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...

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

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 :

“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

🎙️ 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

🎙️📚 “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

'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

“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:

📣 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...

📣 🎙️ 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:

“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...

📚🎙️“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:

📚🎙️“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:

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

🎙️📚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...

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

🏅🎉 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.

🎙️📚"To say what the Gulf was according to the migrants, I did not want to read them as victims. I wanted to look at the kind of literature they wrote, the kind of photographs they produced or the films they made." A conversation with Mohamed Shafeeq Karinkurayil:

🎙️📚New episode of the #SouthasiaReviewofBooks podcast! A conversation with Mohamed Shafeeq Karinkurayil on his documenting the cultural imaginaries of Kerala and the Gulf through migrants’ literary and visual records of their transnational lives and aspirations: www.himalmag.com/podcast/moha...

“To be accused of speaking too loudly about one injustice but not others by someone who doesn’t care about any of them is to be told, simply, to keep quiet.”

"India’s star liberals tap into moral outrage when it is politically expedient, yet become curiously passive when it is not, offering only muted critique of government actions." Burhan Majid on the paradox of Indian liberal thought on Kashmir:

“Just imagine, you give your child a syrup hoping he will get better. Instead you realise you gave him poison from India.” Vidya Krishnan and Arshu John on deadly Indian cough syrups in The Gambia and the shocking disparities in regulation: www.himalmag.com/essay/india-... @himalmag.bsky.social

🎙️📚 "It even sounds the same – 'criminal' and 'habitual offender'. So the burden of crime got carried with the Bhantus into independent India." A conversation with Nusrat F Jafri on uncovering her maternal ancestors’ past rooted in the Bhantu identity:

"Reports from the UN and Human Rights Watch paint an unflattering picture not just of the Sheikh Hasina government’s brutality but also of the interim government’s failure to stop abusive practices that continue to this day." Cyrus Naji writes:

🎙️📚New episode of the #SouthasiaReviewofBooks podcast! A conversation with the historian Manan Ahmed Asif (@sepoy.bsky.social) on Lahore’s histories, the role of itinerancy, memory and violence, and questions of state control and nationalism in Pakistan: www.himalmag.com/podcast/mana...

Shwetha Srikanthan, speaks to the historian Manan Ahmed Asif about his new book *Disrupted City*

🎙️📚 "I'm not surprised that women's voices are coming to the fore in Nepal now, because we've seen a lot of literature from men about men and I think we are dying to tell our own stories." A conversation with the Nepali-born writer Weena Pun: www.himalmag.com/podcast/ween...

🎙️📚 In her biography of the city, the Kashmiri writer Sadaf Wani highlights the complications of Srinagar’s identity and recentres the everyday lives of its people, particularly women. On @himalmag.bsky.social's latest Southasia Review of Books Podcast episode: www.himalmag.com/podcast/srin...

Your TBR list just got a lot longer – here are 20 great titles selected by the Southasia Review of Books community for @himalmag.bsky.social’s What Southasia Read in 2024 roundup: www.himalmag.com/reviews/what...

“Sri Lanka is no stranger to failed revolutions and what has become clear since 2022 is that its citizens, despite the state’s best and most violent efforts, have not hesitated to make their will known – by whatever means necessary.” @vindi-b.bsky.social: urbanviolence.org/fables-of-re...

A sharp-eyed eyewitness to a chaotic and confusing world, Tariq Ali understands that its problems don’t ever change, they just take different forms. On @himalmag.bsky.social's Southasia Review of Books podcast, a conversation on his life in writing and dissent: www.himalmag.com/podcast/writ...

In ‘Sahaj Path’ – Rabindranath Tagore’s much-loved work for young readers of Bengali – his views on class, caste and gender are inextricably intertwined with his aesthetics and pedagogy. Ria Modak writes: www.himalmag.com/culture/beng... @himalmag.bsky.social

🎙️📚 “This most recent war in Palestine has totally exposed the double standards of the West.” Coming soon on the #SouthasiaReviewofBooks podcast, a conversation with the renowned Pakistani-British activist and writer Tariq Ali on his new memoir, ‘You Can’t Please All’: https://buff.ly/3Zo3Lmx

an extraordinary elections year and the spatial-material shapes of power and disenfranchisement thought through public space | Fables of Recovery and Revolution urbanviolence.org/fables-of-re... #SriLanka

🎙️📚New episode of the #SouthasiaReviewofBooks podcast! A conversation with the Indian-Francophone writer Ari Gautier on Black and Dalit struggles, indentured labour, and the little-known histories of French colonialism in South India. Tune in: open.spotify.com/episode/6iI9...

Started a starter pack!

I created a South Asian languages and literatures starter pack! I’m sure I missed many people. If you are a translator, linguist, scholar, or even a dabbler or dilettante, please let me let me know in the comments and I will add you. go.bsky.app/AFjHSX6

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to trek in the Himalayas in Nepal, my latest essay will give you a sense of it. You have to sign in/make an account to read it, but it's free to read. www.himalmag.com/culture/manj...

The Minnesota-based nonprofit Mizna is seeking donations to launch the Gaza Folio, a collection of writing and art from Palestinian artists in Gaza, guest-edited by Yahya Ashour. They are so close to hitting their fundraising goal. Please help if you can! www.givemn.org/organization...