Dr Chirag Dhara, Assistant Professor, Environmental Studies, SIAS, has co-authored an article titled Who is Really Developed with Dr Soumyajit Bhar, Assistant Professor, School for Liberal Studies for Down to Earth. The authors challenge the conventional notions of development.
Dr Rakesh Sengupta, Assistant Professor, Psychology, SIAS, has published a paper titled Mapping additive recurrent neural networks to quantum neural networks. It is a work at the interface of quantum computing and neuroscience. In this work, the author maps classical OCOS RNN dynamics into a quantum Hamiltonian (with decay, activation, and tunable interactions) and study its open‑system behavior under amplitude‑damping and dephasing. Key findings include sustained oscillations in Pauli expectations, slow purity decay, and exploration of the dynamics that go beyond classical RNN fixed‑point behavior.
Professor Akhila Ramnarayan, Visiting Professor of Practice, Literature and the Arts, SIAS has penned a review essay on Robert Macfarlane’s new book, titled ‘Is a River Alive?’: Radical resistance and solidarity between humans and the natural world in Scroll.in.
Robert Macfarlane is internationally renowned for his writing on nature, people, and place. He is the Professor of Literature and the Environmental Humanities, and Fellow of Emmanuel College, at the University of Cambridge.
A research article by Dr Tanmoy Chakrabarty, Assistant Professor and Discipline Coordinator, Physics, SIAS titled Normal state and superconducting state properties of high entropy Ta0.2Nb0.2V0.2Ti0.2X0.2 (X = Zr and Hf) has been published in Physical Review Materials (“Scopus Q1” journal). In this publication, Dr Chakrabarty is one of the three corresponding authors. In this work, the team has reported a detailed theoretical and experimental investigation of high-entropy alloy superconductors Ta0.2Nb0.2V0.2Ti0.2X0.2 (X = Zr and Hf). The study unveils that both the materials crystallise in a body-centered-cubic structure (space group: Im-3m) and exhibit bulk superconductivity with a superconducting onset temperature of 5 K for X = Hf and 6.19 K for X = Zr sample. The detailed analysis, including magnetisation, resistivity, heat capacity measurements, and density functional theory (DFT) calculations indicates moderately coupled isotropic s-wave superconductivity in these materials. With the dynamical stability of these alloys, excellent normal state metallic nature, high microhardness, and high upper critical field; these samples emerge as potential candidates for future applications in superconducting devices.
Abhayraj Naik, Visiting Associate Professor of Practice, Environmental Studies SIAS offered an international exploratory workshop on ‘Introduction to Climate Law in India’ at the University of Tuebingen on 30 May 2025. He also presented a talk titled ‘What Comes Next? Exploring Systemic Change Possibilities in India following the Declaration of a Constitutional Climate Right’ at the Workshop on “Climate Litigation in India, Germany and Europe, and the Potential for Mutual Learning” organised by the Faculty of Law, University of Regensburg on 2 and 3 June 2025.
Dr Randhir Rai, Visiting Faculty, Chemistry, SIAS recently published a research article titled Wastewater treatment using waste cuprous oxide: A circular economy approach towards green and sustainable laboratory waste management in the journal Sustainable Chemistry Oneworld.
Dr Sayandeb Chowdhury, Senior Assistant Professor, Literature, SIAS has penned a review of Professor Bishnu Mohapatra’s latest volume of poetry, Rain Incarnations. Published in The Scroll, the article is titled The umbrellas are on a protest march’: Bishnu Mohapatra’s poems on rain for a desolate May. The poems have been translated from Odia by Aparna Uppaluri.
Professor Bishnu is Professor, Politics, SIAS and Director – Moturi Satyanarayana Centre for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences
Dr Joya John, Assistant Professor, Literature, SIAS presented a paper on 30 May 2025, titled ‘Yeh Prithvi Rahegi: Planetarity in the Non-Anglophone Imaginary’. The paper was part of a 3-day panel titled Comparing Hindi Literature: Then and Now in the World at the Annual Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) conference. Dr John’s paper analysed how contemporary Hindi poets have drawn on environmental and climate change discourse to craft new metaphors and figures in poetry. Through a close reading of the figure of Prithvi, she argued that both scientific ideas of planetary habitability and older cosmological and affective senses of the Earth will continue to mediate cultural knowledge of climate change.
Professor Romila Thapar, Professor Kumkum Roy and Dr Preeti Gulati,Discipline Coordinator – History and Assistant Professor, History, SIAS have co-authored the book Women Writing History: Three Generations published by Zubaan Books. Three historians from three generations reflecting on their lives and their engagement with one of the most demanding, and most crucial, disciplines of our times.
A research paper co-authored by Dr Chirag Dhara, Assistant Professor, Environmental Studies, SIAS titled Bridging Climate Science, Policy, and Communities: Collaborative Pathways for Climate Resilience in the Indo-Pacific has been published in Frontiers in Climate, Volume 7-2025. This study was performed under the aegis of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP)’s “My Climate Risk Lighthouse Activity” that aims to develop and mainstream a ‘bottom-up’ approach to regional climate risk.