Asia : Land and People: Vol. I: Part I

Contents: Foreword. Introduction. 1. Afghanistan/B.K. Roy Burman. 2. Armenia/Anuradha M. Chenoy. 3. Azerbaijan: A. Land, social demography, ethnic composition and social history etc/B.K. Roy Burman. B. Places of interest, tourism and transport/Ajit K. Danda. 4. Bahrain: A). Land, social demography, people and politics/B.K. Roy Burman. B). Places of interest, tourism and transport/Ajit K. Danda. 5. Bangladesh: A). Land, population and economy/M.A. Sattar. B). Social structure/Jharna Nath. C). Environmental distinctions and human responses/Profulla C. Sarker. D). Transport, places of interest/Selina Khatoon. E). Special social groups/Sultana M. Khanum. 6. Bhutan: A). Land, economy, ethno-history etc/Shivaprasad Samaddar. B). Social structure/B. Chakravarti. C). Transport, tourism and places of interest/Saradindu Bose. 7. Brunei/L.K. Mahapatra. 8. Cambodia/L.K. Mahapatra. 9. China/Tan Chung. 10. Hong Kong/L.K. Mahapatra. 11. Macau/L.K. Mahapatra. 12. East Timor/L.K. Mahapatra. 13. Georgia/Anuradha M. Chenoy. 14. India: A). Location and area/Bireswar Banerjee. B). Population/Samir Guha Roy. C). Social structure/Ajit K. Danda. D). Environmental distinctions and Human responses: (i). The Eastern Himalayas/N.D. Bhattacharya. (ii). The Central Himalayas/Manis Kumar Raha. (iii). The Western Himalayas/Manis Kumar Raha. (iv). Andaman and Nicobar Islands/Jayanta Sarkar. (v). Indian desert/Amal Kumar Sen. (vi). The great plains/Probhat Kumar Sen. (vii). Indian plateau/Saradindu Bose. (viii). Coastal areas/Jayati Hazra. (ix). Places of interest, transport, and tourism/Ajit K. Danda. E. Special social groups: (i). Anglo-Indian/Michael Flannery. (ii). Apa Tani/Arun Kr. Singh. (iii). Armenian/Mihir Mukherjee. (iv). Badia/Sekh Rahim Mondal. (v). Birhor/Prafulla Chakrabarti. (vi). Cholanaickan/B. Ananda Bhanu. (vii). Dimasa/Dipali G. Danda. (viii). Franco-Pondicherian/T.S. Naidu and Raji Sugumar. (ix). Jew/B. Francis Kulirani. (x). Kharia/Amitabha Basu. (xi). Langha/D.K. Samanta. (xii). Mangnyar/D.K. Samanta. (xiii). Meo/Ramesh Chandra. (xiv). Merat/D.K. Samanta. (xv). Neo-Buddhist/D.K. Samanta. (xvi). Pahira/Amitabha Basu. (xvii). Parsis/Malay Kumar Banerjee. (xviii). Purum/Rajat Kanti Das. (xix). Raji/J.C. Das. (xx). Toda/D. Tyagi. (xxi). Toto/Prafulla Chakrabarti. 15. Indonesia/L.K. Mahapatra, K.K. Basa. 16. Iran/Alireza Skeikh Attar. 17. Iraq: A). Land people etc./Md. Shafi. B). Transport, communication, places of interest, and tourism/Mihir Mukherjee, Ajit K. Danda. 18. Israel: A). Land, social demography etc./B.K. Roy Burman. B). Transport, communication, places of interest and tourism/Ajit K. Danda, Mihir Mukherjee. 19. Japan: A). Land, people, etc/Shivaprasad Samaddar. B). Society/B. Chakravarti. C). Environmental distinctions/B. Chakravarti. D). Communication, and places of interest/Shivaprasad Samaddar. 20. Jordan/B.K. Roy Burman.

From the introduction: "In the country profiles incorporated here, although there are a few references to the contemporary phenomena, the data on which the descriptions of this volume are based, particularly on the aspects of demography, belong to 2001 or earlier. Certain time lag in this respect could not be altogether avoided. There were also several very sharp changes in a few concerned countries during the past couple of years. In order to avoid any bias on counts of ideology, references to the dynamics of local politics have been by and large avoided.

The maps accompanying the country profiles, except in cases of Israel and Palestine, have been obtained through electronic sources. For delineation of territories of Israel and Palestine, however, the publication of the Non-aligned Movement has been used as the source material.

The country profiles of this volume have been presented in the strict alphabetical order of their names. Exceptions have been made only in case of China, Hong Kong, and Macau. As already explained elsewhere, Hong Kong and Macau no longer exist as independent socio-political entities and for all practical purposes they constitute parts of integrated China. Therefore, in order to supplement added information, their descriptions have been put along with China, violating the rules of alphabetical order. The two Koreas are independent nation-states though, in order to honour the Asian sentiment, their descriptions have been put one after the other. Siberia, though constitutes a part of Russian federation, being located in Asia found representation in this volume.

There has been a minor modification in the title of the volume as such. Since the exercise took an independent course to follow, leaving aside the encyclopedic approach as well as its possible coverage, in appropriateness of the quality of work, the volume has been entitled, Asia : Land and People. Besides, for convenience in handling, it has been split as Part I and Part II without disturbing the alphabetic sequence. Part I incorporates profiles beginning with alphabets A through J. Part II takes care of the remaining."