Dr Dipanjali Deka, Visiting Assistant Professor, Centre for Writing and Pedagogy presented a lecture-demonstration in Jindal Global University on 8 April 2025 titled ‘The Art of Dying – Songs and Dohas of Kabir and other Nirguni Poets’. In the presentation, Dr Deka examined the questions of orality, memory, fluidity and relevance in the living tradition of Kabir, through the themes of social and religious criticism, death and impermanence, non-duality and love in Kabir’s philosophy.
An article co-authored by Dr Chirag Dhara, Assistant Professor, Environmental Studies and Dr Soumyajit Bhar, BML Munjal University, titled Why sustainable development ought to look more like Costa Rica, less like Norway has been recently published in 360info. The article deep dives into the question, “which countries have achieved decent living standards in a way that could be scaled worldwide without severely breaking planetary limits?”
Dr Sambaiah Gundimeda, Associate Professor, Politics, SIAS was invited to speak on the panel “Caste and Equality” at NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad, during its annual conference on “The Courts and the Constitution”, held from 29-30 March 2025. Dr Gundimeda discussed a recent Supreme Court verdict on the sub-classification of Scheduled Caste reservations in Davinder Singh v State of Punjab, 2024.
Dr Gundimeda, in his discussion, critiqued Justice Bela Trivedi’s dissenting opinion, which asserts that Scheduled Castes (SCs) should be treated as a homogeneous group without internal divisions in reservations. He countered this by emphasising the diversity within SCs, the dominance of certain Dalit sub-castes in availing reservation benefits, and the structural inequalities that necessitate sub-classification.
He argued that true justice is not merely about treating all SCs as equals but about ensuring that the most marginalised within the category receive the support they need. Additionally, he addressed broader themes of structural injustice, representation, and systemic barriers that hinder equitable access to opportunities for the most disadvantaged SC sub-groups.
Dr Suchika Chopra, Assistant Professor, Economics, SIAS presented her research paper, titled ‘Home and Community-Based Services: A Strategy to Decrease Nursing Home Use?’ at the 17th Annual Conference of the German Association of Health Economics at the University of Paderborn on 25 March 2025. The paper explores the impact of Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) on nursing home utilisation by looking at county-level changes in HCBS establishments and their employees.
Abhayraj Naik, Visiting Associate Professor of Practice, Environmental Studies, SIAS, recently co-authored an analysis essay with Parul Kumar, PhD candidate, KU Leuven and Deputy Executive Director, EPICO KlimaInnovation titled Endangered Birds, Renewable Energy, and India’s New Constitutional Climate Right, published in the Journal of Environmental Law (Oxford University Press). This essay examines India’s first major climate litigation ruling — the Supreme Court’s 2024 judgment in M.K. Ranjitsinh and Others v. Union of India and Others.
Dr Lakshmi Narayanan, Assistant Professor, Environmental Studies, SIAS, has co-authored a paper titled Cross-equatorial travelling ionospheric disturbances and changes in background ionospheric densities over Indian longitudes during the geomagnetic storm of 20–21 December 2015, which has been published in Advances in Space Research. This study examines the ionospheric response over the Indian region during a space weather event in December 2015. Additionally, it tracks a propagating disturbance in the ionosphere that originated in the Australian sector and dissipated over North India. Such wave disturbances play a crucial role in the energy distribution of the upper atmosphere and ionosphere. This research is the result of a collaborative effort among scientists from the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad; UCAR, USA; the Indian Center for Space Physics, Kolkata; the Airports Authority of India; and Krea University.
Read the paper here
An article co-authored by Nickhil Sharma, Visiting Faculty, SIAS, titled, Intersectional analysis of visual generative AI: the case of stable diffusion has been published in AI & Society.
The article critically examines Stable Diffusion, a widely used open-source visual Generative AI tool, through an intersectional lens. It explores how AI-generated imagery can perpetuate existing social hierarchies—including sexism, racism, heteronormativity, and ableism—by defaulting to representations that are often white, able-bodied, and masculine-presenting. It also highlights the dominance of Euro- and North America-centric aesthetic norms within these outputs.
Importantly, the article moves beyond questions of bias in outputs to interrogate the institutional and ideological frameworks that inform the design and deployment of these tools. As digital technologies increasingly shape our political and social lives, the work underscores the importance of analysing the structures and ideas that produce them.
The authors advocate for a reparative and social justice-oriented approach to visual generative AI—one that actively addresses the injustices these systems can reinforce and imagines more inclusive and equitable technological futures.
The team invites readers to explore the full article and engage in the broader conversation on equity and accountability in AI development.
Read the full article here
Dr Rangachary Kommanduri, Visiting Assistant Professor, Data Science, SIAS, has been awarded a grant under the MeitY Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EiR) Program for his proposal, ‘Transforming Campus Safety with AI-Powered Anomaly Detection Solutions.’ The program, which supports early-stage entrepreneurs in developing innovative technology solutions, is supported by Gyan Circle Ventures (CIEDI) at IIIT Sri City and funded under the TIDE 2.0 initiative by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). The project focuses on developing an AI-powered surveillance system to detect abnormal activities on campus, such as intrusions, unattended objects, and potential security threats like physical altercations. The system will provide real-time alerts, enhancing campus safety through swift intervention.
Dr Chirag Dhara, Assistant Professor, Environmental Studies, SIAS, delivered a talk at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning (CESP), Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, on 18 March 2025. The talk, titled “Inequality and Climate Destabilisation,” was part of the CESP Seminar Series 2025.
Abstract
How would the world have warmed if each country’s lifestyle had been globally adopted? Our analysis reveals that universalising the lifestyles of most industrialised countries would have warmed the planet by over 1.5°C by 2002. Thus, the current (relative) climate stability is owed to the modest lifestyles of the global majority. Many consequences follow.
Dr Joya John, Assistant Professor, Literature, SIAS, has been selected to attend the Balzan Colloquium at the Institute of World Literature, Harvard University, from 30 June to 24 July 2025. The three-week colloquium brings together participants from five regions of the world: Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and South/Southeast Asia. Each year, the colloquium focuses on a specific topic with implications for world literature. In 2025, the theme will be ‘Literature and Environmental Crisis’. Participants will meet weekly to share and discuss their work on the topic and will be invited to submit their essays for a special issue of the Journal of World Literature, scheduled for publication in the fall of the following year.
