We are looking forward to a Spring semester full of SASNET-related activities and hope to see many of you at our events. The conference on human rights in Afghanistan, organized with the Raoul Wallenberg Institute in November was a great success with almost 60 participants from across the world, bringing together scholars and activists for important discussions and presentations. The workshop on ‘Rivers, Sacred Values and Environmental Attitudes’ in December with invited scholars from South Asia, Europe and the US, was also highly inspiring and created an important venue for future work on the topic.

The Spring semester has many important events, starting with a public lecture on India and the role of power in a multipolar world by Dr. Jagannath Panda in January, followed by book launches, seminars and panel discussions. On March 20 we welcome you to attend a panel discussion on ‘Women’s Rights in South Asia’, co-organized with the Association of Foreign Affairs in Lund (UPF), to learn more about the current state of women’s political rights in five South Asian countries. We also encourage you to attend a book talk with Dr. Rhys Machold in May, co-organized and hosted at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES), on ‘Fabricating Homeland Security: Police Entanglements across India and Palestine/Israel’.  In addition, we will host a book launch with Professor Kristina Myrvold in February where she will present her book on Sikh News in India and in April there will be a seminar on censorship and the persecution of writers in South Asia with Anisur Rahman, a Bengali-Swedish poet and journalist. At the time of writing, we are planning SASNET’s Annual Lecture on 15 May and more information about this event will be published shortly.

SASNET has also recently announced two calls for travel grants for doctoral students and journalism students. Please look at our home page for more information on these grants. There will be further calls announced during the late Spring for research and planning grants, so keep an eye out for these announcements.

With this brief introduction to the New Year, I wish you all the best for the months to come and hope to see many of you at our own and co-organized events.

Catarina Kinnvall,
Director of SASNET