The view that bureaucracies are bloated with far too many employees preying on taxpayers money is a widely held myth. Research shows how significantly understaffed the Indian state is.

We’re thrilled to launch the first edition of Con-GRA, a conference dedicated to graduate students in the social sciences—particularly economics, political science, and sociology—whose research focuses on contemporary South Asia.

Con-GRA offers a space where emerging scholars can share their work, receive thoughtful feedback, and engage in sustained, interdisciplinary conversations. We approach South Asia not as a regional case but as a site of theoretical innovation, where new questions, methods, and frameworks are emerging across disciplines.

This inaugural edition marks a commitment to building an enduring intellectual home for social science scholars of South Asia.

New York is America’s most cosmopolitan outpost, not its heartland. One must look at what happened elsewhere in the US on 4 November.

The two-decade long reign of Nitish raises an important question: Can governance stripped of politics achieve the goal of radical social transformation?

A new study on urban India reveals that Muslims, Dalits, and tribal communities are denied equal rights and access to public services while upper castes enjoy the best living conditions, with Kochi and chennai standing out as rare examples of inclusive urban equality.

The capacity to live a full life in India's cities is heavily constrained by class, caste and religion.

Leela chats with Steve as he wonders about the different ways humans worship.

Leela Prasad is St. Purandar Das Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at Brown University. She is the President of the American Academy of Religion (2025). She has received prestigious awards and fellowships for the study of religion, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, Fulbright-Nehru senior fellowships, and grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Without the humanities, we may produce efficient workers — fluent in algorithms and markets but unable to envision and inquire.

Far from a grand bargain, the GST is an imperfect compromise constrained by a political culture with a limited commitment to the federal principle

India can take the discourse of development beyond instrumental power play—build solidarities across the emerging economies and bargain for equity.

Pakistan is likely to enjoy closeness with the US, China and Saudi Arabia. This is different from its relative isolation of recent years.

This article draws on evidence gathered from the India Election Survey 2024, a nationally representative post-poll survey of voter perceptions, to deepen understandings of democratic resilience in contexts of democratic erosion.