Archives: Authors

Raj Kamal Jha is Chief Editor of The Indian Express group of newspapers which has won the Vienna-based International Press Institute’s Award for Excellence in Journalism five times. Jha led the newspaper’s team that investigated the Panama Papers with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists for which the consortium won the Pulitzer Prize in 2017. In 2021, Jha was awarded India’s Editor of the Year by the International Advertising Association for his “bold and exemplary leadership” of a national newsroom during the Covid pandemic. He has twice been a finalist for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. His most recent novel, The City and the Sea, won Tata Literature Live’s Book of the Year (Fiction), 2019 and the Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize 2020

Arita Sarkar is a journalist based out of Mumbai. Since 2011, she has been a reporter at The Hindu, Mumbai Mirror, the Indian Express and Mid-Day. Her interest in cases concerning the Juvenile Justice Act, the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and child rehabilitation led her to research and write a book about the widespread kidnapping of children in India.
After completing her schooling from the American International School/Dhaka, she graduated from Delhi University with a degree in English literature and later attended the Asian College of Journalism in Chennai. Apart from being a writer, she is an ardent lover of music and food and loves to dabble in a bit of both.

MAHESH NEELKANTH BUCH was an urban planner, statesman and writer who focused on issues of governance and administration in India. He joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1957. An alumni of Pembroke College, Cambridge University, he was Parvin Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson School of the Princeton University. He opted for voluntary retirement in 1984, when he was principal secretary with the government of Madhya Pradesh. He founded the National Centre for Human Settlements and Environment in Bhopal and remained its chairman until his death in 2015.
He held several important portfolios, including vice chairman of the Delhi Development Authority, vice chairman of the National Commission on Urbanization, chairman of the Lutyens’ Bungalow Zone Committee of the Government of India and chairman of the Empowered Committee for the New Vidhan Sabha building in Madhya Pradesh.
He received the Aga Khan award for architecture in 1998 and the Padma Bhushan in 2011. Known as the architect of modern Bhopal, he wrote on wide-ranging issues and chalked out the way forward for effective legal and policy implementation. He published a number of books on governance, planning and environment, besides regularly writing for journals and newspapers.
He is survived by his wife, Nirmala Buch, and son, Vineet Buch.

N. RAVICHANDRAN retired from Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad in October 2018 after serving there for thirty-eight years. He was also director of IIM Indore from 2008 to 2013. His areas of interest include operations research, operations management and business strategy.

Swapan Dasgupta is a member of the Rajya Sabha. He has worked in major national newspapers and magazines and has a doctorate in history from the university of Cambridge.

Giles Tillotson writes and lectures on a wide range of Indian art and architecture, from the sultanate and Rajput period to the colonial and modern eras. He taught at the University of London from 1990 to 2004, since when he has been living in India, working as an author and curator, and as a consultant to museum trusts. Delhi Darshan completes Giles Tillotson’s Golden Triangle trilogy, following his critically acclaimed books Jaipur Nama and Taj Mahal, both published by Penguin India.

Pika Nani was what Deepika Murthy called herself as a child. She wanted to become a writer and realized this dream with her first book, Little Indians: Stories from across the country (2013). When she is not writing, she can be found talking about writing to children in various schools. She grew up in Mumbai and now lives in Bengaluru with her family. When on a break, you will find her travelling or curled up with a good book–most likely a mystery.

Kartik Hosanagar is the John C. Hower Professor of Technology and Digital Business and a professor of marketing at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. The co-founder of four different ventures, he was recognized in 2011 by Poets & Quants as one of the “Top 40 Business Professors Under 40.” His writing has appeared in Wired, Forbes, and the Harvard Business Review, and his past consulting and executive education clients include Google, American Express, Citigroup and SunTrust Bank. Hosanagar earned his PhD in Management Science and Information Systems from Carnegie Mellon University.

Deepti Priya Mehrotra’s published works include Gulab Bai: The Queen of Nautanki Theatre, Home Truths: Stories of Single Mothers, A Passion for Freedom: The Story of Kisanin Jaggi Devi, Western Philosophy and Indian Feminism, Ekal Maa and Bharatiya Mahila Andolan. She has a PhD in political science, and a post-doctoral thesis in philosophy. She remains actively involved with varied social organizations and has an enduring interest in people’s movements, feminist peace-building, popular theatre, healing and creative education. She teaches part-time in Agra University.

WALTER ANDERSEN is professor of South Asia Studies, School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University. Prior to joining the SAIS, he served as chief of the US State Department’s South Asia Division in the Office of Analysis for the Near East and South Asia.

SHRIDHAR D. DAMLE is a freelance journalist and scholar of Indian politics based in the US.

SHRIDHAR D. DAMLE is a freelance journalist and scholar of Indian politics based in the US.