It is imperative that the material development of a country be linked with cultural development. Such cultural development should pave the way to develop an integral citizen with knowledge, skills, and positive attitudes enabling him or her to appreciate and honor others’ traditions and beliefs. If not, material development and the connected technology will create an inhumane and disoriented person bent on disruption. A rejuvenated man from contemporary cultural decadence will be created through proper educational methods, righteous religious philosophy, true mass media application, and appropriate arts and cultural practices and applications. Janakaraliya drama and theater arts program primarily supports the development of a proper education system and application of arts and cultural practices.

A triad of spring festive rites—biye baylau, ayghyr kosu, and kymyz murundyk, identified and documented in Terisakkan Village in the northern outskirts of Ulytau District, Central Kazakhstan—is a testimony to nomadic culture surviving up to today. Regarded by its bearers as the most important annual festive event, it starts in early May with first spring warmth, new grass, flowers, and foals, opening a new year-round cycle of life reproduction and a new season of making koumiss, an ancient sacred drink.

Wedding ceremonies play an important role in social life of the Uzbek people. Embodying various traditions, rituals, and celebrations, weddings are important lifetime events since they mark the birth of a new family. But a wedding is not only a union of two young people and launching of a new life but also a solemn rite of entry into important social norms and a continuation of the family legacy.

The region of Bay of Bengal has been an important part of maritime activities, including trading and fisheries from very ancient times. The significance of the region continues even at present. The massive \nwaterbody is a representation of a busy network of trade and commerce and the basis of livelihoods for thousands who surround it from all sides from various countries. Fishing as an occupation is an important \nsector of food and nutritional security and India alone, has more than nine million active fisherfolk across its coastline, who are directly dependent on fisheries for their livelihood, amidst which 80 % are small scale fishers. The sector of fisheries employs over 14 million people and contributes to 1.1 % of the Indian GDP. Though the number remains unaccounted for in most countries, but amidst the number of \nfishermen, there is a substantial number of fisherwomen, who have been contributing through generations in various ways, including supplementing the family income through alternative methods of income, as well as being the main conduits of maintaining various elements of intangible cultural heritage, including traditional methods of fishing. This research paper is an attempt to look into the contribution of the fisherwomen community around the western fringes of the Bay of Bengal, especially looking at the countries of Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka and the vital contributions of these womenfolk. The fisherwomen \nnot only help to sustain the families through the main profession of the family, but also helps financially through various subsidiary modes of income, like handicrafts and artwork. This is extremely helpful for sustaining the family in time of the lean seasons of fishing, as well as during periods of disaster, like the present Covid-19 pandemic situation. These attempts of the fisherwomen, thus, connects various factors to \noverall social cohesion and development, including sustaining various channels of intangible cultural heritage which directly connects to their main profession and also helps in transmission of community values \nand also redefines gender roles within the community.

Reflection on the role of ICH as an element of countries’ soft power has developed in recent years (Schreiber 2017, Sargent 2020). While the soft power concept was coined in the Western Hemisphere by Joseph Nye, in the specific context of United States foreign policy in his 1990 book Bound to Lead, it has gained recognition worldwide and influenced cultural policies, programs, and diplomatic strategies in Asia, such as “Cool Japan,” “Incredible India,” and “Discover Korea, your way.”

Discourse about intangible cultural heritage is anchored on the question of memory, which has become a topic of great interest today not only within academia but also in popular culture. America’s newfound taste for cupcakes and macaroni and cheese, for instance, is not so much about society’s gastronomic craving for these foods, as it is about society’s craving for history and the comfort of things past. In essence, it is about restorative nostalgia and the memories that these foods evoke and make possible through the imaginary. Our preoccupation with memory and remembering, in large part, is driven by our recognition of the fragility of memory, a fragility that is underscored by this age of mass displacement in which we live. As the Iranian American writer Roya Hakakian notes in her recent memoir, “When you have been a refugee, abandoned all your loves and belongings, your memories become your belongings.” In a world where over 80 million people are currently forcibly displaced, amounting to one person being forcibly dislodged from his or her home and lifeways approximately every two seconds, dislocation, uprooting, and rupture are as much a facet of our lived experience as are connectivity and interdependence. Exilic condition is an unfortunate but undeniable feature of modernity.\nEven within living memory, Asia has had her share of tumultuous histories. Colonization, conflict, war, and other calamities have engendered mass dispersal. Over 2 million Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians fled their homelands in the aftermath of war, revolution and genocide, and many more Southeast Asians continue to be displaced in varied contexts and conditions as we speak. The genocide in Cambodia left deep wounds and ravaging effects on the cultural memories of the nation that is now bifurcated between Asia and the diaspora. Even without the trauma of war and mass atrocities, globalization, modernization, and urbanization have progressively divested traditional knowledge of its merits, and peripheralized certain memories into oblivion.

For revitalize local crafts after COVID 19 pandemic, Joseph Lo proposes that in order to build greater resilience for the crafts sector to mitigate against future crisis, it is imperative to strengthen the linkages of craft products not only with other sectors but within the cultural system which it was initially made for. Focusing on the two case-studies - one in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, Joseph Lo suggested a new approach to prevent negative consequences of future global crisis.

One of the largest and earliest flows of culinary cultures and fresh produce to the Indian subcontinent emanated from Portugal. The Portuguese were ardent sailors. Their expeditions to voyage, discover, and conquer brought Western foods to the Eastern world. The Portuguese contributed foods that are now staples in the Indian diet. Goa became the chosen land as the local inhabitants were regular pork consumers, like these visiting sailors. This points to the influence in terms of food and consumerism by colonialists and settlers. The Goan cuisine has been shaped through these assimilations; the story is quintessential to the culinary history of the land.

Food, together with its preparation, cooking, sharing, and consumption, is now considered a form of cultural heritage (Brulotte, 2016). Traditional cuisine is passed down from generation to generation and is often an expression of cultural identity of communities. For example, sometimes the only thing migrants carry with them is the food of their countries, and cooking traditional food is a way to preserve their culture outside their place of birth. It is not surprising that today, food is receiving special attention from governmental organizations with the aim of preserving historical roots and cultural identication, providing food as close as possible to the farms of production and addressing health problems such as reducing obesity and\nunbalanced nutrition.

Traditional food systems of native peoples around the world are critical to cultural identity and customs as well as to the continuation of biological genetic diversity. However, such traditional cuisines are becoming increasingly vulnerable due to the advent of global food systems, agroindustry, and changing lifestyles as well as to shifting preferences and ignorance of original ingredients. Furthermore, territorial transformations and distancing from ancestral lands have led to the loss of knowledge regarding the benefits of diverse ecosystems and their natural resources.

Nepal is a multiethnic, multilingual, and multicultural country with rich cultural heritage located between India and China. The 2011 census recognized 125 caste and ethnic groups and 123 different languages. The new constitution of the Nepali federal republic has further recognized all the spoken languages as national languages. The National Foundation for Development of Indigenous Nationalities (NFDIN) recognized fifty-nine indigenous nationalities residing in Nepal in 2002 (NFDIN 2011). However, in the 2011 census only forty-seven indigenous nationalities were reported (CBS 2012). Among them, Tharu is the second-largest indigenous group with a population of 1.7 million residing in various districts of southern Nepal (CBS 2012).

The parent organization of CEE Himalaya is the Centre for Environment Education (CEE), which was established in August 1984. CEE is a national institution with its headquarters in Ahmedabad and has been given the responsibility by the central government of promoting environmental awareness nationwide. It undertakes demonstration projects in education, communication, and development that endorse attitudes, strategies, and technologies that are environmentally sustainable. Based in the city of Lucknow in the state of Uttar Pradesh, CEE Himalaya has been working in the states of the Indian Himalayan Region (IHR) for over two decades. The mission of CEE Himalaya is to enhance understanding of sustainable development in formal, non-formal, and informal education through its work with schools, higher educational institutions, local and Indigenous communities, policy makers and administration, youth, and the general commu-nity. The primary objective of CEE Himalaya is to improve public awareness and understanding of environmental issues with a view to promote the conservation of nature and natural resources by integrating education with traditional streams of knowledge and cultural expressions. This approach demonstrates and grounds sustainable practices in rural and urban communities and facilitates the involvement of the business and public sectors to respond to the effects of climate change and variability.