Draft:Prem Poddar

Submission declined on 13 October 2025 by ChrysGalley (talk). This draft's references do not show that the person meets Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion for people. The draft requires multiple published secondary sources that: provide significant coverage: discuss the person in detail, not brief mentions or interviews lacking independent analysis; are reliable: from reputable outlets with editorial oversight; are independent: not connected to the person, such as interviews, press releases, the subject's own website, or sponsored content. Please add references that meet all three of these criteria. If none exist, the subject is not yet suitable for Wikipedia. If you would like to continue working on the submission, click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window. If you have not resolved the issues listed above, your draft will be declined again and potentially deleted. If you need extra help, please ask us a question at the AfC Help Desk or get live help from experienced editors. Please do not remove reviewer comments or this notice until the submission is accepted. Where to get help If you need help editing or submitting your draft, please ask us a question at the AfC Help Desk or get live help from experienced editors. These venues are only for help with editing and the submission process, not to get reviews. If you need feedback on your draft, or if the review is taking a lot of time, you can try asking for help on the talk page of a relevant WikiProject. Some WikiProjects are more active than others so a speedy reply is not guaranteed. How to improve a draft Wikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia – a basic overview on how to edit Wikipedia. Help:Wikitext – how to use the markup Help:Referencing for beginners – how to include references Wikipedia:Article development – how to develop your article Wikipedia:Writing better articles – how to improve your article Wikipedia:Verifiability – make sure your article includes reliable third-party sources You can also browse Wikipedia:Featured articles and Wikipedia:Good articles to find examples of Wikipedia's best writing on topics similar to your proposed article. Improving your odds of a speedy review To improve your odds of a faster review, tag your draft with relevant WikiProject tags using the button below. This will let reviewers know a new draft has been submitted in their area of interest. For instance, if you wrote about a female astronomer, you would want to add the Biography, Astronomy, and Women scientists tags. Add tags to your draft Editor resources Easy tools: Citation bot (help) | Advanced: Fix bare URLs Declined by ChrysGalley 10 months ago. Last edited by Dr vulpes 9 days ago. Reviewer: Inform author. Resubmit Please note that if the issues are not fixed, the draft will be declined again.

Submission declined on 10 August 2025 by HilssaMansen19 (talk). This draft is not adequately supported by reliable sources. Wikipedia's verifiability policy requires that all content be supported by reliable sources. Reliable sources include: reputable newspapers, magazines, academic journals, and books from respected publishers. Unacceptable sources include: personal blogs, social media, predatory publishers, most tabloids, and websites where anyone can contribute. Replace any unreliable sources with high-quality sources. If you cannot find a reliable source for the material, it should be removed. Declined by HilssaMansen19 12 months ago.

• Comment: There are a few things that need to be resolved here.
  a) The photo is linked to the submitter. Does the submitter know the subject of the article or in some way connected? If so then [WP:COI] needs to be recorded in the Talk page.
  b) The article looks to be WP:CITEKILL, the number here is out of step with the content. One or two good citations is better than four.
  c) Select works section - have a look at say C. L. R. James - it's good to have ISBNs / wikilinks, but each item does not need to be referenced, just fully described so that they can be found.
  d) Have a look at WP:NACADEMIC and see the eight notability criteria there. You need some good references that back the notability, otherwise the article will end up deleted under WP:AFD. A concise entry with good sources may avoid this issue. So the awards, for example under criteria 2, would need sourcing. If there are reviews of the subject's writings, that is useful.
  e) It is quite OK to have offline sources, just give a full citation for reference. A PhD thesis text is normally primary, but most academics don't have his level of detail. ChrysGalley (talk) 16:29, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

• Comment: I started following this article when it was PRODed: I am skeptical of NPROF notability. I do not think that 3 months as VC of a new regional university passes WP:NPROF C6, and do not see citations supporting NPROF C1. If the PROD had failed, then I would have nominated for deletion. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 00:40, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

• Comment: Greetings, the subject may be considered notable given the top administrative position at an established academic institution but that alone is not sufficient. Some sources here are primary and do not provide a secondary review like reference. Proper referencing, WP:STYLE, WP:Referencing for beginners for further help and Reliable secondary and independent sources that provide significant coverage with more non-primary ones needed. When you edit it following the above guidelines, it will most likely be accepted! HilssaMansen19Irien1291S • spreading wiki love ~ Message here; no calls 02:19, 10 August 2025 (UTC)

The topic of this draft may not meet Wikipedia's notability guideline for biographies. Please help to demonstrate the notability of the topic by citing reliable secondary sources that are independent of the topic and provide significant coverage of it beyond a mere trivial mention. Notability should be established before publishing this draft or submitting it via the articles for creation process. Find sources: "Prem Poddar" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (April 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Prem Poddar
Prem Poddar in 2024
Vice-Chancellor of Darjeeling Hills University
In office 23 March 2023 – 24 June 2023
Personal details
Born	Kalimpong, West Bengal, India
Education	DPhil, University of Sussex
Alma mater	St. Augustine's School, Kalimpong College, University of North Bengal, Smith College, University of Sussex

Prem Poddar is an academic working in postcolonial studies and Himalayan border history. He served as the founding Vice-Chancellor of Darjeeling Hills University in West Bengal in 2023, and has held teaching and research posts at Aarhus University, Roskilde University, and the University of Sussex, among others.

Poddar grew up near Kalimpong in the Darjeeling hills and was educated at St. Augustine's School, a Jesuit-run school in the town.^[1] He completed a BA at Kalimpong College and an MA in English at the University of North Bengal, followed by a postgraduate diploma in American and interdisciplinary studies at Smith College in the United States. He holds two doctorates: a PhD from the University of North Bengal, and a DPhil from the University of Sussex, completed as a Foreign and Commonwealth Office Fellow under Homi K. Bhabha.

Poddar began teaching in India at Jhargram Raj College and Darjeeling Government College before returning to the University of Sussex to complete his second doctorate, where he also worked as a tutor. He subsequently became an associate professor in postcolonial studies at Aarhus University, and later professor of global cultural encounters at Roskilde University, where he led the university's Intercultural Studies Group. He has also held a research post at the University of Southampton and visiting or fellowship positions at Heidelberg University, the Open University, and Fudan University, where he was a Confucius Fellow.

In 2023 he was appointed founding Vice-Chancellor of Darjeeling Hills University, a newly established state university, a position he held for three months.^[2]

Poddar's work concerns postcolonial theory, translation, and the cultural history of the India–China borderlands, particularly around Kalimpong. He co-edited A Historical Companion to Postcolonial Literatures in English (2005) and Empire and After: Englishness in Postcolonial Perspective (2007), both of which received reviews in academic journals.^[3][4]

His most recent book, Through the India–China Border: Kalimpong in the Himalayas (with Lisa Lindkvist Zhang, Cambridge University Press, 2024), received sustained attention across area-studies and history journals. It was reviewed in Himalaya,^[5] the Journal of Contemporary Asia,^[6] China and Asia,^[7] China Report,^[8] the Journal of Asian Studies,^[9] the Journal of Chinese History,^[10] and Indian Politics & Policy.^[11] The book was also discussed in the Indian press.^[12]

Books

• Through the India-China Border: Kalimpong in the Himalayas (with Lisa Lindkvist Zhang). Cambridge University Press, 2024. ISBN 9781009499354
• Empire and After: Englishness in Postcolonial Perspective (edited with Graham MacPhee). Berghahn Books, 2007. ISBN 978-1-84545-320-6
• A Historical Companion to Postcolonial Literatures – Continental Europe and its Empires (edited with Lars Jensen and Rajeev Patke). Edinburgh University Press, 2008.
• A Historical Companion to Postcolonial Literatures in English (edited with David Johnson). Edinburgh University Press / Columbia University Press, 2005. ISBN 978-0-231-13506-1
• Gorkhas Imagined: I. B. Rai in Translation (edited with Anmole Prasad). Mukti Prakashan, 2009.
• Violent Civilities: English, India, Culture. Aarhus University Press, 2002. ISBN 978-87-7288-767-8
• Translating Nations (editor). Aarhus University Press, 2000.

Selected articles and chapters

• "The uses of the passport: The Chess Players and narratives of British nationhood",
• "'In a little country like ours…': Narrating minority identity" (with Cheralyn Mealor), Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 44(2), 2008.
• "'The power of mantras': postcoloniality, education and development", Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 14(2), 2006.
• "Stating culture: colonial matrices", Journal for Cultural Research, 7(3), 2003.

• Alexander von Humboldt Senior Fellowship, 2010^[13]
• Carlsberg Senior Fellowship, Churchill College, Cambridge, 2007
• Confucius Understanding China Fellowship, 2017