Archives: Authors

Harsh Mander, fifty-five, social worker and writer, is a member of the National Advisory Council. He is also the founder of the campaigns Aman Biradari, for secularism, peace and justice; Nyayagrah, for legal justice and reconciliation for the survivors of communal violence; and Dil Se, for street children and homeless people. He is special commissioner to the Supreme Court of India in the Right to Food case, and director, Centre for Equity Studies. For almost two decades he worked in the Indian Administrative Service in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. He is also associated with causes like tribal, Dalit and disability rights, the right to information, custodial justice and bonded labour.
He writes columns for The Hindu and Hindustan Times, and is the author of Unheard Voices: Stories of Forgotten Lives and Fear and Forgiveness: The Aftermath of Massacre published by Penguin India. Other books include The Ripped Chest: Public Policy and Poor in India and his co-authored Untouchability in Rural India. Harsh has taught in the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad; St Stephen’s College, Delhi; California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco; LBS National Academy of Adminsitration, Mussoorie; and the Nelson Mandela Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi, among others.
He lives in Delhi with his wife and daughter.

Dipen Shah was born in Mumbai and spent most of his childhood in Doha, Qatar. He started working as a copywriter after completing his bachelor’s in media and communications. Later, he wrote content for Indian Premier League (IPL) teams like Royal Challengers Bangalore and Kings XI Punjab before moving to FilterCopy, Dice Media and Gobble as a social media manager. Currently, he is a copy editor at FilterCopy. Dipen loves comedy and hopes to become a comedian someday. He is also a hopeless romantic. He lives in Mumbai.

Yagnaswami Sundara Rajan is a well-recognized authority and a thought leader on technology development, business management and society linkages. He held various positions of responsibility related to science and technology between 1988 and 2002 and has shaped key policies and implemented several successful R&D projects with industry participation. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 2012. Srijan Pal Singh is an engineer and management graduate from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. He was with the Indian Institute of Space Sciences and Technology (IIST) where he directly worked with Kalam as a scientific advisor.

Ranjana Sengupta worked as Associate Publisher at Penguin Random House India. Her areas of interest are largely in nonfiction: politics, history, foreign policy, strategic affairs, memoirs, biographies and culture though she also handles some contemporary fiction. Pakistan is a special area of focus for her and she has many books from Pakistan on her list, both fiction and nonfiction. She has been in publishing for nearly two decades.

Nergis Dalal has been writing for over fifty years. She is the author of four novels, a collection of short stories, a book for children, a cookery book, a best-selling book on yoga and, under the pseudonym Aries, a collection of middles that appeared over three decades in the Times of India, the Statesman, the Hindustan Times and other national newspapers. Several of her short stories have been broadcast over the BBC and published in anthologies in India, UK and Australia.

Nergis Dalal has three children and three grandchildren. She lives in Dehra Dun.

Manjula Padmanabhan (b. 1953), is a writer and artist living in New Delhi. Her books include Hot Death, Cold Soup (Kali for Women, 1996), Getting There (Picador India, 1999) and This is Suki! (Duckfoot Press, 2000). Harvest (Kali for Women, 1998 and subsequently in three separate international anthologies), her fifth play, won the 1997 Onassis Award for Theatre. She has illustrated twenty-two books for children including, most recently, her own first novel for children, Mouse Attack (Macmillan Children’s Books, UK, 2003; Picador India, 2004). Her comic strips appeared weekly in The Sunday Observer (Bombay, 1982-86) and daily in The Pioneer (New Delhi, 1991-97). Her most recent exhibition was of etchings and lithographs (London, December 2003).

Shri. G. Narayana is chairman emeritus of Excel Industries Limited, chairman and director of several companies and a mentor, contributor, educator and trainer in management. He is a mentor to several chief executives, executives, lecturers, students, corporations, management institutions, universities, colleges, schools and social, spiritual and voluntary organizations. He has adopted a missionary life of contributing and assisting several people to experience their own inner light and potential and for peace and harmony amongst different people and groups. He is the author of several books and articles on management, education, leadership, life and spirituality. Most of these books are published by the Ahmedabad Management Association. He has been recognized by several awards and titles._x000D_

Indra K. Nooyi is chairman and chief executive officer of PepsiCo.

Prior to becoming CEO, Ms Nooyi served as president and chief financial officer beginning in 2001, when she was also named to PepsiCo’s board of directors. In this position, she was responsible for PepsiCo’s corporate functions, including finance, strategy, business process optimization, corporate platforms and innovation, procurement, investor relations and information technology. Between February 2000 and April 2001, Ms Nooyi was senior vice president, corporate strategy and development, from 1996 until 2000, and as PepsiCo’s senior vice president, strategic planning from 1994 until 1996.

Before joining PepsiCo in 1994, Ms Nooyi spent four years as senior vice president of strategy and strategic marketing for Asea Brown Boveri, a Zurich-based industrial company.

Between 1986 and 1990, Ms Nooyi worked for Motorola, where she was vice president and director of corporate strategy and planning, having joined the company as the business development executive for its automotive and industrial electronic group. Prior to Motorola, she spent six years directing international corporate strategy projects at the Boston Consulting Group. Her clients ranged from textiles and consumer goods companies to retailers and specialty chemical producers. Ms Nooyi began her career in India, where she held product manager positions at Johnson & Johnson and at Mettur Beardsell Ltd, a textile firm.

In addition to being a member of the PepsiCo board of directors, Ms Nooyi serves as a member of the boards of the US–China Business Council, the US–India Business Council, the Consumer Goods Forum, Catalyst, the Lincoln Centre for the Performing Arts and Tsinghua University. She is also a member of the foundation board of the World Economic Forum, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was appointed to the US–India CEO Forum by the Obama administration.

She holds a BS from Madras Christian College, an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta and a master of public and private management from Yale.

Anand Mahindra is chairman and managing director of Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. He graduated with honours (magna cum laude) from Harvard College and received an MBA from the Harvard Business School._x000D_