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Speakers

Aayush Puthran

Journalist & Author

Ami Ganatra

Author

Arup Kumar Dutta

Author & Social Commentator

Jasreen Mayal Khanna

Author & Travel Journalist

S. Muralidhar

Author & Senior Advocate

K. Hari Kumar

Author, Screenwriter & Content Creator

Koral Dasgupta

Author, TEDx Speaker & Narrative Strategist

Dr. Meeran Chadha Borwankar

Author & Former IPS Officer

Nadeem Khan

Translator & Educator

Neil D'Silva

Author, Screenwriter & Horror Writer

Rachita Tandon

Political Comic Artist & Satirist

Rahul Singh

Academic & Writer

Ram Ramaswamy

Academic & Writer

Stanly Johny

International Affairs Editor & Author

Stuti Changle

Author & Speaker

Vandana Shukla

Writer & Journalist

Vasudhendra

Author

Vikrant Pande

Author & Translator

Vivek Shanbhag

Author & Translator

Ramachandra Guha

Historian & Author

Aayush Puthran

Journalist & Author
Aayush Puthran is a Bangalore-based journalist and author whose work explores the stories, histories and people behind sport. His debut, Unveiling Jazbaa: A History of Pakistan Women’s Cricket, was shortlisted for Cricket Book of the Year at the 2023 Sunday Times Sports Book Awards. He writes for Cricbuzz.
Published Books
Unveiling Jazbaa: A History of Pakistan Women’s Cricket
Chasing Like Dhoni: Exploring the Underbelly of Indian Cricket
The Boom Effect: Decoding the Magic of Jasprit Bumrah

Ami Ganatra

Author

Ami Ganatra writes about the ideas, stories and knowledge systems within India’s epics and traditions. She is the author of four books for adults, including Mahabharata Unravelled, Ramayana Unravelled and Why Are We This Way: A Guide to Hindu Shastras, along with five books for children. She also speaks and teaches on the Ramayana, Mahabharata, Bhagavad Gita, Yoga Sutras and other Indic knowledge systems.

Published Books
Mahabharata Unravelled – 1: Lesser Known Facets of a Well Known History
Ramayana Unravelled: Lesser Known Facets of Rishi Valmiki’s Epic
Mahabharata Unravelled – 2: The Dharma Discourses

Arup Kumar Dutta

Author & Social Commentator
Based in Assam, Arup Kumar Dutta has spent five decades writing across fiction, non-fiction, satire and journalism, while creating adventure novels for young readers. Widely acknowledged as a pioneer of English writing in the North-East, he has authored 40 books, many of them rooted in the people, places and histories of the region. His work has earned him the Padma Shri, along with several other literary honours.
Published Books
Leaves No Longer Green
The Ahoms
Anagarika’s Swansong

Jasreen Mayal Khanna

Author & Travel Journalist
A Mumbai-based author and travel journalist, Jasreen Mayal Khanna began her career with Condé Nast Traveller India and continues to write for international publications including Robb Report, Travel + Leisure and DestinAsian. Her writing has taken her across continents, looking beyond the familiar to find stories in places and people often overlooked. Her debut book, Seva: Sikh Wisdom on Living Well by Doing Good, was published in India, the UK, Spain and France. Her second, Bullet Nani & Other Badass Indian Grandmas, is a celebration of women who prove that adventure has no age limit.
Published Books
Seva: Sikh Wisdom on Living Well by Doing Good
Bullet Nani & Other Badass Indian Grandmas

S. Muralidhar

Author & Senior Advocate
S. Muralidhar is a Senior Advocate, author and former judge whose work has spanned law, human rights and access to justice. After nearly two decades of practice in the Supreme Court and Delhi High Court, he served as a judge of the Delhi High Court and later as Chief Justice of the Orissa High Court. His writing explores human rights, economic and social justice, and the relationship between law and society. He is the author of Law, Poverty and Legal Aid: Access to Criminal Justice and numerous essays in Indian and international publications.
Published Books
Law, Poverty and Legal Aid: Access to Criminal Justice

K. Hari Kumar

Author, Screenwriter & Content Creator
K. Hari Kumar explores Indian mythology, folklore, horror and the supernatural across books, cinema and digital storytelling. He is the bestselling author of ten books, including India’s Most Haunted, Daiva and Naaga, and has written for feature films and web series in Hindi and Malayalam. Through his digital platform CHATURYA, he continues to explore India’s mythology, sacred traditions and cultural histories, bringing research and contemporary storytelling together.
Published Books
When Strangers Meet
That Frequent Visitor
The Other Side of Her

Koral Dasgupta

Author, TEDx Speaker & Narrative Strategist
Koral Dasgupta is an author, TEDx speaker and narrative strategist with over two decades of experience. Across ten books, including the acclaimed five-part Sati series, she explores myth, leadership, ecology and philosophy to question how stories shape our understanding of gender. Her work draws on the ancient Indian philosophy of Sati as a framework for integrity and ethical choice in a world shaped by modern ambition. She is also the founder of TellMeYourStory.biz, a platform that uses literature to spark conversations around gender and social change.
Published Books
Her published works include the five-part Sati series and other books exploring mythology, gender, leadership and philosophy.

Dr. Meeran Chadha Borwankar

Author & Former IPS Officer
Dr. Meeran Chadha Borwankar is a former IPS officer whose career in policing spans leadership roles across Maharashtra and at the national level, including Commissioner of Police, Pune, and Director General of the Bureau of Police Research and Development and National Crime Records Bureau. A law graduate with a doctorate in Organisational Management, she has also worked on criminal justice reform and research on gender in the Maharashtra Police. She writes extensively and is the author of three books that draw from her experiences and observations of the world around her.
Published Books
Leaves of Life
Inspector Chougule
Madam Commissioner

Nadeem Khan

Translator & Educator
Nadeem Khan has spent more than a decade translating Marathi literature into English, bringing the work of writers across generations and genres to a wider readership. He has translated authors including Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bhau Padhye, Vishwas Patil, Avadhoot Dongare and Rangnath Pathare, with more than twenty of his thirty-plus translations published by leading Indian publishers. He is also the former Director of the Western Regional Centre of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication and the recipient of the Valley of Words Award for Best Translated Book in 2020.
Selected Translations
His translations include works by Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bhau Padhye, Vishwas Patil, Avadhoot Dongare, Rangnath Pathare, Y. D. Phadke, Pravin Bandekar and Yougiraj Bagul.

Neil D'Silva

Author, Screenwriter & Horror Writer
Neil D’Silva is one of India’s leading voices in horror fiction, with 21 published books spanning adult, young adult and non-fiction. His writing draws deeply from Indian folklore, mythology and the supernatural, with books including Maya’s New Husband, Yakshini, Pishacha, Playthings and The Curse of the Maharani. He also writes for screen and is the original story writer of the JioHotstar series Ali Baba aur 40 Bhoot. A former President of the India Chapter of the Horror Writers Association, he has also mentored emerging writers through workshops, literary festivals and writing programmes.
Published Books
His 21 published books include Maya’s New Husband, Yakshini, Pishacha, Playthings, The Curse of the Maharani and India’s Most Haunted.

Rachita Tandon

Political Comic Artist & Satirist
Rachita Taneja is an Indian political comic artist, satirist and the creator of Sanitary Panels. Her signature stick-figure comics take a feminist lens to current affairs and issues of social justice, building a substantial audience across social media. She is the recipient of the Kofi Annan Courage in Cartooning Award 2024.
Published Books
Touching Grass: A Book of Comics

Rahul Singh

Academic & Writer
Rahul Singh is an academic and writer based in Kolkata whose work focuses on cities, with particular attention to infrastructure, planning and governance. His writing on books has appeared in leading Indian dailies, while his short stories have been published in literary magazines and journals including Indian Literature, Foglifter and the Economic and Political Weekly. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Sociology at St. Xavier’s College (Autonomous), Kolkata. Unfolding is his debut novel.
Published Books
Unfolding

Ram Ramaswamy

Journalist & Author
Ram Ramaswamy is an academic, writer and former Vice Chancellor of the University of Hyderabad whose career has spanned research, higher education and science. He taught at Jawaharlal Nehru University from 1986 until his retirement in 2018 and served as Vice Chancellor of the University of Hyderabad from 2011 to 2015. Educated at Madras University, IIT Kanpur and Princeton University, his research has largely focused on the physical sciences. He is an elected Fellow of The World Academy of Sciences, the Indian National Science Academy and the Indian Academy of Sciences, and served as President of the Indian Academy of Sciences from 2016 to 2018.
Published Books
Lilavati’s Daughters: The Women Scientists of India — Editor
The Girl’s Guide to a Life in Science — Editor
Adventures into the Unknown: Essays by D. D. Kosambi — Editor

Stanly Johny

International Affairs Editor & Author
Stanly Johny is the International Affairs Editor at The Hindu, where he anchors the newspaper’s international coverage and writes editorials, Op-Eds and reportage. He holds a PhD in International Studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University and has written on geopolitics and Indian foreign policy for over a decade, reporting from across the world. His work has also appeared in publications by leading think tanks including the Middle East Institute and the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses. He is a Visiting Professor at Krea University and an adjunct faculty member at the Asian College of Journalism.
Published Books
The ISIS Caliphate: From Syria to the Doorsteps of India
The Comrades and the Mullahs: China, Afghanistan and the New Asian Geopolitics
Original Sin: Israel, Palestine and the Revenge of Old West Asia

Stuti Changle

Author & Speaker
Stuti Changle is a national bestselling author and speaker whose writing explores dreams, self-discovery and the courage to choose a different path. After leaving behind a corporate career, she began telling stories that have reached over 250,000 readers and touched more than a million lives. Her book You Only Live Once was featured in The Economic Times’ list of 11 Best Books to Shape Your Thinking as Your Ideal Self and was recognised in the Limca Book of Records 2023 for its record-breaking sales as a frontlist title in 2021.
Published Books
You Only Live Once
On the Open Road
Where the Sun Never Sets

Vandana Shukla

Writer & Journalist
Vandana Shukla writes on art, culture and gender, with interests spanning travel, world poetry and music. Her work combines journalism with multidisciplinary research, including her study of the social transformation of Ladakh, which became A Monk Postpones Nirvana, published in 2018 with support from The Fetzer Institute. She holds a PhD from Banaras Hindu University for her research on the history of communalism in the Indian subcontinent and literature around the Partition of India. With over two decades in print media, she lives in Panchkula.
Published Books
A Monk Postpones Nirvana
Unclaimed

Vasudhendra

Author
Vasudhendra Shroff is a bestselling Kannada author known for his short stories, novels and essays. Among his fifteen books are the critically acclaimed Mohanaswamy, translated into several languages, the historical novel Tejo Tungabhadra, and the award-winning essay collection Nammamma Andre Nangishta (I Love My Amma). He has received several literary honours, including the Karnataka Sahitya Akademi Book Prize and the U.R. Ananthamurthy Award. After more than two decades as a software professional, he now runs his own publishing house, Chanda Pustaka.
Published Books
His fifteen published books include Mohanaswamy, Tejo Tungabhadra and Nammamma Andre Nangishta (I Love My Amma).
12 Nov, 10:00 · Mandap

The Politics of Language

Bhalchandra Nemade

Vikrant Pande

Author & Translator
Vikrant Pande is an author and translator who has published four books and fourteen translations across history, business, travel and Indian literature. His books include Shivaji the Great Maratha, The Tatas: How a Family Built a Business and a Nation, which won the Gaja Capital Best Business Book Award in 2019, and In the Footsteps of Rama: Travels with the Ramayana, a travelogue exploring lesser-known stories from the Ramayana. His work also includes Akashvani: A Century of Stories from All India Radio, The SBI Story: 200 Years of Banking and Desi Disruptors: Timeless Lessons from Iconic Indian Brands. An engineer and IIM Bangalore graduate, Pande brings together research, storytelling and a keen interest in India’s history and institutions.
Published Books
Shivaji the Great Maratha
The Tatas: How a Family Built a Business and a Nation
Rau Bajirao Mastani

Vivek Shanbhag

Author & Translator
Vivek Shanbhag is a Kannada author whose thirteen works of fiction include the internationally acclaimed novel Ghachar Ghochar, translated into more than 20 languages. He is also the co-translator of U. R. Ananthamurthy’s Hindutva or Hind Swaraj into English. An engineer by training, Shanbhag is a Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at Ashoka University and the founder of Hyphen, a literary journal, website and publishing house dedicated to bringing Indian-language literature to English readers. He lives in Bangalore.
Published Books
Ghachar Ghochar — English & Marathi
Sakina’s Kiss — English

Ramachandra Guha

Historian & Author
Ramachandra Guha is a historian, biographer and writer whose work spans modern Indian history, environmental history and the social history of cricket. Based in Bengaluru, he is currently Distinguished University Professor at Krea University and has previously taught at institutions including Stanford, Yale, the University of Oslo and the London School of Economics. His books include India After Gandhi, Gandhi Before India and Gandhi: The Years That Changed the World, alongside works on environmentalism and cricket. His honours include the Sahitya Akademi Award, the Fukuoka Prize and an honorary doctorate from Yale University.
Published Books
India After Gandhi
Gandhi Before India
Gandhi: The Years That Changed the World