delighted that the @himalsouthasian.bsky.social Southasia Review of Books podcast with @shwethasrikanthan.bsky.social is back! | Joe Sacco discusses ‘The Once and Future Riot’ and the controversy surrounding Penguin India’s decision not to distribute his book www.himalmag.com/podcasts/joe...

Joe Sacco on the book Penguin India wouldn’t distribute: Southasia Review of Books #39

The acclaimed comic-journalist discusses ‘The Once and Future Riot’, violence as a political tool, and the controversy surrounding Penguin India’s decision not to distribute his book

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Got my hands on @vindi-b.bsky.social’s book! 📖✨ Less than a week to go until publication day. Order your copy of 'A Volatile Picture': uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295... @uwapress.uw.edu + liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/10.3828/... @livunipress.bsky.social

A Volatile Picture

Photography as witness and weapon amid civil warThis groundbreaking ethnography explores how, in the context of Sri Lanka’s protracted civil war and its tu...

uwapress.uw.edu

‘A Volatile Picture’ month at last! The book is shipping out in the US via @uwapress.uw.edu (summer sale on now! ) / UK distributor @livunipress.bsky.social Out in the world on the 16th of June uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295... | liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/10.3828/...

giving a rare (these days) lecture online in the spring (6th March 2026): Studio Ilankai: A Tamil Photographic History of Sri Lankan Citizenship. Info and registration: www.byforcollective.com/programs/vin...

Studio Ilankai: A Tamil Photographic History of Sri Lankan Citizenship with Vindhya Buthpitiya — By / For: Photography & Democracy

Sri Lanka’s recent history and present, characterised by majoritarian governance, ethno-nationalist conflict, and civil war, is entangled with the multidimensional marginalisation of the island’s Tami...

byforcollective.com

I reviewed some new books on queer Southasia for @himalmag.bsky.social www.himalmag.com/politics/que...

Navigating new scales of queer Southasia

IT WASN’T THAT long ago that queer Southasian studies – perhaps especially work centred on India – seemed to be intensely preoccupied with the frame of the nati

himalmag.com

Four new books open up debate on why same-sex marriage has come to anchor queer politics in India, and how the notions and politics of Southasian queer life shift across local, diasporic and transnational scales of identity and belonging. A review essay by Rahul Rao :

Navigating new scales of queer Southasia

IT WASN’T THAT long ago that queer Southasian studies – perhaps especially work centred on India – seemed to be intensely preoccupied with the frame of the nati

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“I was channelling the rage that I know exists into a character who will allow it to dictate her actions and fuel her ambition in a way that I think most of us, thankfully or otherwise, don’t let ourselves do.” A conversation with Dur e Aziz Amna: buff.ly/9AydIn4

Dur e Aziz Amna on writing women’s lives in Pakistan: Southasia Review of Books podcast #37

A conversation with the writer Dur e Aziz Amna about her second novel, ‘A Splintering’, and its exploration of class struggle, female rage, and the challenges of navigating social expectations across…

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🎙️ Coming up on the #podcast "Saffron Siege: the RSS at 100": Apoorvanand speaks to Harsh Mander about how the #RSS emerged from the shadows in the decades after Gandhi’s assassination and the role of key leaders in legitimising it. Episode out on 24 September on Himal's podcast channels.

PANEL DISCUSSION: Join Pranaya Rana, Ambika Satkunanathan and Zyma Islam as they analyse youth-led protests in #Nepal, #Bangladesh and #lka – and what comes afterwards, 25 September at 7 PM IST: bit.ly/4nI9Vsr

Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: Southasia's Youthquakes - with Himal Southasian. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the meeting.

Join Himal Editor Roman Gautam and peace activist Harsh Mander as they discuss recent Gen Z-led protests in Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka

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🎙️📚 “Like many British-Bangladeshis, I was aware of the migration within my family. I grew up being conscious that we came from somewhere else. And the thing that made us different to everybody else in the best possible way was food.” A conversation with @shahnazahsan.bsky.social: buff.ly/vsKZzYn

Shahnaz Ahsan on food, identity and the Bangladeshi diaspora Southasia Review of Books podcast #33

Welcome to the Southasia Review of Books podcast, where we speak to celebrated authors and emerging literary voices from across Southasia. In this episode, Shwe

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'Images rémanentes de la disparition forcée' feauturing a video adaptation of my 2022 article (rai.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....) on the political uses of photography by the Tamil Families of the Disappeared in Northern Sri Lanka opens in Geneva this evening www.unige.ch/cite/eveneme...

"And now #Nepal, from its present abyss, dreams of a new politics that actually works for the people. Let it not have to see more blood in its striving," writes Himal EIC @romangtm.bsky.social about the #GenZprotests in #Kathmandu

Nepal’s horrific reckoning with its failed political class

Nepalis don’t often pay attention to the politics of their Southasian neighbours beyond India. But when Sri Lankans rose up in 2022 to boot out the Rajapaksa re

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“What is the idea of the birangona woman? It is not the government’s definition, it is not the soldiers’ definition. It is the definition of how the women defined themselves in that moment and afterwards.” A conversation with Saima Begum:

Saima Begum on Bangladesh’s birangona women: Southasia Review of Books podcast #32

A conversation with the British-Bangladeshi writer on her debut novel, ‘The First Jasmines’, and the untold stories of women who survived the violence of the 1971 Liberation War:…

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📣 New podcast from @himalmag.bsky.social and Karwan e Mohabbat: As the #RSS celebrates 100 years this Dussehra, a series of conversations examining its roots, its ideology and its role in India's public and social life. Harsh Mander hosts this 12-part series starting 17 September.

📣🎙️New podcast from @himalmag.bsky.social and Karwan-e-Mohabbat! As the #RSS turns 100 this Dussehra, the peace activist and writer Harsh Mander hosts a 12-part series examining its roots, ideology and role in #India’s public life. Launching 17 September - you don’t want to miss this!

v happy to be working on new projects, in ‘new’ island places, fortutiously intersecting in one of my favourite towns, Trincomalee: on the conflated histories/present of militarisation & leisure in Ceylon/Sri Lanka + the making of place through photography everydayphotography.org/journal/stud...

Studio East: Everyday Photography and the Militarisation of Leisure in Trincomalee - Eidolon Journal

by Vindhya Buthpitiya This essay by Vindhya Buthpitiya is the result of her research supported by the inaugural Eidolon Grant, awarded in 2024. Studio East: Everyday Photography and the Militarisation...

everydayphotography.org

📣 🎙️ Coming in 10 days: A new season of Partitions of the Heart – 12 episodes on the history of the RSS, its role in India's public life and in creating communal division. One episode every Wednesday, starting 17 September.

"Although northern Sri Lanka has been insistently ignored in the canon of the island’s photographic history, its prominence for the claimed arrival and development of photography cannot be overestimated and warrants far greater attention."

"Depending on whom you ask, the BRI is a 21st-century Marshall Plan for the Global South, a series of crippling debt traps, or a herald of China’s new role as the dominant global superpower." @joshuaqyang.bsky.social writes:

What is the Belt and Road Initiative really?

IN APRIL of this year, the United States, seemingly no longer content to uphold the status quo of global trade and power, unleashed a barrage of tariffs against

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“History, too, is often written in the shadow of the same agendas as myth. As we see in our own time when what facts are available are twisted to serve particular religious and political agendas.” A conversation with the Indologist Wendy Doniger: www.himalmag.com/podcast/wend...

Wendy Doniger on the many lives of myths: Southasia Review of Books podcast #29

Welcome to the Southasia Review of Books podcast, where we speak to celebrated authors and emerging literary voices from across Southasia. In this episode, Shwe

himalmag.com

📚🎙️“The difference between an AI model and a human ultimately is really basic. It’s the fact that an AI model isn’t a human. What I’m interested in is my relationship as a reader with the human writer who put the words on the page.” @vauhinivara.bsky.social:

Vauhini Vara on big tech and our digital selves: Southasia Review of Books podcast #27

Welcome to the Southasia Review of Books Podcast, where we speak to celebrated authors and emerging literary voices from across Southasia. In this episode, Shwe

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📚🎙️“We now have contested histories. History is being weaponised so that it can become a tool for the right wing to make a case against minorities, against the facts of our history.” A conversation with Jerry Pinto on inclusive storytelling:

Jerry Pinto on inclusive storytelling: Southasia Review of Books podcast #26

Welcome to the Southasia Review of Books Podcast, where we speak to celebrated authors and emerging literary voices from across Southasia. In this episode, Shwe

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Tune in to our latest Southasia Review of Books episode for the full conversation with @arunikashyap.bsky.social on his new collection of short stories, 'The Way You Want to Be Loved'. 🎧Spotify: spoti.fi/4557fiy 🎧 Apple Podcasts: apple.co/44Z2YNr 🎧Youtube: youtu.be/btapvkwrTxU

Aruni Kashyap on stories of queer and displaced lives from Assam: Southasia Review of Books podcast #24

Himal Southasian Podcast Channel · Episode

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🎙️📚New episode of the #SouthasiaReviewofBooks podcast! A conversation with the Assamese writer @arunikashyap.bsky.social on crafting stories on love, resistance and belonging set against the long shadow of violence in India’s Northeast: www.himalmag.com/podcast/arun...

Aruni Kashyap on stories of queer and displaced lives from Assam: Southasia Review of Books podcast #24

Welcome to the Southasia Review of Books Podcast, where we speak to celebrated authors and emerging literary voices from across Southasia. In this episode, Shwe

himalmag.com

Coming on 4 June: Season 1 of the new Himal podcast "Partitions of the Heart", which is about Muslim Life – and Death – in Modi's India. Harsh Mander speaks to the researcher and activist Afreen Fatima about #bulldozers, the #hijab, Muslim rage and much more.

We need your support to continue producing independent journalism to the Southasian region. Become a paying supporter today for more investigative reporting and accountability journalism. Join our Patrons programme here: www.himalmag.com/support-himal

We received the honor in the Small and Medium Outlets category for our investigative reportage “The costs of Reliance’s wildlife ambitions” by M Rajshekhar. Read the full story here: buff.ly/QOcuJ1l

The costs of Reliance’s wildlife ambitions

Reporting for this story was supported by the Pulitzer Center. 1: Welcome to Vantara FOR MANY, the first inkling came from the save-the-date card, speckled with

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🏅🎉 Himal was chosen as a finalist for the 2025 Global Shining Light Awards by the Global Investigative Journalism Network (@gijn.org‬ ) — the prize that honors watchdog journalism in developing or transitioning countries carried out under threat, or in perilous conditions.

I am glad to have written this piece for @himalmag.bsky.social with excellent editorial support from @romangtm.bsky.social and @shwethasrikanthan.bsky.social. It is always so gratifying to work with them because they nudge me towards clarity and sharpness.

Himal Southasian@himalsouthasian.bsky.social · last yr.

"India’s strategic concerns have been pushing the country towards Israel, with historical and moral solidarities set aside." A review essay by Chintan Girish Modi :