SAI - News

Today Prof. Anjali Gera Roy (IIT Kharagpur) arrived at the SAI. Prof. Gera Roy is here on a Baden-Württemberg fellowship and will stay until late July. Prof. Roy is an expert on South Asian Popular Culture and among her recent publications is "Bhangra Moves: From Ludhiana to London and Beyond". During her stay in Heidelberg she will work on Bollywood in Germany. A hearty welcome!

On Thursday, May 12th, his excellency Mosud Mannan, the ambassador of Bangladesh, will visit the SAI. On 11h at Z 10 his excellency will give a public talk on "The Emergence of Bangla as the State Language". In the afternoon students from Bangladesh will have the opportunity to meet the ambassador informally (Cafeteria, 17h). The purpose of the visit is also to prepare ground for a guest professorship. For this reason the schedule of the ambassador includes further meetings with the SAI directors as well as the vice rector for international relations, Prof. Dr. Thomas Pfeiffer.

Earlier this week the second chairholder of the Heinrich-Zimmer Chair, the Indian Philosopher and Historian Senior Assistant Professor Heeraman Tiwari (JNU, New Delhi) arrived in Heidelberg. Prof. Tiwari's research focuses on Indian Philosophy (Epistemology, Language, Logic, Moral Philosophy and Buddhist Thoughts); Intellectual History of Ancient and Medieval India; Sanskrit Language and Literature; Hindu, Buddhist and Jaina Religious History; Medieval Hindi Literature and Literary Criticism. Prof. Tiwari will offer two courses and has his office at SAI, room 401. Further information find also here. 

On Sunday, May 15th, 11.30h at the Karl-Jaspers Center, Vossstr.2, Building Nr.4400, 69115 Heidelberg we are happy to announce the
Matinée on the occasion of the 150th birthday of Rabindranath Tagore.
At the event poet Alokeranjan Dasgupta will recite from the work of Tagore supported by Prof. Hans Harder, Christian Weiß (Draupadi Verlag), Ursula Bickermann-Aldinger and Ingrid von Heiseler. The matinee includes a dance performance by Sandra Ludwig.

In these days Bangladesh celebrates the 40^th anniversary of its declaration of independence. The German press reports almost nothing about it, one exception was an article in Spiegel Online (see below). The South Asia Institute of Heidelberg University would like to take this opportunity to call attention to some interesting web resources.

Many of these links are available at the SavifaGuide a database of internet resources on South Asia, which is a part of the Virtual Library South Asia located at the South Asia Institute. The next issue of the Savifa Newsletter will include a contribution from Hans-Martin Kunz with a detailed description and classification of the web resources listed here: