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✍️ Written by Saket Suman There is no neat way to say this: the Great Indian Dream is dying. And it’s not being killed in faraway conflict zones, or in newsrooms that peddle noise instead of truth. It is being murdered in back offices of publishing houses and literary circuits, where contracts are torn with a smile, where deadlines are missed with impunity, where one writer's labour of years is discarded over silence, and where reputations are butchered so that the powerful remain unbothered. The very spaces meant to champion creativity are the first to abandon those who try to speak freely, those who refuse to bend, those who dare to write with sincerity. Representational Image: The 1st stamp of independent India shows the Indian Flag, released on 21Nov1947. I have lived through this. I have worked on a book that came from lived experience, research, pain, and a rare kind of stubborn hope. And I have watched that book — like countless others before it — be derailed by a system tha...

✍️ Written by Saket Suman Mahatma Gandhi’s The Story of My Experiments with Truth is not the story of a perfect man as political heavyweights present themselves to be -- and that is perhaps precisely why it endures still today. It is a book filled with self-doubt, failures, confessions, and contradictions. But it remains one of the most powerful examples of a life devoted to truth, however painful, however incomplete that pursuit may be. Gandhi was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize a few days before he was assassinated. There’s something profoundly disarming about the way Gandhi presents himself. He does not hide behind legacy, myth, or moral superiority. He does not edit out the parts of himself that might be mocked or misunderstood. Instead, he offers his life as a series of experiments -- some noble, some naive, but all of them are deeply personal. The tone is intimate, often vulnerable.  You feel, as a reader, that you are being let in. Attended a prayer meeting at Gandhi Sm...

The Booker Prize 2025 shortlist has been revealed, showcasing six powerful novels that span continents, decades and generations -- united by a deep exploration of what it means to live, to love, and to endure.  The final six were selected from 153 submissions by a panel chaired by 1993 Booker Prize winner Roddy Doyle, alongside judges Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀, Sarah Jessica Parker, Chris Power, and Kiley Reid. The Booker Prize 2025 shortlist © Yuki Sugiura for Booker Prize Foundation Among the shortlisted are previous winner Kiran Desai and returning nominees Andrew Miller and David Szalay, alongside three debut shortlistees: Susan Choi, Katie Kitamura, and Ben Markovits.  The 2025 list is marked by mature, technically confident storytelling and a range of narratives that, in the words of Doyle, are “brilliantly written and brilliantly human.” The six books delve into themes of migration, loneliness, shifting family dynamics and the emotional burden of identity.  Set across div...

✍️ Written by Saket Suman At the Colorado edition of the Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) in the United States, a well-dressed panel sat beneath stage lights, bathed in the glow of literary performance. The session’s title, projected grandly behind them, read:  “Water, Water Everywhere, But Not a Drop to Drink.” Wrong . JLF: PhD in Fakery. Via Sanjoy Roy on X That’s not what Coleridge wrote. The original line, from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner , is:  “Water, water, everywhere,  Nor any drop to drink.” It’s nor , not not . This is a classic metaphor for what JLF has become: a festival of posturing without precision, of quotation without comprehension. It’s a stage where the most revered lines in English literature are mangled in broad daylight -- and no one even notices. Or worse, no one cares . Because for the gatekeepers of this literary cartel, literature is merely a prop . A backdrop against which their curated elites, their sons, their friends, and their...

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said India is launching a civilisational push to protect its traditional knowledge from international piracy, as he inaugurated the Gyan Bharatam Portal at the International Conference on Gyan Bharatam in New Delhi today.  Indian PM Modi at Gyan Bharatam Portal launch. Calling the initiative a “strategic safeguard,” he said the digitisation of India’s one crore manuscripts will act as a barrier against foreign patents and intellectual theft. Digitised Manuscripts का अध्ययन करने के लिए हमें AI जैसी नई टेक्नोलॉजी का उपयोग भी बढ़ाना होगा। इस दिशा में अपने युवा साथियों से मेरा यह विशेष आग्रह… pic.twitter.com/St1A911siK — Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 12, 2025 Modi said that for too long, elements of India’s ancient knowledge systems--from medicine to metallurgy--have been quietly patented by external actors. The Gyan Bharatam Mission aims to reverse this trend by creating a verified, publicly accessible digital archive of India’s ma...

In July 2023, in the grandeur of the University of York’s Central Hall, William Dalrymple adjusted his cuffs with one hand and balanced a wine glass in the other, as he strode onto the stage to collect an honorary degree. Sanjoy K. Roy followed, ponytail bouncing like a punctuation mark at the end of a long, well-lobbied sentence.  The audience clapped. The gowns shimmered. But if you looked closely--past the pomp, beneath the powdered pretensions--you’d see it was the first act in a political-literary farce. This was recompense. Not a degree earned, but a deal sealed. What came next was anything but coincidence. In May 2025, the University of York suddenly discovered a burning passion for Indian education and announced a brand-new campus in Mumbai. It was to be their jewel in the crown, a foray into the “dynamic and vibrant” Indian market. By June, they had secured a license from the Indian government, handed over with the kind of bureaucratic speed usually reserved for godmen and...

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday led strong national remembrance on the anniversary of the emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi. He called it a "dark chapter" that saw democracy "placed under arrest." Simultaneously, the opposition Congress hit back, accusing Modi’s government of presiding over an "undeclared emergency" in the country today. Bhartiya Jan Sangh Worker Narendra Modi During Emergency Days in 1976. Observing Samvidhan Hatya Diwas (Constitution Murder Day), Modi paid tribute to those who resisted the Emergency.  “No Indian will ever forget how fundamental rights were suspended, press freedom extinguished, and thousands jailed simply for opposing the regime,” he stated.  Recalling his own role as a young underground RSS worker during the 19-month crackdown, Modi said the experience shaped his political journey and commitment to protecting constitutional values. The day also saw the launch of The Emergency Diaries – Years that For...

✍️ Written by Saket Suman “Just landed in London on @airindia from Delhi to the awful news of the crash. My heart goes out to the families of the victims. 🕉️ शांति,” wrote heavyweight author and prominent Indian politician Shashi Tharoor on X. His words came just moments after disembarking to attend the London edition of the Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF), at a time when the world itself seems to be falling apart. The timing is more than just coincidental. Tharoor, fresh from his diplomatic outreach for the Indian government, will step into a festival that had long stood as a symbol of India's intellectual prowess. But beneath its shining panels and high-profile conversations hides an industry that is grappling with its own contradictions—an industry that has allowed power, privilege, and proximity to subvert the meritocracy that it once promised. JLF Founder & TeamworkArts MD Sanjoy K. Roy on X Today, as bombs have flattened Gaza , as Tehran reels under fresh ...