Exploring Asia-Pacific: Collection of Essays on Environmental History

Indian Association for Asian & Pacific Studies has a programme of organising four academic lectures of different distinguished scholars in a year. The Association organises such lectures either independently or in collaboration with different academic bodies.

The first lecture programme of 2005-06 was organised on May 26, 2006 in collaboration with Centre for Social Science & Humanities, University of Kolkata. The speaker was Professor Mahua Sarkar, Department of History, Jadavpur University. She spoke on Situation of Environmental History: A Survey.

The second lecture programme was organised in collaboration with Centre for Social Science & Humanities, University of Kolkata on September 20, 2006. The speaker was Professor Asha Mukherjee, Dept of Philosophy & Religion, Visva Bharati, Shantiniketan. She spoke on Envioronmental Ethics: Tagore's Vision.

The topic of the third lecture programme was Forest, Health & Indigenous People. Professor Buddhadeb Chaudhuri, Dept of South & S.E. Asian Studies, Kolkata University delivered the lecture. The event was organised on December 18, 2006.

The fourth & final Lecture programme of the year was the Renuka & Rathindranath Guha Memorial Lecture. The speaker was Professor Arun Bandopadhyay, Dept of History, University of Kolkata. He spoke on The Environmental factors in the Indian Sub- Continental History, C 1700-2000. The programme took place on March 27, 2007.

We are glad to present these valuable talks in printed form to all our members and readers who are interested in the subject, i.e. environment.

In this occasion we acknowledge our gratitude to all speakers who have permitted us to bring out this collection and provided us with their articles. Our sincere thanks and gratitude also go to Professor Chittabrata Palit, Department of History, Jadavpur University and to Professor Buddhadeb Chaudhuri, Dept of South & S.E. Asian Studies, University of Kolkata who were chairpersons in the respective lecture programmes. We also extend our gratitude to the Prof. Bhaskar Chakraborti, The Centre for Social Sciences & Humanities who allowed us to use the auditorium of the Centre for three programmes throughout the year. This volume is brought to publish in collaboration with Mahabodhi Book Agency, Kolkata.