Abeer Hoque
Abeer Hoque is a Nigerian born Bangladeshi American writer and photographer. She has published a coffee table book of travel photographs and poems called The Long Way Home (Ogro Bangladesh, 2013). Her first book of fiction, The Lovers and the Leavers, is a collection of linked stories, photographs, and poems (Bengal Lights Books 2014, HarperCollins India 2015). Her memoir, Olive Witch, is forthcoming from HarperCollins India (January 2016). She has degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of San Francisco and has held two solo photography exhibitions. See more at olivewitch.com.
Ikhtisad Ahmed
Raised in Dhaka and residing in London, Ikhtisad Ahmed is a human rights lawyer turned writer. The Arts Council-endorsed Dhaka Tribune columnist’s critically acclaimed writing credits include the short story collection, Yours, Etcetera, poetry collections Cryptic Verses and Requiem, plays The Deliverance of Sanctuary, Esne in Taberna, and MADE, and various commissioned screenplays. Absurdism, justice, equality, politics and existentialism are recurring themes in his work as Ikhtisad seeks to give a voice to the oppressed, the marginalised and the forgotten.
Website: www.ikhtisadahmed.com Twitter: @ikhtisad
K. Anis Ahmed
K. Anis Ahmed is the author of three works of fiction: The World In My Hands (novel); Good Night, Mr. Kissinger (stories); Forty Steps (novella). He is a publisher of Bengal Lights, an international literary journal, and Dhaka Tribune, a new national daily. He is also the founder of the Dhaka Translation Center and a director of the Dhaka Literary Festival. He is currently at work on a novel about extreme foodies in New York.
Munize Manzur
Munize Manzur completed her B.A. in English Literature from Bryn Mawr College and M.A in Communications from Temple University, Pennsylvania, USA. Her debut anthology “Voices” was launched at Hay Festival Dhaka 2013. Besides being a columnist for Daily Star and ICE Today Magazine, she was Editor of the Saturday Literary Review, Daily Star. Her second book “Labyrinth” is a collaborative work with celebrated photographer Arif Hafiz, celebrating the indefatigable human spirit. It will be launched at Dhaka Lit Festival 2015 in November.
Saad Z Hossain
Saad Z Hossain writes in a niche genre of fantasy, science fiction and black comedy which, on the balance of it, very few people actually want to read. Due to the stunning unpopularity of his writing he has been forced to work in various industries. This includes drilling holes, making rope, throwing parties, operating an illegal sports book and failing to run a restaurant. Needless to say, working for a living is highly overrated. His novel, Escape from Baghdad!, was published in India by Aleph Book Company and in the US by Unnamed Press.
Sadaf Saaz
Sadaf Saaz is a poet, writer, entrepreneur and women’s rights activist. She grew up in the UK, and studied Molecular Cell Biology at Cambridge. She now lives in Dhaka, where she is involved in various initiatives, including her travel and arts management company, Jatrik. She is also Festival Director and Producer of Dhaka Lit Fest. Her debut poetry collection, Sari Reams, was published in November 2013 by UPL. Her series of monologues, ‘That which cannot be said’, based on Bangladeshi women’s experiences, has recently been performed in various locations in Bangladesh. She is currently working on a novel.
A.J. Low
A.J. Low is a husband-and-wife writing team!
Adan Jimenez was born in the San Joaquin Valley in California to Mexican immigrant parents. He became an immigrant himself when he moved to Singapore after living in New York for almost a decade. He has worked for comic book stores, book stores, gaming stores and even a hoagie sandwich shop once. He loves comics, LEGOs, books, games (analog and video), Doctor Who and sandwiches.
Felicia Low-Jimenez has been a geeky bookseller for most of her adult life. She has bought books, sold books, marketed books, and now she is trying her hand at writing books. She loves to nap and eat chocolate. She spends most of her free time reading, and, when she can afford it, she travels, usually to look for beautiful bookstores around the world.
Sherlock Sam and the Missing Heirloom in Katong won the International Schools Libraries Network's Red Dot Award 2013-2014 in the Younger Readers' Category. Sherlock Sam and the Ghostly Moans in Fort Canning took third place in the Popular Readers' Choice Awards 2013 in the English Children's Books category.
Christine Chia
Christine Chia is the author of the critically acclaimed The Law of Second Marriages (Math Paper Press) and a sequel, Separation: a history (Ethos Books).
She was a featured writer at the Singapore Literature Festival in New York and contributed poetry to Washington Square, Prairie Schooner, UNION: 15 Years of Drunken Boat, 50 Years of Writing From Singapore, softblow, the Substation Love Letters Project and W!ld Rice’s theatrical production of Another Country. She is working on her first novel.
Desmond Kon
Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingdé is the author of the epistolary novel, Singular Acts of Endearment, a hybrid work, Babel Via Negativa, as well as four poetry collections. Poetry editor at Kitaab.org, Desmond has edited over fifteen books and co-produced three audio books, several pro bono for non-profit organizations. His honours include the PEN American Center Shorts Prize, Poetry World Cup, Beverly Hills International Book Award (Poetry & Visionary Fiction), Independent Publisher Silver Book Award (Multicultural Fiction), and National Indie Excellence Book Award (Poetry), among others. An interdisciplinary artist, Desmond helms Squircle Line Press as its founding editor.
Pooja Nansi
Pooja Nansi has published two collections of poetry, co-edited a poetry anthology of Singaporean Poetry and co-authored a teacher’s resource for Singaporean poetry. Since April 2013, she has been curating a monthly poetry event called Speakeasy which has showcased both emerging and established poets from places as diverse as Burma and Botswana. She also runs the Singapore chapter of Burn After Reading a collective started for young emerging poets who are encouraged to write, read, perform and publish as widely as possible. She is currently the Writer-in-Residence at Nanyang Technological University.
Tania De Rozario
Tania De Rozario is an artist and writer engaged with issues of gender, sexuality, and art as activism. Her practice hovers on the intersections between text and image, and her work has been showcased in London, Spain, Amsterdam, Singapore, New York and San Francisco.
Tania is the author of Tender Delirium (Math Paper Press | 2013), and was the 2011 recipient of the NAC-SPH Golden Point Award for English Poetry. She is an Associate Artist with The Substation, Singapore's oldest independent arts centre, and runs EtiquetteSG, a platform which develops and showcases art, writing, film and music made by women
Aaron Lobo
Dr. Aaron Lobo is a marine conservation practitioner from Goa with work experience in South Asia and West Africa. He was a Gates Scholar at the University of Cambridge from where he completed his PhD. He is currently a Technical Advisor with the German Development Cooperation (GIZ) on a project to strengthen Marine Protected Area management in India.
A J T Johnsingh
Dr. A J T Johnsingh is adept in bringing hard science into a form that’s accessible to the general audience. Dr. Johnsingh is a firm believer that the palest of ink is stronger than the strongest of memory. This rings particularly true in the current day, where ink is being challenged by digital media.
A.J. Low
A.J. Low is a husband-and-wife writing team!
Adan Jimenez was born in the San Joaquin Valley in California to Mexican immigrant parents. He became an immigrant himself when he moved to Singapore after living in New York for almost a decade. He has worked for comic book stores, book stores, gaming stores and even a hoagie sandwich shop once. He loves comics, LEGOs, books, games (analog and video), Doctor Who and sandwiches.
Felicia Low-Jimenez has been a geeky bookseller for most of her adult life. She has bought books, sold books, marketed books, and now she is trying her hand at writing books. She loves to nap and eat chocolate. She spends most of her free time reading, and, when she can afford it, she travels, usually to look for beautiful bookstores around the world.
Sherlock Sam and the Missing Heirloom in Katong won the International Schools Libraries Network's Red Dot Award 2013-2014 in the Younger Readers' Category. Sherlock Sam and the Ghostly Moans in Fort Canning took third place in the Popular Readers' Choice Awards 2013 in the English Children's Books category.
Aarcha RS
Aarcha RS is a 17 year old slam poet, artist and activist. She is currently a science student.
She founded the slam poetry group- A Slam Dream. 'Poetry for a Cause' being the motto of the group, she aspires to introduce the art form that she most adores- slam poetry, and use poetry and art as a medium of expression, change and rebellion. She uses her art to give voice to the voiceless. She has won international recognition in slam poetry, conducted many workshops, she hosts slams and has her hands full with innovative activities. She writes poetry and fiction. She loves to travel and time-travel. She is passionate about music, dance and art. She is a different kind of crazy!
Abeer Hoque
Abeer Hoque is a Nigerian born Bangladeshi American writer and photographer. She has published a coffee table book of travel photographs and poems called The Long Way Home (Ogro Bangladesh, 2013). Her first book of fiction, The Lovers and the Leavers, is a collection of linked stories, photographs, and poems (Bengal Lights Books 2014, HarperCollins India 2015). Her memoir, Olive Witch, is forthcoming from HarperCollins India (January 2016). She has degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of San Francisco and has held two solo photography exhibitions. See more at olivewitch.com.
Aditya Sudarshan
Aditya Sudarshan is the author of three novels, A Nice Quiet Holiday (Westland Books, 2009), Show Me A Hero (Rupa and Co., 2011) and most recently, The Persecution of Madhav Tripathi (Harper Collins India, 2015). His short stories have been published in various magazines and anthologies. He is also the author of a number of produced plays, including The Green Room, winner of the Hindu Metroplus Playwright Award for 2011. He writes literary criticism for The Hindu Literary Review and other publications, and political satire for NDTV's The Great Indian Tamasha.
Ahmed Bunglowala
Ahmed Bunglowala was born and grew up in Bombay (now Mumbai); a city he knows intimately that can fascinate and frustrate in the same breath. After graduating from St. Xavier’s College, he tried his hand at various jobs till he found his stride in the make-believe PR profession.
He is a self-confessed buff of the hard-boiled school of detective fiction, and is one of the pioneers of this genre in India.
He has lived and worked in Pune, and has now settled in Goa: acquiring a taste for feni and fish curry rice.
Ahmer Naqvi
Ahmer Naqvi is a journalist and a blogger, with an interest in Pakistani pop culture, particularly cricket, music and cinema. He currently works as Director of Content at Patari, a Pakistani music app. His writings appear on ESPNCricinfo, The Cricket Monthly, Dawn, Express Tribune and others. He is also part of the TV show, Journoeyes, and co-hosts two podcasts - Pace is Pace Yaar and Jamaat-ul-Mausiqi, on cricket and music respectively. He tweets as @karachikhatmal.
Ajai Saxena
Ajai Saxena, a member of Indian Forest Service is currently Head of Goa Forest Department. He has a wide range of experience of working in A & N Islands, N. E. India, Wildlife Institute of India and Indian Antarctic programme. His main field of expertise is marine and coastal area management, nature education and interpretation.
Amita Kanekar
Amita Kanekar is a novelist and architectural historian, and the author of a new guidebook on the architecture of the Portuguese sea forts of Goa, Chaul, and Vasai, a project commissioned by the Deccan Heritage Foundation. Her novel A Spoke in the Wheel was published by HarperCollins in 2005, and released again in a new edition by Navayana in 2014. She has also published essays on the architecture of the Ikkeri Nayakas of Western Karnataka, is a regular columnist in the Goa press on issues of history, housing, and settlements, and teaches at the Goa College of Architecture. She is currently working on a novel set in the Mughal era.
Ângela Barreto Xavier
Ângela Barreto Xavier is an Historian of the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon. A PhD in History & Civilisation of European University Institute, Florence, lecturer at Universidade Nova de Lisboa and ISCTE-IUL, Maître de Conférences Invitée at EHESS, Paris, and Visiting Scholar at the History Department of Harvard University, she has also taught at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Her research privileges the cultural and political history of early-modern Portuguese empire,as well as forms of social and cultural exclusion, about which she has published intensively. Her new book is co-authored with Ines G. Županov, Catholic Orientalism; Portuguese Empire, Indian Knowledge, 16th-18th centuries (OUP, New Delhi, 2015).
For more, see http://www.ics.ul.pt/instituto/?ln=p&pid=12&mm=5&ctmid=2&mnid=1&doc=31809901190
Anjali Arondekar
Anjali Arondekar is Associate Professor of Feminist Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her research engages the poetics and politics of sexuality, colonialism and historiography in South Asia. She is the author of For the Record: On Sexuality and the Colonial Archive in India (Duke University Press, 2009, Orient Blackswan, India, 2010), winner of the Alan Bray Memorial Book Award, Modern Language Association (MLA), 2010. She is currently writing a history of the Gomantak Maratha Samaj in colonial British
Anjum Hasan
Anjum Hasan is the author of the novels Lunatic in my Head and Neti, Neti, the short story collection Difficult Pleasures, and the book of poems, Street on the Hill. Her new novel, The Cosmopolitans, has just appeared from Hamish Hamilton. Anjum is books editor at The Caravan.
Annie Zaidi
Annie Zaidi writes fiction, non-fiction, poetry and scripts. She is the editor of Unbound: 2,000 years of Indian Women’s Writing and the author of Gulab, Love Stories # 1 to 14, and Known Turf: Bantering with Bandits and Other True Tales. She is also the co-author of The Good Indian Girl. Her work has appeared in several anthologies including Eat the Sky, Drink the Ocean, Mumbai Noir, Women Changing India, and Griffith Review 49: New Asia Now. (blog/site: www.anniezaidi.com)
Antara Dev Sen
Antara Dev Sen is founder editor of The Little Magazine, the independent journal of ideas and letters, the first Indian magazine to focus on contemporary South Asian literature and offer it in English translation. Sen is also a literary critic and translator, a newspaper columnist and commentator on the media, politics and culture. She has edited several books including the TLM Short Stories from South Asia series.
Earlier, Sen has been Senior Editor of The Hindustan Times and of The Indian Express in Delhi. She was a Reuter Fellow at Oxford University. Sen is also associated with other media, literary, educational and voluntary organisations in India and overseas. She lives in Delhi.
Anupam Manur
Anupam Manur is a Policy Analyst at the Takshashila Institution.
He was previously working as a Research Associate at the Indian Institute of Management – Bangalore He has published two editorial articles in the Financial Express on food inflation. He has done his Masters in International Business (Economics) from Lancaster University, UK, through a £6000 scholarship. He did his under graduation from Christ University, Bangalore, where he often goes back to teach. Anupam also teaches short beginner and intermediate courses in French when time permits. In his spare time, he likes to trek and has managed to climb the five tallest peaks in the UK and many others in the Western Ghats and the Himalayas.
Anuradha Goyal
Anuradha Goyal is the author of best selling book The Mouse Charmers - Digital Pioneers of India that documents the business biographies of pioneering digital companies of India. She authors the award winning Travel Blog - IndiTales and writes a travel column 'Stories from the Road' for Navhind Times. Her book reviews blog 'AnuReviews' has over 500 books reviewed across genres and it finds a place in Limca Book of Records for being the largest book reviews blog of India. In her earlier avatar she has worked in IT industry for 12 years and lived across 15 cities in India and abroad before choosing to live in Goa with her library.
Arun Khopkar
Arun Khopkar got his diploma in film direction from the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune. His films on various art forms have won many national and international awards, including the Golden Lotus, the highest national award in India, which he won three times. He is a former Homi Bhabha Fellow. He is an internationally acknowledged authority on Sergei Eisenstein's aesthetic theories. He has contributed seminal papers at various international seminars on aesthetics.
Khopkar has lectured at the FTII, NFAI, NSD, JNU and Institute for Advanced Studies in Cinematography in Moscow. His book on Guru Dutt got the National Award for the best book on cinema. It is now in its second edition in Marathi and has been translated into English, Hindi and Italian. He has published two collections of essays on various art forms, which jointly won the Maharashtra Foundation (USA) award for the most original contribution to literature in Marathi in 2015.
Arun Prakash
Admiral Arun Prakash retired as India’s 20th Naval Chief and Chairman Chiefs of Staff in end-2006. An aviator by specialisation, during his 40 year career, he commanded a carrier-borne fighter-squadron, a naval air station and four warships; including the aircraft-carrier INS Viraat.
In flag rank he commanded the Eastern Fleet, the Andaman & Nicobar Joint Command, the Western Naval Command and the National Defence Academy. On staff, he served as the head of the Aviation and Personnel Branches and as the Vice Chief of Naval Staff. During his tenure at the helm, the Service saw initiatives being launched in the fields of doctrine, strategy, transformation and foreign maritime cooperation.
He is a graduate of the IAF Test Pilots School, Defence Services Staff College and the US Naval War College. During the 1971 War, he was awarded the Vir Chakra while flying with an IAF fighter squadron.
Post-retirement, he lives in Goa, and writes and speaks on strategic and security related topics. He served two terms as a member of the National Security Advisory Board and was Chairman of the National Maritime Foundation.
Arun Sakhardande
Arun Sakhardande was born and grew up in Goa. He has contributed a lot to Konkani Culture and Literature. He received the Konkani Bhasha Mandal Sahitya Puraskar 2008, Janaganga Sahitya Puraskar 2008 and Sahitya Akademi Award 2010 for “KAVLYACHEM SRADDHA. He is also the Winner of bharat vidya shiromani award” and a certificate of solidarity council New delhi for outstanding achievements and remarkable role in the field of education . His List of publication, highlighting major award winning, translated, filmed etc includes “EKA ZADAK GHAR ZAI” (1989) “KAVLYACHEM SRADDHA” (2007) and “MOG KINARI” (2008)
He also writes poems and short stories in Konkani. Presented Poems at Western & Northern Writers Meet organized by SAHITYA ACADEMI, Delhi at Ahmedabad, Gujarat .His Konkani Poems translated in Hindi and English have been published in the Journal ‘SAMKALIN BHARTIYA SAHITYA’ and INDIAN LITERATURE published by Sahitya Academi. Konkani poems are also translated in Marathi, Kashmiri, Malyalam, Kannada, Gujarathi, Sindhi and Punjabi. Konkani songs written by Arun Sakhardande are included in Album, also relayed on AIR and Doordarshan.
His other interests are Music and Gardening.
Arundhati Subramaniam
Arundhathi Subramaniam is the author of four books of poetry, most recently When God is a Traveller (published by HarperCollins in India and Bloodaxe Books in the UK). Widely translated and anthologized, her recent poetry collection was awarded the inaugural Khushwant Singh Poetry Prize, selected as the Winter Choice of the Poetry Book Society, UK, and shortlisted for the TS Eliot Poetry Prize. Her other poetry awards include the International Piero Bigongiari Prize and the Raza Award for Poetry. She is the recipient of the Homi Bhabha Fellowship, the Charles Wallace Fellowship and the Visiting Arts Fellowship. Her prose works include the bestselling biography of a contemporary mystic, Sadhguru: More Than A Life (Penguin, 2010) and The Book of Buddha (Penguin, 2005). As editor, her books include Another Country (a Sahitya Akademi anthology on contemporary Indian poetry in English), Pilgrim's India (a Penguin book on sacred journeys), and Confronting Love (a co-edited Penguin anthology of love poems). She has worked over the years as arts journalist, curator and poetry editor. She has been the Head of Indian Dance and Head of Chauraha, an interactive arts forum at the National Centre for the Performing Arts, Bombay, for several years, as also Editor of the India domain of the Poetry International Web (a project that has grown into a significant web archive of contemporary Indian poetry). She now divides her time between Bombay/ Mumbai and a yoga centre in Coimbatore.
Assavri Kulkarni
Assavri Kulkarni, is an ace photographer, very passionate about her craft. Her fascination for capturing images, mostly in natural light and setting, sets her apart from her contemporaries.
A Bachelors in Fine Arts, Assavri is a creative soul, her portfolio of over 13 years encompassing photo shoots of luxury resorts, interesting personalities and cuisine, travel and fashion for high end magazines like kingfisher Hi!Blitz, Verve, Lonely Planet, BBC Food, Time Out, Business Goa and Man’s World.
Assavri forte also lies in her ability to enthuse and teach her photography students the art of creating stories with their images which she imparts at her ‘Assavri Kulkarni Photography’ studio that she has started a year ago.
Using a distinctive style of teaching with hands on equipment and understanding of light and shade in her teachings, her workshops on landscape, Food and portrait photography help students beyond the scope of mere images and transform still frames into works of art.
She has won Gourmand International Awards (2011) best photographs in Goan Recipes, Silver Medal Goa College of Art, Vilas Bhende Award, Goa Heritage Action Group Award and Goa Tourism award. In her latest endeavor, Assavri has painstakingly put together Markets of Goa, her tribute to a land she loves.
She believes in empowering youth and children with the ability to capture ‘Goa’ differently and hence works with organizations like Goa For Giving and Hamara school in Panjim.
In her own words, Assavri says “ Let children enjoy creating pictures of what they see and feel, and they will grow into creative adults”
Besides which she also gives an equal importance to fitness and has been practicing Yoga for a decade and firmly opines that a fit body and mind is required for a creative soul.
Assavri also has a soft corner for village and tribal communities and this has led her to spend time amongst the Kunbis and Velips in Goa, Buguns in Arunachal Pradesh and Dhangars in Maharashtra amongst others.
Assavri stays in the village of Nerul in North Goa along with three Capricorns and a thriving vegetable garden that she tends to. In her spare time she enjoys cooking Goan food as a hobby as much as she enjoys photography as a profession.
Astri Ghosh
Astri Ghosh is a literary translator based in Goa. She has translated plays, novels, poems and short stories.She is currently translating a crime novel by Jo Nesbø into Hindi. She is also in the process of translating twelve prose plays of Henrik Ibsen, four of which were published in 2015 : Samaj ke stambh, Pretchhaya, Janata Ka Dushman, and Gudiya Ghar. Jangli Battakh and Samudra ki Nari will be published in December, while Rosmersholm and Hedda Gabler will be brought out early next year.
Some of the authors she has translated are Qurratulain Hyder, Rabindranath Tagore, Lars Saabye Christensen and Per Pettersson. In Sanger fra Adigranth she translated a collection of Sikh hymns to Norwegian.
She does poetry performances with actors and musicians based on poetry in translation, and has acted in a feature film recently. She also writes, organises jazz festivals and curates art exhibitions
Bama
Bama is a Dalit writer was born in 1957, at Puthupatty, Tamilnadu, India. Fighting impossible odds she went through school and college and trained as a teacher who imparts values aimed at building self- esteem, and social consciousness. Besides KARUKKU(1992), her first novel, she has published SANGATHI(1994), KISUMBUKKARAN (1996), VANMAM (2002), ORU THATHAVUM ERUMAYUM (2004), KONDATTAM (2009), and MANUSHI (2011) in Tamil. Both novels and through her several articles she hopes to focus on themes related to caste domination and social discrimination. Her works have been translated into English, French Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. Bama’s significant contribution is that through the act of writing , she not only transgresses caste boundaries, she also demolishes the conventional exclusions of language and genre.
Bama who spent some years in a convent as a nun, is the most celebrated contemporary Dalit woman writer. She has been at the forefront of Dalit literary activism and has given Dalit aesthetics a visibility it had previously lacked in the literary campus of India. In 2001, the English translation of KARUKKU,( translated by Lakshmi Holmstrong ) won the Cross word prize establishing her as a distinct voice in Dalit literature.
Bharat Karnad
Bharat Karnad is Professor in national Security Studies at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, and author of many authoritative books, including 'India's Nuclear Policy', 'Nuclear Weapons and Indian Security', 'Strategic Sellout: Indian-US Nuclear Deal' and, most recently, 'Why India is Not a Great Power (Yet)'. He was member of the (First) National Security Advisory Board and the Nuclear Doctrine-drafting Group and, formerly, Adviser, Defence Expenditure, to the (Tenth) Finance Commission. He has been Visiting Scholar at Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania, Shanghai Institutes of International Studies, and the Henry L. Stimson Center, Washington, DC. For many years, he conducted the Strategic Nuclear Orientation Course for flag-rank officers in the three armed services and conceptualized and ran the first inter-agency war game on the nuclear tripwire in South Asia. He lectures at the top military training institutions, including CORE (Combined Operational Review and Evaluation).
Brian Mendonca
Dr. Brian Mendonca is a poet, academic and editor.His doctorate from CIEFL, Hyderabad was on insanity in the Gothic novel. After a decade in school publishing in Delhi, he moved to Goa where he teaches English language and literatures in English at Carmel College of Arts, Science and Commerce for Women, Nuvem. A founder-editor of the college bulletin and ISSN-awarded research journal Kruti, Brian self-published 2 volumes of poems, viz. Last Bus to Vasco: Poems from Goa and A Peace of India: Poems in Transit. His interests are classical music, Latin American literature and Biblical history. He contributes a weekly article 'On my mind' for the Sunday Weekender published by Gomantak Times in Goa. He lives in Vasco, with his wife and son. He blogs at www.lastbustovasco.blogspot.in
Christine Chia
Christine Chia is the author of the critically acclaimed The Law of Second Marriages (Math Paper Press) and a sequel, Separation: a history (Ethos Books).
She was a featured writer at the Singapore Literature Festival in New York and contributed poetry to Washington Square, Prairie Schooner, UNION: 15 Years of Drunken Boat, 50 Years of Writing From Singapore, softblow, the Substation Love Letters Project and W!ld Rice’s theatrical production of Another Country. She is working on her first novel.
Clara Nubile
Clara Nubile (1974), writer and literary translator.
Among her most notable translations into Italian: Life of Pi by Yann Martell, The Everest Hotel by Allan Sealy, Mumbai Fables by Gyan Prakash.
She has published 3 novels: Io ti attacco nel sangue (Lain, Rome, 2005), Lupo (Fazi, Rome, 2007), Tu come tutto quello che tocchi (Bompiani, Milan, 2012); a collection of short-stories Tabaccherie Orientali (Perrone, Rome, 2010), plus several essays, articles.
Squame (Lietocolle, 2014) is her latest work: a collection of poems set in Mumbai.
She lives with her husband between Italy and India.
For a complete list of her books and translations: http://claranubile.blogspot.it/
Cyril Almeida
Cyril Almeida is a senior columnist, reporter at large and assistant editor at Dawn, Pakistan's leading English daily. His areas of interest include national politics, security policy and regional affairs. He is a Rhodes Scholar and received a B.A. in Jurisprudence from Oxford University. He earned an undergraduate degree in economics from the Lahore University of Management Sciences in 2003.
Daisy Rockwell
Daisy Rockwell is a writer, painter and translator who lives in Vermont, USA. She has a PhD in Hindi literature, and paints under the takhallus, or alias, Lapata (pronounced ‘laapataa’), Urdu for “missing,” or “absconded,” as in “my luggage is missing,” or “the bandits have absconded.” She has shown her work widely, and is author of The Little Book of Terror, a volume of paintings and essays on the Global War on Terror (Foxhead Books, 2012). Her novel Taste was published by Foxhead Books in April 2014, and she has published numerous translations, including Upendranath Ashk's Falling Walls (Penguin, 2015), and the forthcoming Tamas, by Bhisham Sahni (Penguin, 2016).
Damodar Mauzo
Damodar Mauzo is a short fiction writer and novelist writing in Konkani. He is also a columnist, critic and a script writer. He has 14 books in Konkani to his credit besides a few more on the anvil. Among his many awards are the Sahitya Akademi award, Katha Award, World Konkani Centre’s Vimla Pai Sahitya Puraskar besides several state level literary awards. Lately, his book of stories was nominated for the Frank O’Connor International Award.
He is the most widely translated writer of Konkani. His Sahitya Akademi Award winning novel, KARMELIN is translated into over a dozen languages including English. THESE ARE MY CHILDREN and TERESA'S MAN & Other Stories from Goa are the collections of stories published in translation into English. His novel for young adults, TSUNAMI SIMON and MIRAGE, a collection of five not-so-short-stories have also been published in translation. Shantateche Ghann is a Marathi translation of the original Rumaddful.
He has been on panels at different litfests including Singapore, Hyderabad and Jaipur. Last year he was part of a four member delegation of Indian writers that attended the World Book Fair in Frankfurt. He has written screenplays and dialogues for Konkani films. He was awarded the Best Screenplay award for 2005 and Best Dialogues award for 2003 and again for 2010-11, at the Goa State Film Festivals. He is a co-founder and co-curator of GALF.
Datta Damodar Naik
Mr. Datta Damodar Naik is a graduate in Economics and Statistics and completed number of Management Courses including condensed course at IIM, Ahmedabad.
He has written books in Marathi, English and Konkani. His published books include Kali ghat te Karuna ghat – (Travelogue), Arabian Days.- (Travelogue) , and Jai Kai Jui ? – (Short Essays) “Phantod Pavali” (Short Essays) “Eka Nastikacho Devaro”, - (Book on rational thinking ) Atmadipo Bhav. – (Book on Management & Personality Development) and others.
He has also published book in English: Uncommon Wealth (Modern Day Panchatantra for children & Young adults)
He was awarded the National Sahitya Akademi Award in 2006 for short Essay book “Jai Kai Jui”
Dattesh D. Prabhu-Parulekar
Dattesh D. Prabhu-Parulekar is Assistant Professor of International Relations and Area Studies, at the UGC Centre for Latin American Studies, Goa University. His areas of specialization, include, India’s Foreign Policy & Diplomacy, US Foreign Policy & National Security, International Organizations, Political Economy of Latin America and the Caribbean, and Regional Security in West Asia, among others. A Fulbright Scholar, he was affiliated to the Conflict Management Centre of the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), at Johns Hopkins University, Washington DC, USA, in pursuance of his Doctoral Field Research. Prof. Parulekar is a Visiting Faculty at the Naval War College (INS Mandovi), Goa. He is also the Vice President of the Forum for Integrated National Security (FINS), a national think-tank, dedicated, to an integrated and holistic analysis and policy advocacy, of national security. Prof. Parulekar is the Member & Spokesperson for Foreign Affairs, for the ruling BJP, representing the Party on pertinent issues, across national and global platforms. More recently, Prof. Parulekar is the Founder-Director of the autonomous, not-for-profit entity called the Infinite Possibilities Foundation (INPOF), based in New Delhi and across Latin America, dedicated, to enhancing and improving relations, between India and the region of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC).
David de Souza
David de Souza grew up in an era when girls did arts, boys science and gujarathis, commerce. That was pretty much it, by default he started out in life, as a biochemist.
He bought his first second hand camera in 1977. The camera was like a magic talisman, it started to dictate why, where and what he should do with his life thereafter.
He discovered much to his amazement that science at its creative core is Art, not unlike Art itself, and he is discovering with the likes of Damien Hirst that economics at its creative core could be Art too. This blurrs all denominations and has made him a proponent of DeSchooling.
He did advertising photography for 15 years and in the last 7 years has decided to dedicate himself towards his own monographs, collaborating with his wife on 2 books.
He has 7 commissioned books and has 10 of his own monographs ready for publication.
He currently lives in Moira
Dayanita Singh
Dayanita Singh is an internationally renowned artist whose medium is photography. Most recently, she has premiered her Museum Bhavan (a collection of seven mobile museums) at the Hayward Gallery in London, at the Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt and at the Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago. She has represented Germany at the Venice Biennale in 2013 and has also premiered her File Room work at the Venice Biennale in 2011. She was awarded the Chevalier dans l' Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2014, was the recipient of the Prince Claus Award in 2008 and received the Robert Gardner Fellowship in Photography at the Harvard University that same year. She has also published twelve books, most recently Museum of Chance with Steidl. She is represented internationally by Frith Street Gallery, London.
Desmond Kon
Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingdé is the author of the epistolary novel, Singular Acts of Endearment, a hybrid work, Babel Via Negativa, as well as four poetry collections. Poetry editor at Kitaab.org, Desmond has edited over fifteen books and co-produced three audio books, several pro bono for non-profit organizations. His honours include the PEN American Center Shorts Prize, Poetry World Cup, Beverly Hills International Book Award (Poetry & Visionary Fiction), Independent Publisher Silver Book Award (Multicultural Fiction), and National Indie Excellence Book Award (Poetry), among others. An interdisciplinary artist, Desmond helms Squircle Line Press as its founding editor.
Dhimant Parekh
Dhimant is the cofounder of The Better India - an alternative news & publishing platform that serves inspiring stories from across India.
His love for building technology led projects and startups in general turned into something absolutely meaningful the day he decided to give shape to The Better India. An author & erstwhile theatre artist - Dhimant is also an alumnus of ISB and a Computer Science Engineer. Currently, he is leading the Business Strategy at TBI and running long distance marathons.
Dhruba Hazarika
Dhruba Hazarika was born in 1956 in Shillong. Mother, Binapani Hazarika. Father Jojneswar Hazarika. One brother and two sisters. Grew up in very loving family surroundings.
He studied in St Edmund’s School and completed the Indian School Certificate Examination in 1972. Graduated from St Edmund’s College, Shillong in 1976 with honours in Economics and was placed in the 1st position in overall ranking from the North Eastern Hill University. In 1981 passed MA(Economics) in the 1st class from Gauhati University and later completed his LLB.
Dhruba Hazarika entered the Assam Civil Service in 1983 as an Extra Assistant Commissioner and was later inducted into the Indian Administrative Service in 1999. During a span of 30 years he has rendered service in various administrative capacities including that of Chief Executive Officer of the Kamrup Zilla Parishad, Director, Sports and Youth Welfare and Director(Operations) during the 36th version of the National Games held in Guwahati. From 2007 till 2010 he was Deputy Commissioner, Darrang. Thereafter, he was Secretary to the Government of Assam in the Tourism Department. At present, he is Secretary in the Transport and Environment and Forest Departments.
From early childhood Dhruba Hazarika has involved himself in literary activities. Fostered by his sensitive literary-inclined mother into the world of Asomiya, Latin American, North American, European, English and Bengali literature, he had always lived among books as far back as he can remember. His book collection ranges from the classics to modern fiction to history, to astronomy and religion, to comics and newsmagazines carrying literary distinction. While in college he was the literary editor of the college magazine, interacting with such literary persons as Robin Ngangom, Ananya Shankar Guha, Desmond Kharmawphlang and Samudra Gupta Kashyap. Mostly due to this early association he was later instrumental, along with other writers in forming the well-known literary body, the North East Writers’ Forum, in 1997, that continues to espouse translations of indigenous North East India literature to English as well as encouraging original writings in English.
He has published over seventy short stories, apart from numerous articles in various magazines and Sunday editions of newspapers. The only recipient of the prestigious Katha Award, till date, for creative writing in English( 1996) from the North East, Penguin India published his seminal novel A Bowstring Winter in 2006, and, in 2014, Sons of Brahma. His collection of short stories, Luck, also by the same house was published in 2010. His next collection Once Upon a Sparrow is due for publication next year. He was recently awarded the Assam DY365 Literary Award for 2014. Presently, he is working on his yet untitled third novel, the theme revolving around a psychopath magistrate.
Dhruba Hazarika has travelled widely around the world but he is happiest when with his son, Harsha, and, wife, Bonu.
Dilip Borkar
Dilip Borkar is an Indian writer, who writes in his mother tongue Konkani and also other languages such as Marathi, Hindi and English. He is well known in literature, journalism, docu-film production and socio-political activities. He is popular for his satirical writing, and has 2 novels, 1 poetry collection, 7 books of children’s literature, 2 one act play collection, 5 dramas, 3 travelogues, 5 literary essay collection, 3 translation in his credit. He has produced documentary films on various personalities and subjects for the Govt. of Goa and corporate houses. As a columnist he has contributed several articles in various newspapers and periodicals. He is the Chief Editor of popular family Konkani monthly magazine ‘Bimb’. Besides Sahitya Akademi Award for his travelogue, he has several National and state Awards in his credit, including three National Awards for All India Radio, Play wright competition, Dr. T. M. A. Pai Foundation Award, New Goan overseas Award, ‘Rajya Sanman’, Goa State Cultural Award etc. for his creative work.
Dilip Donde
Cdr Dilip Donde is a serving naval officer, a diving specialist and a trail blazer who truly believes in taking the path less travelled. In 2006 he volunteered to undertake the first solo circumnavigation under sail by an Indian in an Indian built boat; a feat successfully completed by around 170 peoplecompared to over 5000 Everesters and over 600 astronauts. With no past precedent or domain knowledge to learn from, Cdr Donde built his boat, Mhadei, with Mr Ratnakar Dandekar at Aquarius Fibreglas Pvt Ltd, Goa, and on 18 May 2010, sailed into Indian Maritime history by successfully completing his voyage.
On completion of his path breaking voyage, he continued sailing and grooming the next generation, participating in two races from Cape Town to Rio with novice crews and recently the Transatlantic race 2015 from USA to UK. He mentored fellow naval officer, Lt Cdr Abhilash Tomy, to raise the bar and successfully complete the first solo nonstop circumnavigation under sail by an Indian. He is presently training an all women crew to sail the oceans.
Cdr Donde’s book ‘The First Indian’ chronicles his experiences of building a boat with an Indian boat- builder, weaving his way through a 'sea-blind' and oftenquixotic bureaucracy, training himself with no precedent or knowledge base in the country and finally sailing solo around the world. He is a recipient of the TenzingNorgay National Adventure Award, the Shaurya Chakra, the MacGregor Medal and the National Maritime Achievement Award.
E Sharp
E Sharp is one of Pakistan’s most well-known indie rock bands playing in the Karachi underground since over 4 years. The band has to its credit more than 30 original songs and is have recently released their first album titled 'Bahadur Yaar Jung' which Pakistan’s first concept and double album. The group is also exceptionally well known for its covers of the 60s/70s classic rock age and tribute gigs to legendary bands like The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and The Doors. The band is currently focusing on producing newer music and performing live. They recently performed their first international show in Dubai in August, 2015 and look forward to reaching a wider audience that transcends national boundaries.
Members: Ahmed Zawar – Vocals/Rhythm Guitars; Anwaar Ahmed – Lead Guitars/Vocals; Zia Zaidi – Bass Guitars/Vocals; Qumber Kazmi – Drums/Vocals
Genre: Rock/Progressive Rock/Blues
Faisal Devji
Dr. Faisal Devji is Reader in Modern South Asian History and Fellow of St. Antony's College at the University of Oxford, where he is also Director of the Asian Studies Centre. He received his PhD in intellectual history from the University of Chicago, and has taught there as well as at Yale University and the New School for Social Research in New York. Devji was Junior Fellow at the Society of Fellows, Harvard University, Yves Otramane Chair at the Graduate Institute in Geneva and is Institute of Public Knowledge Fellow at New York University. He is the author of four books, Landscapes of the Jihad (2005), The Terrorist in Search of Humanity (2008), The Impossible Indian: Gandhi and the Temptation of Violence (2012) and Muslim Zion: Pakistan as a Political Idea (2013).
Fatima M Noronha
Fatima M Noronha has published fiction and non-fiction for over forty years. Stray Mango Branches, a collection of vignettes and stories of life in Goa, appeared in 2013. Born in Lisbon, having called many places home, especially during twenty years of gypsying with her fighter pilot husband, she has returned to her roots in Goa. She works as a mum, gardener, freelance writer and editor, and as a psalmist of sorts, adapting traditional psalm tones to the responsorial psalms sung in church. There is more about her at http://fatimamnoronha.webs.com and she can be contacted at straymangobranches@gmail.com
Francesca Marciano
Francesca Marciano is an Italian novelist, filmmaker, and screenwriter. To date Marciano has written four novels: “Rules of the Wild”, listed as one of the NYT notable books of the year, ”Casa Rossa”, “The End of Manners” and “The Other Language”, her first collection of short stories. When she writes for film and television she uses her native tongue, but for novels and short stories she uses English. She knows how to hold a reader’s attention, how to set a scene. Her dialogue, unsurprisingly, is always fluid. Marciano has lived all over the world, and her stories encompass her experiences, taking place in Africa, the U.S, India, and of course, Italy. Her characters are often women who live abroad, are alone and free from their domestic routines, if only temporarily. Marciano’s stories are never less than engaging, as she brings to life characters stepping outside their boundaries into new passions and destinies, exploring the power of change—in relationships, in geographies, and across cultures—she reveals unexpected aspects of ourselves.
George Michell
George Michell was born in Australia where he received a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Melbourne in 1968. He then turned his attention to India, obtaining his Ph.D. in 1974 from the School of Oriental African Studies, University of London, for his dissertation on Early Chalukya temple architecture. Since then his research has ranged from surveys of town planning and Islamic buildings to detailed studies of temple architecture and sculpture, especially in southern India and the Deccan. During the 1980s and 1990s he and the American archaeologist Dr John M. Fritz co-directed an extensive survey of the medieval Hindu site of Hampi-Vijayanagara in Karnataka. George has published extensively. Among his most recent volumes are:
Mughal Architecture and Gardens, London and New York: Antique Collectors Club, 2011.
Temple Architecture and Art of the Early Chalukyas: Badami, Mahakuta, Aihole, Pattadakal, New Delhi: Niyogi Books, 2014.
Mansions of Chettinad,Graf Media, 2015.
Late Temple Architecture of India, 15th to 19th Centuries, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2015.
Githa Hariharan
Githa Hariharan has written novels, short fiction and essays over the last three decades. Her highly acclaimed work includes The Thousand Faces of Night which won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book in 1993, the short story collection The Art of Dying, the novels The Ghosts of Vasu Master, When Dreams Travel, In Times of Siege and Fugitive Histories, and the new collection of essays entitled Almost Home: Cities and Other Places.
This year, she was International Writer in Residence in Singapore, and is, at present Visiting Professor in Goa University.
For more on this Delhi-based author and her work, visit www.githahariharan.com
Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar
Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar is the author of a novel, The Mysterious Ailment of Rupi Baskey, which won the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar 2015 and was shortlisted for The Hindu Prize 2014 and the Crossword Book Award 2014. His new book is The Adivasi Will Not Dance, a collection of 10 short stories.
Harsh Mander
Harsh Mander, human rights worker, writer, columnist, scholar and teacher, works with survivors of mass violence, hunger, homeless persons and street children.
His books include ‘Unheard Voices: Stories of Forgotten Lives’, ‘The Ripped Chest: Public Policy and the Poor in India’, ‘Fear and Forgiveness: The Aftermath of Massacre’, ‘Fractured Freedom: Chronicles from India’s Margins’, ‘Untouchability in Rural India’ (co-authored), ‘Ash in the Belly: India’s Unfinished Battle against Hunger’ and ‘Looking Away: Inequality, Prejudice and Indifference in New India’.
He regularly writes columns for the Hindu, and Hindustan Times, and contributes regularly to scholarly journals.
He writes and speaks regularly on issues of social justice. He teaches courses on poverty and governance in IIM, Ahmedabad. Past teaching assignments include LBS National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie; St Stephen’s College, Delhi; Nelson Mandela Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Jamia. He also lectured at California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco; Centre for Law and Governance, JNU; IDS, Sussex; NALSAR Hyderabad; MIT, Boston, UCLA, Stanford, Austin, and several others.
Haseeb Asif
Haseeb Asif is a journalist and a writer, currently working for Dawn Media Group's monthly magazine, Herald. His work has appeared in numerous Pakistani publications, such as The Express Tribune, The News, Books & Authors, The Friday Times and Dawn News. He has also written for Outlook India. He writes both in English and Urdu, and some of his creative/ fiction work has appeared in local literary journals and gazettes.
Hema Myer Sood
Hema Myer Sood completed a Bachelor of Commerce degree in 1985 from Mount Carmel College, Bangalore. The wisdom of the Bhagavad Geetha deeply influenced her writing and formed the theme of her first book, The Eternal Ocean of Brahma (1994). Her second book, Lord Krishna’s Cosmic Drama (1996) is a dramatic portrayal of a cosmic stage and her third book, The Revelation on Shivarathri Night (1996) is a personal narrative of her experiences as a devotee of Sri Sathya Sai Baba.
In April 2015 she released her fourth book; the first of the Karmic City trilogy series. The book is titled The City of Lord Brahma and uses the genre of fiction to acquaint the reader with profound insights of ancient Indian philosophy.
Hema is based in Goa, India. She is a certified Reiki Grandmaster and practices alternate healing and channelling.
Hemant Divate
Hemant Divate is an acclaimed Marathi poet, editor, publisher and translator. He is the author of five poetry collections in Marathi. Poetrywala has recently published his ‘Selected Poems 1990-2015 in English translation.
He has won several prominent awards, including the Bharatiya Bhasha Parishad Award (Kolkata, India), Maharashtra Foundation Award (USA) and Aksharrang Lokmat Award. Hemant has presented his poetry in many national and international poetry and literature festivals in Europe, Latin America and Asia.
His poems have been translated into English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Slovak, Irish, Arabic, Japanese and all major languages in India.
His first book of poems in Marathi Chautishiparyantchya Kavita is translated in English, titled Virus Alert (2003). This book of poems is also translated into Spanish and published as Alarma de Virus, and in Irish, as Foláireamh Víris.
He is the founder-editor of the prestigious Marathi little magazine AbhidhaNantar.
His publishing house, Paperwall Media & Publishing, has published under its Poetrywala imprint more than 75 poetry collections. Hemant lives and works in Mumbai.
Heta Pandit
Heta Pandit came to Goa in the monsoon of 1995 and stayed on spearheading the heritage preservation movement in Goa. She founded the Goa Heritage Action Group in October 2000 advocating preservation of Goa's priceless heritage and writing several articles and presentations on the subject. Ms. Pandit is the author of Houses of Goa (with Annabel Mascarenhas), Hidden hands-master builders of Goa, Walking in Goa, In & Around Old Goa, Dust & Other Short Stories from Goa, Walking with Angels and now, There's more to life than a house in Goa.
Himanshu Suri
Punjabi-American rapper, founder of Greedhead Music, and native New Yorker, Himanshu "Heems" Suri wants to have his ladoo and eat it too. He launched his solo career while a member of alternative hip-hop group Das Racist. In 2012 under rap name Heems, he released two solo mixtapes, Nehru Jackets and Wild Water Kingdom. After Das Racist split in late 2012, Heems headed to Bombay and began work on his official debut solo effort. The album was released in 2015 and coincided with an exhibition of the rapper's artwork at the Aicon Gallery in New York City. Both the LP and the exhibition shared the same title, Eat Pray Thug. Since releasing the album Heems completed a 30-city North American tour in support of the album with dates in Europe, Asia, and Australia to follow. Heems is from Queens, NY but went to high school in TriBeCa at Stuyvesant H.S., blocks away from 9/11 when it occurred. He then went to Wesleyan University where white people scared him at first but then I realized they weren't that different from me. They just preferred their food bland, and I spicy. And they can't dance yo.
Ikhtisad Ahmed
Raised in Dhaka and residing in London, Ikhtisad Ahmed is a human rights lawyer turned writer. The Arts Council-endorsed Dhaka Tribune columnist’s critically acclaimed writing credits include the short story collection, Yours, Etcetera, poetry collections Cryptic Verses and Requiem, plays The Deliverance of Sanctuary, Esne in Taberna, and MADE, and various commissioned screenplays. Absurdism, justice, equality, politics and existentialism are recurring themes in his work as Ikhtisad seeks to give a voice to the oppressed, the marginalised and the forgotten.
Website: www.ikhtisadahmed.com Twitter: @ikhtisad
Imre Bangha
Dr Imre Bangha is Associate Professor of Hindi at the University of Oxford. He studied Indology in Budapest and holds a Ph.D. in Hindi from Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan. He has published English, Hindi and Hungarian books and articles on literature in Brajbhasha and other forms of old Hindi and prepared Hungarian translations from various South Asian languages. His work on the international reception of Bengali culture include the monograph Hungry Tiger: Encounter between India and Central Europe (2007) and Jöttem a Gangesz partjairól: Bengáli kultúra és magyar irodalom. (I have come from the banks of the Ganges’: Bengali Culture and Hungarian Literature, 2011 in Hungarian) as well as the edited volumes Rabindranath Tagore: Hundred Years of Global Reception (2014, co-edited with M. Kämpchen) and Tagore Beyond his Language (forthcoming).
Indu K.Mallah
Indu K.Mallah is a writer, poet, literary critic, and social activist living in Ooty.Her articles, travel-pieces, and book-reviews have been published in all the leading publications of the country. Several of her short-stories have been broadcast over BBC, and two of her screen-plays have won national awards. Her novel, "Shadows in Dream-time", published by Affiliated East West Press, has won wide critical acclaim,and has been translated into several languages, including German, Portuguese, Dutch and Japanese. Several scholars have based their theses on it, and it has been compared to "Finnegan"s Wake ", by James Joyce. Some years ago, a cross-section of her writings was show-cased on a B.B.C. web-site on S.Asian Women writers. Recently, a collection of her poems, entitled "B(r)oken Moon And Other Poems" was published by Authorspress, and has been well-received by the media. A memoir , and a collection of folk-tales compiled by her are in the pipe-line. Indu K.Mallah is currently working on her second novel.
Ines G. Zupanov
Ines G. Županov was born in Croatia in 1955 and completed the PH.D in Modern South Asian history at the UC Berkeley. She is researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris and a co-director of the Centre d’Etudes de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud. She is a social and cultural historian of Catholic missions in South Asia in the early modern period and interested in other related topics such as European-Indian encounters before British colonialism. Her new book is co-authored with Ângela Barreto Xavier, Catholic Orientalism; Portuguese Empire, Indian Knowledge, 16th-18th centuries (OUP, New Delhi, 2015). http://www.ineszupanov.com/
Ishamuddin Khan
By any standard, Ishamuddin Khan is a man of remarkable talents. Back in 1995, this traditional Indian magician or madari, completed the first successful outdoor performance of a trick that had been whispered about for centuries but that no one before had mastered. When, before an amazed audience on the southern edge of Delhi, Ishamuddin managed a convincing rendition of the legendary Indian rope trick, it made headlines around the world that ought to have secured his place in the history of magic and won him lasting recognition at home. Ishamudin is a revivalists of Traditional magic of India.
T.V Shows & Documentaries: Penn & Teller’s Magic & mystery tour (Yap Communication Canada) In search of The Rope Trick (In-flight Production London) 50 Greatest of the World (Channel 4 London) It’s a showtime (Nippon T.V Japan) Discovery, CNN, BBC, Doordarshan. He has been performing around the globe, France, Sweden, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, UK, Ireland, Japan.
He has brought back some of the lost secrets of Indian traditional magic.
Ivo de Figueiredo
Ivo de Figueiredo (b 1966) is a Norwegian-Goan historian, author and literature critic. He has published a number of books on Fascism/World War II, biographies, literature history and true crime. In 2002 he was awarded the National Brage Prize for his biography Free Man, and his biography on the playwrite Henrik Ibsen, The Man and the Mask (2010), is published in several languages, an English edition soon to be published by Yale UP. He contributes regularly as a non-fiction critic in Norwegian newspapers, and is currently working on a book on his Goan familys migration history. Ivo de Figueiredo works as a freelance, based in Oslo, Norway.
Janhavi Acharekar
Janhavi Acharekar is the author of the novel Wanderers, All (HarperCollins 2015), a collection of short stories Window Seat: Rush-hour stories from the city (HarperCollins 2009) and the travel guide Moon Mumbai & Goa (Avalon 2009) - the first Indian destination guide by the American travel book series Moon Handbooks.
A writer of both fiction and travel, she is a contributing editor at Conde Nast Traveller India. Her short stories appear in various anthologies of short fiction while her features on travel, books and the arts appear in leading Indian and international publications. She has curated literary festivals like the Crossword and Kala Ghoda litfests (Mumbai) and Lit.mus (Bangalore). Janhavi was awarded the Charles Wallace Visiting Writer’s Fellowship at the University of Stirling, Scotland, in 2009.
Website: www.janhavistories.com
Jason Keith Fernandes
Jason Keith Fernandes is currently a post-doctoral scholar at the Centre for International Studies, University Institute of Lisbon. In 2013 he was awarded a Doctorate in Anthropology for his research work on the citizenship experiences of Goan Catholics. He subsequently won the New India Foundation Fellowship in 2014 and his book manuscript is in the final stages of preparation.
Jason has been a regular contributor of op-ed columns to Goan newspapers since 2006. Through these writings he offers opinions on a variety of subjects thanks to his training in law, sociology of law, culture studies and anthropology. More recently, he has developed an interest in Catholic theology which he is exploring through the cover of his post-doctoral research project. His writings can be accessed at www.dervishnotes.blogspot.com
Jayant Kaikini
Jayant Kaikini, Kannada short story writer, poet and playwright is also a film lyricist, script and dialogue writer for several Kannada films, which have garnered both critical and popular acclaim.He is the recipient of many prestigious awards, including four Karnataka Sahitya Academy awards for excellence in writing, first one being at the age of 19 in 1974 for his debut poetry collection, followed by similar awards in 1982, 1989 and 1996,for his short story collections. Dots and Lines (2004), his translated stories in English has been published by Indialog, Delhi. Opera house,(2013), collection of his selected stories translated in to konkani is published by konkani language and cultural foundation. He has been bestowed with the Dinakar Desai award for poetry, BH Sridhar award for fiction, Katha National Award and Rujuwathu Trust Fellowship for his writing. He is the recipient of the Karnataka State Award for Best Dialogues for the film chigurida Kanasu and the Filmfare Award twice for best lyrics in Kannada. he was conferred Kusumagraj national literary award by Yashwant rao chavan open university , nasik, Maharashtra in 2010.
A well-known television personality and former adviser to a television channel , he edited literary monthly magazine 'bhavana ' . He was conferred with an honorary doctorate from the Tumkur University in 2011 for his contribution to Kannada in the fields of literature, films and television. He was born in gokarn, karnataka. A biochemist by training, after working in mumbai for 23 years in a pharmaceutical plant , now he lives in banglore working as a freelancer . He has 5 collections of poems, 6 collections of short stories, 3 collections of essays, 3 plays , one collection of film lyrics, 4 screen plays to his credit.
Jayanti Naik
Jayanti Naik is an eminent folklorist and Konkani litterateur. After studying Sociology in Mysore University, she completed her doctorate in Konkani at Goa University. She is currently associated with Goa Konkani Akademi as a folklore researcher.
She has written 32 books, 16 of which are on folklore and the others are on various genres of literature including short story, poetry, drama, essay, children’s literature a translation and life sketches. Besides English, her own stories have been translated into Hindi, Marathi, Telugu, and Malayalam. Her Poetry collection titled ‘Mirgavenno’ is translated into Marathi Language.
She is recipient of number of State and National level awards, most notable of which are the Kala Academy Literary Award in 2002; Sahitya Akademi Literary Award in 2004 for her collection of short stories ‘Athang’ and the Goa Yashodamini Award in 2009.
She is the Editor of ‘Anannya’- a six monthly literary journal of Goa Konkani Akademi.
Jerry Pinto
Jerry Pinto is the author of several books including Helen: the life and times of an H-Bomb (which won the National Award for the best book on cinema) and the novel Em and the Big Hoom (which won the Lit for Life Hindu Award and the Crossword Award for Fiction for 2013). His translation of Sachin Kundalkar's Cobalt Blue was shortlisted for The Crossword Award for Translation and the graphic novel he wrote When Crows Are White was shortlisted for the Crossword Children's Fiction Prize. His latest work, at the time of printing, is his translation of India's first Dalit autobiography Daya Pawar's Baluta (Speaking Tiger).
Jessica Faleiro
Jessica Faleiro is a travel writer and novelist with an MA in Creative Writing from Kingston University, UK. She also has an MSc in environmental policy and worked for years as an environmental lobbyist before crossing over to work in the non-profit sector. She works as a freelance communications consultant for international development charities when she isn’t working on a writing project. Jessica has also written travel pieces for The Times of India, written articles for Muse India, Indiacurrents, Mascara Literary Review and the online review tambdimati.com. Her first novel, Afterlife: Ghost stories from Goa, was published by Rupa and launched at the Goa Arts and Literary Festival in December 2012. She currently writes travel features for the international website Skyscanner and is working on her next novel. She is based in Goa and a member of the GoaWriters group. For more, please visit her website: http://jessicafaleiro.wordpress.com
Jonathan Gil Harris
Jonathan Gil Harris is descended from a long line of migrants on both sides of his family. Born in New Zealand and educated in England, Harris lived in the US for twenty-three years before moving to India. His day-job is as a professor of Shakespeare and the English Renaissance, about which he has written five books. He is also an avid follower of Hindi cinema; his articles on Bollywood and globalization have been published in the Hindustan Times. Harris's most recent book is The First Firangis: Remarkable Stories of Heroes, Healers, Charlatans, Courtesans, and Other Foreigners Who Became Indian (Aleph, 2015). He now lives in Delhi, where he is Professor of English and Dean of Academic Affairs at Ashoka University.
Jose Lourenco
Jose Lourenco's short fiction, poetry, translations and essays in Konkani and English have appeared in various publications. He is also the author of The Parish Churches of Goa, a study of façade architecture. His publishing firm Amazing Goa Publications experiments with innovative products for education and information. He is presently the Vice-President of Goa Konkani Akademi.
Jugneeta Sudan
Jugneeta Sudan is a freelance writer and writes a book column for the Goan newspaper ‘Navhind Times’.She is actively involved in the study of classical English literature,books/writing forums, critiquing books and storytelling. Her stint as a curriculum adviser to educational institutions led her to develop workshop modules on classics, fiction, non- fiction books as tools of teaching learning process. Her book readings encompass presentations, along with excerpts from relevant books. She shares her insights and critical appraisals of books with book lovers on different platforms – schools, colleges, art galleries, libraries and book-reading clubs. She has conducted Book Reading Workshops in various cities in India (Mumbai, Bangalore, Vizag) and is now settled in Goa.
K P Ramanunni
K P Ramanunni is an award winning Novelist and Short Story writer based in Kerala. He has 3 novels, 11 collections of short stories and 4 collections of essays to his credit.
His very first Malayalam novel Sufi Paranja Katha, which is translated into English, French, Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Konkani, Bangali and Telugu, won the two most prestigious awards for Malayalam Literature - Kerala Sahitya Akademi and Edassery. Sufi Paranja Katha is also made into a feature film directed by the National award winner Sri. Priyanandanan. His short stories and collection of short stories have won him several awards including, Samastha Kerala Sahitya Parishad award, V P Sivakumar Smaraka Keli award, Padmarajan Puraskaram, Katha award, C.V. Sreeraman award, T.V.Kochubava Award and Sakthi award. His third novel Jeevithathinte Pusthakam has also won the prestigious Vayalar Award, Bharatiya Bhasha Parishad award and Malayattoor award. Ramanunni is an activist in the field of communal harmony and Mother tongue movement.
K. Anis Ahmed
K. Anis Ahmed is the author of three works of fiction: The World In My Hands (novel); Good Night, Mr. Kissinger (stories); Forty Steps (novella). He is a publisher of Bengal Lights, an international literary journal, and Dhaka Tribune, a new national daily. He is also the founder of the Dhaka Translation Center and a director of the Dhaka Literary Festival. He is currently at work on a novel about extreme foodies in New York.
Kala Ramesh
Neck deep in haiku, her face barely visible, Kala Ramesh, an award winning poet has been instrumental in bringing school children and college youth into haiku. Indian music being extempore in nature, has taught Kala to think within and without the box — to be creative, daring and innovative and still adhere to the demands of an art form. Her latest obsession is to paint city walls with haiku, to weave in a pause, a breather into our hectic lives!
Kaveri Ponnapa
Kaveri Ponnapa is the author of The Vanishing Kodavas (Eminence Designs 2013), a cultural study of the Kodava people. She studied English Literature at Lady Shri Ram College, New Delhi, and took a Master’s Degree in Social Anthropology at SOAS, London. Kaveri writes on food, wine and heritage for several publications, as well as a popular blog, The Coorg Table, that documents the food history and traditions of the Kodavas.
Keki N. Daruwalla
Keki N. Daruwalla has been publishing poetry since 1970 when he came out with his first volume Under Orion. He has now 11 poetry volumes including “Collected Poems” (Penguin 2006) and Selected Poems (ARC Publishers Todmorden, UK 2008). He has four short story books. His latest publication was the Novel “For Pepper and Christ 2009 (Penguin) which was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Fiction Prize (Asia, UK 2010). Penguin India published his Selected Short Stories, under the title Love Across the Salt Desert in 2011. Daruwalla also has to his credit a short story book entitled “Islands” published by Tranquebar (2014) and a poetry volume “Fire Altar: Poems on the Persians and the Greeks” published by HapperCollins (2013). His novel, “Ancestral Affairs” will be published by HarperCollins in November 2015. He won the Commonwealth Poetry Price, Asia in 1987, for his book Landscapes. He was the Chair of the Jury for the DSC prize in 2014. Daruwalla lives in Delhi.
Khalid Anis Ansari
Khalid Anis Ansari is Senior Assistant Professor at Glocal Law School, Glocal University, Saharanpur (UP) and broadly works in the field of social and cultural theory with special focus on democratic transformation and subaltern counterpublics, caste and religion, and social histories of the marginalized. He has worked on various research and community development projects and has been associated with democratic movements in North India as an interlocutor and knowledge activist. He was awarded the HIVOS PhD Fellowship—Pluralism Knowledge Programme (2010-2013) for his doctoral work with University of Humanistic Studies (UvH), Utrecht, the Netherlands.
Kiran Budkuley
Dr. (Mrs.) Kiran Budkuley is Professor and Head, Department of English and Dean, Faculty of Languages and Literature at Goa University. Besides teaching at postgraduate level, she has guided research for M. Phil. and Ph. D. degrees on topics related to Literary Studies and Comparative Studies in Translation, Language and Culture. Her own areas of research include ‘Gender and Culture Studies’, Indian Literature, Translation Studies and ‘Konkani Literature and Folklore’. She has presented papers at National and International Conferences and her critical articles in English, Hindi, Konkani, Marathi have appeared in anthologies and reputed journals.
-A multilingual scholar, Dr. Budkuley has written eleven books, published/funded by reputed bodies such as National Book Trust India, Sahitya Akademi New Delhi, Institute Menezes Braganza Panaji, Goa Konkani Akademi, V. M. Salgaoncar Foundation, Directorate of Art & Culture Goa, Asmitai Pratisthan. The titles of her books are: Musings in the Meadows: Essya on Goan Literature and Culture(2013), Devotee of the Desirable (Trans. 2011), Darpan: Konkani Kathaeim Hindi Mein (Ed. 2010) Mapping the Mosaic of Culture: Essays on Language and Literature (2009), Akshar Sarita (2009), Shatakaantika (2009), Pani Pe lakeereim (Poems:2009), Konkani Katha Marathit (Ed. 2008; 1st edn 2005),Shenoi Goembab: The Man and His Work (2003), Samikshekaden Ishtaagat(1998), and Sahitya Niyaal: Antarang ani Kayaarupam(1998).
--A poet, translator and public speaker, she also writes on social issues. Her poetry and other writings have appeared in several magazines and news papers. She has trans-created the lyrics and commentary into English for the docu-drama ‘Gomant Darshan’ and also penned the commentary for 45 minutes documentary on the life and work of Ravindra Kelekar.
-She has been awarded (1) ‘Late Shri Gundu S. Amonkar Triennial Award’-2003, (2) “Late Shri Narsinha Damodar Naik Sahitya Puraskar- 2011” and (3) Goa Konkani Akademi’s Sarvotkrushta Konkani Granth Puraskar- 2012 for her salient contributions to Konkani literature.
Kornelia Santoro
“Kitchen goddess, mother, cookbook author.” With these words Kornelia Santoro describes herself. Two decades ago, she gave up her career as political journalist at a newspaper in Bavaria. After two years of riding an Enfield Bullet through India, she married her Italian husband and soon after a son was born. Nowadays, she channels her literary ambitions and her experiences as a passionate foodie into writing cookbooks and managing a website and a blog. Both her books, Kornelia’s Kitchen – Mediterranean Cooking for India and Kornelia’s Kitchen 2 – Cooking for Allergies, have won the prestigious Gourmand World Cookbook Awards. Her new book, dealing with the mood influencing qualities of food, will be published by HarperCollins India in June 2016.
Kula Saikia
Kula Saikia (born.1959) had his Post Graduation from Delhi School of Economics after which he was teaching Economics for a while in the Hindu College, Delhi University. He also worked as an officer in the Indian Economic Service and Indian Railway Service .Presently he is an Indian Police Service Officer in the rank of Addl DGP in Assam.
Shri Saikia has been a regular contributor to literary magazines and national dailies in Assamese and in English. He has got 18 short story collections and a novel published to his credit. He was awarded the Munin Barkataki Award for Best Book of the year in Assam. In 2000 he was selected for prestigious KATHA AWARD for his short story. His fiction writing has been influenced by Post Modernists’ style of storytelling with doses of stream of consciousness taking the readers to the world of Magic Realism. His poems have been printed in a number of journals. Recently Penguin publication has published his novel “Woh 24 Ghante”.
Shri Saikia, a highly acclaimed dramatist, having written 3 plays, has scripted and directed two telefilms under Door Darshan apart from writing a number of serious plays some of which were staged in different Theatre Festivals in the country. A number of popular short stories of Shri Saikia have been dramatized and filmed by different production houses for the Television and stage media.
Some of Saikia's short stories have been translated and published in other Indian regional languages including Hindi, Bengali,Odisha, Telegu etc. apart from English. Prominent Hindi journals have published his short stories.
After his selection for the prestigious Fulbright Fellowship Program he was in the Pennsylvania State University, USA during which he was invited on a number of occasions to speak on contemporary drama and traditional Indian art forms. For a short while he was a Consultant in World Bank, Washington DC, USA. Shri Saikia has been awarded President’s police medal twice.
Leonard Fernandes
Leonard Fernandes is co-founder of CinnamonTeal Publishing, a Margao-based publishing house, founded in 2006, and of Publishing Next, an annual conference on the future of publishing, that was launched in 2011. He is an alumnus of the Goa Engineering College, Farmagudi, and of the Fisher College of Business, in Ohio, USA, where he completed his MBA. Prior to his stint in publishing, he spent 8 years in IT development. He was a recepient of the British Council-sponsored Young Creative Entrepreneur (Publishing) Award in 2010.
Loretti Pinto
Loretti Joyce Pinto is a graduate in Painting from Goa University and post-graduate from MS University of Baroda. Loretti has designed the poster for GALF 2015.
Presently she is employed as Art Instructor at Kendriya Vidyalaya at INS Mandovi. She was a guest faculty at Goa College of Art and at Kala Academy. She has participated in around 30 art show in Goa as well as other parts of India including at trice at Lalit Kala Akademi, she is also recipient of several awards and scholarships. She has delived lectures at National Museum Institute, New Delhi amongst other prominent seminars and workshops
Lucy San Pablo Burns
Lucy Burns is Associate Professor of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her monograph, Puro Arte: On the Filipino Performing Body (NYU Press, 2012), won the Outstanding Book Award in Cultural Studies, Asian American Studies Association, 2012. Her publications include The Color of Theater (edited with Roberta Uno), essays in Dance Research Journal and Women & Performance, and a forthcoming edited collection, California Dreaming: Production and Aesthetics in Asian American Art. As a dramaturg, Burns has worked on plays and interdisciplinary performances engaging topics such as the politics of Latinidad through salsa dancing, black male sexuality, and global labor export.
Mahesh Rao
Mahesh Rao was born and grew up in Nairobi, Kenya. His short fiction has been shortlisted for various awards, including the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times, The Baffler, Prairie Schooner and Elle. His debut novel, ‘The Smoke Is Rising’, won the Tata First Book Award for fiction and was shortlisted for the Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize and the Crossword Prize. 'One Point Two Billion', his collection of short stories, was published in October 2015
Manasi Sapre
Manasi Sapre read English Literature at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and got her Masters degree in Media Studies from University of North Texas.
Since 2002, she has worked as Head of Content and Programming for various national and international TV channels and Digital platforms. Currently she works with UK based Telco Lebara Digital Media as Head of Content- Indian Subcontinent for the Video On Demand platform LebaraPlay- available in Europe, Australia, New Zeland, Canada and shortly in USA.
Manasi is a compulsive and esoteric reader. She loves 19th century Russian Novels, Marathi literature, modern literary suspense & horror from Scandanavia, Europe and Japan. Her studies and work have taken her to varied parts of the world and flamed her passion for literature and cinema from around the world.
Manohar Shetty
Manohar Shetty has published 7 books of poems including 'Domestic Creatures' (Oxford University Press, N Delhi) and' Living Room' (HarperCollins). His poems have appeared in several journals in the US and in the UK, including 'The Baffler' , 'Shenandoah', 'The Common', 'Poetry Wales', 'The Poetry Review' and 'London Magazine'. Several anthologies feature his work. He has edited 'Ferry Crossing: Short Stories from Goa ' (Penguin India) and 'Goa Travels: Being the Accounts of Travellers from the 16th to the 21st Century' (Rupa). He has lived in Goa since 1985
Martin Kämpchen
Martin Kämpchen was born in Germany in 1948, studied German Literature, Theatre, French and Comparative Religion in Vienna, Paris, Madras and Santiniketan, completing a PH.D. twice. He is a free-lance writer, academician, translator and journalist. Since 1980 he lives in Santiniketan translating Rabindranath Tagore’s poetry and Sri Ramakrishna from Bengali to German and engaging in the cultural dialogue between Germany and India. His last English books are The Hidden Side of the Moon. Essays (Niyogi Books) and Rabindranath Tagore: One Hundred Years of Global Reception, edited with Imre Bangha (Orient BlackSwan). www.martin-kaempchen.com
Meena Alexander
Meena Alexander is considered one of the finest poets of her generation. Her eighth book of poetry Atmospheric Embroidery has just been published in India (New Delhi, Hachette India, 2015). Her works include the PEN Award winning book of poems Illiterate Heart and Birthplace with Buried Stones (published by TriQuarterly Books/ Northwestern University Press). She is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir Fault Lines (one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of the Year). She has also published two novels, one of which is Nampally Road ; two books of essays on poetics and two academic studies. She is the editor of Indian Love Poems (Knopf/ Everyman’s Library). Her poems have been widely translated and set to music, most recently by the Swedish composer Jan Sandstrom, performed in Stockholm by the Serikon Music Ensemble and the Swedish Radio Choir. Her awards include those from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, Fulbright Foundation, Arts Council of England and the Rockefeller Foundation for a residency at Bellagio. In 2014 she was named a National Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla. She is Distinguished Professor of English, Graduate Center/ Hunter College, CUNY. www.meenaalexander.com
Meena Kakodkar
Meena Kakodkar is a short story writer, a novelist and also a stage artist.She has published- Three short story collections
One essay collection One Novel - “ Vastu “ One three act play for children One translation of Amitav Ghosh’s novel - “ Shadow Lines” Among the various awards following are some main awards won by her:Sahitya Akademi Award for short story collection “Sapan Fulam” Padma Binani’s “Vatsallya Prraskar” “Shashwathi Award” Vishwa Konkani Kendra’s Vimala Pai Sahitya Puraskar for her novel “Vastu”She has been felicitated by Govt. of Goa for her literary excellence by - Yashodamini Award, State Award and Rang Sanman Puraskar. Has been writing short stories, essays, one act plays in Konkani for past 45 years. Several of her short stories have been translated into different languages such as Hindi, Marathi, Kannada, Oriya, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, English and Portuguese etc. Attended several literary conferences, seminars and presented papers and stories..
She is a social activist associated with a NGO - GAWT working for welfare of stray dogs.
Meena Kandasamy
Meena Kandasamy has published two collections of poetry, Touch and Ms Militancy (2010). She was a writer-in-residence at the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program (2009), a British Council - Charles Wallace Fellow at the University of Kent (2011), and held visiting fellowships at Warwick, Newcastle and Hong Kong. She holds a PhD in sociolinguistics, and much of her work focuses on caste-annihilation and feminism. Her first novel, The Gypsy Goddess (Atlantic/ Harpercollins 2014), about the 1968 Kilvenmani massacre of Dalit agricultural labourers in Tanjore, was an Independent debut of the year.
Munize Manzur
Munize Manzur completed her B.A. in English Literature from Bryn Mawr College and M.A in Communications from Temple University, Pennsylvania, USA. Her debut anthology “Voices” was launched at Hay Festival Dhaka 2013. Besides being a columnist for Daily Star and ICE Today Magazine, she was Editor of the Saturday Literary Review, Daily Star. Her second book “Labyrinth” is a collaborative work with celebrated photographer Arif Hafiz, celebrating the indefatigable human spirit. It will be launched at Dhaka Lit Festival 2015 in November.
Mustansir Dalvi
Mustansir Dalvi is an Anglophone poet, architect and translator. His first book of poems, Brouhahas of Cocks (2013), was published by Poetrywala. His poems have appeared in several anthologies, including These My Words: The Penguin Book of Indian Poetry (eds. Eunice de Souza and Melanie Silgardo), Mind Mutations (ed. Sirrus Poe), The Bigbridge Online Anthology of Contemporary Indian Poetry (ed. Menka Shivdasani), and in the Sahitya Akademi’s To Catch A Poem, an Anthology of Poetry for Young People (eds. Jane Bhandari and Anju Makhija). Dalvi's translation of Iqbal’s influential Shikwa and Jawaab-e-Shikwa from the Urdu as Taking Issue and Allah’s Answer (Penguin Classics, 2012) has been described as ‘insolent and heretical’, while making Iqbal accessible to the contemporary reader. His latest book is 'struggles with imagined gods', translations of poems from the Marathi by Hemant Divate (Poetrywala, 2014).
N Shivdas
N Shivdas (Shivdas S Naik) hails from Nageshi, Bandoda – Ponda. He is a Konkani short story writer, with five collections of short stories published, of which “Bhaangar Saall” collection brought him prestigious Sahitya Academy Award in 2005 and prior to that the State Kala Academy, and subsequently State Cultural Award for Literature in 2014. Shivdas has to his credit, National Literary Award for Children's Literature from NCERT, New Delhi in 1999, T M Pai Foundation Award, Janganga Literature Award, Konkani Bhasha Mandal Award. Besides short story writing, he has also published over 20 books including six novels, six plays, one act and essays. His latest novel ‘Mahajan’ based on caste based discrimination in temples has been critically acclaimed. Shivdas is a regular contributor to local media, print as well electronic. A writer and fighter being social activist has been agitating against ongoing caste based discrimination in few major temples of Goa managed by upper caste mahajans. Presently he is heading Konkani Lekhak Sangh. He was former President of Goa Konkani Academy.
Nandita Haksar
Nandita Haksar is a rare lawyer who embraces her position as a public person, to speak with the most marginalised people. She weaves together, seamlessly, roles as a lawyer, a campaigner, a teacher and a writer to argue powerfully for the creation of a human rights consonant political environment.
Nandita’s published work includes: Demystification of Law for Women (1986);Framing Geelani, Hanging Afzal: Patriotism in the Time of Terror (2009); Rogue Agent: How India’s Military Intelligence Betrayed the Burmese Resistance (2010);The Judgement That Never Came: Army Rule in North East India (with Sebastian Hongray, 2011); ABC of Naga Culture and Civilization (2011); Across the Chicken Neck: Travels in North East India (2013). The Many Faces of Kashmiri Nationalism From the Cold War to the present Times (Speaking Tiger 2015).
Nandita is currently working for the recognition of India’s traditional street performers as intangible cultural heritage.
Naomi Duguid
Naomi Duguid is a writer, traveler, and photographer whose most recent book is Burma: Rivers of Flavor. The book explores daily home-cooked foods in their cultural context through stories, recipes, and photographs.
She is the co-author of six other award-winning books of food and travel including Hot Sour Salty Sweet: A Culinary Journey Through South-East Asia; Seductions of Rice; Flatbreads and Flavors; and Mangoes and Curry Leaves: Culinary Travels through the Great Subcontinent.
Naomi’s next book, Greater Persia, explores the Persian culinary region and will be published in 2016. Her travels for the book have taken her to Iran and the Caucasus
Narayan Ramachandran
Narayan Ramchandran is father of two girls, husband of writer, social entrepreneur, columnist and emerging market investor in that order. He worked on Wall Street (mostly at Morgan Stanley) for over 20 years, most recently as head of global emerging market investing and then country head of Morgan Stanley in India.
Naresh Fernandes
Naresh Fernandes is the editor of Scroll.in, a digital daily. He is the author of City Adrift: A Short Biography of Bombay and Taj Mahal Foxtrot: The Story of Bombay's Jazz Age. He lives and works in Bombay. is the editor of Scroll.in, a digital daily. He is the author of City Adrift: A Short Biography of Bombay and Taj Mahal Foxtrot: The Story of Bombay's Jazz Age. He lives and works in Bombay.
Nitin Pai
Nitin Pai is a co-founder of Takshashila and a graduate of Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (National University of Singapore), Nanyang Technological University and National College, Bangalore. Nitin spent over a decade working in the Singapore government in various capacities, including deregulation, broadband infrastructure development and strategic technology foresight.
P Sivakami
P Sivakami is a prolific writer, poet and an activist. She has published five novels, four short story collections, five essay collections and two poetry collections. Most of her works are translated in to English and other foreign languages. Her first self translated novel ‘The Grip of Change’, rated as among the first five favourite novels of India by BBC literary review, has been prescribed as a text in translation studies in many colleges. Her second novel ‘The Taming of Women’ was published by Penguin while another novel Kurukku Vettu has been published by the Sahitya Akademi under the title The Cross Section. Sivakami has served the Sahitya Akademi as its advisory member.
She founded South India Dalit Writers and Artists Forum in 2002. The forum has successfully organised several seminars and conferences for the writers and awareness camps for the marginalised including the tribal and the transgendered. For the first time the oral traditions of the tribal and the transgendered were published in Tamil through this forum. The continuous struggle by the Dalit Land Right Movement, founded by Sivakami in 2004, has resulted in policy announcement of distribution of 2 acres to the landless and establishing a Commission to restore the Panchami Land to the Dalits by the government. She also founded Women's Forum in 2005 with an objective of creating a support base for the land movement and to promote the cause of downtrodden women.
Sivakami is Editor of a monthly literary magazine Pudhiya Kodangi since 1995. The magazine, with over 7000 subscribers in India and abroad, provides space for upcoming Dalit writers and covers issues relating to the marginalised.
As an IAS officer from 1980 to 2008, Sivakami served the Government of Tamil Nadu and the central Govt till she voluntarily retired to serve the poor and the disadvantaged. In 2008 she joined BSP and she launched a political party ‘Samuga Samatuva Padai’ in 2010.
Pantaleao Fernandes
Pantaleao Fernandes is a Goa-based writer, photographer and ethnographer. Being very passionate about Goa and her vibrant culture, he spends most of his time exploring villages in deep hinterlands to experience firsthand the warm spirit of the villagers.
These excursions brought about his earlier books, “100 Goan Experiences”, “Goa Remembered” and a children’s book “Once Upon a Time in Goa”.
Pantaleao’s latest book, “Traditional Occupations of Goa” is a rich documentation of the ancient crafts of Goa - a part of her rich intelligible culture and heritage.
He has delivered invitational lectures at platforms like the “Heritage festival of Goa”, to students of the Nirmala College, twice at the Charles Corriea Foundation, the Design Centre and the Goa University. A few years ago, his photographs were displayed at ”Goa – Fusao de Culturas” at Lisbon in Portugal.
He was recently conferred with an international award by O INSTITUTO FELGA I GRACIAS, based in Brazil for excellence for the contribution using photography towards the preservation of Goa’s art and culture
https://kokumdesigncentre.wordpress.com/2015/05/28/28-05-15_pantaleao-fernandes-traditional-occupations-of-goa/
http://www.tambdimati.com/article/stepping-into-the-world-of-photography-foolhardy-or-courageous/
http://www.heraldgoa.in/Cafe/ENCAPSULATING-GOA%E2%80%99S-TRADITIONAL-OCCUPATIONS/88905.html
Parag D. Parobo
Parag D. Parobo is Assistant Professor of History at the Goa University, Goa. His research engages with a postcolonial project of writing history, searching for the voices and agency of the people at margins of society. He is the author of India’s First Democratic Revolution: Dayanand Bandodkar and the Rise of Bahujan in Goa (Orient BlackSwan, 2015), published under a series New Perspectives in South Asian History 2.
Pavan Srinath
Pavan Srinath heads policy research and programmes at the Takshashila Institution.
He started his career in public policy five years ago by working on urban policy, migration and climate change adaptation at Public Affairs Centre, Bangalore. Pavan joined Takshashila after a brief stint at Arghyam, Bangalore where he worked on urban water and sanitation, including groundwater. His research interests focus on the intersection of science and policy, and includes cities, climate, public health, public finance, space exploration and defence economics.
Coming from an academic background in the biosciences from the Indian Institute of Technology – Madras, Pavan trained in public policy at Takshashila. He has co-authored peer-reviewed publications in the Journal of Molecular Biology and Journal of International Migration and Integration, two books The State of Our Cities: Evidence from Karnataka (OUP 2012) and Changing the Urban Face of Karnataka (PAC 2012) along with several research papers and articles.
Pavan teaches topics in urban governance, public policy and data visualisation at Takshashila. He contributes opinion pieces in Pragati – The Indian National Interest Review, Business Standard, Times of India, Mint, The Hindu and Citizen Matters. He also blogs the Indian National Interest platform and Know Your Climate.
Pooja Nansi
Pooja Nansi has published two collections of poetry, co-edited a poetry anthology of Singaporean Poetry and co-authored a teacher’s resource for Singaporean poetry. Since April 2013, she has been curating a monthly poetry event called Speakeasy which has showcased both emerging and established poets from places as diverse as Burma and Botswana. She also runs the Singapore chapter of Burn After Reading a collective started for young emerging poets who are encouraged to write, read, perform and publish as widely as possible. She is currently the Writer-in-Residence at Nanyang Technological University.
Pranay Kotasthane
Pranay Kotasthane is a Research Fellow with the Takshashila Institution.
Pranay started his career as a policy analyst focusing on geopolitics at the Takshashila Institution in March 2014. His research interests focus on geostrategy, geopolitics of the Indian subcontinent, public policy, economic reasoning and urban issues.
Pranay graduated from the National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Surathkal with a B.Tech. degree in Electronics and Communication. Thereafter, he had a stint of seven years with two Fortune 500 companies working on design of integrated chips for mobile processors.
Pranay is an alumnus of the Graduate Course in Public Policy, Takshashila's flagship education programme. He was conferred with the Gomtibai Govindji Award for being the best student of his batch.
Pranay teaches topics in public policy at Takshashila. He also works on the curriculum design for GCPP. He contributes opinion pieces in Pragati – The Indian National Interest Review, Business Standard and Citizen Matters. He also blogs on the Indian National Interest platform and Pramaanik. He has also written opinion pieces for The Hindu, Deccan Herald, Prajavani, Mint and Mumbai Mirror.
As part of the Bhasha project, Pranay writes a blog series on Logos explaining concepts of economic reasoning and public policy in Hindi.
Pranesh Prasad
Pranesh Prasad is a writer of literary fiction based in Australia. His published works include ‘The Ultimate Laugh’ (2011) which explores identity and terrorism and ‘A Half-Baked Life’ (2013) which examines the 2002 Gujarat riots.
He is currently working on contemporary gender, religious and caste inequalities in a new novel ‘The Hidden Imam’. An excerpt from ‘The Hidden Imam’ appears in the 2015 fall edition of the literary journal, Weber: The Contemporary West.
He has been a speaker at numerous literary festivals (Ubud, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Kalinga and Fiji).
He is also a trained economist and an animal welfare advocate.
Priya Ramani
Priya Ramani has been a journalist and editor for 20 years now. Until recently she was editor of Mint Lounge, the popular weekend magazine of financial newspaper Mint. She conceptualized, launched and was the editor of Lounge for 8 years. In previous avatars she has been a rookie reporter for The Asian Age, a stock market reporter for Reuters, deputy editor of Elle, and editor of Cosmpolitan. She was the editor of Eye, the Sunday features supplement of The Indian Express for 3 years, and has also worked at India Today. She is currently taking a time out from a full-time job to hang out with her toddler Babyjaan.
R. Benedito Ferrão
R. Benedito Ferrão is a writer and current Mellon Faculty Fellow in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the College of William and Mary, Virginia. His research centres on literary representations of Goans in transnational contexts. A writer of fiction, creative non-fiction, op-eds, and literary criticism, Ferrão’s work has been published internationally. Find his writing at thenightchild.blogspot.com, or on Facebook at The Nightchild Nexus.
R. Raj Rao
R. Raj Rao is a novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, biographer, translator and queer theorist. His latest novel is Lady Lolita’s Lover. Earlier in 2015, he also co-translated transgender activist Laxmi Tripathi’s autobiography, titled Me Hijra, Me Laxmi. Rao is now writing his fourth novel. His iconic first novel The Boyfriend is soon to be made into a major motion picture. The book has also been translated into Italian and French. Rao is professor in the department of English at S. P. Pune University, Pune.
Radhika Vaz
Vaz is one of the country’s most well recognized stand-up comedians with an international following. Her one-woman comedy specials ‘Unladylike’ and ‘Older. Angrier. Hairier.’ have sold-out in New York, Los Angeles, and all major Indian cities and her bi-weekly column on the Times of India's op-ed page reaches millions of readers. Her book ‘Unladylike, A Memoir’ is in stores now and her edgy web-series “Shugs & Fats” has been nominated for the 25th IFP Gotham Awards in New York in the Breakthrough Series (Short Form) Category.
Raghu Karnad
Raghu Karnad is a journalist and the author of Farthest Field: An Indian Story of the Second World War. He has written for Granta, the International New York Times, the Financial Times, n+1 and Caravan, and is a contributing editor at theWire.in.
Rajay R. Pawar
Dr. Rajay R. Pawar is working as Associate Professor & Head of the department of Konkani at Govt. College, Quepem.
Publications: His interests and publications include poetry, gajals, drama & essays in particular and creative literature in general. His published includes Pavasfullam (poems: 1995), Anta Anta Shirimanta (drama: 2006), Aamcho Haath Jagannath (drama : 2007), Darne Ka Naay (drama: 2008), Jamle Re Jamle (drama: 2009), Girmeet (collection of essays: 2009) & Natak eka Natkache (drama: 2010), Tension Free (drama: 2013), Oli – Suki (essays: 2014), Konkani Kavitecho Itihas (criticism: 2014).
He has penned lyrics for the several Konkani Music Albums.
His research papers about Konkani literature are published in the several research publications.
Appraisal - Awards: Recipient of साहित्य पुरस्कार of Konkani Bhasha Mandal for पावसफुलां (1996), ‘साहित्य पुरस्कार’ of Goa Konkani Academy for आमचो हात जगन्नाथ (2009), ‘विनोदी साहित्य पुरस्कार’’ of Bimb Parivar, युवा साहित्य पुरस्कार of Yuva Konkani Sahitya Sammelan, (2010), युवा सृजन पुरस्कार of Govt. of Goa awarded by Directorate of Art & Culture, साहित्य पुरस्कार of Goa Konkani Academy for टेन्शन फ्री (2014),
He is the recipient of prestigious National Award titled युवा साहित्य पुरस्कार -2009’ of Bharatiya Bhasha Parishad, Kolkata - the first ever for Konkani Language in the history of Parishad.
Recently he has been conferred with the prestigious National Award काव्य पुरस्कार - 2012 of Kavita Trust, Mangalore.
Rajshree Bandodkar Karapurkar
Rajshree Bandodkar Karapurkar is involved in popularising science through books and short educational films. She has been conducting workshops for children in hands-on science activities. She is a life member of Association of Friends of Astronomy, executive council member of Indian Association of Physics Teachers (Goa region). So far she has authored books in Konkani, English and Marathi on science and dialogue with nature and sky it includes Vidnyan Yogi, Saimakaden Samvad and Malbakaden Samvad in Konkani, and Space Talks and Taryanchea Vanat Swapnachi Sahal in English and Marathi respectively. She has also conceptualized, written and directed three animation films on nature, zoo and mosquito control. She is a Grade 1 science teacher in Goa.
Ramachandra Guha
Ramachandra Guha is a historian and biographer based in Bangalore. He has taught at the universities of Yale and Stanford, held the Arné Naess Chair at the University of Oslo, and been the Indo-American Community Visiting Professor at the University of California at Berkeley. In the academic year 2011-2 he served as the Philippe Roman Professor of History and International Affairs at the London School of Economics.
Guha’s books include a pioneering environmental history, The Unquiet Woods (University of California Press, 1989), and an award-winning social history of cricket, A Corner of a Foreign Field (Picador, 2002). India after Gandhi (Macmillan/Ecco Press, 2007) was chosen as a book of the year by the Economist, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the San Francisco Chronicle, Time Out, and Outlook, and as a book of the decade in the Times of India, the Times of London, and The Hindu. His most recent book is Gandhi Before India (Knopf, 2014), which was chosen as a notable book of the year by the New York Times.
Apart from his books, Guha also writes a syndicated column, that appears in six languages in newspapers with a combined readership of some twenty mllion. Guha’s books and essays have been translated into more than twenty languages. The New York Times has referred to him as ‘perhaps the best among India’s non fiction writers’; Time Magazine has called him ‘Indian democracy’s pre-eminent chronicler’.
Ramachandra Guha’s awards include the Leopold-Hidy Prize of the American Society of Environmental History, the Daily Telegraph/Cricket Society prize, the Malcolm Adideshiah Award for excellence in social science research, the Ramnath Goenka Prize for excellence in journalism, the Sahitya Akademi Award, and the R. K. Narayan Prize. In 2009, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan, the Republic of India’s third highest civilian honour. In 2008, and again in 2013, Prospect magazine nominated Guha as one of the world’s most influential intellectuals. In 2014, he was awarded a honorary doctorate in the humanities by Yale University.
Ramesh Veluskar
Ramesh Bhagavant Veluskar is a multifaceted literary personality basically writes in Konkani and has equally written in other Indian languages like Marathi, Hindi. He is a poet of repute in Konkani with his finest articulation in Konkani language and with the help of its rich idiom he re-creates new idiom making the language from rich to richest. He has nine collections of poetry published with different subjects. Collections like Morpakham, Mati, Hiranyagarbha, Saulgori and Zen Kavita are very important. Mr. Veluskar, along with poetry has written lot of prose in the form of essays, travelogues and literary appreciation. In addition to this he loves writing for children too. He has eight books for children. He has translated books of reputed literary figures like Bhas from Sanskrit, Tukaram from Marathi, Tagore from Bangla, Shri Aurobindo, Andha yug from Hindi anid Khalil Gibran very successfully. Mr. Veluskar wrote few dramas which were staged by institutions like Kala Academy’s School of Drama, Rudreshvar and others. He was awarded Shitya Academy Puraskar for his poetry collection Saulgori. Kala Academy Puraskar, Padmashri B.B.Borkar Puraskar, Goa State Cultural Award, Amrut Mohotsav Sanman Rashtrabhasha Prachar Samiti, Vardha 2013 and a national award for his SAMUDRAMUDRIKA a poetry collection in Hindi by Ministry of Human Resource Development.
Ranjit Hoskote
Ranjit Hoskote is a poet, cultural theorist and curator. He is the author of more than 25 books, ranging across poetry, art criticism, cultural history and poetry in translation. His collections of poetry include Central Time (Penguin, 2014), Vanishing Acts: New & Selected Poems 1985-2005 (Penguin, 2006) and Die Ankunft der Vogel (Carl Hanser Verlag, 2006). His translation of the 14th-century Kashmiri mystic Lal Ded has been published as I, Lalla: The Poems of Lal Ded (Penguin Classics, 2011). He is the editor of Dom Moraes: Selected Poems (Penguin Modern Classics, 2012), which is the first annotated critical edition of a major Anglophone Indian poet's work. With Ilija Trojanow, he has co-authored Kampfabsage (Random House/ Blessing Verlag, 2007; in English as Confluences: Forgotten Histories from East and West, Yoda Press, 2012). Hoskote has also co-authored, with Nancy Adajania, The Dialogues Series (Popular/ Foundation B&G, 2011), an unfolding programme of artist conversations. With Maria Hlavajova, he is the editor of Future Publics: A Critical Reader in Contemporary Art (BAK, 2014).
Ratna Vira
Ratna Vira is a bestselling author, a corporate leader, consultant, and an artist. She has held senior CXO positions at leading multinational companies. She is a Communications and Human Resources professional. She has retained her link with the corporate world through consulting assignments. Her professional career has included being the Chief Peoples Communication Officer at Yes Bank, along with senior roles with MTS India, Quatrro, Apollo International, Bharti Enterprices etc
Taking a break from the corporate world two years ago, Ratna focussed on writing her debut novel, which has since become a national bestseller and for which she has sold the film rights. Her novel, ‘Daughter By Court Order’ was published in India this summer and was in the Indian Top 10 Fiction List for over four months. The book has been extensively written about and been featured in the New York Times. Daughter By Court Order has been translated into Hindi and the film rights have been bought by a Bollywood producer. She is the daughter of senior journalist Nalini Singh and SPN Singh.
Ravi Singh
Ravi Singh is publishing director, Speaking Tiger. Before this, he was publisher and chief editor with Penguin India and co-publisher with Aleph Book Company. www.speakingtigerbooks.com
Rishi Vohra
Rishi Vohra relocated back to Mumbai after completing a Green MBA from San Francisco State University and a Masters Diploma in Environmental Law, prior to which he had an extensive career in the Indian Entertainment Industry.
His debut novel 'Once Upon the Tracks of Mumbai' was awarded a special mention at the Hollywood Book Festival. His short story, 'The Mysterious Couple,' was selected by Sudha Murty for her anthology 'Something Happened on the Way to Heaven,' published by Penguin Books. 'HiFi in Bollywood' is his second novel.
He writes for delWine and is a Certified Specialist of Wine (CSW).
Rochelle Pinto
Rochelle Pinto is currently studying narratives about land in Goa as her research project at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi. She has previously taught at the University of Delhi, The Foundation for Liberal and Management Education, Pune and the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bangalore. Her book, Between Empires - print and politics in Goa, examined the print culture and linguistic politics of nineteenth century Goa. Her interests are print culture, portuguese colonialism and archives in India.
Rochelle Potkar
Widely anthologized, Rochelle Potkar won a gold place for her story, ‘The point of Irish coffee’ (Revenge Ink), and an Editor’s choice award for ‘Ramayan redux’ (Triangulation: Parch, USA). She narrated two true-life tales at Tall Tales, Kitab Mahal. Her book, 'The Arithmetic of breasts and other stories' was shortlisted for The Digital Book of the Year Award 2014, by Publishing Next.
She has read her poetry at Kala Ghoda Arts Festival, 100Thousand Poets for Change, Godrej India Culture Lab, PEN@Prithvi, ‘Words tell stories’, The Hive, The Poetry Club (TPC), in Hyderabad at Ten Thousand Waves, Hyderabad Writer’s Carnival; in Chennai at Prakriti Festival, The American Library; in Hong Kong at Out Loud, Peel Street poets; and in Iowa city.
She is a member of Poetry Couture and a co-editor of Neesah magazine.
She is working on a novel and two collections of short stories. Her poetry book, ‘Four degrees of separation’ is due soon by Poetrywala. She was a writer-in-residence at The University of Iowa’s International Writing Program, 2015. She lives in Mumbai, and blogs at www.rochellepotkar.com.
Saad Z Hossain
Saad Z Hossain writes in a niche genre of fantasy, science fiction and black comedy which, on the balance of it, very few people actually want to read. Due to the stunning unpopularity of his writing he has been forced to work in various industries. This includes drilling holes, making rope, throwing parties, operating an illegal sports book and failing to run a restaurant. Needless to say, working for a living is highly overrated. His novel, Escape from Baghdad!, was published in India by Aleph Book Company and in the US by Unnamed Press.
Sadaf Saaz
Sadaf Saaz is a poet, writer, entrepreneur and women’s rights activist. She grew up in the UK, and studied Molecular Cell Biology at Cambridge. She now lives in Dhaka, where she is involved in various initiatives, including her travel and arts management company, Jatrik. She is also Festival Director and Producer of Dhaka Lit Fest. Her debut poetry collection, Sari Reams, was published in November 2013 by UPL. Her series of monologues, ‘That which cannot be said’, based on Bangladeshi women’s experiences, has recently been performed in various locations in Bangladesh. She is currently working on a novel.
Safieh Shah
Dr. Safieh Shah is a medical doctor and public health researcher by training, a pianist by default, and a writer as well as feminist by virtue of my jazbaat. She contributes to, review and promote Pakistani music(ians). She currently teaches, conducts and publishes research utilizing an innovative methodology, on routinely collected data in low resource health settings within Asia and Africa to advocate for evidence-based change within health, locally. She has led a first of its kind Ebola data mining exercise training students to extract data from scanned files of the outbreak and helped with the refugee crisis in Europe too.
Saikat Majumdar
Saikat Majumdar teaches world literature at Stanford University and is the author, most recently, of the novel, The Firebird (2015), which tells the story of the vanishing world of Bengali popular theatre as seen through the eyes of a young boy and his actress mother. Saikat’s first novel, Silverfish (2007), was set in colonial Bengal and late-twentieth century Calcutta; his book of criticism, Prose of the World (2013), explored the question of the ordinary and the everyday in modern and contemporary world literature. His fiction, non-fiction and criticism appears in leading academic venues and in mainstream outlets such as The Hindustan Times, The Hindu, Outlook, Caravan, Mint, Scroll, etc. Saikat grew up in Calcutta and has spent the last sixteen years studying and teaching in the US and Canada, and has taught as a visiting professor in Jawaharlal Nehru, Jadavpur, Ashoka and Delhi universities.
Salim Arif
Salim Arif is an illustrious alumnus of National School of Drama, New Delhi.
A very well known name in the field of Indian Theatre and Films, he is currently the Head of Department of Cultural Studies in Whistling Woods International, Mumbai, Asia’s leading Film School. He is also associated with Navi Mumbai International Film Festival as Director, Cultural Affairs.
A Writer-Director, he is also on the visiting faculty of several prestigious institutions including National School of Drama, New Delhi, Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, BNA, Lucknow, National Institute of Fashion Technology, Mumbai and National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. He is also a resource person for Sangeet Natak Akademy, New Delhi.
He was awarded the prestigious Habib Tanvir Samman,Vishwa Hindi Akademy’s Hindi Sewa Samman and Urdu Adab Award of U.P. Hindi-Urdu Award Committee for his contribution in Theatre.
Samar Halarnkar
A reporter and writer who lives in Bangalore, Halarnkar is the author of “Nirvana Under the Rain Tree”, an early chronicle of India’s internet revolution, and “A Married Man’s Guide to Creative Cooking -- And Other Dubious Adventures. He is the editor of Indiaspend.org, a data-driven, public-interest journalism non-profit. He also writes on social and economic change in India, science and technology, the treatment of women and religious affairs. He has been a visiting lecturer at the University of California-Berkeley and most recently a fellow at the Nieman Foundation, Harvard University. A journalist for 24 years, his last full-time job was Managing Editor of the Hindustan Times, where he took a special interest in creating teams of reporters to cover issues of public importance, such as urban renewal, hunger and poverty. A native of Goa, Halarnkar is an enthusiastic cook, the fallout of his culinary experiences finding their way into a popular cooking column that runs in Mint.
Sarah Farooqui
Sarah Farooqui is the Editor of Pragati – The Indian National Interest Review. She also runs Takshashila's flagship course, the Graduate Certificate in Public Policy (GCPP).
Sarah holds a degree in English Literature from St Stephen's College, Delhi and was a part of the pioneer cohort of Takshashila's Graduate Certificate in Public Policy course. She has previously worked at the Public Affairs Centre, Bangalore where she anchored multiple projects studying the design and implementation of child protection policies and laws across Karnataka for the Ministry of Women and Child Development and the IDRC. She has also worked with Smile Foundation, an NGO working on education, employability and accessable healthcare for young adults in cities across the country.
Her interests fluctuate from Turkish politics, public policy, international relations, literary and political theory, theatre, religion and cats. She has written opinion pieces in Pragati – The Indian National Interest Review and DNA online. She infrequently blogs at terranullius.nationalinterest.in
Savia Viegas
Savia Viegas is a writer, artist and academic living in Carmona, Goa. Her novels and exhibitions include "Museum thru Indian eyes" - a photographic exhibition at NCPA sponsored by USEFI held in March 2005. Her debut novel "Tales from the Attic" was published in March 2007. In December 2009 "Picturing Us" her solo exhibition of paintings was held. Her second novel, "Let me tell you about Quinta" was published by Penguin India in 2011. Her illustrated fiction work "Abha Nama" and "Eddi and Diddi" was published in November 2012. Her second solo show entitled 'Mementos' was exhibited at Sunaparanta in 2014.
Shahid Amin
Shahid Amin (M.A., Delhi; D.Phil. Oxon.) taught history at the University of Delhi, 1985-2015. He has been a Fellow at Stanford Humanities Centre, Shelby Cullom Davis Centre, Princeton University and the Institute of Advanced Studies, Berlin, Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago and Columbia University, and Rajni Kothari Chair at CSDS, Delhi. His publications include Event, Metaphor, Memory: Chauri Chaura, 1922-1992 (1995 & 2006), ed. A Concise Encyclopedia of North Indian Peasant Life (2005) and Writing Alternative Histories: A View from India (2002). His most recent work, Conquest & Community: the afterlife of warrior saint Ghazi Miyan was published by Orient BlackSwan, Delhi in August 2015. He has co-edited Nimnvargiya prasang, bhag ek-do (1995-2000), and also authored the Hindustani dialogue of the feature film Karvaan, directed by Pankaj Butalia, starring Nasiruddin Shah.
Shakti Sinha
Shakti Sinha, Chairperson of an upcoming think tank, South Asian Institute for Strategic Affairs (SAISA), is also the head of Policy Research Group at the Bureau of Research in Industry and Economic Fundamentals (BRIEF), an economic think tank. He has a master’s in public policy from George Mason University, and a master in Indian and Chinese history from Delhi University. He was a member of India’s higher civil service – the Indian Administrative Service – from 1979 to 2013. He has held positions at different levels at the federal, provincial and local levels, including as private secretary/ joint secretary to prime minister (Vajpayee), head of Delhi’s power utility, finance secretary in Delhi provincial government, chief secretary (chief executive) of the Andaman government and others. He has very close links with Goa, where he was posted from 1985-92. The posts included Collector of Goa, MD Goa Tourism, Secretary (GA, Education, Sports, Protocol, etc) and Member Secretary Kala Akademi. Highlights of his Goa tenure included handling the visit of Pope John Paul II, organising transport networks after the collapse of the Mandovi Bridge (the only link then between North & South Goa), law & order issues that accompanied the language agitation, construction of international stadium at Fatorda in a record 7 months. Honoured by Goa government in 1986 when Goa celebrated its silver anniversary of Liberation as among those who have contributed exceptionally. Highest honour was being accepted by society as a honorary Goenkar.
Internationally, he headed the United Nation’s governance & development team in Afghanistan (2006-09) coordinating donor support to the Afghan government, and was earlier Senior Advisor to Executive Director on the World Bank board (2000-2004). Mr Sinha has worked at think tanks in India (Observer Research Foundation) and Singapore (Institute of South Asian Studies) and written many book chapters, working papers, briefs, columns etc on political economy of India, Indian foreign policy & strategic affairs, Chinese economy and politics, and on Afghanistan, for global and Indian publications.
Sharmila Rao
Dr. Sharmila Rao P.N. a Dentist on sabbatical, and a hypnotherapist. She is a dancer and teaches movement in theatre for the Kala Academy school of drama as a visiting faculty. For the past 10yrs her students have been performing Ramakatha at Margao for the Bharatiya Samskritika Samiti and have performed Ramakatha rendered by various poets and storytellers. She has also presented papers at international conferences on spirituality and Indian performing arts, and spirituality and health. She is a published author, of short stories in Kannada and English latest being a contribution to Coconut Fronds an anthology of Goan stories where she has explored the myth of Narakasura. She is a blogger and run three blogs one personal blog, one health blog and one on books. She is a regular contributor to The Speaking Tree. Book reviews can be read on kitabikida.wordpress.com
Shubha Vilas
Shubha Vilas is a best - selling author with a degree in Electronic Engineering and Patent Law. He found his calling in spirituality, choosing to be a spiritual seeker and a motivational speaker. Writing books is an extension of his spiritual calling.
Traveling across the globe, he teaches the importance of being governed by dharmic principles, meting out contemporary wisdom to deal with modern-day life situations.
He interacts with the youth across the world, inspiring them through pioneering management courses based on his books titled ‘Ramayana – The Game of Life’.
The books provide deep insights on how human relationships work or how they fail; how leaders can maximize their potential; and how the ancient epic holds immediate relevance to modern life.
The USP of his seminars is application of scriptural wisdom in day-to-day living, addressing needs of personnel of corporate houses on themes such as ‘Secrets of Lasting Relationships’, and ‘Circular Leadership’.
Given his love for books, he heads Tulsi Books Publications, a publishing house that propagates spiritual thinking and reasoning.
Sonia Rodrigues Sabharwal
Born on 31st August 1968. I have completed my Bachelor Degree in Fine Arts from Goa College of Arts, Bombay University in 1989.
Have 10 solo shows to my credit, Amchem Sobit Ddiaz an exclusive exhibition of paintings and drawings for The 46th International Film Festival at the ESG, Art Gallery ,Goa 2015;The Passion of Christ, Art Chamber, Goa in 2006; Galeria Vieira da Silva, Embassy of Portugal, New Delhi in 2004. Apart from this I have been a part of numerous shows. The Sacred , by Galleria at The Museum Gallery, Mumbai in 2008; The Sacred , by Galleria at the Visual Arts Gallery, New Delhi; Aparanta-, The Confluence of Contempory Art In Goa, Goa; Mapping the roots, the 3rd European Union Cultural Weeks by The Embassy of Portugal, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi in 2007; Draw the line ,Sunaapranta Goa 2011; ;Group show ,NewDelhi 2013; Two Artist Exhibition ,Lalit Kala ,NewDelhi 2013.
I have been a recipient of the Artist’s Residency Program at the Convento Da Arrabida, Portugal from the Fundacao Oriente of Portugal in 2002; State Art Awards, in Painting instituted by Govt. of Goa in 1994, 1996, 1997; was nominated for the UNESCO Award in Painting by Kala Academy, Goa in 1994; had received a Research Grant Scholarship in Painting from Lalit Kala Academy, New Delhi in 1992-92.
Have won the prestigious award,’YUVA SRUJAN PURASKAR”
(Navasarjan Chetna Puraskar) from the Directorate of Art and Culture, Government of Goa for the year 2012-2013 in the field of Painting
2014 - Have also received the SENIOR FELLOWSHIP for 2012- 13 in the field of Painting (Visual Art) for a period of two years with effect from 1st August 2014 awarded by Ministry of Culture, Govt. of India. New Delhi.
Sriram Karri
Sriram Karri, novelist and columnist, wrote his first book, ‘History of Freedom Movement of India’ at age of 12. His first published work, The Spiritual Supermarket, was longlisted for Crossword Book Award, and his debut novel, Autobiography of a Mad Nation, was in the MAN Asian Literary prize longlist.
He has written for The New York Times, The Guardian, The Hindu, The New Indian Express, Deccan Chronicle, The Wire and Scroll. He has been a technology brander and has worked for TCS, ISB, Infosys, Satyam and co-founded a tech startup.
Steven Gutkin
Steven Gutkin, who runs the weekly newspaper Goa Streets, is an award-winning journalist who has reported from some two dozen countries in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and the Americas. An international newsman for 30 years, Steven served as Bureau Chief with the Associated Press, the world’s largest news gathering organization, in Israel and the Palestinian Territories, AP Bureau Chief in Caracas, Venezuela, as well as AP’s Chief of Southeast Asia Services, first in Singapore and then in Indonesia. Steven has also worked for the New York Times, the Washington Post, Newsweek and CBS Radio. He covered the rise and fall of the Medellin and Cali cocaine cartels in Colombia, rode into Kabul with a triumphant Northern Alliance and directed coverage of wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza and Lebanon. He also led coverage of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill for the AP, and helped lead the news cooperative’s operations in the southern United States. The Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar was caught partly because he lingered on the phone with his son to answer Steven’s questions, and the cops traced the call. Steven covered the killing of Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, hurricanes in Puerto Rico and Mexico, the death of Yasser Arafat, the Elian Gonzales case in Cuba, a coup in Fiji and the rise to power of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.
Subodh Kerkar
Dr. Subodh Kerkar gave up his medical profession to pursue his passion for visual art. For the past 25 years he has experimented with different media creating a niche for himself as an installation artist.
Some of his selected works/ shows include: ‘The Ocean and Art’, lecture at the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands, and Sculpture by the Sea, Aarhus, 2015 in Denmark in 2015; ‘Janela - Migrating Forms & Migrating Gods’ A collateral Event presented by MOG at Kochi Muziris Biennale 2014 at Kochi, Kerala; Label 201 Gallery, Rome; ‘Sparsha -Touching the Senses. Ritual and contemporary Indian art’ at Kunstmuseum, Bochum, Germany; Sculpture by the Sea, Cottesloe, 2014 in Australia; ‘Water Bodies’, exhibition organized by INKO Centre and Arts Council (Korea) in Chennai in 2014.
Art Direction for the Award winning film, ‘Baga Beach’; Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi 2013 in Australia; Strarta Art Fair at Saatchi Gallery, London; ‘The Pepper Cross’ exhibition at Canvas International, Art, Amsterdam; United Art Fair, New Delhi; Sculpture by the Sea, Cottesloe, in Australia in 2013.
‘Unsung in Life; Unclaimed in Death’ project for Raqs Media Collective, organized at Devi Art Foundation, New Delhi; ‘The Pepper Cross’ exhibition at Zitadelle Spandau, Berlin, Germany; Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi 2012 in Australia; Invited to create an installation at Marina beach, Chennai for Chennai Art Fair in 2012. ‘Unfolding of a Dream’, an installation in support of the Tibetan cause, created with the blessing of HH, the Dalai Lama at Vagator beach, Goa in 2011.
Ruhr Biennale, Duisburg, Germany, and The presence of the absence’, installation for Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla in 2010. Exhibition titled ‘The Art of India - 20 years of Contemporary Art’ in Gallery Neumeister, Munich, organised by The Indian Institute, Munich on its 80th Anniversary in 2009. Jam Jar Gallery, Dubai in 2009/ 2007. Canvas International Art, Amsterdam in 2008; Gulf Art Fair, Dubai in 2007; Award winning installation for Busan Biennale Sea Art Festival, South Korea in 2006.
20 installations for Mumbai Festival in 2005, Half a kilometer of installations for the International Film Festival of India, Goa in 2005/ 2004; Kronen Gallery, Zurich in 2003, Hillestad Gallery, Norway in 2002 and Fundacao Oriente, Macao in 2000.
Sukrita Paul Kumar
Sukrita Paul Kumar, born and brought up in Kenya, is a well-known poet and critic. She holds the Aruna Asaf Ali Chair at Cluster Innovation Centre, Delhi University. Formerly, a Fellow of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, she is an Honorary Fellow of the prestigious International Writing Programme, University of Iowa (USA). A recipient of many fellowships and residencies, Sukrita is also an artist.
Her books of poems include Dream Catcher, Poems Come Home (with translations by Gulzar), Without Margins and Folds of Silence. Amongst others, Sukrita’s critical works are Narrating Partition and The New Story. Her edited/co-edited books include Speaking for Herself: Asian Women’s Writings (Penguin) and many others.
Sushila Sawant Mendes
Sushila Sawant Mendes has a doctorate in history from Goa University. For the past 26 years, she has been the head of the Department of History at the Government College of Arts, Science and Commerce, Quepem in Goa, where she worked as Vice Principal for two terms. Her interest in history has been life-long, while her focus on political consciousness began during her years as a front ranking student activist. This preoccupation led her to research the impact of Luis de Menezes Braganca on Goa’s anti-colonial struggle. She presents papers regularly at state and national seminars, many of which have found a place in books on the history of Goa. Ms. Sawant Mendes is a trustee of the Manovikas Public Charitable Trust. She is also a trustee of Silver Star Appeal (India), a foundation devoted to awareness of diabetes. She is widely travelled across the country as well as Europe.
Tania De Rozario
Tania De Rozario is an artist and writer engaged with issues of gender, sexuality, and art as activism. Her practice hovers on the intersections between text and image, and her work has been showcased in London, Spain, Amsterdam, Singapore, New York and San Francisco.
Tania is the author of Tender Delirium (Math Paper Press | 2013), and was the 2011 recipient of the NAC-SPH Golden Point Award for English Poetry. She is an Associate Artist with The Substation, Singapore's oldest independent arts centre, and runs EtiquetteSG, a platform which develops and showcases art, writing, film and music made by women
Trusha Ganesh
Trusha Ganesh, a 14 years old Class IX student of Vidya Vikas Academy, Margao, has been living in Curtorim, Goa for the last 6 and a half years. An avid blogger, she loves writing on anything and everything. She started her first blog at the age of 9 and has since moved on to maintaining the following 4 blogs – chiqutam.wordpress.com, woofdiaries.wordpress.com, preteenrebel.wordpress.com, and theklutzdaily.wordpress.com, each having its own sets of loyal followers.
In 2013, she was a “Grand First Prize Winner” at the nationwide “Max Life Insurance i-Genius Young Author’s Hunt”, which received over fifty thousand entries. Her story was one of the fifty short stories in “i-genius A twist in the Tale”, published by Rupa, making her the youngest published author in Goa at age 11. The selection jury included Chetan Bhagat and Ruskin Bond.
Additionally, she has authored several newspaper and magazine articles. Her writing and interviews have been featured in the Times of India, Planet Goa, The Navhind Times and The Herald. She has also been featured in the Author Speak section of AnuReviews.com, India’s most prolific book reviews’ blog.
Trusha is also a very passionate Karate and Kobodu exponent. She is a black belt and national level Karate champion. She “relaxes” by playing the piano, taking part in triathlons and dreaming of making a difference to this world.
Vedica Kant
Vedica Kant is the author of ‘If I die here, who will remember me?': India and the First World War. Vedica was born and raised in India. She holds an M.Phil degree in Modern Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Oxford and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Political Science from Singapore Management University. Vedica’s interest in the Indian story of the war grew out of her research into the wartime experience of the Ottoman Empire against which many Indians found themselves fighting between 1914 – 1918. She has written widely about the First World War from both an Indian and Turkish perspective in newspapers, magazines and scholarly publications. She also frequently writes on South Asian and Middle Eastern history, politics and culture.
Venkat Dhulipala
Venkat Dhulipala is Associate Professor of History at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. His book Creating a New Medina: State Power, Islam, and the Quest for Pakistan in Late Colonial North India has attracted much critical acclaim since its publication in February 2015 by Cambridge University Press. He has a doctorate in History from the University of Minnesota besides degrees from the University of Wisconsin Madison and University of Hyderabad.
Vincy Quadros
Vincy Quadros is a Konkani Writer, Translator, Actor, Anchor, Cultural Activist & a Organizer. Born in Raia, Goa in the year 1964 and post-graduated at Karnataka University, Dharwad, has penned down around 13 books of short stories, and novels including children literature. He has also transliterated more than 6 books. He is one of the Bible translators in Konkani. His unpublished works in the Tiatr field and poetry are also admired. Vincy Quadros has served as editor and editorial board member for several publications in Konkani. He has presented research papers at national and international level. His works are in included in many journals and books. His articles on contemporary subjects feature in most of the Konkani magazines every month. He is children litereute who has organized Children conferences. He has served and written a novel on workers movement. He is actively involved with many NGOs and educational institutions. He serves his parish as a catechist and other church institutions. Vincy Quadros has been awarded and honoured by Konkani Bhasha Mandal, Dalgado Konkani Akademi, Goa Konkani Akademi, Thomas Stephens Konkani Kendra ani many other social organisations. He has assisted research works as well including Konkani-English Dictionary. Presently he is President of All India Konkani Writers' Organisation and also serves as Secretary for Dalgado Konknni Akademi, which works for the upliftment of Konkani in Roman Script.
Vinutha Mallya
Vinutha Mallya is the Principal at LineSpace Consulting, a publishing advisory based in Bangalore. She is a consulting editor to Mapin Publishing, a contributing editor to Publishing Perspectives, and an advisor to the Publishing Next conference. Vinutha has a keen interest in documenting and reporting on the Indian book-publishing industry. She manages and edits Booksy.In, a web resource for the publishing industry in India. She has a master’s degree in Journalism from Goldsmiths College, London, and a master’s degree in Communication from Manipal University. She has reported for newspapers, written for online news sites, developed content for e-learning courses and also been a faculty for the NBT’s publishing course. She began a career in book publishing over a decade years ago and has since edited illustrated books, environmental research publications, motivational learning books, fiction and poetry. She recently co-founded Kaavi Literary Agency which represents writers of Indian languages.
Vishnu Surya Wagh
Vishnu Surya Wagh, a multifaceted personality from Goa who has created an indelible stamp of his own in the arena of politics, literature, jounalism, art & culture with his versatility, is the proud son of Goa. Shri Wagh has been elected as a Member of the Legislative Assembly in the Assembly elections (Macrh 2012) from St. Andre Constituency with a thumping margin of electoral votes. He is well known in Goa and Maharashtra for his contribution as a Poet, Writer, Playwright, Journalist, Actor, Lyricist, Script-writer, Dialogue – writer, Artist, Cartoonist, Eloquent Orator and Scholar of Saint-Literature. Presently he is occupying the post of Chairman of Kala Academy Goa – the apex cultural body of Government of Goa. He is also the Vice-Chairman of Entertainment Society of Goa which organizes the International Film Festival of India.
Vishvesh Kandolkar
Vishvesh Kandolkar is a regular contributor to editorials for local newspaper column. He interest includes architectural theory and history; settlement studies; and urban design. He is an architect by training and holds a Masters degree with specialisation in Urban Design. He is currently teaching at Goa College of Architecture as an Associate Professor
Vivek Menezes
Vivek Menezes is a co-founder and Festival Curator of GALF alongside Damodar Mauzo. He is a widely published writer and photographer, and frequent contributor to leading periodicals in India and abroad, as
well as a weekly columnist for Times of India. His reviews and essays about literature and art are regularly featured in publications like Art India and Mint. VM was born in Bombay, went to high school in New York, and holds degrees from Wesleyan University and the London School of Economics. Previous career highlights include driving the safari train at the Bronx Zoo, cataloguing the private archives of Francis Newton Souza, serving as Capt. Jacques Cousteau's personal economic advisor, and building Sachin Tendulkar's first official website. VM lives adjacent to where the Mandovi river merges with the Arabian Sea near Miramar beach, along with his wife and three sons.
Vivek Shanbhag
Vivek Shanbhag writes in Kannada. He has published five short story collections, three novels and two plays, and has edited two anthologies, one of them in English. He published and edited the literary journal Desha Kaala. His critically acclaimed novel, Ghachar Ghochar is forthcoming from HarperCollins India in an English translation in December 2015. An engineer by training, Vivek currently works for a multinational and lives in Bangalore.
Yudhishthir Raj Isar
Yudhishthir Raj Isar is an independent analyst, advisor and public speaker who straddles variousworlds of cultural theory, experience and practice. Professor of Cultural Policy Studies at The American University of Paris and Adjunct Professor at the Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University. Co-founder of the Cultures and Globalization Series (SAGE).Trustee of several cultural organizations and consultant to international organizations and foundations. Past President of the association Culture Action Europe. Earlier, at UNESCO, he was notably Executive Secretary of the World Commission on Culture and Developmentand Director of the International Fund for the Promotion of Culture.
Yvonne Vaz Ezdani
I grew up in Burma, married and had two daughters there. We repatriated to Goa in the early 1980s and I now live in my paternal family home in Saligao, Goa. I was a teacher and now work as a school counsellor. I love reading, writing and travelling to visit and spend time with my daughters and their families. My first book 'Songs of the Survivors' was published in December 2007.
Zac O'Yeah
Zac O'Yeah is the author of popular comic thrillers "Once Upon a Time in Scandinavistan" (2010) and "Mr. Majestic!" (2013) and eleven other books, and he has been translated into several languages. His latest novel is "Hari, a Hero for Hire" (2015). His books range from bestselling detective fiction to history and travelogue, and he has also translated Indian literature into Swedish. As a veteran travel writer, he is a frequent contributor to National Geographic Traveller magazine, and he is also a columnist with The Hindu BusinessLine and an influential literary critic. Download his updates from www.zacoyeah.com
