This open access Regional Reader provides a contemporary look at the emerging challenges and issues facing South Asian migration amidst covid-19 and discusses a framework for a sustainable and cooperative migration from and within the region, which will impact both the economic and regional development of South Asia.
The book draws a focus on this area through an interdisciplinary and holistic lens and follows the three broad areas of migration studies in South Asia: Governance and mobility, Family, health and demography, and Forced migration. It thereby covers a number of issues from South Asian countries such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan and the Maldives.
This book is a valuable resource for those who want to understand the dynamics of migration from the largest migrant-sending region in the world and one which will determine the shape of global migration patterns in the future.

S Irudaya Rajan is Chair of the International Institute of Migration and Development (IIMAD), Kerala, India and chair of the KNOMAD (the Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development) thematic working group on internal migration and urbanization, World Bank. He is one of the expert committee members to advise the Government of Kerala on Covid-19. Prior to this, he was a Professor at the Centre for Development Studies. Dr Rajan is the Founding Editor in Chief of Migration and Development (Sage) and the editor of two Routledge series - India Migration Report and South Asia Migration Report. He is a lead editor of the new Springer series - South-South Migration.

Professor Rajan has close to forty years of research experience working on broad areas of population and development. He has coordinated nine major large-scale migration surveys in Kerala since 1998 (along with Professor K C Zachariah), Goa (2008), Punjab (2009), Tamil Nadu (2015) and was instrumental inconducting the Gujarat Migration Survey 2011, Jharkhand Migration Survey (2023) and Odisha Migration Survey (2023). Professor Rajan has published extensively in national and international journals on the social, economic, demographic, psychological and political implications of migration on individuals, communities, the economy and society. Recognizing the work done on international migration at CDS, the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs, Government of India has set up a Research Unit on International Migration (RUIM) at CDS in 2006 and he was a chair professor of the RUIM from 2006-2016.

Professor Rajan was awarded visiting fellowship award 2019, by the British Academy in association with Northumbria University; the Scholars of Excellence Award 2022 of Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration of the Toronto, Metropolitan University, Canada; and he has been appointed as a co-chairperson of the Working Group on NORKA (2017-22) for the State Planning Board, Kerala. He currently holds projects on international migration with the International Rice Research Institute, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Canada, the European Cooperation in Science and Technology, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and the Indian Council for Social Science Research. 

Part 1. Governance and Mobility: Retrospect and Prospect.- 1. Migration in South Asia: Old and New Mobilities (S Irudaya Rajan).- 2. Internal and Forced Migration and Economic Development in South Asia (Mehdi Chowdhury and Syed Naimul Wadood).- 3. Non-traditional Migration in South Asia (AKM Ahsan Ullah, Mallik Akram Hossain and Ahmed Shafiqul Huque).- 4. International Migration in Bangladesh: A Political Economic Overview (Hasan Mahmud).- 5. Labour Migration from Nepal: Trends and Explanations (Jagannath Adhikari, Mahendra Kumar Rai, Chiranjivi Baral and Mahendra Subedi).- 6. Navigating between Nation and Civilization: Regimes of Citizenship and Migration under Bharatiya Janata Party (Samir Kumar Das).- 7. Understanding Temporary Labour Migration through the Lens of Caste: India Case Study (S IrudayaRajan, Kunal Keshri and Priya Deshingkar).- 8. Attraction and Detraction: Migration Drivers in Bhutan (Mayur A Gosai and Leanne Sulewski).- Part 2: Family, Health and Demographics.- 9. AnAnalysis of the Impact of International Remittances on Child Education: Evidence from Pakistan (Hisaya Oda).- 10. Female Migration and Stay-Behind Children in Bangladesh (Sabnam Sarmin Luna).- Part 3: Forced Migration.- 11. A Threat or an Opportunity? Internal Migration in the Context of Climate Extremes in Pakistan (Kashif Majeed Salik, Maryum Shabbir, Khansa Naeem and Junaid Zahid).- 12. Local Expert Perceptions of Creeping Environmental Changes and Responses in Maldives (Robert Stojanov and Ilan Kelman).- 13. From Muh¿jir to ¿w¿ra: Figures of Migration and Exile among Afghans (Khadija Abbasi and Alessandro Monsutti).- 14. Health beyond Borders: Migration and Precarity in South Asia (Anuj Kapilashrami and Ekatha Ann John).- 15. Migration, Development within the SAARC Framework: Towards a Migration Governance Model of the Future (S. Irudaya Rajan and Ashwin Kumar).