• Burmese
Wednesday, July 9, 2025
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
The Irrawaddy
28 °c
Yangon
  • Home
  • News
    • Burma
    • Politics
    • World
    • Asia
    • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
    • Ethnic Issues
    • War Against the Junta
    • Junta Cronies
    • Conflicts In Numbers
    • Junta Watch
    • Fact Check
    • Investigation
    • Myanmar-China Watch
    • Obituaries
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Opinion
    • Commentary
    • Guest Column
    • Analysis
    • Editorial
    • Stories That Shaped Us
    • Letters
  • Junta Watch
  • Ethnic Issues
  • War Against the Junta
  • In Person
    • Interview
    • Profile
  • Books
  • Donation
  • Home
  • News
    • Burma
    • Politics
    • World
    • Asia
    • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
    • Ethnic Issues
    • War Against the Junta
    • Junta Cronies
    • Conflicts In Numbers
    • Junta Watch
    • Fact Check
    • Investigation
    • Myanmar-China Watch
    • Obituaries
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Opinion
    • Commentary
    • Guest Column
    • Analysis
    • Editorial
    • Stories That Shaped Us
    • Letters
  • Junta Watch
  • Ethnic Issues
  • War Against the Junta
  • In Person
    • Interview
    • Profile
  • Books
  • Donation
No Result
View All Result
The Irrawaddy
No Result
View All Result
Home News Burma

Spotlight on Changing Burma at Meetup in Thailand

Nyein Nyein by Nyein Nyein
July 24, 2015
in Uncategorized
Reading Time: 2 mins read
0 0
A A
Spotlight on Changing Burma at Meetup in Thailand

Professor Maung Thynn

3.3k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

CHIANG MAI, Thailand — A three-day conference on Burma studies opened in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai on Friday, featuring a range of speakers and participants that includes scholars, researchers, journalists and NGO workers.

The conference, titled “Burma/Myanmar in Transition: Connectivity, Changes and Challenges,” is being attended by more than 250 participants from Burma, Thailand and others countries, with a focus on academic approaches to issues facing the country and its ongoing political transition.

Co-organized by Mandalay University and Chiang Mai University, 53 panels and roundtable discussions are to be held over three days. The events will touch on a wide range of issues, from socioeconomic and cultural matters to Burma’s peace process, its ethnic diversity and the role of the press in a fluid media environment.

RelatedPosts

Disaster Diplomacy in Myanmar: A Convenient Narrative for the Int’l Community

Disaster Diplomacy in Myanmar: A Convenient Narrative for the Int’l Community

May 15, 2025
1k
Paranoid Junta Turns to Foreign Expertise After 4 Years of Chaos; and More

Paranoid Junta Turns to Foreign Expertise After 4 Years of Chaos; and More

May 10, 2025
1.6k
Naypyitaw Parliament Crumbles as Myanmar Junta’s Grand Ambitions Collapse 

Naypyitaw Parliament Crumbles as Myanmar Junta’s Grand Ambitions Collapse 

April 24, 2025
1.4k

Mandalay University and Chiang Mai University signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation and the two institutions of higher learning co-organized the conference.

Professor Maung Thynn, the rector of Mandalay University, said his institution was well suited to spearhead the conference “because Mandalay University is rich in cultural and social studies.”

He told The Irrawaddy that views from international “developed partners” were welcomed and necessary to ensure Burma’s smooth transition from dictatorship to democracy, a process begun in 2011 that has brought greater openness to the forces of globalization and dramatic changes in some cases.

“In the past, we only had the inner circle’s views,” said Professor Maung Thynn, the rector of Mandalay University. “Now we are accepting the diverse views of these scholars, as the country is in its transition.”

Dozens of lecturers and scholars from Burma, many of them from Mandalay University, are joining the conference as well as NGOs and Burmese civil society groups from across the nation and based in areas along the Thai-Burma border. Chiang Mai itself has long been home to a sizeable population of Burmese dissidents and nongovernmental organizations.

Maung Thynn said despite many challenges facing Burma, the development of human resources was a top priority.

“Scholars have been struggling to be ourselves as scholars were not used to these kind of independent studies under the highly centralized society [of the past],” he said, referring to the former junta’s tight control over a university system that fell into shambles over the course of 50 years of military rule.

“They will get these concepts first, and then this will be followed by adaptation. By that I mean I want them to gain knowledge of these concepts, not only from the university campus, but also to develop their skills and capacities,” Maung Thynn said.

Dr. Chayan Vaddhanaphuti, director of Chiang Mai University’s Center for Asian Studies, told The Irrawaddy that he hoped the relationship between the two organizing universities could be a symbiotic one.

“From a Thai scholar’s perspective, we do not know much about Burma or Myanmar culture or society particularly; the past, the present and also in this transition period.”

“This [conference] is to open up new knowledge terrain by inviting scholars from Myanmar, and from international institutions, to come and discuss, so we can learn,” Chayan added. “At the end we would like to set up some kind of Burma Studies Center at this university.”

The conference ended its opening day with the launch of three books on Burma issues, the release of a report on harassment faced by activists in the country and a screening of a documentary on Burmese street artists.

Your Thoughts …
Tags: A_FactivaAidDevelopmentMigrant Issues
Nyein Nyein

Nyein Nyein

The Irrawaddy

Similar Picks:

Japan’s ‘Special Relationship’ With Myanmar Has Abetted Decades of Military Rule
From the Archive

Japan’s ‘Special Relationship’ With Myanmar Has Abetted Decades of Military Rule

by Bertil Lintner
May 17, 2024
17.7k

In light of EAO and NUG leaders’ recent talks in Tokyo, The Irrawaddy revisits a column from 2022 exploring Japan’s...

Read moreDetails
UN Slams Aid Abuse After ‘Rice Bunkers’ Found at Myanmar Junta Base
Burma

UN Slams Aid Abuse After ‘Rice Bunkers’ Found at Myanmar Junta Base

by Hein Htoo Zan
December 19, 2024
5.8k

Fortifications built from rice sacks reportedly discovered at Border Guard Force Battalion seized by Arakan Army in famine-threatened Rakhine State.

Read moreDetails
Hellfire and Damnation in Myanmar: Ex-World Bank Country Head Recounts Rohingya Catastrophe Response  
Books

Hellfire and Damnation in Myanmar: Ex-World Bank Country Head Recounts Rohingya Catastrophe Response  

by David Scott Mathieson
March 16, 2024
3.8k

Ellen Goldstein’s Damned If You Do pulls no punches in its excoriating account of World Bank incompetence amid crisis.  

Read moreDetails
Capitalizing on Calamity and Chaos in Myanmar
Guest Column

Capitalizing on Calamity and Chaos in Myanmar

by David Scott Mathieson
April 12, 2025
3.3k

How the junta and dictator Min Aung Hlaing are leveraging the earthquake recovery period to legitimize brutal military rule.

Read moreDetails
It’s Time to Engage The Resistance Govt in Myanmar’s Rakhine
Guest Column

It’s Time to Engage The Resistance Govt in Myanmar’s Rakhine

by Mra Thida
March 29, 2024
2.8k

The junta’s loss of control over much of Myanmar’s westernmost state has made the United League of Arakan the most...

Read moreDetails
Junta Boss Targets Aid Groups as Myanmar’s Humanitarian Disaster Worsens
Burma

Junta Boss Targets Aid Groups as Myanmar’s Humanitarian Disaster Worsens

by The Irrawaddy
September 1, 2023
2.8k

As one of the world’s gravest humanitarian crisis deepens, coup leader orders more restrictions on aid groups.

Read moreDetails
Load More
Next Post
Ceasefire Talks End Without Resolve

Ceasefire Talks End Without Resolve, Will Resume in August

Dateline Irrawaddy: ‘The NLD Won’t Cease its Efforts Toward Reconciliation’

Dateline Irrawaddy: ‘The NLD Won’t Cease its Efforts Toward Reconciliation’

No Result
View All Result

Recommended

37 Years and Counting: Why Has Myanmar’s Democracy Struggle Taken So Long?

37 Years and Counting: Why Has Myanmar’s Democracy Struggle Taken So Long?

5 days ago
1.2k
Myanmar Junta Blacklists 200 Firms for Dodging Hard Currency Grab

Myanmar Junta Blacklists 200 Firms for Dodging Hard Currency Grab

6 days ago
1.3k

Most Read

  • Myanmar Junta Starves Last Rakhine Strongholds as AA Closes In

    Myanmar Junta Starves Last Rakhine Strongholds as AA Closes In

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Timor-Leste Hits Back at Myanmar Junta’s Objection to ASEAN Membership

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Chin Resistance Tensions Boil Over as CNA Seizes Rival’s Myanmar HQ

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • TNLA Defies Myanmar Junta Push to Cede Shan Towns in China Talks  

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Myanmar People Skeptical of Junta’s Promises of Election, Peace

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0

Newsletter

Get The Irrawaddy’s latest news, analyses and opinion pieces on Myanmar in your inbox.

Subscribe here for daily updates.

Contents

  • News
  • Politics
  • War Against the Junta
  • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
  • Conflicts In Numbers
  • Junta Crony
  • Ethnic Issues
  • Asia
  • World
  • Business
  • Economy
  • Election 2020
  • Elections in History
  • Cartoons
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Editorial
  • Commentary
  • Guest Column
  • Analysis
  • Letters
  • In Person
  • Interview
  • Profile
  • Dateline
  • Specials
  • Myanmar Diary
  • Women & Gender
  • Places in History
  • On This Day
  • From the Archive
  • Myanmar & COVID-19
  • Intelligence
  • Myanmar-China Watch
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Food
  • Fashion & Design
  • Videos
  • Photos
  • Photo Essay
  • Donation

About The Irrawaddy

Founded in 1993 by a group of Myanmar journalists living in exile in Thailand, The Irrawaddy is a leading source of reliable news, information, and analysis on Burma/Myanmar and the Southeast Asian region. From its inception, The Irrawaddy has been an independent news media group, unaffiliated with any political party, organization or government. We believe that media must be free and independent and we strive to preserve press freedom.

  • Copyright
  • Code of Ethics
  • Privacy Policy
  • Team
  • About Us
  • Careers
  • Contact
  • Burmese

© 2023 Irrawaddy Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • Burma
    • Politics
    • World
    • Asia
    • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
    • Ethnic Issues
    • War Against the Junta
    • Junta Cronies
    • Conflicts In Numbers
    • Junta Watch
    • Fact Check
    • Investigation
    • Myanmar-China Watch
    • Obituaries
  • Politics
  • Opinion
    • Commentary
    • Guest Column
    • Analysis
    • Editorial
    • Stories That Shaped Us
    • Letters
  • Ethnic Issues
  • War Against the Junta
  • In Person
    • Interview
    • Profile
  • Business
    • Economy
    • Business Roundup
  • Books
  • Donation

© 2023 Irrawaddy Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.