From this year, 2018, the Asian Affairs Journal will be appearing quarterly instead of three times a year. The extra annual issue, of which this is the first, will appear in June, and will be a special issue dedicated to a specific topic in Asian current affairs. The other three issues of the annual cycle will appear as before (in March, September and December) with the usual range of articles and book reviews. This increase in the frequency of publication, it should also be noted, comes at no extra cost to members of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs.
This first special issue has been produced as a collaboration between the Royal Society for Asian Affairs and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC. Its subject is contemporary developments in religious freedom in South Asia, and it contains articles based on papers read at a conference held at the Wilson Center on 10 January 2018. The conference was broadcast live on the internet, and recordings of the morning and afternoon sessions can be viewed online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ba8EbiMJbOU and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mh73aifts48 respectively. A fuller introduction to the issue is offered below by Professor Neeti Nair.
Since its foundation over 100 years ago, the Royal Society for Asian Affairs has worked to inform both the broad public as well as those in academia and positions of authority about contemporary Asian subjects. It has always provided a platform for distinguished experts and a space for open-minded and vigorous debate on these matters, and the Asian Affairs Journal has been one of the principal conduits for the publication of these discussions and ideas. As such, this collaboration with the Woodrow Wilson Center, one of the world’s leading foreign-policy institutions, stands squarely within the best traditions of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs and the Asian Affairs Journal. On behalf of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs, I should like to record our thanks to the Woodrow Wilson Center, and in particular Professor Neeti Nair and Dr Michael Kugelman for their hard work on bringing this collaboration and special issue to fruition. Particular thanks in this regard are also due to Sir David John KCMG, Honorary Vice-president of the Society and Mr Christopher Lascelles, Chairman of the Editorial Board, and also Mr Michael Ryder CMG, Secretary of the Society. We should also record our thanks to Mr Laurence Goodchild of Taylor & Francis, not to mention Taylor & Francis itself, for their generous sponsorship of the January conference.