Riverbank Erosion: Land and Politics of Identity in Assam
Ankur Tamuli Phukan
February 28, 2022
In the latest issue of India in Transition, Ankur Tamuli Phukan (Programme and Research Associate, Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group, Kolkata) discusses how climatic and development-induced ecological events deepened already existing ethnic conflicts and identity discourses in the Indian state of Assam.
This article is the first in a set of guest-edited IiT short series. The articles in this series seek to make sense of India’s multi-scalar response to climate crisis in four distinct ecological regions. India’s first-ever climate change assessment report, published in 2020, found that the intensity of droughts increased between 1951 to 2016 and that water stress, due to both flooding and loss of ground water, has exponentially risen over the previous decades. There is increasing pressure at the state and local municipal levels to come up with mitigation plans coupled with increasing global pressure on India to declare a zero-emission target. At the same time, on the ground-level, political, communal, and ethnic violence has increased in areas that are increasingly “disaster”-prone. This series will map how the effects of extreme weather are manifesting themselves as market-oriented transformations of the agrarian and forest economies, leading to various kinds of ethnic fissures and political violence around the question of land in the Ganga Brahmaputra region.
(Guest Editor: Debjani Bhattacharyya, History Department, University of Zürich)
IiT articles are now being re-published in Scroll.in!
(IiT Series Guest-Edited by Neelanjan Sircar)
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Rohit Chandra, January 20, 2022
From Modi to Mamata, How Did Indian Politics Become so Dependent on the Cult of Personality?
Neelanjan Sircar, February 3, 2022
How India's Centralised Bureaucracy Undermines its Federalism
Yamini Aiyar, February 17, 2022
Video Available of Ambassador Shyam Saran's February 24 CASI-Khemka Lecture
On February 24, 2022, Ambassador Shyam Saran (26th Foreign Secretary of India) delivered a virtual CASI-Nand & Jeet Khemka Distinguished Lecture titled "Overlapping Peripheries: How Will India and China Navigate the Asian Century?" The lecture, moderated by discussant Ashley J. Tellis (Tata Chair for Strategic Affairs & Senior Fellow Carnegie Endowment for International Peace), was in partnership with the Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy, Center for the Study of Contemporary China, and Perry World House. FULL VIDEO (Transcript, Hindi subtitles, English captions available)
CASI Student Programs
Applications for CASI's Sobti Family Fellowship and 2022 Summer Research Funds are NOW OPEN!
Sobti Family Fellowship: The Sobti Family Fellowship will provide a Penn doctoral student with $12,500 to develop independent research interests broadly related to CASI’s agenda. The award will include an unrestricted $10,000 grant with the addition of up to $2,500 in travel expenses, conference attendance fees, and research materials.
Summer Research Funds: CASI will provide up to $4,000 to Penn undergraduate students and $5,000 to Penn graduate students for independent research projects related to contemporary India. We strongly encourage applications from undergraduate students working on senior theses and graduate students conducting and analyzing fieldwork for their capstone projects or dissertations.
Deadline for BOTH applications: Sunday, April 3, 2022 at 11:59pm EST
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Questions about CASI Student Programs?
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2021-22 CASI Virtual Seminar Series
March 2, 2022, 10:00am EST | 8:30pm IST via Zoom
CASI Book Talk with Authors Joy Ma & Dilip D'Souza
moderated by Swagato Ganguly (Editorial Page Editor, The Times of India; CASI Spring 2022 Visiting Fellow)
March 3, 2022, 12 noon EST | 10:30pm IST via Zoom
"Why Discussion Rules Matter for Representation: Experimental Evidence from Rural India"
[Register]
CASI / South Asia Center / Penn Comparative Politics Workshop Seminar with Simon Chauchard (University Carlos III, Madrid)
March 17, 2022, 12 noon EDT | 9:30pm IST via Zoom
"Ordering Violence: Explaining Armed Group-State Relations from Conflict to Cooperation"
[Register]
CASI / South Asia Center / Andrea Mitchell Center / Perry World House / Penn Comparative Politics Workshop Seminar with Paul Staniland (University of Chicago)
REGISTER for CASI Spring 2022 Events
Event Videos:
February 24, 2022: CASI Khemka Lecture "Overlapping Peripheries: How Will India and China Navigate the Asian Century?" with Amb. Shyam Saran (26th Foreign Secretary of India) FULL VIDEO
February 17, 2022: CASI Seminar "Why Do Poor Voters Choose a Pro-Rich Party in India?" with Christophe Jaffrelot (CERI, King's India Institute, CNRS) FULL VIDEO
VIEW VIDEOS of more CASI past events—Transcripts, English captions, Hindi subtitles available on select events
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Please note: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, CASI is operating on a hybrid schedule.