Sikkim Herald


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Sikkim


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A history of larger-than-life characters and the demise of the tiny Himalayan kingdom nestled between India and China. This is the true story of Sikkim, a tiny Buddhist kingdom in the Himalayas that survived the end of the British Empire only to be annexed by India in 1975.It tells the remarkable tale of Thondup Namgyal, the last King of Sikkim, and his American wife, Hope Cooke, thrust unwittingly into the spotlight as they sought support for Sikkim’s independence after their “fairytale” wedding in 1963. As tensions between India and China spilled over into war in the Himalayas, Sikkim became a pawn in the Cold War in Asia during the 1960s and 1970s. Rumors circulated that Hope was a CIA spy. Meanwhile, a shadowy Scottish adventuress, the Kazini of Chakung, married to Sikkim’s leading political figure, coordinated opposition to the Palace. As the world’s major powers jostled for regional supremacy during the early 1970s, Sikkim and its ruling family never stood a chance. On the eve of declaring an emergency across India, Indira Gandhi outwitted everyone to bring down the curtain on the 300-year-old Namgyal dynasty. Based on interviews and archive research, as well as a retracing of a journey the author's grandfather made in 1922, this is a thrilling, romantic, and informative glimpse of a real-life Shangri-La. Praise for Sikkim “A remarkable piece of detective work…. Fascinating human stories…a very valuable addition to how the Cold War played out in South Asia, and to the history of the foreign policies of China, India, and the U.S.” —Michael Burleigh, author of The Best of Times, the Worst of Times




Sikkim


Book Description

To Address Issues Like Integration Process, Development Interventions, Social Change, Strategic Volatility And Environmental Agenda, This Special Volume On Sikkim Has Been Brought Out.




Culture, Heritage and Identity: The Lepcha and Mangar Communities of Sikkim and Darjeeling


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This book is about cultural politics and the quest for identity of two marginal communities of Sikkim and Darjeeling – the Lepcha and the Mangar. Sharing insights into the knowledge, aesthetics, aspirations and dreams of two marginal communities who have been innovatively and differentially appropriating ‘culture’ to exploit the politics of difference, it is a narrative about their ethno-cultural consciousness, notions of identity and anxieties over being minority communities in a pluralistic democracy. The narrative is essentially presented in the form of a field-trip diary, with observations and comments which try to situate the issues within a larger perspective. Based on two years of intensive field study, the book chronicles the endeavour of these two communities to reclaim their cultural past, and forge an identity that would ensure material security, self-esteem, dignity and also the fruits of ‘modernity’. The book will be useful to scholars and students of anthropology, sociology, politics and history, especially those engaged in the study of culture and ethnicity in the Eastern Himalayan region.




History, Culture and Customs of Sikkim


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SIKKIM, the tiny Himalayan Kingdom came in existence in 1642 A.D. with a much larger area than it was in 1975 A.D. before it s integration in the Kingdom was the whole of Limbuwan, now the eastern most part of Nepal, southern parts of Tibet Autonomous region of China from Nathu La and Jelep La to the Tang La beyond Phari Jong, western Bhutan up to the watershed range between the Ammo Chu Valley and Har Chu Valley, and the northern plains of West Bengal as far south as Titalaiya and Purnea of Bihar. The Kingdom disintegrated in eight phases in different period of time when it s considerable areas were annexed by Bhutan, Nepal, China and British India of those days, and was finally integrated as one of the States of Indian Union in 1975 A.D. thereby loosing it s identity as a Himalayan Kingdom. The book provides insight into the history of its existence as the Himalayan Kingdom and it s disintegration in various phases, ethnicity, culture and customs of the people of Sikkim.




Sikkim and India


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Narratives and New Voices from India


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This volume focuses on indigenous knowledge in analyzing the traditions and communication processes within various communities of Northeast India. It deals with the historical and theoretical trajectory of communication for social change as a discipline, bringing together a series of interesting case studies from the sphere of meaningful learning where individuals and communities engage in a cooperative and dialogic environment to promote change at multiple levels. The case studies cover a range of media - radio, video, ‘forum theatre’ - and considers both practitioners and audiences. The authors’ focus on narration, diversity, participation, and interaction is timely, and expands knowledge relating to these areas by linking them in new ways. It is of interest to an academic audience as well as practitioners researching and working in areas of education, communication, community development, and social work.




Migration and Religion in Europe


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Religious practices and their transformation are crucial elements of migrants' identities and are increasingly politicized by national governments in the light of perceived threats to national identity. As new immigrant flows shape religious pluralism in Europe, longstanding relations between the State and Church are challenged, together with majority-faith traditions and societies’ ways of representing and perceiving themselves. With attention to variations according to national setting, this volume explores the process of reformulating religious identities and practices amongst South Asian 'communities' in European contexts, Presenting a wide range of ethnographies, including studies of Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism and Islam amongst migrant communities in contexts as diverse as Norway, Italy, the UK, France and Portugal, Migration and Religion in Europe sheds light on the meaning of religious practices to diasporic communities. It examines the manner in which such practices can be used by migrants and local societies to produce distance or proximity, as well as their political significance in various 'host' nations. Offering insights into the affirmation of national identities and cultures and the implications of this for governance and political discourse within Europe, this book will appeal to scholars with interests in anthropology, religion and society, migration, transnationalism and gender.




Delinking, Relinking, and Linking Writing and Rhetorics


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Praise for this book This is much anticipated book that investigates a less explored area of rhetoric and writing in a non-Western and indigenous context. Well-crafted arguments from Dr. Marohang Limbu’s comprehensive research help build a strong and compelling case to study indigenous identities from a thought-provoking perspective. – Yowei Kang, PhD, Assistant Professor National Taiwan Ocean University, Taiwan This is an important and ambitious work that crosses linguistic, cultural, and geographic boundaries. In doing this transdisciplinary scholarship, Limbu is making key contributions to indigenous and scholarly communities. In bridging these areas, his scholarship informs work in writing and language studies, cultural rhetorics, and globalization. – Steven Fraiberg, PhD, Associate Professor Michigan State University, USA The book, based on the fieldwork in four countries (Nepal, India, UK, and USA) across four continents, on the development of Sirijanga script and Limbu culture and history promises to bring deep insights, relying on oral history, archival and archeological research, and interviews, on how culture and traditions of an indigenous people survived inhospitable political regimes in Nepal and India, and how the community and network of activists across contingents are working to preserve and expand it after the advent of open political regimes in South Asia. – Mahendra Lawoti, PhD, Professor Western Michigan University, USA Limbu’s groundbreaking book informs indigenous rhetorics and provides a new methodology for ethnohistorical research. Scholars looking to understand how to ground their research in indigenous contexts can employ his “delinking, relinking and linking” methodology to connect with various populations. Limbu’s historical uncovering of Himalayan Yakthung writing traditions, oral history, and culture makes the case that global digital communities can help span local, regional, and transnational contexts and inform indigenous rhetorics in surprising new ways. – Gustav Verhulsdonck, PhD, Assistant Professor Central Michigan University, USA Marohang Limbu has done a superb job at canvassing his own delinking, relinking, and linking theory in Yakthung’s writing, rhetoric, and customary traditions, and this book adds a milestone and becomes invaluable asset in the history of Yakthung writing and rhetorics. – Ambar J. Limbu, Associate Professor Tribhuvan University, Nepal This book is an extremely rich, immensely persuasive, and utterly compelling piece of substantive Yakthung writing and rhetoric documentation, including analyses and interpretations. It demonstrates the immense power of Marohang’s delinking, relinking, and linking theory in the context of the 21st century both in academic and popular cultures. – Govinda B. Tumbahang, PhD, Former Governor Region No. 1, Nepal Marohang Limbu has explored Yakthung Indigenous historical cultural artifacts, oral texts, and documents and analyzed and interpreted the way they have never been done until the 21st century. This book will contribute a lot and will add a milestone in the history of Himalayan Yakthung Indigenous studies. – Arjun Limbu, Associate Professor Limbuwan Study Center, Nepal Marohang Limbu’s book is judicious, informed, and incisive, inviting the enthusiast into a serious of critical engagement with even the most difficult selections while avoiding the simplistic categories that mar too many anthologies. In this book, Limbu makes compelling arguments on the exploration, interpretation, and documentation of Himalayan Indigenous writing and rhetorics ever anybody has done to the ground reality.




Computational Linguistics and Intelligent Text Processing


Book Description

This two-volume set, consisting of LNCS 8403 and LNCS 8404, constitutes the thoroughly refereed proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Intelligent Text Processing and Computational Linguistics, CICLing 2014, held in Kathmandu, Nepal, in April 2014. The 85 revised papers presented together with 4 invited papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 300 submissions. The papers are organized in the following topical sections: lexical resources; document representation; morphology, POS-tagging, and named entity recognition; syntax and parsing; anaphora resolution; recognizing textual entailment; semantics and discourse; natural language generation; sentiment analysis and emotion recognition; opinion mining and social networks; machine translation and multilingualism; information retrieval; text classification and clustering; text summarization; plagiarism detection; style and spelling checking; speech processing; and applications.




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