The Saxena Center for Contemporary South Asia is based at the Thomas J. Watson Jr. School of International and Public Affairs. The Saxena Center supports faculty, graduate and undergraduate research and teaching on the region and is home to the South Asian Studies concentration. The Saxena Center functions within the larger framework of the Watson School, which is seeking to define a new approach to regional studies for the 21st century. Anchored in the social sciences, this new approach is problem driven, comparative and multidisciplinary. Our multidiciplinarity includes sustained interaction of social scientists with the humanities on the one hand and the disciplines such as medicine and public health on the other.