Upinder Singh is an Indian historian who is Professor of History and Dean of Faculty at Ashoka University. She is the former head of the History Department at the University of Delhi. She is also the recipient of the inaugural Infosys Prize in the category of Social Sciences (History).The Infosys Prize in Social Sciences – History

Infosys Science Foundation Infosys Limited is an Indian multinational information technology company that provides business consulting, information technology and outsourcing services. The company was founded in Pune and is headquartered in Bangalore. Infosys is the s ...

Education and professional life

Singh is an alumna of

St. Stephen's College, Delhi St. Stephen's College is a constituent college of the University of Delhi, widely regarded as one of the oldest and most prestigious colleges for arts and sciences in India. It was established in 1881 by the Cambridge Mission to Delhi. The college ...

and received a PhD from McGill University in Canada. She has a Master of Arts in history and an M.Phil. in history, both from the University of Delhi. She has a Ph.D. from McGill University, Montreal, Canada, with a thesis titled ''Kings, Brahmanas, and Temples in Orissa: an epigraphic study (300-1147 CE)''. She is a Professor in the Department of History at Ashoka University.

Personal life

Singh is the daughter of

Manmohan Singh Manmohan Singh (; born 26 September 1932) is an Indian politician, economist and statesman who served as the 13th prime minister of India from 2004 to 2014. He is also the third longest-serving prime minister after Jawaharlal Nehru and Indir ...

, the former

prime minister of India The prime minister of India (IAST: ) is the head of government of the Republic of India. Executive authority is vested in the prime minister and their chosen Council of Ministers, despite the president of India being the nominal head of the ...

, and

Gursharan Kaur Gursharan Kaur Kohli (born 13 September 1937) is an Indian history professor and author who is the spouse of the former prime minister of India Dr. Manmohan Singh, the 13th Prime Minister of India. Early life Gurusharan was the youngest of s ...

. She is married to Vijay Tankha, a professor of philosophy and has two sons.

Honours

Singh was awarded the Netherlands Government Reciprocal Fellowship in 1985, to pursue research at the Instituut Kern, Leiden. She was awarded the

Ancient India and Iran Trust The Ancient India and Iran Trust was founded in 1978, and occupies a unique position in the UK. It is the only independent Charitable organization, charity concerned with the study of early India, Iran & Central Asia, promoting both scholarly resea ...

/Wallace India Visiting Fellowship to pursue research in Cambridge and London in 1999. She was also a visiting fellow of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge. Singh has received the prestigious Daniel Ingalls Fellowship at the Harvard-Yenching Institute, Harvard University in 2005. She is the national coordinator for history at the Institute of Life Long Learning at the University of Delhi. She was visiting professor at the University of Leuven, Belgium, as the recipient of the Erasmus Mundus Fellowship, May–June 2010.

Controversies

On 25 February 2008, right wing activists demonstrated in the University of Delhi campus, in protest of an essay by A.K. Ramanujan, titled '' Three Hundred Ramayanas''. The activists felt the essay was offensive, and alleged that Singh was responsible for its inclusion in a list of recommended readings for the BA programme in history. The University denied the allegation and stated that Singh was "… neither the editor nor compiler of the book on ''Cultural History of Ancient India''."

Publications

Books authored

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Books edited

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Papers

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Singh, Upinder Historians of South Asia Indian Sikhs Punjabi people Living people Children of prime ministers of India Manmohan Singh 1959 births 21st-century Indian historians