Archives: Authors

Marco Moneta holds a PhD in philosophy from Florence University. Before devoting himself to academic teaching and historical research, he worked in the fields of industry and business consultancy. In 2006, he authored a volume on the great Italian poet and philosopher Giacomo Leopardi. From early 2000, he has been travelling in the Indian subcontinent for both research and pleasure. Over the last decade, his interests and research have been aimed at the interactions between Europeans and Indians in the early modern age. A Venetian at the Mughal Court is the first result of a work in progress on European travellers to South-East Asia in the seventeenth century.

Rejimon Kuttappan is an independent journalist and a migrant rights defender. He was Chief Reporter for the Times of Oman until he was deported back to India in 2017, for exposing human trafficking and modern slavery in the Arab Gulf through a front-page news story.

Rejimon now writes for the Thomson Reuters Foundation (TRF), Equal Times, Migrant Rights, Middle East Eye, The Hindu, Times of India, The Caravan, Wire, The Leaflet, and various other Indian news portals.

He has done two media fellowships with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) on labour migration and human trafficking, and one each with TRF and National Foundation of India (NFI) on forced labour and Gulf migration, respectively.

Rejimon is also a researcher for the Migrant Forum in Asia and has worked as a consultant for the ILO and International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).

In 2019, he authored an anthology, Rowing Between Rooftops: The Heroic Fishermen of Kerala Floods, telling the stories of heroic fishermen who rescued thousands from the 2018 Kerala floods.

Rejimon belongs to the Panan Dalit community of Kerala. Historically, Panans were ballad singers who narrated the acts of the then great warriors and kings. He wishes to continue this storytelling legacy through his books and writing.

Rejimon lives in Kerala and can be followed on @rejitweets. He can be contacted at reji.news@gmail.com

Swapnil Pandey is the bestselling author of Soldier’s Girl and Love Story of a Commando. Both her works of fiction emphasise the emotions of a soldier and have been a rage among youngsters. She is also a star blogger with an audience-base reaching up to lakhs of people.

Apart from blogging professionally for various brands, she also loves compiling stories about life in the Indian military. Since lockdown 2020, she has also started producing motivational and informational videos to add value to the lives of her audiences. These videos have created a huge impact among the masses and have been pivotal in raising various social issues surrounding military families.

The effortless portrayal of military life comes from her fauji background. She married into the tribe thirteen years ago and her nomadic life in army cantonments all across the country amongst extraordinary men and women has pushed her to come up with the most extraordinary stories. She believes a nation must not only look after the well-being of its soldiers and their families, but also honour their memories. The Force Behind the Forces is her humble attempt to provide the most authentic glimpse of the coveted army life and of the struggles military families face to common people.

Swapnil is also an alumnus of Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, and has worked with organisations like Wipro, HDFC, taught at Lovely Professional University and even the Army Public School to name a few of her ever-changing job profiles as the wife of an army officer.

Rajni Sekhri Sibal is a writer and an IAS officer. She topped the civil services examination in 1986 and was Secretary, Government of India. Rajni has worked in various capacities handling programme implementation and policymaking at the state as well as the national level. She is the recipient of the Indian of the Year Award in the category ‘Unsung Hero’.

She has authored Cloud’s End and Beyond, Kamadhenu, Are You Prepared for a Disaster?, Fragrant Words, The Haunting Himalayas and Asariri. Women of Influence is her seventh book.

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.

SUGATA SRINIVASARAJU is an independent journalist, author and columnist who has written for nearly three decades at the intersection of politics, culture and contemporary history. In the past, he has edited newspapers, run television channels and digital news platforms. Over the years, he has been a Chevening Scholar in the UK, a fellow of the Aspen Institute in the US, and a Homi Bhabha fellow in India.
Sugata’s books, among others, include Strange Burdens: The Politics and Predicaments of Rahul Gandhi; Furrows in a Field: The Unexplored Life of HD Deve Gowda; Pickles from Home: The Worlds of a Bilingual and Keeping Faith with the Mother Tongue: The Anxieties of a Local Culture.

Evi is the CEO of Worldwide Buddies, an educational startup that creates picture books and toys that celebrate diversity. She is the author of children’s books A Marvelous Mexican Misunderstanding and China’s Child. Evi holds a BA in Geography from the LSE, an MA in Anthropology & Cultural Politics from
Goldsmiths and an MA in Individualized Study from NYU, with a concentration in creative writing and education. Evi is fascinated by discovering new
places and learning new things. An advocate of education, she loves books, adventures and ice creams, and has a mild obsession with polar bears.

Dr Joseph Murphy was a world-renowned authority on mysticism and mind dynamics. He wrote, taught, counselled, and lectured to thousands of people all over the world as the minister-director of the Church of Divine Science in Los Angeles. His sermons and lectures were attended by numerous people every Sunday. During his lifetime, he authored over thirty outstanding self-help books selling more that fifteen million copies.

Rajendra Yadav (1929–2013) was a leading Hindi writer, known as much for his novels and short stories as for his editorship of the Hindi literary magazine, Hans. He was born in Agra, and moved to Calcutta after his studies, where he stayed for almost a decade. This is where he met Mannu Bhandari, herself a writer, and they married in 1959. In 1964, the couple moved to Delhi. His first novel was Sara Akash (1951), which was made into a film by Basu Chatterjee in 1969. Sara Akash was followed by Ukhde Hue Log, Kulta, Shah Aur Maat, Andekhe Anjaan Pal and Mantravidh. He also co-authored a novel with Mannu Bhandari, Ek Inch Muskaan. He wrote over a hundred short stories and was part of the ‘trikon’ who started the influential Nayi Kahani movement in the 1950s (the other two were Mohan Rakesh and Kamleshwar). In 1986 he revived Hans, the magazine founded by Munshi Premchand in 1936. He edited it till his death in 2013, making it the premier Hindi literary magazine of its time.