April 3: Friday, 9 AM,.  Professor Laurie Patton, Charles Howard Candler Professor and Professor of Early Indian Religions at Emory University will speak on “Women and Hinduism in Contemporary India.”  This lecture is free to all interested in South Asia.  Dr. Patton is the author of six books on South Asian religion. April 3, Friday, Noon.  Professor Harold A. Gould well speak on America’s Half Century Struggle to Control the Political Agenda in South Asia.  Luncheon included in conference registration. April 4: Saturday, Noon, Mr. Vivek Wadhwa, Duke University and Harvard Law, will speak on “Globalization: India, China and Myths in the U.S. Competitiveness Debate.”  Mr. Wadha is a major national figure in the immigration and outsourcing debate.  He has a regular column in Business Week and is a frequent guest on cable news shows.  News India-Times group featured him in mid-March.  Luncheon included in conference registration. April 4, Saturday, hor d’oeurves 6:00 PM, dinner, 6:30 PM.  Included in conference registration.  The program includes: Noted Sports Agent and Entrepreneur J.B. Bernstein who created the Million Dollar Arm reality show and winners Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel, currently with the Pittsburgh Pirates.  The March 9 issue of Sports Illustrated contains a feature piece on them. Indian Ambassador Arun K. Singh speaking the Indo-American relations. SASA recognition awards. Reservations for the Saturday luncheon and dinner may be made on the TiE Florida website: insert url when available Wadhwa Luncheon: $25 Saturday Banquet: $45; $$75 per couple ===================================================================================== FRIDAY 3 APRIL 200 REGISTRATION OPENS AT 8:15 IN THE FAIRWINDS ALUMNI CENTER LOBBY OPENING PLENARY SESSION Laurie Patton, Emory University, A Contemporary Mother: Sanskrit and the Feminine in Present Day India SESSION 1: INDIA: ANCIENT AND MEDEIVAL LITERARY NARRATIVES Aditya Adarkar, Montclair State University, Epic and Modern Karna Narratives: Ethical Ambiguities and Stark Tragedies Night Queen Pankaj, Banaras Hindu University , India through the eyes of Fa-Hien INDIA: MEDIA AND EMPIRE Chandrika Kaul, University of St Andrews, Scotland, Communications, Media and Globalization in the context of Britain’s Indian empire Caleb Simmons, University of Florida, Severed Heads and Intersubjectivity:  Gaze Politics in Anti-British Political Iconography of mid-20th Century India. Joe Pellegrino, Georgia Southern University, Culture Through Comics:  The Success of Amar Chitra Katha DISCOURSES OF KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICE: GENDER AND RELIGION IN INDIA Pratyusha Basu, University of South Florida, Cows as Dairy and Deity: Linking Religion and Development in India. Carlos Lopez, University of South Florida, Debunking the ars erotica: The Kāmasūtra as scientia sexualis. Muhammad Hammad Lakhvi, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Gender Discrimination and “Women Protection Bill 2006” LUNCHEON AND PLENARY SESSION Harold A. Gould, University of Illinois, America’s Half Century Struggle to Control the Political Agenda in South Asia SESSION 2: PAKISTAN: POLITICS, SOCIETY AND NATION Rana Eijaz Ahmad, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan: Transitions, Tribulations and Triumphs Umbreen Javaid, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Changing Trends of Security and Common Grounds for Skeptical Neighbors in South Asia Daniela Bredi, Sapienza University of Rome, For a history of the frontiers of Islam – Kargil and the Kingdom of Purig NEPAL IN THE 20th CENTURY Todd Lewis, College of the Holy Cross, The Buddha’s Life Retold in 20th Century Nepal: Contextualizing Chittadhar Hridaya’s Masterpiece, Sugata Saurabha Bishal Bhakta Kasu, Illinois State University, Coverage of the People’s War of Nepal in American Newspaper M. Eliatamby-de-Silva, George Mason University, Women at the Frontlines of Combat in Non-State Armed Groups in Nepal and Sri Lanka SOUTH ASIA: LITERATURE, HISTORY AND COLONIALISM Biplab Chakraborty, University of Burdwan, West Bengal, Fore-Grounding of Colonial History in Indian Literature: A Stylistic Approach Anita Anantharam, University of Florida, What the Body Remembers: Memory, Community, and Women’s Poetry in Hindi and Urdu Syeda Sara Abbas, Carnegie Mellon University, The Coming of the Mahdi: The Construction of Utopia in Shia literary narrative SESSION 3: SRI LANKA: SECTARIAN CONFLICT AND THE ECONOMY Asoka Bandarage, Georgetown University, The Separatist Conflict in Sri Lanka Rajesh Venugopal, University of Oxford, Cosmopolitan Capitalism and Sectarian Socialism: The Politics of Market Reform and the Failure of the Liberal Peace in Sri Lanka, 2001-2004 Rotua Lumbantobing, North Carolina State University, Household Location Decisions with Respect to Water Availability: Evidence of Sorting Equilibrium in Southwestern Sri Lanka Shantha Wanninayake, Gothenburg University, Internally displaced persons in Sri Lanka: Relationships between self-settled IDPs and their hosts in the North and North Central Part of the Country INDIA: MODERN POLITICS AND CIVIL SOCIETY Dean E. McHenry, Jr., Claremont Graduate University, The Lok Sabha in Transition:  Is Parliamentary Democracy in India Threatened? A. C. Shukla, Environmental Studies Center, Kanpur, Coalition Politics and Indo-US Civil Nuclear Accord Md. Masum Emran, University of Florida, Changing the Family Structure in  Developed and Developing Countries – Should We Care? Erik Komarov, Russian Academy of Sciences, Regularities of Democratization: The Case of India in Comparative Perspective RECEPTION AND ENTERTAINMENT SATURDAY 4 APRIL 2009 REGISTRATION OPENS AT 8:15 IN THE FAIRWINDS ALUMNI CENTER LOBBY SESSION 4: SRI LANKA: POLITICS, CASTE AND THE ECONOMY Daniel Bass, Lynn University, A Place Called Home:  Up-country Tamil Repatriates in India Francesca Bremner, Montclair State University, Journeys of Displacement and Arrival: Return Migration in Sri Lanka Sasikumar Balasundaram, University of South Carolina, Untouchables Became Touchable: Changing Caste Identity Among the Up-Country Tamils in Contemporary Sri Lanka ART, CULTURE AND RELIGION OF INDIA AND NEPAL – I Lynn Marie Ate, Washington State University, Onranpakuti: A 'Single Part' of the Tamil Epic Cilappatikaram "The Case of the Anklet" and its significance to the study of South Indian Vaisnavism Dina Bangdel, Virginia Commonwealth University, Tourist Art of Nepal Katherine Harper, Loyola Marymount University, Neo-Tantric Art of Nepal SESSION 5: ART, CULTURE AND RELIGION OF INDIA AND NEPAL, II Julia Hegewald, University of Manchester, Water Architecture: The Dhungedharas of Nepal Deepak Shimkhada, Claremont McKenna College, Kumari --Then and Now Purnima Mehta Bhatt, Hood College, Nature, Animals and Birds in the Water Architecture of Gujarat, India INDIAN POLITICS, ECONOMY AND CULTURE Badrinath Rao, Kettering University, “If Salt Itself Loseth Its Flavor…..”  Making Sense of Corruption in the Justice System in India Sheba Saeed, University of Birmingham, UK, Changing government policies in India towards begging in the context of their overall attitude towards poverty alleviation from 1947 to the present day Shalini Kakar, University of California  at Santa Barbara, Devotional Fanscapes in Popular Culture: Rajinikanth Fan Club, A New Political Force? LUNCHEON AND PLENARY SESSION Vivek Wadhwa, Duke University; Harvard Law, Globalization: India, China and Myths in the U.S. Competitiveness Debate SESSION 6: THE POLITICS OF PUBLIC HEALTH Jeffrey Gower, SUNY Buffalo, Guinea Pig to the World?  India’s New Drug Trial Industry Subir K. Kole, East West Center/ University of Hawaii at Manoa, Dept. of Political Science, Liberalizing” public health: The political economy of HIV/AIDS epidemic in India Akash Acharya, South Gujarat University, Health Needs of the Urban Poor: Findings from 22 low-income settlements in Surat, India David G. Verquist, University of the Incarnate Word, Medical Tourism and India (continued as Panel 7D) INDIA AND PAKISTAN: THE STATE, VIOLENCE AND TERRORISM Vandana Asthana, Eastern Washington University, Combating Terrorism in India:  Strategies and Options Prudence F. Bruns PhD, University of California, Berkeley, India’s RAW and Pakistan’s ISI: Implications of the Use of Proxy Armies in South Asia Madhavi Bhasin, Global India Foundation, North America Chapter, The Mumbai Terror Attacks and Resilience of Indian Democracy SESSION 7: DIASPORAS Mohammed Alam., Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi. Situating Asian Indian Diaspora in the United States: An Exploratory Study Dipika Mukherjee, University of Leiden., The Netherlands, Women’s Voices In The Diaspora:  Is “Multi” Something To Be Celebrated? Movindri Reddy, Occidental College, Los Angeles, Transnational Identity: the Post-Colonial South Asian Diaspora DOING BUSINESS IN AND WITH INDIA Arif Zaman, Commonwealth Business Council Council / Henley Business School, Strengthening the Business Environment in South Asia: A Regional Perspective Arun Sharma, Miami University, Indo-Latin American Trade Ken Silverman, Iteamworks, Bollywood Inside Hollywood BANGLADESH: POLITICS, ECONOMY AND SOCIETY Md. Taufiqul Islam and Koichi Fujita, Kyoto University, Japan, Empowering Rural Administration at the Lowest-level in Bangladesh: A Comparative Study with India Humayun Kabir, Hiroshima University, Japan, Social and Political Context of Islamic Schooling in Bangladesh: the Case of Madrasas and Ulamas in Brahmanbaria Municipality Mohammad Ehsanul Kabir, and Mohammad Tariq Ahsan, Monash University, Australia. Inclusion in Early Childhood Education through Electronic Media: A Case Study of Sesame Street (Sisimpur) in Bangladesh Medical Tourism and India (a continuation of 6A) David G. Verquist, University of the Incarnate Word ANNUAL BANQUET The Million Dollar Arm team: JB Bernstein, Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel Recognition Awards The Honorable Arun K. Singh, Ambassador of India SUNDAY: 5 APRIL, 2009 REGISTRATION OPENS AT 8:15 IN THE FAIRWINDS ALUMNI CENTER LOBBY SESSION 8: MODERN INDIAN ECONOMIC ISSUES: WATER AND AGRICULTURE Kashif Hasnie, Environmental Studies Centre, Kanpur, India, Baghliar: An Aqueous Conflict Muniandi Jegadeesan and K. Fujita, Kyoto University, Japan, Transformation of Tank Irrigated Agriculture in Tamil Nadu: A of Study of Three Villages Lekha Yadav, University of Michigan, Social Capital and Cooperation on the Commons: Groundwater Governance in Central and Western India THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY FROM THE ANCIENT TO THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD Balkrishan Shivram, Thicker than Blood: Some Thoughts on the Nature of ‘Kinship Authority’ in Early Mughal Empire Suman Venkatesh Mallipattana, Columbia University, ‘Tipu Sultan’s debacle with the French E. N. Komarov, Russian Academy of Sciences, Evolution of Land Revenue System in India from Ancient through Medieval Times ISSUES IN ISLAMIC NARRATIVES AND PAKISTANI CONTEMPORARY POLITIC Bhumitra Chakma, University of Hull, UK, Pakistan’s Strategic Future and South Asia Geoffrey Cook, Muslim Observer / India Abroad  Rediff, A Critical Analysis of the Islamic Imagery Project Mohammad Yusuf Siddiq, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Globalization in the Medieval World of Islam SESSION 9: PARTITION NARRATIVES Tridivesh Singh Maini , The Indian Express, The unexplored side of partition and its relevance for South Asia Shahzad Husain, University of Concordia, Montreal, Mother India in and “out” of the Household? : Same-Sex Desire in Manto and Chughtai’s Short Stories ISSUES IN EDUCATION Sanaa Raiz, University of Arkansas, Private Islamic Schooling in Pakistan:  A New Dawn of Islamic Education in South Asia Saba Ashraf Danawala, The Univeristy of Texas at Austin, Reevaluating “Muslimness” Amongst Indi-Fijians:  An Analysis of the Role of the Fiji Muslim League’s Educational Institutions