Daniel Scheinman is the senior vice president of Corporate Development at Cisco Systems. He is responsible for business development, strategic alliances, strategic technology policy, and corporate public relations. As head of corporate development, his role has grown to include responsibility for mergers and acquisitions, strategy, major partnerships and alliances, and advanced Internet projects. Dan, who joined Cisco in 1992, was a founder of the company's legal and government affairs departments. Dan is responsible for leading the company's acquisition and strategic partnership strategies. Cisco's acquisition strategy is among the most acclaimed in the industry and has resulted in the company's successful entry into several new arenas. Over the past ten years with Cisco, Dan has worked with organizations around the world to help redefine the way public and private sectors work together. He has helped facilitate an ongoing dialogue between government and private sector leaders about the Internet economy. A thought leader in the use of media within the corporate environment, Dan pioneered a Web-based multimedia news room called News@Cisco. In addition to his responsibilities at Cisco, Dan is a founding member of TechNet. TechNet's mission is to build bipartisan support for policies that strengthen America's leadership of the New Economy. The National Law Journal has named him one of the 100 most influential lawyers in the United States, and he is on the board of visitors at Duke University Law School. Dan holds a Juris Doctorate degree from Duke University Law School and a political science degree from Brandeis University.

Conflicting claims over Kashmir have been the main cause of hostility between India and Pakistan. The Kashmir dispute is complex. Although the area is predominantly Muslim, significant other religious minorities coexist in Indian Kashmir, while Pakistan Kashmir is linguistically divided from the rest of Kashmir. Nevertheless, both sides of the region are linked by common historical aspirations for a united Kashmir. India and Pakistan have fought several times over differences in their vision for Kashmir, which itself differs from the Kashmiri vision. During the late 1980s, an armed uprising in Indian Kashmir over independence resulted in the deaths of an estimated 60,000 people. A peaceable resolution should look at the region's history and culture even as it balances India and Pakistan's ambitions over Kashmir. It is not obvious, though, that such a resolution must be a "once-and-for-all-time" resolution or an agreed-to process without a committed timeline or, indeed, goals. The seminar will present and discuss these issues. Samina Ahmed is project director for South Asia at the International Crisis Group. She has worked previously as a research fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; the Institute of Regional Studies, Islamabad; and the Pakistan Institute of International Affairs, Karachi. Dr. Ahmed has a masters degree in international relations and a Ph.D. in political science from the Australian National University, Canberra. Dr. Ahmed is the author of several book chapters and articles in academic journals and the print media. Her publications include ?The United States and Terrorism in Southwest Asia: September 11 and Beyond,? International Security, Vol. 26, (Winter 2001/2002); ?Pakistan: Professionalism of an Interventionist Military? in Muthiah Alagappa, ed., Military Professionalism in Asia: Conceptual and Empirical Perspectives (Honolulu: East-West Center, University of Hawaii, 2001), and a co-edited book.

Daulah Islamiyya (Islamic sovereignty, or an Islamic state) is a declared objective of the Southeast Asian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyya. In Malaysia, where parliamentary elections are expected to be held in April, both the Muslim-Malay party (UMNO) in the ruling coalition and the Islamist party (PAS) opposed to UMNO have offered rival visions of Malaysia as an Islamic state. Radical groups in Indonesia have proposed replacing the "Pancasila state" in their country with an Islamic state. So what exactly is an "Islamic state"? And why does it matter so much for politics -- radical or democratic -- in Muslim Southeast Asia? Dr. Martinez will review and explore the contexts, in theory and in practice, that can help us understand what this debate is about. Patricia Martinez, a Malaysian, is among the most highly regarded and widely published scholars working on Islam in Southeast Asia. She is based at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, where she is senior research fellow for Religion and Culture and Head of Intercultural Studies at the Asia-Europe Institute. Her writings relevant to her talk include "Islam, Constitutionalism and the Islamic State" (2004) and "The Islamic State or the State of Islam in Malaysia"(2001). A 2003 essay, "Deconstructing Jihad; Southeast Asian Contexts," is available at http://www.ntu.edu.sg/idss/new-publi.asp. Dr. Martinez has just returned to Stanford from speaking engagements in Australia.

Dr. Takanaka will offer a political explanation for why Japan was delayed in dealing with its financial problems in the 1990s. He will explain why -- after the Japanese financial system became unstable following the collapse of the bubble economy in the early 1990s -- the government was delayed in developing institutions to secure the system's stability. Dr. Takanaka?s talk will focus on the incentives of the political players involved in formulating financial policy, particularly the politicians and leaders of the ruling parties, and the Ministry of Finance.

Based on long-term research and regular research-focused visits to China, Dr. Scharping will sketch developments in Chinese birth control since the 1990s. He will also discuss the puzzle of recent Chinese birth figures and the astonishing results of the 2000 national census in China.

This program is part of the Winter Colloquium Series, "Globalizing Asian Cultures."

This program is part of the Winter Colloquium Series, "Globalizing Asian Cultures."

India?s national elections for its 14th parliament must take place by October 2004, and will probably happen by April. They will be held in the context of a new environment for the country: recognition of its nuclear capability, a new global order post 9/11, and its rising economic power. Yet many parts of the country still have very low levels of social development. Social divisiveness also continues to threaten civic stability. In the context of these opportunities and challenges, this seminar will discuss the electoral strategies of the main political parties and likely outcomes. Professor Pradeep Chhibber studies party systems, party aggregation, and the politics of India. His research examines the relationship between social divisions and party competition and the conditions that lead to the emergence of national or regional parties in a nation-state. Professor Chhibber received an M.A. and an M.Phil. from the University of Delhi and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles. He is currently the Indo-American Community Chair in India Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Tea and samosas will be served.