The SIR, A Long Road to Exile?

There is a lack of legal clarity on what happens to those excluded from the Special Intensive Revisions of electoral rolls across the country. If Assam is any indication, it will be the beginning of a long journey through arbitrary procedures and towards exile.▶30-Apr-2026

Darshana Mitra

May 1, 2026

Donations from readers made it possible to publish pieces like these:

- Srinath Raghavan on India’s ill-advised policy on the war on Iran

- Dwaipayan Bhattacharya on why talk of “freebies” is wrong

- Sharda Ugra on the underbelly of the 2026 T20 World Cup

- Maya Ranganthan on ChatGPT and a daughter’s vigil for her dying mother

Just Rs 500 each month from 1,000 readers is what we need to keep sending such essays your way.

To set up a monthly contribution or to make a one-time donation of Rs 6,000, please click here: DONATE

Donations enjoy tax exemption under Section 80G of the Income Tax Act.

SIR: a long road to exile, Who benefits from welfare transfers, Neighbours who do not talk to each other, and more

Who Really Benefits from Welfare Transfers?

Welfare transfers are not subsidies to the poor; they subsidise capital when wages fail to reproduce labour. To call them political expediency is to misrecognise their structural role in managing the…

▶09-Apr-2026

Dwaipayan Bhattacharyya

India’s Next Generation of Telescopes May Face a Disappearing Night Sky

India has sanctioned its most ambitious investment in astronomy, centred on Hanle in Ladakh, its only dark sky reserve. But light pollution there is increasing, and India has no national law to…

▶09-Apr-2026

Rashmi

Waste Pickers Built the Recycling Economy. Now They're Being Cast Aside.

Failing to integrate waste pickers into India's Extended Producer Responsibility framework risks making recycling initiatives mere greenwashing: environmental goals achieved through the erasure…

▶08-Apr-2026

Prakashani Singh

How India's Urban Lake Policies Are Getting It Wrong

Hyderabad’s lakes are being reduced to wastelands awaiting real estate conversion. Fences, and cosmetic dredging cannot reverse this. A democratic, community-oriented approach is needed to reimagine…

▶07-Apr-2026

Indivar Jonnalagadda, Pullanna Vidyapogu

The Quiet Pluralism of Kashmir’s Sikhs

Kashmiri Sikhs, who are less than 2% of the Valley’s population, sustain a quiet pluralism through shared language, ritual, and neighbourly proximity. This fragile coexistence is being hollowed out…

▶07-Apr-2026

Bupinder Singh Bali

India and Pakistan: Neighbours Who Do Not Talk to Each Other

Operation Sindoor has pushed India and Pakistan further apart. Domestic compulsions have locked both sides into narratives of victory and perpetual conflict. India’s aim of isolating Pakistan has not…

▶07-Apr-2026

Nirupama Subramanian

16th Finance Commission-I

Continuity and Change in the 16th Finance Commission

The 16th Finance Commission has avoided estimating the Vertical Fiscal Imbalance which would have given an idea of the gap in the states’ resources; elsewhere the commission has made changes to the…

▶03-Apr-2026

R. Mohan

16th Finance Commission-II

16th Finance Commission: Skirting the Constitutional Mandate on Grants-in-Aid

Does the departure by the 16th Finance Commission from the earlier practice of giving grants-in-aid to needy states to cover the post-devolution revenue deficit conform to the Constitutional mandate…

▶03-Apr-2026

Ajay Jha

Evolution of Mujra in Bombay Cinema

Exploring how thumri and mujra came together in Hindi cinema to form the filmi mujra, this analysis traces its shifting forms from the 1930s to the present. It examines cinematic performance, later…

▶26-Mar-2026

Siddhi Goel