The cover story in this edition is titled “Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Poet of the Subcontinent”. Mention Faiz Ahmed Faiz in South Asia and the reaction, especially in the Northern part of the region, is invariably reverential. This poet appears to have straddled many binaries throughout his life. He was first and foremost a writer of romantic poetry, and an advocate of equality and justice in the political tradition of the left. He was a talented progeny of a long line of classical Urdu poets. The eight writers in this issue explore these and other aspects of this much-loved figure. This special centenary issue plans to help promote the understanding of Faiz,s legacy all over South Asia. Other articles in this issue are “The ‘New Old, Tamil Diaspora” where the author says that “the Diaspora Tamil activists must now decide whether they want to sing from an old hymn sheet, in a different key, creating dissonance with what progressive activists in Sri Lanka are hoping to build: a movement of democracy, to challenge the Rajapakse regime,s efforts at dismantling Sri Lankan democracy. It is important that Diaspora nationalists understand that its members are not the protagonist in this theatre of politics.