Author: Dilip

I'm a scholar, writer and teacher; and my blog is designed for intellectual exploration. It carries no advertisements and requires no cash subscription

India’s leadership aspiration of Global South suffers a credibility gap

The Global South is also well aware of the burgeoning India-Israel ties — India is the largest purchaser of Israeli arms, and its current rulers want to emulate Israel in more ways than one. While India walked a tightrope, China asserted its leadership. If India continues to avoid taking a stand on contentious issues by sidestepping them, its opportunistic… Read More India’s leadership aspiration of Global South suffers a credibility gap

Dilip

Global inequality is the World Bank’s elephant in the room

The World Bank says it can fight poverty through technical solutions. But poverty is inherently political Alf Gunvald Nilsen The future of work and the future of poverty are closely bound up with each other. Global value chains, those webs of firms criss-crossing the world that collectively bring products to market, have driven economic growth… Read More Global inequality is the World Bank’s elephant in the room

Dilip

Ideas of India Archive

First posted November 29, 2019 NB: This is a magnificient contribution to Indian historiography. Rahul Sagar and his collaborators deserve the thanks of the Indian public and indeed of all those interested in an honest exploration of the past. DS Starting in the early nineteenth century, ambitious Indians began flocking to newly-founded schools and colleges offering instruction… Read More Ideas of India Archive

Dilip

No Cheese Please

As for Don Quixote, though, if he had been newly created in 2025, he would certainly be squaring off against AI. Anthony Grafton The Study: The Inner Life of Renaissance Libraries by Andrew Hui The Librarian’s Atlas: The Shape of Knowledge in Early Modern Spain by Seth Kimmel Libraries​ were all the rage in Renaissance Europe, and no wonder. Theatres of knowledge,… Read More No Cheese Please

Dilip

Pratap Bhanu Mehta: Once upon a time there was another public, another India

First posted November 29, 2019 The single best thing ever written on the idea of the university in India is Ashutosh Mukherjee’s Convocation Address to Mysore University in 1916, and published in the now inaccessible Dacca Review (October 1918). It literally anticipates every single debate we have on the idea of the university – from… Read More Pratap Bhanu Mehta: Once upon a time there was another public, another India

Dilip

In Gaza I saw the suffering of children and the heroism of health workers trying to save them

If our leaders allow this massacre to pass without consequence or condemnation, it will reveal a disturbing truth about what the world is willing to accept Thienminh Dinh Heroism is no longer an abstract concept to me – it looks like Ali, who once spotted a quadcopter circling Al-Aqsa hospital in central Gaza, where he’d dropped… Read More In Gaza I saw the suffering of children and the heroism of health workers trying to save them

Dilip

Coming Back: The Odyssey of a Pakistani Through India

Sapan Bookshelf: Coming Back: The Odyssey of a Pakistani Through India – By Shueyb Gandapur  Countless Centuries Press, 2025By Sayali Goyal / Sapan News As someone who has worked on writing stories on the interconnectedness of the world for the last decade, now researching kinship in East and West Punjab through material cultures, I was immediately… Read More Coming Back: The Odyssey of a Pakistani Through India

Dilip

Seeking Justice for Lynching, Demolitions Not a Crime: Former Civil Servants Group on Mahmudabad / ‘You don’t need him, you need a dictionary,’ SC tells SIT probing professor

The Constitutional Conduct Group, a group of former civil servants, on Wednesday (May 28) released a statement of solidarity with Ashoka University professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad who was arrested over his posts on Operation Sindoor. “We are greatly distressed by the grave criminal charges levelled against Mahmudabad and his subsequent arrest,” the statement said, calling… Read More Seeking Justice for Lynching, Demolitions Not a Crime: Former Civil Servants Group on Mahmudabad / ‘You don’t need him, you need a dictionary,’ SC tells SIT probing professor

Dilip

Israel Bans Gazans From Entering Sea Under Pain of Death

“This is not about security,” said the head of Gaza’s fishers’ union. “It’s economic, social, and psychological warfare, a weapon of slow, deliberate suffocation.”  By Brett Wilkins – Common Dreams Israel has warned Gazans to stay out of the Mediterranean Sea or risk getting killed under wartime restrictions that critics say serve no security purpose and… Read More Israel Bans Gazans From Entering Sea Under Pain of Death

Dilip