New Mandala

New Mandala readers will be interested in the following announcement for the 2nd Conference of the Asian Borderlands Research Network.  The first of these conferences was held in 2008 in Guwahati, northeast India.  It was a very worthwhile conference and I imagine that the Chiang Mai iteration will be similarly good.
The details are:
Asian Borderlands: Enclosure, Interaction and Transformation [...]

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Most people who arrive at New Mandala are looking for something meaty about the countries of mainland Southeast Asia.
A quick glance at the search engine terms that consistently bring readers to rspas.anu.edu.au/rmap/newmandala gives a strong indication of reader interests.  Some of the phrases that rank particularly highly are the predictable ones: “sufficiency economy”, “burma cyclone”, [...]

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Further to yesterday’s post about the Burmese generals and their reputed lack of intelligence I would like to introduce another slightly contrarian perspective.  Thanks to everyone who has already weighed in with their comments.
I have sometimes wondered out loud whether the exceptionalism that underpins many analyses of the Burmese generals is built on another slight [...]

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India has seized the initiative to reopen for cross-border trade a historic road linking its northeastern region to Myanmar and China.  This week federal junior Commerce Minister Jairam Ramesh handed a sack of salt to a Myanmar army officer at Pansaung where the Stilwell Road enters Myanmar territory, heralding what he described as a new chapter [...]

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New Mandala readers with interests in the pre-modern history of Southeast Asia will find some interesting material and arguments emanating from the Bodhicaryavatara Historical Project.  The project’s starting point is that:�
Although there has been quite a bit of confusion in regard to the historical Acharya Shantideva, including questions about the original number of chapters and various dates [...]

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