Bio

Aditya Sondhi is a Senior Advocate and practices law in the High Court of Karnataka and the Supreme Court of India. He has authored a book of non-fiction – Unfinished Symphony – with Penguin (India) and has been a winner at the Deccan Herald Short Story Competition. Aditya got his PhD from the Mysore University for his thesis on ‘The Interface Between the Army and Democracy: India and Pakistan Compared.’ He writes and speaks on matters of national security from time to time and is the Founder-Managing Trustee of the General K.S. Thimayya Memorial Trust.

Bio

Ajit Balakrishnan is the founder and CEO of rediff.com, a pioneering Internet company with its head office in Mumbai and which trades on New York’s NASDAQ stock market. He is a graduate of the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, where he is presently Chairman of the Board of Governors. He has written The Wave Rider.

Bio

Ajitha G.S. has been an editor in various media and formats for the past 17 years. She is currently senior commissioning editor, HarperCollins Publishers India.

Bio

Altaf Tyrewala has worked as a cashier, a telemarketer, a clerk and an instructional writer. He has written No God in Sight, Ministry of Hurt Sentiments and Engglishhh.

Bio

Andaleeb Wajid is the author of 26 published novels and she writes across different genres such as romance, YA and horror. Her horror novel It Waits was shortlisted at Mami Word to Screen 2017 and her novel House of Screams has been optioned for screen by a reputed production house. Andaleeb’s novel When She Went Away was shortlisted for The Hindu Young World Prize in 2017 and she has two new upcoming novels with Penguin and Penguin-Duckbill in 2021. Andaleeb is a hybrid author who has self-published 9 novels in 2019 and 2020.

Bio

Andie De Arment joined the U.S. Consulate General in Chennai as Cultural Affairs Officer in August 2014. A career member of the U.S. Foreign Service, Andie comes to India from the U.S. Interest Section in Havana, Cuba, where she worked as the American Citizen Services Chief. She has previously served as Information Officer in Karachi, Pakistan and Public Affairs Officer in Surabaya, Indonesia. Andie was nominated for the U.S. Department of State’s highest public diplomacy honor, the Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Public Diplomacy in 2011. A native of Northwest Pennsylvania, Andie holds a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations, a law degree (Juris Doctor), and Certificate in International Trade and Development from The Ohio State University. Prior to joining the Department of State she lived and worked overseas in China, Poland, and Kenya.

Bio

Anil Srinivasan is a classical pianist who has created a unique and contemporary aesthetic of his own, marrying Indian music with the unmistakable influence of the West. His compositions are often structurally complex, but intuitive and moving to the listener.

As a game changer, his solo performances and renditions have been noted for the delicacy of his touch as well as their ability to connect instantly with listeners from across the world.

He often collaborates with some of the finest musicians from different styles and schools of music. These include top names in the current Indian classical scene as well as musicians from other parts of the world.

Winner of the coveted SNA award for creative and experimental music in 2010 (India’s top honours for musicians under the age of 35), Anil has performed in some of the most diverse venues in the world – from the UNESCO heritage site at Hampi, South India to the Queen Elizabeth Hall at the Southbank Centre, from the hills outside Ojai Valley, California to the Esplanade Recital Studios in Singapore.

Bio

Anjum Hasan’s latest book is the short fiction collection Difficult Pleasures. She is also the author of the novels Neti, Neti and Lunatic in my Head and the collection of poems, Street on the Hill. She has contributed to anthologies such as HarperCollins Book of Indian Poetry, The Popcorn Essayists: What Movies Do To Writers and 60 Indian Poets. Her book reviews, essays and travelogues are widely published. She is currently books editor at Caravan and lives in Bangalore.

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Arnab Ray, better known as Greatbong, is one of India’s most widely read bloggers (http://greatbong.net). His first book “May I Hebb Your Attention Pliss”, was published by Harper Collins in 2010, his second book, The Mine, by Westland in 2012 and now his third book “Yatrik”, also from Westland Publishers, hits the stands in September. He is known for his sarcastic takes on the Indian film industry, Indian politics and society in general. He has written for several media outlets like the NY Times, Washington Post, Times of India, and the Hindustan Times. He is presently employed as a senior research scientist at the University of Maryland and resides in the suburbs of Washington DC.

Bio

Arshia Sattar’s translations of the Valmiki Ramayana (1996) and Tales from the Kathasaritsagara (1993) are published by Penguin Books as is her collection of essays on the Ramayana, “Lost Loves: Exploring Rama’s Anguish” (2011) which was short-listed for the Crossword Non-Fiction Award in 2012. She has also written three books for children, most recently, “Adventures with Hanuman” (Red Turtle, 2013). Her latest book, “The Mouse Merchant: Tales of Money in Ancient India” (Alan Payne, Penguin 2013) is a compilation of stories from Sanskrit texts about attitudes to money.

Arshia teaches classical Indian literatures at various institutions across the country and along with DW Gibson, is the Founder and Director of Sangam House, an international writers’ residency program located outside Bangalore.

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Arthi Anand Navaneeth is a marketing professional who on weekends becomes the voice of Art’s Tales. It is here she brings together her love for stories, song, dance and of course, children. Have You Seen This? and Ranganna are her picture books from Tulika Publishers.

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Arthur Dudney was born in the United States but has been visiting Delhi for much of his life. In Delhi: Pages from a Forgotten History (Hay House India, 2014) he shares his love for the city’s cultural history with non-scholars. He received his doctorate from Columbia University last year, and is currently a Junior Research Fellow at Oxford University.

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Chancellor, Central University of Himachal Pradesh
Chairman, HelpAge International
Former Member, Planning Commission of India
Former Chairman, Boston Consulting Group, India

Discussions on policy and the future of India are enriched with Arun Maira’s views, and not just because he was a member of the Planning Commission of India for five years till June 2014. He is one of those rare people who have held leadership positions in both, the private as well as the public sector, bringing a unique perspective on how the two can work together to foster growth for India. He has led three rounds of participative and comprehensive scenario building for the future of India: in 1999 (with the Confederation of Indian Industry), 2005 (with the World Economic Forum), and 2011 (with the Planning Commission).

In his career spanning five decades, Arun has led several organisations. In the early part of his career, he was a member of the Tata Administrative Service and spent 25 years in the Tata Group in various important positions. He was an executive member of the Board of Tata Motors (then called TELCO) from 1980 to 1989. After leaving the Tatas, Arun joined Arthur D Little Inc (ADL), the international management consultancy, in the US, where he was head of the global organization practice and Managing Director of Innovation Associates, an ADL subsidiary. He advised companies across sectors and geographies on their growth strategies and handling transformational change.

Another decade later, Arun was back in India, this time as the Chairman of the Boston Consulting Group, a position he held for eight years till 2008. The other leadership positions he has held include the Chairman of Axis Bank Foundation and Save the Children, India, and Chairman, Quality Council of India. He was also board member of the India Brand Equity Foundation, the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs, and the UN Global Compact.

Recognising his astute understanding of both macro as well as micro policy issues, Arun has been involved in several government committees and organisations, including the National Innovation Council. He has been on the board of several companies as well as educational institutions and has chaired several national committees of the Confederation of Indian Industries.

In 2009, Arun was appointed as a member of the Planning Commission, which is led by the Prime Minister of India. At this minister-level position, he led the development of strategies for the country on issues relating to industrialisation and urbanisation, and drove the formulation of policies and programmes in these areas. He also advised the Commission on its future role.

Presently, Arun Maira is Chancellor of the Central University of Himachal Pradesh, Chairman of HelpAge International, Chairman of the Foundation of MSME Clusters, and President of the Consumer Unity and Trust Society of India. He is also a Member of the Advisory Boards of the Global Economic Symposium and Forum 2000.

With his vast experience and expertise, Arun is respected as a thought leader. He is invited to speak at various forums and has written several books that capture his insights. His most recent book, published in August 2017 is Listening for Well-Being: Conversations with People Not Like Us. His earlier books include An Upstart in Government: Journeys of Change and Learning; Redesigning the Aeroplane While Flying: Reforming Institutions; Remaking India: One Country, One Destiny; and Transforming Capitalism: Improving the World for Everyone

Bio

Author, journalist and politician Arun Shourie has received several national and international awards, including the Padma Bhushan, the Magsaysay Award, the Dadabhai Naoroji Award, the Astor Award and the International Editor of the Year Award. Acclaimed as one of ‘World Press Freedom Heroes’ by the International Press Institute, a “Star of Asia” by Business Week and “Business Leader of the Year” by the Economic Times jury, he was a minister in the government of India 1998–2004. His books include Does He Know a Mother’s Heart? How Suffering Refutes Religions, We Must Have No Price, Worshipping False Gods, Falling Over Backwards: An essay against Reservations and against Judicial populism, The World of Fatwas or the Sharia in Action, Harvesting Our Souls and Hinduism: Essence and Consequence.

Bio

In a previous life, Aruna Nambiar was a student of engineering and management, and a banker. Now a writer and editor, she writes tongue-in-cheek novels about life, relationships and the idiosyncrasies of Indian society.

Her latest novel, The Weird Women’s Club, is a witty, irreverent tale about reclaiming life after loss, dealing with society’s scrutiny as a woman and finding comfort and camaraderie with one’s own peculiar sisterhood. The novel challenges society’s outmoded beliefs about women’s lives and identities in a very lighthearted manner.

She is also the author of The Monsters Still Lurk, a bittersweet family saga that explores ageing and family dynamics, and Mango Cheeks, Metal Teeth, a coming-of-age story and social satire set in 1980s Kerala.

Her recent works also include 2 ebooks of comic short fiction, Gender Bender and Lalita Kothandapani and the Heinous Crime. Her short stories have been featured in a number of anthologies as well, and she has edited fiction and non-fiction for several publishing houses including Penguin India and Westland Books.

Bio

A founder member of the Alternative Law Forum (ALF), Arvind received his Bachelor’s degree in law from the National Law School of India University (NLSIU) in Bangalore followed by a Masters in the University of Warwick on a Chevening scholarship. He was actively involved in working on child rights and juvenile justice at the NLSIU Centre for the Child and the Law. He also taught courses at the NLSIU on human rights law and ideology, ethnic conflict, law, poverty and development. Arvind now works full time at ALF dividing his time between litigation on the criminal side and research and advocacy on sexuality and minority related issues.

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Ashok Vajpeyi is a Hindi poet-critic, translator, editor and culture-activist and is a major cultural figure of India. With more than 13 books of poetry, 10 of criticism in Hindi and 4 books on art in English to his credit, he is widely recognized as an outstanding promoter of culture and an innovative institution-builder. At present he is the Executive Trustee of the Raza Foundation, New Delhi.

Bio

Asma Jahangir is the elected President of the Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan in 2011 and was twice elected as Chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. Asma is also a Director of the AGHS Legal Aid Cell, which provides free legal assistance to the needy and was instrumental in the formation of the Punjab Women Lawyers Association in 1980 and the Women Action Forum in 1985.

She was placed under house arrest and later imprisoned for participating in the movement to restore political and fundamental rights under the military regime in 1983.

She has authored two books and five papers. She has received honorary Doctor of Law degrees from the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, Queen’s University, Canada and Amherst College, USA. She has been the recipient of a number of international and national awards, among them the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1995.

In 1998, Asma was appointed United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or arbitrary execution of the Commission on Human Rights and in 2004 she was appointed United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief of the Council of Human Rights.

She served as a leading figure in the campaign waged by the women activists against the promulgation of the controversial Hadood Ordinance and draft law on evidence. Moreover, she has defended cases of discrimination against religious minorities, women and children.

Bio coming soon.

Bio

Benedict Paramanand edits SustainabilityNext e-magazine. He curates Business Literature Festival and Green Literature Festival.

He has written three biographies – CK Prahalad – The Mind of the Futurist
Baba Iqbal Singh – Rebooting Punjab through Value-based Education
Sushil Mantri – Big Bets Big Rewards

His latest book Smash! The Rise of Indian Badminton – Stories of Grit & Triumph captures Indian badminton’s explosive journey from Prakash Padukone to P V Sindhu.
It’s less of a book on badminton sport, and more on lesser known factors that contributed to India emerging as a force in the world of badminton.
It also looks at the current weaknesses and how to plug them so that India can do even better in the future.
While badminton has emerged as the most popular sport in India after cricket and football, the book offers a recipe for making the sport a bigger movement.
For sports lovers, entrepreneurs, students and business leaders, this book can be a guide for achieving peak performance and inculcating a champion’s mindset.

Bio

Bhawana Somaaya has been writing about Hindi cinema for more than 40 years.
She is a film critic, columnist and author of several books which includes biographies of Amitabh Bachchan and Hema Malini.
Once Upon A Time in India profiling 100 years of Indian cinema and other books are a point of reference for students studying cinema at Whistling Woods, Manipal University and now JNU, Delhi.
She has served on Advisory Panel of Film Certificate in India, is chairperson of Tigerland India Film Festival, Madhya Pradesh and on Advisory Panel for Dhai Akshar, Educational Centre for underprivileged children.
Conferred with Padma Shri in 2017 Somaaya is currently the Entertainment Editor at 92.7Big Fm Radio channel.
Keshava: A Magnificent Obsession is Somaaya’s fourteenth book and second offering to Lord Krishna.

Bio

Binalakshmi Nepram, born in Manipur, is a writer, civil rights activist and a humanitarian spearheading work on making women-led disarmament a movement and an issue that is meaningful to people’s lives. She is author of four books: “Poetic Festoon”,  “South Asia’s Fractured Frontier”, “Meckley”,a historical fiction based on Manipur, and “India and the Arms Trade Treaty”. In 2004, Nepram co-founded India’s first civil society organization which is working on conventional disarmament issues – the Control Arms Foundation of India. And in 2007, in order to help thousands of women who are affected by gun violence in her home-state Manipur, she launched the Manipur Women Gun Survivor Network. She has represented Indian civil society in various women and disarmament meetings held at United Nations in New York. A recipient of the Dalai Lama Foundation’s WISCOMP Scholar of Peace Award,2008,Sean MacBride Peace Prize,2010; CNN IBN Real Heroes Award,2011, her team Manipur Women Gun Survivors Network won “Indian of the Year “Award in Special Achievement category same year. In 2013, London based organization Action on Armed Violence named Nepram as “100 most influential people in the world working on armed violence reduction”.

Bio

Binod Ghosal is a popular young writer of West Bengal. A journalist by profession, Binod regularly writes short stories, novels, features and film criticisms in the leading magazines and journals of West Bengal as well as other states of India and abroad.

Binod started writing after 2000 and within a very short time he made his space in modern Bengali literature, specially in the field of short stories. Many of his stories have been adopted into stage drama and or broadcast as radio plays. Binod is a recipient of Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar 2011 for his first collection of short stories “Danawala Manush’. He was also honoured with Paschimbanga Bangla Akademi Award in the year 2014.

Bio

Brenton McKenna is a young indigenous writer/Illustrator from Broome, in the far North West of Australia. Ever since he can remember, Brenton has been passionate about art and telling stories. He first developed his love of comic books and this style of drawing when he was very young. Since then, Brenton has been immersed in the world of comic art, cartooning and graphic novels. He is inspired by the multicultural history of his hometown and draws on Aboriginal and foreign mythologies in his stories. Brenton studied visual arts for two years at Goldburn TAFE and in 2009 was one of twenty successful applicants to be awarded a highly sought after mentorship with the Australian Society of Authors. Brenton was a Deadly Award nominee in 2011, guest panelist at Dromkeen Literary Lunch for Graphic Novelists and winner of Kullarri NAIDOC award for Literature. UBBY’S UNDERDOGS is his first graphic novel.

Bio

Bio coming soon!

Bio

Former Indian ambassador to China and France; co-author of India and China – The Way Ahead, Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Chinese Studies, New Delhi.

Bio

Chetan Bhagat is the author of twelve blockbuster books. These include nine novels—Five Point Someone (2004), One Night @ the Call Center (2005), The 3 Mistakes of My Life (2008), 2 States (2009), Revolution 2020 (2011), Half Girlfriend (2014), One Indian Girl (2016), The Girl in Room 105 (2018), One Arranged Murder (2020) and three non-fiction titles— What Young India Wants (2012) Making India Awesome(2015) and India Positive (2019). Chetan’s books have remained bestsellers since their release. Five out of his eight novels have been already adapted into successful Bollywood films and the others are in process of being adapted as well. The New York Times called him the ‘the biggest selling English language novelist in India’s history’. Time magazine named him amongst the ‘100 most influential people in the world’ and Fast Company, USA, listed him as one of the world’s ‘100 most creative people in business’. Chetan writes columns for leading English and Hindi newspapers, focusing on youth and national development issues. He is also a motivational speaker and screenplay writer. Chetan quit his international investment banking career in 2009 to devote his entire time to writing and make change happen in the country. He lives in Mumbai with his wife, Anusha, an ex-classmate from IIM-A, and his twin boys, Shyam and Ishaan. You can email him at info@chetanbhagat.com or fill in the Guestbook with your feedback. You can also follow him on twitter (@chetan_bhagat) or like his Facebook fanpage (https://www.facebook.com/chetanbhagat.fanpage) or on Instagram (https://www,instagram.com/chetanbhagat).

Bio

Danish Sheikh graduated from NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad, following which he pursued a master’s degree at the University of Michigan Law School on a Michigan Grotius Fellowship. He works at the Alternative Law Forum conducting research and advocacy relating to Gender and Sexuality law and Free Speech. He is also collaborating on an anthologized novel titled Invisible Libraries due for publication by Yoda Press later this year.

Bio

In his own words – Born in Shillong, Meghalaya, a place very close to my heart for the excellent childhood spent in that now slightly defaced hill station. Studied in St Edmund’s School and College where sports and erratic reading took up most of my time. Graduated with honours in economics and later my masters in the same subject from Gauhati varsity. Took to writing fiction from an early age( while in school) and did a stint as the editor for the college magazine during 1975-76. After several jobs, including that of a salesman in Delhi and a teacher in a venture college later joined the Assam Civil Service in 1983 and inducted into the Indian Administrative Service in 2000. Presently posted a s The Secretary, Tourism and urban Development Departments, Assam I had earlier done my usual bureaucratic stints as a field officer. I travel a lot, primarily because, short as I am of the innate imaginative qualities required of a fiction-writer, the experience gathered from the mostly unplanned travelling is fodder for the whatever written works that I have managed to bring out. Have written over 60 short stories published in various magazines(First Proof, New Frontiers, etc) and newspapers( Sunday sections). In 2006, 2010 and 2014, Penguin India Ltd published A Bowstring Winter (novel), Luck (short story collection), Sons Of Brahma (novel), respectively. Received the Katha Award for Fiction in English in 1996. Am also a proud founder-member of the vibrant North East Writers’ Forum, established in 1997, comprising a disparate writers, poets from Arunachal, Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Tripura and Sikkim. The Forum promotes original writings in the English language as well as promoting translations. Our present membership exceeds 350.

Bio

Dominique Varma studied Classics and Literature at the Sorbonne, and has also a M.A. in Indian philosophy and Sanskrit. She teaches at the University of Lille, in the North of France, and for the last twenty years has gone back and forth between India and France. She co-edited a collection of essays entitled Memories of the Second Sex published by Somaiya Publications in 2000. Her first novelShifting Sands was published in English by Penguin India in 2004 and in French as Sables Mouvants by Kailash Editions Paris in 2005. Dominique Varma’s second book of fiction After the Deluge has been published by Rupa in 2014

Bio

A danseuse par excellence, a renowned psychiatrist Dr. K.S. Pavitra hails from Shivamogga, the cultural city of Malnad. She is the second daughter of renowned psychiatrist Dr. K.R. Sridhar and noted writer Smt. Vijaya Sridhar. Dr. Pavitra completed her M.B.B.S at Mysore Medical College and Specialized in Psychiatry by obtaining M.D. from National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore. Along with her academics Pavitra had the opportunity to study Bharatanatyam, Karnatic Vocal & Veena, Sanskrit & Kannada literature, Yoga and Kalaripayatt. Tough Pavitra completed preliminary exams in all these areas with excellence, she chose Bharatanatyam as her passion. Pavitra’s artistry is the quintessence of the pristine purity of the much sought after Pandanallur School of Bharatanatyam. She was astutely trained with a hard apprenticeship under Karnataka Kala Tilaka Guru Dr. Vasundhara Doreswamy in Pandanallur School of Dance for more than 20 years.

Bio

Dr Dylan Coleman is of Kokatha (Gugatha) First Nation Australian Aboriginal and Greek ancestry. She lectures in Indigenous Health at the University of Adelaide in South Australia after completing her PhD at the same university. Dr Coleman’s thesis explores Indigenous narrative process and its capacity to recreate stories of trauma and loss as ones of survival and liberation, drawing on a range of theoretical discourses such as: narrative approaches, stand point, literary and critical race and whiteness theories; and including a range of Indigenous public health principles. Her experience is in community engagement within various Indigenous communities throughout Australia, and in South Australia in the area of public health, with a focus on substance misuse and building community capacity and resilience through community controlled approaches to health. The creative component of Dr Coleman’s PhD work, Mazin Grace, based on her mother’s childhood growing up on Koonibba Mission under oppressive colonial government policies including segregation of the 1940’s and 50’s was written in Aboriginal English and Kokatha language. This work won the Australian David Unaipon Indigenous Literary Award, was longlisted for the Stella Prize, (a prestigious Australian women’s literary award), and shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book Prize. Dr Coleman believes writing can be used as a tool of liberation, and writing in one’s own language can challenge oppressive colonial histories through to the present day, while empowering individuals and whole communities. Dr Coleman is also a political activist and has a keen interest in social justice issues including Aboriginal self-governance.

Bio

G Sampath is a writer and journalist based in Delhi. He is currently the social affairs editor at The Hindu. He was previously a columnist for Livemint. He was part of the launch team of Daily News and Analysis (DNA) in Mumbai and served as its books editor from 2005 to 2012. He is the author of How to Make Enemies and Offend People, a work of satirical non-fiction, and the editor of The Pleasure Principle, an anthology of erotic fiction. His collection of short stories, Autoplay, is forthcoming in 2017.

Bio

Odia poet, fiction writer, journalist and literary magazine editor, Gayatribala Panda has published seven collections of poems and her selected Odia poems translated into Hindi, named Dhoop ko rang. The anguish of a woman, social injustices and inequalities are the dominant themes of her poetry. She is Central Sahitya Akademi First Yuva Puraskar winner(Odia) for 2011. Among her several other honours and awards are State Youth Award for Poetry-1999-2000, Rajiv Gandhi Sadbhavana Award-2011 and Utkal Sahitya Samaj Yuva Kabi Samman-2010. She has participated in SAARC Young Writers Meet-2008 and Commonwealth Writers Meet-2010. As a poet she has been invited to literary conferences and festivals in various parts of India. Her work has been translated into several languages.

Bio

Girish Karnad – actor, film director, writer, playwright – was conferred the Jnanpith Award, the Padma Shri and the Padma Bhushan. His plays include Hayavadana, Naga-Mandala, Agni Mattu Male, Yayati and Benda Kalu on Toast. His plays in Kannada have been translated into English and many other Indian languages.

Bio

Grew up in a small gold mining town in Karnataka, went to college in Bangalore taught high school for a year and squeezed her way into journalism. Worked as a trainee for Hindustan Times Delhi and then at the age of 21 became a full-fledged reporter for Indian Express Bangalore…the first woman reporter in the city. Free-lanced for a long, long time, writing for a wide range of English language publications from different parts of the country. Her latest book of narrative journalism “Baby Makers: The Story of Indian Surrogacy” (Harper Collins 2014) the first ever comprehensive book on the subject has already received excellent reviews. Her other books are “Colour of Gold” a mystery novel set in an Indian gold mining town (Harper Collins in 2013), “Disappearing Daughters: the tragedy of Female Foeticide” (Penguin 2007)(translated into Marathi & Japanese), “Unbound: Indianwomen@work” (Penguin 2010) and “The Healing” a novel set in Chennai (Harper Collins 2008)

Bio

Professor Graham Welch holds the Institute of Education, University of London Established Chair of Music Education (since 2001). He is a past president of the International Society for Music Education (ISME) (2008 to 2014), elected Chair of the internationally based Society for Education, Music and Psychology Research and past co-chair of the ISME Research Commission of ISME. He holds Visiting Professorships at universities in the UK and overseas and is also a member of the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council Review College for music. Internationally, he has acted as a specialist external consultant on aspects of children’s singing and vocal development for UK and Italian government agencies, as well as for specialist research centres in the USA, Australia and Sweden. Publications number over 300.

Bio

Arathi.H.N a media person/poet writes in Kannada language, lives in Bengaluru, India. She has 2 poetry collections, a play and 2 books of translation from English to Kannada. Arathi.H.N. has participated in National and International poetry and media festivals, including Slovenian literary festival, Europe. Her poems are translated into Malayalam, Tamil, English and Slovenian languages. She is a Senior Programme Executive working with the Government owned Television Media. She has two state awards for her poetry collections to her credit. A Quiz show on Kannada language and literature, called “THATT ANTA HELI” which is directed by her holds a record of longest running quiz show by Limca book of world records..completing 2500 episodes.

Bio

Born 1954, Bangalore
Professor, Theatre and Performance Studies, JNU, New Delhi.

Author of 9 books of poems, 15 plays and 3 critical works in Kannada, which are widely discussed, performed and translated into several Indian languages and into English, Spanish,French, Italian German, Polish and Turkish. 

Winner of several best book prizes from Krnataka Literary Akademi for books of poems, translations and plays. Academic areas of interest include theatre/literary history, Indian theatre, Medival Studies, Comparative Literature, translation and folklore. Winner of the prestigious Rajyotsava Award from Karnataka State(2006) and Sangeet Natak Akademi Award from National Theatre Akademi (1997) and Sahitya
Akademi(2012) Participated in International Writing Program in School of Letters, University of Iowa, USA (2000). Former Editor, Indian Literature, the journal of National Akademi of Letters.  Former Dean, SAA, JNU. Former Director, The Tagore Centre, Berlin, Germany

Has travelled, lectured and read poetry in various countries in Europe, Asia and Americas.

Important English publications include I Keep Vigil of Rudra ( Penguin Classics, 2009), Traditional India Theatre (New Delhi, 2006), Indian Theatre 2000 (edited) (New Delhi, 2011).

Bio coming soon.

Bio

• Harish Bijoor is a Brand-thinker and practitioner operating out of Bengaluru, India. He runs a unique boutique-consulting outfit branded “Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.”, a brand name that has a consulting presence across the markets of Hong Kong, Seattle, London, Istanbul, Dubai and the Indian sub-continent.
• Harish has spent his career across the aggressive realms of FMCG, Telecom and Consumer Durables. He is considered a marketing practitioner and thinker who is ahead of the consumer thinking curve, year on year.
• Harish is a public speaker who speaks to corporate audiences across the globe in the realm of motivation, people-management issues, brands, marketing and business at large. He has spoken to corporate audiences across the world for 15, 812 hours to date.
• Harish teaches at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad & Mohali, in addition to semesters at overseas Business schools in the US and Europe. He has been teaching at the Indian School of Business for the past 20 years.
• Harish has recently published a book titled, “Marketing Trends – Smart Insights into the world of Indian Business”, a serious book written in a style that is distinctly young and ‘MTV-ish’!
• He is currently involved in his second book on core branding. The book is titled, ”Brand Irrationals: a fundamental journey into brand-think”
• Harish has simultaneously been commissioned to write a book on “Customer Service mechanisms” at play in contemporary marketing contexts.
• Harish is actively involved in research relating to Rural Consumer Behavior, Rural Retail Networks and Trade mechanisms at play. The current research exercise he is involved in spans a 6-year period covering 84,850 consumers across India.
• Harish has published papers extensively on the subjects relating to Strategic Marketing, Branding, Consumer Behavior, Retail networks, Rural marketing, Marketing research and Trend-analysis.
• Harish Bijoor contributes regularly to Business publications on Branding, sales, distribution and related topics.
• Currently, Harish works on the bleeding-edge brand & marketing work related to the Metaverse and Web 3.0

Find out more about Harish Bijoor at:
Http://ww.harishbijoorconsults.com
You can follow him on Twitter.com @harishbijoor

Bio

Haroon Khalid has an academic background in Anthropology and has been a travel writer and freelance journalist since 2008, traveling extensively around Pakistan, documenting historical and cultural heritage. He has written for several newspapers and magazines, including The News, Express Tribune, The Friday Times, Dawn, Scroll and Himal. His first book A White Trail: a journey into the heart of Pakistan’s religious minorities was published in 2013. His second book In Search of Shiva: a study of folk religious practices in Pakistan will be released in December, and his third book Walking with Nanak is scheduled to be released in April 2016. He is also an educationist and lives in Islamabad with his wife.

Bio

Hormis Tharakan, is a former Indian Police Service officer. He served the Government in various capacities including Secretary (R) in the Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India and Director-General of Police, Kerala. Post retirement in 2007, he has served as Advisor to the Administrative Reforms Commission of India. He was also appointed as Advisor to the Governor in 2007-2008 when President’s Rule was imposed in Karnataka. He served as a Member of the National Security Advisory Board from 2008 to 2010. During the same period, he was also Chief Advisor on Strategic Studies at BrahMos Aerospace, besides being on the Board of Directors of BrahMos Aerospace Trivandrum Limited. Currently, he is an Adjunct Professor at the Department of Geopolitics and International Relations in Manipal University and a Distinguished Scientist on the Visiting Faculty at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, researching into security-related issues. He has been a member of the State Security Commission, Government of Kerala, since 2012. He is currently member of a Committee set up by the Government of Kerala to draw up proposals for a Police University in the State. He was also a member of the Committee on Prevention of Corruption, which submitted its report to the Chief Minister of Kerala in July, 2012. He is on the Board of Governors of Janaagraha, a Bangalore-based organization working for urban renewal in India. He writes on issues related to geopolitics, terrorism, peace and conflict resolution in national dailies, most frequently in the Indian Express.

Bio

Humra Quraishi is a Delhi based writer, columnist and journalist. Her books include Kashmir: The Untold Story and a volume of her collective writings, Views: Yours and Mine. She has co- authored books with Khushwant Singh – The Good, the Bad and The Ridiculous and Absolute Khushwant. Her take on what’s it like to be a singleton in today’s turbulent times is part of the anthology – Chasing the Good Life : On Being Single. One of her essays, The State Can’t Snatch Away our Children, is part of the anthology – Of Mothers And Others Her short story collection – More Bad Time Tales was launched recently.

Bio

Indrajit Hazra is a writer and journalist. He is the author of numerous novels including The Garden of Earthly Delights (Roli/IndiaInk). His columns appear in the Times of India, the Sunday Guardian and the Khaleej Times. He lives in New Delhi and reads more than he writes.

Bio

Jahnavi Barua is an Indian writer based in Bangalore. Next Door (Penguin India, 2008), her debut collection of short stories was longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. Her next, a novel called Rebirth (Penguin India, 2010), was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. The third, Undertow, a novel, was published by Penguin Random House India (Viking Books) in February 2020 and was longlisted for the JCB Prize for Literature 2020 and the BLF Atta Galatta Book Prize 2020. It won the Best Fiction Prize in the Auther Award 2021 and the Kalinga Literary Festival Award for Fiction, 2021. Her short fiction has been widely anthologized and her work is part of several university syllabi. Jahnavi is a qualified doctor but does not practise medicine. She was born in Guwahati and raised between Assam, Shillong and Delhi.

Bio

Jane De Suza’s latest novel Happily Never After is a hilariously honest love story. Earlier books include the detective-comedy The Spy who Lost her Head and the best-selling SuperZero series for children, among others. She is a management grad and an advertising  consultant, and writes for magazines and anthologies across the world.

Bio

Jeanine Leane is a Wiradjuri woman from South-west New south Wales. A Doctorate in literature and Aboriginal representation followed a long teaching career at secondary and Tertiary level. Formerly a Research Fellow at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander Studies, she currently holds a post-doctoral fellowship at ANU. In 2010, Jeanine’s first volume of poetry, Dark Secrets After Dreaming: AD 1887-1961 won the Scanlon Prize for Indigenous Poetry from the Australian Poets’ Union and her manuscript, Purple Threads won the David Unaipon Award at the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards and is shortlisted for the 2012 Commonwealth Book Prize and the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards. Jeanine is the recipient of an Australian Research Council Discovery grant (2011) for her project; Reading the Nation: A critical study of Aboriginal/Settler representation in the contemporary Australian Literary Landscape and a Discovery Indigenous Award (2013) for her new project; The David Unaipon Award: Shaping the literary and cultural history of Aboriginal writing in Australia.

Bio

Winner of Sahitya Academy Award for 2013, social activist and commercial shipping professional.

Works:

Korkkai – Tamil Novel, published in Dec 2009 talked about a traditional community in south Tamil Nadu who were pioneers of Maritime Business and were also the Pearl Divers of Coromandal coast.
Aazhi Suzh Ulagu – Tamil Novel, published in Nov’2004 talked about traditional Fishermen who are making their living through fishing. It deals with the lives and fortune of several interlinked catholic fisherman family.

Accolades:

Sahitya Academy Award  (2013) and Sujatha Best Novel Award (2011)
for ‘Korkai’

Bio

John Elliott is a former Financial Times journalist, whose best-selling book IMPLOSION: India’s Tryst with Reality was published earlier this year by Harper Collins India. Based in New Delhi, he writes a blog on South Asia current affairs: http://ridingtheelephant.wordpress.com/.

He first came to India in 1983 to open the FT’s South Asia bureau, and in 1988 was posted to Hong Kong. He returned to India in 1995 and has reported for The Economist, Fortune magazine, theNew Statesman,and now for Hong Kong-based AsiaSentinel.com. In 1995 he wrote “India and China – Asia’s New Giants: Stepping Stones to Prosperity”, for the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Contemporary Studies. He lead-edited an anthology, “Foreign Correspondent – 50 years of Reporting South Asia” ” (Penguin India, 2008/9).

Bio

Josy Joseph is the author of the recently released book, A Feast of Vultures: The Hidden Business of Democracy in India. He is an award-winning investigative journalist based in New Delhi and presently the National Security Editor of The Hindu. He holds a Master’s in International Relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, and Bachelor of Science in mathematics from Kerala University. He lives in New Delhi.

Bio

Born in 1937 in Lahore, now in Pakistan, Keki N. Daruwalla has been a notable presence on the literary scene for quite some time. The characteristic features of his poetry can be described as vigor and immediacy of language, knife-edge tone, an abiding and infatuated concern with love, death and domination, a skeptic and indignant cynicism about the plight of human society and a rare intensity in portraying living individuals. Daruwalla readily admits to critics’ charges of being too much of a landscape poet who takes into his aesthetic stride the sights and sounds of England, Yugoslavia, Helsinki, Stockholm, Volgograd, and Moscow which he has visited for poetry readings. His thematic canvas transcends the boundaries of India and stretches itself into the rest of the world. Critics maintain his concern for broad landscape imagery rather than political and social issues is a result of his long career as a Government of India official.

While pursuing his craft of writing, Keki N. Daruwalla served an illustrious career in Indian Police Service, rising to become a Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on International Affairs. He subsequently was in the Cabinet Secretariat until his retirement.

A recipient of Sahitya Akademi Award and Commonwealth Poetry Award, Keki N. Daruwalla has so far published about 12 books, consisting of mostly poems and a couple of fictional works. Some of his important works are Under Orion, The keeper of the dead, Landscapes, A summer of tigersand The minister for permanent unrest & other stories. He also edited Two decades of Indian poetry. The Library of Congress has all his books.

Bio

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is the chairman and managing director of Biocon Limited, a biotechnology company based in Bangalore and the current chairperson of IIM-Bangalore. In 2014, she was awarded the Othmer Gold Medal, for outstanding contributions to the progress of science and chemistry. She is on the Financial Times’ top 50 women in business list. As of 2014, she is listed as the 92nd most powerful woman in the world by Forbes. She is also a member of the board of governors of the prestigious Indian School of Business and Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad.

Bio

Krishna K Manavalli is currently Professor in the department of English at the University of Mysore, Mysore. Krishna is a literary critic and translator who works in both English and Kannada languages. In her long and brilliant academic career in the US and India, Krishna has worked on multiple areas such as contemporary British literature, South Asian writing, postcolonial studies, feminism, cultural studies, and translations. She also taught for many years in the US. Krishna has published internationally in important literary and cultural studies journals such as Comparative Critical Studies (UK), Journal of Contemporary Thought (US & India), Studies in South Asian Film and Media (US), Proud Flesh, African Journal of Culture, and others. She presented at several major seminars and conferences across the world including the American Comparative Literature Association & Harvard University, Carnegie Foundation for Advancement of Teaching (Texas A & M), and Rocky Mountain MLA (Calgary, Canada).
She has given talks at prestigious literary festivals in India like the Times Litfest, Bangalore Literary Festival, Bangalore Poetry Festival and Mysore Literary Festival and the Sahitya Akademi Festival of Letters. In addition, Krishna does freelance writing, mainly literary reviews and interviews, for the Times of India, The Hindu, and the Indian Express. Apart from being a member of the English Advisory Board of the Central Sahitya Akademi (New Delhi), Krishna is on many academic and University administrative boards in the state. Krishna’s recent publications include the translation of the renowned Kannada writer and Jnanapith award-winner Chandrashekhar Kambar’s novels Karimayi (Seagull 2017) and Shivana Dangura (Speaking Tiger 2017). Krishna has received the 2019 Karnataka Sahitya Academy award for her translation of Karimayi. Her translation of Dr Kambar’s two plays, Rishyashringa and Mahmoud Gawan, has been published by Penguin Random House recently (2020).

Bio

Lakshmi Devnath is a well-known writer on Carnatic music and other aspects of Indian culture. She has commendable knowledge of Sanskrit as well. Her deeply-researched articles find a place in prestigious publications such as The Hindu, Sruti and Sri Nrisimhapriya. Her body of work includes composers of Carnatic music, texts on Indian music philosophers and saints of India, and the Vedas.

Lakshmi’s passion is to familiarize the young with India’s glorious cultural heritage through innovative and exciting writing that appeals to their lively imagination. To this end, she has authored Sargam, a series of short stories that unravel milestones in the evolution of Carnatic music, and Poorva: Magic, Miracles and the Mystical Twelve, a contemporary retelling of literary hagiology. This book won such acclaim as to invite a republication of the book seven years after it was first launched. Lakshmi’s ongoing graphic series on Carnatic music legends, endearingly titled Pictures of Melody, is another path-breaking initiative.Lakshmi’s other books include A Class Apart, the biography of renowned educationist Mrs. Y. G. Parthasarathy, and An Incurable Romantic: The Musical Journey of Lalgudi Jayaraman. Both became runaway successes, requiring multiple reprints. An Incurable Romantic was sold out even before the official book launch.

Lakshmi’s ability to write with ease on a variety of subjects and for diverse age groups has won her wide admiration. She is currently engaged in writing the much-awaited Poorva sequel, Poorva in the Vedic Age.

Bio

Leila Seth retired as Chief Justice of Himachal Pradesh in 1992, was appointed in 1995 as the one-member commission to examine the death in custody of Rajan Pillai, and from 1997 to 2000 was a member of the 15th Law Commission of India. She does arbitration work and is involved in human rights activities. She lives in Noida with her husband Premo, son Shantum, daughter-in-law Gitanjali and granddaughter Nandini.

Bio

Lijia Zhang (Zhang Lijia) (born in May 1, 1964 in Nanjing) is a writer, journalist and public speaker. She describes herself as a communicator between China and the world and has given talks at conferences about contemporary China and lectured at many top universities including Stanford and Harvard and The University of Sydney. Her articles have been published in many newspapers and magazines. She co-authored China Remembers (OUP, 1999) and her memoir ‘Socialism is Great!’ A Worker’s Memoir of The New China, is published by Atlas & Co. and Random House and has been translated into seven languages. She was the subject of a BBC TV documentary Peschardt’s People. Sponsored by the US State Department, she was a fellow on the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program in 2009, She is completing her first novel, Lotus, about prostitution set in modern day Shenzhen. She currently lives in Beijing with her two daughters. She is a regular guest on ABC, BBC and CNN.

Bio

Madhavi Mahadevan is book critic as well as the author of several children’s books and two collections of short stories. She has written two novels based on the epic, the Mahabharata: The Kaunteyas and the latest one, Bride of the Forest: The Untold Story of Yayati’s Daughter

Bio

Madhu is the Natya Stem Dance Kampni’s Director and Choreographer. A graduate of commerce, journalism and choreography, she has trained in Kathak from her mother Dr Maya Rao and from Smt. Chitra Venugopal. Although she trained in contemporary dance in New York, she came back to India to create a unique ‘contemporary Indian dance’ vocabulary where tradition and modernity co-exist. As a Kathak and contemporary dancer, and panellist at important design and academic institutions, she has been invited on many occasions to perform, design programmes and choreographic works for prestigious cultural organisations in India, UK, Australia, New Zealand, UAE, South East Asia, Europe and USA. Madhu was chosen as one of India’s young achievers by the magazine India Today.

Bio

Madhu Trehan started the news magazine India Today in 1975. In 1986, she produced and anchored a path-breaking television news magazine programme Newstrack and Trehan became known as a pioneer in investigative journalism. In 2009, Trehan’s best seller book, Prism Me a Lie, Tell Me a Truth – Tehelka as Metaphor was published. Trehan is now Editor-in-Chief of www.newslaundry.com, a website that critiques the press and media.

Bio

Madhuri Banerjee is a bestselling author of 5 novels. Her recent book Scandalous Housewives is an explosive look at married women. She is also the screenplay writer for Hate Story 2, Revlon’s Relationship Guru, Maxim’s sex columnist, and a CNN-IBN blogger. Follow her on Twitter @MadhuriBanerjee or Facebook.

Bio

N. A. M. Ismail currently edits the online version of Kannada daily Prajavani. Outside his journalistic career spanning 20 years during which he worked for five newspapers, he is a technology enthusiast, free software activist, a political analyst and a media critic. He has edited four books and has been writing a regular Kannada column (ಇ-ಹೊತ್ತು) on “Information Technology and Society” and has been consulting on using regional languages in computers.

Bio

Mamta Sagar is a noted transdisciplinary poet, translator from Bengaluru. She has curated Art/Literature festivals, participated in many poetry and literature festivals and facilitated poetry and translation workshops internationally. Rucksack, at Global Poetry Patchwork, an Art-Poetry installation project developed and co-curated by Mamta Sagar is on display at the Piccolo Museo della Poesia, (Museum of Poetry), Italy until December 2020.

Poetry Films: INTERVERSIONS – I, INTERVERSIONS – II & INTERVERSIONS – III

Poetry performance-installations have been displayed at:

• Theertha Performance Platform, Colombo, Sri Lanka 2019
• Festival of Stories (Metro Stations) Bengaluru 2018
• Volcano Theatre, Swansea, Wales 2017
• 1Shanthi Road Gallery, Bengaluru 2017
• The Akademie der Künste, Berlin 2016
• Galerija 12HUB, Belgrade 2010

Mamta is the founder director of the community poetry engagement, Kaavya Sanje. She teaches at the Creative Writing Program, Srishti-Manipal Institute of Art, Design and Technology and lives in Bengaluru.

Bio

Margaret Barrett is Professor and Head of the School of Music at the University of Queensland.

Professor Barrett’s research projects encompass the investigation of the role of Music and the Arts in human cognition and social and cultural development. Her research has addressed problems in the areas of aesthetic decision-making, the meaning and value of Arts engagement for young people, young children’s musical thinking, young children’s identity work in and through music, teaching and learning practices in the arts, and the pedagogy and practice of creativity. A key aspect of her work has been the development of innovative arts-based inquiry methods in music and music education.

She has held positions as editor of Research Studies in Music Education, an Associate Editor of Psychology of Music, and a member of the Editorial Boards of key journals in music and arts education.

Professor Barrett has served as President of the International Society for Music Education (2012 – 2014), Chair of the World Alliance for Arts Education (2013 – 2014), Chair of the Asia–Pacific Symposium for Music Education Research (2009 – 2011), an elected member of the Board of the International Society for Music Education (2008 – 2010), and National President of the Australian Society for Music Education (1999 – 2001). Professor Barrett was the music discipline writer for the Shape Paper for the Australian Curriculum – The Arts and continues to provide advice to the curriculum process. She has been an advisor for arts and educational bodies nationally and internationally including the Australia Council for the Arts and the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, UK.

Bio

Marie Munkara: Of Rembarranga, Tiwi and Chinese descent Marie was delivered on the banks of the Mainoru River in Arnhemland by her two grandmothers and spent her early years on Bathurst Island. Her first Novel Every Secret Thing (University of Queensland Press) won the David Unaipon Award in 2008 and the Northern Territories Book of the Year in 2010. Her two children’s books Rusty Brown and Rusty and Jojo (Laguna Bay Oxford Press) were launched in January 2014 and her second novel A Most Peculiar Act (Magabala) in May. Marie is currently working on her third and fourth novels (depending on what mood she’s in) and the TV mini-series for Every Secret Thing. Marie lives in Darwin with her teenage daughter and a menagerie of cats, dogs, frogs and the occasional visiting python.

Bio

Minal Hajratwala’s latest book is Bountiful Instructions for Enlightenment, published by The (Great) Indian Poetry Collective. She is a writing coach, author of the award-winning Leaving India: My Family’s Journey from Five Villages to Five Continents, and editor of Out! Stories from the New Queer India. She graduated from Stanford University, was a fellow at Columbia University, and was a 2011 Fulbright-Nehru Senior Scholar.

Bio

Mini Krishnan edited literary translations for Macmillan India Ltd and Oxford University Press sourcing works from 14 Indian languages.
In all she has published 104 translations of fiction, autobiographies and plays some of which have won national awards. She has published more than two hundred Dalit writers (all genres) in translation in anthologies and standalone volumes of fiction and life writings as well as textbooks for Translation Education.
She served on the National Translation Mission and was the Founding Editor of the British Council’s South Asia Women Writers’ website.
She co-ordinates a project of translations for the Tamil Nadu Textbook & Educational Services Corporation, and is the Series Editor of Living in Harmony (A Peace Education series for schools, OUP India).

Bio

Mita Kapur is the founder and CEO of Siyahi, India’s leading literary consultancy. She also creates and produces literary festivals and book reading events. Her first book, The F-Word was published by HarperCollins India in 2010. As a freelance journalist, she writes regularly for many newspapers and magazines on social and developmental issues along with travel, food and lifestyle humor stories.

Bio

Mitra Phukan is a writer, translator, columnist and classical vocalist who lives and works in Guwahati, Assam. Her published literary works include four children’s books, a biography, two novels, “The Collector’s Wife” and “A Monsoon of Music”, both published by Penguin-Zubaan, and a collection of fifty of her columns, “Guwahati Gaze”. Besides, her short stories have appeared in various journals. Her works have been translated into several Indian and European languages. She edits NEWFrontiers, (the journal of the North East Writers’ Forum) and is an active member of Aradhana, an organization that takes music to the underprivileged sections of society.

Bio

Dr Mridula Nath Chakraborty is lecturer in postcolonial theory at the University of Western Sydney and teaches/publishes on literatures of the subcontinent, in English and in translation, on issues of identity politics and multiculturalism and Bombay cinema. Her latest edited collection of essays, Being Bengali: at home and in the world (Routledge 2013), is an enquiry into the socio-intellectual history of this eclectic linguistic group from Eastern India. She has co-edited A Treasury of Bangla Stories (Srishti 1999) and her translations have appeared in The Table is Laid: the Oxford Anthology of South Asian Food Writing, The Lotus Singers: Stories from Contemporary South Asia, The Picador Book of Modern Indian Literature, The Bell and Other Stories and The Wordsmiths. She is the recipient of an AK Ramanujan Award for the most felicitous translations from two Indian languages, Bangla and Hindi, into English. In the recent years, Mridula has facilitated literary exchange between Australia and India through ALIF: Australia India Literatures International Forum (Sydney 2012) and a tri-nation Autumn School in Literary Translation (Kolkata 2013), where Nunga poet Ali Cobby Eckermann’s work was translated into Bangla. She is currently curating the project Literary Commons! which takes 14 Indigenous writers to Indian literary festivals 2014-2015, and seeks to make personal and publishing connections between Indigenous and Dalit literatures.

Bio

Mrinal Pande was born in 1946 in Tikamgarh to Shivani, a well known Hindi author and Shukdeo Pant, an educationist . She was schooled in Nainital and graduated from the University of Allahabad where she studied Sanskrit, ancient Indian history and English literature. Mrinal has also studied classical Hindusthani ( vocal ) music under eminent Gurus and art at the Corcoran School of Art, Washington DC.

Mrinal has taught at the Universities of Allahabad , Delhi and Bhopal before switching to journalism in mid 1980s . She has edited well known Hindi periodicals, Vama and Saptahik Hindustan for the Times of India and the Hindustan Times group .

Mrinal has worked as Editor Anchor for Hindi news in Star News and also Doordarshan .

In 2000 she became India’s first woman Chief Editor of a multi edition Hindi daily (Hindustan , Hindustan Times Group). She is also the founder President of the Indian Women’s Press Corps, a national body of India’s women journalists and a member of the National Board for Film Certificatio . Mrinal was also a member of the group that prepared Shramshakti, India’s first documentation of the status and lives of women workers in the unorganized informal sector.

In 2009, Mrinal was appointed Chairman of India’s national broadcaster, Prasar Bharati. She completed a 4 year term there and demitted office in April 2014 .

Mrinal has been writing in both Hindi and in Englsish. Her work covers fiction, plays, and essays on contemporary India and its women and a study of India’s rural women and their sexual and reproductive lives . She has also translated two rare accounts of the 1857 Mutiny, one from Marathi and another from Hindi, to highlight common citizens’ testimony as to how they had experienced the uprising.

She was awarded the Padmashree in 2006 for her services in the field of journalism , and the Red Ink Lifetime Achievement Award by the Mumbai Press Club in 2014.

She is married with two daughters and lives in New Delhi with her husband.

Bio

Mudnakudu Chinnaswamy (1954), a well known Kannada Poet hails from Mudnakudu village in Chamarajanagar District of Karnataka. He has two post graduate degrees viz., M.Com. M.A., with a D.Lit. in Social Sciences. He was a Finance Executive by profession and recently retired as Director (Finance) from Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation. Poetry is his passion but worked in other genres of literature as well, besides having a wide range of interests in culture, theatre, cinema and social work. He has brought out 26 books so far which include 6 collections of poetry, 4 of essays, 3 plays and a collection of short stories.

A prominent dalit voice, he has established a niche for himself through his empirical imaging in mellowed tone. His works have been translated into other Indian vernaculars and widely published. Translations of the selected poems in English have been published in the literary journals like Indian Literature, The New Quest, and Little Magazine (India). Translations have also been published in literary Magazines abroad (in Spanish Arquitrave (Columbia) and Hebrew in Helicon (Israel) in German Driesch Verlag (Austria) and so on. He has attended many International Poetry Conferences and extensively traveled.

His poetry in Spanish translated by Rowena Hill ‘Poemas: Mudnakudu Chinnaswamy’ has been published by the Cultural Department of Venezuelan Govt. (CONAC) in 2004 under ‘World Poetry Series’. He stands to be the first poet from kannada lore to get published with an anthology in Spanish. He has directed two plays for theater groups one being ‘Bahurupi’ for the National Repertoire, Rangayana in Mysore.

He has been associated in production of 2 feature films one of which won gold medal from GOK. Besides he himself acted in a documentary ‘mayaa loka’ He has been felicitated in and outside the country and credited with many awards including Karnataka Sahitya Academy Award in 2009 for life time achievement.

Bio coming soon.

Bio

Nalini Rajan is Dean of Studies and Professor, Asian College of Journalism, Chennai, India.  She has a doctorate in Social Communication (specializing in political philosophy) from the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium.  She has travelled widely, and held post-doctoral fellowships in the UK (Oxford and Edinburgh) and in the US (New York).  She has written three works of fiction, four on political philosophy, and edited five works on media studies.  She is General Editor of the Series on ‘Studies in Journalism’ for the publishing house, Orient BlackSwan.

Bio

Writer, publisher and festival director Namita Gokhale has written twelve books including several works of fiction. Her celebrated first novel, ‘Paro: Dreams of Passion’, marks thirty years of publication in 2014. Other novels include ‘A Himalayan Love Story’, ‘The Book of Shadows’, ‘Shakuntala: The Play of the Memory’, and ‘Priya’, a recent sequel to Paro.

Gokhale has worked extensively with Indian myth. She has written ‘The Book of Shiva’ and retold the Mahabharata for young readers. She also co-edited the landmark anthology, ‘In Search of Sita: Revisiting Mythology’. An edited anthology ‘Travelling In, Travelling Out’ was published in 2014.

A founder and co-director of the Jaipur Literature Festival and of ‘Mountain Echoes’, the annual Bhutan Festival, Gokhale is committed to showcasing literature from across the Indian languages. She currently curates ‘Kitaabnama: Books and Beyond’, a multilingual book show on Doordarshan.

Bio

Nandita Bose explores relationships and social biases through her works of fiction. Her published works include: Tread Softly, The Perfume of Promise, If Walls could Weep and Shadow & Soul.

Bio

Nayantara Sahgal has written nine novels and eight works of non-fiction. She is the recipient of the Sinclair Prize for Fiction, the Sahitya Akademi Award and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. A member of the Sahitya Akademi’s Advisory Board for English till she resigned during the Emergency, Sahgal served on the jury of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in 1990 and 1991. She has held fellowships in the United States at the Bunting Institute, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the National Humanities Center. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was awarded an honorary doctorate in literature by the University of Leeds in 1997. She is associated with the founding of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties and served as its vice-president during the 1980s.

Bio

Neelesh Misra has written Once Upon a Timezone, The Absent State, End of the Line: The Story of the Killing of the Royals in Nepal and 173 Hours in Captivity. Known for his radio show, Yaadon Ka Idiot-box with Neelesh Misraon BIG FM 92.7, he is also co-founder-editor of Gaon Connection, India’s rural newspaper. He has founded content creation company Content Project.

Bio

Nirupama Dutt is Chandigarh’s homegrown poet, journalist, literary and art critic, translator and raconteur of many seasons who has written and edited several books. She writes in both Punjabi and English. She received the Punjabi Akademi Award for her anthology of poems, ‘Ik Nadi Sanwali Jahi’. Her poetry anthologies have also come out in English and Hindi. Her translations include Stories of the Soil (translation of 41 stories from Punjabi, published by Penguin) Poet of the Revolution (translation of the memoirs and poetry of Lal Singh Dil published by Penguin). She has written the biography of a Dalit activist and singer called TheBallad of Bant Singh. Books edited by her include Our Voices, an anthology of SAARC poetry, and Half the Sky and Children of the Night, two collections of Pakistani short stories. At present she is translating three novellas by Amrita Pritam and translating an anthology of poems by Gulzar.

Bio

Nisar Azam, born Nassar Ahmad Shah in 1977 at Dangiwacha Rafiabad, District Baramulla of Jammu and Kashmir State is a young Kashmiri writer/poet and translator. Writing poetry in Kashmiri/Urdu and Hindi from his early teens. He joined Prominent Literary Organisation Rafiabad Adabi Markaz as its youngest ever member at the age of 13 years. He is one amoungst a few Kashmiri poets whose work was published in noted Hindi magazine “Vasudha” in its Jammu and Kashmir number titled “Jammu Kashmir ki Sarjan Abhivyektiyaan”.

His first poetic collection “Patti Leji Zoon Daras” (THEN THE MOONS EYES FROZE) published in the year 2009 was widely praised and appreciated. He has the distinction of being the youngest Kashmiri poet to receive first ever Yuva Sahitya Akedmi Award, 2011 for his maiden poetry collection. He is presently the President of the Rafiabad Adabi Markaz.

Bio

Nupur Basu is a senior journalist, media educator and an award-winning documentary film-maker. Among her five independent documentaries is “No Country for Young Girls”.

Bio

Palash Krishna Mehrotra was born in Bombay in 1975. He was educated at St Stephen’s College, Delhi, the Delhi School of Economics, and Balliol College, Oxford, where he read for a PPE. He is the editor of Recess: The Penguin Book of Schooldays and the author of Eunuch Park: 15 Stories of Love and Destruction. He writes a fortnightly column for Mail Today, and is Contributing Editor, Rolling Stone India.

He lives in New Delhi and Dehradun.

Bio

Pankaj Rag is an IAS officer of 1990 batch and has earlier served as Commissioner of Archeology, Archives and Museums, Government of Madhya Pradesh. He was the former director of Film and Television institute of India , Pune .Earlier he served as a DM of different districts of Madhya Pradesh. e attended St. Stephen’s College, Delhi and graduated in History. He then did his M Phil in Modern Indian history from Delhi University. A renowned poet, he has had several of his works published. His articles on modern Indian history, especially on nationalism and the 1857 revolt have been published in renowned journals such as the Social Scientist. Rag has also been the Commissioner of Directorate of Archeology, Archives and Museums in Bhopal. His interest in films is evident in his massive collection of songs as well as some extensive research in films and culture which this 1990 batch IAS officer has done. Two years ago, Rag authored a book on film music directors from 1931 to 2005 which was published in 2006.

Bio

“A fearlessly truthful writer with a big heart”, best describes Paro Anand. Recognized internationally and locally, including by President Kalam of India. She headed the National Centre for Children’s Literature, has interacted with over 3 Million people. She runs a programme Literature in Action and is working on a Screenplay based on her book.

Bio

Pradyot Bikram Manikya Deb Barma, also known as P.B.K Manikya (born July 4, 1978), is the head of the Royal House of Tripura. He was born and brought up in Delhi,India. He is the current General Secretary of the Tripura Pradesh Congress and also the editor of TNT-The Northeast Today Magazine.

Bio

Prakash Kambathalli is the publisher, Ankita Book House.

Bio

Prathiba Nandakumar is a bilingual author, poet, journalist, film maker, columnist and translator. Her publications include autobiographies, poems, short stories, columns, in kannada, english and translations from dogri. She has received several awards including the Karnataka Sahitya Academy Book Award and Bangalore Literary Festival Literary Achievement Award.

Bio

Preeti Shenoy, among the top five highest selling authors in India, is also on the Forbes longlist of the most influential celebrities in India. She is the highest selling woman writer in India. India Today has named her as being unique for being the only woman in the best-selling league. Her second book, Life is what you make it, continues to top the best-selling charts and has been translated to several languages, ncluding Turkish. Her third, Tea for two and a piece of cake, made it to the top five best-selling Indian fiction of 2012. Her fourth, The Secret Wish List, was among the top ten fiction of 2013. Her fifth, The One You Cannot Have, debuted at No.2 on the Nielsen list. The sixth, It happens for a Reason, was out in December 2014 and has been on the Nielsen top ten, every week, since its release. Her seventh book, Why We love The Way We Do, was among the top five best selling non-fiction books of 2015. Her latest, It’s all In the Planets, is at No.3 on the Nielsen list. She has been awarded the Academia award for Business Excellence by the New Delhi Institute of Management, which is given to distinguished professionals for innovative best practices for their contribution to their field that adds to India’s international and national reputation. She has also received the ‘100 Young Indian women achievers award’ in the Powerful leader category, given to the top professionals their field, chosen by consumers and Industry. She is also an artist specialising in portraiture. With a very popular blog, she also writes a weekly column in The Financial Chronicle.

Bio

Join Karadi, Priya Muthukumar of Storipur and their little lizard friend as they go about looking for a new tail for the lizard so that he can get a brand new look for himself. Do watch out for the Tail-Shop; it might have the perfect tail for you!

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Prof. R. Vaidyanathan is Professor of Finance and Control and UTI Chair Professor in the area of Capital Markets at IIM Bangalore. His areas of interest are Corporate Finance, Investments, Portfolio Management, Risk Management and Pensions. He is the founder Chairperson for the Centre for Capital Market and Risk Management [CCMR] at IIMB. He is a National Fellow of ICSSR.

A graduate of the Loyola College, Madras and a Masters from the Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta he obtained his Fellow in Management (Doctorate) from the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta where he also taught for four years.

As a visiting Fulbright Scholar in Corporate Finance at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaigne USA, he studied the credit rating mechanisms of major agencies like S&P, Moody’s etc.

His recent book titled “India Uninc – The Unincorporated Sector in the Indian Economy’, published by Tata Westland has been well received by policy planners and the market. He has also published a book on Pensions—“Facing the Future” in collaboration with ING by Tata McGraw-Hill. He is presently working on a book on Black Money & Tax Havens and India’s wealth abroad.

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Radhika Jha is the author of Smell, The Elephant and the Maruti and My Beautiful Shadow. She has worked for Hindustan Times and BusinessWorld, writing on culture, environment and economy. She has also worked for the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, where she started up a project for the education of the children of victims of terrorism in different parts of India.

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Raghav Chandra (IAS), additional secretary, Govt of India, New Delhi, has lived, for a large part of his life, around the beautiful forests and bewitching tiger reserves of Central India. He has closely observed and is passionately moved by the conflicts that are critically endangering our ecosystem and wildlife, particularly the tiger. His book Scent Of A Game is a multidimensional chronicle of tiger-poaching, big-game hunting and the international mafia which is minting money at the cost of the endangered species.

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Rajiv Malhotra is an internationally known researcher, writer, speaker and public intellectual on current affairs as they relate to civilizations, cross-cultural encounters, religion and science. He studied physics and computer science, and served in multiple careers including: software development executive, Fortune 100 senior corporate executive, strategic consultant, and successful entrepreneur in the information technology and media industries. At the peak of his career when he owned 20 companies in several countries, he took early retirement at age 44 to pursue philanthropy, research and public service.

He established Infinity Foundation for this purpose in 1994. He has conducted original research in a variety of fields and has influenced many thinkers in India and the West. He has disrupted the mainstream thought process among academic and non-academic intellectuals alike, by providing fresh provocative positions on Dharma and on India. Some of the focal points of his work are: interpretation of Dharma for the current times; comparative religion, globalization, and India’s contributions to the world. He has authored hundreds of articles, provided strategic guidance to numerous organizations and has over 400 video lectures available online.

Some of his books, that are a good resource to understand his game changing work, include, Academic Hinduphobia, The Battle For Sanskrit: “Is Sanskrit political or sacred, oppressive or liberating, dead or alive?”, Being Different: An Indian Challenge to Western Universalism, Breaking India: Western Interventions in Dravidian and Dalit Faultlines, Indra’s Net: Defending Hinduism’s Philosophical Unity.

Besides these, his writings became the center of discussion in the book, Invading the Sacred. Currently, he is the full-time founder-director of Infinity Foundation in Princeton, NJ. He also serves as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Center for Indic Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, and is adviser to various organizations. He is the primary advisor for Infinity Foundation India that has been formed recently, engaged in various activities intended to disrupt the prevailing discourse regarding the Indian civilization while also building the alternative narrative for the same.

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Dr Rakhshanda Jalil is a writer, critic and literary historian. She has published over 15 books and written over 50 academic papers and essays. Her book on the lesser-known monuments of Delhi, Invisible City , continues to be a bestseller. Her recent works include:Liking Progress, Loving Change: A Literary History of the Progressive Writers Movement in Urdu (OUO, 2014); a biography of Urdu feminist writer Dr Rashid Jahan A Rebel and her Cause (Women Unlimited, 2014; and a translation of 15 short stories by Intizar Husain entitled The Death of Sheherzad (HarperCollins, 2014). She runs an organization called Hindustani Awaaz, devoted to the popularization of Hindi-Urdu literature and culture and blogs at www.hindustaniawaaz-rakhshanda.blogspot.com and another at IBN Live. Her debut collection of fiction, Release & Other Stories, was published by Harper Collins in 2011, and received critical acclaim. At present, she is writing a monograph on the Urdu poet, Shahryrar, for the Sahitya Akademi’s ‘Makers of Indian Literature’ series, and a critical biography of the Jnanpith-award winning poet Ali Sardar Jafri for Oxford University Press.

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Rani Mukerji is an award-winning actor with a firm place in the Bollywood firmament. The leading lady of several films, she is known both for her blockbuster films as well as critically acclaimed ones. Her films include Mardaani, No One Killed Jessica, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Bunty Aur Babli, Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, Veer-Zaara and Talaash to name a few. For her roles in the films Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998), Yuva (2004), and No One Killed Jessica (2011), Mukerji won the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress. She also won the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actress for her roles in Saathiya (2002) and Black (2005), and received the Filmfare Award for Best Actress for her roles in Hum Tum (2004) and Black (2005).

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Rashmi Menon has been a part of the Indian publishing industry for nearly a decade. She is currently the commissioning editor at Amaryllis. She enjoys helping new authors develop a book idea to really make it their own, gets a kick from seeing her projects realised in print.

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Ritu Menon is a feminist publisher and writer, with more than a dozen books and scores of academic
essays to her credit. She is the author of the groundbreaking 1998 book, “Borders & Boundaries: Women
in India’s Partition”, which had a major impact on Partition historiography, and editor of “No Woman’s
Land: Women from Pakistan, India & Bangladesh Write about the Partition of India”. All her work on
India’s Partition proceeds from a feminist perspective, and with a focus on South Asia.

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Robert Davidson is a prolific composer, bassist, lecturer and founder and artistic director of Topology. Davidson studied composition with Terry Riley in California before completing a composition PhD at the University of Queensland. He previously studied South Indian vocal music in Kerala, India. Davidson’s compositions are regularly performed, recorded and broadcast around the world. All of Australia’s professional orchestras and many leading soloists and ensembles have commissioned and performed his works. With Topology he has released eleven albums and a DVD, and has directed numerous artistic collaborations.

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Rohini Nilekani is an author and philanthropist and has been a strong influence in the Indian social sector over the past three decades. Her philanthropic work spans different sectors of Indian civil society. She founded Arghyam, a foundation for sustainable water and sanitation, and co-founded Pratham Books, nonprofit enabling access to reading for millions of children. Currently, she is the Chairperson of Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies and a Co-founder and Director of EkStep, a nonprofit education platform. Rohini and her husband, Nandan Nilekani, are signatories to the Giving Pledge, pledging to give away half of their wealth to philanthropy.

Rohini’s first book, Stillborn, a medical thriller, and her second, Uncommon Ground, were published by Penguin Books India. Her latest, Samaaj, Sarkaar, Bazaar – A Citizen-first Approach, is a self-published, Creative Commons-licensed book. She is also the author of 16 books for young children.

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Prasad is a social media evangelist and an IT professional. Born and bought up in Bengaluru he has an BE & MBA degree. He is the co-founder of www.kannadabaruthe.com / www.iKnowKannada.com, an initiative to help non-Kannadiga friends learn spoken Kannada. His team has also launched an android app and undertakes various other initiatives in the virtual & real world to promote the cause. They are also in the process of introducing a new & effective way of learning Kannada for Kannadiga’s themselves, specially focused at metro crowd who can speak Kannada but are challenged in reading and writing Kannada effectively. He is a very strong proponent of a non-fanatic & inclusive approach to promote Kannada.

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S. G. Vasudev born in Mysore, during 1941, to S.K. Gopal and Rathnamma. He is an alumnus of Madras Arts College and one of the longtime artists associated with Cholamandal Artists’ Village. He was married to the late Arnavaz there and currently stays in Bangalore. He is one of the most prominent painters in Karnataka and has held art shows in many parts of the world and his works are in collections at various galleries. He has won many awards in India and abroad.

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Prof. Sabaree Mitra has been teaching Chinese Language, Literature and Culture in Jawaharlal Nehru University, since 1990. Her basic training has been in Chinese Language and Literature and her research interest includes contemporary Chinese literature, criticism and cultural history, and India-China Cultural Relations. Prof. Sabaree Mitra has presented papers in National and International Conferences, and published research articles in academic journals such as China Report, Hispanic Horizon, JSL. Her books include Purbadiganter Kabita: Samakaleen tin china kabir ek jhalak (2002), a collection of contemporary Chinese poetry translated into Bengali,Literature and Politics in 20th century China: Issues and Themes (2005), and, Chinese Women Writers and Gender Discourse (1976-1996) (2008). Prof. Mitra is currently working on a book entitled Cultural Globalization and the Chinese Experience: Discourse, Praxis and Challenges. She is an Honorary Fellow in the Institute of Chinese Studies, and a member of the Editorial Board of China Report. Prof. Mitra has been recently nominated as Chairperson of the Expert Group, engaged in compilation of Encyclopedia of India-China Cultural Contacts on behalf of the Ministry of External Affairs, GOI.

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Sam Miller is the author of A Strange Kind of Paradise: India through Foreign Eyes (Penguin India and Jonathan Cape – 2014). Sam was born and brought up in London. He studied History at Cambridge University and Politics at SOAS, before joining the BBC in 1986, for which he has worked, on and off, ever since. In the early 1990s he was the BBC World Service TV and radio correspondent in Delhi. Later he became the head of the Urdu service and subsequently Managing Editor, South Asia. He was posted back to Delhi in 2002 and has remained there since. He is the author of Delhi: Adventures in a Megacity (2009) and Blue Guide: India (2012).

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Sameer Arshad Khatlani is a Delhi-based journalist with the Times of India (TOI)’s national and international news gathering team, where he commissions, edits and rewrites news stories. He has regularly done reportage besides writing features and opinion pieces for TOI, The Economic Times, The Times Crest and The News International. National politics, South Asia with Pakistan in particular are his main areas of focus along with human rights, Kashmir, minority affairs etc. Sameer’s forthcoming book focuses on humanitarian disaster in Kashmir and puts it in historic perspective from the vantage point of having grown up in the Valley.

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Samhita is the author and illustrator of The Mahabharata – A Child’s View. More recently, she collaborated with artist Moyna Chitrakar on the New York Times bestseller Sita’s Ramayana. Last year, Arni’s third bookThe Missing Queen,was published jointly by Zubaan and Penguin in India. Elle Magazine named Arni as one of twenty young upcoming South Asian writers to watch out for.

Arni was a scriptwriter for “Rafina”, a feature film directed by Pakistani filmmaker Sabiha Sumar, and worked for six months in Kabul on the script for “The Defenders” a 13-part television series that aired in Afghanistan.

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Sandeep KN is a software engineer by profession. Sandeep was instrumental in building Kannada Wiktionary, which is a lexical companion to Wikipedia. Sandeep is a key contributor to “Pada Pada Kannada Padaane” group, which is a community involved project to coin new, simple to use Kannada words for many complex language domains. He is a part of honalu portal which is trying to bring contemporary science and technology corpus from English to Kannada in simple, easy to comprehend form of Kannada. He is a firm believer of enabling Kannada in the digital space.

Bio

Born and educated in Maharashtra. Started wring poetry in Marathi from school days, later turned to writing short stories, novellas and novels.

Publications so far- Short story collections-14, Novels- 3, Non fictions-2. Many reprints by various publishers.
Conferred with many prestigious literary awards including Maharashtra State Awards and Maharashtra Foundation Award (USA) – Total –
13.

Some of the collections of Short stories and Novels translated into English, Hindi and Kannada. Also few stories into other languages including German. Tele serials made based on the novel and stories.

The central theme of writing is human relationships and the role of women who attempt to be assertive in their endeavours to discover the meaning of freedom, independence and self esteem.

Presently living in Bangalore after residing in many parts of the country as also elsewhere.

Bio

Sankarshan Thakur was born in Patna in 1962 and went to school at St. Xavier’s, Patna and St. Xavier’s, Delhi. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Hindu College, Delhi University, in 1983.

He began his journalistic career with SUNDAY magazine in 1984. He has been Associate Editor with The Telegraph and Indian Express. Before returning to The Telegraph for his second stint in 2009, he was Executive Editor of Tehelka.

Thakur is currently The Telegraph‘s Delhi-based Roving Editor. He has extensively reported Kashmir, Bihar and socio-political conflict in the sub-continent. He is the author of Subaltern Saheb, a political biography of Laloo Yadav. He is currently working on a book on Bihar under Nitish Kumar. He has published monographs on the Kargil War, Pakistan and caste honour killings in Uttar Pradesh.

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Satyarth Nayak is an author and screenwriter based in Mumbai. A former SAARC Award winning Correspondent with CNN-IBN, Delhi, he holds a Masters in English Literature from St. Stephen’s. Satyarth’s best-selling biography, Sridevi – The Eternal Screen Goddess, published by Penguin in 2019 and charting the journey of the screen legend from child star to becoming India’s First Female Superstar, met with high acclaim. His debut novel, The Emperor’s Riddles, that released in 2014, became a bestselling thriller, earning comparisons with Dan Brown for being a ‘history meets mystery.’ His new book, the magnum-opus Mahagatha, published by HarperCollins, is an epic collection of 100 greatest mythological tales from the Puranas of Hinduism.
Containing stories of gods, demons, sages and kings along with charming illustrations, Mahagatha has been described by Anand Neelakantan as ‘a must-have in your home library.’ Satyarth has also scripted Sony’s epic historical TV show, Porus, touted as India’s most expensive series that aired from 2017 to 2019. His short stories have won the British Council award and appeared in Sudha Murty’s Penguin anthology, Something Happened On The Way To Heaven. Named one of the Top 50 Authors to follow on social media and a regular speaker at national and international literature festivals, Satyarth is currently scripting a high-profile web-series and writing his next book based on the Mahabharat.

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Sharan Kumar Limbale is a Marathi language author, poet and literary critic. He has penned more than 40 books, but is best known for his autobiographical novel Akkarmashi. Akkarmashi is translated in several other Indian languages and in English. The English translation is published by the Oxford University Press with the title The Outcaste. His critical work Towards an Aesthetics of Dalit Literature (2004) is considered amongst the most important works on Dalit literature.

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Sharath Komarraju is a Bangalore based author. He began life as a software engineer but has since jumped the fence to write full time. His first novel, Murder in Amaravati, was longlisted for the Commonwealth Book Prize in 2013. Perhaps his best known work is the Hastinapur series, which attempts to tell the story of the Mahabharata through the thoughts and lives of the epic’s lesser known female characters. When he’s not writing, he’s either watching cricket or talking to his wife, or trying to watch cricket while talking to his wife.

Bio

Shashi Warrier was born in 1959 and got a degree in economics from BITS, Pilani, in 1981. He started writing novels in 1994-95 after over a dozen years of working at other things, including consulting, business journalism, computer programming, project management, teaching, and a few other things he’d rather not discuss. He started with fairy tales, moved on to thrillers and then literary fiction, and intends to return to fairy tales sometime in the future. He likes Hindustani music, motorcycling, and yoga, and is learning to cook. He lives in Mangalore, Karnataka.

Bio

With over three decades of seminal reporting from the political and social frontlines of a changing India, Shekhar Gupta’s byline is today synonymous with unparalleled credibility, independence and influence. His work includes some of the most significant investigations in contemporary journalism in the region: from Indira Gandhi’s Operation Blue Star to the disastrous Indian intervention in Sri Lanka, from tracking Pakistan’s politics and military to the first Afghan jihad and its effect in Kashmir.

A recipient of the Padma Bhushan in 2009, India’s third highest civilian honour, Gupta is Editor-in-Chief of The Indian Express newspaper. Under his leadership, The Indian Express has thrice won the Vienna-based International Press Institute’s Award for Excellence in Journalism. He joined the newspaper as a reporter in 1977 and then spent a decade in India Today as a reporter and editor.

A regular speaker at the World Economic Forum in Davos and its India summits, Gupta is the author of Assam: A Valley Divided (1984) and a monograph, ‘India Redefines Its Role’ (1995), for the International Institute for Strategic Studies, London, where he is a member of the Council. He also anchors Walk the Talk, a weekly conversation on NDTV with newsmakers from across the world. A collection of these interviews will be published soon.

A proud father of a pastry chef in Delhi and a mathematical economist in London, Gupta lives in New Delhi with his wife—and the company of an adorable family of dogs and cats whom you would call stray at your own peril.

Bio

Shinie Antony has written short story collections ​The Orphanage for Words, Barefoot and Pregnant and novels ​When Mira Went Forth and Multiplied ​and A Kingdom for His Love. She has compiled the anthology​ Why We Don’t Talk and the humour anthology Jest Like That.

Co-founder of the Bangalore Literature Festival, she won the Commonwealth Short Story Asia region prize in 2003 for her story ​A Dog’s Death. Her latest novel is​ The Girl Who Couldn’t Love.

Bio

Shobhaa De’s 17 books have all been runaway bestsellers. Her latest, Sethji, was declared this season’s hottest seller by the book trade. A widely read columnist in leading publications, she is known for her outspoken views, making her one of India’s most respected opinion shapers. She lives in Mumbai with her family.

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Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi is author of The Lost Flamingoes of Bombay and The Last Song of Dusk. He has written for TIME, the New York Times, and currently lives in north Goa.

Bio

Sidin Vadukut is the author of four books. His bestselling Dork trilogy of office culture humour novels told the story of Robin Einstein Varghese–unlikely corporate titan, strategy guru and international Malayali man of mystery. His fourth book is The Sceptical Patriot, a bestselling collection of investigations into the veracity of oft-quoted glories and achievement in Indian history. Vadukut is an editor and columnist with the Mint newspaper, and a contributor to Cricinfo, Quartz, the Khaleej Times, and several other unsuspecting publications. He lives, and tweets, in London with his wife, daughter and a painfully slow metabolism

Bio

Sitanshu Yashaschandra is among contemporary Gujarati literature’s most eminent representatives. A poet, playwright, translator and academic, he has received several awards over the years from the Sahitya Akademi Award (1987) for his significant opus, Jatayu, to the Padma Shri (2006) from the Government of India. He has authored three books of poetry.

Yashaschandra has worked as Vice Chancellor (Saurashtra University), UGC Emeritus Professor and National Lecturer, as well as Chief Editor of the Encyclopedia of Indian Literature (Sahitya Akademi). His doctoral work at Indiana University, USA, was in comparative literature, and at the University of Bombay, in Indian and Western Poetics. He has also been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and a Ford West European Fellowship for research in Comparative Literature. He has taught, as Professor and Chair of Gujarati, at the M. S. University of Baroda, from 1972, and has been a visiting Professor at the Sorbonne University (Paris), the Loyola Marymount University (Los Angeles), and Jadavpur University (Kolkata). His creative and critical theory work is mainly in Gujarati but has been widely translated into Hindi and other languages. He has translated several works of poetry, drama and criticism from English to Gujarati. Tokhaar, his adaptation of Peter Shaffer’sEquus was hailed as a landmark play in modern Gujarati theatre.

Bio

Sowjanya KK is a RJ with one of the leading radio stations in Bangalore. She is an engineer by education and a trained carnatic musician. She has hosted several TV shows for leading channels and also hosted 100+ stage shows in Kannada. She is a very passionate Kannadiga and always finds ways to do her bit for the language.

Bio

Sumit Chakraberty has worked as a journalist for over 30 years at Indian Express, The Times of India, BiTV, UTV, and lastly DNA, where he was the Sunday Editor. He is now an independent writer on three of his passions – technopreneurship, food culture, and cricket strategy. He is the author of Master Laster: What They Don’t Tell You About Sachin Tendulkar, and is currently working on two other books.

Chakraberty is an alumnus of the Hyderabad Public School and BITS, Pilani.

Bio

Sunayana Kachroo Bhide, Poet, Dialogue and Storywriter – Films

In her own words – Born and brought up in Kashmir, I have a Masters degree in Computer Science from Pune University. I moved to USA in 2000 for work and been here ever since. I currently live in Boston area.

My first poem was published at the age of 15, I continued writing and exploring different forms of poetic expressions like Kavita, English Poems, Nazms and Dohe. My love of music triggered my interest in poetry.

Waqt Se Pare –Beyond Time
This book is a collection of my special poems and pictures taken by me over the years. Three poems from my book have been recorded and released as singles.

Bio

Sundeep Bhutoria is the author of Aapbiti Jagbiti, Safari My Life My Travels. He has also initiated various literary events like An Author’s Afternoon, Write Circle, Kalam, Ek Mulakat and Aakhar across India.

Bio

Journalist, columnist and television presenter, Sunil Sethi has hosted the weekly literary show – Just Books – on NDTV since early 2005. He was one of the founding editorial team of India Today, has worked for the Hindustan Times and been a columnist for the Times of India and the Indian Express.

His journalism has appeared in The Economist, the Boston Globe and several international publications; he has scripted and presented documentaries for the BBC and Channel 4. He is also a recipient of the Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University and the Japan Foundation fellowship.

Bio

Susan Visvanathan is the author of Something Barely Remembered (Roli Indiaink and Flamingo 2000), The Visiting Moon (Roli Indiaink 2002), Phosphorus and Stone (Zubaan and Penguin 2007),The Seine at Noon(Roli IndiaIink 2007) and Nelycynda and Other Stories ( Roli Indiaink 2012). She has also authored several Sociological works, the best known of which are The Christians of Kerala: History, Belief and Ritual (Oup 1993) The Children of Nature: The Life and Legacy of Ramana Maharshi (Roli Lotus 2010) and Friendship, Interiority and Mysticism (Orientblackswan 2007) Prof Visvanathan teaches Sociology,at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi.

Bio

Susmit Sen, founding member of the fusion band Indian Ocean, released his solo debut album Depths of the Ocean in 2011. He has co-authored (with Sehba Imam) Ocean to Ocean, a memoir.

Bio

Swapan Dasgupta has edited a collection of essays: Nirad Chaudhuri—The First Hundred Years. A co-participant of the weekly show Politically Incorrect with Mani Shankar Aiyar on NDTV, he has held senior editorial posts at The Statesman, The Daily Telegraph, The Times of India, The Indian Express and India Today, where he was managing editor till 2003.

Bio

Chairman, Manipal Global Education; former member of the Board and Head – Finance and HR, Infosys Ltd.

Bio

Born in a rural hilly village, Paleri, in Kozhikode district, Kerala, THACHOM POYIL RAJEEVAN writes in English and Malayalam.

Rajeevan began writing poetry and prose at an early age and earned reputation when he was at college. After obtaining a Master Degree in English Language and Literature, he moved to New Delhi where he worked as journalist with various newspapers. In 1988, he returned to his home state Kerala and joined the University of Calicut as Public Relations officer.

In English, Rajeevan has published a chap book Kannaki (Crux Publishers, Vermont, USA, 2003) and a collection of poems, He Who was Gone Thus (Yeti Books, Calicut, India, 2004). He has also edited an anthology of poems Third Word: Post Socialist Poetry (Monsoon Editions, Calicut, 2007) with the Croatian poet Lana Derkac.

In Malayalam, he writes under the name T P Rajeevan and his published works include three collections of poems in Malayalam viz, Vathil, (The Door, 1991), Rashtratantram (Political Strategies, 2004) and Koritharichanal (The Day when I was Horripilated, 2005) in addition to a collection of essays on literary and cultural issues, titled Athe Akasam and Athe Bhoomi (The Same Sky, The same Earth, 2001) and a travelogue namely Purappettu Poya Vakku (On the Trial of the Lost Word, 2006). He has edited an anthology of world poetry, Virunnuvanna Vakuu (The Guest Words). His First novel in Malayalam, Paleri Manikkyam: Oru PathirakolapathakathinteKatha is being made into movie. Presently he is working on a novel in English.

Rajeevan has participated in many literary programmes and has also held a Ledig House International Writer-in-Residence Fellowship in 2008 at Hudson, New York.

Bio

Tanja Dückers was born on 25 September 1968 to art historian parents in West Berlin. She lives with her family in Berlin.

After an extended stay in the United States, she read German studies, Dutch studies, American studies and art history at Berlin’s Free University and at Amsterdam University, graduating with an interdisciplinary dissertation on “The aesthetic of the sublime in modern painting, as seen in the work of Barnett Newman”.

During her studies, she worked for three years as a copywriter for news and weather broadcasts on Deutsche Welle TV in Berlin and as an editorial assistant for various publishers. Her first two books, twin volumes of poetry, were published while she was still studying, her first novel shortly after she graduated. Since her studies, Tanja Dückers has made her living as a freelance writer and journalist. She also teaches on German studies and Creative Writing programmes outside Germany.

Scholarships and teaching jobs have taken her, among other places, to Los Angeles, Meadville/Pennsylvania, Hanover/New Hampshire, Flanders and Brussels, Bristol (UK), Barcelona, Paris, Prague, Krakow, Bucharest, Sibiu, Sylt and Ahrenshoop, Gotland/Sweden, Cyprus and Salzburg.

As a journalist Tanja Dückers writes for various newspapers and magazines, including Die Zeit, Spiegel, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Die Welt, National Geographic, Brigitte, taz, Emma, Frankfurter Rundschau, Berliner Zeitung, Berliner Morgenpost, Jungle World … From 2008 on she is writing a monthly essay on challenging political questions for ZEIT Online.

Books include

Novels and short stories:

• Hausers Zimmer (2011)
• Hotel mit Seeblick
• Der Schokoladenbrunnen
• Der längste Tag des Jahres
• Portola Drive
• Himmelskörper
• Café Brazil
• Spielzone

Poetry and essay:

• Morsezeichen
• Fireman
• Luftpost. Gedichte Berlin-Barcelona
• Mehrsprachige Tomaten
• Morgen nach Utopia
• Über das Erinnern
• Fundbüros und Verstecke

Children’s books:

• Jonas und die Nachtgespenster
• Grün, grün, grün sind alle meine Kleider (planned for 2015)

Theater plays:

• Spielzone
• Grüße aus Transnistrien

Bio

Works as an Associate English Professor in the Government Arts College. She has published seven books in Kannada- Thodiraga (poetry collection), Chitta Glaniya Maatu (Poetry collection), Ondu Tundu Bella (Poetry collection), Hedeyanthaduva Sodaru (Criticism), Nirvasahathikarana (Humanity), Sthree Shikashana-charitreya Hejjegalu (Humanity), Kaadu Dariya Sollu (Criticism).

Bio

Tayenjam Bijoykumar Singh, an engineer by profession, was born in 1957 in Imphal. He writes short stories, poems and non-fiction in English and Manipuri. He has four books to his credit, two Manipuri short story collections and two books in English ‘Manipur Trilogy’ (English translation of Ratan Thiyam’s Manipuri Plays) and ‘Ramu Prasad’s Angel (short story collection). His winning entry in the Sulekha.com-Penguin Online Writing Contest appears in Blogprint, an anthology of winning entries published by Penguin Books. He received the Katha Award for translation in 2005.

He is an active member of North East Writers’ Forum.

Bio

Storywallahs is a Bangalore based organisation which believes that stories are the best way to inspire, motivate, and teach. Driven by this belief, they not only work with schools and help them leverage the power of stories in teaching, but also work with organisations and help them discover and use the power of stories in their personal and professional lives. You can also catch them entertaining children and adults alike with their stories at various cultural spaces and literature festivals across the country.

Bio

One of Hindi cinema’s most beautiful and stylish actresses, Tisca Chopra has trained with theatre greats like Naseeruddin Shah and Ferozi Abbas Khan. She got her big break with Aamir Khan’s Taare Zameen Par for which she won several national and international awards. Apart from being a regular on stage, she is also a favourite with advertisers, endorsing brands like Tanishq,Titan Eyewear, Olay, Horlicks and Kellogg’s. She is currently starring in the Indian franchise of the hit American series 24,being produced by Anil Kapoor. She is also developing a number of film scripts with her pilot-author husband, Sanjay Chopra.

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Usha K R has been writing fiction in English for over three decades now. She began by writing short stories, which were published in various Indian magazines and newspapers. Her short story, Sepia Tones won the Katha Award for Creative Writing in English. Usha K R is the author of the novels ‘Monkey-man’ (2010/ Penguin India), ‘A Girl and a River’ (2007/Penguin India), ‘The Chosen’ (2003/Penguin India) and ‘Sojourn’ (1998/EastWest Books). Her novels have been listed for several awards including the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, the Crossword Award, the Man Asia and the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. ‘A Girl and a River’ won the Vodafone Crossword Award, 2007. ‘Monkey-man’ was short listed for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2012.

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Vani Mahesh has a deep-rooted interest in Hindu mythology and ancient Indian history. Her latest book, Journey to the Throne, is a YA historical fiction published by HarperCollins, India. She is the author of Creation Tales – stories from Brahma Purana, Saptarshi – The Seven Supreme Sages, both published by Amar Chitra Katha. She has written The Glory of Shiva Purana – Volume 1, published by Sri Ramakrishna Math. Her novel A Kingdom for his Love is based on a play by Bhasa, a 1 st -century dramatist. Vani has also authored a contemporary fiction, Meet Me in the Middle, published by Black Ink and HarperCollins.
A software engineer by profession, Vani owned and ran EasyLib.com, the first online library in India, for thirteen years. She lives in Bangalore with her husband and two daughters.

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Vasant Shetty is a software professional and is part of Banavasi Balaga, a think tank operating from Bengaluru that focuses on Mother Tongue based education reforms, Linguistic reforms in Kannada, Kannada centric Consumer movement and Language Planning initiatives. Vasant is also a columnist with Udayavani Kannada daily where he writes a weekly column called “Kannada Jagattu” which primarily talks about languages, language movements, language reforms across the world and tries to juxtapose those learning’s with Kannada. Vasant is involved with few Language Planning projects in Kannada.

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Vasanthi Hariprakash is an independent anchor-moderator and media strategist. She is also the founder of a community platform called Pickle Jar that creates and curates film festivals and programs of social relevance that gave Bangalore city retrospectives of cinema greats like Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Smita Patil. Her past life include being a special correspondent with NDTV 24×7, documentary anchor of a South-Asia series on BBC World News, radio show host of a primetime breakfast show on Radio CIty 91.1 FM and a chief sub-editor at the New Indian Express. She hashtags on facebook as #womanwanderer as her work takes her sometimes to towns like in Chhattisgarh in central India to ideate as advisor for a tribal communities radio network Bultu Radio, or to places like Lucknow to bond with rural journalists on a pathbreaking rural newspaper called Gaon Connection. Between juggling random events and roles, she pretends to be a cool parent, as a result of which she gets asked to give gyan on parenting, career dilemmas of young people and such things that the nation wants to know.

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Currently Associate Editor, The Hindu. Was Senior Editor and Prime time anchor with CNN IBN. Has been a TV Journalist since 1999 (Worked with NDTV 2000 – 2005; CNN IBN 2005 -2013). Fan of – Old Monk Rum, Enfield Bullet, The Beatles.

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Venita Coelho worked in the TV industry as a writer and director. She is also a painter. She has written three books so far, Soap! Writing and Surviving Television in India (non-fiction), Dungeon Tales (fiction) and The Washer of the Dead: A Collection of Ghost Stories (fiction).

Venita had begun her career with UTV on DD. She had written the award-winning soap Trikaal and written the script for Dharma Productions’ We are Family.

Along with this she has also written children’s plays, documentaries, ad films and multimedia stage shows.

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Dr Vijay Nagaswami, a psychiatrist, couple therapist and writer has lived and worked in Chennai all his life. His experience as a couple therapist for thirty years drew him to find a wider audience and he started writing books on the theme of relationships. Since 2002, five of his books have been published and been enthusiastically received by the reading public. His sixth book, titled ‘To D or Not to D : Working towards an amicable divorce’ is due to be launched this year. He also lectures on the subject of psychotherapy and conducts workshops for individuals and couples on personal relationship management.

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Vikram Sampath, a Bangalore-based historian, is the author of three acclaimed books-Splendours of Royal Mysore: The Untold Story of the Wodeyars, My Name Is Gauhar Jaan: The Life and Times of a Musician and Voice of the Veena, S. Balachander: A Biography. Vikram was awarded the Sahitya Akademi’s first Yuva Puraskar in English literature and the ARSC International Award for Excellence in Historical Research in New York for his book on Gauhar Jaan. The book has also been adapted as a play, Gauhar, by Lillete Dubey and is being adapted into a Hindi movie by Ashutosh Gowariker.

Vikram has a doctorate in history and music from the University of Queensland, Australia, and is currently a senior fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi. An engineer/mathematician from BITS Pilani and an MBA in finance from S.P. Jain Institute of Management, Mumbai, he is also a trained Carnatic vocalist. He has established the Archive of Indian Music, India’s first digital sound archive for vintage recordings, and is the founder-director of the Bangalore Literature Festival, Indic Thoughts Festival and the ZEE Group’s ARTH: A Culture Fest.

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Vikram Sridhar is a performance storyteller and theatre practitioner based in Bangalore. He has been working with a number of theatre groups across India for about a decade now is the co-founder Tahatto , a Bangalore-based theatre group. Tahatto performs regularly in Banagalore and in festivals across India. He has volunteered and worked with different organisations in the conservation space and also consults and works with organisations in the social sector. He combines the three in his storytelling to make a difference. Around the Story Tree is his initiative to reach out to children and adults from different backgrounds through storytelling, using stories and folk tales in a contemporary form as a strong medium for conservation to connect listeners to their environment. To know more about his work, see facebook.com/AroundTheStoryTree

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Vimala Rangachar has been associated with fine arts and performing arts conservation movement of Karnataka for many years. She holds multiple positions of Chairperson of the Craft Council of Karanataka, Founder Member and President of M.E.S Institutions, President of the Natya Institute of Kathak and Choreography, President of the M.E.W.S Ladies Club, Malleshwaram, Bangalore, heading M.E.S Kalavedi, President of the Seva Sadan Orphanage, Hon. Secretary of the ADA Rangamandira, Committee Member, Gandhi Center for Science and Human Values- Bharathiya Vidya Bhavan. She is the daughter of Sri SK Ramanuja Iyengar and Ammanniamma.

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Vishwas Mudagal is a Bangalore based author and a successful serial entrepreneur & CEO. Storytelling is his passion and he has taken it up as his parallel career. He has become a best-selling sensation and a youth icon in India after the spectacular success of his debut novel ‘Losing My Religion.’ He is also the CEO and co-founder of GoodWorkLabs, one of the fastest growing technology firms in the industry.

More about him at www.vishwasmudagal.com

Bio

Volga is the pen name of Popuri Lalitha Kumari. She has worked as a lecturer in Telugu at VSR & NVR College, Tenali, and as a senior executive for Usha Kiron Movies, Hyderabad. She was the executive president of Asmita Resource Centre for Women from 1991 to 1997. Among her works are the novels Sweccha(1994), Sahaja (1995), Manavi (1998), Kanniti keratala vennela (1999), Gulabilu (2000), and Rajakiya kathalu (1993), Prayogam (1995).

Bio

Poet, editor, music and cinema aficionado, Yatindra Mishra has four collections of Hindi
poetry to his credit- Yada-Kada, Ayodhya Tatha Anya Kavitayein, Dyorhi Par Aalaap
and Vibhas. He has also written about the life and work of thumri singer Girija Devi, danseuse Sonal Mansingh and shehnai maestro Bismillah Khan. Translation of his writing Girija, Ayodhya series of poems, Vibhas, Yaar Julahey &Meelon Se Din have been well received.

He has also translated the 12th century Lingayat mystic poet Akka Mahadevi’s poems titled
Bhairavi. Recently he has published a book about hundred years of Hindi Cinema which
deals about the authentic analysis of cinema’s musical journey titled ‘Humsafar’. He is
recipient of many awards for his literary contributions, including Raza Award, Bharat
Bhushan Agarwal Smriti Puraskar, Bharteeya Bhasha Parishad Yuva Puraskar &
Parampara Rituraj Samman. Currently writing a book on the life and musical journey of
playback singer Lata Mangeshkar. He lives in Ayodhya.

Bio

Zac O’Yeah is a Swedish detective novelist and author of the Majestic Trilogy, which is set in his Indian hometown Bengaluru. He has published 18 books including several fiction and nonfiction bestsellers. His Gandhi biography Mahatma! was ranked as the best nonfiction book in Sweden in 2008. His travel writings have appeared in magazines such as National Geographic Traveller, Outlook Traveller, RES and Vagabond, and also been included in a huge number of anthologies. All in all, he has written for nearly 100 different publications and he is currently a columnist with the BusinessLine newspaper. His writings have been translated into German, French, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Russian, Chinese, Italian, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, Hindi, Gujarati, Assamese and other languages. He is a founder-director of Bangalore’s World-Famous Semi-Deluxe Writing Programme, the first semi-professional writing school in India. His most recent books include the novel Tropical Detective and the travelogue A Walk Through Barygaza and the children’s book The Mystery of the Cyber Friend. In 2020, his travel story “Looking for Malgudi” was featured in the anthology The Best Asian Travel Writing. He also composes music with the pop group The Ändå whose latest hit “You!” was released in 2020. Read more on www.zacoyeah.com