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The writer and tech journalist Vauhini Vara discusses the limits of machine communication in an age shaped by Big Tech power, and the possibility of imagining different digital futures: https://www.himalmag.com/politics/vauhini-vara-big-tech-digital-futures-ai
In this conversation for the Southasia Review of Books podcast, recorded in June 2025, Vara reflects on AI, online selfhood, grief and the possibility of imagining different technological futures even in an increasingly algorithmic world.
28/05/2026
The Karnali basin’s heritage was provincial residue in Nepal's national imagination – which made it, when the insurgency arrived, both a target and an absence: important enough to destroy, invisible enough that its destruction would go unrecorded. Read Sushan Bhattarai's piece here: https://www.himalmag.com/culture/nepal-heritage-culture-maoist-civil-war
"Historiography is constituted by something greater than a single individual’s insistence on a position from which history should be seen and told. It doesn’t matter how well-researched or how righteous that position is – it cannot stand substitute for the epistemological foundation that the historiographical method requires."
Arshia Sattar reviews Audrey Truschke’s ‘India: 5,000 Years of History in the Subcontinent’: https://www.himalmag.com/politics/audrey-truschke-india-southasia-history
23/05/2026
Romila Thapar’s new memoir, a study of student resistance in Myanmar, Goan histories in Zanzibar, and more: our latest Southasia Review of Books newsletter rounds up new fiction and non-fiction releases from across the region. Read this fortnight’s edition on our website, and subscribe to receive it straight to your inbox: https://www.himalmag.com/newsletters
The opening event for Himal Fiction Fest 2026 will be held Monday, 8 June at 7 pm IST. Hear from one of our panelists and stay tuned for the announcement of the 2026 Armory Square Prize in South Asian Literature!
You may register for the event using this link: https://ow.ly/Y8ez50Z12LV
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