Dharmendra Pradhan

Starting his political career with ABVP, the students’ wing of BJP, the 48-year-old Rajya Sabha member has risen through the ranks and is now one of the most prominent faces of the NDA government and among the top-performing ministers in the Cabinet. Entrusted with the responsibility of making crucial reforms to the PNG Ministry and implementing the flagship Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, Pradhan has displayed deft leadership in making them a success. The Ujjwala scheme crossed the targeted five crore gas connection distribution among poor people, eight months ahead of schedule.

Pradhan also earned plaudits for successfully implementing the Give it UP campaign and the Pahal Scheme, which has entered the Guinness World Records as the largest cash transfer programme in the world. His success in the PNG Ministry earned him the additional charge of the Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Ministry. Here, he has initiated several measures to transform the skill development sector to mould an employment-ready youth force and create a vibrant ecosystem for entrepreneurship.

Pradhan’s heart lies in social work and he has always worked for the development and welfare of farmers, backward classes, poor and marginal sections. He is also committed to tackling youth-related issues such as unemployment and the lack of skill-based education. Pradhan has played a major role in mobilising the youth in politics and is actively working to create better leaders for tomorrow. In his free time, he reads books on history and politics and tracks social trends.

Ashutosh

A journalist, columnist and author, Ashutosh was the Managing Editor of IBN7 from 2006 to 2014, when he gave it up to become a political activist. He started his journalistic career with Saptahik Hindustan and went on to work at Dainik Hindustan, BITV and AajTak. In 1997, he was awarded the UN’s prestigious Dag Hammarskjold Memorial Scholarship, becoming the sixth Indian and the first-ever Hindi journalist to get it.

Ashutosh has authored two books. Anna–13 days that awakened India is a detailed account of the Anna agitation and The Crown Prince, The Gladiator & The Hope–Battle for Change is a narrative about the changing politics in India in the context of the 2014 elections written, from the perspective of a journalist as well as a political activist. His upcoming book is an analysis of the five years of the Modi government, tracing its ideological foundations.

In January 2014, Ashutosh joined the Aam Aadmi Party. After a successful career in journalism, he felt it was time to be a direct participant in the movement for change that was the call of the moment for the country. Political activism afforded him the chance to connect with people at the grass root level. He resigned from the party in June 2018 to return to journalism.

Avalok Langer

Born into a military family, Avalok Langer grew up playing hide and seek in tank garages. He was exposed to war and conflict at a young age and, after being banned from joining the army by his father (quite rightly), found himself in awe of the conflict journalists on TV and hoped to join their ranks one day. Oddly enough, a BA in political science from Delhi University led him to a job in NDTV. Having anchored far too many food shows, he realized he needed to jump the long queue that led to his initial interest, conflict journalism. So, with a ‘soft loan’ from his parents and his own savings, Avalok spent a year travelling along the western border from Gujarat to Jammu and then on to Northeast, where he met various underground groups, revolutionary leaders, military and political personnel, who gave him a perspective far removed from his military background, highlighting the on ground realities of conflict.

Running out of money before he could explore the ‘red corridor’, he joined Tehelka Magazine where he reported primarily on the Northeast. His travels, experiences and conversations as a reporter led to his first book In Pursuit of Conflict, a personalized narrative of the region’s long-standing conflicts.

Avalok is currently based in Delhi making documentaries on varied subjects or, as he puts it, on anything that allows him to escape Delhi’s heat.

Chandan Mitra

Chandan Mitra is the Editor and Managing Director of The Pioneer. He is a well-known journalist with wide-ranging experience in both the print and television media, spanning more than 30 years. Mitra has served in senior editorial positions of leading national publications such as The Statesman, The Sunday Observer, The Times of India and The Hindustan Times. He appears frequently on major national news channels as a political commentator. The Pioneer Group, of which he is Chairman, also publishes Exotica, a lifestyle magazine for top hotel chains.

An alumnus of La Martinere, Kolkata, St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, and Oxford University, Mitra has authored several books including Corrupt Society. He has served as a Member of Parliament in the RajyaSabha for two terms from 2003 to 2016. He was first nominated to the Upper House by the President of India in 2003 and for his second term, was elected to the House from Madhya Pradesh as a BJP nominee in June 2010. He was in the BJP’s National Executive Committee from 2005 to 2018. Recently, Mitra left the BJP and joined the Trinamool Congress (TMC) under the leadership of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Devapriya Roy

Devapriya Roy is the author of two novels, The Vague Woman’s Handbook and The Weight Loss Club. Her third book, The Heat and Dust Project: the Broke Couple’s Guide to Bharat, co-written with SauravJha, is the story of an eccentric journey around India on local buses, on a very, very tight budget of `500 rupees a day. Roy’s latest project is Indira, a graphic biography of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, framed in a novella, which she created in collaboration with artist PriyaKuriyan. At the moment, her new novel The Romantics of College Street is being serialised in The Telegraph. An alumna of Presidency College, Calcutta, and Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, she spent many years in pursuit of a PhD in performance studies, on Bharata’s Natyashastra, an ancient Indian text of dramaturgy. She lives in Delhi where she writes, teaches, and plots and plans to turn over a new leaf very soon.

Dhiraj Kumar

A popular name in the realm of film direction and production, Dhiraj Kumar is much admired for his contributions to the Indian television and regional film industry. Following his graduation from the Asian Academy of Film and Television as a film student, he directed and produced many regional films and television serials for national TV channels. In 2018, he is debuting in Bollywood as a director and producer with the Hindi suspense thriller Kaashi, in Search of Ganga, which will hit the theatres in October.

Kota Neelima

Kota Neelima is an author and researcher, who writes on farmer suicides, gender and the rural poor. She has a Doctorate in Political Science from the University of Delhi and a Master’s degree in International Relations from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. Neelima was Senior Research Fellow, South Asia Studies at The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University, Washington, DC. She has been also a journalist for over 23 years, and was Political Editor for The Sunday Guardian newspaper.

Neelima’s new book, Widows of Vidarbha, Making of Shadows, presents the life of the widows of farmer suicides due to agricultural distress. The narratives of farm widows reveal their invisibility to the state, the community, and even to their own families, and their constant surrender to the rules of patriarchy. Between the ages of 26 and 63, the lives of these widows were followed for three years to record how they survived without hope, and what impact it had on their children. Neelima’s earlier books fictionalised the narratives of rural poor and discussed facets of the crisis in Indian villages. Riverstones explored the deliberate neglect of farmer suicides, while Death of Moneylender revealed the role moneylenders play in a farmer’s life. Shoes of the Dead was a chronicle of rural anger and The Honest Season questioned the principles of Indian democracy.

Neelima is also an artist and her works are part of collections in India and aboard, including the Museum of Sacred Art, Belgium. More details at www.kotaneelima.com

Manish Kishore

After passing out from Rai University, Ahmedabad, Manish Kishore worked for several news channels in the capital before landing up in Mumbai, where he worked as a creative in television shows like Indian Idol, Kaun Banega Crorepati, Raaz Pichle Janamka, X Factor, Ye hai Aashiqui, Shaitan, Aamna Saamna and Crime Patrol across all the top entertainment channels. He also travelled to Pakistan as a creative supervisor of singing reality show Pakistan Idol.

As a writer, he has worked for TV shows like CID, Crime Patrol and Police Files and has written films for Insite India. He is the writer and co-producer of the upcoming Hindi thriller, Kaashi in Search of Ganga.

Manjima Bhattacharjya

Manjima Bhattacharjya is a researcher, writer and activist. She has been part of the Indian women’s movement for over two decades. She holds a PhD in sociology. Her areas of specialization include gender and sexuality, and labour and the body.

Her first book, an edited volume Sarpanch Sahib was long-listed for the Crossword Best Non-Fiction Book of 2009. She has written for several publications including The Times of India, ELLE and Info-change India. She lives and works out of Mumbai.

Manjima’s newest book is Mannequin: Working Women in India’s Glamour Industry. It was published by Zubaan Books in June 2018.

Neyaz Farooquee

Neyaz Farooquee is a journalist based in Delhi. He works with the editorial and opinion section of The Hindustan Times. He was a fellow at the New India Foundation and a non-fiction fellow at Sarai-CSDS, and has contributed to The New York Times and Al Jazeera. An Ordinary Man’s Guide to Radicalism is his first book. It’s a memoir of being a Muslim in India, in which he talks about his growing up years in his village in Bihar and then, at the age of 10, of migrating to New Delhi and living alone in a ghetto. Through his personal stories, the author deals extensively with the fear and uncertainty that religious minorities face when the State and media treats them as the “Other”.

Piyush Roy

Piyush Roy is an Indian critic, columnist, curator and film scholar. Former editor of Stardust and StarWeek, he has worked at and written for India’s leading publications. Teaching Indian cinema at UK universities and Indian media schools for over a decade, he completed his doctoral thesis on The Aesthetics of Emotional Acting from the University of Edinburgh, UK (2017). Author of two works of fiction, Never Say Never Again and Alexander – An Epic Love Story, his forthcoming projects are the non-fiction Bollywood FAQ and a documentary Pleasures Prejudice & Pride: An Indian Way of Filmmaking.

Honoured with ‘Special Mention’ for Best Critic at the 60th Indian National Film Awards (2013) by the President of India, he’s a recipient of Sir William Darling Memorial Prize (UK, 2014). He’s been on the jury of Bollywood Power Brands Awards, a judge on Star TV Writers Program 2017, and is the Founder-Festival Director of the Edinburgh Festival of Indian Films & Documentaries. Currently, he is Associate Professor in Liberal Studies at Jain University, Bengaluru.

Website: www.piyushroy.com

Rakesh Sinha

Author of various monographs, books and eloquent scholarly works, Rakesh Sinha was nominated to the Rajya Sabha by the President of India in 2018. His seminal work Builders of modern India: Dr KB Hedgewar, published in 2003, has made fundamental contribution to our understanding of the RSS. Sinha’s well-researched counter-narrative on the Sachar Committee report compiled in his work, titled Roti, Rajya aur Rozgar ka Sampradayikaran, has uncovered the lacunas in it and earned him laurels in the political treatise. His work Decolonization of Indian minds has started new discourse among academicians on resurrecting pride in our own values and ethos. An upcoming collection of articles, RSS in intellectual discourse: Contesting prejudices, myths and coercions will unfurl a plethora of facts to demolish the false perception built around the RSS. For his exemplary academic record, Sinha has many awards to his credit, including the Prof CJ Chako Award for Gold Medal in MA, the BC Pal Award for nationalistic writing and the Pt Deen Dayal Upadhaya Award. The author is an alumnus of Hindu College and earned his doctorate in CPI(M): Its organizational and ideological transformation since its inception in 1964 to 2007. He is an academician in Delhi University and Honorary Director of the India Policy Foundation.

Salman Khurshid

Salman Khurshid is an eminent politician, designated senior advocate, author and a law teacher. He started his political career in 1981 as an officer on Special Duty in the Prime Minister’s Office under Indira Gandhi, and went on to hold various portfolios in the Union Cabinet. Khurshid has been writing and acting in plays since his student days in Delhi and Oxford. He is the author of the play Sons of Babur, which has been staged at the Red Fort in Delhi.

His latest offering is At Home in India: The Muslim Saga. It is a comprehensive and forceful book that highlights the fact that Muslims feel at home in India and provides rare insights into their thought processes, aspirations and problems. His book, Beyond Terrorism: New Hope for Kashmir is a poignant tale that has received many rave reviews. A number of educational and non-educational institutions have been opened across India as part of Khurshid’s ongoing welfare efforts. This includes a number of Industrial Training Institutes opened exclusively for women and special computer centres that also offer Urdu typing classes.

Sharman Joshi

The talented 39-year-old Sharman Joshi has worked in and directed several productions in English, Hindi, Marathi and Gujarati theatre, but is most widely known for his work in Hindi films. In 1996, the now defunct Amitabh Bachchan Corporation Limited (ABCL) held an all-India search for acting talent. It was called Star Track. Sharman was one of the nine persons selected out of millions of entrants. ABCL disappeared soon after, but Joshi stayed the course.

He made his acting debut in Godmother in 1999, and appeared as a co-lead actor in the Hindi film Style two years later. This was followed by memorable roles in hit films such as Rang De Basanti, Golmaal, Life in a... Metro, Ferrari Ki Sawaari, Hate Story 3 and 1920 London, but it is his portrayal ofthe character ofRaju Rastogi in the movie 3 Idiots that audiences remember and love the most.He is now playing the lead role in the upcoming Hindi suspense thriller Kaashi in Search of Ganga.

Soumya Ranjan Patnaik

Soumya Ranjan Patnaik is a politician and media moghul, founder of Eastern Media Limited, the largest media conglomerate comprising leading Odia daily newspaper Sambad, TV channel Kanak, digital media & radio, movie production house as well as Jatra (folk opera) troupes in Odisha. The RajyaSabha MP is a gold medalist from Benaras Hindu University and alumnus of illustrious institutions like Ravenshaw University, Oxford University and London School of Economics. He left his career in academics to become a journalist and started Sambad in 1984. It was Odisha’s first morning vernacular newspaper and has been a trendsetter in Odia journalism since.

Patnaik’s vision and commitment to Odisha’s development and social welfare led him into politics. He had trysts with major national parties including the Congress, BJP and NCP, and even formed his own regional party Ama Odisha Party before joining BJD in 2018. With a penchant for social service, he formed the Ama Odisha organisation for promotion of Odia language. He was also founder chairman of the Odisha Assembly of Small and Medium Enterprises.

A sharp and incisive writer, Patnaik has authored Ama Gharara Halchal, a collection of writings on contemporary issues. His writings have won him praise from all quarters.

Subhashish Panigrahi

Subhashish Panigrahi has spearheaded a movement to create an Internet-based open ecosystem for developing and preserving lesser-known marginalised languages of the country. A community manager having worked with Wikimedia Foundation, Mozilla, and Internet Society, he is also a documentary filmmaker.

Subhashish has founded OpenSpeaks, a project that helps communities to digitally document marginalized languages. He has also co-founded the O Foundation, a Bhubaneswar-based organisation that is working in the intersection of under-represented people, languages and cultures. He has led teams to document several lesser-spoken and fading languages of Odisha and the all but extinct Kusunda, a language of Nepal that was spoken by only one person.

He was instrumental in reviving the Odia language Wikipedia which has become the largest online Odiaencyclopedia with over 14,000 articles. He has mentored and developed many new Odia input tools, which are now used by online users to type in Odia. He has authored Rising Voices: Indigenous Language Digital Activism.

Sujit Mahapatra

Sujit Mahapatra heads Bakul Foundation, which he founded. Bakul is a movement for volunteerism and channelises this primarily for the promotion of reading. One of the foundation’s first initiatives was to bring together 1,000 people to set up a children’s library in Odisha. This library now has a collection of over 20,000 books, including some very interesting and engaging educational resources for children, and runs entirely with individual contributions and without any funding or user surcharge.

Sujit studied English Literature at Utkal, Hyderabad and Delhi Universities. His research interests are in the fields of Environmentalism and Children’s Literature. He is currently working on a book on the cultural construction of the tropical jungle. He taught English literature at Ravenshaw University, and has been a consultant to UNICEF and the Government of Odisha on reading promotion. He was a Member, Drafting Committee of Odisha State Youth Policy and is a Member of several State level Committees. Sujit is a popular speaker on social entrepreneurship and has been invited to speak at prestigious fora such as TEDx, the IIMs, XLRI, XIMB and BITS Pilani. For his work with Bakul, Sujit was chosen to represent India on Volunteerism at the International Visitor Leadership Program 2010 by the US Department of State.