New India Foundation opens applications for fellowships and Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay Book Prize

The New India Foundation (NIF), founded by Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani and historian and scholar Ramachandra Guha in 2004 to support and encourage authors to research and write about independent India, is now inviting applications for the NIF fellowship and the 2020 edition of their annual Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize. [caption id=“attachment_7932451” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] The New India Foundation (NIF) seeks to support and encourage authors to write about independent India. Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons/Missmarettaphotography.[/caption] The fellowship, in an effort to foster interest in documenting the changing landscape of post-independent India, is awarded to scholars and writers whose work revolves around the history of independent India. Applications for 2020 are now open till 30 June, 2020, and can be submitted here. Upto 10 fellowships are awarded annually, and each fellow receives a monthly stipend of Rs 1,50,000 for one year. The fellowship is open to Indian residents living within and outside the country. The application must include a 5,000 word writing sample, and applicants are asked to provide a book proposal of original work, with no theme or genre restrictions, that will contribute to a better understanding of modern India. The NIF 2020 fellows will be announced in August 2020. So far, a total of 21 books have been published through the fellowship. The NIF Book Prize, which was started in 2018 to recognise non-fiction work on post-independence India, carries with it a prize of Rs 15 lakh and a mention at the Bangalore Literature Festival. Now in its third edition, the NIF Book Prize is inviting nominations, which can be submitted here, with the deadline being 31 May, 2020. The book can be any genre and cover any aspect of modern/contemporary India, and should be an original piece of writing published in 2019, written in English or translated into English. The prize is open to all authors irrespective of their nationality. NIF fellows are not eligible to be nominated for the prize. The 2019 prize was awarded to political and modern Indian history scholar Ornit Shani for her book How India Became Democratic: Citizenship and the Making of the Universal Franchise.