Amitav Ghosh was born in Calcutta and grew up in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. He is the author of two books of non-fiction, a collection of essays and ten novels. His books have won many prizes and he holds four honorary doctorates. His work has been translated into more than thirty languages and he has served on the Jury of the Locarno and Venice film festivals. In 2018 he became the first English-language writer to receive India’s highest literary honour, the Jnanpith Award. His most recent publication is Jungle Nama, an adaptation of a legend from the Sundarban, with artwork by Salman Toor. His new book, The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis, a work of non-fiction, was published in October 2021. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife, the writer Deborah Baker.
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Anuradha Kapur is a theatre maker and an academic. Her theatre work has travelled nationally and internationally and taught in universities in India and abroad. She is the founder-member of Vivadi, a working group of theatre-makers, visual artists, filmmakers, musicians and writers. Among her acclaimed productions are Nale Wali Ladki (2018), Dark Things (co-directed with Deepan Sivaraman, 2018), 409 Ramkinkars in collaboration with artist Vivan Sundaram (2015), Virasat (2013), Dr Jekyll and Hyde (2012), Jeevit ya Mrit (2011), Centaurs (2006), Pata Shahar Mumbai (2004), Antigone Project (co-directed with Ein Lall, 2003), Sundari: An Actor Prepares (1997), and The Job (1996). Her writings on performance have been widely anthologised and her book, Actors Pilgrims Kings and Gods: the Ramlila at Ramnagar, was published by Seagull Books, Kolkata. She has curated theatre programmes in India and abroad, at the House of World Cultures, Berlin, and at the Serendipity Arts Festival, among others. She was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi award for Direction in 2004. Anuradha Kapur completed her term as Director National School of Drama, New Delhi in 2013, where she was also Professor of Acting and Direction. She is presently Visiting Professor at Ambedkar University, Delhi.
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Arun Kumar joined JNU in 1984 and retired as the Sukhamoy Chakravarty Chair Professor in the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University in 2015. He is currently the Malcolm Adiseshiah Chair Professor in Institute of Social Sciences. He has a Ph.D. in Economics from JNU and a Masters in Physics from Princeton University, the U.S. and Delhi University. He has specialised in Development Economics, Public Finance and Public Policy and Macroeconomics. He was a part of the team to study the black economy for CBDT (1982-85). His most recent book published in December 2020 presents the socio-economic impact of the pandemic. His earlier books are on The Black Economy, Higher Education, Indian Economy since Independence, Demonetization and GST. He authored the Alternative Budgets for 1993-94 and 1994-95, which proposed alternative economic policies for the country. He was a member of the Group producing the Alternative Economic Survey for 2 decades. He has written extensively on globalisation and on issues of public policy both in academic journals and in the popular press and contributed to public discussions on policy since 1980. He was the Vice Chair of the manifesto drafting committee of National Front in 1989 and the Convener of the Economics & Ecology Committee of AAP in 2013. UNAM, Mexico awarded him the Ricardo Prize in Economics for work in Development Economics. He was the group leader of the Committee for the pricing of SU30 MKI in 2013. He has participated in various social movements, like, on Housing Rights. He was a member of the First Pay Commission of the Tibetan Government in Exile.
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Chitra Mahesh has over 25 years of experience in media, with a substantial portion being with newspapers of national importance. She is particularly interested in music, art, culture and health. She is the Managing Trustee of the Mahesh Memorial Trust and works to create awareness of paediatric cancers and helps children from low-income families receive treatment. As Founder Trustee of CanCare Foundation, she works to raise funds and helps identify those from low-income groups who require palliative care.
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Deepan Sivaraman is a renowned theatre director and scenographer based in Delhi. He studied scenography and theatre making from the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design and Wimbledon College of Art, London. He is the founding Artistic Director of Oxygen Theatre Company in Kerala and Performance Studies Collective based in Delhi. He was the artistic director of the International Theatre Festival of Kerala for the 2014 edition, which had the curatorial focus on Transition, Spectatorship and Gender. His important theatre productions — Khasakkinte Ithihasam (2016) based on O.V. Vijayan’s novel, Jarry’s Ubu Roi (2012), The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (2016) based on the German Expressionist cinema, Dark Things ( 2018) co-directed with Anuradha Kapur, Spinal Cord (2009) based on Marquez’s novel Chronicle of Death Foretold, and Ibsen’s Peer Gynt (2010) — along with his extensive scenographic work for important directors have made Sivaraman the critical figure around whom the new discourse of scenography emerged in India. Presently he is the Dean of School of Culture and Creative Expressions at the Ambedkar University, Delhi.
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Dr. Gagandeep Kang is a Professor of Microbiology, and Laboratory Director, The Wellcome Trust Research Laboratory, Division of Gastrointestinal Sciences, Christian Medical College, Vellore, Tamil Nadu. She is the first woman from India to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and to be elected to Fellowship of the American Academy of Microbiology and the only physician-scientist to receive the Infosys Award in Life Sciences. Dr. Kang received her training in medicine and microbiology at the Christian Medical College, Vellore. She works on enteric infections in children, particularly on transmission and immune responses, in order to design effective interventions. Current studies include active hospital and community based surveillance and clinical trials of new and existing vaccines, with use of molecular based assays to study the diversity of pathogens and the immune response of children with viral and parasitic enteric infections.
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Indra K. Nooyi served as CEO and chairman of PepsiCo from 2006 to 2019. Her prescient strategic thinking, insight into consumer behaviour, and wisdom on managing a vast, global workforce make her one of the world’s most sought-after advisors to entrepreneurs, executives, and governments. She is also revered as a role model for women and immigrants, and celebrated for her empowering messages on inclusivity. Nooyi has been awarded the Padma Bhushan, India’s third-highest civilian honour, and the U.S. State Department’s award for Outstanding American by Choice, and has received 15 honorary degrees, including an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Yale University in 2019. She is married to Raj Nooyi and has two daughters, Preetha and Tara.
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Ira Mukhoty is the author of Akbar: The Great Mughal, Daughters of the Sun: Empresses, Queens and Begums of the Mughal Empire and Heroines: Powerful Indian Women in Myth and History. Living in one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, she developed an interest in the evolution of mythology and history, the erasure of women from these histories, and the continuing relevance this has on the status of women in India. She writes rigorously researched narrative histories that are accessible to the lay reader. She lives in Gurgaon with her husband and two daughters. Her first novel Song of Draupadi was published in August 2021.
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Kamini Mahadevan was with the Penguin Group, including Pearson Education India, for almost two decades. She retired from Penguin Books India as Consultant Editor. At Penguin, she had the privilege of publishing several eminent and award-winning authors and translators, like U.R. Anantha Murthy, David Shulman, Arundhathi Subramaniam, Romila Thapar, Samanth Subramanian, Srinath Perur, Sanjaya Baru, and A. Panneerselvan, among many others. She lives in Bengaluru and freelances.
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Dr. Ennapadam S. Krishnamoorthy is a Behavioural Neurologist and Neuropsychiatrist. The founder of Buddhi Clinic and a pioneer of integrated and holistic care and rehabilitation for the brain and mind, he has taken on multiple international leadership roles in treating epilepsy, dementia and in the field of clinical neuropsychiatry. He is the immediate past president of the International Neuropsychiatric Association (INA) and the editor of the Global Approach series for Cambridge University Press, He has to his credit 70 plus publications, 30 plus book chapters and over 25 articles in the lay press. He is Adjunct Professor at Manipal University and Public Health Foundation India. He is also Senior Clinical Advisor, Neurosciences, Apollo Hospitals Group.
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Dr Mahesh Rangarajan studied history at Hindu College, University of Delhi, and at Balliol College and Nuffield College, Oxford. Presently the Vice Chancellor of Krea University, he teaches History and Environmental Studies. His books include Fencing the Forest (1996), India's Wildlife History (2000), and Nature and Nation (2015). The co-edited books on conservation include Battles over Nature (2003) and Nature without Borders (2014). In 2010, he was chair of the Elephant Task Force of the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India.
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Neha Sinha is a conservation biologist and the author of Wild and Wilful (2021). She heads Conservation and Policy at the Bombay Natural History Society. She is a widely published environmental commentator and her columns and op-eds appear in BloombergQuint, Hindustan Times, The Hindu and others. She is Consulting Editor for Sanctuary Asia and has been awarded the INLAKS scholarship. Neha is interested in the intersection of Environment and politics. Wild and Wilful tells the story of 15 iconic Indian species through literary non-fiction. Find her on Twitter/Instagram @nehaa_sinha
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Pankaja Srinivasan is an independent journalist. She was educated in Kolkata and Delhi and began her career in Star & Style in Mumbai in the 1980s. Pankaja has worked in Indian Express and India Today and was with The Hindu for around 15 years. She retired as Senior Deputy Editor heading the MetroPlus edition in Coimbatore. She enjoys food, travelling, reading whodunnits and historical novels and listening to Hindi film music.
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Pranay Lal is a biochemist who works in public health and the environment. His first book Indica: A Deep Natural History of the Indian Subcontinent won the 2017 Tata Lit Prize and the World Book Fair Award, among others. His most recent book, Invisible Empire: The Natural History of Viruses (Penguin, October 2021) presents an alternative view on the role of viruses in ecosystems and the evolutionary history of life.
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Dr. Pratima Murthy is the director of the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS). A well-recognised leader in addiction psychiatry, she has been instrumental in the successful development of state-of-the-art Centre for Addiction Medicine at NIMHANS. She has served as a consultant to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) and as a resource person for various flagship training programmes in substance abuse prevention and tobacco cessation in the country, and across the globe. Dr. Pratima is also recognised for her contribution in improving care for persons with mental illness through her work with the National Human Rights Commission on quality assurance in mental health care both in institutions and in the community. Her awards include the prestigious Dr. Raja Ramanna State Award by the Government of Karnataka and the WHO Regional Director’s Special Recognition Award on ‘World No Tobacco Day 2021’. She has more than 300 research publications in various international indexed journals and scientific books to her credit. She is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (FRCP)-Glasgow.
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Ramya Kannan is The Hindu’s Tamil Nadu bureau chief. She is passionate about health and development issues, which she has reported on for the last couple of decades and more. The past couple of years have been devoted to pursuing the SARS-CoV-2 virus in an attempt to make some sense in a world that had descended into chaos. Besides that, she is trigger happy, shooting pictures of course; has a green thumb, and trying to keep up with her effervescent nine year old daughter.
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N. Ravi is the Chairman of Kasturi & Sons Ltd and publisher of The Hindu Group of Newspapers. A former Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu, he is currently the Chairman of the India Chapter of the International Press Institute and was member of the Executive Board of the International Press Institute, Vienna. He was President of the Editors’ Guild of India, Chairman of the Press Trust of India, and is now a Director on the Board of PTI. He was a member of the National Integration Council, Government of India, and from 2006 to 2008 of the National Security Advisory Board. He is Chairman of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan’s Chennai Kendra and has been associated with the Bhavan’s Chennai Kendra for two decades. He has a Master’s degree in Economics and a degree in Law, and has won several academic awards including a gold medal in constitutional and international law. He was a Fellow at the Harvard Law School in 2000 and Shorenstein Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University in 2004. In 2013, he was a Visiting Fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, and St. Anthony’s College, Oxford University. He joined The Hindu in 1972, served as reporter, leader writer, Washington Correspondent, Deputy Editor and Associated Editor. He was Editor from 1991 to 2011 and Editor-in-Chief from October 2013 to January 2015. He has covered several international conferences and travelled with Prime Ministers and Presidents to cover international summits. He is the recipient of professional awards, including the G. K. Reddy Memorial Award and BREAD Role Model Award, and was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati.
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Dr. Sanjay Gubbi is a leading wildlife biologist and conservationist in the country who has made notable contributions to the preservation of wildlife. He bridges a strong understanding of the socio-economic and political aspects of conservation with its scientific bases. He relentlessly works with the Government, political leaders, social and religious leaders, local communities, media personnel and others to bring about crucial changes for wildlife conservation. He writes extensively both in English and Kannada and is especially keen on popularising wildlife conservation in local languages. His latest book Leopard Diaries: The Rosette in India is based on his extensive work on leopards. His other books include Second Nature: Saving Tiger Landscapes in the Twenty-First Century, Shaalege Banda Chirate Matthu Ithara Kathegalu, Vanyajeevigala Jaadu Hididu, and Vanyajeevigala Ramyaloka.
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Sashi Kumar is a print and broadcast journalist, filmmaker and media entrepreneur. He founded and chairs the Media Development Foundation which administers the Asian College of Journalism. He was among the earliest newscasters in English on national television, Doordarshan, the West Asia correspondent of The Hindu and news anchor on Radio Bahrain in the mid-1980s. He has anchored and produced numerous shows, documentaries and features for national television in India. In 1992 he founded and launched Asianet, India’s first satellite TV channel in a regional language (Malayalam), and the country’s first statewide cable TV network in Kerala. In 2004 he scripted and directed Kaya Taran, an award-winning Hindi feature film based on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots and the 2002 Gujarat riots. He has acted in a few Malayalam feature films. His latest media venture, Asiaville Interactive (www.asiavillenews.com), was launched at the end of January 2019. He contributed a regular fortnightly column titled ‘Unmediated’ in Frontline; it is also the title of the book comprising his essays and articles published by Tulika Books in 2013. He has received many awards for his work in journalism and films.
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Dr. Shashi Tharoor, a third-term Member of Parliament for Thiruvananthapuram, is the bestselling author of twenty-two books, both fiction and non-fiction, besides being a former Under Secretary-General of the United Nations and a former Minister of State for Human Resource Development and for External Affairs in the Government of India. He has won numerous awards, including the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the Crossword Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2019, Dr. Tharoor was also awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in the category of ‘English Non-Fiction’ for his book An Era of Darkness. He chairs Parliament’s Standing Committee on Information Technology.
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