Aparajith Ramnath Wins Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize 2025 for Engineering a Nation: The Life and Career of M. Visvesvaraya

~ Cash prize of INR 15 lakhs, a trophy, and a citation to be officially awarded on December 6, 2025
at the Bangalore Literature Festival

National, 17 November 2025: The New India Foundation has announced Aparajith Ramnath as the winner of the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize 2025 for his book Engineering a Nation: The Life and Career of M. Visvesvaraya published by Penguin Viking. Mr Ramnath will be presented with the award, which includes a cash prize of INR 15 lakhs, a trophy, and a citation, at the official ceremony at the 14th Edition of the Bangalore Literature Festival on December 6, 2025. The NIF Book Prize honours exceptional nonfiction writing on modern and contemporary Indian history, with Mr Ramnath’s book standing out for its scholarship that reconstructs the storied life of M. Visvesvaraya (1861-1962) arguably the most famous Indian engineer of the 20th century. 

The eminent Jury for 2025 KCBP includes N Chandrasekaran (Chairman of Tata Sons and Tata Group), Manish Sabharwal (Entrepreneur), Niraja Gopal Jayal (Political Scientist), Srinath Raghavan (Historian), Rahul Matthan (Partner- Trilegal), Jawed Ashraf (Former Ambassador of India to France), and Yamini Aiyar (Public Policy Scholar).

The Jury Citation for the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize 2025 notes: “Mr Ramnath, a historian of science and technology presents a deeply researched account of Visvesvaraya’s life and career. A winner of the Young Historian of Science award by the Indian National Science Academy, his work chronicles the life of a remarkable individual and technocrat, as well as the times and country that shaped him.”

Selected from a shortlist of five outstanding books, Mr Ramnath’s work joins the ranks of notable narratives that bring new perspectives. His book highlights the role of a man, regarded as a national icon, who played a pivotal role in India’s economic planning and industrialization in the 20th century. 

The shortlist included:

  • Savarkar and the Making of Hindutva by Janaki Bakhle

  • India’s Forgotten Country: A View from the Margins by Bela Bhatia

  • India’s Near East: A New History by Avinash Paliwal

  • Gods, Guns and Missionaries: The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity by Manu Pillai

  • Engineering a Nation: The Life and Career of M. Visvesvaraya by Aparajith Ramnath

The New India Foundation is guided by an esteemed Board of Trustees, including Ramachandra Guha, Nandan Nilekani, Niraja Gopal Jayal, Manish Sabharwal, and Srinath Raghavan, all of whom bring invaluable expertise and vision to the Foundation’s mission.

The Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize 2025 | SHORTLIST INTERVIEWS

About the New India Foundation: Based in Bengaluru, the core activity of the New India Foundation is the NIF Book Fellowships, which have been awarded to scholars and writers for two decades to enable the highest standard of research and writing about India after Independence, resulting in the publication of 36 books covering an extraordinary range of topics.  Round 13 of the Book Fellowship will commence from August 1, 2026. The NIF Translation Fellowships were instituted in 2021 and expand upon the core idea of fostering nonfiction by translating knowledge texts from 10 Indian languages to English. The NIF Book and Translation Fellowships are awarded in alternate years. The third Round of the NIF Translation Fellowships is open for applications until December 31, 2025; please visit the website (www.newindiafoundation.org) for further details.