In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

In July 2012, five strangers – Ann Selvadurai, Sabina Martyn, Seshma Kumararatne, Sahani Chandraratna, and Sivashankar Krishnakumar – boarded a plane to Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo, under the auspices of a unique Asia Foundation fellowship program.

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The Asia Foundation is now accepting applications for LankaCorps, a unique fellowship opportunity for young leaders of Sri Lankan heritage to professionally engage in development activities in Sri Lanka. Those who are selected will be placed across the country with host organizations in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors for six months.  Learn how to [...]

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One of the world’s most prominent experts in Afghan art, Mr. Omara Khan Masoudi, director of the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul, was in San Francisco recently on a two-week exchange at the Asian Art Museum as an Asia Foundation Brayton Wilbur, Jr. Fellow in Asian Art.

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Stone sculptures of headless torsos, huge niches stripped of priceless Buddhist statues, rubble scattered on the floor of empty galleries lined with classical columns – these are the images of carnage inflicted on the art and artifacts of Afghanistan in the last three decades.

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One of the world’s most prominent experts in Afghan art, Mr. Omara Khan Masoudi, director of the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul, is in San Francisco this week on a two-week exchange at the Asian Art Museum. Masoudi is The Asia Foundation’s Brayton Wilbur, Jr. Fellow in Asian Art. Affiliated with the National Museum [...]

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For Sivashankar Krishnakumar, an electrical engineer from California who is placed with the Foundation of Goodness, organizing the Murali Harmony Cup was a stimulating experience, opening vistas hitherto unexplored. Born in Jaffna, Sivashankar left for the U.S. with his family as a young boy…

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The Asia Foundation’s Asian American Exchange unit and Books for Asia are currently conducting a 10-day observation program around northern California for 14 librarians from nine Asian countries. While in San Francisco, In Asia editor Alma Freeman caught up with two librarians from Burma…

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Hours before her expected arrival at the Migrant Workers Rights Network (MWRN) office in Mahachai, Thailand, southwest of Bangkok, hundreds of people began to assemble around the building, hoping to secure a good spot to greet or at least catch a glimpse of “the Lady.”

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Tadashi Yamamoto, founder and president of the Japan Center for International Exchange, passed away on April 15 at the age of 76. He was an extraordinary person whose career was marked by extraordinary accomplishment. He was a liberal internationalist, an optimist who believed wholeheartedly…

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Nearing its 65th year of independence, India, the largest democracy and second-most populous country in the world, is undergoing another transformation: a second freedom struggle. Birthed from decades of frustration over rampant corruption, a large-scale movement led by activist Anna Hazare has energized the country’s youth…

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