Aravind Mallagatti (Author)
ARAVIND MALAGATTI is an eminent Kannada poet and writer. He has published more than fifty books, which include poetry, fiction and literary criticism. He was the recipient of the prestigious Ambedkar Fellowship Award from the government of Karnataka. His autobiography, Government Brahmana, the first Dalit autobiography in Kannada, won the Karnataka Sahitya Akademi Award.
Susheela Punitha (Translator)
SUSHEELA PUNITHA has translated writer-activist Lakshman’s lifestory, Samboli!, Vaidehi’s Asprushyaru as Vasudeva’s Family, Na. D’Souza’s Dweepa, S. Diwakar’s Hundreds of Streets to the Palace of Lights, shortlisted for the Crossword Book Award, and U.R. Ananthamurthy’s Bharathipura, which was shortlisted for the South Asian Literature Prize and the Hindu Literary Prize. She received the Sahitya Akademi Translation Award for English in 2015 for Bharathipura.
SANJAYA BARU is a policy analyst, writer and columnist. He has served as the editor of the Economic Times, the Financial Express and Business
Standard, and the editorial-page editor of the Times of India and the Indian Express. He was the media adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh and the director for geo-economics and strategy,
International Institute of Strategic Studies, London. He has taught at the University of Hyderabad; Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi; the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Singapore; and the Indian School of Public Policy, New Delhi. His books include The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh , Strategic Consequences of India’s Economic Performance and1991: How P.V. Narasimha Rao Made History .
Khan Mahboob Tarzi (d. 1960) was a novelist and writer from Lucknow. Educated in Aligarh, Tarzi had a number of interests and careers. He was briefly a supervisor in a locksmith factory, did a stint in the army, tried his hand at film-making and directing at Kardar Studios in Calcutta, followed his interest in translating and journalism, and was also involved in in theatre and radio. In the latter part of his life, he lived in Lucknow and worked at the Naseem Book Depot. Writing stories and novels remained his passion throughout his life, and he wrote more than 100 novels on history, politics, society, science fiction and romance.
Sunjeev Sahota is the author of Ours Are the Streets and The Year of the Runaways, which was shortlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize, the International Dylan Thomas Prize and the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, and won the Encore Prize, the European Union Prize for Literature, and the South Bank Sky Arts Award. He was chosen as one of Granta‘s Best Young British Novelists in 2013. He lives in Sheffield.
SAMINA MISHRA is a documentary film-maker, writer and teacher based in New Delhi, with a special interest in media for and about children. Her work uses the lens of childhood, identity and education to reflect the experiences of growing up in India. She also runs The Magic Key Centre for the Arts and Childhood. Samina’s books include Shabana and the Baby Goat, My Friends in the City, My Sweet Home and 101 Children’s Books We Love! (co-author) among others. Her latest book with Duckbill called Nida Finds a Way will be out in 2021.
Anand Neelakantan is the author of the Bahubali trilogy, the prequel to S.S. Rajamouli’s movie. The first book in the series, The Rise of Sivagami, was released in 2017 and continues to be the no. 1 bestseller across charts. The book was on Amazon’s list of top five bestsellers for 2017.
Neelakantan is also the author of Asura: Tale of the Vanquished, which told the Ramayana from Ravana’s point of view. He followed it up with the tremendously successful Ajaya series. Neelakantan’s books have been translated into more than nine languages, including Indonesian.
S.S. Rajamouli has announced a mini-series based on Neelakantan’s books, on the lines of Game of Thrones. Neelakantan has also written scripts/screenplays for popular TV series like Siya Ke Ram, Ashoka, Mahabali Hanuman, among others.
Akshay Tyagi built his first business right out of his college dorm and has since gone on to build and iterate several profitable online and offline businesses. He is currently working on a food start-up. He is interested in technology, public policy and sustainability. He tweets at @theakshaytyagi and blogs at www.akshaytyagi.me.
Akshat Tyagi is the founder of edhack, a start-up helping young people learn on their own. Since selling his content company in 2014, he has written a book on the monoculture of schooling and contributed to several news platforms. He is the 2019 Rajeev Circle Fellow. Write to him at contact@akshattyagi.com.
A.A. Jafri was born and raised in Karachi, Pakistan. He is an economist by day and a writer by night. Of Smokeless Fire is his first novel.
Sam Pitroda is an internationally recognized telecom inventor, entrepreneur, development thinker and policymaker who has spent fifty years in information and communications technology and related global and national developments.
Credited with having laid the foundation for India’s telecommunications and technology revolution of the 1980s, he has been a leading campaigner to help bridge the global digital divide. As a way to induce the second phase of India’s technology revolution, in 2005 he headed India’s National Knowledge Commission (2005–09), to provide a blueprint of reform for the knowledge-related institutions and infrastructure for the twenty-first century in the country.
In addition, Sam is a serial entrepreneur having started several companies in the United States. He holds around twenty honorary PhDs, close to 100 worldwide patents and has published five books and numerous papers and lectured widely all over the world.
