A Writer's Guide to Sonipat

The Archives of Contemporary India has collected private and institutional papers on modern India since 2017, among them the papers of writers and journalists. Diaries and letters sit alongside manuscripts of novels and plays, with photographs and recordings. Authors and journalists working on the collections can register alongside scholars, buying a reading-room pass by the day or week, or for six months or a year; bring photo ID, and foreign scholars need introduction letters. The catalogues are free to search online. The reading room, in the basement of the AC 04 building, opens Monday to Friday.

The Global Library at O.P. Jindal Global University keeps a Haryana Collection and the Murty Classical Collection, along with legal databases and a donated collection of air and space law books. Researchers from other institutions and members of the public can apply online in advance for a visitor pass with government photo ID. Visitors read the print collections on site and use e-resources over the library network. Watch the library's events page; some lectures by writers have been open to anyone.

Motilal Banarsidass has sold books since 1903, and it carries more than 25,000 titles on Indology from Indian publishers. Philosophy, religion and Buddhism take up much of the list, and so do yoga and Jainism. The Daryaganj showroom is on the first floor of Hari Sadan, opposite the fire station. It is closed Sundays.

Blue Tokai runs this café and coffee roastery on the Delhi-Panipat highway at Ganaur, about 12 miles north of Sonipat city. Parking is free. It is listed as open daily nearly around the clock, which makes it a fallback for a late session on the road between Sonipat and Panipat.

This Third Wave Coffee is in Delhi, in a Rohini community centre about 10 miles south of Kundli and the Rai education area. It has dine-in seating and is listed as open daily around the clock.

Lakhori is the dining room at Haveli Dharampura in Old Delhi, a Mughal-era house restored from near-dereliction that won UNESCO's Asia-Pacific Award for Cultural Heritage Conservation. The haveli offers dinners with live Kathak, a ghazal night or classical music. It also leads heritage and food walks through the lanes of Old Delhi.

The Ashoka Centre for Translation, in the university's Harish & Bina Shah School of Humanities, works on translation among many Indian languages and into English, and it mentors and trains new translators. Its projects include Translating Bhakti and Women Translating Women. With the New India Foundation, the centre runs Bhashavaad, a public, crowd-sourced database of Indian translations that translators and publishers can add to. Bhashavaad also has a national translation conference, held in New Delhi.

The Hindi Academy is the Delhi government's academy for Hindi language, literature and culture, founded in 1981. It is in north-west Delhi, about 20 miles from the Rai campus. The academy keeps a library and publishes the journal Indraprastha Bharti. It also runs programmes and gives honours and awards. It works in Hindi.

The Urdu Academy works mainly in Urdu from Kashmiri Gate in Delhi. It holds mushairas and runs the Dara Shikoh Library, and its monthly magazines are Aiwan-e-Urdu and Umang. Writers can seek financial help to publish a manuscript, and the academy gives awards for books. It also teaches Urdu, calligraphy included.

Ashoka's Centre for Studies in Gender and Sexuality runs the ISHQ speaker series and the trans* fellowship TAARIF. Its online directory, Mapping Sexuality in India, charts gender and sexuality studies across the country, from institutions and events to literature and performance. Scholars can use it from anywhere.

The University of Delhi's CPDHE is on North Campus in Delhi, about 18 miles from Rai. As a UGC Malaviya Mission Teacher Training Centre, it runs 24-day induction programmes and 12-day subject refresher courses for university and college teachers, some online and some residential. Teachers attend once they receive a formal invitation letter. The centre answers eligibility questions at office@cpdhe.du.ac.in.

Isis is the journal of the History of Science Society. It publishes articles, research notes and commentary on the history of science, medicine and technology, with review essays and book reviews. Its main editorial office is at Ashoka University, and a second office is at the University of Toronto. Preparing an article for Isis

The New India Foundation has funded translation fellowships since 2022. Each one supports six months of work translating a nonfiction book first written in one of ten Indian languages, Hindi and Urdu among them. The foundation is the Ashoka Centre for Translation's partner on Bhashavaad.

Each year Sahitya Akademi gives an award for literary work in each of its 24 recognised languages, and an equal number of translation prizes. The Bhasha Samman goes to work in languages outside formal recognition and in classical and medieval literature. The Akademi also has fellowships named for Anand Coomaraswamy and Premchand.

Sahitya Akademi gives the Yuva Puraskar each year to young Indian writers aged 35 and under, for a book in any of its 24 recognised languages.

The Ministry of Culture gives these two-year research fellowships, and applications can go through the website of the Centre for Cultural Resources and Training. Their literary-arts strand covers travelogue and the history and theory of literature. Junior Fellowships are for applicants aged 25 to 40, and Senior Fellowships for those over 40. Selected project documents can get a one-time publishing grant.

This page gathers scholarships and doctoral funding at the University of Delhi, with library help and the rules for the Ph.D. thesis.