The Human Costs of Building a ‘World-Class’ City

In Advance of the G20 Summit, New Delhi Has Demolished Neighborhoods and Displaced Thousands

On a hot summer day in New Delhi, a young resident of the posh area of Greater Kailash looked down from the window of his air-conditioned room.

“I don’t know how people tend to drink lemonade from these carts—it’s so unhygienic,” he said, referring to nimbu paani, a popular tart salty-sweet drink often served in earthen pots. He added that the street vendors’ carts were a nuisance for him when he went out for a drive in his luxury car.

In recent decades, diverse political parties, corporations, and elite citizens have shared …

Who Are the Anglo-Indians?

Our Small, Enduring Community—Invisible in Most Colonial Histories—Straddles Two Worlds

“I thought they died out,” a woman remarked flippantly to my friend just the other day. She, like many Indians, has long believed that Anglo-Indians ceased to exist when the …

How Does Culture Immigrate? | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

How Does Culture Immigrate?

Artists and Scholars Explore the Ways Their Work Helps Them Understand Homeland

Home can be physical or imagined—a point of departure and return but also a memory or feeling. When migrants and immigrants move across borders, they bring along the places they …

Can Bureaucracies Be Sustainability Innovators?

How India’s Coal-Dependent Government Has Harnessed Its Power to Build Better and Cleaner

Bureaucracies are often thought of as stiflers of innovation and growth. But the Indian government, one of the biggest bureaucracies in the world, has made some surprising gains in the …

My Story

My story
is the story
of a hoe wearing thin
of a factory becoming a ruin
of a road falling out of repair

my story
is the story
of stone
turning …

Mayor Garcetti, Delhi Is Waiting to Transform You—And the Future of L.A. | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Mayor Garcetti, Delhi Is Waiting to Transform You—And the Future of L.A.

If You Become Ambassador to India, Here’s What You Need to Know About My Hometown

Namaste Garcetti-ji,

The rumor that you, the mayor of my adopted hometown, Los Angeles, will be President Biden’s next ambassador to my native country, India, is picking up steam. And so …