Archives: Authors

A.P.J. Abdul Kalam was one of India’s most distinguished scientists, responsible for the development of India’s first satellite launch vehicle and the operationalization of strategic missiles. He was also the President of India between 2002 and 2007.

Ananth is a photographer, dog lover and a bibliophile. This is his first novel.

Jerry Pinto is a writer of prose, poetry and children’s fiction in English and also a journalist. Some of Pinto’s noted titles include Helen: The Life and Times of an H-Bomb, Surviving Women, Leela: A Patchwork Life and Asylum and Other Poems. Pinto has translated rare works of Marathi into English, like Cobalt Blue and Baluta. His first novel, Em and the Big Hoom received the Sahitya Akademi Award (2016), the Windham-Campbell Literary Prize, The Hindu Literary Prize and the Crossword Book Award.
Of Goan origin, Pinto grew up in Mahim, Mumbai, and received his Liberal Arts degree from the Elphinstone College and a law degree from the Government Law College in Mumbai.

Naresh Fernandes is a journalist, an editor of Scroll.in and a consulting editor at National Geographic Traveler India. Fernandes is the author of Taj Mahal Foxtrot: The Story of Bombay’s Jazz Age, City Adrift: A Short Biography of Bombay and Bombay Then/Mumbai Now. He has worked with the print media publications including the Times of India, the Wall Street Journal in New York and the Associated Press in Mumbai. He won the Shakti Bhatt First Book Award for Taj Mahal Foxtrot.

Avinab Datta-Areng currently lives in Goa. He’s been a recipient of the Charles Pick fellowship and the Vijay Nambisan fellowship. He’s also the editor of nether. This is his first book.

Sonu Sood is an international film actor, producer, entrepreneur and social worker. He has won several awards for his work in films. He is also the recipient of the United Nations Development Programme’s SDG Action Award for his humanitarian work during the COVID-19 pandemic. The stories of his migrant rescue mission feature in school texts in Andhra Pradesh as lessons in ethics. A fitness enthusiast with exemplary people skills, Sonu is now a household name. He resides in Mumbai with his wife, Sonali, and their two sons, Eshaan and Ayaan.
Meena K. Iyer was the editor of Bombay Times, a film critic at the Times of India and edited DNA‘s ‘After Hrs’. She has been an active media professional for the last thirty-nine years. She co-authored Rishi Kapoor’s bestselling book, Khullam Khulla: Rishi Kapoor Uncensored. She resides in Mumbai and is currently heading a film company.

Gauranga Das is a IIT engineer turned monk, leadership consultant, corporate coach, inspirational speaker, environment leader, social reformer, spiritual leader, teacher, academician. He’s an IIT graduate who worked for the Kirloskars before joining ISKON, Mumbai.

Ruth Vanita (Author)
Ruth Vanita taught at Delhi University for twenty years and is now professor at the University of Montana. She was founding co-editor of Manushi 1978-90. She is the author of several books, including Sappho and the Virgin Mary: Same-Sex Love and the English Literary Imagination (1996); Love’s Rite: Same-Sex Marriage in India (2005); Gandhi’s Tiger and Sita’s Smile: Essays on Gender, Sexuality and Culture (2005), Gender, Sex and the City: Urdu Rekhti Poetry in India 1780–1870 (2012); Dancing with the Nation: Courtesans in Bombay Cinema (2017). Her first novel, Memory of Light, appeared in 2020.

She is the author of over sixty articles on British and Indian literature, and has translated many works of fiction and poetry from Hindi and Urdu to English, most notably Chocolate: Stories on Male-Male Desire by Pandey Bechan Sharma ‘Ugra’ (2008). She divides her time between Missoula and Gurgaon.

Saleem Kidwai (Author)
Saleem Kidwai is a historian and independent scholar, who taught at Ramjas College, Delhi University, for twenty years. He has published several academic essays on medieval and modern India, and translated several works, including Song Sung True: A Memoir by Malka Pukhraj and a collection of Syed Rafiq Hussain’s short stories, The Mirror of Wonders. Apart from the author herself, he is the only person to have translated the novels of Qurratulain Hyder, Chandni Begum and Ship of Sorrow.

Col V. N. Thapar is the father of Capt Vijyant Thapar, VrC, who was a fourthgeneration army officer. At the early age of fifteen, he was selected for the National Defence Academy and commissioned on 12 December 1962 in the
Maratha Light Infantry. He commanded a battalion of the Jammu and Kashmir Rifles. He was part of the 1965 War and Bangladesh War, and has operated in counter-insurgency operations. He is an alumnus of the prestigious Defense
Services, Staff College, Wellington. He has written for media publications and is a motivational speaker at various forums, universities, colleges and schools.

Neha Dwivedi, a Kargil War martyr’s daughter and an Armoured Corps Officer’s wife, is a doctor by profession. She is an alumnus of DPS RK Puram and Lady Hardinge Medical College, Delhi. She sought solace in writing and found her
strength post her father’s martyrdom. She now lives in Mumbai, where she works as a childbirth educator and an infant and young child feeding specialist. She deeply believes in the healing and inspirational power of stories. This is her first book.

Bhupender Yadav is a senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and member of Parliament representing the state of Rajasthan since 2012. Currently serving as the Union Minister of Labour and Employment and Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, he started as a student union leader and in 2000, was appointed General Secretary of the Akhil Bharatiya Adhivakta Parishad, a lawyers’ organization, and remained in the position till 2009. A practising Supreme Court lawyer, he was appointed as the BJP’s National Secretary in 2010 and took charge as National General Secretary in 2014. Previously the chairman/member of twenty-five Parliamentary Committees, Bhupender Yadav is also the co-author of the book Supreme Court on Forest Conservation and regularly expresses his views on issues of importance in newspapers and on news websites.

Ila Patnaik is an economist and professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, New Delhi. She has previously served as the Principal Economic Advisor to the Government of India in 2014-15 and holds a PhD from the University of Surrey, UK. Born and brought up in Delhi, she studied at Hindu College and Jawaharlal Nehru University and has numerous academic papers in reputed journals for economics to her name. She has also been engaged in policy processes and committees and is a popular columnist in the media.