History of South Asia

The history of Tamil tradition is explored through various aspects of antiquity, including Tamils’ customs and habits, which can be traced through two key sources: inscriptions and literature. Although Tamil religious practices gained prominence in the medieval period with the rise of Śaivism, their ritual practices, as documented in Sangam literature, warrant significant attention. These practices, rooted in clan culture and primarily involving both the references of spirits and a common belief system commonly referred to by a number of related terms like cāmi āṭi, vēlaṉ veṟi āṭṭam, veṟi ayar kalan, teyvam and kaṭavuḷ, murukan kōṭṭam, and others, which were later explicitly connected to the concept of Murugan in subsequent literatures.  Among the various clan-oriented ritual practices, the tradition of cāmi āṭi, or 'god’s possession’, merits in-depth analysis, as it is the foundational element traceable to all rituals associated with Murugan.  Particularly, the concept of cāmi āṭi, as evidenced by the reference in Tirukkovaiyar 283 to vēlaṉ veṟi pukuntu āṭuka ‘perform a frenzied dance having Vēlaṉ entering into you’, along with numerous other related references, requires close examination to clearly understand the contemporary cult behavior of possession by Murugan.  As of now, there is no definitive explanation—scientific, psychological, philosophical, or otherwise—that clearly describes why the phenomenon of cāmi āṭi has persisted exclusively in Tamil culture from time immemorial, particularly in the context of rituals associated with a select few deities such as Murugan, Mariamman, Maturai vīraṉ, and Iyanar.
The primary objective of this article is to explore the phenomenon of cāmi āṭi in relation to the deity Murugan, as evidenced in ancient Tamil literary texts of the ancient past. The article aims to meticulously deconstruct all possible references in ancient Tamil texts related to this clan culture.  This analysis seeks to understand the significance and persistence of this practice among the Tamils, especially those involved in village cults. It is proposed that what began as a belief system referring to teivam and kaṭavuḷ as celestial gods, with references to vēlaṉ, veṟi āṭṭam, and murukan kōṭṭam in Sangam texts, particularly in Aham poems, eventually evolved into a ritual system of Murugan worship involving the tradition of cāmi āṭi with abundance of religious doctrines.  This transition is evident from the emergence of one of the pattuppāṭṭu literary text of Tirumurukāṟṟuppaṭai and the ethical literary texts such as the patiṉeṉkīḻkaṇakku literature of ulakanīti and Tirukkuṟaḷ.  Therefore, the aim of this article is not only to highlight all relevant references in Sangam texts, especially Aham texts, but also to explore how a clan-based culture of Murugan transformed into a mainstream religious practice. When comparing the two popular ritual systems of the Tamils, one performed by Pūcāris and the other performed by Paṇṭārams and Ōtuvārs, Renganathan (2021) points out, “the former predominantly involved bodily performances on the part of the devotee, such as frenzied dancing, firewalking, and tongue piercing, which generally occurred in a state of trance with accompanying folk songs and passionate playing of drums. The latter type of worship, however, was extremely formal, as Tamil literary poems were sung to the accompaniment of melodious and coordinated music, fervently heightening the Tamil religious mood.” (Renganathan 2021, p. 14). The aim of this paper, thus, is mainly to trace the roots of the former type of ritual system involving a state of trance.

The 28th European Conference for South Asian Studies will take place in Heidelberg, Germany, from 1st to 4th of October 2025.
The European Conference for South Asian Studies (ECSAS) has met regularly since 1968, and provides an important opportunity to discuss current research and scholarship on topics relating to South Asia within the humanities and social sciences. The ECSAS conferences now operate under the auspices of the European Association for South Asian Studies (EASAS), a charitable academic association supporting research and teaching concerning South Asia with regard to all periods and fields of study.  Panel submissions will open on 24 May 2024 and will close at midnight (CEST) on 24 July 2024.

A panel session runs for 2 hours, and consists of four paper presentations, with an allotted time slot of 30 minutes each (including discussion).

All panel proposals must include: the title of the panel, the name(s), affiliation(s) and the EASAS membership number of the convener(s), a contact e-mail, and a short abstract (300 characters) and long abstract (1700 characters) that explain the panel topic.

The panel abstracts should highlight the innovative elements of the panel. A tentative list of presenters and their email addresses must also be included to demonstrate the viability of the panel.

Please note that all panel proposals and presentations will be in English.

Apply here: https://ecsas2025.com/call-for-panels/

The government of Nepal is providing the reservation quota for Dalits, Women, Janjati, Madheshi, People with disability, and Khas Arya in the Government job after the interim and then after the constitution of Nepal 2015. The reservation/quota plays a vital role in increasing the representation of marginalized and under-representative groups at the various levels of administrative and decision levels. After the Federal Democratic System of Nepal, women and the Madheshi community became the president of Nepal which is never possible if there is no provision of reservation in the constitution of Nepal. It is a popular tool to provide opportunities to those who are facing various barriers in the society and hiring process in Nepal. However, some of the critiques are that it is not justice for talented candidates who participated in the competitions. Is it true or not? You will get the answers in the research article to make sure that it should be continued or not. What is the Reservation? If there is no inequality in the society, there is no need of reservation. Thus, reservation is the tool of equity to provide equality in the opportunities, decision-making, property, and dignity for all castes, classes, and genders in society. Hence, reservation is the guarantee or fix to arrange for something for someone. Articles 222 and 223 of the constitution of Nepal 2015 explain the inclusion provision related to local government. Whereas Article 38(4) of the constitution of Nepal indicates the right of women to participate in all state bodies based on the principle of proportional inclusion and Article 42 has provision for socially backward women, Dalit, indigenous people, indigenous nationalities, Madhesi, Tharu, minorities, persons with disabilities, marginalized communities, Muslims, backward classes, gender and sexual minorities, youths, farmers, laborers, oppressed or citizens of backward regions and indigenous Khas-Arya shall have the right to participate in the state bodies based on inclusive principle. (The Constitution of Nepal, 2015). Based on this constitutional provision, the Lok Sewa Aayog provided the reservation Quota to competition within the cluster to ensure their participation in developing the Nation. I am writing about whether the reservation or quota system should continue in Nepal. Because it ensures the participation of underrepresented people who are most impacted by inequality and discrimination in Nepal.

In a country like Nepal, where Hindus make up the majority of the population, the study of religious minorities reflects its importance. A distinctive form of stratification is caste. Hindu concepts and arguments can be used to understand and explain this occurrence, which is solely a Hindu phenomenon. Caste is widespread outside of the Indian Subcontinent, in the Arab world, Polynesia, North and East Africa, Japan, and North America. The Muslim community follows a system of hierarchy and upholds caste purity just like the Hindu community. Similar to Brahminism in Hindu society, Saiyedism in Muslim society (the Arab domination) is a major contributor to caste prejudice in the Muslim community. Based on qualitative study, this article describes the critical actions that must be taken at each level of the caste hierarchy. With the use of an observational technique, in-depth interviews, and library research, the subject is being generalized. For the objective of knowing more, Muslim scholars and elder people who had witnessed the practice were chosen as the respondents. Because they requested anonymity, the respondents are referred to as Res.1, Res.2, Res.3, and so forth. The focus of this investigation is Miya Patan's Muslim's caste hierarchy. This article is limited to historical study among the Muslims of Miya Patan of Pokhara. It is not concerned with other aspects of the study area. It makes an effort to address the problem of caste hierarchy among Muslims in Nepal.

The chapter tells a story about the translation of economic ideas across the boundary separating India and Germany by looking at works by two key Muslim modernists in late colonial India, Muhammad Iqbal and Zakir Husain. To do so, as the chapter argues, we cannot simply tell a story about translation across the divide between the Urdu and German languages. Instead, any story about moving across natural language traditions must entail tracking movements that invariably took place through English as well.

At the same time, if it is the movement of economic ideas we want to tell a story about, it also cannot simply be one involving translation across varieties of natural language and literary tradition. For Iqbal and Husain engaged with economic thought against the backdrop both of their interests in German learning as well as a discipline in flux, with different paradigms of explanation purporting to transform economics into a genuine science continuing to jostle with one another for priority and a continuous oscillation back and forth across the boundary between the different representational media – of ordinary (verbal) language, on the one hand, and the formal languages of model making and mathematics, on the other – through which its insights were enunciated. More than this, there was also the still inchoate, if not outright vanishing, divide between economics and areas of inquiry like sociology and law.

This study is focused on the repository of linguistics among the inmates in district prison Quetta, the prison was established by the British regime in 1939.the large number of inmates are imprisoned in this prison, recently more than eight hundred inmates are imprisoned inside the prison, the inmates belong to different cultural and linguistic background, where they interact with one another, because the inmates live in one common barrack where they share lunch, food, clothing bathing and even they share common mod of living, the inmates in Quetta prison belong to different part of province even from all over the country, because the district prison Quetta is the most populated prison in the province, the Quetta city is the capital of province where different cultural , tribal, linguistic people are living, the major languages in the capital are Pashtu and Brahvi languages but the Hazargi , Punjabi, Seraiki, Kashmiri Sindhi and several more languages are spoken, there are several c...

The concept of ṣulḥ-i kull is well known as a core feature of the Mughal Empire's state ideology, one that made it, comparatively speaking, arguably the most tolerant and inclusive state in the entire early modern world. Often translated as “peace with all,” the term has become almost synonymous in South Asian historiography with the policies of religious pluralism promoted by the dynasty's most celebrated emperor, Jalal al-Din Muhammad Akbar “the Great” (r. 1556–1605) and his famed courtier and biographer, Abu al-Fazl ibn Mubarak (1551–1602). Surprisingly enough, however, despite its ubiquity in discussions of Mughal attitudes toward religious and cultural pluralism, a comprehensive intellectual history of the term ṣulḥ-i kull does not, in fact, appear to have ever been attempted. It is often taken for granted that ṣulḥ-i kull was the obvious term to express the ethos of civility, universal reason, and inclusiveness that Akbar wanted to promote. But why did Akbar and Abu al...

In the book, Hurt Sentiments, historian Neeti Nair traces a political history of secularism, one which made a virtue out of hurt in twentieth-century India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Nair asks how a religious sentiment of hurt come to de ne the place of law, culture, ideologies, and belonging in this region. In constituent assembly proceedings, courtroom accounts, media debates, and hate speeches Nair nds tangible answers to this extrasensory claim to hurt. Hurt acquired prominence in sacred-secular politics, Nair argues, not as opposing elements but as co-constitutive forces to the extent that sacred religious thought became paramount to secular imagination. By paying attention to critical events and recurring discussions on the ideas of secular-sacred Nair reveals the slow processual erasure of the place of minorities in majoritarian assertions. An inquiry in history of hurt in Hurt Sentiments eventually explains

, pour le financement accordé au Séminaire Industrialisation de la Formation (Sif) d'un séjour en résidence de trois jours à Genolhac (Cévennes) en mai 2010, au cours duquel le projet de cet ouvrage a, pour la première fois, été discuté collectivement, • l'université Paris XIII et le Laboratoire des sciences de l'Information et de la Communication, dirigé par Bertrand Legendre, pour sa contribution au financement d'un séjour en résidence de trois jours à Sempy (Pas-de-Calais) en juin 2013, au cours duquel a été effectuée la première révision d'ensemble des textes,

After the Independence of India the Question of language going to be complicated. In north India where Hindi language was in demand to be a national language of India at the same moment the other linguistic communities of India uprising movements against the Imposition of Hindi language. Hindi movements and activities of its leaders in union government were seen as suspicion and threat to be alienated of their culture, economic viability ,sovereignty ,politicalsocial equality for non-Hindi communities (specially Punjabi, Tamil ,Telugu language communities) .The demand of formation of state on linguistic line was the outcome of these linguistic movements which was raise by non-Hindi communities .In these rubric this answer consist and show-how the linguistic movements in India were created ,how the Indian state dealt with it, what was the nature of these movements ; how the question of dual nationalism create. Many works has been done by many scholars like Jyotindra Das Gupta1 who analyze this in the context of emergence of linguistic organization of different part of India and how much contribution of regional politician to uplift the movement, Paul R. Brass2 another scholar identify these movements on the base of the language religion and nationalism-how it upraise

Mullah Abdul Qadir Badauni is often regarded as one of the most influential historians writing during Akbar's reign. The Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh and Najat-ur-Rashid are both being examined for this project. The Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh, commonly known as the Tarik-i-Badauni, is a broad history of India that he began writing in 1590. It covers the time period from Seboktegin (997-97) until the year 1595-96. Badauni's Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh was written in response to Abul Fazl's account of the Mahzarnama proceedings.

Nizam-ud-din Ahmed's narration of the proceedings is insufficient and frequently wrong. Badauni had a feeling of jealousy and vendetta that runs throughout his work against those who had gone higher in the eyes of Akbar. Najat-ur-Rashid is one of the most contentious works to emerge from mediaeval India. The portrayal of Akbar and his policies, in particular his religious convictions, has elicited venomous comments. Sadly, this book has not received the necessary amount of attention from historians and academics.

The Najat-ur-Rashid is a severe condemnation of Akbar's policies despite he has not been named by name. He also shows exceptional tolerance towards the heterodox sects of Islam, for example, the Mahdavis and the unorthodox Sufis. Badauni was not an orthodox theologian to the extent that he is portrayed to be.

This book examines the global circulation of Marxism seen from one of its most highly charged sites: Calcutta in India. Building on but also revising existing approaches to global intellectual history, the book presents the circulation of Marxism through Calcutta as a historically-sited problem of mass mediation. Using tools from media studies, the book explores the way that Marxism was presented to the public, the technologies used, and the meanings of Marxism in twentieth-century Calcutta. Demonstrating how the Popular Front was split between the so-called 'people's group' and those whom were called 'intellectuals', the book argues that the people's group generally identified themselves as Marxists and preferred audio-visual media such as theatre, while the so-called intellectuals privileged academic rigour and print media, usually referring to themselves as Marxians. Thus, the author reveals a polyphony of Marxisms in the Popular Front. Tracing Marxism back to the Bengal Renaissance and the Swadeshi and Naxal movements, this book shows how debate around the meaning of 'Marxism' continued throughout the 1970s in Calcutta, and eventually engendered the historiographical movement that has come to be known as Subaltern Studies.

আমাদের দেশে নদী, বন্যা, চাষাবাদ, পানি ব্যবস্থাপনা ও নদী ব্যবস্থাপনা নিয়ে গবেষণার সংখ্যা অনেক। কিন্তু সেসব গবেষণায় নদী, জল ও জলীয় যাপনকে ঐতিহাসিক এবং বিবিধ স্থানিক পরিপ্রেক্ষিতে বোঝাপড়ার প্রচেষ্টা খুবই গৌণ। বিশেষ করে গত এক দশকে দুনিয়ার বিভিন্ন স্থানে ও প্রতিষ্ঠানে প্রত্ন-জলবায়ু, নদী ও জলের ইতিহাস, বাস্তৃতন্ত্রের ইতিহাস নিয়ে বিপুল উপাত্ত-আলোচনা ও তর্ক তৈরি হয়েছে, এই প্রবন্ধে তার কিছু বয়ান দেওয়া হয়েছে। জলীয় যাপনের যে বহুত্বের উদযাপন ছিল, সেই ঐতিহ্য বর্তমানের চিন্তা ও তৎপরতায় গৌণ। সেই পুরোনো ঐতিহ্যে নদীভাঙন, খরা কিংবা বন্যা ’দুর্যোগ বা ‘অস্বাভাবিক’ কিছু না। ইতিহাসবে জলের নিরিখে দেখা ও জলের সঙ্গে মানুষের সার্বিক সম্পর্কের ইতিহাস নিয়ে এই প্রবন্ধে আলাপ করা হয়েছে।

Reviewing various political vicissitudes which Punjab had to pass through since its annexation in 1849 to its partition in 1947, the present article aims at studying both the political development as well political parties in the area under consideration. The article appraises the nature and working of political parties as a part of political development. The phenomenon of political development in this article is treated as a negative force exhausting the province on communal lines resulting in to its partition on communal lines in 1947.

Considering the “relativization of identity”, “the positive recognition of the other”, “the mutual evaluation of cultures”, and the “creation of a normative world culture” as “four main kinds of cosmopolitan relationships” and, therefore, using the term cosmopolitanism in a “post-Western” register of meaning, I will make a case that Iranian identity in a post-Islamist condition needs a kind of struggle for recognition if it wants to locate itself at the interface of the local and the global. Taking the correlation between the discourse of post-Islamism and a deconstructive theory of identity into consideration, this paper addresses a central question in identity studies: can a downgraded identity rooted in a decent civilization—one in which both “moral” and “material” values for the globalized word have demoted—be reinvented? I argue that being accorded recognition, however, is different from self-congratulation within the boundaries of a local identity. In the former case, a nation...

This article explores the politicization of ethnicity in Nepal since 1990. In particular it looks at how ideas of indigeneity have become increasingly powerful, leading to Nepal becoming the first and—to date—only Asian country to have signed International Labour Organization Convention number 169 (hereafter ILO 169). The rise of ethnic politics, and in particular the reactive rise of a new kind of ethnicity on the part of the ‘dominant’ groups—Bahuns (Brahmans) and Chhetris (Kshatriyas)—is the key to understanding why the first Constituent Assembly in Nepal ran out of time and collapsed at the end of May 2012. This collapse occurred after four years and four extensions of time, despite historic and unprecedentedly inclusive elections in April 2008 and a successful peace process that put an end to a ten-year civil war.

Generating predictive 3D modelling and virtual reality (VR) of the World Cultural Heritage of ruins of the Buddhist vihara at Paharpur, Bangladesh, is the ultimate notion of this research paper. In Bangladesh archaeology, it is a new paradigm to generate the predictive 3D models of the ruined structures in real mood and develop a VR to organise a journey from ruins mood to near to real mood. It will help to forecast the past virtually through the journey of present towards past. Futuristic forecasting is the normalised phenomenon in statistical analysis, despite the archaeologist’s motto, which is to predict the past. Methodologically, philosophising the vihara architecture of the Bangla region by following Vajrayana Buddhism is the first step. Then, information technology and archaeological data enable the 3D model generation of a known structure, producing high-quality outputs of the historic site for digital conservation. Finally, 3D predictive modelling has been achieved by supp...

This publication explores various folk festivals, rites, rituals, beliefs and oral traditions to understand the many processes that went into creating a unique identity of the area of study – the Radh region of Bengal. The work has been supplemented with intensive ethnographic fieldwork across the region, supplemented by available archaeological findings, records and publications. Forming the western part of the state of West Bengal (India), the present study focuses on the districts of Purulia, Bankura and Paschim Mednipur (West Mednipur) and is a representative of understanding a continuous process of historical development to look into settlement patterns, migrations and resettlements, geographical boundaries, royal patronages of festivals and beliefs and oral traditions, reflecting ideas and identities.The local characteristics of these also helps to connect the area to the larger picture of the region and also brings to context a historical understanding with the bigger part of India. The fieldwork undertaken, was intensive enough in nature and looks into rural communities, which have undergone important processes of assimilation of thought processes and ideas, rendering them a distinct identity.

, pour le financement accordé au Séminaire Industrialisation de la Formation (Sif) d'un séjour en résidence de trois jours à Genolhac (Cévennes) en mai 2010, au cours duquel le projet de cet ouvrage a, pour la première fois, été discuté collectivement, • l'université Paris XIII et le Laboratoire des sciences de l'Information et de la Communication, dirigé par Bertrand Legendre, pour sa contribution au financement d'un séjour en résidence de trois jours à Sempy (Pas-de-Calais) en juin 2013, au cours duquel a été effectuée la première révision d'ensemble des textes,

The coming of the English East India Company to Bengal and their settlement over here was an important landmark in the history of Bengal and India as a whole. It was from the very early stage of the seventeenth century that we could see their efforts to establish their stronghold over Bengal which is known from the letters of Sir Thomas Roe. On the other hand the agents of the Dutch East India Company were also eager to establish their commercial relations with Bengal as is known from the letter of Van Berchem (the Director of the Dutch Factories of Coromandel). The English from their very early phase were interested in establishing a factory at Pipili in Orissa. However their hope did not materialised and they establish their first factory at Patna in Eastern India. Though, the hope of establishing a factory at Orissa by them was never stopped. The English sent two ships again at Pipili. Finally in AD 1633 the English factory established at Balasore which was at that time under the Bengal Suba (province). One of the main reasons behind the establishing of a factory at Balasore was the easy availability of Cotton cloth and above all the direct opening through sea.

In October 2018, midway through the course of my research on colonial-era Allahabad, the city's name was suddenly changed to Prayagraj through a fiat of the state government of Uttar Pradesh. While this shift might seem merely a nomenclatural one, those who follow the cultural politics of region will know that there is more to the tale. In fact, the change is rooted in a concerted attempt to erase the Mughal-era history of the city that does not fit homogenizing narratives that the right-wing wishes to peddle. My dissertation explores how textuality became the staging ground for the emergence of urbanity in Allahabad and how the city presents a significant object of enquiry to understand linguistic, caste, religious, and gender contestations in this region. In 2017, I began reconstructing the micro-histories of individuals and cultural institutions of the city in the colonial period through visits to local archives and vernacular libraries. Following the name change in 2018, it felt even more urgent to remember Allahabad, its contested identities, and histories of provincial cities, not just as objects of nostalgia for the Sunday columns of newspapers, or through the glorified but homogenous lens of tourist or pilgrimage towns, but in a clear-eyed manner, as everyday and lived spaces with complex pasts.

In questo capitolo ci occuperemo della politica italoamericana e specificamente di come la classe politica italoamericana mobilita il consenso elettorale. Cercheremo dunque di capire non tanto come votano gli italoamericani, ma come i politici italoamericani si fanno eleggere. Definiremo a tal scopo diversi ‘modelli di politica’ a seconda delle modalità di mobilitazione del voto e delle visioni della rappresentanza articolate da quei politici. Cercheremo inoltre i ‘segni etnici’ nel rapporto che la classe politica italoamericana instaura con la propria comunità e con le altre. Infine, ma non da ultimo, vedremo come il modello di politica fondato sull’identità etnica—sull’orgoglio del sangue—interagisce con gli altri modelli, in particolare con l’identificazione partigiana fondata sulla rappresentanza delle classi lavoratrici (o, per continuare con la metafora, sul sudore) che aveva caratterizzato la prima fase dell’immigrazione. Concluderemo che il rapporto tra sangue e politica — fondamento della ‘ethnic politics’ — nasconde un ambiguo intreccio tra caratteri pre-moderni (pre-politici) e post-moderni (anti-politici).
Non il sangue, ma il sudore è il fondamento della modernità politica; non l’etnia, ma la classe. Negli Stati Uniti questa versione ‘europea’ del moderno aveva sempre stentato ad affermarsi, sebbene per qualche breve decennio, nell’ America rooseveltiana, fosse sembrata praticabile. Ma sul finire del XX secolo quell’orizzonte era ormai lontano. Man mano che gli immigrati di un tempo diventavano ceto medio, rifiutavano la memoria del dolore e del sudore e venivano indotti a riscoprire il primordiale orgoglio del sangue. Nella comunità italoamericana si vedono lucidamente gli effetti di questa trasformazione: il partito Democratico tracollava e si affermavano i settori più conservatori dello schieramento Repubblicano, pronti a sostituire il ‘vecchio’ modello della politica partigiana con il ‘nuovo’ della politica etnica.
Il saggio è organizzato attorno al racconto analitico di quattro storie di politici italoamericani: Tommy D’Alesandro, Nancy Pelosi, Geraldine Ferraro e Alphonse D’Amato. Le fonti utilizzate sono soprattutto opere biografiche e autobiografiche e le interviste che ho curato per l’Oral History Archive del John D. Calandra Italian American Institute (CUNY) — un progetto specificamente dedicato alla raccolta della memoria dei politici americani di origine italiana.

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.
The collection of essays in this volume examines forms of business documentation in the late Persianate world and the Indian Ocean, between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries. Looking upon business in its broadest sense, the themes range from property disputes within families to inter-polity and inter-imperial deals, all of which is captured within the notion of the bazaar. Presenting documents and documentary forms written in Persian, but also the associated languages of Arabic, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Marathi and Rajasthani, the articles collectively enrich the idea of the Persianate, delineating its specific dispensations within regional contexts, and also its boundaries and limitations. This is also a contribution to the study of Persographia, in this case Persianate rather than just Persian writing. The articles study specific language combinations, lexical elements and usages that came to be deployed in different areas and the legal cultures they provide evidence for.

Quetta, the capital city of Baluchistan province lack most of the facilities to tackle the Municipal Solid Waste. The Metropolitan Corporation Quetta does not have enough capacity to manage the MSW as it only lifts and dispose 45% to 50% of the total waste. Due to overall backwardness of the Baluchistan province, people come to Quetta city for their basic necessities of life particularly health and education and generate considerable amount of MSW. Most of the household waste is collected by the scavengers and due to the absence of MSW recycling facilities, local waste dealers and stockist are left with the only option to export the recyclable waste to other large cities, mainly Lahore for waste recovery. The most common practice for reducing the dumped waste volume is open burning which potentially causes serious health and environmental problems. There is no existing systematic method in Quetta city for Municipal Solid Waste Management. Therefore, it is now necessary for the Government of Baluchistan to pay special attention to the waste management.

Everyone seems to be interested in Islamic political thought these days, nodoubt as a result of the rise and fall of Islamisms/post-Islamisms and othercontemporary configurations of Islam and politics. And then there are the claimants for a new caliphate. However, most concerns with political thought– with the exception of the large Princeton Encyclopaedia edited by PatriciaCrone and Gerhard Bowering – tend to focus their attention on either the earlyand classical debates on the imamate (e.g., Crone), classical philosophy andthe “Arabic context” for Platonopolis (e.g., Nelly Lahoud), or the medievalakhlāq literature (e.g., Linda Darling and Muzaffar Alam), or even modernpermutations (far too many examples to mention). It is a rare work indeedthat tries to bring a range of perspectives in a diachronic analysis over space,time, and political theologies into a single volume. The success and achievementof Boroujerdi’s volume is to do precisely that and to collate contributionsfrom some ...

Stupa means heaped up or heaped of an alms bowl. Stupa is a symbol of supremacy and stability of an order. It contains the relics of Buddha and represented various events of Buddha, Bodhisattva, Panchadyani Buddha and other followers of Buddha. These are categorized into five groups-Saririka, Paribhogika, Uddesika, Dhammika and Votive. It became religious component to those who wanted some concrete form to worship before the image. Pre-Mauryan and Mauryan stupas also reflect the impact of the Sunga and Kushana periods in Nepal. Earlier stupas were built on a low hemispherical dome rose on a cylindrical base and were provided with harmika and chhatravali. The exterior components of the solid brick work was smoothened with lime, clay or concrete plaster. The medhi was filled-up with mud or other appropriate packing materials to provide additional strength to bear the weight of hemisphere. Stupas of later period are well-decorated and its various components i.e. chhatravali, amalaka, kalasa and vayupuraka were added to the superstructure. From the Kushana period onwards the drum (medhi) grew in height as compared to its diameter and turned into a tall cylinder dominating the dome. During the Gupta period four images of Buddha were kept at four cardinal points of the stupas. In the Gandhara period, the drum was built in diminishing terraces and the facade was elaborately embellished. The low hemisphere of the earliest stupas was changed into a tall figure with ornamental tower on the platform, drum and chhatravali. The shape and size of the stupas were so radically changed that it became difficult to recognize the original form and its importance without the knowledge of the intermediate stages. The changing modes as well as the stages in its development could not be studied without the support of the stone and metal miniatures, rock-cut specimens due to the absence of the preserved complete superstructure.

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Review of the book Looking Within, Looking Without: Exploring Households in the Sub-continent through Time (Darmstadt:  Primus Books GmbH, 2015), published on H-Asia (H-Net Reviews) in January 2017. https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=45644