Asiatica Association

A very nice and useful map including graphical key to manuscript libraries in India. It has been put together by Prof. Kei Kataoka (Kyushu University, Japan).

The Association of Japanese Institutes of Strategic Studies (AJISS) has just published the AJISS-Commentary No. 140 ""A New Era for APEC and TPP" by Takashi Omori, Chair of the APEC Economic Committee (till 2011) and Professor of Economics at Tokyo City University (tomori@tcu.ac.jp.

With the Honolulu summit in November, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) wrapped up its so-called "golden three years" forged through the presidency of Singapore, Japan and the United States in turn. The East Asia Summit, held a week later in Bali, witnessed the first official participation of the United States and Russia. The Japanese government took the opportunity of the annual APEC summit to announce its intention to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations despite split public opinion at home. If Canada and Mexico, which similarly expressed interest in the TPP talks, are added, the future TPP could have 12 member countries, a majority of the 21 APEC economies.

Rani Jethmalani, Supreme Court lawyer and daughter of former Union law minister Ram Jethmalani, social activist, and my friend, passed away on December 31, 2011. She established in Delhi  the NGO Women’s Action Research & Legal Action for Women (Warlaw), examining factors responsible for inferior status of women; providing access to general justice; enabling women in India make laws effective; promoting the concept of human rights and aware about the rights of women in remote areas. Warlaw provided dowry victims with free legal assistance.

She also collaborated with our Journal of South Asia Women Studies, delivering a paper at the 2002 International Symposium - Understanding Indian Women: Love, History and Studies.

We have just received the International Edition of the Journal of Confucian Philosophy and Culture, vol. 16 / August 2011, which is published by the Institute of Confucian Philosophy and Culture, Academy of East Asian Studies of Sungkyunkwan University, a private academia located in Seoul and Suwon, South Korea, which was established in 1398 and is considered one of the foremost universities in the country.

The papers of the Journal of Confucian Philosophy and Culture deal with Confucianism, its idea and idealsand the more recent studies on it. They are written either in Korean with a summary in English, or in English. In this issue, which is 268 + XVII page long, papers are written in Korean.

Table of contents, papers: Nine Proofreading Notes on the Characters and Woods of Chin Bamboo..." by Ding Sixin, "A Study on Times of Chunqiu Wei" by Ren Milin, "The Legitimacy of the Source of Political Power and of Governance" by Deng Yong, "The From "The Memorial Service for Confucius" to..." by Yoo Eun Joo,

The Association of Japanese Institutes of Strategic Studies (AJISS) has just published the AJISS-Commentary No. 136”World’s Most Powerful Computer: Does It Reflect Japan’s National Power?” by Akinori Yonezawa, Co-Director of the RIKEN Advanced Institute of Computational Science and Professor Emeritus of the University of Tokyo (yonezawa@riken.jp).

The Japanese supercomputer “Kei,” developed jointly by Fujitsu and RIKEN as a national project, took first place in the top 500 list at the International Conference on Supercomputing held in Hamburg, Germany, in June. The so-called “K Computer” outstripped its competitors, being more than three times faster than the second-place Chinese Tianhe-1A and more than four times faster than the US’ third-ranked “Jaguar” (developed by IBM). Given that the competition takes place every six months, the K Computer is expected to maintain its lead as the world’s most powerful computer for at least a year or so.

We are seeking academics and bona fide scholars to write and submit finished papers and review papers to our scholarly online publication (established 1995), the International Journal of Tantric Studies (IJTS). The IJTS is open to all bona fide scholars in Hindu and Buddhist Tantric and Tantra-related studies, translations and translators in Sanskrit, Bengali, Vernacular, Tibetan, Chinese, Japanese, etc. We are looking for articles that engage any aspect of this broad theme.

Before submitting your paper / paper review, please read our Submission Guidelines. We plan to publish all the IJTS papers in hard copy shortly. Depending on the next issue, hopefully by the end of the year.

IJTS editors: Enrica Garzilli (Editor-in-Chief), Michael Witzel (Managing Editor), Roberto Donatoni, Minoru Hara, David N. Lorenzen, Benjamin Prejado, Michael Rabe, Debabrata Sensharma, Karel van Kooij.

The Association of Japanese Institutes of Strategic Studies (AJISS) has just published the AJISS-Commentary No. 135 "The Hague Convention on International Child Abduction and Japan's Move Toward Ratification" by Yuko Nishitani, professor at the Kyushu University Faculty of Law (nishitani_at_law.kyushu-u.ac.jp).

Cross-border child abduction has recently attracted great attention in Japan. The problematic, incoming abduction cases arise when a Japanese parent, usually a mother, married to a foreign spouse and living abroad ("inter alia," the U.S., Canada or the U.K.), comes back to Japan with the child after the marriage breaks down, seeking shelter at his/her parents' or relatives' home. The left-behind parent desperately seeks the return of the child, mostly in vain.The U.S. counts 230 child abduction cases in relation to Japan since 1994 (100 active cases as of January 2011), but no single child has so far been returned successfully. This is due to current Japanese domestic law that fails to provide effective remedies.

We have just received the Newsletter for Research in Chinese Studies, 118 (May 2011 - vol. 30, no. 2), a hard copy quarterly published by the Center for Chinese Studies (CCS), established in 1981 to promote research in Chinese studies both in Taiwan (The Republic of China) and overseas.

It is written in Chinese with subtitles in English. It contains articles, interviews, and regular updates on the happenings in the worldwide community of Chinese studies.

This issue includes: