south asia

The Indian Ocean is known as Ratnākara (Sanskrit: रत्नाकर), "the mine of gems" in ancient Sanskrit literature, and as Hind Mahāsāgar (Hindi: हिन्द महासागर), in Hindi.
- india

• 印度近年卻正正建立起在印度洋的軍事基地體系。一是在印度屬島的拉克沙群島及安達曼─尼科巴群島大事擴建軍事工程。二是通過協議，在印度洋塞舌爾的假設島和毛里裘斯的阿加萊加島建海軍與空軍基地，在阿拉伯半島阿曼中部的Duqm港建海軍後勤基地。三是與美國簽後勤交換協議，印度海軍可用美國在波斯灣及迪戈加西亞的海空軍基地。與法國簽同樣的協議，以使用吉布提的法國基地和在馬達加斯加附近的留尼汪島基地。與新加坡協議使用樟宜海軍基地。而最近醞釀的美印日澳四方安保協議的範圍，也包括澳洲在印度洋東部科科斯島的未來軍事基地建設。http://orientaldaily.on.cc/cnt/news/20180228/00184_001.html

- china

• 中國科學院瀋陽自動化研究所稱，該所研製的「海翼」水下滑翔機完成國家海洋局在印度洋的首次觀測任務。雖然這只是科研消息，但美國、日本、印度等國卻高度關注，因為這意味着中國潛艇今後將印度洋作為築壘區域，打破美日在亞太地區的封鎖。中國核潛艇由於其隱蔽性，是至關重要的戰略反擊力量，美國對此如芒在背。過去幾十年美國花費巨資，沿着第一島鏈對中國核潛艇建立五道封鎖線：在太空通過偵察衞星掃描中國沿海海面；在空中有先進的反潛機重點偵測關鍵海域；在水面有反潛艦四處巡游搜索；在水中有核潛艇堵在中國海軍基地門口，跟蹤尾隨中國潛艇活動；在水底還有密不透風的聲納陣。這五道封鎖線如同天羅地網，讓中國核潛艇一度動彈不得。為了避免被動局面，中國將核潛艇基地從青島調往海南三亞，準備將南海作為築壘海域，沒想到美軍卻如影相隨。當年中美之所以發生撞機事件，就是因為美國偵察機前出到中國三亞核潛艇基地進行抵近偵察，與趕來驅逐的中國戰機相撞導致。之後，美國又派攻擊型核潛艇巡游南海，對中國核潛艇進行水下追逐戰。美軍還在南海部署密集的水下聲納系統，偵測中國核潛艇活動。另外，美國還以軍事援助方式向越南、新加坡出售先進的反潛機，進行情報共享。早前美國決定將最先進的反潛機出售給印度，就是為了與印度一起共同對付中國核潛艇。http://orientaldaily.on.cc/cnt/china_world/20180107/00182_001.html
• 據新華社報道，記者昨日從中國大洋協會了解到，中國大洋49航次近日結束第三航段科考任務，第三航段期間在西南印度洋我國多金屬硫化物勘探合同區內發現一處獨立硫化物礦化區，並發現兩處硫化物礦化異常區、兩處水體異常區。http://pdf.wenweipo.com/2018/05/03/a17-0503.pdf

Mekong river
- http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21692885-governments-should-stop-building-dams-mother-rivers-damned-if-you-do THE greatest of all South-East Asia’s waterways and the world’s 12th-longest river, the Mekong, is a natural wonder that ties together the destinies of half a dozen countries. Born from snowmelt at over 17,000 feet (5,200 metres), it bolts off the Tibetan plateau like a runaway horse; by the time it leaves China it is starting to slow and spread. When it reaches Cambodia, via Laos, it is tropical and ample and, with the monsoon rains, parts of it curiously change the direction of their flow. Farther down, it reaches the South China Sea through a filigree delta. The Mekong watershed nurtures extraordinary biodiversity, with new species of plants and animals discovered every year. It has also nurtured humans. Tens of millions of people—much of the population of Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam—depend on the Mekong. Its fish are their protein and its delta is the world’s rice basket. No wonder its name, in Thai or Lao, means “mother of rivers”.  Planners think the mother has one more gift to give: hydropower. China has 14 dams planned or under construction on its stretch of the Mekong in Yunnan province, joining six already built. Today the river is undammed below China, but that will soon change. Laos has nine dams planned or under way; Cambodia has two. Dozens more dams for tributaries are on the drawing board.
To the planners, the case for building dams is obvious: they generate electricity and much-needed cash. Poor, landlocked Laos wants to become the dynamo of South-East Asia, selling its energy to Thailand and others; it dreams of hydropower becoming its biggest earner in just a decade. Long wretchedly poor, the Mekong region is now booming. Hydropower will help meet its energy demands, which are expected to double over the next ten years. Yet there are flaws in the planners’ case. For one, they overestimate the river’s potential. At most, says the Mekong River Commission (MRC), the intergovernmental body charged with co-ordinating the river’s management, dams will meet just 8% of the lower Mekong basin’s projected power needs. Worse, the planners underestimate the harm that dams will do to ecosystems as well as to food security. As our essay on the Mekong points out (see article), dams threaten the stocks of migratory fish on which many South-East Asians depend. Farmland will either become less productive because less sediment reaches it from upstream, or disappear under rising river levels or, in the delta, suffer incursions of salt water. The dams, in other words, come at a high environmental cost, imperil food security and, far from increasing overall prosperity, promise to aggravate the poverty of millions of people. They may also increase regional tensions. China and Laos will reap most of the hydropower benefits, while downstream Cambodia and Vietnam pay most of the price. The biggest problem with the dam-building schemes is their lack of co-ordination. An individual dam, high up the river system, would not be a big worry, especially if it was fitted with ladders for migrating fish and the like. But the question is not what one dam will do. It is what 25 of them will do, and how each will affect the next. The dams’ sponsors are not thinking about that. Isn’t this the MRC’s task? Well, yes, and it tries to do its job. But it has no enforcement power, struggles to promote good river management and is woefully short of cash. Besides, China, the Mekong’s biggest threat, refuses to be a member. The MRC proposes a ten-year moratorium on dam-building, and has urged studies of hydropower projects, such as run-of-the-river schemes, that would not block the Mekong’s flow. That is prudent advice; but few governments are listening. The scale of the harm that damming the Mekong might cause is huge, and would be irreversible. Without giving enough thought to what they are about to undertake, governments are messing dangerously with the mother of all rivers.

The Raidāk River (also called Wang Chhu or Wong Chhu in Bhutan) is a tributary of the Brahmaputra River, and a trans-boundary river. It flows through Bhutan, India and Bangladesh.

North Sentinel Island is one of the Andaman Islands, which includes South Sentinel Island, in the Bay of Bengal. It is home to the Sentinelese who, often violently, reject any contact with the outside world, and are among the last uncontacted peoples to remain virtually untouched by modern civilisation. Nominally, the island belongs to the South Andaman administrative district, part of the Indian union territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands.^[11] In practice, Indian authorities recognise the islanders' desire to be left alone and restrict their role to remote monitoring; they do not prosecute them for killing non-Sentinelese people.^[12][13] The island is in effect a sovereign area under Indian protection.
- hk

• https://www.scmp.com/culture/article/2177003/shipwrecked-hong-kong-sailors-brush-indian-island-tribe-killed-john-allen 

Fta
- South asian fta

• The South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) is an agreement reached on 6 January 2004 at the 12th SAARC summit in Islamabad, Pakistan. It created a free trade areaof 1.6 billion people in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan,India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka (as of 2011, the combined population is 1.8 billion people). The seven foreign ministers of the region signed a framework agreement on SAFTA to reduce customs duties of all traded goods to zero by the year 2016. The SAFTA agreement came into force on 1 January 2006 and is operational following the ratification of the agreement by the seven governments. SAFTA requires the developing countries in South Asia (India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) to bring their duties down to 20 percent in the first phase of the two-year period ending in 2007. In the final five-year phase ending 2012, the 20 percent duty will be reduced to zero in a series of annual cuts. The least developed nations in South Asia (Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Maldives) have an additional three years to reduce tariffs to zero. India and Pakistan ratified the treaty in 2009, whereas Afghanistan as the 8th memberstate of the SAARC ratified the SAFTA protocol on the 4th of May 2011.
• http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/india-pulls-out-of-saarc-summit-in-islamabad-1467221Prime Minister Narendra Modi will not travel in November to Pakistan to attend the regional SAARC summit, said the government  today, blaming "cross-border terror attacks"  for creating an environment that is "not conducive" for the meeting of the eight-nation group. Sources said that three other countries - Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan - have also signalled that they will not attend the meeting, virtually ensuring that the session will have to be relocated. Today's move is so far the biggest in India's global campaign to isolate Pakistan afterfour terrorists crossed the border into Kashmir and attacked an army base in Uri. 18 soldiers were killed.
• hkej 28mar18 shum article

- ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement (ATIGA) 

• http://investasean.asean.org/index.php/page/view/asean-free-trade-area-agreements/view/757/newsid/872/asean-trade-in-goods-agreement.html ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement (ATIGA) aims to achieve free flow of goods in the region resulting to less trade barriers and deeper economic linkages among Member States, lower business costs, increased trade, and a larger market and economies of scale for businesses. Through ATIGA, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand have eliminated intra-ASEAN import duties on 99.65 percent of their tariff lines. Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, and Viet Nam have reduced their import duties to 0-5 percent on 98.86 percent of their tariff lines. Today, focus is given to addressing non-tariff measures that could have non-tariff barrier effects on the region's trade and business activities.

- cross border transport agreement

• http://www.gms-cbta.org/cross-border-transport-agreement The CBTA is a single comprehensive legal instrument that includes all of the non-physical measures for cross-border land transport. Under the CBTA, vehicles, drivers, goods and passengers will be allowed to cross national borders through the GMS road transport system. The Agreement promotes the elimination of intermediary stops or trans-shipment, as well as promoting the reduction in the amount of time spent in crossing borders (link to the CBTA Main Agreement). Increasing the number of border checkpoints that are implementing the CBTA will help maximize the effectiveness of the GMS transport networks. The CBTA complements the existing physical infrastructure of the GMS countries. Designed in three tiers or components, the CBTA is flexible and highly adaptable to changing needs. The first tier is the main agreement, which contains the core principles of the system. 

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2015-06/13/content_20991141.htm Liu said that current trade volumes between China and South Asia are relatively small, but there is great potential for growth. The GMS is an economic area bound together by the Mekong River, comprising Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and Yunnan province. “Much of the South Asian market has been largely overlooked in the past, but there are so many areas where bilateral trade can be boosted,” he said. “Through the Belt and Road Initiative, business opportunities will be further explored. “For example, India supplies more than 30 percent of the world’s tea, and China also has a huge demand for tea consumption. “Nearby Pakistan, too, has a huge demand for infrastructure and port construction and China can help share its experience in those areas,” he said. Liu also said he supported the building of a subregional financial mechanism to promote the internationalization of the Chinese yuan, which would help the flow of development capital across the region. “We are promoting the internationalization of the renminbi and crossborder financial cooperation, and South Asia and Southeast Asia will benefit from the process,” said Li Lihui, a member of the Financial and Economic Affairs Committee of the National People’s Congress.

Drought
- http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/1932944/chinese-dams-blamed-exacerbating-southeast-asian-drought

中國—中南半島經濟走廊
- http://pdf.wenweipo.com/2016/05/27/a15-0527.pdf「第九屆泛北部 灣經濟合作論壇暨中國—中南半島經濟走廊發展論壇」昨日 在南寧舉行，會後由國家發改委西部司副司長翟東升代表宣 讀、發佈《共建中國—中南半島經濟走廊倡議書》。倡議書 指出，在尊重各國主權和領土完整、互不侵犯、互不干涉內 政、平等互利、和平共處的基礎上，堅持共商、共建、共享 原則，積極推進與區域內國家間的聯繫和對接，共同打造以 中國廣西壯族自治區、雲南省為主要門戶，向北延伸至中國 廣大內陸腹地和東部發達地區，向南經越南、老撾、柬埔 寨、緬甸、泰國延伸至馬來西亞和新加坡的中國—中南半島 經濟走廊。

• 香港貿發局派員參加今屆泛北部灣經 濟合作論壇暨中國—中南半島經濟走廊發 展論壇。據了解，香港從第一屆開始，已 經連續多屆參與。會後的簽約儀式上，香 港亞龍郵輪有限公司參與總投資 500億元 （人民幣，下同），建設南海國際郵輪母 港及航線工程建設，該項目位於廣西防城 港、三亞港和柬埔寨停靠港。香港澤陽投 資集團和亞太經貿商協合作總部有限公 司，總投資 150億元，參與位於柬埔寨的 1,000MW裝機生物質能源發電項目。

南向通道
- 7月10日举行的第14届中国─东盟博览会新闻发布会上，广西壮族自治区副主席张晓钦表示，中国和新加坡正在推动的中星（重庆）战略性互联互通示范项目将形成战略性“南向通道”，在今年底兰渝铁路全线通车后又继续向北延伸，与“渝新欧”通道连接，从而形成“一带一路”经西部地区的一个完整环线，也是一条国际陆海贸易新通道，“南向通道”在海上与东盟9个国家相连，在陆上与中南半岛的7个国家相连。http://paper.takungpao.com/resfile/PDF/20170712/PDF/a14_screen.pdf

Nepal-India economic corridor
- http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-08/10/c_135583627.htm The establishment of a China-Nepal-India economic corridor will help secure economic prosperity of the entire Asian region through enhancing cooperation on trade, tourism, energy and connectivity, experts said here on Wednesday. Speaking at a one-day workshop organized by China Study Center on "China-Nepal-India Economic Corridor: Feasibility and Approaches," experts highlighted the potential mutual economic benefits for the three neighboring countries and the entire Asia region after establishing the economic corridor. Ji Zhiye, President of China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), a think tank under China's State Council, said that the trilateral cooperation among China, Nepal and India can be enhanced through Belt and Road Initiative proposed by China.



「孟中印緬經濟走廊」
- http://orientaldaily.on.cc/cnt/news/20151228/00184_007.html 在構建「孟中印緬經濟走廊」的過程中，相對孟加拉的順利，緬甸和印度的不確定因素則比較多。中國跟緬甸的關係，受着軍政府和昂山淑姬爭奪政權、該國國內局勢和地方分離主義，以及外部美、日因素的影響。中國過去跟緬甸政府曾經有過十分密切的關係，但隨着密松水電站事件的發生，近年來出現了很多變數。這在很大程度上也挑戰着「孟中印緬經濟走廊」上，緬甸的參與和態度。可是從綜合的商貿發展來看，中緬關係仍然有着一些進展。緬甸目前的產業結構非常適合承接中國的製造業轉移，卻對西方投資的行業存在着很多接收困難。其中由中國企業投資興建的緬甸克倫綜合開發合作區是很受關注的項目。克倫地區是緬甸的一個自治邦，位處緬甸的東南部薩爾溫江下游，東界與泰國接壤。除了在地理上，有利於通過緬甸境內霍德約江流域而成為其他邦和附近平原的商品進出集散地之外，該地更蘊含豐富的礦藏。綜合開發區的定位，便是希望把該地發展為國際物流港口，成為一個面向孟中印等國和緬甸國內的入海港口區域。可惜跟緬甸其他一些地方相似，這項投資也受着當地克倫族和其他少數民族與緬甸軍政府的游擊戰所影響，存在不小的投資風險。至於印度的不確定性，跟緬甸的不穩定局勢不同，主要源於該國對中國的猜疑。眾所周知，印度是世界上最早的文明古國之一，早至公元前兩千多年，便已經創造了印度河文明或者稱為哈拉帕文明。

瀾滄江—湄公河合作
- 瀾滄江—湄公河流經中、泰、 緬、老、越、柬 6個國家，全長 4,880公里，河流的中國境內段稱 為瀾滄江，中國境外段稱為湄公 河，流域面積79.5萬平方公里，養育次區域人 口達3.26億。 自1992年啟動瀾滄江—湄公河次區域經濟合 作（GMS）以來取得了豐碩的成果。其發展過 程大致可以分為三個階段：第一階段（1992— 1994年）為起步階段，以研究、論證、交換意 見為主；第二階段（1995—2000年）為實施階 段，各國提出了相關構想、政策措施，啟動了 一批具體項目；第三階段是2001年至今合作步 伐迅速加快。 2014年 11月，中國國務院總理李克強在中 國－東盟領導人會議上提出，中方願積極響應 泰方倡議，探討建立瀾滄江—湄公河合作機 制；2015年，瀾湄 6國召開兩次高官會議和一 次工作組會議，在合作機制的目標、重點發展 領域和運作方式上已經達成初步共識。2015年 11月，瀾湄合作首次外長會議召開，宣佈正式 建立瀾湄合作機制。http://pdf.wenweipo.com/2015/11/13/a19-1113.pdf
- http://pdf.wenweipo.com/2015/11/13/a19-1113.pdf以「同飲一 江水，命運緊相連」為主題的瀾滄江—湄公河合作（以 下簡稱瀾湄合作）首次外長會議昨日（12日）在雲南景 洪舉行，中國外交部長王毅和泰國外長敦．帕馬威奈共 同主持會議，緬甸、老撾、柬埔寨、越南 4 國外長與 會，會議宣佈正式建立瀾湄合作機制。雲南省社會科學 院東南亞研究所所長孔建勳表示，此次會議是瀾湄流域 沿岸六國首次攜手，是瀾湄次區域合作的再次升級，將 補充現有的次區域合作機制，成為「一帶一路」建設中 的重要一環。此次會議還發表了《瀾湄合作首次外長會聯合新聞公報》。《公 報》指出，中、老、緬、泰、越、柬六國加強合作，有利於促進各 成員國經濟社會發展和可持續增長，縮小湄公河次區域國家間發展 差距，推進東盟共同體建設和一體化進程，造福地區民眾。與會外 長們承諾，將本着協商一致、平等互利、統籌協調、尊重《聯合國 憲章》和國際法原則，致力於深化次區域國家互信和睦鄰友好，推 動經濟和可持續發展，促進社會人文交往，將瀾湄合作機制建設成 為各方共商、共建、共享的次區域合作平台。 在五方面集中推進合作 此外，六國外長還達成共識，將在互聯互通、產能合作、跨境經 濟合作、水資源合作、農業和減貧合作五個方面集中推進合作，在 政治安全、經濟和可持續發展、社會人文三大重點領域開展務實合 作，共同打造更為緊密、互利合作的瀾湄共同體。 瀾滄江—湄公河被譽為「黃金水道」，大湄公河次區域經濟合作 由來已久，此前已有大湄公河次區域經濟合作（GMS）、東盟—湄 公河流域開發合作（AMBDC）和湄公河委員會（MRC）等次區域 合作機制。 「新機制與現有合作機制是相互補充、相互促進的關係。」孔建 勳認為，現有的次區域合作機制存在相關部門協調力度不足，項目 推進效率緩慢、不夠接地氣等問題，而瀾湄合作機制的建立涉及五 方面，更具體、務實，將為瀾湄流域百姓帶來更多的實惠，從而推 動六國互補互利和共同發展。http://paper.takungpao.com/resfile/PDF/20151113/PDF/a13_screen.pdf
- http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/video/2016-03/17/c_135198560.htm The first Lancang-Mekong Cooperation leaders' meeting will be held next week in China's southern city of Sanya. At the invitation of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, leaders from Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, will attend the meeting on March 23rd. The Chinese Foreign Ministry says it expects more cooperation through the mechanism. "The water in the Mekong river comes not only from the Lancang river, but also is a gathering of all different branch rivers in the Region. The Lancang River is only an origin of the Mekong River,"

"But considering a river of over 4000 kilometers which flows over 6 countries, the cooperation and communication on the water resources between the countries in the region is very important," "We hope through the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation mechanism, China can better strengthen all-round collaboration with relevant countries on water resources," said Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin.

• http://paper.takungpao.com/resfile/PDF/20160321/PDF/a7_screen.pdf 在出席瀾滄江─湄公河合作首次領導人會議後，包括柬埔寨首相洪森和老撾總理通邢在內的湄公河五國領導人將齊聚博鰲，主要聚焦對接中國倡議的“一帶一路”基礎設施建設互聯互通和國際大通道建設。20日在海南博鰲，大公報記者見到不少東南亞國家駐華外交官，已?手密集安排本國領導人與中國融資方和承建方在會議期間會面。　　鐵路等基建行業佔據國際產能合作半壁江山，德勤中國研究總監陳嵐對大公報表示，“一帶一路”將對外開放從沿海擴展到內陸，從陸地延伸至海洋，這將拉動東盟各國基建，帶動其經濟發展。　　中國鐵道建築總公司總經理齊曉飛説，基礎設施互聯互通是“一帶一路”建設的優先領域，沿線國家和地區大多基礎設施薄弱且建設能力普遍不足，基建可持續開發空間廣闊，中國在這一領域優勢明顯。他強調，“一帶一路”基建不僅要建成項目，還應將生產科技、建設維護和運營管理等方面的知識和技能傳授給當地人員，提高當地的建設能力和技術水平，為其打造“造血”功能。　　同樣出席博鰲論壇的比利時首相夏爾米歇爾則指出，中國的“一帶一路”倡議彰顯互聯互通會如何通過增強公路、鐵路、海上和數字化的連通，讓各方受益。
• http://www.chinadailyasia.com/nation/2016-03/24/content_15405539.html China and five other countries along the 5,000-km Lancang-Mekong River agreed on Wednesday on a sweeping plan to deepen cooperation and build a comprehensive connectivity network covering railways, highways, waterways, ports and aviation. China also promised 10 billion yuan (US$1.54 billion) in preferential loans and a credit line of US$10 billion to support infrastructure and production capacity projects in cooperation with the countries. Premier Li Keqiang announced the loans and the agreement in Sanya, Hainan province, at the first meeting of the leaders from the six countries along the river.
  The Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Leaders' Meeting also discussed the use of water resources, and China vowed to take measures to support improvement of living conditions in downstream areas along the river. The Mekong River, whose upper part is known in China as the Lancang River, is an important water source for the five countries on the Indochinese Peninsula - Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam - and it nourishes a population of 326 million. Beijing announced last week that it will provide an emergency water supply through April 10 to countries along the river to deal with drought.

- 王毅昨日在越南河內出席大湄公河次區域經濟合作第六次領導人會議。據新華社報道，王毅在致辭中表示，要在挖掘增長新動能方面闖出新路。http://pdf.wenweipo.com/2018/04/01/a09-0401.pdf
- 20日，國務委員兼外長王毅在老撾萬象出席瀾滄江─湄公河合作第五次外長會後同老撾外長沙倫賽共同會見記者。王毅應詢介紹了中方就推動瀾湄合作與「陸海新通道」結合，助力建設瀾湄流域經濟發展帶的考慮。http://paper.takungpao.com/resfile/PDF/20200222/PDF/a6_screen.pdf
- media

• Media representatives and government officials from Lancang-Mekong countries on Monday called for further media cooperation to cope with challenges in the digital era. They made the call during the two-day Mekong-Lancang Cooperation Media Summit in Vientiane. The six countries of the Lancang-Mekong cooperation are China, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-07/03/c_137296835.htm

2+1 dialogue
- https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/china-proposed-21-format-for-india-talks/article24264819.ece The spirit of the Wuhan informal summit echoed strongly last week during the visit of Nepal Prime Minister K.P. Oli to Beijing, with China proposing a new dialogue mechanism that would also involve India. An official source told The Hindu that the Chinese side proposed to Mr. Oli a “two plus one” format for dialogue. “This is different from a trilateral mechanism. Under the Chinese proposal, China and India can jointly conduct a dialogue with a third regional country,” the source said. The Chinese initiative is not Nepal-specific. “My impression is that the two-plus one formulation is flexible and can be applied to any other country in South Asia,” the source said.

 波羅王朝又稱帕拉王朝（現代孟加拉語寫為পাল） The Pala Empire (Bengali: পাল সাম্রাজ্য) was an imperial power during the Late Classical period on the Indian subcontinent,^[3] which originated in the region of Bengal. It is named after its ruling dynasty, whose rulers bore names ending with the suffix of Pala ("protector" in Sanskrit). They were followers of the Mahayana and Tantric schools of Buddhism. The empire was founded with the election of Gopala as the emperor of Gauda in 750 CE.^[4] The Pala stronghold was located in Bengal and Bihar, which included the major cities of Vikrampura, Pataliputra, Gauda, Monghyr, Somapura, Ramvati (Varendra), Tamralipta and Jaggadala.The Palas were astute diplomats and military conquerors. Their army was noted for its vast war elephant corps. Their navy performed both mercantile and defensive roles in the Bay of Bengal. The Palas were important promoters of classical Indian philosophy, literature, painting and sculpture. They built grand temples and monasteries, including the Somapura Mahavihara, and patronised the great universities of Nalanda and Vikramashila. The Proto-Bengali language developed under Pala rule. The empire enjoyed relations with the Srivijaya Empire, the Tibetan Empire and the Arab Abbasid Caliphate. Islam first appeared in Bengal during Pala rule, as a result of increased trade between Bengal and the Middle East. Abbasid coinage found in Pala archaeological sites, as well as records of Arab historians, point to flourishing mercantile and intellectual contacts. The House of Wisdom in Baghdad absorbed the mathematical and astronomical achievements of Indian civilisation during this period. At its height in the early 9th century, the Pala Empire was the dominant power in the northern Indian subcontinent, with its territory stretching across parts of modern-day eastern Pakistan, northern and northeastern India, Nepal and Bangladesh.^[4][6] The empire reached its peak under Emperors Dharmapala and Devapala. The Palas also exerted a strong cultural influence under Atisa in Tibet, as well as in Southeast Asia. Pala control of North India was ultimately ephemeral, as they struggled with the Gurjara-Pratiharasand the Rashtrakutas for the control of Kannauj and were defeated. After a short lived decline, Emperor Mahipala Idefended imperial bastions in Bengal and Bihar against South Indian Cholainvasions. Emperor Ramapala was the last strong Pala ruler, who gained control of Kamarupa and Kalinga. The empire was considerably weakened by the 11th century, with many areas engulfed in rebellion. The resurgent Hindu Sena dynastydethroned the Pala Empire in the 12th century, ending the reign of the last major Buddhist imperial power in the Indian subcontinent. The Pala period is considered one of the golden eras of Bengali history.^[7][8]The Palas brought stability and prosperity to Bengal after centuries of civil war between warring divisions. They advanced the achievements of previous Bengali civilisations and created outstanding works of art and architecture. They laid the basis for the Bengali language, including its first literary work, the Charyapada. The Pala legacy is still reflected in Tibetan Buddhism.

Mustang (from the Tibetan möntang (Wylie: smon-thang), Nepali: मुस्तांग Mustāṃg "fertile plain"), formerly Kingdom of Lo, is a remote and isolated region of the Nepalese Himalayas. The Upper Mustang was a restricted demilitarized area until 1992 which makes it one of the most preserved regions in the world, with a majority of the population, still speaking traditional Tibetic languages. Tibetan culture has been preserved by the relative isolation of the region from the outside world. The Upper Mustang comprise the northern two-thirds of Mustang District of Dhawalagiri Zone, Nepal. The southern third of the district is called Thak and is the homeland of the Thakali, who speak the Thakali language, and whose culture combines Tibetan and Nepalese elements. Life in Mustang revolves around tourism, animal husbandry and trade. Mustang's status as a kingdom ended in 2008 when its suzerain Kingdom of Nepal became a republic. The influence of the outside world, especially China, is growing and contributing to rapid change in the lives of Mustang's people.^[2] The development works are increasing there day by day with the higher pace.木斯塘王國（藏文：སྨོནཋང），又稱珞王國，是一個喜馬拉雅山麓的一個已不存在的王國，屬於西藏文化圈。其行政中心位於珞城。最初是一個獨立的王國，後被尼泊爾征服，成為自治王國。2008年被廢除，改為木斯塘縣。木斯塘在藏語中意思是「肥沃的平原」，位於尼泊爾與西藏的邊境、尼泊爾的中西部、道拉吉里峰以北，甘達基河流經其境內。木斯塘是青藏高原通往中亞、印度次大陸的重要走廊，境內的高良拉山道曾是喜馬拉雅山脈在錫金以西的重要通道，1950年中共進藏後被關閉。木斯塘境內的主要族群是珞巴族，說藏語，信奉藏傳佛教。這裡保留了許多古代西藏已趨於消亡文化，被稱為「西藏之外的西藏」。1380年，西藏人阿梅帕尔來到了這裡，建立木斯塘王國。18世紀末期，木斯塘王國被尼泊爾王國兼併，成為尼泊爾境內的一個自治王國，被授予高度自治權，其君主稱拉者。木斯塘曾長期禁止外國人進入，被人稱為「禁地王國」，此禁令至1991年10月方被解除。1959年藏區騷亂之後，大量西藏流亡者湧入此地，也是四水六崗衛教志願軍打游擊戰的重要根據地之一。2008年10月7日，尼泊爾聯邦民主共和國政府廢除了木斯塘末代拉者晋美多吉·帕巴·比斯塔的王位，將木斯塘王國改為木斯塘縣。^[2]拉者被廢黜後遷到加德滿都居住，但他在木斯塘民間廣泛受到尊崇。

The Kingdom of Sikkim (Classical Tibetan and Sikkimese: འབྲས་ལྗོངས། Drenjong), earlier known as Dremoshong (Classical Tibetan and Sikkimese: འབྲས་མོ་གཤོངས།, official name until 1800s), was a hereditary monarchy from 1642 to 16 May 1975 in the Eastern Himalayas. It was ruled by Chogyals of the Namgyal dynasty.In the mid-18th century, Sikkim was invaded by Nepal (then the Gorkha Kingdom) and was under the Gorkha rule for more than 40 years. Between 1775 and 1815, almost 180,000 ethnic Nepalis^{[citation needed]} from Eastern and Central Nepal migrated to Sikkim^{[citation needed]} and settled down . However, after the colonisation of India by the British, Sikkim allied itself with them as they had a common enemy – Nepal.^{[citation needed]} The infuriated Nepalese attacked Sikkim with vengeance, overrunning most of the region including the Terai. This prompted the British East India Company to attack Nepal in 1814, resulting in the Anglo-Nepalese War^{[citation needed]}. The Sugauli Treaty between Britain and Nepal and the Treaty of Titalia between Sikkim and British India resulted in territorial concessions by Nepal, which ceded Sikkim to British India.Under the 1861 Treaty of Tumlong Sikkim became a British protectorate, then an Indian protectorate in 1950.In 1975, allegations of discrimination against Nepali Hindus in Sikkim lead to resentment against the Chogyal.^[5][6] Their instigation led to Indian Army personnel moving into Gangtok. According to Sunanda K. Datta-Ray of The Statesman, the army killed the palace guards and surrounded the palace in April 1975. After disarming the palace, a referendum on the monarchy was held, in which the Sikkimese people overwhelmingly voted to abolish the monarchy, and the new parliament of Sikkim, led by Kazi Lhendup Dorjee, proposed a bill for Sikkim to become an Indian state, which was promptly accepted by the Government of India.
- hkej 28mar18 shum article

庫基族，又稱欽族，有時被稱為米佐人    The Kukis^[1] constitute one of several hill tribes within India, Bangladesh, and Burma. As Chin in the Chin State of Myanmar and as Mizo in the State of Mizoram in India are a number of related Tibeto-Burman tribal peoples spread throughout the northeastern states of India, northwestern Burma, and the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh. In Northeast India, they are present in all states except Arunachal Pradesh. This dispersal across international borders is a culmination of punitive actions made by the British during their occupation of India. Some fifty tribes of Kuki peoples in India are recognised as scheduled tribes^[3] based on the dialect spoken by that particular Kuki community as well as their region of origin. The name "Chin" is disputed. During the British occupation of India, the British used the compound term 'Chin-Kuki-Mizo' to group the Kukish language speaking people, and the Government of India "inherited" this.^[4]Missionaries chose to employ the term Chin to christen those on the Burmese side and the term Kuki on the Indian side of the border.^[5][6] Chin nationalist leaders in Burma's Chin State popularised the term "Chin" following Burma's independence from Britain. More recently Chin and Kuki have been rejected by some for Zomi, a name common to several peoples speaking small Northern Kukish languages, including the Zou.^[8] which other groups like Hmars, Zou/Zo Hmal and Koms may not co-opt for themselves.^[9][10] The term Mizo also can cause confusion, particularly following the emergence of the Zomi National Congress.The early history of the Kukis is obscure. The origin of the word "Kuki" is uncertain, but like the word "Naga", it is an exonym: it was not originally as a self-designation by the tribes that are now called Kukis. According to the colonial British writer Adam Scott Reid, the earliest reference to the word Kuki can be dated to 1777 CE, when it first appeared in British records. However, PS Haokip of Kuki National Organisation claims that a 33 CE record refers to two Kuki chiefs named Kuki Ahongba and Kuki Achouba.^[13] Ancient Sanskritlegendary literature mentions the Kirata people, which have been identified with tribes such as the Kuki. According to CA Soppit, the "Old Kukis" migrated to Manipur in the early 11th century, while the "New Kukis" migrated to Manipur during the first half of the 19th century.The majority of Kukis are Christians, with most belonging to Protestant denominations, especially Baptist.Traditionally, the Kukis were animists. Due to the work of Arthur E. Carson a Baptist missionary, many converted to Christianity. Many Kukis have also served as evangelists and pastors, ministering in places like the United States, Australia, Guam and India. The Bnei Menashe (Hebrew: בני מנשה, "Sons of Menasseh") are a small group within the indigenous people of India's North-Eastern border states of Manipur and Mizoram; since the late 20th century, they claim descent from one of the Lost Tribes of Israel and have adopted the practice of Judaism.^[22] The Bnei Menashe are made up of Mizo, Kuki and Chin peoples, who all speak Tibeto-Burman languages, and whose ancestors migrated into northeast India from Burma mostly in the 17th and 18th centuries.^[23] They are called Chin in Burma. In the late 20th century, an Israeli rabbi investigating their claims named them Bnei Menashe, based on their account of descent from Menasseh. Most of the peoples in these two northeast states, who number more than 3.7 million, do not identify with these claims. Some have supported other movements to separate from India. Prior to conversion in the 19th century to Christianity by Welsh Baptist missionaries, the Chin, Kuki, and Mizo peoples were animists; among their practices were ritual headhunting.^[24] Since the late 20th century, some of these peoples have begun following Messianic Judaism. The Bnei Menashe are a small group who started studying and practicing Judaism since the 1970s in a desire to return to what they believe is the religion of ancestors. The total population of Manipur and Mizoram is more than 3.7 million. The Bnei Menashe number below 9,000; several hundred have emigrated to Israel.「庫基族」的名稱用於印度，「欽族」的名稱用於緬甸。

********勐（泰語：เมือง mueang；寮語：ເມືອງ；撣語：မိူင်း；越南語：Mường），或譯作曼、孟、猛或芒，指的是台語民族在印度支那半島建立的一系列半獨立的城邦或國家，在華南和印度東北部亦有分布。其覆蓋的地區包括今日的泰國、寮國、緬甸、柬埔寨、越南北部部份地區、中國雲南南部及廣西西部、印度阿薩姆邦。勐這個詞在泰語中原本意思是擁有城牆的城鎮及其周邊的附屬村莊(阪)，且其統治者至少擁有「坤」（ขุน）的爵位。^[1][2][3]在曼荼羅體系中，較小的「勐」附屬於鄰近的更為強大的「勐」，相應地，大的「勐」則附屬於中央國王或其他的領袖。更為強大的「勐」通常被命名為「清」（เชียง）、「淵」（เวียง）、「那空」（นคร）或「恭」（กรุง）^[4]，有時候會試圖擺脫宗主的統治而尋求獨立。大大小小的「勐」常常變換自己的效忠對象，頻繁向一個以上的強大鄰居進貢。勐的每個家庭有一塊地供耕種，相應也要向勐的頭人（昭勐）服差役和交稅。忽必烈於1253年打敗大理國之後，撣邦全境及其鄰近地區大量出現新的「勐」，雖然通常將其描述為大量移民導致的，但卻是有爭議的。^[5]自元朝開始，中國在雲南建立土司制度，授予部落酋長官職，讓他們對自己部落實行自治。較大的勐有時候控制著較小的勐，例如西雙版納的召片領會派一些子弟出任其他勐的頭人。在明朝和清朝期間，中國朝廷實施「改土歸流」，逐步廢除世襲的土司。19世紀，泰國的扎克里王朝及英屬緬甸亦採取類似的手段廢除了較小的「勐」。雖然這些小國消失了，但地名卻保留了下來。Mueang (Thai: เมือง mɯ̄ang, pronounced [mɯaŋ˧]), Muang (Lao: ເມືອງ mɯ́ang, pronounced [mɯaŋ˦]), Mường (Vietnamese pronunciation: [/mɨəŋ ˨˩/]) or Mong (Shan: မိူင်း mə́ŋ, pronounced [məŋ˦]) were pre-modern semi-independent city-states or principalities in Indochina, adjacent regions of Northeast India and Southern China, including what is now Thailand, Laos, Burma, Cambodia, parts of northern Vietnam, southern Yunnan, western Guangxi and Assam.

The Wa people (Wa language: Vāx; Burmese: ဝလူမျိုး [wa̰ lùmjóʊ]; Chinese: 佤族; pinyin: Wǎzú; Thai: ว้า) are an ethnic group that lives mainly in northern Myanmar, in the northern part of Shan State and the eastern part of Kachin State, near and along Burma's border with China, as well as in Yunnan, China.Historically the Wa have inhabited the Wa States, a territory that they have claimed as their ancestral land since time immemorial. It is a rugged mountainous area located between the Mekong and the Salween River, with the Nam Hka flowing across it. The Wa traditionally practiced subsistence agriculture by cultivating rice, peas, beans, poppies and walnuts. They bred water buffaloes, which they used mainly for sacrificial purposes. Generally, the traditional customs of the Wa, as well as their lifestyle, are very similar to those of the Naga people further to the Northwest.传统上佤族人信仰万物有灵，现在则多信仰基督教或佛教。有木鼓崇拜。佤族使用佤语，佤语属南亚语系孟-高棉语族佤-德昂语支，有巴饶克、佤和阿佤3个方言。中国的佤族原来没有文字，1956年创制了一套以巴饶方言为基础方言、以岩帅语音为标准音的拉丁字母的拼音文字。

- 佤族在2000年前就与布朗族、德昂族等民族的先民一起居住在高黎贡山和澜沧江地区。先秦时“百濮”的一支。唐代称“濮子蛮”，宋代称“濮蛮”，明代称 “古剌”，清代称“嘎剌”、“哈瓦”，也被记载为“野‘左犭右卡’”。佤族分为两种，一是“卡瓦”(佧佤)，保有猎人头的习俗，所以又称为“野佧”；另一 是“卡喇”(佧喇)，常与邻族(尤其是傣族，旧称“摆夷”)接触，且已经革除猎人头的习惯，又称之为“熟佧”，他们受傣文化的影响而接受了南传上座部佛教信仰。^[7]“野佧”依猎头方式又分为两种：“湿头”用杀人的方式取得人头，“干头”则以购买或挖掘坟墓的方式取得人头。^[8]他们自称“佤”、“巴饶克”、“阿佤”等，都有“住在山上的人”的意思。当地傣族与国外老族，掸族称其为“佧佤”，“佧”在傣语中意为奴隶。在中华人民共和国成立后，统一称为佤族。佤族有猎头的习俗，最后一次有记录的猎头在1950年代末。他们本来也生活在景栋，后被孟莱王孙儿征服，成为掸族诏法的奴隶。佤族民族学家赵明生提出了与传统史籍相异的观点，他认为晋朝永昌郡的永寿城不仅是普通县城，而是晋朝时归顺中原政权的佤族地方民族政权，可能是民间传说的佤族古城。

- 过去不同地区的佤族有着不同的自称。大体说来，镇康、永德一带的佤族自称“佤”；耿马、双江、沧源、澜沧的佤族自称“巴饶”或“布饶”；西盟、孟连的佤族自称“阿佤”、“阿佤莱”和“勒佤”。汉族、傣族、拉祜族对佤族的称呼也有不同。对镇康、永德一带的佤族，傣族 称“拉”，汉族称“本人”。对其他地区的佤族，汉族、傣族、拉祜族统称为“阿佤”或“佧佤”。“佧佤”又有“大佧佤”和“小佧佤”之分，“大佧佤”指西盟 等地的佤族；“小佧佤”指沧源、双江、耿马、澜沧、孟连等地的佤族。“佧”为傣语，是奴隶的意思，称“佧佤”含有贬意和侮辱性。

新中国成立以后，根据大多数人民的意愿，确定称为佤族   。

- mentioned in zhongguo tongshi's episode on zhuge liang who pacified the tribe

The Mizo people (Mizo: Mizo hnam) are an ethnic group native to North-East India, western Burma (Myanmar) and eastern Bangladesh; this term covers several ethnic peoples who speak various Kuki-Chin languages. The Mizos are a tribal hill peoples in the Indian state of Mizoram. All Mizo tribes and clans, in their folk legends, claim that Chhinlung/Sinlung/Khul, which means cave in the Mizo languages, was the cradle of the Mizos. Thus, it's sometimes concluded that the Mizo people lived as cave dwellers at some point. The present Indian state of Mizoram (literally "Mizoland") was called the Lushai Hills or Lushai Country and was defined as an excluded area^[5] during the British Raj and a district of Assam in independent India. The people of the Lushai Hills demanded a distinct political territory when India achieved independence. Due to continued efforts by its people to gain autonomy, the national government approved Mizoram in 1972 as a Union Territoryand in 1987 as a full-fledged state of the Republic of India. As the people organized, they chose to identify as Mizo rather than by individual clan/tribe names. Thus, there is no Mizo Tribe as such, rather an umbrella name for all the different tribes. However, unfortunately, there still are some groups who refuse to be termed Mizo and caused minor conflicts between the two. These groups are mostly from outside the State Of Mizoram, living in the neighboring territories. Of their languages, the most widely-spoken is the "Mizo", which is the common language of all Mizos belong to the Tibeto-Burman language family. The state has one of the highest literacy rates in India, at more than 90%. The official language is Mizo.The term Mizo is derived from two Mizo words: mi and zo. Mi in Mizo means 'person'. The term zo means to be the servant but accounts differ. According to one view, zo means 'highland' and Mizo means highlander or person living in high hills. The Term zo has a broad ethnic classification of sub groups inhabiting the regions then knowns as Lushai Hills in India, Chin hills in Myanmar and Chittagong hills in Bangladesh. Mizo generally refers to those residing in Mizoram and various subroups of the Zo Family have joined and adopted Mizo while others have not^[6]. Though the term Mizo is often used to name an overall ethnicity, it is an umbrella term to denote the various clans, such as the Hmar, Ralte, Lai, Lusei etc. A number of dialects are still spoken under the umbrella of Paite ;^[7] some of them are Mizo ṭawng (which is an official language of Mizoram), the Hmar languages,the Paite languages, the Lai languages, and the Pang languages.

- Khuma and khara were the first to be converted into Christian among the Mizos. A great majority of ethnic Mizo people are Christians. The major Christian denominations are Presbyterian (majority, influenced by the affiliations of the early missionaries), Baptist, Wesleyan Methodist Church, United Pentecostal Church International, The Salvation Army, Seventh-day Adventist, and Roman Catholic.^{[9][better source needed]} The Chin Baptist Church is in Champhai area in the eastern part of the state.In the late 20th century, a rather small number of Mizo and related ethnic peoples in Assam and Mizoram began practicing Judaism, stating that they are descendants of Manasseh, a lost tribe of Israel.^{[citation needed]} They number, at most, several thousands in a population of more than 3.7 million in these states. Most Mizos do not agree with this identification. Several hundreds have already emigrated to Israel, where they undergo complete conversion to be accepted as Jews. In 2005, the Chief Rabbi of Israel ruled that they were part of a lost tribe of Israel, but anyone wishing to emigrate to Israel must first complete formal conversion to Judaism in Nepal.^{[citation needed]} Pre-colonialist Mizos were animists, but once the British colonized the area, the British officials converted most of the population to Christianity from their practice of Animism, i.e. worshipping Nature (e.g., the Sun, the Moon, Rivers, Mountains and Spirits). As of today, more than 98% of Mizos claim themselves as Christians. Presently, there are arguably no ethnic Mizos who still practice Animism.

The Sylhetis (Sylheti: ꠍꠤꠟꠐꠤ, Bengali: সিলেটি) are an Indo-Aryan ethno-linguistic group of people who speak the Sylheti language and are native to the Sylhet Division of Bangladesh and the Barak Valley of the Indian state of Assam, with a sizeable population in Shillong, Meghalaya and Tripura of India and in London, United Kingdom. They are described as being both synonymous with Bengalis as well as a separate ethnic group due to historical isolation and lack of mutual intelligibility between their languages.People of Sylhet are socially stratified into four caste, which is called chaturvarna and three social classes. Caste system derived from Hindu system of varna 'colour' and jati 'ethnicity', which divides people into four colours: White, Red, Yellow and Black. White people are Brahmans, who are destined to be priests, teachers and preachers; Red people are Kshatriyas, who are destined to be kings, governors, warriors and soldiers; Yellow people are Vyasas, who are born to be cattle herders, ploughmen, artisans and merchants; and Black people are Shudras, who are born to be labourers and servants to the people of twice born caste.^[10][11] People from all caste denominations exist among Hindus in Sylhet. 

- Class system among Muslims evolved during the halcyon days of the Mughal Empire and it is divided into three layers: Ashraf, Ajlaf and Arzal. Ashraf is the noble class destined to be priests, teachers, preachers, kings, governors, warriors and soldiers; Ajlaf is the middle class destined to be cattle herders, ploughmen, artisans and merchants; and Arzal is the working class destined to labour and provide services to all others.^[12][13] People belonging to Arzal social class do not have family names or surnames; Arzal men usually use names of Islamic heroes or honorific as their last name, which are about a dozen of the last names commonly used by Arzals and they names are as follows:

• 1. Ahmed;
• 2. Mohammed or Muhammad;
• 3. Ali;
• 4. Husein, Hussain or Hossain;
• 5. Hassan or Hasan;
• 6. Zaman;
• 7. Islam;
• 8. Huq or Haque;
• 9. Ad-Deen, Al-Deen, Ud-Deen or Uddin;
• 10. Ullah;
• 11. Mian or Miah; and
• 12. Alam or Alom.

Women of Arzal social class use about half a dozen of names as their last names and examples are given below:

• 1. Begum;
• 2. Khanum;
• 3. Khatun;
• 4. Nahar;
• 5. Nisa;
• 6. Bibi; and
• 7. Banu.

- appen recruit people in hk who speaks sylheti language

Sindhis (Sindhi: سنڌي‎ (Perso-Arabic), सिन्धी (Devanagari),  (Khudabadi)) are an Indo-Aryan ethno-linguistic group who speak the Sindhi language and are native to the Sindh province of Pakistan, which was previously a part of pre-partition British India. After the partition of India in 1947, most Sindhi Hindus and Sindhi Sikhs migrated to India and other parts of the world. Today, Sindhis are both in India and Pakistan. Indian Sindhis are predominantly Hindu, while Pakistani Sindhis are predominantly Muslim. Sindhi Muslim culture is highly influenced by Sufi doctrines and principles.^[6] Some of the popular cultural icons are Raja Dahir, Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai, Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, Jhulelal, Sachal Sarmast and Shambumal Tulsiani. 信德族(信德語：سنڌي)，是巴基斯坦四大民族之一，是说信德語的印欧民族(属地中海人种)，分布于巴基斯坦信德省与印度西部。他们原是印度帝国信德省的一个民族，信德省在公元前三千年就有人类居住，他们的始祖是摩亨朱达罗文明的达罗毗荼人。信德省一直被当地的印度教和佛教信徒统治，直到公元712年阿拉伯人入侵被纳入倭马亚王朝的一部分，所以雅利安人、波斯人、希腊人、拉其普特人、阿拉伯人、阿富汗人与突厥人也是族源。他们文化受波斯人影响很深，他们也是南亚次大陆第一个信仰伊斯兰的民族（有逊尼派与什叶派），但也有信仰印度教。他们多在海军服役。
- scmp 17sep18 "sindhis of shanghai"

Tamil
- since Tamil doesn’t have a country, there are some pseudo-nationalists that think India should be a Hindi country, and want to push Hindi on every states. Although most states have lost to the Hindification, Tamil is still holding the steady fight. Unfortunately, that is why we get silly questions like whether Tamil is a full language. or why don’t Tamilians become Indians kind of bullshit.https://www.quora.com/What-does-Tamil-lack-as-a-language
- language

• Tamil (English: /ˈtæmɪl/; தமிழ் Tamiḻ [t̪ɐmɨɻ]) is a Dravidian language predominantly spoken by the Tamil peopleof India and Sri Lanka, and by the Tamil diaspora, Sri Lankan Moors, Burghers, Douglas, and Chindians. Tamil is an official language of two countries: Sri Lanka and Singapore.^[11][12] It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and the Indian Union Territory of Puducherry. It is used as one of the languages of education in Malaysia, along with English, Malay and Mandarin.^[13][14] Tamil is spoken by significant minorities in the four other South Indian states of Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and the Union Territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. It is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India.
• Most related language to Tamil is obviously Malayalam. Even Toda, Kota, Badaga language are only distantly related to Tamil. Other languages comes next to Malayalam which related to Tamil are minor languages like Kodava, Irula, Kaikadi, Yerukula, and many tribal languages spoken in the Western Ghat areas between Tamil Nadu and Kerala.https://www.quora.com/Which-is-the-most-related-language-to-Tamil
• https://www.quora.com/Why-does-the-Tamil-language-contain-fewer-letters-than-Malayalam
• Tamil literary movement of the 20th century which sought to cleanse Tamil of Sanskrit loanwords https://www.quora.com/Why-Telugu-Kannada-languages-have-lots-of-Sanskrit-loan-words-words-while-Tamil-has-few
• https://www.quora.com/Which-came-first-between-Sri-Sanskrit-word-for-Mr-and-Thiru-Tamil-word-for-Mr
• term tata means greatness/father   https://www.quora.com/Which-came-first-Tamil-Telugu-or-Sanskrit

- festival

• Thaipusam or Thaipoosam (Tamil: தைப்பூசம், Taippūcam ^?) is a festival celebrated by the Tamil community on the full moon in the Tamil month of Thai(January/February). It is mainly observed in countries where there is a significant presence of Tamil community such as India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Mauritius, Singapore,South Africa, Canada and other places where ethnic Hindu Tamils reside as a part of the local Indian diaspora population such as Réunion, Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Suriname, Jamaica and the other parts of the Caribbean. It is a national holiday in many countries like Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Mauritius and Fiji. In Singapore, it was a national holiday once but it was removed from Singapore holidays. Note: In Fiji, Thaipusam is not officially declared as a national holiday, while in certain states of Malaysia and in the nations of Sri Lanka and Mauritius it is a government and a bank holiday. The word Thaipusam is a combination of the name of the month, Thai, and the name of a star, Pusam. This particular star is at its highest point during the festival. The festival commemorates the occasion when Parvati gave Murugan a Vel "spear" so he could vanquish the evil demon Soorapadman. It is commonly believed that Thaipusam marks Murugan's birthday; Some other sources suggest that Vaikhasi Vishakam, which falls in the Vaikhasi month (May/June), is Murugan's birthday.

• French Tamils celebrating Thaipoosamhttps://www.quora.com/Are-the-French-becoming-the-minority-in-their-own-country
• scmp 16jan19 

- hong kong

• http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/2072050/tamil-community-hong-kong-more-50-years-making Many Tamils arrived in the city from Burma, now Myanmar, in the 1950s and 60s. They left the country due to political and social instability, and were allowed to settle here at a time when immigration controls were not so strict, especially for those from Commonwealth countries. Early Tamils came to the city as bankers or to set up their own businesses in various trades, especially gems. Today, many Tamil professionals are involved in the ­information technology field, having acquired the necessary skills from India’s burgeoning IT sector.

The Kirati people (Sanskrit: Kirāta)^[1] (also spelled as Kirant or Kiranti) are an ethnic group of the Himalayas extending eastward from Nepal into India, Bangladesh, Burma and beyond. The word Kirata is a derivation from Kirati or Kiranti to name the group of people in Eastern Nepal. One school of thought says that it comes from the Sanskrit word Kirata found in the Yajurveda; they are described as the "handsome" mountain people and hunters in the forests.^[3] They are described as "Kiratas" in the Mahabharata and Kirtarjuniya.
-  the earliest recorded groups of the Kirati are today divided into two groups — the Limbu and Rai.^[14] When the Shah kings conquered, they established the headman and jindars as local rulers and give title the Yakthungs as Subba, Limbu, the Khambu as Rai, the Sunwar as Mukhiya and the Yakkha as Dewan. The Kirat groups that today identify themselves using the nomenclature 'Kirat' include the Limbu, Sunuwar, Yakkha, Rai and few segments of the Rai people like Bahing, Kulung and speakers of Khaling, Bantawa, Chamling, Thulung, Jerung, and other related ethnic groups.
- The British had recruited Gorkhas ethnicity-wise; four regiments were composed of Rais and Limbus.^[38] 7th Gurkha Rifles was raised in 1902 and recruited Limbu and Rai from Eastern Nepal.^[39] The 10th Gurkha Rifles and the regiment maintained its assigned recruiting areas in the Limbu and Rai tribal areas of eastern Nepal as part of a broad reorganisation on 13 September 1901.^[40] 11 Gorkha Rifles composed entirely of Rai-Limbu non-optees for the British Gorkhas.


The Meitei people (also known as Manipuri) are an ethnic group that comprise the majority in Manipur, a northeastern state of India.^[2] The Meitei primarily settled on a large valley in modern-day Manipur, although a sizable diaspora have settled in Assam,^[3] Meghalaya.^[4]Tripura, Nagaland, Bangladesh and Burma( Myanmar). The Meitei ethnic group represents about 53% of Manipur's population.The Meitei are known by a number of endonyms, Meitei, Meetei (ꯃꯤꯇꯩ), Meithei(ꯃꯩꯊꯩ), and as well as by numerous exonyms, including Manipuri (ꯃꯅꯤꯄꯨꯔꯤ), Cassay-Shan (ꯀꯦꯁꯤ-ꯁꯥꯟ), and Kathe(Burmese: ကသည်း). The etymological origins of the word "Meitei" are contested; the term may have descended from the word "Mitei," which means "modeled in god's image."The Meiteis are East Asian, but they also have some Indo-European admixture.^[10] Sir James Johnstone, who was the political agent in Manipur, writes: "The Manipuris themselves are a fine stalwart race descended from an Indo-Chinese stock, with some mixture of Aryan blood, derived from the successive waves of Aryan invaders that have passed through the valley in pre-historic days". The people from the East came to Manipur in different periods of History. They were Shans, a little of the Chines and the Burmese. There were some immigrants from the Upper Burma in the reign of Nongta Lauren Pakhangba ( 1st century), Naoting Khong (7 th century) and King Khunmomba ( 13 th century) and they became Meiteis. In the reigns of Ningthou-Khomba, Kyamba and Ming Yamba, some of fresh immigrants also became Meiteis. But after reign of King Khangemba(1597-1652) there were little immigration from the East.The earliest written record of their existence dates back to 1445 CE, during the kingdom of Kangleipak.
- myanmar

• Myanmar is home to a sizable community of Meiteis, who are called Kathe in Burmese.^[14] Unlike other Hindu communities in Myanmar, the Meitei resemble other Burmese ethnic groups in terms of physical appearance, which has accelerated their assimilation and integration into Burmese society.^[14] In the early 1950s, Burmese Meiteis numbered approximately 40,000, with a third of them residing in Mandalay.^[29] Current estimates are approximately 25,000.^[30] Meiteis have resettled throughout the country, including in villages near Myitkyina to the north, Homalin, Kalewa, Pyay, in the center of the country, and Yangon to the south.^[29] They continue to practice Hinduism in Myanmar.The Meitei people's horsemanship skills were employed in the Burmese royal army, where they formed the elite Cassay cavalry (ကသည်းမြင်းတပ်) and artillery regiments (ကသည်းအမြောက်တပ်) which were employed during the Burmese–Siamese wars.^[15] The Burmese court also retained a retinue of Meitei Brahmins called Bamons, also called Kathe Ponna (ကသည်းပုဏ္ဏား) to advise and conduct court rituals.

sentinelese

- https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-origin-of-the-Sentinelese-tribe-Why-do-they-refuse-contact-with-our-civilization

納瓦卜 Nawab (Eastern Nagari: নবাব/নওয়াব, Sylheti Nagari: ꠘꠀꠣꠛ, ꠘꠛꠣꠛ, Devanagari: नवाब/नबाब, Perso-Arab: نواب) also spelt Nawaab, Navaab, Navab, Nowab, Nabob or Nobab, was an honorific title ratified and bestowed by the reigning Mughal emperor to semi-autonomous Muslim rulers of princely states in South Asia. "Nawab" usually refers to males and literally means Viceroy; the female equivalent is "Begum" or "Nawab Begum". The primary duty of a Nawab was to uphold the sovereignty of the Mughal emperor along with the administration of a certain province. The title of "nawabi" was also awarded as a personal distinction by the paramount power, similar to a British peerage, to persons and families who ruled a princely state for various services to the government of British India. In some cases, the titles were also accompanied by jagir grants, either in cash revenues and allowances or land-holdings. During the British Raj, some of the chiefs, or sardars, of large or important tribes were also given the title, in addition to traditional titles already held by virtue of chieftainship. The term "zamindari " was originally used for the subahdar (provincial governor) or viceroy of a subah (province) or region of the Mughal empire.It is a Hindustani term, used in Urdu, Hindi, Bengali and many other North-Indian languages, borrowed via Persian from the Arabic, being the honorific plural of naib, or "deputy." In some areas, especially Bengal, the term is pronounced nobab. This later variation has also entered English and other foreign languages as nabob.The term "Nawaab" is often used to refer to any Muslim ruler in north or south India while the term "nizam" is preferred for a senior official—it literally means "governor of region". The Nizam of Hyderabad had several nawabs under him: Nawabs of Cuddapah, Sira, Rajahmundry, Kurnool, Chicacole, et al. "Nizam" was his personal title, awarded by the Mughal Government and based on the term "Nazim" as meaning "senior officer". "Nazim" is still used for a district collector in many parts of India. The term "nawab" is still technically imprecise, as the title was also awarded to Hindus and Sikhs, as well, and large zamindars and not necessarily to all Muslim rulers. With the decline of that empire, the title, and the powers that went with it, became hereditary in the ruling families in the various provinces. Under later British rule, nawabs continued to rule various princely states of Awadh, Amb, Bahawalpur, Balasinor, Baoni, Banganapalle, Bhopal, Cambay, Jaora, Junagadh, Kurnool (the main city of Deccan), Kurwai, Mamdot, Multan, Palanpur, Pataudi, Radhanpur, Rampur, Malerkotla, Sachin, Rajoli and Tonk. Other former rulers bearing the title, such as the nawabs of Bengal and Oudh, had been dispossessed by the British or others by the time the Mughal dynasty finally ended in 1857. Some princes became Nawab by promotion, e.g. the ruler of Palanpur was "diwan" until 1910, then "nawab sahib". Other nawabs were promoted are restyled to another princely style, or to and back, e.g. in Rajgarh a single rawat (rajah) went by nawab. The style for a nawab's queen is begum. Most of the nawab dynasties were male primogenitures, although several ruling Begums of Bhopal were a notable exception. Before the incorporation of the Subcontinent into the British Empire, nawabs ruled the kingdoms of Awadh (or Oudh, encouraged by the British to shed the Mughal suzerainty and assume the imperial style of Badshah), Bengal, Arcot and Bhopal.
- A nabob /ˈneɪbɒb/ is a conspicuously wealthy man deriving his fortune in the east, especially in India during the 18th century with the privately held East India Company.Nabob is an Anglo-Indian term that came to English from Urdu, possibly from Hindustani nawāb/navāb, borrowedinto English during British colonial rule in India. It is possible this was via the intermediate Portuguese nababo, the Portuguese having preceded the British in India.^{[citation needed]}The word entered colloquial usage in England from 1612. Native Europeans used nabob to refer to those who returned from India after having made a fortune there.

A zamindar in the Indian subcontinent was an aristocrat. The term means land owner in Persian. Typically hereditary, zamindars held enormous tracts of land and control over their peasants, from whom they reserved the right to collect tax on behalf of imperial courts or for military purposes. Their families carried titular suffixes of lordship, such as Babu, Sri, Rai, Pillai, Rao, Chaudhuri, Khan, Sardar, Malik, Thakur, Wadero, Reddy, Thevar and Naidu. In the 19th and 20th centuries, with the advent of British imperialism, many wealthy and influential zamindars were bestowed with princely and royal titles such as Maharaja (Great King), Raja (King) and Nawab. During the Mughal Empire, zamindars belonged to the nobility and formed the ruling class. Emperor Akbar granted them mansabs and their ancestral domains were treated as jagirs. Under British colonial rule in India, the permanent settlement consolidated what became known as the zamindari system. The British rewarded supportive zamindars by recognizing them as princes. Many of the region's princely states were pre-colonial zamindar holdings elevated to a greater protocol. However, the British also reduced the land holdings of many pre-colonial aristocrats, demoting their status to a zamindar from previously higher ranks of nobility. The system was abolished during land reforms in East Bengal (Bangladesh) in 1950, India in 1951 and West Pakistan in 1959. The zamindars often played an important role in the regional histories of the subcontinent. One of the most notable examples is the 16th century confederation formed by twelve zamindars in the Bhati region, which, according to the Jesuits and Ralph Fitch, earned a reputation for successively repelling Mughal invasions through naval battles. The confederation was led by a zamindar-king, Isa Khan, and included both Muslims and Hindus, such as Pratapaditya. The zamindars were also patrons of the arts. The Tagore family produced India's first Nobel laureate in literature in 1913, Rabindranath Tagore, who was often based at his estate. The zamindars also promoted neoclassical and Indo-Saracenicarchitecture.

- people

• Sushanta Kumar Bhattacharyya, Baron Bhattacharyya, CBE FRS FREng FIMechE (born 6 June 1940)^[1] is a British-Indian engineer, educator and government advisor. In 1980 he became Professor of Manufacturing Systems at the University of Warwick and founded the Warwick Manufacturing Group. In 2004 he was made a life peer and became a member of the House of Lords.Kumar Bhattacharyya was born in Bangalore, the elder son of Sudhir Kumar Bhattacharyya (1909-1987) and Hemanalini Chakraborty. Of Bengali origin, the Bhattacharyyas were a zamindari family from Dhaka District (then in the Bengal Presidency of British India and now in Bangladesh).

체티  Chettiar or Chetti is a title used by many mercantile, weaving, agricultural and land owning castes in South India, especially in the states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala.The word Chetty is a generic term used by many merchant and trading groups of South India.^[3] The word might be derived from the Sanskrit word "Shresthy" which means wealth.Chettiar title은 주로 남인도의 무역 카스트들이 사용한다. Kummara 같은 상인이 아닌 계급들이 사용하기도 한다. varna에서 Vysyas와 동급이며, 북인도에서는 무역상들과 약혼한 사람들이 주로 사용한다.
- [hsbc: its malaysian story] banknotes represented an interest-free loan for a bank. While there were occasionally runs such as in 1865, when chettairs in singapore refused to accept the notes of the chartered and mercantile banks, and again on the mercantile bank in 1884, what at that stage requested and recorded assistance from the hk bank, banknotes were a prestigious form of advertisiing, and issuing them was a jealously guarded privilege.

A Lascar was a sailor or militiaman from South Asia, theArab world, and other territories situated to the east of theCape of Good Hope, who were employed on Europeanships from the 16th century until the middle of the 20th century. The word (also spelled lashkar, laskar) derives from al-askar, the Arabic word for a guard or soldier. ThePortuguese adapted this term to "lascarim", meaning an Asian militiamen or seamen, specifically from any area East of the Cape of Good Hope. This means that Indian, Malay, Chinese and Japanese crewmen were covered by the Portuguese definition. The British of the East India Company initially described Indian lascars as 'Black Portuguese' or 'Topazes', but later adopted the Portuguese name, calling them 'Lascar'. Lascars served on British ships under "lascar agreements." These agreements allowed shipowners more control than was the case in ordinary articles of agreement. The sailors could be transferred from one ship to another and retained in service for up to three years at one time. The name Lascarwas also used to refer to Indian servants, typically engaged by British military officers.

 A crore (/krɔːr/; abbreviated cr) karor or koti denotes ten million (10,000,000 or 10⁷ in scientific notation) and is equal to 100 lakh in the Indian numbering system.   Large amounts of money in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal are often written in terms of crore. For example, 150,000,000 (one hundred and fifty million) is written as 'fifteen crore rupees', '15crore' or 'Rs 15 crore'.在古代稱爲俱胝（梵語：koṭi，巴利語：koṭi），是佛教常用的數量詞，義爲“千萬”。俱胝，又譯作俱致、拘梨、拘胝，據《解深密經疏》，一說等於十萬，一說爲百萬，也有千萬的說法；《玄應音義》甚至說等於一億。現代依據印度民俗，認為俱胝就是克若，等於千萬。


maritime
-  Goa Maritime Conclave (GMC) 

•  first Goa Maritime Conclave (GMC), which saw the participation of 10 Indian Ocean littoral states.http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/navy-steps-up-patrolling-of-indian-ocean-region/article19984925.ece

food
- Momo (Nepali: मम; Nepal Bhasa: ममचा, मम:; Tibetan: མོག་མོག་, Wylie: mog mog; simplified Chinese: 馍馍; traditional Chinese: 饃饃; pinyin: mómo^[1]) is a type of South Asian dumpling; native to Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim state and Darjeeling district of India. It is similar to Chinese baozi and jiaozi, Mongolian buuz, Japanese gyoza and Korean mandu.The dish is believed to be of Tibetan origin and since then has spread to other neighboring countries with the influx of Tibetan diaspora. Since this dish was initially popular among the Newar community of the Kathmandu Valley, one prevalent belief^[2] is that traveling Newar merchants brought the recipe and the name momo from Tibet where the Newar Merchants use go to trade. They modified the seasonings of the dish with available ingredients, such as water buffalo, and kept the same name.Momo is a type of steamed bun with some form of filling. Momo has become a traditional delicacy in Nepal, Tibet and among Nepalese/Tibetan communities in Bhutan, as well as Sikkim state and Darjeeling district of India. It is one of the most popular fast foods in Nepal. Momos have also spread to other countries like United States (some parts), UK and India.
- Lassi (pronounced [ləs-siː]) is a popular traditional yogurt-based drink from the Indian Subcontinent.^[1] Lassi is a blend of yogurt, water, spices and sometimes fruit. Traditional lassi (a.k.a., "salted lassi", or simply "lassi") is a savoury drink, sometimes flavoured with ground and roasted cumin. Sweet lassi, however, contains sugar or fruits, instead of spices. Salted mint lassi is highly favoured in Bangladesh. In Dharmic religions, yogurt sweetened with honey is used while performing religious rituals. Less common is lassi served with milk and topped with a thin layer of clotted cream. Lassis are enjoyed chilled as a hot-weather refreshment, mostly taken with lunch. With a little turmeric powder mixed in, it is also used as a folk remedy for gastroenteritis. In Pakistan, salted lassi is often served with almost all kinds of meals, and is mostly made at home by simply whisking salt in yogurt and water. It is also sold at most dairy shops selling yogurt and milk, and both the salty and sweet variety are available.

Costume
- Gagra choli or Ghagra choli, which is also known as Lehenga choli and locally as Chaniya choli, is the traditional clothing of women from the Indian subcontinent; notable in Indian states of Rajasthan,^[1][2]Gujarat,^[3] Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jammu, as well as in Hindi speaking regions of Nepal. In Punjab it was traditionally worn with the kurti and salwar. It is a combination of the gagra or lehenga(long skirt) and the choli (blouse). Historically, the gagra choli evolved from the three-piece attire worn by women in ancient India. The attire consisted of the Antriya lower garment, the Uttariya veil worn over shoulder or head and Stanapatta a chestband, which finds mentioned in Sanskrit literature and Buddhist Pali literature during 6th century B.C.A choli (Hindi: चोली, Nepali: चोलो), (ravike in South India Telugu: రవికె, Kannada: ರವಿಕೆ) is a midriff-baring blouse commonly worn with the Indian Sari costume (worn in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, southern Nepal and other surrounding countries). It evolved from the ancient Stanapatta (also known as Kanchuki) and is cut to fit tightly to the body with its short sleeves and low neck. The choli is usually cropped, allowing exposure of the navel; the cropped design is particularly well-suited for wear in the hot South Asian summers.
- A Langa Voni (Langa Voni Telugu: లంగా ఓణీ, Pavadai Daavani Tamil: பாவாடை, Langa Davani Kannada: ಲಂಗ ದಾವಣಿ) is a traditional dress worn mainly in South India by young girls between puberty and marriage. It is also known as the two-piece saree or half saree. Young girls between puberty and marriage wear this dress. Girls younger than this may wear it on special occasions. It comprises a Langa or Paavadai, a skirt which is tied around the waist using string, and a Voni, Oni, or Davani, which is a cloth usually 2 to 2.5 metres in length. The voni is draped diagonally over a choli (a tight fitting blouse, same as worn for saree). Usually, the garment is woven with cotton or silk. A variant of this is the Gagra choli of North India (the difference between the two being the direction of draping the voni or dupatta). The modern day "lengha-style sari," worn by Indians across the subcontinent mainly for special occasions, is inspired by the Langa Voni.
- Sherwani (Hindi: शेरवानी; Urdu: شیروانی‬‎; Bengali: শেরওয়ানি) is a long coat-like garment worn in the Indian subcontinent, very similar to a British frock coator a Polish żupan. It was traditionally associated with the Indian subcontinent.^[1] It is worn over a kurta with the combination of either a churidar, a dhoti, a pajama, or a shalwar/sirwal as the lower-body clothing. It can be distinguished from the achkan by the fact that it is shorter in length, is often made from heavier suiting fabrics, and by the presence of a lining.
- 璎珞是古代南亚次大陆的人们--特别是贵族--用来装饰身体的一大类首饰的梵文意译。追溯佛经中相对应的梵文原来的词语，大致有以下几个：Muktā-hāra，其中Muktā义为“珍珠”，hāra则有“成串”之义。这个词语的本义大致是“用珍珠等串成的首饰”。Keyūra，音译是“吉由罗”，它大致指的是首饰中带在手臂上的手镯、臂钏一类饰物。Ratnāvali，这个词的本义大致是指“一连串的宝石”。Rūcaka，这个词的本义大致是指“华鬘(花鬘)形的首饰”。而华鬘本身，则是梵文Kusuma-mālā的意译。其中，Kusuma原指一种素馨属的植物，音译有“俱苏摩、拘薮摩、须曼那、须末那”等，特指它的花，在佛经中常用作一切花的以部分代全体的统称。mālā义为花环、环状物。也有用mālā来作Kusuma-mālā的简化词的。华鬘主要指一种环形颈饰，也就是现在南亚次大陆还在使用的花环，如我们在礼宾式中常见往贵宾脖子上套的那类饰物。它与Mukta-hara的区别，大约主要在所用的串联饰物之不同，一为植物质，一属矿物质罢了。所以，有的佛经翻译家有时也把Kusuma-mala或mala译成“璎珞”了。

mythology
- Kaal or Kālá (Sanskrit: काल, IPA: [kɑːˈlə]) (Tamil: காலம்/ˈ/  kaalam or kaala) is a word used in Sanskrit to mean "time".^[1]The Tamil word kaalam refers to duration (an interval) in time.^{[citation needed]} It is also the name of a deity in which sense it is not always distinguishable from kāla meaning "black". It is often used as one of the various names or forms of Yama. Kaal/Kaala is also referred to the concept of Spacetime. In the Yogic System the concept of SpaceTime was refereed to as one word rather than two separate concepts of Space (darkness) and Time.

• The Vishnu Purana also states that Time (kala) is one of the four primary forms of Vishnu, the others being matter (Pradhana), visible substance (vyakta), and Spirit (Purusha).
• In Javanese mythology, Batara Kala is the god of destruction. It is a very huge mighty and powerful god depicted as giant, born of the sperm of Shiva, the kings of gods. In Borobudur, the gate to the stairs is adorned with a giant head, making the gate look like the open mouth of the giant. Many other gates in Javanese traditional buildings have this kind of ornament. Perhaps the most detailed Kala Face in Java is on the south side of Candi Kalasan.

language
- persian

•  Moghuls did not have Arab ancestry. They had Persian and Turkic ancestry, so Persian was part of their culture. Also, the Iranian languages were spoken in parts of Central Asia and the Central Asian/South Asian country of Afghanistan. Urdu and Hindi contain a lot of Persian. Also, some of the people of Pakistan like the Pathans speak an Iranian language. When the Moghuls ruled over India, the Arabs weren’t so powerful. The Turks were in ascendant in the areas east of Iran/Persia, and Persia was quite strong, so Arabic couldn’t influence the Indian Subcontinent so heavily.https://www.quora.com/Why-was-the-Persian-language-more-preferred-than-the-Arabic-in-the-subcontinent

- Devanagari (/ˌdeɪvəˈnɑːɡəri/ DAY-və-NAH-gər-ee; देवनागरी, IAST: Devanāgarī, a compound of "deva" देव and "nāgarī" नागरी; Hindi pronunciation: [deːʋəˈnaːɡəri]), also called Nagari (Nāgarī, नागरी), is an abugida (alphasyllabary) used in India and Nepal. It is written from left to right, has a strong preference for symmetrical rounded shapes within squared outlines, and is recognisable by a horizontal line that runs along the top of full letters. In a cursory look, the Devanagari script appears different from other Indic scripts such as Eastern Nagari, Odia, or Gurmukhi, but a closer examination reveals they are very similar except for angles and structural emphasis. The Nagari script has roots in the ancient Brāhmī script family.^[6] Some of the earliest epigraphical evidence attesting to the developing Sanskrit Nagari script in ancient India, in a form similar to Devanagari, is from the 1st to 4th century CE inscriptions discovered in Gujarat.^[1]The Nagari script was in regular use by the 7th century CE and it was fully developed by about the end of first millennium.天城文（देवनागरी devanāgarī）又称天城体。是印度和尼泊尔的一种文字，用来书写印地语、梵語、尼泊尔语等语言。天城文最早出现在13世纪初，是城文变体之一，天城文是对城文的改良而成，改良后的城文为突出其神圣加多了个梵文“天”字（देवdeva）成为天城文^[1]。城文来自笈多文，笈多文犹如印度的其他文字一样，源自於前3世纪的婆罗米文。現在亞洲不少民族使用的字母与天城文的关系密切，而从帕拉瓦文派生的文字则在緬甸、泰國、柬埔寨、老撾等地使用。
- language comparison

• pronunciation

• [encyclopedia of asian food the definitive guide to asian cookery by charmaine solomon] in hindi, sri lankan, thai, malay and indonesian, D is soft and sounded like "th" in "thus" or "the"; PH does not give the sound of "f" as in english, but is a slightly aspirated P - the way it might sound if a radio announcer is too close to the microphone

culture
- Loi Krathong (Thai: ลอยกระทง, pronounced [lɔ̄ːj krā.tʰōŋ]) is a festival celebrated annually throughout southwestern Tai cultures, (Thailand, Laos, Shan, Tanintharyi, Kelantan, Kedah and Xishuangbanna). The name could be translated as "to float a basket", and comes from the tradition of making krathong or buoyant, decorated baskets, which are then floated on a river. Loi Krathong takes place on the evening of the full moon of the 12th month in the traditional Thai lunar calendar; hence, the exact date of the festival changes every year. In the Western calendar this usually falls in the month of November. In 2015 it was celebrated on November 25th; in 2016 it was celebrated on November 14th.The festival is celebrated under different names in other Asian countries including, Myanmar as the "Tazaungdaing festival", Sri Lanka as "Il Full Moon Poya" and Cambodia as "Bon Om Touk".

festivals
- Gadhimai festival is a sacrificial ceremony that is held every 5 years at the Gadhimai Temple of Bariyarpur, in Bara District, about 100 miles (160 km) south of the capital Kathmandu, and about 4.35 miles (7.00 km) east of headquarter of Bara district kalaiya city, in the southern Nepal, near the Indo-Nepal border, adjacent to Bihar. It was primarily celebrated by the Madheshi people. Until the event on 2014 the event involved the large-scale sacrificial slaughter of animals including water buffaloes, pigs, goats, chickens, and pigeons – with the goal of pleasing Gadhimai, the goddess of power. People also offer coconuts, sweets, red colour clothes, etc.It is estimated that 250,000 animals were sacrificed during the Gadhimai festival of 2009. In 2015, Gadhimai temple trust worked with the help of Animal Welfare Network Nepal planned an announcement of the decision to discontinue the sacrifices at the Festivals. In April 2015 the Temple Committee first announced their decision to discontinue the practice of animal sacrifice on an event organised by the Animal Welfare Network Nepal (AWNN). At the event the members of temple committee also received appreciation certificate worded as " in appreciation for your courageous, historical and compassionate decision to end animal killings at the Gadhimai Festival" and were felicitated with shawls in the presence of then Forest Minister Mr. Mahesh Acharya.The Supreme Court of Nepal on a case filed by Advocate Arjun Kumar Aryal (Writ No. 071-WO-0371), Rajyalaxmi Golcha (Writ No. 071-WO-0372) & Gita Prasad Dahal (Writ No. 071-WO-0373) [6] has given a full order directing the relevant agencies to create an action plan to discourage and eventually end animal sacrifice at Gadhimai and elsewhere in the country.Together with Indian Supreme Court's decision to disallow trafficking of livestock through Nepal-India border during the Gadhimai festival combined with Animal Welfare Network Nepal's 5 years long ground work the number of animals sacrificed in the year 2014 were estimated to have decreased by 50% according the Livestock Department of Nepal. With Nepal's Supreme Court's decision and the ground work of AWNN work together with Gadhimai temple committee the festival in 2019 is expected to be the first festival sans sacrifice. As Animal Welfare Network Nepal (AWNN) is already dissolved, Federation of Animal Welfare Nepal, Jane Goodall Institute Nepal is taking a lead of the campaign and has already started its campaign for Gadhimai.在整个节日期间，家养雄性亚洲水牛（当地人称“PaaDa”）是最热门的献祭动物，其他献祭动物还有公山羊（Khassi/Boka），鸡（Murga/Kukhura），鸽子（Parewa），鸭（Haans），大鼠（Moos）等，这些动物被全部杀死。

deities
- Jagannath (Odia: ଜଗନ୍ନାଥ, IAST: Jagannātha, or Jagannatha) literally means "Lord of the Universe" and is a deity worshipped in regional traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism in India and Bangladesh. Jagannath is considered a form of Vishnu.^[1] He is a part of a triad along with his brother Balabhadra and sister Subhadra. To most Vaishnava Hindus, Jagannath is an abstract representation of Krishna; to some Shaiva and Shakta Hindus, he is a symmetry-filled tantric representation of Bhairava; to some Buddhists, he is symbolism for Buddha in the Buddha-Sangha-Dhamma triad; to some Jains, his name and his festive rituals are derived from Jeenanath of Jainism tradition. The icon of Jagannath is a carved and decorated wooden stump with large round eyes and a symmetric face, and the icon has a conspicuous absence of hands or legs. The worship procedures, sacraments and rituals associated with Jagannath are syncretic,^[2] and include rites that are uncommon in Hinduism.^[3] The origin and evolution of Jagannath worship is unclear.^[4] Some scholars interpret hymn 10.155.3 of the Rigveda as a possible origin, but others disagree and state that it is a syncretic deity with tribal roots.^[4] His name does not appear in the traditional Dashavatara (ten avatars) of Vishnu,^[5] though in certain Odia literature, Jagannath has been treated as the Ninth avatar, as a substitute for or the equivalent of the Buddha. Jagannath is considered a non-sectarian deity.^[7][8][9] He is significant regionally in the Indian states of Odisha, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar, Gujarat, Assam, Manipur and Tripura.^[10] He is also significant to the Hindus of Bangladesh. The Jagannath temple in Puri, Odisha is particularly significant in Vaishnavism, and is regarded as one of the Char Dham pilgrimage sites in India."Jagannath" is a compound word, consisting of "Jagat" and "Nath". The word nath means "Master, Lord" (nātha) while jagan or jagat means the "universe". Thus, Jagannath means "lord of the universe".In the Odia language, "Jagannath" is linked to other names, such as "Jagā" (ଜଗା) or "Jagabandhu" (ଜଗବନ୍ଧୁ) ("Friend of the Universe"). Both names derive from "Jagannath". Further, on the basis of the physical appearance of the deity, names like "Kālya" (କାଳିଆ) ("The Black-coloured Lord", but which can also mean "the Timely One"), "Darubrahman" (ଦାରୁବ୍ରହ୍ମ) ("The Sacred Wood-Riddle"), "Dāruēdebatā" (ଦାରୁ ଦେବତା "The wooden god"), Chakāākhi (ଚକା ଆଖି) or "Chakānayan" (ଚକା ନୟନ "With round eyes"), "Cakāḍōḷā" (ଚକା ଡୋଳା "with round pupils") are also in vogue.^[17][18][19] According to Dina Krishna Joshi, the word may have origins in the tribal word Kittung of the Sora people (Savaras). This hypothesis states that the Vedic people as they settled into tribal regions adopted the tribal words and called the deity Jagannath.^[20] According to O.M. Starza, this is unlikely because Kittung is phonetically unrelated, and the Kittung tribal deity is produced from burnt wood and looks very different from Jagannath.
- http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2019/indian-himalayan-southeast-asian-art-n10033/lot.928.html?locale=en a paubha depicting the worship of lord jagannatha, nepal 18thc

christianity
- The Church of India, Burma and Ceylon (CIBC) was the autonomous ecclesiastical province of the Anglican Communion in British India. The first Anglican diocese in India was established in 1813, the Diocese of Calcutta, which became the metropolitan see of the Church of India, Burma and Ceylon.^[4] The Church of India, Burma and Ceylon spread as missionaries from the Church Mission Societytravelled throughout the Indian Empire.^[3] By 1930, the Church of India, Burma and Ceylon (CIBC) had fourteen dioceses across the Indian Empire.^[2] Bishops from India were present at the first Lambeth Conference. After partition of India in 1947, the Church of India, Burma and Ceylon became known as the Church of India, Pakistan, Burma and Ceylon (CIPBC).^[3] It published its own version of the Book of Common Prayer, which served as its authorised liturgical text. Later in 1947, four southern dioceses left the CIPBC and merged with South Indian Methodists and South Indian Presbyterians & Congregationalists to form the Church of South India.^[1] In 1970, ecumenical dialogue led to the merger of the Church of India, Burma and Ceylon with other Protestant Christian denominations (including the Scottish Presbyterians, United Methodists and Lutherans), thus creating the Church of North India and Church of Pakistan.
- The Church of South India (CSI) is the second largest Christian church in India based on the number of members and the largest Protestant denomination in the country. The Church of South India is the successor of a number of Anglican and Protestant denominations in India, including the Church of England, the Methodist Church and the Church of Scotland after Indian Independence. It came into being by a union of Anglican and Protestant churches in South India.^[4] It combined the South India United Church (union of the Congregationalists and the Presbyterians); the then 14 Anglican Dioceses of South India and one in Sri Lanka; and the South Indian District of the Methodist church^[1] With a membership of nearly four million,^[2] CSI is one of three united churches in the Anglican Communion, the others being the Church of North India and the Church of Pakistan.Four different church traditions were brought together in the CSI; Anglican (Episcopal), Congregational, Presbyterian and Methodist. All these churches had been established in India through the missionary work of churches in Europe, America and Australia, which had started their work in India at different periods from the beginning of the 18th century. The Church of South India as it exists today came into being with the perseverance and committed efforts of Rev. Vedam Santiago, who for a long period of time took leadership of the SIUC, the South Indian United Churches, which later, with the joint efforts of Rev. V Santiago and Bishop Azariah became the Church of South India.
- The Church of the Province of the Indian Ocean is a province of the Anglican Communion. It covers the islands of Madagascar, Mauritius and the Seychelles. The current Archbishop and Primate is James Wong, Bishop of Seychelles.

uk
- economist 11may19 "where the raj lives on" colonialism bequeathed an unfortunate sense of entitlement to south asia's soldiers

chinese
- 南洋幫

• Hk - 信和, 永泰 singtao 28oct17

- diaspora

• http://www.lib.nus.edu.sg/chz/chineseoverseas/nan_yang_ming_ren_ji_zhuan.pdf 

china
-6月10日，第二屆中國-南亞合作論壇在雲南省玉溪市舉行，來自南亞東南亞國家、印度洋地區國家、歐洲和大洋洲地區國家及相關國際組織的嘉賓相聚撫仙湖畔，交流互鑒、攜手前行，共同描繪中國-南亞地方合作美好藍圖。論壇以「深化地方合作，實現互利共贏」為主題 ，旨在促進中國與南亞地區國家全面合作與發展。設置了經貿、減貧 、省市長對話、文化、傳媒 、孟中印緬地區合作等多項議題。http://hk.hkcd.com/pdf/201906/0612/HZ20612CHAA_HKCD.pdf
- 近日，中國-南 亞省市長論壇在雲南省澄江縣舉 行，論壇有來自17個國家的25個 代表團、雲南省有關地方和部 門、高等院校、智庫媒體及省屬 國有企業負責人約 150 位嘉賓共 同探討如何加強中外地方政府間 經貿投資、互聯互通、社會發 展、人文交流等各領域更加緊密 的聯系，務實推動中國和南亞國 家關係發展和繁榮。http://hk.hkcd.com/pdf/201906/0614/HZ22614CHAA_HKCD.pdf

hong kong
- south asians in hong kong police force hkcd 19aug18 n2 http://hk.hkcd.com/pdf/201808/0819/HN02819CX02.pdf, hkcd 7oct18 n3
- [ https://www.facebook.com/events/659124527828005/ facebook post on  24sep19 event by  Mark O’Neill - educated at New College, University of Oxford and has lived and worked in Asia since 1978. He is a Hong-Kong based journalist and author, who has written a total of eight books on Chinese history, five of which were translated to traditional and simplified Chinese. He is a former correspondent of the South China Morning Post and spent several years in Mainland China, Taiwan and Japan before moving to Hong Kong. His books include Israel and China: from the Tang Dynasty to Silicon Wadi and his recently published How the South Aisans Helped to Make Hong Kong.]Today there are 80,000 South Asians in Hong Kong. Of them, 45,000 of them are Indians, double the number at the handover. Most of the new arrivals are engineers and professionals in finance and IT. They are also attracted by the absence of religious conflict that has scarred many countries, as all can walk the streets carrying symbols of their faith without difficulty.