Yale University Center for British Art organises a conference on ”Art, Agency, Empire: India in Global Contexts” to be held on 11 February 2012 in Connecticut, United States.
The conference aims to gather graduate students and to work with asserting the existence of multiple forms of agency in India (artistic, cultural, political) from about 1600 to Independence and beyond. It will also focus on visual and cultural exchanges between India and the rest of the world, with a reference to the colonial period.
The call for papers opened on 31 October 2011. Papers on visual materials, architecture and material culture, representations in media, and proposing interpretations that may engage with questions of agency, artistic identity, power, and politics are welcome. Travel funds for speakers are available upon application. See here the full call for papers.

The 40th World Congress of International Institute of Sociology (IIS) will be held at New Delhi, India 16–19 February 2012. The theme of the conference is ”After Western Hegemony: Social Science and its Publics”. It is jointly sponsored by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) in Delhi and the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study (SCAS) in Uppsala. The main organisers are Rajeev Bhargava, Director of CSDS and Björn Wittrock, Principal of the SCAS and President of the IIS. More information about the Delhi conference.
Among the many panels to be convened at the 40th World Congress, could be mentioned a panel on ”Social Change as the Story of Contemporary Indian Society and Social Scientists as the Story Tellers”, convened by Sailaja Nandigama and Eswarappa Kasi from Wageningen University, Netherlands, and University of Hyderabad, India. More information.

An International Seminar on Contemporary Sri Lankan Fiction in English will be held in Guwahati, India, 23 – 25 February 2012. It is organised by the Dept. of English at  Gauhati University, in collaboration with the university’s Institute of Distance and Open Learning. They are organizing a series of International Seminars on Contemporary South Asian Fiction, considering the fact that this is an emerging area in English Studies today. In the first of the series the focus will be on Sri Lanka, while subsequent seminars will focus on Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and so on.
The seminar seeks to define a more nuanced and sensitive critical framework that actively reclaims marginalized voices and draws upon recent studies in migration and the diaspora to reconfigure the Sri Lankan critical terrain.
Some of the leading Sri Lankan writers  Nihal de Silva, Michael Ondaatje (photo), Romesh Gunasekera, Shyam Selvadurai, A. Sivanandan, Jean Arasanayagam, Carl Muller, James Goonewardene and Punyakante Wijenaike  rigorously challenge the theoretical, cultural and political assumptions that pit insider against outsider, resident against migrant and the authentic against the alien.
More information.

A conference on ”India and the European Union in a Changing World: Perceptions and Perspectives” is being organised by  the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU)’s Jean Monnet Chair and Centre for European Studies and will be held at JNU, Delhi on 1-2 March 2012.
The conference is multidisciplinary and open for students, academics, and practitioners, who will debate the relevance and impact of relations between the EU and India since the first summit in 2000 at the bilateral, regional and global levels. The main themes are: – The European Union and South Asia; – India-EU Strategic Partnership; – Economic and Trade Relations; – Indian FDI in Europe/European FDI in India; – India-EU Free Trade Agreement; – India, EU and Global Governance, Multilateralism; – Multiculturalism and Identity in India and Europe; – Environment, Climate Change and Energy Security; – EU and Conflict Resolution in South Asia; – India and the EU: Perceptions and Misperceptions.
More information.

• Phnom Penh conference on Mathematics Education in Developing Countries

The 5th International Conference on Science and Mathematics Education in Developing Countries will be held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 1–3 March 2012. It is hosted by Zaman University, Phnom Penh. Science and mathematics play vital roles in developing the economy, interacting with the environment wisely and providing for public health and services. These subjects are also essential to making informed personal, social and political decisions. When taken together science and mathematics can be used ethically to improve the human condition in a sustainable manner.
The International programme committee behind the conference include Dr. Peter Sundin, International Science Programme (IPS), Uppsala University; and Dr. Om Prakash Niraula from Tribhuvan University, Nepal.
More information.

• Haryana conference on Humanism, Democracy and Culture

The Department of English at RKSD College, Kaithal – affiliated to Kurukshetra University in the state of Haryana, India – organises an interdisciplinary, international conference to explore humanism, postcolonialism and democracy discourses from in India from both western and Indian perspectives on 20–21 March 2012. Interested scholars can now submit a 300–400 words abstract of a paper that should address the following topic(s): – Postcolonialism and Indigenous Representation; – Postcolonialism and Indian humanism; – Postcolonialism and Western Aspirations; – Postcolonialism and Marxism; – Postcolonialism and Nativism, and Cultural Fundamentalism in East and West; – Postcolonialism and Indian languages. The deadline for submitting abstracts has been extended till 31 January 2012. Keynote and plenary speakers include Dr. Rajender Dudrah, Head of Drama & Senior Lecturer in Screen studies, School of Arts, Histories and Cultures, University of Manchester, UK;  Dr. María do Mar Castro Varela,  Professor for Gender and Queer Studies at Alice Salomon University, Berlin, Germany; Dr. Nikita Dhawan, Junior Professor for Gender and Postcolonial Studies, Cluster of Excellence ‘The Formation of Normative Orders’ at Goethe-University, Germany; Dr Bhaskar Mukhopadhya, Convenor MA Postcolonial Studies, Goldsmith, University of London, UK; and Dr. Pavan Malreddy, Chemnitz University of Technology (CUT), Germany.
More information.

• Glasgow conference on Scotland and the Indian subcontinent

The 37th Spalding Symposium on Indian Religions will be held at Merton College, the University of Oxford, UK, on 23–25 March 2012. The Spalding Symposium is an annual conference bringing together scholars from many disciplines who are working in the general areas of Indic Studies. This year the organisers encourage papers relating to ecology and related matters, such as animals; however, they will also consider papers on other themes. The symposia are funded by the Spalding Trust. It is expected that a selection of papers from the Symposium will be published in our peer-reviewed journal, Religions of South Asia (RoSA).
Abstracts should be submitted before 3 February 2012. More information about the Symposium.

The 2012 World Water Week in Stockholm will be held 26–31 August 2012. The theme for 2012 is ”Water and Food Security”. As ususal, the 22nd World Water Week is organised by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI).
While the global food production in the world is more than sufficient to feed all the people on the planet, the food distribution is still very poor leaving some hungry, others overeating while a lot of food is thrown away. The main questions related to food security become thus how much more food is needed to be produced?, How and where it will be grown, and how we will ensure that the food produced is affordable and available to all.
The agenda will feature workshops on the following themes: – Best use of blue water resources for food security; – Rainfed production under growing rain variability: Closing the yield gap; – Safeguarding global food security and life supporting ecosystems; – Health and food security; – Securing water and food in an urbanizing world; – Towards a green economy: The water-food-energy nexus; – Trade and food security; – Governance for water and food security.
Scholars and professionals from all the world are currently invited to submit proposals for the workshops, as well as for exhibitions or paper presentations of relevance to the main conference focus topic. Priority will be given to proposals that are facets of the global challenge and present practical solutions, policies, and strategies for keeping earth’s water and food resources safe, shared and accessible to all. Deadline for submitting proposals is 15 February 2012. See more information and submission guidelines.
The World Water Week is the leading annual global meeting place for capacity-building, partnership-building and follow-up on the implementation of international processes and programmes in water and development, with large relevance to South Asia. The conference is filled with plenary sessions, seminars, workshops, side events and special activities. The Scientific Programme Committee (SPC) planning for the conference was for many years chaired by Prof. Jan Lundqvist at SIWI (previously at the Dept. of Water and Environmental Studies, Linköping University), but from this year the chairman position is taken over by Dr. Torkil Jönch-Clausen (read his CV). Venue: Stockholm International Fairs and Congress Center (Stockholmsmässan) in Älvsjö, 9 km south of central Stockholm. Full information.