The author, an award-winning expert on water-related issues, recommends a raft of measures to improve resilience in the event of a flood in the high Himalayas. First, he calls for a robust, basin-wide Disaster Risk Reduction framework. Second, integrating disaster management into India’s Concurrent List, and reforming the National Disaster Management Authority to include regional expertise. Third, halting additional mega dam projects in the Upper Tista Basin. Fourth, framing a regional hydropower policy embedding environmental and climate considerations, with an effective early warning system. Fifth, exploring the concept of “Payment for Ecosystem Destruction” to ensure accountability for upstream degradation impacting downstream communities. Finally, by promoting participatory planning that incorporates local knowledge, a dedicated Tista Disaster Management Authority may promote equity and resilience.
Full Text PDFVietnam has been a poster child of economic development over the past two decades, rising from the ashes of war to become a global manufacturing hub and lifting millions of its citizens out of abject poverty. However, with a fast-aging population and given the ongoing fracturing of the global trade system, momentous technological disruption and the rising threat of climate change, Vietnam's continued rise is far from certain. The country will need to reinvent its growth model and invest strategically in order to continue along the path from rags-to-riches.
Full Text PDFThe Author reflects on his early life in Malaya in the 1960s and his arrival in Britain in 1970, when London seemed the world’s capital, and China a mess. From his perch in Lancashire, he has witnessed the unforeseen decline of the West and the Rise of the East.
Full Text PDFThe Bandung Conference of 1955 marked a seminal moment in international relations and decolonization. As one of the most prominent voices at the conference, India played a crucial role in shaping the agenda, articulating the aspirations of newly independent nations, and championing the emerging principle of non-alignment. This article examines India’s motivations, strategies, and contributions at Bandung, situating its participation within the broader context of postcolonial internationalism, Cold War geopolitics, and the emergence of the Non-Aligned Movement.
Full Text PDFBandung served as a moment of postcolonial spectacle. It inhabited a historic intersection of the end of empires, and new postcolonial possibilities. The symbolism of Bandung slipped after 1965, if not quite disappearing completely. The diplomatic failures of Bandung contributed to this decline. It reflected a shift away from postcolonial optimism as Cold War intervention, underdevelopment, coup d’etats, and one-party states came to define the politics of Africa and Asia. Yet, since the end of the Cold War, the Bandung moment has re-emerged as a historical locus for re-chronologizing the past and reframing the present. The refashioning of Bandung appears less like mythmaking and more like a hijacking, providing a gloss of Afro-Asianism that emphasizes economic solidarity geared toward global capital from, and for, the Global South. Returning to Bandung after seventy years, therefore, requires critical judiciousness that dispels the notion of romanticism while not resorting to outright dismissiveness.
This article examines the relationship between the establishment of the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO) in September 1954 and the Bandung Conference held in April 1955, within the context of Indian foreign policy. It considers the role of Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in organizing this conference and explains how his support for this Afro-Asian gathering was motivated by concerns about American containment policy in Asia. In doing so, it draws two major conclusions. First, Bandung was crucial to Nehru’s strategy of promoting a non-aligned “third way” and, therefore, lessening the appeal of SEATO among Asian nations. Secondly, while this strategy helped reduce the alliance’s appeal, it was neither the sole nor the primary reason for its lack of attractiveness among Asian nations. Other factors arguably exerted a more substantial influence.
Full Text PDFThe call for a new Bandung is not merely symbolic. It is a strategic and normative proposal that insists on the possibility of shaping a world order rooted in justice, mutual respect, and pluralism. A future “Bandung 2.0” is unlikely to manifest as a unified political bloc or a formal international organization. Instead, it may take the form of a networked movement, a constellation of flexible, issue-based coalitions aligned around shared interests and interrelated challenges: digital sovereignty, economic justice, ecological survival, and democratic multilateralism. A renewed Bandung ethos could serve as a unifying moral and strategic compass to align these disparate efforts into a more cohesive agenda with practical, action-oriented goals that reflect Global South interests. In this vision, Bandung 2.0 becomes less about symbolic solidarity and more about functional cooperation.
Full Text PDFThis paper conceives of the Bandung Spirit as a crucial inspiration for countries of the Global South seeking economic autonomy in the postcolonial period. It critically examines their early strategies of Import Substitution Industrialization and state-led growth, evaluating them as manifestations of the economic aspirations of newly independent states, but a policy that eventually failed. The study demonstrates historical continuity between past and contemporary forms of economic dependency, particularly in the areas of sovereign debt, digital colonialism, and the impact of multinational corporations. The primary findings indicate that contemporary methods of economic regulation, particularly in the digital realm, engender equivalent power disparities that undermine the autonomy of countries in the Global South. The study concludes that the Bandung values of non-alignment, solidarity, and self-determination remain significant despite existing challenges, and that these ideas can help countries in the Global South work together for a more equitable world.
Full Text PDFDo the ten guiding principles adopted at the Bandung Summit have relevance today? This article argues that they are, perhaps, more relevant today than ever before. Seventy years ago, the leaders of Asia and Africa saw fit to convene the first Asia-Africa Summit in March 1955 in Bandung, Indonesia. They had a collective vision to work together as countries of the Global South, most of whom had just gained independence as sovereign, independent States leaving behind the devastation wrought upon their countries by colonialism. The world of 1955 is vastly different from that of 2025, yet the pressing challenges confronting countries of the Global South remain the same, i.e. poverty, under-development, rising inequality, the erosion of the rules-based global order and multilateralism, and the search for solutions to the devastating caused by climate change, amongst others.
Full Text PDFThe entry of women in politics still faces barriers at both the national and provincial level in India. They are often not given party tickets to represent their political party. If it is not as an independent candidate, it is hard for women to enter politics. In local governance, women have begun to appear because seats are reserved for them. However, in other areas of governance, state or central, women’s participation as candidates is still very low. Their participation in politics in the Autonomous District Council area of the state of Mizoram, since the Pawi-Lakher Regional Council era, has also lagged behind, as their participation in the three Autonomous District Councils of Mizoram is still not convincing. Women hardly have a chance to become legislators if they are not chosen for the nominated seats. They are not given much encouragement to contest the three Autonomous District Councils, even by political parties that function within the Autonomous District Councils.
Full Text PDFThis study investigates the motivation and inter-ethnic empathy of participants in the Wesean High School Students Forum (WHSF), a Northeast Indian student organization aimed at fostering regional solidarity. The findings of the quantitative survey indicate intrinsic motives to be the most reliable foundations for empathic concern, and the perspective-taking ability (i.e. the cognitive ability to understand and consider another person’s point of view), as well as the motive to foster inter-ethnic harmony. Females were more empathetic than males. The results indicate that adolescent-led initiatives such as the WHSF have the capacity to promote cross-ethnic solidarity in conflict-ridden regions. This localized study demonstrates that the trends observed might reflect broader dynamics in Northeast India, and therefore similar forums in other places could assist adolescent-led social cohesion and peacebuilding.
Full Text PDFThis article argues that art cinema functions as a form of “disciplinary power” through the discourses and practices of film festivals, film criticism, and media institutions. It examines how these institutions deploy a discourse of “divinity” to construct social, cultural, and stylistic hierarchies. It also discusses how filmmakers are incentivized, economically and socio-culturally, to make films that conform to foreign taste regimes.
This article is a decolonial rethinking of the presumed naturalness and neutralness of art cinema. The significance of this article lies not only in problematizing the use of divinity in art cinema to enact disciplinary power. It also lies in opening up a space to discuss and consider cinematic epistemologies beyond those authorized by dominant cultural institutions.
Kaji Meiko’s Stray Cat Rock genre films, through her mixture of Japanese and African American musical styles called burusu, communicates an Afro-Asian rhetoric of Japanese women’s liberation. While Japanese genre films, have been decried by critics for explicit sexual content and themes as well as glorifying violence, they were also an avenue through which previously taboo subject matter, such as women’s rights and racism, could be directly addressed. This article argues that Afro-Asian rhetorical texts, in the case of this essay Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter (1970), can be an avenue through which counternarratives of, and by, marginalized people can be expressed. It also represents a call for greater attention to the study of “fusion” rhetorics in the quest for a greater and more holistic understanding of human interaction and rhetorical production.
Full Text PDFHayao Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle is an allegorical critique of authoritarianism. The author selected this movie for research due to its magical façades and how they conceal a direct political message consistent with real-world regimes, such as Nazi Germany and Stalinist Soviet Union. Characters such as Madame Suliman symbolize propaganda, psychological coercion, and bureaucratic oppression, as Miyazaki illustrates war as an instrument of coercion and manipulation. This article finds that Miyazaki uses magic as a symbol of power. And while authoritarian magic rules, resistance is embodied by Sophie and Howl’s emotional magic. The article concludes that real power in the world of Miyazaki stems from self-sacrifice, moral conscience, and compassion, and not domination. Finally, the film challenges audiences to observe the mechanisms of dictatorship and to believe that defiance, even in small and personal ways, can be transformative.
Full Text PDFChinese auteur Wong Kar-wai (born in 1958) is a beneficiary of what Tomoki Wakatsuki (2020) describes as the “Haruki Phenomenon”—an overwhelming adulation and eventual reception of Haruki Murakami by his younger cultural contemporaries across East Asia. This paper explores the resonance of the “Murakami mood,” as termed by Hillenbrand (2009), within the cinematic oeuvre of Wong—and maps the shift in the idea of East-Asian Masculinity from the traditional Wen-Wu model (toughness, dominance, cultural refinement, and civil success) in vogue till the 1970s, to some more evolved ‘alternative’ models (sensitivity, passivity, detachment, and a keen interest towards domestic activities hitherto associated with women), within the late-twentieth century urban milieu of Japan and Greater China. This article, thus, concludes that the reception of the ‘Murakami Mood’ in the cinematic creations of Wong Kar-wai uncovers how the alignment of political movements, social transformations, economic negotiations, and ideological stances among the postmodern urban youth across East Asia has led to the emergence of congruent cultural consciousness across these two neighbouring regions.
Full Text PDFRising Asia is a scholarly publication and journal of record with a multidisciplinary orientation. It serves as a resource for the study, investigation, and teaching of Asian societies. Each volume of the journal contains interpretive essays on all aspects of Asian history, economy, diplomacy, literature, health, science, military affairs (war, peace and society or WPS) and culture.
Its coverage spans the humanities and social sciences, incorporating various thematic approaches—historical, economic, foreign policy, military, literary and theoretical that explore issues of grand strategy, ideology, ethnicity, race and gender, diasporic and indigenous communities, and colonialism and postcolonialism. The journal also publishes research articles in the field of Film Studies, as well as commentaries on museum exhibits and resource guides, provided all of them are scholarly in nature.
| Title: | Rising Asia Journal |
|---|---|
| Frequency: | Three times a year |
| ISSN: | ISSN 2583-1038 |
| Publisher: | Rising Asia Foundation |
| Chief Editor: | Harish C. Mehta |
| Copyright: | Rising Asia Foundation |
| Starting year: | January 2021 |
| Subject: | Multidisciplinary subjects |
| Language: | English |
| Publication Format: | Online |
| Phone No: | 91-9830721954 |
| Email id: | harishcmehta1968@gmail.com |
| Website: | www.rajraf.org |
| Address: | 32 T, New Road, Alipore, Kolkata 700 027, West Bengal, India |
HARISH C. MEHTA
PhD, McMaster University, Canada;
former Lecturer at University of Toronto, McMaster,
and Trent University;
and former Senior Indochina Correspondent,
The Business Times of Singapore.
harishcmehta1968@gmail.com
harish.mehta@utoronto.ca
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ANIRUDDHA LAHIRI
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras;
Wharton (Senior Leadership Program);
former positions: Senior Vice-President, Unilever;
Director, Hindustan Lever;
Managing Director ABP Ltd (publisher of The Telegraph),
President, The Chatterjee Group.
lahiriani@googlemail.com
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GURJIT SINGH
Former Ambassador of India to Germany, Indonesia, ASEAN, Ethiopia and the African Union;
currently honorary Professor of Humanities, Indian Institute of Technology, Indore (Japan, Indonesia, ASEAN, Africa and Europe),
ambassadorgurjitsingh@gmail.com
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ANG CHENG GUAN
Professor, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore. (International History and Politics of Southeast Asia),
iscgang@ntu.edu.sg
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JANGKHONGAM DOUNGEL
Professor, Department of Political Science, Mizoram University, Aizawl (Local/Regional Politics & Socio-Economic Development of Mizoram, and Autonomy Movements in the North East),
jdoungel@gmail.com
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Julie Banerjee Mehta
Former Lecturer, University of Toronto and York University, currently Guest Faculty Professor, Loreto College, Calcutta (Postcolonial and Gender Theory, World Literatures, Diaspora Studies and Southeast Asian Culture),
juliemehta57@gmail.com
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Suchorita Chattopadhyay
Professor, Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University (Comparative Literature, Japan, and Asian Diasporas),
suchoritachattopadhyay@yahoo.com
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Craig Etcheson
PhD (International Relations), University of Southern California; former Visiting Scientist at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health from 2017 through June 2022 (Transitional Justice, Genocide Studies, and Cambodia),
etcheson@ix.netcom.com
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Lalnundika Hnamte
Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Pachhunga University College, A Constituent College of Mizoram University (Peace and Conflict Resolution; Northeast Indian politics; Sixth Schedule and Tribal Autonomy; Migration and Citizenship;
Look East/Act East Policy),
lalnundika@jbc.edu.in
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Tuan Hoang
Professor of Great Books and Blanche E. Seaver Professor of Humanities and Teacher Education, Pepperdine University, Malibu, California (Modern Vietnamese Intellectual and Religious History, Vietnamese American History, and Vietnamese Catholicism),
tuan.hoang@pepperdine.edu
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Sanjay Kathuria
PhD (Economics), University of Oxford; Adjunct Professor, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, and Ashoka University, Sonipat, India; Senior Fellow, Centre for Policy Research and former Lead Economist, World Bank (South Asian Trade and Investment, India's North East, Global Economy, Economic Growth, and Competitiveness),
sanjay@cprindia.org
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Veronica Khangchian
Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Dhanamanjuri University, Imphal, Manipur;
she formerly taught in the Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, and at Maitreyi College, University of Delhi (Ethnicity & Conflict, Migration, and Peace Processes in Northeast India),
verokarujiliu@gmail.com
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Vimal Khawas
Professor, the Special Centre for the Study of North East India, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi (the Himalayan region, Sikkim, Nepal, Environmental Studies/Security, Development Studies, Urban and Regional Planning),
vimalkhawas@mail.jnu.ac.in
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Siddharth Mallavarapu
Professor, Department of International Relations and Governance Studies, Shiv Nadar University (Disciplinary histories of International Relations, Theories of IR in the Global South, Asia in World Affairs, Comparative Political Thought, and Critical Security Studies),
siddharth.m@snu.edu.in
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Medha
Assistant Professor, Department of International Relations and Governance Studies, Shiv Nadar University (South Asian Historical International Relations, Postcolonial and Decolonial approaches, Identities, Ideologies and Religion, and Discourse Theory),
medha@snu.edu.in
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Biswajit Mohapatra
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong (Politics, International Relations and Foreign Policy; and India's North East),
biswajitm1@gmail.com
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Nguyet Nguyen
Assistant Professor of History, Department of Social Sciences, School of Arts and Sciences, University of Alaska, Southeast, Juneau, Alaska (Vietnam War, U.S. Foreign Relations, Imperialism and Decolonization, and Gender Politics),
ntnguyen2@alaska.edu
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Por Heong Hong
Lecturer, School of Social Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang (Malaysia's healthcare policy, biopolitics, politics of memory, politics of heritage),
porheonghong@usm.my
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Vu Duong Luan
Senior Lecturer, Department of Heritage Studies, and Head of Office of Research Affairs and International Cooperation, School of Interdisciplinary Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi (Transnational History of Sino-Vietnamese Early Modern Borderlands, Comparative Studies of Social and Economic Institutions of Imperial China and Vietnam, and the Politics of Heritage in Chinese and Vietnamese societies).
luanvuduong@gmail.com
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BOOKS
Mohini Maureen Pradhan
mohinipcal53@gmail.com
FILM STUDIES
Raka Mukherjee
rakamukherjeeofficial@gmail.com.
RESEARCH
Hemalatha Sridhar
tatsugarde@gmail.com
Hussena Calcuttawala
hussenacal@gmail.com
COLUMNS
Valentina Notts
valentinanotts@gmail.com
PUBLISHING EXECUTIVE
Roshni Subramani
sales.risingasia@gmail.com
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