NIF fellowships to 11 scholars, writers
Bengaluru, Apr 15: The New India Foundation (NIF) will award fellowships to 11 scholars and writers this year for a set of non-fiction book proposals chronicling post-Independence India, it was announced Thursday.
The NIF fellowships are awarded for a period of one year with an annual stipend of Rs 18 lakh to each recipient; and include editorial and publishing support for each project. The fellowship enables scholars and writers to write and publish works of non-fiction.
"So far, 22 books written by fellowship winners have been published under the NIF aegis; many of these have become seminal and award-winning works on contemporary Indian history," NIF said in a statement.
Currently in its 10th cycle, the NIF fellowship awardees this year comprise an eclectic mix of journalists, academics and researchers, both young and experienced, with a compelling and wide range of proposals, it said.
The list of awardees was decided by a panel of jury members that included political scientist Niraja Gopal Jayal, historians Ramachandra Guha and Srinath Raghavan, CEO of Pratham Education Foundation Rukmini Banerji, entrepreneur Nandan Nilekani and chairman of Teamlease Services Manish Sabharwal.
The awardees and their tentative book titles include Anjum Hasan ("Shillong: First City of India's Northeast"); Chitrangada Choudhury ("Power, Profit and Protests: Forest Communities on the Frontlines of Environmental Justice"); Jaideep Hardikar ("The Rise and Fall of The Empress"); Jayaseelan Raj ("The Egalitarian Paradox: Dalits and the State in Kerala"); Maya Ratnam ("Dwelling in the Forest: The Government of Nature in Tribal Central India); and M Mohsin Alam Bhat ("Constitutional Culture: Muslims and Popular Constitutionalism in India").
Raza Kazmi ("The First of Nine: The Story of Palamau Tiger Reserve"); Simin Patel ("Irani Restaurants of Bombay"); Sohini C ("The Losers: A History of Women Runners, and Running in India"); Srikar Raghavan ("From Malnad to Mysore: Following the trail of Literature and Activism in Karnataka"); and Suryakant Waghmore ("Is a Post Caste City Possible?: Examining Caste Erasure in contemporary Ahmedabad and Mumbai") complete the list.
Speaking on behalf of the jury, Raghavan said this was an exceptional year for the NIF fellowships as not only over 900 applications were received, but more fellowships are being awarded than ever before.
"The 11 NIF fellows will write books on a remarkable set of topics encompassing cities and forests, law and politics, sports and literature, business and culture - books that promise to transform our understanding of contemporary India," he said.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
