLITICS BEYOND BORDERS #10

SOUTH ASIA: India, China and the World

Monday | 26 January 2026 | 3pm UK | 8.30pm India

ONLINE only

As US policies continue to alter global geopolitics, India has found itself walking a tightrope & facing punitive tariffs. China, continues to complicate this picture, being an important political player in South Asia, and the wider world. This panel will discuss this animated regional and global dynamic.   

SPEAKERS: Dr Filippo Boni (@FilippoBoni1) is Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Studies, and co-editor most recently of China, Pakistan and the Belt Road Initiative: The Experience of an Early Adopter State (2024); Sir Vince Cable (@vincecable) is Visiting Professor of Practice in Public Policy at LSE, and author of Eclipsing the West: China, India and the forging of a new world (2025); Dr Daniel Markey (@MarkeyDaniel) is Senior Fellow in the China & South Asia Programs at the Henry L. Stimson Center, Washington DC, Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute, SAIS, Johns Hopkins University, and author of China's Western Horizon: Beijing and the New Geopolitics of Eurasia (2020); Dr Ágnes Szunomár is Associate Professor at Corvinus University of Budapest, and co-author most recently of 'The European Union's Investment Screening Framework & China — A Complicated Picture' (2025).

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

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Please click here to watch a recording of the event.