By Kalinga Tudor Silva
Jayathilake, N., De Silva, S. and Amarajeewa, A. eds. Implications of COVID-19 Pandemic for South Asia: Civil Society Perspectives. Colombo: Regional Centre for Strategic Studies in collaboration with Global Partnership for Prevention of Armed Conflict, 2021.
This edited volume published by the Regional Centre for Strategic Studies reflects on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on various countries in the South Asian region. This volume differs from much of the emerging body of literature on politics and governance of the pandemic in that it seeks to capture civil society perspectives relating to this public health crisis and humanitarian emergency, with South Asia emerging as a major hotspot of the global pandemic. This is timely and particularly relevant as the pandemic is still unfolding in many parts of South Asia and the related horror stories triggered by the humanitarian crisis in India are presently making global media headlines. As of now, we in Sri
BOOK REVIEW: Book: Heritage Histories: A Reassessment of Arumuga Navalar, Author: Ratnajeevan Hoole, Publisher: Thesam Publications, London, 2020. By Charles Sarvan It is beyond my competence to write a review of this book, and the intention here is only to give readers some inkling of it. As the title makes clear, the work is a […]
International IDEA has, together with six of its partners, formed a Gender consortium on Enhancing the Participation of Women in Political Participation in Africa . This undertaking, which is funded by the Embassy of Sweden to Ethiopia, is a three-year project with an overall goal of increasing the political participation and representation of women in Africa in line with the Maputo Protocol of 2003, various associated sub-regional protocols and standards and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The Project’s key intervention areas are:
1. Knowledge generation, documentation and dissemination;
2. Training and capacity enhancement;
3. Advocacy and outreach;
5. Peer to peer exchange and mentorship.
In 2020, and to kickstart the work of enhancing a knowledge-based support to necessary lobbying, policy-making and effective
By Nimmi Jayathilake
Regional Centre for Strategic Studies
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in South Asia has adversely affected all domains of social, economic and political life in the region. This global pandemic which engulfed every nook and corner of the world in the wink of an eye, entered South Asia in March 2020. By the beginning of the second quarter it had spread to all South Asian countries to a varying degree. The shock injected to South Asia by COVID-19 resulted in closed education institutes, stalled factories, idle ports, empty roads, and life standstill, at least initially. It filled hospitals and deserted public spaces, reversing the process of globalization to “slowbalization”.