Culture

Long before the sun peeks over the horizon, artisanal fishermen across Malaysia’s Johor Strait gather at their respective jetties and beaches. These days, fish are harder to find and their coastal lands are slowly disappearing into the sea. The future is bleak for the indigenous fisherman.

Long before the sun peeks over the horizon, artisanal fishermen across Malaysia’s Johor Strait gather at their respective jetties and beaches, looking forward to the day's bounty. Climate change now threatens their way of life, and many locals are powerless in the fight to bring climate change to the political forefront. The future of these coastal communities is filled with uncertainty.

Irrepressible, mischievous, resourceful yet eternally effervescent, the tale of the monkey is one that transcends continents, creeds, customs and centuries. In Asia, the monkey in his various guises has been venerated and deified perhaps even before 500 BC.

Heavy rainfall and hail shortly before the harvesting season this year have worsened an epidemic that has claimed more than 300,000 lives in India since liberalisation of its agriculture: the mass suicide of farmers.

When the government created the city-state’s first hawker centre in 1971, resettling disparate food vendors into a single, well-managed facility, no one could have predicted the peculiarly Singaporean obsession that would ensue.

Teeming with activity and gleaming with a million lights is the megasapien, a city so populous it has become a world hub for trade, for culture or for religion. Rome was the first city to attain megasapien status, and today metropolitans number in the millions, but each city is unique.

Deprived of the basic essentials for survival, children – viscerally afraid of an uncertain reality – can easily be led by the false promises of food, a decent wage, or even security and affection. Anna Malika, fashion designer and survivor of child sex trafficking, recollects her powerful and inspirational journey…

By Jayanta Sarkar, Anthropological Survey of India Additional Information Researchers at the Database for Indigenous Cultural Evolution, University of Missouri; Anvita Abbi, Professor of Linguistics,...