Page 14 - SAU Connect March 2019

The Quarterly Newsletter of South Asian University | Volume 3 Issue 3 March 2019

SAU Bookshelf

New Delhi (20.02.2019) SAU Sociology News: A discussion on
the book titled Living and Dying: Meanings in Maithili Folklore,
authored by Dev Nath Pathak, faculty member in Department
of Sociology at South Asian University, was organized by the
Nehru Memorial Museum and Library at Teen Murti Bhawan,
New Delhi. The panel consisted of Roma Chatterji (Professor
of Sociology, University of Delhi), Anup Dhar (Professor of
Philosophy, Ambedkar University Delhi) and Sasanka Perera
(Professor of Sociology, South Asian University). The panel delved into the book to emphasize its
importance in reading folklore in South Asia, centrality of the idea of death in folklore, and the
philosophical import of everyday life. The author of the book, Dev Nath Pathak responded to the
observationsonthebook.ThediscussionwaschairedbyShaktiSinha,Director,NMML.

Ravi Kumar (Department of Sociology), Left Politics in India: Reframing the
AgendaNewDelhi( AakarBooks2018 )
Change can be seen vividly in the larger political economy and its
reflections in the spheres of resistance and mobilisation. Located within
the context of 'weakening' of Left Politics not only in electoral terms
(exceptNepal)butalsoorganisationalcapabilityinwholeofSouthAsiathis
volume brings in diverse discourses to explore need for reframing the left
agenda. Some chapters give us a chronology of how the left politics has
evolved while others are prompting questions concerning questions of
gender and sexuality, unionism and mass mobilisation in the new political
contexts. This is not a conclusive volume posing questions and giving
solutions for the left politics rather it is an effort to provoke a debate
regardingpossibleinterventionswithinthesphereofleftpolitics.

Stellina Jolly and Nafees Ahmad (Faculty of Legal Studies). Climate
Refugees in South Asia: Protection Under International Legal Standards and
StatePracticesinSouthAsia (Springer2018)
The book addresses the forms of legal protection extended to people
displacedduetotheconsequencesofclimatechange,andwhohaveeither
become refugees by crossing international borders or are climatically
displaced persons (CDPs) in their own homelands. It explores the legal
response of the South Asian Jurisdictions to these refugee-like situations,
and also to what extent these people are protected under current
international law. The book critically examines and assesses whether
States have obligations to protect people displaced by climate change
under international refugee law (IRL) and international climate change law
(ICCL). It discusses the issue of climate displacement in South Asia,
analyzes the legal and judicial response initiated by South Asian nations,
andalsoinvestigatestheroleofSAARCinrelationtoclimatechangeandclimaterefugees.

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