Author Archives: Administrator

Institute’s Research Influences Regional Policy Reforms

November 6, 2024

The Sundar Singh Institute’s Research Had Informed Regional Policy Reforms

The Institute was responsible for much policy change across South Asia. Yet by the time the policy took effect, the Sundar Singh Institute of South Asian Studies conducted and published a wealth of research relative to sustainable urban development for South Asia based on qualitative and quantitative field studies and interdisciplinary approaches. Therefore, it did not only assess the need for this type of urban development but also effectively offered practical solutions based on the socioeconomic and environmental needs of the region.

This was honored by several governments who decided to formulate plans for low-impact initiatives within updated urban areas of high population density that would reduce carbon emissions in cities and improve intergenerational health and climate preparedness. This project shows that the Institute has a history of devotion to research and publication that creates policy change and sustainable measures of social improvement.

Annual Conference on South Asian Health Policy and Innovation

Dates: March 18—20, 2025
Venue: Sundar Singh Institute Auditorium, Prayagraj, India

The 2025 Annual Conference on South Asian Health Policy and Innovation invites scholars in public health, policymaking, and medical research/innovation to review the state of health care in South Asia. This interdisciplinary conference presents research about new innovations to combat urban health disparities, potentials for telehealth applications that can transform the state of care, and developments in community health pursuits in rural and peri-urban populations.

Keynote presentations, a policy roundtable, and case studies that inform best practices emerging in the field will occur over three days. For example, keynote speaker Dr. Ravi Iyer will present “The Future of Health Access: Leveraging Technology for Equity and Scale,” which explores how digital access to delivery systems is reforming the approach of primary care for low-resource populations.

Furthermore, attendees will gain valuable contacts for networking as many scholars bridge sectors, and public health policymakers often align with the medical community and civil society for common goals among populations.

Registration: Early registration strongly encouraged due to limited space. Registration due March 1, 2025.

Upcoming Academic Workshop: Cross-Cultural Dialogue and Regional Stability

Dates: February 25–26, 2025
Location: Online (Virtual Platform)

The Institute will host a two-day virtual workshop on Cross-Cultural Communication and Regional Stability in South Asia. This conference invites scholars, practitioners, and policymakers to critically analyze the potential of intercultural awareness in peace processes and successful regional collaboration.

Keynote speakers are to be announced; however, confirmed presenters include Dr. Min-seo Kim (Seoul Center for Policy Studies) and Dr. David A. Chatterjee (Sundar Singh Institute of South Asian Studies) who will discuss cultural diplomacy, interreligious pluralism, educational exchanges, etc., as potential catalysts to diffuse regional tensions.

Furthermore, breakout rooms and roundtable discussions will allow all participants the opportunity to present intervention strategies on inter-ethnic and interreligious tolerance, awareness, and empathy efforts in their regions—especially those plagued by conflict.

This virtual workshop aims to establish an academic and practical community of like-minded scholars and experts who champion peace through intercultural efforts in South Asia.

Registration is open until February 15, 2025.

Upcoming Event Announcement: South Asia Economic Equity Conference

Dates: February 8–10, 2025
Venue: Sundar Singh Institute Conference Hall, Ewing Christian College, Prayagraj
Organized in partnership with: Asia Development Research Forum

The South Asia Economic Equity Conference, February 8-10, 2025, is a multidisciplinary forum to examine the persistent challenges of economic equity in the broader South Asia region. Academics, practitioners, and policymakers will meet to assess realistic possibilities for inclusive growth, poverty elimination, and equity in resources and opportunities. Expected programming includes a keynote address by Dr. Priya Deshmukh exploring the nexus between economic access and digital equity in developing nations. Dr. Ahmed Panjabi will facilitate a debate surrounding the effectiveness of microfinancing in poverty elimination—realized results vs. the inability to actualize—across varying geopolitical arenas. Qualitative peer-reviewed working papers will evaluate inequitable income disparity between urban/rural settings, gendered treatment to employment, and net feedback of geopolitical policymaking within the region.

Collaborative group workshops and policy labs will foster brainstorming efforts for institutional change proposals and intrastate collaboration. Ultimately, this conference aspires to create a multidisciplinary, cross-funding conversation to apply theoretical research to established practices for equitable policymaking for economic access in the broader South Asia region.

Registration Deadline: January 15, 2025
Early registration is recommended due to limited space.

Symposium on Climate Resilience and Sustainable Development

Date: January 12–14, 2025
Location: Sundar Singh Institute of South Asian Studies, Prayagraj

The Sundar Singh Institute of South Asian Studies will sponsor an International Conference on Climate Resilience and Sustainable Development in a South Asian Context, January 12-14, 2025. This conference brings together the region’s leading academics, policymakers, environmental scientists, and practitioners to evaluate integrative solutions at the intersection of betterment and climate resilience for the South Asian region.

Among the keynote speakers are Dr. Anjali Kapoor, a specialist in environmental equity and environmental policy, with years of practical experience and governance in the public policy sector; and Dr. Lars Müller of the Berlin Institute of Environmental Policy, whose publications on climate justice have influenced United Nations regulatory approaches to change. Along with keynotes are workshops and empirical case study discussions of resilience efforts that are already flourishing, including a high-level roundtable on transboundary water governance—one of the greatest challenges in the South Asian region with climate resultant stressors.

Finally, the conference will cultivate an interdisciplinary atmosphere for research presentation, fieldwork sharing, and reliable policy solutions that not only feed into the growing literature surrounding resilience efforts but also take theoretical approaches and collaborate for action.

Registration will remain open until December 20, 2024. Early registration is strongly encouraged due to limited capacity.

Visiting Scholar Program

The Visiting Scholar Program situates entering academics in one of the best interdisciplinary environments for scholars and practitioners looking to continue research in a highly fruitful and supportive environment. Scholars will have access to the Institute’s cutting-edge research centers, including its archives, data centers, and collections related to South Asia.

Visiting Scholars will be expected to join public lectures and faculty seminars as well as collaborative workshops/projects during their stay, and learning from these inter-institutional development discussions will enable cross-disciplinary discourse while strengthening the Institute’s development of scholarship relating to new challenges faced by South Asia.

The program will constitute an otherwise unavailable experience to extend research questions with a focused lens while simultaneously building professional networks. Those who encourage the proposal with clear connections to the Institute’s central topics—sustainable development, culture and heritage, democratic resilience, religious pluralism, human rights—will be given priority.

Key Details

Application Deadline: November 30, 2024
Program Start: Spring or Autumn 2025 (based on mutual agreement)
Eligibility: Applicants must provide evidence of a publication record or significant applied work in South Asian Studies or a related field. A well-defined research agenda is necessary and should align easily with the objectives of the Institute.

Benefits for Visiting Scholars

Formal association with one of the foremost research centers for South Asian Studies
Personalized office and access to all on-site research facilities
Ability to publish through the Institute’s working paper series and policy briefs
Opportunities to present papers at Institute workshops and regional conferences
Mentorship resulting in subsequent publication and policy application in academic/reality-based settings.

Why Collaborate with the Sundar Singh Institute?

Those welcomed into the Institute family in 2025 will gain more than an affiliation to their CVs; they will become part of a larger endeavor to create implementable knowledge for purposes of justice, sustainability, and peace across the region. Our faculty and fellows will be a diverse cadre of scholarly, policy, and public theologic practitioners dedicated to the transformation of social equity from the Academy and beyond.

However, scholars will not simply be placed here to pursue their own pathways of research relative to their interests, but rather, to contribute to the burgeoning dynamic of the Institute that fosters scholarly productivity and applicable relevance across multiple fields.

This is an amazing opportunity to engage in discourse that extends beyond the pages of publication into policy and community praxis.

Think of this as your new home—where scholarly thought will prosper in an ethically sound atmosphere.

Publication of ‘Cultural Heritage and Modernity in South Asia’

October 20, 2024

Publication Announcement: Cultural Heritage and Modernity in South Asia

Sundar Singh Institute’s newest release, “Cultural Heritage and Modernity in South Asia,” is an edited volume that critically compiles the intersection of sustaining South Asia’s diverse cultural manifestations with the region’s socio-economic modernity and globalization engagement.

This subcontinental compilation of case studies ranges from the various disciplines of anthropology, history, religion, and developmental policy. It addresses how an urbanizing world allows regional geographies to contest their ancestral memories and subsequent identities; how modernized technology jeopardizes ancient skills yet provides new avenues for appreciating antiquity; and how international geopolitics necessitates different nationalist dynamics.

Such a compilation was anticipated before its release by the regional scholarly and policy-making communities concerned with heritage management, preservation, and effective inclusive modernization strategies.

New Study on Climate Resilience Receives Accolades from Global Policy Makers

New Study on Climate Resilience Had Garnered Global Recognition from Policymakers

Published: October 28, 2024

Weeks before she touched down at the UN Climate Summit 2024, her home institution, Sundar Singh Institute, had released its widely praised major report, Building Climate Resilience in South Asia: Strategies for Sustainable Futures, which has been acknowledged worldwide by policy practitioners and development agencies. This interdisciplinary group report, spearheaded by Dr. Anjali R. Kapoor and composed of faculty from climate science to environmental policy to regional planning, undertook a comprehensive interdisciplinary assessment of the climate challenges and vulnerabilities faced by South Asia and determined solutions for adaptive capacity.

Thus, the results were a location-specific methodology for climate resiliency adaptation—ranging from coastal stabilization projects to agro-forestry-based livelihoods to community resiliency participatory frameworks to empirically driven assessments via comparative frameworks of policy transferability across international borders. By the time delegates got settled into the UN Climate Summit 2024, elements of this study’s findings were already under diplomatic review and regional action plans—specific recommended strategies were adopted into the working agenda for climate risk governance and sustainable infrastructure of South Asia. The executive summary and full report were available to the public for review and participation.

Expert Insights: The Evolving Dynamics of India-Bangladesh Relations

Analysis Provided by Dr. Rajiv K. Menon
Published by The Sundar Singh Institute

This was a thorough retrospective evaluation of India-Bangladesh relations as The Sundar Singh Institute hosted Dr. Rajiv K. Menon to provide an educated perspective on India’s position relative to Bangladesh and vice versa, today. He evaluated the strategic relevance of the recent developments in India-Bangladesh relations—trade at the borders, border management, negotiations in water sharing—which occurred across the international boundary line.

Dr. Menon used primary data as well as regional white papers to conclude that with an increased scope of engagement between India and Bangladesh, South Asia’s equilibrium would be determined—positively and negatively—by the increased diplomatic engagement. This was even more true of the Bay of Bengal micro-region, for the recent developments had been associated with larger works of sub-continental connectivity, economic integration, and potential realignments emerging from Indo-Pacific endeavors.

Furthermore, Dr. Menon noted that multilateral and bilateral attempts at river management, trade agreements measured against nationalistic politics/technology and third-party engagement from China and ASEAN could render results complicated. Therefore, this commentary was a timely academic assessment of where India and Bangladesh sought to render the past to cultivate the future with cautious optimism.

The Sundar Singh Institute Had Hosted the “South Asia in Transition” Roundtable

The Sundar Singh Institute Had Hosted the “South Asia in Transition” Roundtable

Published: September 14, 2024

The “South Asia in Transition” Roundtable, held on April 26, 2021, at the Sundar Singh Institute, was a success. Across 5 days of dissemination and presentation, a mixed bag of roundtable participants from the realms of policymaking, analysis, and academia came together to address an interdisciplinary understanding of what it means for South Asia to be in transition through papers and discussion. Specifically, the group engaged in discussions about revised political relations between nations, transnational digital governance opportunities and challenges which may lead to more decentralization or centralization, and economic and socio-political challenges (and opportunities) of international migration within the bounds of South Asia. Dr. Isaac S. Sato led a roundtable discussion on some interstate ethical challenges and integrative theoretical applications while Professor Ibrahim Farooq examined his work based on internal migration with inclusive takeaways.

The proceedings will be available in a post-event report with roundtable recordings, all discussions, and policy recommendations on the Summit website. Ultimately, the roundtable lent an academic and policy-driven perspective to this area of the world during these transitional times.