Profiles 2024
2024 profiles yet to be announced, stay tuned
Coming Soon
Aakar Patel
Aakar Patel is a syndicated columnist who has edited English and Gujarati newspapers. His books include Why I Write, a translation of Saadat Hasan Manto’s Urdu non-fiction (2014), Our Hindu Rashtra: What It Is. How We Got Here, a study of majoritarianism in India and Pakistan (2020), Price of the Modi Years, a history of India after 2014 (2021), The Anarchist Cookbook, a guide on why and how to protest (2022), and the novel After Messiah (2023). His work reimagining South Asia, The Case for Akhand Bharat, is out in 2024. He is the Chair of Amnesty International India.
A Giridhar Rao
A. Giridhar Rao is interested in questions of linguistic justice. What are just and equitable language policies for a multilingual country like India? How can our schools use India’s astonishing linguistic diversity more effectively? At Azim Premji University, his courses on language and literature pedagogy ask these questions. He blogs in English on these questions at bolii.blogspot.com. Questions of communicative justice drew Giridhar to the planned language Esperanto. He has translated the writings of Gandhi, Manto, and Faiz into Esperanto. He is a member of the Academy of Esperanto. He blogs in Esperanto at lingvovivo.blogspot.com.
Aasheesh Pittie
Aasheesh Pittie is a birder, bibliographer, and author. He has compiled two bibliographies, Birds in Books: Three Hundred Years of South Asian Ornithology (2010), and The Written Bird: Birds in Books 2 (2022), and is the author of The Living Air: The Pleasures of Birds and Birdwatching (2023). He has also compiled a searchable bibliographic database of over 35,000 works on South Asian ornithology.
Adivi Sesh Sunny Chandra
Adivi Sesh Sunny Chandra is an Indian actor, writer, and visionary technician. Born in Hyderabad, and raised in Berkeley, California he is known predominantly for his work in action and suspense thrillers. Debuting in 2002, he has essayed several versatile roles and bagged prominent awards including IIFA, SIMA, and Nandi Awards. His major films include Major (2022) and Kshanam (2016). He has been an inspiration and a role model for aspiring actors from non-film backgrounds who wish to make clean and inspiring films.
Aishwarya Pillai
Aishwarya Pillai, a visually impaired artist, ventured into the realm of 3D paintings after losing her eyesight at the age of 18. She had to abandon her passion for pencil sketching but a transformative visit to an art gallery relaunched her artistic journey. Realizing that many paintings were inaccessible to individuals with visual impairments, she embarked on a mission to create art that could be experienced through easily accessible household items. To date, she has crafted more than 26 impressive 3D paintings, along with various emojis and intricate 3D models, including a human heart, a pyramid, and the iconic Titanic ship.
Akbari Heena
Akbari Heena is a visual artist with a Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture from the University of Hyderabad (2021-2023) and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Surat School of Fine Arts, Gujarat (2014-2018). She presented her work at prestigious venues such as Gujarat Kala Pratishthan and Triveni Art Gallery. She interned at Shri Girdharilal Sangrahalaya and STPL 3D Printing Company, contributing to diverse projects, including dioramas and Ganpati workshops. Proficient in handmade clay jewelry, painting, and clay modeling, she has recently ventured into organizing workshops and serving as an art and craft teacher at Utopian Academy, Hyderabad.
Akila Gopalakrishnan
Akila Gopalakrishnan engages in the Japanese poetic forms of haiku, tanka and haibun written in English. She also writes free verse. She has conducted workshops for these forms of poetry. Her work has found a home in several online and print anthologies and also been presented at TEDx and literature festival readings in Goa, Hyderabad, and at the Sahitya Akademi. She was also a book reviewer for the Narrow Road Magazine and a haibun editor for Triveni Haikai India.
Alina Sen
Alina Sen is a communications professional and dedicated outreach member at the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW). She spearheads the publishing and outreach of CEEW’s ground-breaking research on solutions to pressing global and local challenges. From publishing peer-reviewed policy briefs to their creative outreach and dissemination via cartoons, songs, influencer collaborations, and pop culture storytelling, she strives to build a community of champions who believe in mainstreaming sustainability and are willing to lead by example. She has contributed to impactful organisations such as the Naandi Foundation, The Times of India, Johns Hopkins University, and Oxfam's Centre for Development Communication.
Amish
Amish is an IIM (Kolkata)-educated banker-turned-author. The success of his debut book, The Immortals of Meluha (2010, Book 1 of the Shiva Trilogy), encouraged him to give up his career in financial services to focus on writing. Besides being an author, he is also an Indian-government diplomat, a host for TV documentaries, and a film producer. His books have sold more than 7 million copies and have been translated into over 20 languages. His Shiva Trilogy is the fastest-selling and his Ram Chandra Series the second-fastest-selling book series in Indian publishing history. Idols: Unearthing the Power of Murti Puja, with Bhavna Roy, is his latest publication.
Amita R Desai
Festival Director
Amita R Desai
Festival Director
Amrish Kumar
Amrish Kumar is an entrepreneur who has spent over a decade working in Indian textiles as the managing director of the brand ‘Ritu Kumar’. His desire to be heard has resulted in him building a record label, an internet film venture, and leaving a trail of long-suffering friends and family. He has an MBA and is a fellow of the Aspen Institute, USA. Gods of Willow: A Coming of Age Innings (2022) is his first novel.
Anand Gandhi
Anand Gandhi ushered in a new wave of Indian cinema with Ship of Theseus (2012), which won the National Award for Best Film and effected a paradigm shift in genre cinema with Tumbbad (2018). He produced the bestselling board games Shasn and Shasn Azadi, now played in over 75 countries. He also produced the non-fiction feature An Insignificant Man (2016), the science-fiction comedy series, OK Computer, and India's first VR journalism platform, ElseVR. He is the founder and CEO of Memesys Studios, the cultural powerhouse behind all these projects. He is now creating a truly unprecedented narrative universe that aims to take South Asia to the world.
Anand Mahanand
Anand Mahanand is a Professor at the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. He is interested in the pedagogic aspects of folk and fairy tales. He has translated two collections of folktales from Odia to English and published several books on different aspects of folktales. Presently, he is engaged in a project on ‘Traditional Stories and Ethical Values: Examples from Indian Knowledge System’. He is the Executive Editor of Lokaratna, an International online peer-reviewed journal devoted to folklore, literature, and pedagogy.
Ananda Thumrugoti
Ananda Thumrugoti loves to weave stories, especially about plants and nature. She realized these could make great themes for young readers. Now, she writes stories that mix adventure and mystery with botanical twists. It’s her way of creating awareness and excitement about the plant kingdom. She is the Head of Corporate Communications and Media Relations at East-West Seed India, where she continues to blend her professional expertise with her passions, fostering a greater understanding and appreciation for agriculture and the environment.
Andaleeb Wajid
Andaleeb Wajid is a hybrid author, having published 40 novels in the past 14 years. She enjoys writing in a number of different genres such as young adult, romance, and horror.
Angshuman Kar
Angshuman Kar is a poet and novelist in Bangla, and Professor of English at the University of Burdwan, West Bengal. He was also the Secretary of the Sahitya Akademi (Eastern Region). He has twenty-seven collections of poems, nine novels, two memoirs, a book of prose, four anthologies of essays, a collection of short stories, and two collections of his poems in English translations. He has also edited two anthologies of poetry translated into Bangla, and translated selected poems of K. Satchidananadan and Sonnet Mondal. He has received eight prestigious awards including Krittibas Award, Paschim Banga Bangla Akademi Award, and Bangiya Sahitya Parishad Award.
Anita Mani
Anita Mani runs Indian Pitta, a book imprint. In addition to editing books about birds and natural history, she writes on technology and communications, a throwback to the time she ran the operations of a communications software company. For several years, she ran a news and current affairs publication for children called Child Friendly News. For now, she is content to watch, read, and write about birds. Women in the Wild: Stories of India’s Most Brilliant Women Wildlife Biologists (2023) is her most recent book.
Anita Muktaa Shourya
Anita Muktaa Shourya is a multi-faceted artist who seamlessly blends her love for art and her profession. A Mohiniyattam dancer, she is the founder-director of Lasya Drutha. Beyond the stage, she is an organisational development facilitator by profession, an author, and does theatre whenever time permits.
Anjali Lal Gupta
Anjali Lal Gupta teaches journalism at the Sarojini Naidu School of Arts and Communication, University of Hyderabad. She was a journalist for over 16 years in television, digital media, and development communications. At CNBC-TV18, New Delhi, she held various positions from correspondent to features producer in a tenure spanning over six years. As web editor and images Manager for the international development agency ActionAid, she researched, wrote, and edited features for their website and publications. She also contributed regularly to newspapers and magazines, including Tehelka, The Hindu, and The Times of India.
Ankita Rajasekharan
Ankita Rajasekharan, shaped by her upbringing in nature-rich surroundings, cherishes connecting people with the natural world. With a background in education, she's engaged in alternative schooling both in rural and urban settings. Her passion lies in combining art, conversation, and nature, fostering immersive experiences for children and adults. Recognizing patterns and connections in species, she enjoys birding and nurturing plants. Her expertise in nature-based education and art makes her a valuable resource for exploring emotional expression and connecting literature with nature at literary and cultural festivals.
Annapoorna PK
Annapoorna PK is a PhD student and science communicator at the CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad. Her research focuses on understanding the biology of depression and anxiety using mice as models. She is a vocal advocate of lifting taboos associated with mental health issues. She has co-authored a two-part article recording and analyzing mental health issues in academia.
Anu Pande
Anu Pande teaches courses on literature and cultural history in the Department of Germanic Studies at the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. She has a PhD from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and takes an active interest in Gender Studies, discourses of violence, representations of disease and death in literature, and Human-Animal Studies. In her research, she explores processes of othering across a broad spectrum, ranging from political belief to gender identity and species belonging. She is also an experienced literary translator and co-founder of the Indian Animal Studies Collective.
Anuja Mohan Pradhan
Anuja Mohan Pradhan writes in Odia, Hindi, and English besides his native language Kui. He has published three poetry collections. He translated his 2006 Kui collection, Kuidina Piopata, into English as An Oriole from the Hills (2006), which has been archived in libraries in India and abroad. He has a Kui short story collection Tahiee (The Mango Stone, 2015), and has co-authored a Kui language learner (2007). He translated twenty children’s stories for the National Translation Mission, Mysuru. He has published several research papers in various journals and magazines. He has also devised a slightly modified Odia script to capture the pronunciation of Kui.
Anurekha Chari Wagh
Anurekha Chari Wagh is an Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology, University of Hyderabad. She specializes in the areas of gender and citizenship rights, agrarian issues, microfinance, development, teaching and learning, feminist pedagogy, and mentoring. She has published on these issues in national and international journals and edited books. Her PhD is from Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune and she was awarded the UGC C.V Raman fellowship for her postdoctoral research at the University of Connecticut. Her recent journal publications include; “Towards Conceptualization of a Safe, Inclusive and Accessible Classrooms” and “Classroom as a Site for Feminist Civic Literacy: Towards Nurturing Democratic Consciousness”.
Anvita Abbi
Anvita Abbi is a linguist and social scientist internationally acclaimed for her contributions to documenting indigenous languages. She identified a new language family—the Great Andamanese—that is key to understanding the peopling of Asia and Oceania. She is at the forefront of unravelling the knowledgebase of unwritten languages preserved in oral tradition and has contributed to the awareness of biodiversity through the languages of South Asia. She taught at JNU and is currently Adjunct Professor at the Department of Linguistics, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver. She also serves on the Expert Committee of the UNESCO World Atlas of Languages. She received the Padma Shri in 2013.
Aparna Rayaprol
Aparna Rayaprol is Professor of Sociology at the University of Hyderabad. Her areas of academic interest include gender studies, migration and diaspora, and urban sociology. She is the author of Negotiating Identities: Women in the Indian Diaspora (OUP, 1997). She has held several administrative positions, was with the Study in India Program (SIP) at the University of Hyderabad since its inception in 1998, and has been closely involved with the internationalization of the university. Her PhD was from the University of Pittsburgh, USA and she did postdoctoral work at Princeton University at the Center for the Study of American Religion in 1998-99.
Aparna Uppaluri
Aparna Uppaluri works in philanthropy with a focus on gender, climate, health, and human services. She trained as an Odissi dancer and ran the Antara Artists Collective in Bangalore for several years. She has edited a volume Hence (un)Proven on the intersection of Art and Science intersections for Khoj Studios, New Delhi. Rain Incarnations (Barshavatar) is her first complete volume of poetry translated from Odia to English. She is currently the Chief Operating Officer at the Tata Trusts, leading their philanthropic grant-making strategy and implementation.
Arti Sonthalia
Arti Sonthalia obtained her writing credentials from Oxford University and studied young adult fiction at the London School of Journalism. She started her writing career with the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” books and her debut children’s book, Big Bully and M-me (2018) was nominated for the Crystal Kite Asia award. Her other books for children include Hungry to Read (2017), Best Friends Forever (2018; FICCI Book of the Year Award 2020), Hungry to Play (2019; shortlisted for the Neev Book Awards 2020), Read Write Race (2022; FICCI Book of Year Award 2023), and Simi Stands Tall (2023). She has also been a TEDx speaker.
Ashwin Prabhu
Ashwin Prabhu's meanderings have taken him to the worlds of banking, teaching, heritage education and development sector work. His first book "Classroom With a View - Notes from the Krishnamurti Schools" came out in 2022. He enjoys working with teachers and children in thematic areas where philosophy, history, art and literature happily intersect.
Asiya Khan
Asiya Khan is a naturalist, passionate about trees. She create awareness of native and ancient heritage trees, campaigns for their protection, and promotes best conservation practices. She gives talks and conducts tree walks to help fellow nature enthusiasts identify trees and learn about them. As part of the conservation efforts by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture at the Qutb Shahi Heritage Park, she has conducted a survey to document the flora of the tomb complex. She is an active participant of Nature Lovers of Hyderabad that is engaged in the Campaign to Save the Banyans of Chevella.
B. S. Prakash
B S Prakash is a retired banker who is interested in reading both for himself and to others. He has been with The Little Theatre Hyderabad for more years than he cares to remember or, in fact, can remember! He also dabbles in amateur theatre.
Badri Narayan
Badri Narayan is a Hindi poet, and a social scientist specializing in social history and cultural anthropology. His poetry collection Tumdi ke Shabd received the Sahitya Akademi Award for 2022. His other poetry collections include Pratinidhi Kavitaye, Khudai Mein Himsa, Shabpadiyam, and Sach Sune Kai Din Huye. His poems have been translated into several languages including English, Bangla, Odia, Malayalam, and Urdu. He is a recipient of Bharat Bhushan Samman, Banarasi Prasad Bhojpuri Samman, Kedar Samman, Spandan Kirti Award, Rashtrakavi Dinkar Award, Shamsher Samman, and Meera Smriti Samman. His political analyses are published regularly in Hindustan, Amar Ujala, Dainik Jagran, Indian Express, The Hindu, India Today, and Outlook.
Bina Rao
Bina Rao has Master’s in Fine Arts from MSU, Vadodara, and stint in NID Ahmedabad. She is the Co-founder and HoD Design of ‘Creative Bee’ as well as Creative Bee dye farm in Hyderabad. She represented India at a number of global events with her ‘Walk Through the Talk’ shows. She is a member of the advisory committees for handlooms and livelihood projects, Government of India, (ex)Member NID Governing Council, Senior Consultant to United Nations East Africa Program, Team Leader, UNDP’s ‘Disha’ Pilot for Women Weavers of Telangana (2018-2020). She is a recipient of the ‘Stalwart of Handloom Award’ 2023 from FICCI and Government of Telangana.
Bishnu Mohapatra
Bishnu Mohapatra is an Odia poet, translator, and political scientist. He has published five books of poems, including Barshabatara (2021), and translated two volumes of Pablo Neruda’s poetry into Odia. His poetry has been translated into English (A Fragile World, 2005) and Hindi (Buddha aur Aam, 2022). His poems appeared in Singing in the Dark: A Global Anthology of Poetry Under Lockdown (2020). He served as a member of the national jury for the Moortidevi Award of the Bharatiya Jnanpith, Delhi (2013-2015). He is currently a Senior Professor of Politics and the Director of Moturi Satyanarayana Centre for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences at Krea University, Andhra Pradesh.
Bithika Mistry
Bithika Mistry learnt Rabindranritya, folk dance, and Odissi from Guru Arundhoti Roy, and Guru Muralidhar Majhi. She has performed solo at the Khajuraho Festival of Dances (2014), KCC Kolkata (2019), Treffpunkt der Kulturen, Zurich (2015), Inkonst/MixMusik, Sweden (2014), Association Ganapati Bordeaux, France (2013), Lalit Kala Akademi, Delhi, Indian Embassy Berlin (2013), and the Parampara Festival, Kolkata (2010). She has also done group and solo performances with her Guru Arundhoti Roy in Vietnam, the National University of Singapore, the Karur Nrityanjali Festival in Tamil Nadu, the U.P. Sangeet Natak Akademi Lucknow, the Shantipur Classical Conference in Shantipur West Bengal, and Uday Shankar Nritya Festival Kolkata.
C Savitha
C Savitha completed her Phd from the Dept. of English, University of Hyderabad. Since then, she has been working as an Assistant Professor offering courses to undergraduate and postgraduate students in areas related to communication skills and literature. She is interested in popular literature and has worked in the areas related to women playwrights. She is currently working as an Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Humanities, Mahindra University, Hyderabad. Her current course offerings include an elective course on Detective Fiction.
C. Rammanohar Reddy
C. Rammanohar Reddy is the Founder-Editor of The India Forum. He was Editor of Economic and Political Weekly, Mumbai, between 2004 and 2016. He has been in the media since 1988 writing on economic affairs first with Deccan Herald (Bangalore) and then with The Hindu (Chennai and Hyderabad). He has a PGDM from IIM Calcutta, an MPhil (Applied Economics), and a Phd (Economics) from the Jawaharlal Nehru University while based at the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram. He co-edited with MV Ramana Prisoners of the Nuclear Dream (2004) and authored Demonetisation and Black Money (2017).
Chaitanya Muppala
Chaitanya Muppala is the CEO of Distinct Origins Private Limited (DOPL) which launched Manam Chocolate, an Indian Craft Chocolate brand that operates in the emerging specialty chocolate market in the country. A second-generation entrepreneur, he comes with over 10 years of experience in the food business in India and is an alumnus of the prestigious Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia, Canada. He has also been through the rigour of the Stanford Seed Program from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business’s Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies.
DaD & QT Center
DaD & QT Center: Drama Association of the Deaf (DaD) is a collective that aims to build a new form of theatrical expression by introducing Deaf culture to the creative world of drama.
The Queer-Trans Wellness & Support Center (QT Center), an initiative by Yugantar, is a community resource center for LGBTQIA+ people that offers among other services, a drop-in space, 24/7 helpline, mental health services, legal aid and soon, temporary shelter.
Damayanti Beshra
Damayanti Beshra received the Padma Shri in 2020 for her contributions to Santali literature. She is the first woman writer in the language and is the author of 22 books in Santali, and nine in Odia. She has also translated nine books into Santali. In 2023, she published a biography in Santali of President Droupadi Murmu. From 2011-2013, she published the first Santali women's magazine, Karam Dar (Two Friends). Her poetry collection, Say Sahed (A Hundred Breaths, 2006), won her the Sahitya Akademi award in 2009. In 2021, she won the Akademi’s Translation award for her translation into Santali of Jayadeva’s Gita Govinda (2018).
Debashis Paul
Debashis Paul is a professional management and marketing strategy consultant whose present work is mainly for clients in the education sector. He previously worked in the advertising field and led several pan-India public service campaigns and won many national and international advertising and market effectiveness awards. Outside his profession, he has been deeply interested in child development psychology—much before he became a dad! Today, he counsels parents who have children with learning and social communication difficulties. His first book I Have Autism and I Like to Play Good Bad Tennis (2023) is a memoir on a child with autism, coming from a father’s heart.
Deepa Kiran
Deepa Kiran is a professional storyteller and award-winning educationalist. Founder of Story Arts Foundation, she is engaged with musical storytelling inspired by oral traditions of India. She has reached over 75000 educators globally with her teaching through storytelling. Her focus area is storytelling for teaching the English language and developing empathy and resilience in multi-cultural classrooms. She has given TEDx talks and published in journals about her work. She has received awards for her acting in films and recognition at international film festivals for her documentary film. She is currently pursuing her PhD in Storytelling and English Language Teaching at IIT Madras.Year: 2017, 2014-15
Deepa Sreenivas
Deepa Sreenivas is a professor at the Centre for Women’s Studies, University of Hyderabad. Her research interests include visual culture, childhood studies, and feminist pedagogy. She is the author of Sculpting a Middle Class: History, Masculinity and the Amar Chitra Katha in India (Routledge, 2010). Her research articles have appeared in Indian Journal of Gender Studies, Feminist Theory, Economic and Political Weekly, Tasveer Ghar, and Childhood. She is the Series Editor for Different Tales, a series of illustrated books for children, drawing on the experiences and stories from marginalized communities. She is one of the contributors for Towards a World of Equals: A Bilingual Textbook on Gender (Telugu Akademi, 2015) and A World of Equals: A Textbook on Gender (OBS, 2022).
Deepika Mahidhara
Deepika Mahidhara is a personal leadership, public-speaking, and life coach, learning experience or workshop facilitator, content writer, MC, talk-show host, and an actor. When she is not coaching, facilitating, consulting, or MCing, she’s a theatre artist and a novice motorcyclist.
Dinesh Abrol
Dinesh Abrol is currently the coordinator of SASH&KN, Transdisciplinary Research Cluster on Sustainability Studies (TRCSS), Jawaharlal Nehru University. He worked at the Institute of Studies in Industrial Development (ISID) India, and coordinated the ISID-PHFI collaborative research programme on innovation, industry, and public health (2013-18). He was a visiting professor at the Centre for Studies in Science Policy (2014-16) and chief scientist at the CSIR-NISTADS (1982-2013). His research projects include collaborations with scholars contributing to research institutions in Argentina, Brazil, China, South Africa, the UK, and the USA. He is a founding member of Delhi Science Forum and All India Peoples’ Science Network.
Dinesh C Sharma
Dinesh C Sharma is an award-winning journalist and author with nearly forty years of experience of reporting on issues related to science, technology, innovation, medicine, and the environment for national and international media outlets. Among his books are The Outsourcer: The Story of India’s IT Revolution (2015) and Indian Innovation, Not Jugaad: 100 Ideas That Transformed India (2022). Beyond Biryani: The Making of a Globalised Hyderabad (2024) is his latest publication.
Dr Prashant Garg
Prashant Garg is the Executive Chair of the L V Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI). He is an internationally renowned leader in corneal infections, anti-microbial resistance and eye banking. A recipient of numerous prestigious awards, both national and international, he is on the boards of several international organizations, societies and scientific journals.
Durgabai Vyam
Durgabai Vyam is a traditionally trained Gond artist. Her themes are mythological and folk narratives, often with animal motifs. She frequently collaborates with her husband Subhash Vyam. They have exhibited their work in India and abroad. She has illustrated several books. She received the Bologna Ragazzi Award in 2008, the Rani Durgawati Award in 2009, and the Padma Shri in 2022.
Elahe Hiptoola
Elahé Hiptoola is a film producer and has produced all of Nagesh Kukunoor’s films. Her filmography includes films like Rockford, Teen Deewarein, Iqbal, Dor, Dhanak and the series City of Dreams and Modern Love Hyderabad. She is also the co-founder of the cultural space Lamakaan, in Hyderabad.
Year: 2019
Farida Tampal
Farida Tampal is the State Director of WWF-India’s Hyderabad Office. She holds a Master’s degree in ecology and worked with the Centre for Herpetology at the Madras Crocodile Bank Trust as a Research Associate in Captive Breeding of Venomous snakes. She then joined WWF-India West Bengal State Office as the Senior Project Officer and took over as the State Director of the Andhra Pradesh office in 2004. She is on many national and state steering committees on wildlife and environment protection. She conducts training for the All-India Service and State Service Officers and other government employees on biodiversity, wildlife conservation, climate change and the Wildlife Protection Act (1972).
G. Chandrakanth
Sri G Chandrakanth, Director of the Chetana Center for Yoga and Health Education, boasts 40+ years as a Yoga luminary. Trained by revered gurus like Sri Ramananda Yogi, Sri Sri Sri Satchidananda Yogi, and Dhirendra Brahmachary (teacher to Nehru and Indira Gandhi's family), he blends tradition with classical Yoga wisdom. He introduced Yoga into Hyderabad Public School's curriculum and conducted transformative global workshops. He learned yoga from Vishwayatan Yogashram Katra Vaishnavi Devi (J&K) under Dhirendra Brahmachary. Honored with the 'Telangana Vaidya Ratna' award, he advocates holistic well-being through Yoga, emphasizing love, gratitude, and inner beauty for lasting happiness.
Gayathri Sreedharan
Gayathri Sreedharan completed her PhD from CSIR-CCMB, Hyderabad, on understanding the host-pathogen dynamics between Chytrid fungus and amphibians in the Northern Western Ghats. While most of her work in the Western Ghats was ‘counting frogs’, she also loved taking long walks in the forest, listening to the stories and traditions of the people and observing their changing relations with the forests. She enjoys writing down snippets of these evolving conversations between forests and its people in her ‘field diary’, to reminisce and collect them as reference for future stories.
GN Devy
GN Devy’s writes in English, Marathi, and Gujarati. His books in English include After Amnesia (1992), In another Tongue (1992), Of Many Heroes (1997), Painted Words (2003), A Nomad Called Thief (2007), The Question of Silence (2016), A Crisis Within (2017), Countering Violence (2022), and Mahabharata: The Epic and the Nation (2022). He is the series editor of Key Concepts in Indigenous Studies and Mahatma Gandhi in Indian Languages. The People’s Linguistic Survey of India, initiated and led by him, covered 780 living languages of India. The Indians: Histories of a Civilisation (2023), co-edited with Tony Joseph and Ravi Korisettar, is his latest publication.
Gurcharan Das
Gurcharan Das is an author, commentator, and thought leader. His publications include the trilogy on life’s goals: India Unbound (2000), The Difficulty of Being Good (2009), and Kama: The Riddle of Desire (2018); India Grows at Night (2012); A Fine Family: A Novel (1990), Three Plays (2012), and a book of essays, The Elephant Paradigm (2012). Another Sort of Freedom: A Memoir (2023) is his latest publication. He is the general editor for Penguin’s multivolume Story of Indian Business series. He studied philosophy at Harvard University and was CEO, Procter & Gamble India. He writes a regular column for six Indian newspapers, including the Times of India. Year: 2019
GV Prasad
GV Prasad is a graduate of Purdue University in industrial administration and has an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago. A part of Dr Reddy’s group since 1986, he has turned the group into a trusted global pharma player. He is a photography enthusiast and a birdwatcher and chairs the board of trustees of Wildlife Trust of India and is involved with the NGOs Aakar Asha Trust and World Wildlife Fund. He is a Board Member of the Indian School of Business, Ashoka University, and the Institute of Public Health Sciences. He has been the Honorary Consul of the Kingdom of Belgium in Hyderabad since April 2019.
Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar
Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar is a doctor by profession and the author of a collection of short stories, The Adivasi Will Not Dance (2015); two novels, The Mysterious Ailment of Rupi Baskey (2014; which won the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar) and My Father’s Garden (2018); and a novel for children Jwala Kumar and the Gift of Fire: Adventures in Champakbagh (2018). He also translates into English from Santali, Hindi, and Bengali. His translation of Manoj Rupda’s Hindi novel Kaale Adhyay (2015) into English as I Named My Sister Silence has been longlisted for the 2023 JCB Prize for Literature.
Harimohan Paruvu
Harimohan Paruvu is a first class cricketer, writer, speaker and workshop facilitator based out of Hyderabad. His first novel The Men Within: A Cricketing Tale has been made into a Telugu movie Golconda High School. His other books include If You Love Someone…, a novel, and two non-fiction books, 50 Not Out: 50 Lessons from Cricket and This Way Is Easier Dad. As a newspaper columnist he has written for the New Indian Express, HANS India, The Hindu, Deccan Chronicle among others. He represented Hyderabad in the Ranji Trophy (1985-87) and is currently the Chairman of the Senior Selection Committee for the Hyderabad Cricket Association.
Helly Shah
Helly Shah is a spoken word poet, writer, and storyteller. She began her journey as a spoken word artist in 2018, penning free verse that delved into 'love, life, and everything in between.’ Her heartfelt words have resonated with millions of people across social media. She has earned recognition from well-known publications like Femina India, NDTV, and The Hindu for her thought-provoking poems about social causes such as women's empowerment and climate change.
Hoineilhing Sitlhou
Hoineilhing Sitlhou completed her Phd (Sociology) from JNU, New Delhi. She is currently an Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology, University of Hyderabad. She is a recipient of the M.N. Srinivas Award, 2016. She has published three books including the edited book Identity and Marginality in Northeast India: Challenges for Social Science Research (Orient Blackswan, 2023). She has also written articles for both professional journals as well as the print media.
Ipsa Jain
Ipsa Jain, an artist and science communicator, has a PhD in the biological sciences from the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. She is interested in exploring temporality in natural phenomena, public trust in science, drawing in scientific inquiry, storytelling, and conducting workshops.
Ira Vangipurapu
Ira Vangipurapu teaches at the Department of Hispanic and Italian Studies, English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. Songs of the Wolf-woman is her first volume of poems.
Jacinta Kerketta
Jacinta Kerketta is a poet and freelance journalist who writes in Hindi. Angor (2016) and Jadon ki Zamin (2018) are her bilingual (Hindi/English) poetry collections, and Ishwar and Bazaar (2022) is her third collection of Hindi poetry. Her poems have been translated into German, Italian, and French. She presented her poetry in the USA, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Costa Rica, and Thailand. She was awarded the Voice of Asia Recognition Award (2014) by Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact, Thailand and was selected as one of the 22 self-made women of India by Forbes India (2022).
Year: 2022
Jaideep Unudurti
Jaideep Unudurti writes on travel and popular culture and reviews books for The Hindu. He also writes scripts for podcasts and co-wrote the script Shadmayudh, a film on the history of chess which was awarded a development grant from the Centre National des Arts Plastiques, Paris. His Hyderabad: A Graphic Novel led to “Every City is a Story”—a city-centric graphic storytelling initiative encompassing various cities in India. His graphic novel Die Unterirdischen Städte (2020), with artist Fabian Stoltz, set in an underworld beneath the battlefields of World War I grew out of a cross-cultural collaboration supported by the City Senate of Hamburg and Goethe-Zentrum, Hyderabad.
Joba Murmu
Joba Murmu is a Santali writer and translator. Her short story collection Olon Baha (The Written Flower, 2014) won the Sahitya Akademi’s award Bal Sahitya Puraskar (Children’s Literature Prize) in 2017. Sereng Anjle (2015) was her translation of Tagore’s Gitanjali. It received an award the following year from the All India Santhali Writers Association. For her services to literature, she was awarded the Rabindranath Tagore Award in 2020. She has also written the script and lyrics of two Santali feature films, Tore Sutam (The Divine Thread, 2015), and Sagen Sakam (The New Leaf, 2018).
K S Nair
KS Nair has authored three books and over a hundred articles on Indian military history in Indian, American, British, and Japanese publications. His books include Ganesha’s Flyboys (2012), on the IAF in the Congo in the 1960s, The Forgotten Few (2019), on the Indian Air Force in World War II, and December in Dacca (2022), on the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War. He is a graduate of IIT Delhi and IIM Bangalore, and has served at levels up to Vice President, CEO, and Director at multinational and boutique firms, in the areas of consulting, investment, and development.
K Srilata
Srilata K is a poet, fiction writer, translator, and academic. Her latest collection of poems is Three Women in a Single-Room House (2023). Her other publications include five collections of poetry, a book about the disability experience This Kind of Child: The `Disability’ Story (2022), a novel Table for Four (2011, and edited anthologies The Rapids of a Great River: The Penguin Book of Tamil Poetry (2009), Short Fiction from South India (2008). Her poems feature in The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets and The Penguin Book of Indian Poets. Formerly a Professor of Literature at IIT Madras, she is currently Adjunct Professor at the Chennai Mathematical Institute.
Kala Ramesh
Kala Ramesh is a poet, mentor, editor, and author. she is a pioneer in the field of haikai literature in India, Founder/Director of Triveni Haikai India and the Founder/Managing Editor of She has authored three haikai books, co-edited nine international anthologies, and conceptualised and curated eight haikai utsavs. She has been a speaker at several literature festivals, including the Hyderabad Lit Fest and the Jaipur Lit Fest. the forest i know (2021) is her most recent publication.
Kalpana Sharma
Kalpana Sharma is an independent journalist, columnist, and author specializing in developmental, environmental, and gender issues. She has worked with Himmat Weekly, Indian Express, Times of India, and The Hindu. Currently, she writes a media column for Newslaundry.com. Her books include The Silence and the Storm: Narratives of Violence Against Women in India” (2019), Rediscovering Dharavi: Stories from Asia’s Largest Slum (2000). She has edited Single by Choice, Happily Unmarried Women (2019), Missing: Half the Story, Journalism as if Gender Matters (2010), and co-edited Whose News? The Media and Women’s Issues (1994/2006), and Terror Counter-Terror: Women Speak Out (2003).
Kasturi Ray
Kasturi Ray is currently the senior news editor at The New Indian Express, Bhubaneswar. She served as the senior editor of the English digital platform of Odisha Television Limited for over three years. An alumnus of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, she has written for Firstpost and The Quint besides serving the Women’s Features Service and the Asian Age. A SAWM-UNICEF fellow for reporting on development journalism, she is a visiting faculty at the Birla Global University in Bhubaneswar, and has received the Laadli Media Awards for Gender Sensitivity (East) 2013–14 and Aryaa Awards for excellence in journalism 2016–17, among others.
Kasturika Mishra
Kasturika Mishra is a multilingual poet with three published books of poetry in English and Hindi/Urdu. She also is a good singer of ghazals and Hindi kavita. She worked as a senior cataloguing librarian at the US Embassy, New Delhi for twenty years. She also writes reviews on dance, music, and theatre.
Kavitha Buggana
Kavitha Buggana is a writer. Her publications include a travel memoir, Walking in Clouds (HarperCollins India, 2018), short stories and essays published in One Story Magazine (Jan, 2024), Swamp Pink, The Hindu, Outlook Traveller, Tehelka, and others. A runner-up for the 2021 Calvino Prize for Speculative Fiction, she is a 2023 Yaddo Fellow. In previous avatars, she was a software engineer and a development economics scholar.
Year: 2019
Kavitha Sreeraj
Kavitha Sreeraj is an early years educator from Hyderabad. A Tamilian, born and brought up in Kerala, her writing is influenced by both cultures. She started writing haiku in the year 2020. Her haiku and senryu have been featured in various online journals. Now she is also exploring other Japanese forms of poetry like haibun. Apart from writing she also enjoys dancing and cooking.
Khyrunnisa A
Khyrunnisa A. is a prize-winning author of children’s fiction and the creator of the hugely popular Butterfingers series for young readers. A full-time writer, she is also the author of the popular fortnightly column, ‘Inside View’, in The Hindu MetroPlus.
Kiranmayi Indraganti
Kiranmayi Indraganti is a filmmaker with interests in film direction, screenwriting, and the writing of histories of women. With a practice in documentary and collaborative work in media production, she has showcased her documentary work at forums such as MIFF (1998, 2006), Planet in Focus (Toronto, 2000), Ethnografim Festival (Paris, 2014), and at film society events in India. Rallalo Neeru (Hidden Waters, 2020) is her first feature film, made independently with the help of friends. She holds a PhD in Film Studies from the University of Nottingham, UK, and an MFA in Film Production from York University, Toronto, Canada.
Kishalay Bhattacharjee
Kishalay Bhattacharjee is currently a Professor and Dean, Jindal School of Journalism and Communication at O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat. He is a journalist and former Resident Editor, NDTV. His books include Where the Madness Lies: Citizen Accounts of Identity and Nationalism (2023), An Unfinished Revolution: A Hostage Crisis, Adivasi Resistance and the Naxal Movement (2017), Blood on My Hands: Confessions of Staged Encounters (2015), and Che in Paona Bazaar: Tales of Exile and Belonging from India’s Northeast (2013). He is a recipient of the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award (2006-07), and the Penguin Random House Writers Residency Award (2016). Year: 2014-15
Kobita Dass Kolli
Kobita Dass Kolli is a naturalist and independent researcher, documenting the flora and small fauna of the open natural ecosystems in and around Hyderabad, with a focus on rocky outcrops. She is happy to light the spark of curiosity and share her findings through nature walks and talks. She has been guiding an activity class along with Sadhana Ramchander at Vidyaranya School for two decades now. She is an illustrator and worked at Titan as a watch designer. She is a graduate in plant sciences and an MPhil in plant physiology.
Speaker @ HLF 2023, 2019, 2018
Krish Ashok
Krish Ashok is not a chef but cooks daily. He is not a scientist, but he can explain science with easy-to-understand clarity. He trained to be an electronic engineer but is now a software engineer. He learnt to cook from the women in his family, who can make perfectly fluffy idli without lecturing people on lactobacilli and pH levels. He likes the scientific method not because it offers him the ability to bully people with knowledge, but because it confidently lets him say, ‘I don't know, let me test it for myself.’ When he is not cooking, he’s usually playing subversive music on the violin or cello.
Krishna Chaitanya Puppala
Krishna Chaitanya Puppala is a research professional turned educator whose tryst with stories began as a preschool educator. Re(a)discovering stories and the creative thinking they spark in young minds has been her passion and the idea behind ‘Story Tantra’, her storytelling initiative. A certified storyteller from World Storytelling Institute, she conducted curriculum-based storytelling sessions for kids and teachers at various preschools and performed tandem stories in various online and offline festivals like the Chennai Storytelling Festival, Hyderabad Literary Festival and Children’s Fine Art Festivals. She teams up with ‘Katha Konnections’ to weave the magic of stories into modern milieu.
Speaker @ HLF 2023
Kshamatha Chepuri
Kshamatha Chepuri, founder of Katha&Krafts, is a software engineer turned storyteller. She practices storytelling to spread the joy of learning through stories and makes oral storytelling and read-alouds an integral part of her sessions for children. She is associated with NGOs, private and government schools in Hyderabad to bring stories to the classrooms. A versatile and multilingual storyteller, she has curated and performed at storytelling events like KathaDhara, Hyderabad Literature Festival, Hyderabad Children’s Art Festival, Chennai International Storytelling Festival, Madurai Children’s Lit Fest, Jharkhand Storytelling Festival, Old City Literary Festival. She and her three friends, represent ‘Katha Konnections’.
Speaker @ HLF 2023
Kumarasamy Thangaraj
Kumarasamy Thangaraj is a population and medical geneticist at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad. He was the director of the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD; 2020-2023), President of the Indian Society of Human Genetics (2011–2015), and founder of the Society for Mitochondrial Research and Medicine. He published about 300 research articles, mostly on the origin of South Asians, including the Andaman tribes. He is an elected Fellow of all major science Academies in India, recipient of several awards including the JC Bose Fellowship and is the editor and editorial board member of journals such as Mitochondrion, BMC Medical Genetics, Human Genetics and Clinical Genetics.
Kunal Purohit
Kunal Purohit is an independent journalist, documentary filmmaker, and podcast creator. H-Pop: The Secretive World of Hindutva Pop Stars (2023) is his latest publication. His other notable works include Vanished: Inside India’s Bermuda Triangle (2022), a non-fiction podcast, and The Children of Nowhere(2023), a documentary film. A recipient of the Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Civic Journalism (2012), the Statesman Award for Rural Reporting (2014), and the UNFPA-Laadli Media Award for Gender Sensitive Reporting (2014 and 2019), he has an MSc in Development Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) University of London and a Bachelor’s in Mass Media from Mumbai University.
Lalitha Sastry
Lalitha Sastry, founder of ‘Katha Chavadi’, a space for stories, is an educator turned storyteller. She holds a Diploma in Storytelling and has conducted story sessions and workshops at government schools and community centres. She narrates stories in English, Hindi, and Telugu and has participated in the Chennai Storytelling Festival, Jharkhand Storytelling Festival, and Hyderabad Literary Festival. She has trained teachers in integrating storytelling in the curriculum and has conducted Faculty Development Programme on storytelling as an effective tool for student engagement. She is also a blogger and a short story writer. Along with fellow storytellers at ‘Katha Konnections’, she spreads the joy of stories.
Speaker @ HLF 2023
Lavanya Lakshminarayan
Lavanya Lakshminarayan is the author of The Ten Percent Thief (2023), first published in India as Analog/ Virtual (2020). She is a Locus Award finalist and the first science fiction writer to win the Times of India AutHer Award and the Valley of Words Award. The French and Italian translations of her novel have been shortlisted for the Prix Jacques Chambon and the Premio Italia respectively. Her short fiction has appeared in magazines and anthologies, including The Best of World SF: Vol. 2, The Big Book of Cyberpunk, and Someone in Time. She has written narratives for the FarmVille and Mafia Wars franchises, among other games.
Lipika Singh Darai
Lipika Singh Darai is a film director and editor. An alumna of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), she is among the few, and perhaps the only woman, documentary and short filmmakers in Odisha. Her films have received four National Film Awards and have been screened at all major Indian Film Festivals and across the globe. Her feature documentary Backstage had its world premiere at the 39th Asolo Art Film Festival 2021, Italy, and her film Night and Fear (Raati o Bhaya) had its world premiere at the 52nd International Film Festival Rotterdam 2023. She is currently developing her first fiction feature in Odia and her native language Ho.
Lopamudra Mohanty
Lopamudra Mohanty, the founder of BBW Education OPC Pvt Ltd, is a storyteller and educator celebrated for her ground-breaking reading and storytelling programmes for children. Her influence extends to conducting Storytelling Certification Programmes for educators and individuals. Internationally recognized, she has performed at major storytelling and literary festivals. With a theatre background, she has staged numerous performances nationwide. Her recent project, Cheers2Bhasha, aims to promote Indian languages and preserve regional stories. A rural management graduate and banking professional, she is a certified phonics trainer embodying the essence of a responsible storyteller and a cultural resource.
Madhuranthakam Narendra
Madhuranthakam Narendra is a Telugu writer and academic. His novel Manodharma Paragam received the Sahitya Akademi Award for the year 2022. His other publications include six short story collections, four novels, two plays, and several critical essays. He has also edited more than fifteen books and presented research papers in more than a hundred seminars. He is a recipient of several awards and honours including the Madras Telugu Academy Award, Katha Award, New Mexico University reconocimiento, Telugu University Award, TANA and ATA Awards, and Rabindranath Tagore Puraskaram. He retired as a professor of English and Principal of SV University College, Tirupati.
Mahankali Srinivas Rao
Mahankali Srinivas Rao is an IT Industry veteran with over 36 years’ experience. His professional career spans three journeys–as an IT professional for 12 years, as an entrepreneur for over 20 years, and as an ecosystem builder since 2020 – first as CEO of GAME (Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship) and then as CEO of T-Hub, India’s largest startup incubator.He has a Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Osmania University, Hyderabad and an MBA from IIM Bangalore.
Mahnoor Yar Khan
Mahnoor Yar Khan started her career as a filmmaker in Toronto in 1983. She was assistant editor on Ordure which won the jury prize at the Canadian Student Film Festival and worked on the film Bread as Production Manager, which won the Blue Ribbon Award at the 26th American Film Festival 1984. She also worked on several social service films in India as a director. She co-directed Farewell to Sri Lanka (1991) which was selected for screening the following year at the Mumbai International Film Festival. In 2016, she curated a multi-media show on Palestine that included 50 artworks produced by young artists from Gaza.
Speaker @ HLF 2023, HLF Online 2022
Mahua Sen
Mahua Sen is a recipient of Reuel International Poetry Prize and the Poesis Award for Excellence in Literature. Her work has been anthologized and has been published in journals and magazines such as Outlook, Teesta Review, Spillwords, Setu, Lothlorien, among others. She has edited three anthologies and her second book of poems and prose, Nostalgia Crafting a Home Within is forthcoming (2023). She worked with Hindustan Times, Ge Money, and Standard Chartered, before joiningBull’s Eye Outsourcing as the Regional Director, South.
Malini Gopalakrishnan
Malini Gopalakrishnan has a master’s degree in biotechnology and currently edits medical textbooks for a publishing firm in Hyderabad. She has authored poems and articles for digital and print publications.
Mamta Chander
Mamta Chander, an MBA from IIM Calcutta, works as a senior executive in a leading consulting firm. She writes under the nom de plume Turiya. She draws her inspiration from eastern mysticism and Advaita philosophy, and through her writing hopes to draw her reader onto an inner journey of discovery and remembrance. The Vast Empty is her first collection of 65 poems.
Mani Shankar Aiyar
Mani Shankar Aiyar was educated at Welham, Doon, St Stephen’s, and Cambridge before joining the Indian Foreign Service after a brief entanglement with the Intelligence Bureau. He served for twenty-six years in posts abroad, ranging from Brussels to Hanoi to Baghdad and Karachi, with ambassadors who alternated from being outstanding mentors to nasty sticks-in-the-mud, besides two postings at Headquarters in as many as three different ministries. In 1985, Rajiv Gandhi inducted him into the PMO from where he migrated four years later into politics and Parliament. His special interests include Panchayati Raj and Pakistan. Memoirs of A Maverick: The First Fifty Years (1941–1991) is his latest publication.
Manjari Katju
Manjari Katju is a professor of political science at the University of Hyderabad. Her book, Electoral Practice and the Election Commission of India was published in 2023. She also researches and writes on issues of religious nationalism and democracy.
Manju Kapur
Manju Kapur is the author of six novels including the latest The Gallery (2023). Her first, Difficult Daughters (1998), won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book (Eurasia section) in 1999. Her other novels include A Married Woman (2003), Home (2006), The Immigrant (2008), and Custody (2011). She is a professor of literature at Delhi University.
Manoj Rupda
Manoj Rupda writes in Hindi and is the author of novels Kaale Adhyaay (2015; translated as I Named My Sister Silence) and Pratisansaar (2010); collections of stories, Dafan tatha Anya Kahaniyan, Saaz Naasaaz, Aamaazgaah, Tower of Silence, Dahan, and Dus Kahaniyan; and a book of essays, Kalaa ka Aaswaad. He is a recipient of the Indu Sharma Katha Puraskar and the Vanmali Katha Samman.
Marta Breen
Marta Breen is an award-winning Norwegian author of non-fiction. Her publications include Girls, Wine and Song (2006), Born Feminist, and the bestseller 60 Women You Should Know About in collaboration with illustrator Jenny Jordahl. The pair have also worked together on The F Word, which won the Norwegian Ministry of Culture’s textbook prize for young people. Their graphic novel Women in Battle (2018), which tells the stories of fearless females who have fought, and continue to fight, for the rights of women today, has so far been sold to 28 countries. Their book The Fall of the Patriarchy (2021) is also out in several countries.
Maya Chandrasekaran
Maya Chandrasekaran is an entrepreneur, investor, tree-hugger, filter coffee aficionado, mum, and lover of all things book and book-related. She is the co-founder of a climate investment firm called Green Artha, manages a couple of networks, including the Climate Capital Network and the Women in Investing Network, and is the author of several children’s books, including Cadet No. 1 and other Amazing Women in the Armed Forces (2021)
Medha Kohli
Medha Kohli is a development sector professional, working in the area of social impact and social behaviour change communication. She has over five years experience in project management and programme design in the education, media, and development sectors. She is passionate about community-driven projects and the environment and is currently also supporting local community efforts for Kapra Lake restoration in Sainikpuri, Hyderabad. She is an endometriosis survivor and has been a vocal advocate in creating awareness about this chronic condition and the lack of proper care for it.
Meena Kandasamy
Meena Kandasamy is an activist, poet, novelist, and translator. Her books of poetry include Touch (2006) and Ms Militancy (2010), and her three acclaimed novels are The Gypsy Goddess (2014), When I Hit You (2018), and Exquisite Cadavers (2019). In 2022, she was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL) and also awarded PEN Germany's Hermann Kesten Prize for her writing and work as a ‘fearless fighter for democracy, human rights and the free word.’ Her latest published work is Tomorrow Someone Will Arrest You (2023), a collection of political poetry.
Meghana Bommatanahalli
Meghana Bommatanahalli has been telling stories to children at schools, NGOs, and community centres. She also trains teachers across India on bringing stories into classrooms and has worked as an associate editor and content writer for children’s magazines. She has participated in popular storytelling festivals like the Chennai International Storytelling Festival, Old City Literary Festival, Jharkhand Storytelling Festival, and Vijayawada Book Fair. She and her three colleagues represent ‘Katha Konnections’ which aims to connect people with themselves and with the world, to entertain, and to promote empathy.
Year: 2021
Mehak Goyal
Mehak Goyal was a computer science engineer, start-up founder, and B2B sales leader before committing herself to writing. Her poems have been published in The American Journal of Poetry, Magma Poetry, Sky Island Journal, The Madras Courier(India), ANGLES, Visual Verse, The Punch Magazine(India), Muse (India), The Alipore Post(India), etc. Her poems were shortlisted for The Woman Inc. & Beyond Black Sakhi Annual Poetry Awards 2019 and the Cinnamon Press Literature Award 2020. Failure to Make Round Rotis: Poems on Rebellion, Resilience and Relationships (2023) is her first poetry collection.
Menaka Raman
Menaka Raman is a children’s book author and communications consultant. She is the author of a number of books for children including How to Reach Mars and Other (Im)Possible Things (2023), The Great Escape (2022), and Loki Takes Guard (2020) which won the Valley of Words Award for Writing for Young Adults. Her stories about parenting have appeared in India’s leading newspapers and her stories have been included in anthologies published by major Indian 7publishers. She is also a senior producer at Vaaka Media an independent podcast production house in Bengaluru.
Mohammad Ali Baig
Recipient of Padma Shri and several global honors for his work in theatre globally and its revival in Hyderabad, stage and screen actor Mohammad Ali Baig starred in theatre spectacles, regional cinema and web series in English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. As an adfilmmaker, he made over 450 television commercials, corporate and documentary films in seven countries. In 2004, he founded Qadir Ali Baig Theatre Foundation, as a tribute to his legendary father, which is today amongsts formidable professional theatre repertories around the world. He is known for his larger-than-life theatre spectacles staged at iconic venues and heritage monuments. His previous four plays premiered in London. His celebrated heritage theatre spectacle ‘Quli - Dilon ka Shahzaada’ had a week-long run at the Edinburgh fest alongwith world-premiere of his other play ‘1857 - Turrebaz Khan’.
Mukul Kumar
Mukul Kumar is a civil servant, novelist, and poet. His published work includes three novels, As Boys Become Men (2016), Seduction by Truth (2018), and the e-book Aarzoo-Arshan: Can One Hate Love? His poetry anthologies are The Irrepressible Echoes (2012), Catharsis (2020) and Rhythm of the Ruins (2022). He has been honoured with a National Award for outstanding service to the Indian Railways, Bharat Nirman Award for literary excellence, and Poorvanchal Gaurav Samman for his contributions to society as a bureaucrat and writer.
Mukund Padmanabhan
Mukund Padmanabhan is the former editor of The Hindu (2016-2019) and The Hindu BusinessLine, a sister publication of the same group. He has written extensively on political, legal, and literary subjects. He is currently a Visiting Professor of Practice at Krea University, where he teaches philosophy and related disciplines. He was an Adjunct Faculty at the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines, where he taught media law and advanced writing to post-graduate students from all over Asia. The Great Flap of 1942 (2023) is his first book.
Nag Ashwin
Nag Ashwin is a director and screenwriter best known for his work in Telugu cinema. He studied at Hyderabad Public School, Manipal Institute of Communication, and the New York Film Academy. His first feature film Yevade Subramanyam won the Nandi Award for Best Debut Director in 2015. He wrote and directed Mahanati (2018) which won several awards and nominations, including the Equality in Cinema Award (Melbourne 2018), the Best Feature Film in Telugu award (National Film Awards 2019), the Best Director award (Zee Cine Awards), and the Best Director award (Filmfare-South). He wrote and directed the Netflix anthology Pitta Kathalu (2021) and was a producer for Jathi Ratnalu (2021).
Nandita Jayaraj
Nandita Jayaraj is an independent science journalist and author. Along with Aashima Dogra, she co-founded the feminist science media platform TheLifeofScience.com in 2016. She is also an author/co-author of books such as Anna's Extraordinary Adventures with Weather (2018), 31 Fantastic Adventures in Science (2019), and most recently, Lab Hopping: A Journey to Find India's Women in Science (2023).
Nasreen Munni Kabir
Nasreen Munni Kabir has made over a hundred documentaries on Hindi cinema and written over twenty books on the subject. She has subtitled over 800 films from Hindi to English. She has been instrumental in introducing Hindi cinema to wider audiences in the UK and Paris since the 1980s. Continuing to curate Channel 4’s annual Indian film season, she has served as a governor on the board of the British Film Institute (2000–2006). Working between London and Mumbai, she has documented and archived Hindi film history through her books and TV programmes for over forty years.
Natasha Ramarathnam
Natasha Ramarathnam is a development sector professional who led large and diverse teams that worked in collaboration with beneficiaries, communities, and external stakeholders to create impact at both the grassroots and the policy level. Her professional work has been with youth and adolescents and has focussed on access to education, developing life-skills and gender empowerment. Her initial foray into the environmental space was through her involvement in the Save Chevella Banyans campaign, and she now volunteers with Warrior Moms which is working towards ensuring clean air for the next generation. She also frequently contributes articles on gender and the environment to various publications.
Naveed Mulki
Naveed Mulki is a writer and filmmaker who converted from writing ads for Nike to becoming one of the co-founders of Untold, a storytelling magazine focussed not just on finding untold stories across India but changing the way they are told. He is one of the co-founders of Faraway Originals, an independent narrative-led film company. He is also a film artist commissioned by the Museum of Art and Photography, Bangalore. Culture, conservation, and the human experience are areas of his interest.
Nayantara Nanda Kumar
Nayantara Nanda Kumar is a disciple of Guru Smt Jyoti Rout and Guru Smt Swathi Mahalakshmi. She has performed widely in the United States and India. She is the Founder of Our Sacred Space, a centre for environment, art, and wellness at Secunderabad and Dharur. She has performed at fundraisers for Nonviolent Peace Force (Santa Cruz), Asha for Education (Berkeley), Tibetan Medical College (Richmond), Chaparral House for the Aged (Berkeley), Tamil Refugee Fundraiser (South Bay), Ruchika for Street Children, Alzheimers Walk (Treasure Island), Nritya Shila on the Shamirpet Hill for Society to Save Rocks, and Prajwala and the US Consulate against human trafficking.
Nayeem
Nayeem teaches organizational behaviour and management courses at ICFAI University Hyderabad. A passionate advocate of the fusion of education and cultural enrichment, he actively volunteers at Lamakaan, a vibrant cultural space in Hyderabad, to create an inclusive and intellectually stimulating environment. An avid reader of fiction, he enriches his teaching through a storytelling approach. He also conducts heritage walks and curates world cinema, showcasing his commitment to global perspectives.
Neena Rao
Neena Rao’s global and national experience spans academia, research, and diverse community engagement. Her publications include Forest Ecology of India: Colonial Maharashtra (2011) and Minscapes: A Canvas of Emotions in a Special World (2022). Driven by her son’s Asperger’s diagnosis, she founded Margika, an NGO dedicated to mental health awareness and inclusive education for special-needs children in India. Recognized as a ‘Top 100 Healthcare Leader by IFAH and featured in the Telangana edition of 50 Inspiring Women (2023), she is dedicated to imparting advanced global knowledge to empower children and youth impacted by mental and developmental disorders.
Neena Verma
Neena Verma is a ‘Resilience, Grief, Post-traumatic Growth & Emotional Wellbeing’ specialist, and Appreciative Inquiry Thought Leader with international recognition. She brings over three decades of rich and diverse experience across academia, industry, and consulting. Her grief memoir A Mother’s Cry ~ A Mother’s Celebration (2016) and her second book Grief ~ Growth ~ Grace - A Sacred Pilgrimage (2021) focus on resilience and post-traumatic growth in the aftermath of loss and bereavement. She is currently working on her third book which presents a new and expansive model of resilience.
Neha Khaitan
Neha Khaitan is a Bharatanatyam artist, illustrator, and children’s author. She conducted storytelling sessions at prestigious events like the Kalaghoda Arts Festival and for schools and NGOs. She has written and illustrated a series of math-based activity books for children, the first volume of which is forthcoming. Before she forayed into the world of arts, she worked in the information technology industry for about a decade. Currently, she also works with branding and communications projects. She founded ‘A Flower Child’, a platform that engages in visual arts, children’s books, and storytelling. Years: 2020, 2025.
Nidhi Dugar
Nidhi Dugar is a journalist and her stories and essays have appeared in various national newspapers and magazines. She mostly writes on socio-cultural issues, documenting human lives and their journeys through various settings. Her publications include The Lost Generation: Chronicling India’s Dying Professions (2016) and White as Milk and Rice: Stories of India’s Isolated Tribes (2020) which was recently adapted for young adults as 10 Indian Tribes and the Unique Lives They Lead (2023). She is a graduate of the School of Arts, City University, London.
Nikita Deshpande
Nikita Deshpande is the winner of the Srinivas Rayaprol Poetry Prize 2023 and her poems have also been included in the anthology The World That Belongs to Us(2020). She also writes fiction and has published a novel, It Must’ve Been Something He Wrote (2016), and short stories included in the anthologies, A Case of Indian Marvels (2022), and Magical Women (2019). She was awarded a 2015 Vermont Studio Center fellowship to work on her fiction. She assisted directors on feature films Fukrey and Mirzya and wrote for the animated series Chai Chai and the documentary series The Big Day.
Noor Baig
Noor Baig is a Playwright, actress, author Noor Baig was born in Chennai and is a Gold Medalist in Visual Communications and International Studies. After a stint with the Australian Consulate, she is presently Vice-President of Qadir Ali Baig Theatre Foundation. She wrote several plays which received wide global acclaim, some of them being ‘Quli - Prince of Hearts’, ‘Spaces’, ‘Under an Oak Tree’. Two of her short stories became full-fledged theatre productions and were staged in several countries overseas. Her published work includes a biography ‘From Darkness to Light’ and a collection of short stories ‘A-Quaint-Essences’. She has acted on international stage as part of Qadir Ali Baig Theatre Foundation repertory plays, co-starring with her husband Padmasri Mohammad Ali Baig. Her writings are acclaimed for her touching insights into human relationships, Indian culture and Hyderabadi heritage.
Speaker @ HLF 2023
Omair Quadri
Omair Quadri is a filmmaker, and photographer from Hyderabad. He’s also the Founder of EikaWorld an Indian Underground magazine that focuses on art, adventure sports, and lifestyle, making visual stories and uncovering the underground subcultures one frame at a time.
Pankaj Singh
Pankaj Singh is a writer, director, and co-founder of Faraway Originals, a documentary filmmaking collective. His interests lie in conservation, history, and art and the common thread of human stories that weaves through these narratives. He has led workshops on storytelling as part of the initiatives of his collective. He has authored two picture books and is currently working on an illustrated book on the human experience of trees.
Paramita Satpathy
Paramita Satpathy is a bilingual writer who writes in Odia and English. Her publications include short story collections, novels, a novella, and poetry collections. Her short story collection Prapti (A Boundless Moment) received the Sahitya Akademi Award for 2016 and her recent novel in Odia Abhipret Kaal (A Time Desired), based on the last part of the freedom struggle in Odisha, received the Sarala Puraskar for 2021 and was also shortlisted for the First Bank of Baroda Rashtra Bhasha Samman. She is an officer of the Indian Revenue Service.
Parmesh Shahani
Parmesh Shahaniis the author of Gay Bombay: Globalization, Love and (Be)Longing in Contemporary India (2008) and Queeristan: LGBTQ Inclusion in the Indian Workspace (2020) which won the CK Prahalad Prize for Best Business Book (2021) and the Laadli Media Award for Gender Sensitivity (2021). He heads the Godrej DEI Lab that aims to empower inclusion ecosystems both within and outside the Godrej group. He founded and headed (2011-2021) the Godrej India Culture Lab which examined the ever-changing nature of Indian society. He holds an MS in Comparative Media Studies from MIT and is a TED Senior Fellow, a Yale World Fellow, and a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader.
Percy Tabitha
Percy Tabitha is a Hyderabad-based visual artist. She works on acrylic medium and mixed medium. She is currently in Yakshi Constitutional valves in a praxis program where she works with marginalized women using art to understand the Constitution. She has worked with Zubaan as a book cover artist. She is inspired by idea of memory and how it works in the personal, social and political. She likes the ordinary and the mundane, the poetry of the everyday.
Pinky Chandran
Pinky Chandran is an independent researcher and a freelance journalist. She tracks policy and legal developments on issues related to waste management and its intersections. Garbage inspires her to write poetry and she runs her own blog wasteframes.com. She is the founding member of the Solid Waste Management Roundtable (SWMRT); a Trustee at Hasiru Dala and a Board Member of SMART, an NGO that runs Radio Mewat. She is a dog lover and a pet parent.
Prahlad Kakar
Prahlad Kakar is a renowned ad-film director and co-founder of Genesis Film Production, one of India’s oldest and foremost ad-film production houses. He has ruled the advertising world with his brand of irreverent humour and memorable brand-building campaigns and has created award-winning commercials (such as Pepsi “Yehi heh right choice baby! Aha,” Limca “Zor ka Jhatka,” and Maggi Sauces “Its different!”) for the most reputed corporates and agencies in India and the Asia-Pacific region. Adman Madman: Unapologetically Prahlad (2023) is a no-holds-barred memoir.
Pranav Pingle Reddy
Pranav Pingle Reddy did his Masters in Film and Television Production at the University of Bristol, UK. He founded Mirage Media in 2013 and directed, filmed, and produced more than 28 films and many global projects in the UK and India. His work revolves around social issues and his visit three years ago to the West Bank, Palestine led to a 5-part documentary series Occupied which was the only web series from India to be selected for the Athens International Film & Video Festival. It has won awards at many international film festivals such as Bushwick, KIIF, Rhode Island, Brussels, and Berlin.
Priti Aisola
Priti Aisola is the author of: See Paris for Me: A Novel (2009); Beyond the Gopurams, a spiritual travelogue (2014), A Dinner Invitation to God, poems (2016), O Shrineless Silence, poems (2017), Letters to Maya, creative nonfiction (2020). In 2020, she was introduced to haikai literature by Kala Ramesh and she is deeply grateful to her mentor for facilitating a wonderful journey filled with new learnings.
Speaker @ HLF 2023
Priyanka Singh
Priyanka Singh is a Programme Lead at the Council on Energy, Environment, and Water (CEEW). She researches on air pollution and solid waste management to provide evidence-based insights to policymakers for making scientifically grounded policy decisions. She worked in the Central Pollution Control Board as a Technical Consultant, with a social enterprise called Saahas Zero Waste, and was involved in conducting Environment Impact Assessment for various industries. She holds a postgraduate degree in Environment Management from the Forest Research Institute, Dehradun, a graduate degree in Life Sciences from Ramjas College, University of Delhi, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Development Management from S P Jain Institute of Management & Research, Mumbai.
Puneet Mehta
Puneet Mehta is a corporate executive turned chef, popular known as OCP (Out of Control Punjabi) chef, and finalist of Master Chef India Season 2. He is an Indian and fusion cuisine chef, corporate chef guru, columnist, author, culinary consultant, trainer, poet, and Chef RJ. His articles on culinary topics, food history, trivia, lost recipes, and food sustainability have been published in leading dailies and publications. He conducts corporate sessions using cookery as a tool on topics like stress management, paradigm shift, change management, out-of-the-box thinking, and creativity, and cookery masterclasses on how to make interesting, delicious food, tips and tricks to make cooking easy, and food sustainability.
Purnima Nagaraja
Purnima Nagaraja is a psychiatrist, psychotherapist, trainer, and mentor.
She works in Hyderabad and runs the Dhrithi Wellness Clinic focussing on holistic mental health, psychological support and counselling for adults, children, and adolescents, and rehabilitation for children with special needs. Her clinic is also LGBTQIA-friendly. Purnima has a diploma in psychiatry and a master’s in counselling and psychotherapy. She has worked with many voluntary organizations, the Telangana state, and city Police in training resources for ‘Bharosa’, a centre for women and child support. She is a popular newspaper columnist, a TV host, and a polyglot.
Purnima Tammireddy
Purnima Tammireddy, a techie by profession, is a writer, translator, and publisher, primarily working in Telugu. She co-founded pustakam.net, a website for book reviews in 2009, and Elami Publications, an independent Telugu book publishing house in 2022. Her published works include a short story collection titled, Emotional Pregnancy (2022), Telugu translations of Manto’s Siya Hashiye and Amrita Pritam’s Pinjar. Her work-in-progress projects include translation of Telangana Arms Movement leader, Mallu Swarajyam’s memoir into English. She was a writer-in-residence at the Sangam House International Writer Residency in 2022.
Pushpesh Kumar
Pushpesh Kumar teaches sociology at the University of Hyderabad. He edited Sexuality, Abjection and Queer Existence in Contemporary India (Routledge, 2022) and co-edited a forthcoming special volume on Queer and Trans Community Building in post-NALSA and post-377 India for the Community Development Journal (OUP). He was a British Academy Visiting Fellow at the Department of Anthropology, LSE, London in 2009. As a pro-feminist thinker, he has contributed to a special volume on Men and Feminism in India (Economic and Political Weekly, 2015). He is co-editing Sociology of Gender: Contemporary Perspectives. He was a recipient of M.N. Sreenivas Memorial Prize for young sociologists in 2007.
Year: 2019
Raavan Reddy
Raavan Reddy is an actor trained under Bhoomika. He has done lead roles in several of Bhoomika’s play productions, including “Charanadasu”for which Bhoomika won a Nandi Award. He has also recently acted in the lead role in the Telugu film Alipiriki Allantadooramlo (2022). He also heads the storytelling initiative of Bhoomika – ‘Anaganaga’.
Radhika Viswanathan
Radhika Viswanathan is an audio producer and co-founder of Vaaka Media (www.vaaka.in), an independent podcast production company based out of Bangalore. She is the producer of the wildly popular podcast City of Women, a show that explores the many calculated strategies, backdoor negotiations and often absurd lengths women go to have fun and feel free in their city. Radhika is also a development communications specialist and writer and has worked with a range of non-profits and development agencies to bring conversations from the social sector to wider audiences.
Rahul Chopra
Rahul Chopra is the Director of the Centre for Sustainability, Environment, and Climate Change, FLAME University, Pune. He is also the project director of a global climate change education project that integrates climate change education into the curriculum across the world. His interests are multidisciplinary and include curriculum development, the use of satellite-derived and in-situ data to evaluate our changing environment, historical GIS, field-based studies, and the use of high-resolution instruments and data to study various earth and environmental processes. He received his PhD from the University of Chicago, USA.
Ramendra Kumar
Ramendra Kumar is a writer, storyteller, and motivational speaker, and a cancer warrior. He has published 49 books with leading publishers and his works have been translated into 32 languages and included in several textbooks and anthologies in various countries. He has won 34 Children’s Book Trust awards for children’s literature over the years. He was a Jury Member for The Times of India’s ‘Women AutHer’ Awards 2020, and was a mentor for the Scholastic Writers Academy.
Year: 2019
Ramesh Karthik Nayak
Ramesh Karthik Nayak is the winner of the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar in Telugu for 2024 for his short story collection, Dhaavlo (2021). He is the first tribal and at 26 the youngest Telugu author to receive this honour. A bilingual poet, short-story writer, editor, and translator from Telangana, he has six books to his credit: five in Telugu and a poetry collection in English. His poems have been published in many journals including Poetry at Sangam, Live Wire, Outlook India, Nether Quarterly, Borderless Journal, The Riveraine, Indian Literature, and Scroll, and have been translated into Hindi, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali, and Assamese. Speaker @ HLF 2023, 2025
Ravi Kiran
Ravi Kiran is an electronics engineer and a working professional. His haiku have won international contests and are featured in journals like The Heron’s Nest, Modern Haiku, Frogpond. He is a web editor with the leading journal haikuKATHA and is an editor with Leaf – the journal of The Daily Haiku.
Rohan Chakravarty
Rohan Chakravarty is a cartoonist, illustrator, and the creator of Green Humour, a series of cartoons, comics, and illustrations on wildlife and nature conservation. Cartoons from Green Humour appear periodically in newspaper columns, magazines, and journals. Illustrations from Green Humour have been used for several projects and campaigns on wildlife awareness and climate change. He is also the author of seven books (including Green Humour for a Greying Planet (2021), Naturalist Ruddy (2021), and Pugmarks and Carbon Footprints (2023). His work has won awards from UNDP, Sanctuary Asia, WWF International, the Royal Bank of Scotland, and the Bangalore Literature Festival.
Roopali Mohanti
Roopali Mohanti is a hotel management graduate. She worked with a leading Indian hotel chain in the early years of her career and continued to work on projects of her interest. She combines her professional training in culinary arts and her passion for cooking in Servings: Simple Yet Exotic (2023), a collection of stories and recipes.
Sachidananda Mohanty
Sachidananda Mohanty is a former Professor and Head of the Department of English, the University of Hyderabad and former Vice Chancellor of the Central University of Odisha. Winner of many national and international honours and awards from Katha, British Council, Fulbright, Charles Wallace, and Salzburg among others, he has published extensively in the fields of British and American literature, gender, translation, and postcolonial studies with leading publishers. His contributions to the academic genres of travel writing, cosmopolitanism, institutional history, early women’s writing in Eastern India, and the postcolonial/cultural history of India have been widely recognized as path-breaking.
Sadhana Ramchander
Sadhana Ramchander edits and designs books at her consultancy – BluePencil Infodesign. She has been working in the field of nature education, teaching children at Vidyaranya High School, and leading nature walks in and around Hyderabad, along with Kobita Dass Kolli. In 2023, she taught a credit course in ‘Nature Appreciation’ at NALSAR, Hyderabad. She has been actively involved in the Campaign to Save the Banyans of Chevella since 2019. She has written a book titled, Just look up…to see the magic in the trees around you (2014), to share the simple joy she derives from trees.
Sameer Shisodia
Sameer Shisodia heads the Rainmatter Foundation since it was founded in 2020. His concern about food systems, climate, and biodiversity collapse led him away from his earlier tech avatar. He runs a small locally-focused travel outfit, created regenerative farming collectives, and at the Rainmatter Foundation, is now trying to figure out ways to create mainstream change to try and address this most critical issue the species has ever faced.
Samina Mishra
Samina Mishra, a documentary filmmaker, writer, and educator, focuses on children’s media and identity in her work. Her projects encompass themes of childhood experiences in India, including films like Jamlo Walks (2021) capturing migrants during the COVID-19 lockdown, Nida Finds a Way (2021) exploring a young girl’s world amidst a citizens’ protest, and Happiness Class (2021) delving into happiness concepts for children. Her diverse teaching experience spans film education at the AJK Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia, and founding The Magic Key Centre for the Arts and Childhood. Her expertise lies in intertwining arts and education, making her a valuable resource for literary and cultural festivals.
Samit Basu
Samit Basu is an Indian novelist. His most recent novel, The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport was a 2023 best scifi nominee in the Goodreads Choice Awards. His previous novel, The City Inside, was named one of the best sci-fi/fantasy novels of 2022 by The Washington Post and Book Riot and was short-listed for the JCB Prize. Beginning with The Simoqin Prophecies (2003), he has published several critically acclaimed and bestselling novels in a range of speculative genres. He also works as a director-screenwriter, a comics writer, and a columnist.
Samyuktha G
Samyuktha G is a theatre actor trained under Bhoomika. She acted in plays for Bhoomika and other groups. She worked as a music and dance choreographer for one of Bhoomika’s productions. She has adapted into Telugu and acted in two plays—“Baribathala Raju” (based on “Nanga Raja” by Alaknandan) and “Dochevarevarura” (based on “Can’t Pay Won’t Pay” by the Italian playwright Dario Fo). A textile designer by profession, she has been working in the handloom sector with weaver-producer enterprises and has also published Learning the Heart Way, a book on her experiments with higher education.
Sanghamitra Malik
Sanghamitra Malik has dabbled in water and oil painting, writing poems and songs on various aspects of Hyderabad city. She is also a trained interior designer. She is voice-trained and has done plenty of narrations and voice-overs in English, Hindi, and Bengali languages.
Sanjana Singh
Sanjana Singh is a climate expert with a master’s from United Nations University, Tokyo in Sustainability Science. She is leading the FutureEd Lab at the Centre of Sustainability, Environment, and Climate Change at FLAME University and has been part of Project TROP ICSU since 2021. She has worked closely with educators, training them in climate change education and making them content creators. She has also created and curated many climate resources across all disciplines and has written several lesson plans. She has also co-authored several research papers and book chapters.
Sankara Jayanth Sudanagunta
Sankara Jayanth Sudanagunta is passionate about what haikai poetic forms allow a writer to do. Basho’s haiku inspire him to look closely at nature. Issa’s inspire him to appreciate all life with sensitivity. To write like these great Japanese masters is a lifelong goal and he intends to pursue it. His haiku, senryu and haiga have appeared in leading journals like haikuKATHA, Tsuri-dōrō, Acorn, and others. He is the founding editor of Haiku Seed Journal.
Sarala Mahidhara
Sarala Mahidhara, an alumna of the University of Hyderabad retired as the Head of the Department of Languages, Bhavan’s Vivekananda College, Sainikpuri. She taught English language, literature, soft skills, business communication to undergraduate and graduate students. Deeply interested in theatre, films, and culture, she has staged numerous plays for the public with her students. She has been associated with the Little Theatre, Hyderabad, since its inception.
Serish Nanisetti
Serish Nanisetti is an author and journalist. He has done extensive research on the Qutb Shahi kingdom that ruled from Golconda fort and later from Hyderabad for over 150 years. This was the time when a small fort transformed into a bustling township that drew merchants from across the world. The trade links and culture that facilitated it continued even during the Asaf Jah rulers who supplanted the Qutb Shahis. The story fleshes out aspects of this globalised empire which are there in plain sight.
Shankar Melkote
Shankar Melkote, founder of The Little Theatre, Hyderabad, loves books. He does theatre, feature films, and dramatized readings and has retired after long stints in industry and business organisations.
Shanta Thoutam
Shanta Thoutam, a gold medallist in B Tech in Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering, has an MS and a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the New Mexico State University (NMSU), USA. After working in the corporate sector for over five years, she championed a technology commercialization accelerator in the USA that created 10 startups enabling them to raise $2+ million. After relocating to Hyderabad she served as Vice President of Corporate Innovation & Business Development at T-Hub, Officer on Special Duty for Textiles & Handicrafts, and is currently Chief Innovation Officer of the Government of Telangana.
Sharmishtha Shenoy
Sharmishtha Shenoy is the author of the Vikram Rana Mystery series, which includes Vikram Rana Investigates (2016), A Season for Dying (2017), Behind the Scenes (2017), Fatal Fallout (2019), Silent Witness (2020), A Thousand Scars: Book 1-The Hunter (2022) and Book 2-The Hunted (2022). She has also published a book of short stories, Quirky Tales (2019), and a novel Murder in the Chowdhury Palace (2022). She has an M Tech degree from the University of Reading, Great Britain. She was an IT professional and worked for TCS, Satyam, Infosys, and Microsoft.
Shashi Tharoor
Shashi Tharoor, a third-term Member of Parliament for Thiruvananthapuram, is the bestselling author of twenty-five books, both fiction and non-fiction, besides being a former Under Secretary-General of the United Nations and a former Minister of State for Human Resource Development and for External Affairs in the Government of India. He has won numerous awards, including the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, the Crossword Lifetime Achievement Award, and the 2019 Sahitya Akademi Award for his nonfiction book An Era of Darkness (2016). He chairs Parliament’s Standing Committee on Chemicals and Fertilisers and has previously chaired the Standing Committee on External Affairs and the Committee on Information Technology.
Shawn Sebastian
Shawn Sebastian is a filmmaker and independent journalist. He is the co-founder of Drokpa Films, a production house specialising in development-centred multimedia content. Over the last six years, he has directed several documentaries for various state governments, non-profit organisations, and news platforms such as Discovery+ and IRIN. He was a LAMP fellow in 2011–12 and is an alumnus of St Stephen’s College, Delhi, and the University of Hyderabad.
Shilpaa Anand
Shilpaa Anand has a PhD in Disability Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago. Her research interests include the historiography of disability and culturally different concepts of corporeality. Her papers have been published in journals and edited volumes on disability studies in India and South Asia. She moderates a lively email list called Disability Studies India and has co-edited multiple issues on disability of the web magazine Cafe Dissensus. She currently teaches and heads the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, BITS-Pilani Hyderabad Campus, and has an honorary affiliation with the Centre for Disability Studies at NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad as a Distinguished Research Fellow.
Shreyas Sridharan
Shreyas Sridharan is the founder of EkoGalaxy, a platform for climate education and engagement. He has lived and worked in four cities across India and speaks twice as many languages. He is a first-gen entrepreneur with a decade of experience in solar thermal technology. His prior experience, as a biotechnologist, was in process filtration with the pharma and biotech industry. He is loved for his sense of humour and tenacious enthusiasm to address the climate crisis. He enjoys cooking, gaming, podcasts, and martial arts.
Shubashree Desikan
Shubashree Desikan worked as a lecturer, copy editor, and publisher’s editor before finding the career of her choice in science journalism with The Hindu, where she worked for 10 years and wrote extensively on fundamental sciences and mathematics. In 2022, she moved to IIT Madras Shaastra magazine where she is now an Associate Editor. Among other things, she has written about new developments in artificial intelligence and quantum computation. Currently, she is translating Ki Rajanarayanan’s Sahitya Akademi-award-winning Tamil novel into English. She received the National Award for Science Communication in Print, from the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, in 2017.
Siddhartha Deb
Siddhartha Deb is the author of the novels The Point of Return (2002), a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and An Outline of the Republic (2005), longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. His non-fiction book The Beautiful and the Damned (2011) was a finalist for the Orwell Prize and received the PEN Open award. His journalism and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, The New Republic, n+1, The Nation, and Dissent. The Light at the End of the World (2023) is his latest new novel.
Somdatta Karak
Somdatta Karak is a science communicator. She works to make science available to young people by creating engaging content and appropriate platforms. She leads science communication and public outreach at CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad. She co-leads Superheroes against Superbugs, an educational and public engagement initiative on antimicrobial resistance, a global health crisis. She also co-leads SciCity-Hyderbad, an initiative to bring science to the cultural conversations of Hyderabad. Her primary training is in life sciences with a PhD in Sensory and Motor Neuroscience, and she is an ex-Teach for India fellow.
Somya Nayak
Somya Nayak is an Assistant Professor, the Department of Asian Languages, The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. She has MA, MPhil, and PhD degrees in Chinese language from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She has presented papers at national and international conferences on China, co-authored books 1000 Powerful Chinese Lexicon (2017), Understanding China in the 21st Century (2020), and edited a volume Discourse on Chinese Language, Literature and Culture (2021). For her contribution to the Chinese language and culture, she was nominated as an expert member of the Project Monitoring and Mentoring Group (PMMG) of the Defence Research and Development Organisation, (DRDO) Bangalore.
Sridala Swami
Sridala Swami is the author of three collections of poetry, including the Run for the Shadows(2021, reprinted 2022). She has served on the Jury of the Montreal International Poetry Prize (2019) and the Rayaprol Poetry Prize (2023).
Speaker @ HLF 2023, 2022
Srinivasa Rao Sambangi
Srinivasa Rao Sambangi is a management postgraduate working for a pharma company in Hyderabad. He is well-known as a haiku writer in India and abroad . he has won several awards, which include the winner in VCBF haiku contest in the international category in 2022 and first place in the Sharpening the Green Pencil Haiku Contest 2023. His debut book forget-me-nots was published in December 2022.
Srivi Kalyan
Srivi Kalyan is an artist, designer, educator, and writer. She works at the fluid and exciting intersection of arts, media, education, design, environment and self-reflection. She has authored and illustrated several books for children and adults and is an award-winning writer and illustrator. She is currently one of the Deans of the cluster of Law, Environment and Planning at Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore. She is also the Founder-Director of Fooniferse Arts Pvt. Ltd.
Subhash Vyam
Subhash Vyam is a traditionally trained artist of the Pardhan-Gond school of painting. He collaborates with his wife Durgabai Vyam. His subjects include mythological deities and folk narratives. They have exhibited their work both in India and abroad. His books include Water(2018), and other books for children. With Durgabai Vyam he has illustrated and co-authored Bhimayana (2011), a graphic novel on the life of Dr B R Ambedkar.
Sudeshna Mohanty
Sudeshna Mohanty, an alumna of Miranda House, Delhi University, taught English in a college affiliated to Bangalore University. She has extensively translated the short stories of Gopinath Mohanty including Hidden Ganga and Other Stories (2019), “And the Tide Turned,” “Unfinished,” and Oblivion and Other Stories (2023), an anthology of 20 short stories of Gopinath Mohanty.
Sudhakar Rao
Sudhakar Rao is an integral figure at the ICFAI Group, contributing over to its branding initiatives and serving as the official spokesperson. With over a 20-year career spanning clothing, food, and education sectors, he excels in branding, marketing, corporate relations, and international operations. His academic background includes a Mechanical Engineering degree, a PGDM from IIM Bangalore, and a special master’s program in Design Thinking from MIT Sloan School of Management. He is a sought-after keynote speaker and his expertise in branding and corporate strategies shapes industry discussions, establishing him as a leading voice in effective brand management and visionary corporate leadership.
Suhas Bhatnagar
Suhas Bhatnagar is a freelance writer. He writes both in Hindi and English. He has more than two hundred blogs on ‘Speaking Tree’ and more than one thousand four hundred quotes on ‘Your Quote.’ He has been featured in the Humans of Hyderabad and has published a book of poems in Hindi, Sulagte Hain Jazbaat (2019), and has written and directed four plays under his banner “Kahaniwala.”
Sumana Kasturi
Sumana Kasturi is a writer and educator specialising in feminist media studies and children’s communication. Her work has appeared in the Wire, India Forum and other academic and popular publications. She is the author of Gender, Citizenship, and Identity: Writing the Everyday (2019) and co- editor of Childscape, Mediascape: Children and Media in India (2023).
Sunayana Ganguly
Sunayana Ganguly is a political scientist specializing in environmental governance and sustainable consumption. She is the co-founder of the Climate Educator Network and a faculty member at Azim Premji University. She has a PhD from Freie University, MSc in development studies from LSE, and a BA in English literature from St. Stephens College. She worked in think tanks in India and Germany. She teaches and researches forests, environment governance, advocacy, and qualitative research methods. Her book Deliberating Environment Policy in India: Participation and the Role of Advocacy (2015) unpacks the dynamics of deliberation and collective action in the formulation of two environment policies.
Sunita Kohli
Sunita Kohli is an award-winning interior designer, a leader in historical interior architectural restoration, and a manufacturer of fine contemporary and classical furniture. She was the first interior designer to be conferred the Padma Shri in 1992. She is a former Chairperson of the School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal. Widely travelled in India and abroad, she brings influences from different cultures into her public and residential design projects while being context-specific and respectful of their cultural milieu. She brings the same approach to her table as demonstrated in her book The India Cookbook: From the Tables of My Friends (2023).
Sunita Reddy
Dr Sunita Reddy has over two decades of experience teaching English at the undergraduate level. Her career is interspersed with foundational roles at non-profits in Hyderabad and elsewhere in Andhra Pradesh. Being an avid reader and actively engaged in social justice causes, she has used her journalistic credentials to interview luminaries from all walks of life for state and local television channels. She is also on the advisory board of Manthan, an organization that promotes high-quality discussion and debate involving intellectuals from across the globe.
Sushmita Banerji
Sushmita Banerji is an Assistant Professor of Humanities at IIIT Hyderabad, India. She teaches courses on cinema, literature, and gender. Her primary work is on the cinema of Ritwik Ghatak and the cinema of the Partition of India. She is interested in critical theories of film and literature, partition and trauma studies, Indian popular cinema, new technologies, and visual cultures outside of cinema.
Syam Sudhakar
Syam Sudhakar is a bilingual poet who writes in English and Malayalam. He won the 2022 Srinivas Rayaprol Poetry Prize. He was chosen from among 114 entries received. His work has been translated into Tamil, Hindi, Bengali, Chinese, and French. His six poetry collections include Drenched by the Sun (2013), Slicing the Moon (a bilingual video, 2013), and Avasanathe Kollimeen (The Last Meteor, 2014). He is a lecturer in English Literature at St. Thomas College, Thrissur, and has edited an anthology in English, Shakespeare in the Age of Covid-19: Poems and Flash Fiction by Young Indians (2020), and four anthologies in Malayalam.
Speaker @ HLF 2023
Vijay Kumar Tadakamalla
Festival Director
Vijay Kumar Tadakamalla
Festival DirectorDr Vijay Kumar Tadakamalla currently teaches literatures in English at BITS Pilani, Hyderabad. Formerly, he was Professor and Head, Department of English, and Dean, Faculty of Arts, Osmania University, Hyderabad. His publications include critical studies: Indian Languages in the Diaspora (2021), English and Other International Languages (2018), and translations from Telugu: The Liberation of Sita (2016, 2018) by Volga and Kanyasulkam (2002) by Gurajada Venkata Appa Rao. He is TEDx speaker and a Founder Editor of Muse India: the literary ejournal.
Tarana Husain Khan
Tarana Husain Khan is a writer and cultural historian. She is the author of the award-winning historical novel The Begum and the Dastan (2021), Degh to Dastarkhwan: Qissas and Recipes from Rampur (2022), and the co-editor of Forgotten Foods: Memories and Recipes from Muslim South Asia (2023).
Tejah Balantrapu
Festival Director
Tejah Balantrapu
Festival DirectorTejah Balantrapu is Associate Director for Science, Health Data, and Storytelling at the L V Prasad Eye Institute in Hyderabad. He has a Master’s in Communications from the University of Hyderabad and has worked to promote awareness of vision loss in global policy networks for two decades. He is also an active member of the Nature Lovers of Hyderabad, an informal group of tree enthusiasts in the city.
Uma Damodar Sridhar
Uma Damodar Sridhar is currently Head, Department of French and Francophone Studies at the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad and teaches French language, linguistics, teaching methodology, and translation. She worked at the Alliance Française of Hyderabad as a teacher and translator (1988-2000) and as the in-charge of the translation bureau and deputy director (2005-2009). She has published articles and translations in national and international journals and is a co-translator of an anthology of poems Butterfly Caresses (2015). She has been associated with the Hyderabad Literary Festival since 2012.
Uma Maheswari Bhrugubanda
Uma Maheswari Bhrugubanda is an Associate Professor in the Department of Cultural Studies at the English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU) Hyderabad. She received a PhD in Socio-cultural Anthropology from Columbia University. Her major research interests are Indian cinema, cultural history, feminist theory, gender studies, and translation. She is the author of Deities and Devotees: Cinema, Religion and Politics in South India (OUP, 2018). She translated and co-edited, Vegetarians Only: Stories of Telugu Muslims (Orient Blackswan, 2016). She has also translated some works of contemporary Telugu writers like Gogu Shyamala, Mohammed Khadeer Babu, Vinodini and Challapalli Swaroopa Rani.
Urvi Desai
Urvi Desai has lived and worked in Bombay, Geneva, Berlin, Montreal, and Hyderabad. She is a co-founder of EkoGalaxy, a platform for climate education and engagement. She has a PhD in medical history and is a Cundill Fellow from McGill University, Montreal, where she also taught as a lecturer. She studied at IHEID, Geneva, and the Hertie School of Governance, Berlin. Outside of research and work, she enjoys reading, running, singing, gardening, astronomy, and stand-up comedy.
Usha Raman
Festival Director
Usha Raman
Festival DirectorDr Usha Raman is a writer and media studies scholar based in Hyderabad. Her writing, which spans the academic and the popular, has appeared in multiple media outlets and includes three co-edited volumes and a co-authored book. She edits a magazine for schoolteachers, Teacher Plus. She has published a collection of poetry, All the Spaces in Between (Writers Workshop, 2009), and her debut novel, Polite Conversations (BEE Books), was published in 2024.
Vaishali K
Vaishali, K is an author, speaker, and diversity and inclusion advocate. Her memoir Homeless: Growing Up Lesbian and Dyslexic in India (2023) was shortlisted for The Rainbow Awards in the non-fiction category. She is the 2024 delegate for Specific Learning Disabilities at the International Purple Fest, a festival that celebrates people with disabilities, organized by the Government of Goa and the Government of India. She works at a tech company where she writes documentation and leads their LGBTQ+ resource group for the Japan and Asia-Pacific region.
Vasanthi Srinivasan
Vasanthi Srinivasan is a professor of Political Science at the University of Hyderabad. She has a PhD in Political Science from Carleton University, Ottawa and taught at the College of Humanities, Ottawa. She has been a Commonwealth and New India Foundation scholar. She is the author of Gandhi’s Conscience Keeper: C Rajagopalachari and Indian Politics (Permanent Black, 2009), Hindu Spirituality and Virtue Politics (Sage, 2014), and Virtue and Human Ends: Political Ideas from Indian Classics (Orient Blackswan, 2021). She has been a visiting scholar at CASI, University of Pennsylvania (April 2009) and SAAS, Yale University (April 2011), CPS, JNU (2012).
Venugopal N
Venugopal N is a poet, literary critic, journalist, public speaker, and translator. He has published thirty-two books, both in Telugu and English and as many in translation. Leaving his over twenty-year career in mainstream journalism, including in the Economic Times and the New Indian Express, he has been editing his own alternative, small venture, Veekshanam, a monthly journal of political economy and society, for the last twenty years.
Vijay Raghav Varada
Vijay Raghav Varada, an inventor, storyteller, and entrepreneur, founded Fracktal Works, a 3D Printing Company when he was just 19 and recently won the prestigious Hackaday Prize 2023 for his Electromechanical Refreshable Braille Module meant for digital inclusion for the visually impaired. A mechatronics engineer by choice and an entrepreneur by chance, he actively contributes to open-source hardware projects, particularly assistive technologies for the visually impaired and renewable energy solutions. He went on an expedition to Antarctica alongside the renowned polar explorer, Robert Swan, and together, they showcased the might of open-source hardware through a ground-breaking 3D Printable Wind Turbine.
Vijaya Krishna V
Vijaya Krishna V is a model, theatre artist, and emcee. She has a B Tech degree, worked in the IT sector, and is currently a full-time actor and emcee. As a member of the Bhoomika theatre group, she has performed a couple of plays. She has acted in several movies and ad films.
Vineeth Madhekar
Vineeth Madhekar is a storyteller and theatre actor from the Bhoomika theatre group. He worked as an assistant director for the recent play “Dochevarevaruraa” (based on “Can’t Pay Won’t Pay” by the Italian playwright Dario Fo).) He has acted in “Nanga Raja” (a Dakhni play) and “Chal Chal Gurram” written by Tanikella Bharani and directed by Udaya Bhanu Garikipati. He is part of “Anaganagaa”—a storytelling initiative for kids by the Bhoomika theatre group.
Vinita Siddhartha
Vinita Siddhartha has a degree in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin and has worked in content and communications across corporate, media, and development sectors. She is a Director at Power Center, an IT company, and handles Marketing and HR. She also manages the Petralthan Pillaya Trust for HIV+ children. She is best known for founding Kreeda an iconic organization that researches and revives traditional games of India. She is a columnist for The New Indian Express and is the author of a book, Just Play: Life Lessons from Traditional Games (2022).
Vinod Pavarala
Vinod Pavarala is Senior Professor of Communication and UNESCO Chair on Community Media at the University of Hyderabad. His research and teaching have been in the areas of communication for social change, community media, and media and democracy. His two-decades-long work on community radio has been able to make the case for a pluralistic media landscape in which unheard voices could find a space, something that is essential for any democratic society. He has been a visiting fellow at several institutions, including Princeton University, Duke University, Loughborough University, University of Queensland, and Ashoka University.
Vipul Rikhi
Vipul Rikhi is a singer, poet, storyteller, translator, dancer, and meditator immersed in the oral traditions of Kabir and other mystic poets for over a decade. He sings mystic poetry in the folk music traditions and performs widely. His latest book is Drunk on Love: An Essential Introduction to the Life, Ideas and Poetry of Kabir (2023). anubha
Wilma Rodrigues
Wilma Rodrigues is the founder and CEO of Saahas Zero Waste (SZW), a social enterprise committed to implementing holistic zero-waste solutions across India. She is a former journalist with the Times of India group and BusinessWorld Magazine. Following the release of Municipal Solid Waste Rules in 2000, she set up the NGO Saahas in 2001 and then a business model SZW in 2013 which now manages around 100 tonnes of waste per day. It brings together Nature, People, and Technology so that waste is managed in a manner where up-to 98% of waste is diverted from a landfill and maximum resources are recovered.
Yascha Mounk
Yascha Mounk, born in Munich, Germany, is a political scientist and researcher. He is Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C., a Contributing Editor at The Atlantic, a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a Moynihan Public Scholar at City College in New York. He is the founder of Persuasion, an online magazine devoted to defending the values of free societies, and the host of The Good Fight podcast. He also serves as a publisher of the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit. His latest book is The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time (2023).
Yunus Lasania
Yunus Lasania is a journalist with over a decade experience in reporting. He is associated with The News Minute and also writes for other news organisations. He has previously worked for Mint (Hindustan Times), The Hindu, The New Indian Express, and Siasat.com. He also runs the Instagram page ‘The Hyderabad History Project’, and is also the host of ‘Beyond Charminar’, a podcast series on the history of Hyderabad, focusing on the lesser-known aspects of his city.
