Novelist, historian, playwright and polemecist, Jamyang Norbu is known as one of the leading exile Tibetan writers at work today, principally on account of his numerous essays on Tibetan politics, history and culture appearing regularly on his blog and other websites, and in such books as Illusion & Reality, Buying the Dragon’s Teeth, Shadow Tibet and Don’t Stop the Revolution.
Although he has been denounced by the People’s Daily (Beijing) as ‘…the radical Tibetan separatist’ and condemned by the exile Tibetan leadership for his critical writings on the Dalai Lama’s policies, Norbu is one of the few exile writers read inside Tibet and even in China, where translations of his essays have appeared on various websites. The Beijing based Tibetan poet and blogger, Tsering Woeser, has described him as the ‘Lu Xun of Tibet’.
His novel The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes won the Crossword Book Award (‘India’s Booker’) in 2000, and has been translated into a dozen languages. Norbu was a member of the Tibetan resistance force in Mustang, on the Nepal-Tibet frontier in the early 70s. He currently lives in New York City with his wife and two daughters.
Abhijeet Kini is a Mumbai-based illustrator, animator and comics creator. His love for the comics medium started from a very young age and he has been drawing comics professionally for two decades now. Other than the work he has done for leading publications, his self-published indie comics like Angry Maushi, Bombay Rhymes and Fanboys are quite popular among readers. Abhijeet has had a special place in his heart for Butterfingers, ever since he started drawing the character in various outings and has thoroughly enjoyed working on this book too!
R Kaushik has been a cricket writer for over three decades. Since starting his career with Newstime in Hyderabad, he has worked with Deccan Herald and Wisden India, and has reported on more than 100 Test matches. He is the co-author of Gundappa Vishwanath’s autobiography Wrist Assured and former India bowling coach R Sridhar’s book Coaching Beyond. His association with VVS Laxman dates back to 1990.
VVS Laxman is a former Indian cricketer and is currently the head of cricket at the National Cricket Academy, Bengaluru. Formerly a cricket commentator and mentor to the IPL team Sunrisers Hyderabad, he received the Arjuna Award in 2002 and the Padma Shri in 2011, and was named one of Wisden’s five Cricketers of the Year in 2002. These days, he lives in Bengaluru with his family.
Bharti Singh flew many paper planes as a child-some that travelled far and some that didn’t. Some brought joy, some got stuck in trees. She now writes stories and poems and sends them out into the world, just like the paper planes from the past. When not writing, she can be found singing to her plants or skateboarding in the park.
Kavitha Ranganathan is a faculty in the information systems area at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA). She holds a master’s degree and a PhD in computer science from the University of Chicago and a master’s degree in information systems from BITS, Pilani.
Kavitha has been teaching data visualization courses to MBA and doctoral students, analytics professionals and in a wide range of corporate training programmes for more than a decade now. She draws from this vast and rich experience for her book, which captures the main principles for avoiding misleading graphs and creating effective and intuitive visualizations.
Kavitha lives in Ahmedabad with her husband, their two kids and Coco, the youngest furry canine addition to the family. Whenever she gets a free moment, Kavitha can be found walking around the IIMA campus, admiring the many species of trees and birds in this gorgeously green oasis.
Listed under Forbes’ India’s Top 100 Digital Star 2022, Awarded Climate Warrior Of The Year 2022 (Editor Choice) by Cosmopolitan Magazine, and Sustainable Changemaker Of The Year 2022 (Popular Choice) by Exhibit Magazine.
Aakash has delivered 5 TEDx Talks and authored his first book on Climate Change in 2020, and has created three Climate Art Installations, covered by over 230 national and international media publications. Aakash is also a contributing author for Forbes India, Times of India, & YourStory.
On the road for eight years, Aakash lives a nomadic & minimalist life and spends his time travelling the length and breadth of India by walking, cycling, and hitchhiking with his trusty backpack and camera, spreading his message of love, kindness, and sustainability.
Francois ‘Faf’ du Plessis is a professional cricketer and former captain of the South African national cricket team. He is considered to be one of the best fielders in the game and among the best all-format batsmen of his era. He is also regarded as one of the most tactically astute and successful captains in all formats of modern cricket. Faf was named as the South African Cricketer of the Year in 2019. His Indian Premier League (IPL) career kicked off in 2012, when he played for Chennai Super Kings (CSK). He went on to play for CSK for four years, followed by two years with Rising Pune Supergiant, after which he returned to CSK for another four years. Faf became captain of Royal Challengers Bangalore in the IPL in 2022 and was captain of Joburg Super Kings in the first edition of the SA20 league in 2023.
Sandeep Sahu is a Bhubaneswar-based senior journalist with over three decades of work behind him. He has been reporting for the BBC World Service from Odisha for over twenty-eight years now. Starting out with the leading Odia daily Sambad in 1986, he has worked for a host of top local, national and international media houses over the years. He also served as the Odisha correspondent for Outlook between May 2018 and December 2021. He writes for a number of national news websites such as Quint, News 18, Firstpost and Federal. He has worked as editorial director of OTV, the No. 1 Odia news channel, and also writes a popular column titled ‘Scandeep’ on the OTV site. He is among the very few journalists in the state who writes in three different languages: Odia, Hindi and English. Apart from his journalistic work, Sahu has written scripts for scores of documentaries, telefilms and TV serials in Odia, English and Hindi. Sandeep tweets @geminianguddu.
Kamal has been on dialysis since July 1997. Diagnosed with atypical haemolytic uremic syndrome in July 1997, he was on haemodialysis for a year and a half before undergoing an unsuccessful renal transplant. His mother had donated her kidney. Kamal was then on peritoneal dialysis (PD) for six years. He was caught in the tsunami of December 2004 while holidaying in Mahabalipuram with some friends. A series of exit site, tunnel and peritoneal cavity infections later, he had to give up PD. Kamal then switched to daily nocturnal home haemodialysis. He is currently on this modality. Kamal did his chemical engineering at Osmania University. He developed software for Apple products for about ten years before co-founding NephroPlus. Kamal has a widely read blog about his journey with kidney disease: www.kamaldshah.com
