Nepal's endangered languages on Radio 4

Dr Mark Turin will present a three-part series on BBC Radio 4 on themes of language diversity, endangerment and policy that starts next week. The first episode, recorded in Nepal over the summer, airs from 11:00-11:30am GMT on Monday, 3 December, 2012.

Alongside analogue and digital radio transmission in the UK, the programme will be streamed live online: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/

The series has its own set of web pages on the BBC site: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01p6zpl

Episodes two and three will cover the linguistic landscape of South Africa and New York City, and will be aired 11:00-11:30am on Monday 10 and Monday 17 December respectively. The programmes will be archived as podcasts by BBC Radio 4.

For more information on Dr Mark Turin, see:  http://markturin.commons.yale.edu/

NACIRA Conference 2012

 The 2012 conference and Annual General Meeting for the National Committee for Information Resources on Asia will be held on Tuesday 4th December, 10.30-16.30 at the Needham Research Institute in Cambridge.  The theme of this year's conference is Applied Materials: making oriental collections visible, and looks at ways of raising the profile of your collections.  It will include presentations on

• the British Library's Mughal exhibition
• the British Museum's shunga exhibition
• the Cambridge University Sanskrit manuscripts project
• the Cambridge University Genizah digitization project

There will also be a visit to a display of manuscripts from Cambridge University Library's collections.

The cost is £30, including lunch (£10 for students) and further information about the conference and registration can be found here. 

Atlas historique de l'Inde

I am pleased to announce that Arundhati Virmani's historical atlas of India will shortly be published.

Atlas Historique de l'Inde, (Paris, Autrement, 2012),  ISBN: 9782746715400, publication date: 13th November 2012, price: 19€

Arundhati writes: "Violent polemics in the last decades have made Indian national history a crucial field for debating political trajectories for future development. This Historical Atlas presents some of the major developments of this past: spatial organizations since the 6th century B.C. to the 21st century: commercial links from the Mediterranean world to China, the widespread circulation of religious and cultural movements, the development of a major pole in the Muslim world, the transformation of old territorial and social equilibriums under colonisation and the unification of a political and cultural territory after independence.

The maps combine a large perspective of the subcontinent with zooms into particular regions. The Atlas presents recent historical knowledge and research on these questions and treats this history from the perspective of space, territory and the long construction of a territory."

An exhibition presenting maps from this Atlas will be held in the Centre of South Asian Studies, University of  Cambridge, 5th-20th February 2013.  Entitled "Mapping Indian History", the maps will be displayed in the South Asian Studies Library, Alison Richard Building, 7 West Road, Cambridge, CB3 9DT, U.K.

Arundhati Virmani is the author of "A National Flag for India. Rituals, Nationalism and the Politics of Sentiment" Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2008. 9788178242323. She teaches at the École des Hautes  Études en Sciences Sociales, Marseille.

Islam, Trade and Politics across the Indian Ocean: the exhibition

I am delighted to announce that the Ancient India and Iran Trust in Cambridge is hosting a travelling photographic exhibition to accompany the British Academy-funded research project 'Islam, Trade and Politics across the Indian Ocean' http://www.ottomansoutheastasia.org/.
An exhibition leaflet may be downloaded at: http://www.ottomansoutheastasia.org/exhibition.php

The exhibition runs from 7th-21st November 2012 and is open from 9-1, Monday-Thursday; 9.30-1.30 Friday. Afternoon visits by appointment only (please contact the Librarian on 01223 702095, or library@indiran.org to arrange).

Location: Ancient India & Iran Trust, 23 Brooklands Avenue, Cambridge CB2 8BG
Tel: +44 (0)1223 356841, Fax: +44 (0)1223 361125