Ashok Vajpeyi
Ashok Vajpeyi a Hindi poet-critic, translator, editor and culture-activist, is a major cultural figure of India. With more than 30 books of poetry, criticism in Hindi English to his credit, he is widely recognised as an outstanding promoter of culture and an innovative institution-builder. Over the years he has worked tirelessly to enhance the mutual awareness and interaction between Indian and foreign cultures. He has organised more than a thousand events to his credit relating to literature, music, dances, theatre, visual arts, folk and tribal arts, cinema etc. He has been awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award, the Dayawati Kavi Shekhar Samman, Kabir Samman, Shakti Chattopadhyay Puraskar, K Ramkrishnan Award etc and awarded D.Lit. by the Central University of Hyderabad and ITM University. Also, he has been decorated by Poland with the outstanding national award ‘The Officer’s Cross of Merit of the Republic of Poland’ and the French Govt. by the award of ‘Officier De L’Ordre Des Arts Et Des Lettres’.
He set up the renowned Bharat Bhavan in Bhopal; has been the first Vice-Chancellor of Mahatma Gandhi International Hindi University and Chairman, Lalit Kala Akademi. A retired civil servant, now the Managing Trustee of the Raza Foundation.
Prof A Aravindakshan
Prof A Aravindakshan retired as the Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Mahatma Gandhi International Hindi University, Wardha (Maharashtra). Both as a Pro Vice Chancellor and as the Dean, Faculty of Humanities, Cochin University of Science and Technology, Cochin (Kerala), he was instrumental in bringing about revolutionary changes in the Courses of Studies and also in generating teaching and research material of the highest order on exclusive websites that proved to be the treasures of the Hindi world His publications in the field of comparative literature, cultural studies, basic education, and translation studies are highly cherished both in the Hindi and the Malayalam study circles.
He has over 50 published books and 200 published papers to his credit Recipient of various literary and academic awards like the Millennium Award, Hindi Ratna Award and many others, he is also a celebrated poet and a translator of eminence.
Dr A J Thomas
Dr A J Thomas is an Indian English poet, fiction writer, translator and editor. He translates poetry, fiction, drama and non-fiction prose from Malayalam to English and has more than 20 titles to his credit. He has been in the editorial team of Indian Literature, India’s national literary journal, for more than 20 years as its Assistant Editor, Editor and as Guest Editor now.
His noted contributions include Germination (Poetry, 1989), Aagaami Pal Ka Nirman (His poetry in Hindi translation-2010), ONV Kurup’s verse-novel Ujjayini, (Rupa) This Ancient Lyre (Sahitya Akademi), Like a Psalm(translation of Perumpadavam Sreedharan’s acclaimed novel Oru Sankeertanam Pole which sold more than 350, 000 copies in Malayalam over the last 25 years), and many others published by Katha, Penguin etc. A Senior Fellow, Department of Culture, Govt of South Korea, he is the recipient of many prestigious awards like Katha Award and AKMG Prize (which enabled him to tour USA, UK and Europe for 4 months in 1997 where he earned many accolades.
Prof Anand Prakash
Anand Prakash, PhD, taught English Literature in a Delhi University College till retirement in 2007. He has written extensively on literary theory and has interpreted texts and trendswith tremendous insightsHe has published poems in English and Hindi. Some of his published books include Marxist Literary Theory; Wuthering Heights: An Interpretation, (both published by Academic Foundation); Muktibodh in Our Time (co-authored, Lokmitra), Text and Performance( co authored, Macmillan) among others. His editedvolumes include Nineteenth Century Thoughts and Modern Indian Thought:Interventions( WorldviewPublications).
His books in Hindi include Hindi Kahani Ki Vikas Prakriya (Lok Bharti, Allahabad), Samkaleen Kavita: Prashna Aur Jigyasayen (Lokmitra), and others.
Prof Anjana Sharma
Dr. Anjana Sharma received her Ph. D. in English Literature from Pennsylvania State. Her doctoral thesis (Autobiography of Desire: English Jacobin Women Novelists of the 1790s, Macmillan, 2004) contested the idea of the hegemony of the six canonical, Romantic male poets Later she also published a volume of critical essays on what she sees as a critique of the model of the masculine Romanticism in the seminal text by Mary Shelley: Frankenstein: Interrogating Gender, Culture and Identity (Macmillan, 2004). She has also consistently worked with and published in the area of Indian Writing in English with a special focus on gender and culture. Another area of critical inquiry, that developed through the course of her teaching, deals with cross-cultural examination of the idea of the same and gave shape to a collaborative work with an Australian Scholar, the late Professor Terry Collits of La Trobe University entitled Agamemnon’s Mask: Greek Tragedy and Beyond (Macmillan, 2007). Her current research, which is a collaboration with a sociologist, Dr Gopa Sabharwal (Lady Shri Ram College for Women), is a two-part book deal on the year 1947 in English language newspapers and the “public” representation of M. K. Gandhi in the year 1947-48. She was also the Editor for Revolutionary Aesthetics: Writing Nation/ Embodying Gender, The Yearly Review, English Department, University of Delhi, 2007.
Anisur Rehman
Anisur Rahman, formerly a Professor of English at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, is currently Senior Advisor at Rekhta Foundation. His most recent publications are Earthenware: Sixty Poems, In Translation: Positions and Paradigms, Hazaaron Khwahishein Aisi: The Wonderful World of UrduGhazals, Socioliterary Cultures in South Asia and A Garden of All Senses: Five Centuries of Best Urdu Poetry.
Deepak Sharma
An academician, Deepak Sharma taught English literature in the Department of English, Christian Postgraduate College, Lucknow. Now retired. Deepak Sharma has 21 collections of short stories in Hindi. Celebrated both for her astute insights into the ironies of life and her brilliant depiction of characters drawn from varied sections of society. Has been frequently published in Visheshanks of important journals like Hans, Kathadesh, Aajkal and Kathakram.
Duggirala Subba Rao
Duggirala Subba Rao, Ph. D. , known as D. S. Rao, is an author, literary critic, retired professor of English, and former Editor of Indian Literature, the academic and literary bimonthly of Sahitya Akademi, the National Academy of Letters, India. His original works include: Practical Literary Criticism: An Indian Take (2017); Manohar Malgonkar: A Study of His Complete Fiction (2013); and Five Decades: A Short History of Sahitya Akademi (2005). His translations from Telugu into English include Tripuraneni Gopichand’s Merupula Marakalu as Usha Rani, A Tale of Sense and Sensuality (2013), and Asamardhuni Jeevayatra as The Bungler, A Journey Through Life (2003). He has edited twenty issues of Indian Literature, and several books in English for Sahitya Akademi. Presently he is based in Minneapolis, and divides his time between the USA and India.
Prof Girishwar Mishra
Girishwar Misra, PhD. is former Vice-Chancellor of Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya, Wardha (Maharashtra). Earlier he has served as Professor of Psychology at the University of Delhi for two decades. He had also taught at the Universities of Bhopal, Allahabad and Gorakhpur. He was a Fulbright Senior Fellow at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and Swarthmore College, Philadelphia, and also Fulbright-Nehru Scholar and Lecturer at New School of Social Research, New York. His major publications include Psychological Consequences of Prolonged Deprivation (NPC, with L. B. Tripathi), Deprivation: It’s Social Roots and Psychological Consequences, Psychology and Docietal Development among many others. He has also served as the President of National Academy of Psychology, India. He is a recipient of many awards such as Jawaharlal Nehru National Award by the Government of Madhya Pradesh, among others.
Prof K Satchidanandan
Prof K Satchidanandan is a Malayalam poet, playwright, travel writer, essayist and bilingual critic and translator. He is a former Secretary of the Sahitya Akademi, and has published 24 collections of poetry in Malayalam and 33 collections of poetry in 22 languages including Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, English, German, Irish, and Italian besides all the major Indian languages. He has so far won 52 regional, national and international awards for his literary contribution including Kerala Sahitya Akademi awards in five genres, Sahitya Akademi award, Ezhuthachhan award, the highest award for a writer in Kerala besides Tata Literature Live Poet Laureate award, Knighthood from the Government of Italy and Indo-Poland Friendship Medal from the Government of Poland. He was in the Ladbroke list of ten probable Nobel Prize winners in 2011.
Prof Kumkum Sangari
Kumkum Sangari is the William F. Vilas Research Professor of English and the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She has been a Professorial Fellow at the Centre for Contemporary Studies, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi; a Visiting Fellow at Yale University, Delhi University and Jadavpur University; and a Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago, Central European University, University of London (SOAS), University of Erfurt and Ambedkar University.
Dr Sangari has published extensively on British, American and Indian literature.
She is the author of Solid Liquid: A transnational reproductive formation (2015) and Politics of the Possible: Essays on Gender, History, Narratives, Colonial English (1999).
Prof Malashri Lal
Malashri Lal recently retired from her academic and administrative positions at the University of Delhi’s English department. She is a member for the English Advisory Board of the Sahitya Akademi and Bharatiya Jnanpith’s advisory committee. Her specialisation is in literature, women and gender studies. Her books include In Search of Sita: Revisiting Mythology, Tagore and the Feminine: A Journey Through Translations and Finding Radha: The Quest for Love. Lal has been a Senior Consultant to the Ministry of Culture, UGC nominee on Committees and a member of international book award juries.
Mamta Kalia
Mamta Kalia is a prominent Indian writer known for her invaluable contribution towards literature in form of short stories, plays, novels, essays and poetry. Born in 1940 in Vrindavan, Kalia, 77, received MA in English from Delhi University before taking up a lectureship at SNDT University in Mumbai. Since 1973, she headed a degree college in Allahabad before retiring in 2001. Kalia is known for her works in Hindi and English including “Beghar”, ”Janch Abhi Jaari Hai”, “Nirmohi” and “Bolne Wali Aurat”. She received the Vyas Samman for 2017 for her novel “Dukkham Sukkham”.
Mridula Garg
Mridula Garg is equally proficient in Hindi and English and has written 27 books comprising almost every genre in Hindi. Her latest work is a novel in English called The Last Email published in 2017-18. Her novels like Chittacobra and Kathgulab have gained iconic status.
Among other awards, her novel, Kathgulab was awarded the Vyas Samman in 2004 and Miljul Mann, the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2013. She received the Hellman-Hammet Grant from The Human Rights Watch, New York in 2001 and Ram Manohar Lohia Samman from UP Hindi Sansthan in 2015. Many of her stories have been translated in other Indian languages as well as German, Russian, Croatian, Italian, Czech and Japanese. Widely published internationally, she also wrote a column of satirical essays for 5 years in Ravivar (1985-1990) and 7 years in India Today (2003-2010). She is a global academic, and was the keynote speaker at the UN Colloquium for Women at IOWA and a Research Associate at UC Berkeley, the USA in 1990.
Mrinal Pandey
Mrinal Panday taught at the Universities of Allahabad, Delhi and Bhopal before switching to journalism in the mid-1980s. She has edited well known Hindi periodicals, Vama and Saptahik Hindustan for the Times of India and the Hindustan Times group respectively. In 2000 Mrinal became India’s first woman Chief Editor of a multi-edition Hindi daily, Hindustan, (Hindustan Times Group). She was also the woman to be Secretary General of the Editors’ Guild of India. She is the founder President of the Indian Women’s Press Corps, a national body of India’s women journalists. After her retirement in 2009, from the print media, Mrinal was appointed Chairman of India’s national broadcaster, Prasar Bharati in 2010. Mrinal has been writing in both Hindi and in English. Her work covers fiction, plays, and essays on contemporary India and its women and a study of India’s rural women and their sexual and reproductive lives. She was awarded the Padmashree in 2006 for her services in the field of journalism.
Namita Gokhale
Namita Gokhale is a writer, publisher and festival director, and the author of twenty books including ten works of fiction. Her recent novel Jaipur Journals was set against the backdrop of the vibrant Jaipur Literature Festival, of which Gokhale is a founder-director. Her forthcoming books include Betrayed by Hope: A Play on the Life of Michael Madhusudan Dutt and a new novel The Blind Matriarch.
Namita Gokhale was conferred the Centenary National Award for Literature by the Assam Sahitya Sabha “for her literary contributions as well as her service to the nation in supporting and showcasing literary talents and creating a literary environment in the country”.
She is a director of Yatra Books, a multilingual publishing company specialising in creative writing and translations. She has served as member-secretary of Indian Literature Abroad (ILA), an initiative of the Culture Ministry to translate and promote literature from the Indian languages into major international languages.
Poonam Trivedi
Poonam Trivedi taught English at Indraprastha College, University of Delhi. She has specialised in Shakespeare Studies with a PhD from the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham. She has published articles and books in this area, especially on women in Shakespeare, on stage and film performance of Shakespeare in India, including India’s Shakespeare: Translation, Interpretation and Performance (2005), Re-playing Shakespeare in Asia (2010) and Shakespeare and Indian Cinemas: ‘Local habitations’ (2019). She has been the recipient of Fellowships at Queen Mary College, University of London, University of Hyderabad, Jadavpur University and has lectured at Rhodes College, Memphis, the University of San Francisco among others. She is currently the Vice-chair of the Asian Shakespeare Association.
Pravin Chandra Sharma
Pravin Chandra Sharma was well known as a poet and academic of substance much before he joined the IAS. He writes poems in Hindi and has been published in major journals of Hindi. Both his poems and scholarly treatises had won acclaim by veterans such as Indranath Madan, Krishna Baldev Vaid, Kunwar Narain, Ramesh Kuntal Megh and Shrilal Shukla. He first taught in a Delhi University College. From there he went to the Department of English, Punjab University in 1965. In 1967 he joined IAS. Pravin Chandra Sharma retired as Chairman of Vigilance Commission, UP and of UPSRTC. His collection of poems is still referred to as a landmark.
Prof Purushottam Agrawal
Purushottam Agrawal is a renowned scholar of early modern poetry and the author of a definitive study of Kabir titled Akath Kahani Prem Ki: Kabir Ki Kavita Aur Unka Samay. His novel Nachus constructs a Kafkaesque fantasy around the politics of hurt sentiments. His Padmavat: An Epic Love Story, a sensitive reading of Jayasi’s classic, has been extremely well received. His latest publications include Who is Bharat Mata? Nehru on History, Culture and the Idea of India.
Prof Radhavallabh Tripathi
Radhavallabh Tripathi, M.A. Ph.D. D.Litt, served as Professor of Sanskrit at Dr. Harisngh Gour University, SAGAR (M. P. ) from 1983 to 2014. He was a Vice Chancellor at Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan, New Delhi, (2008-2013). For his internationally acclaimed, pathbreaking publications on Nāṭyaśāstra and Sāhityaśāstra, his Encyclopedic Dictionary of Nāṭyaśāstra in four volumes and the Restoration of lost works related to Nāṭyaśāstra, he has received many laurels. Recipient of innumerable awards such as the Sahitya Akademi Award, Sanskrit Sahitya Award by U. P. Sanskrit Academy in 1976 and 1979, he has also worked extensively in the field of Literary History and the Folklore For his contribution to Indology the Asiatic Society of Bombay conferred MM P. V. Kane Memorial Gold medal of 1989 Right now he is preparing a web series on Sanskrit Classics.
Prof Raj Kumar
Prof. Raj Kumar’s research areas, over the years, have been issues relating to caste, class, ethnicity, language, religion and gender in literature. His most recent research projects are on the subjectivity of marginal voices especially on Dalit literature. He has taught Literary Criticism, Indian Literature (MA), and Dalit Literature (MPhil) at university level. He is a recipient of many honors and awards. His publications include Dalit Personal Narratives: Reading Caste, Nation and Identity. Orient BlackSwan, Edited Special Issue on Autobiography, Creative Forum: Journal of Literary and Critical Writings, Vol. 23, No. 1-2, Edited Special Issue on Dalit Writings, Creative Forum: Journal of Literary and Critical Writings, Vol. 20, No. 2, Dalit Literature: A Perspective from Below in Dalit Assertion in Society, Literature and History, edited by Imtiaz Ahmad and Shashi Bhushan Upadhy, Orient BlackSwan, Delhi, 2010, among many others
Prof Rajul Bhargava
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Professor Rajul Bhargava is a Former Head, Department of English, University of Rajasthan (2006-2008), and a Former Head at Department of English, Central University of Haryana (2009-2012). She has an MA in English and an MA in Applied Linguistics from the University of Rochester USA and a PhD in the Sociology of Literature. She has been the recipient of the New York State Scholarship, the Charles Walcott Trust Scholarship and the Ray Tongue Grant and other bursaries. She has 42 years of teaching and research experience in both Linguistics and Literature. Her publications include more than 64 papers in National and International journals and books and she herself is the author of 10 books. She has been a long-standing member of TESOL, IATEFL, ELTAI, ANUPI, ASRC, the Steinbeck Society of America, British Council and American Center and has actively contributed to these forums. She was the founder Secretary of MELUS, India in 1998. Prof Bhargava’s areas of specialization include, besides Linguistics and Language Studies, Narratology especially Women’s Narrativity, Critical Theory and Post Theory Interventions and Translation Studies.
Ranjana Saxena
Ranjana Saxena has been engaged with teaching and research at the University of Delhi since 1989. Her doctoral thesis was on ‘Image of Women in Russian and Russian-Soviet Literature’. Russian literature. Russian women’s writing and history of women’s movement, Russian literature and issues in feminism and gender have been the thrust of her academic pursuit. She conducts PhD, Mphil, MA courses at the University of Delhi on contemporary Russian literature. She has served as a member of the International Editorial Board of the Journal ‘Russian International Philology’. State University of Perm, Russian Federation and was nominated member, Advisory Board, Gender studies Center at Moscow State University, Russian Federation, 2007. She has also been nominated external supervisor by the Abai Kazakh National University, Kazakhastan 2012 and by the Al-Farabi Kazakh National University 2018 for PhD students. She has also been translating Russian literature into Hindi/English. Presently, she is heading the department of Slavonic & Finno-Ugrian Studies at the University of Delhi.
Prof Ranu Uniyal
Ranu Uniyal is Professor of English at Lucknow University. She was awarded Commonwealth Scholarship for Ph.D. in English from Hull University, U. K. Her main research interests are in Indian literature, Women’s writing, Postcolonial literature and Disability Studies. She is the author of Women and Landscape: The Fiction of Margaret Drabble and Anita Desai; Poems: Across the Divide; Raja Rao’s Kanthapura: A Critical Study (co-edited); Women in Indian Writing: From Difference to Diversity, December Poems; Poems: The Day We Went Strawberry Picking In Scarborough. She is also one of the founding members of PYSSUM (www.pyssum.org) a charitable organization for children with special needs in Lucknow.
Prof Rashmi Doraiswamy
Rashmi Doraiswamy is a Professor at the Academy of International Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. Her writings on literature and cinema have been published in prestigious Indian and foreign publications. She is author of The Post-Soviet Condition: ChingizAitmatov in the ’90s (Aakar, 2005) and Guru Dutt: Through Light and Shade (Wisdom Tree, 2008). She has served as an editor in various literary journals. She was the recipient of the National Award for the Best Film Critic in 1994. She was awarded the MAJLIS research fellowship in 1999 for a project entitled ‘Changing Narrative Strategies of Hindi Cinema’. She was invited by the Japan Foundation to participate in a 15-day group tour of film institutions in Japan in October 1999 and by the administration of the President of the Russian Federation to attend the Russian Literary Meeting at PFU, Moscow on 21 November 2013. She was also invited by the Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan to the 3rd Issyk Kul Forum, in October 2018. She was International Observer for the Presidential Elections in Uzbekistan in December 2007 and in 2015. An Honorary Deputy Director of the Academy of Third World Studies from October 2005 to May 2007, she has been Officiating Director of the Academy of International Studies, JMI since August 2015
Ritu Menon
Ritu Menon is a publisher and writer who has been active in the South Asian women’s movement for over 20 years. She is co-founder of Kali for Women, India’s first and oldest feminist press, and founder of Women Unlimited, an associate of Kali for Women. She is co-author of Borders & Boundaries: Women in India’s Partition (Kali for Women, 1998). Her edited book No Woman’s Land: Women from Pakistan, India & Bangladesh Write about the Partition of India was published by Women Unlimited in 2004. Also recently published are Educating Muslim Girls: A Comparison of Five Indian Cities (Women Unlimited, 2005) and Unequal Citizens: A Study of Muslim Women in India (2004), both co-authored with Zoya Hasan, and In a Minority: Essays on Muslim Women in India, co-edited with Zoya Hasan (2005). As part of the Core Group of Women’s WORLD, India, Ritu has co-edited Just Between Us: Women Speak About their Writing (Women Unlimited, 2004) and Storylines: Conversations with Women Writers (Women Unlimited, 2003). Her latest book (co-authored with Kalpana Kannabiran) is titled From Mathura to Manorama: Resisting Violence Against Women in India (Women Unlimited, 2007). She was awarded the Padmashri for her outstanding contribution in the field of publication and gender justice.
Prof Sanjukta Das Gupta
Dr Sanjukta Dasgupta is a Professor and Former Head, Dept of English and Former Dean of Faculty of Arts, Calcutta University. She has been the recipient of the Fulbright postdoctoral fellowship and Fulbright Scholar in Residence grant, among many other competitive grants. She was the Chairperson of the Commonwealth Writers Prize jury panel ( 2003-2005) at Melbourne and Malta in 2004-2005.
She was granted the Charles Wallace Trust UK Translator Fellowship to work on her project on Tagore’s Daughters at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK. She was the Co-Principal Investigator of the India-US Knowledge Initiative program, working on women entrepreneurs engaged in eco-friendly business and in this connection visited several states in the USA in 2016 and 2017. She is the President, Executive Council, of the Indian Poetry and Performance Library, ICCR, Kolkata. Her published works include The Novels of Huxley and Hemingway: A Study in Two Planes of Reality, Responses: Selected Essays, Snapshots (poetry), Dilemma (poetry), First Language (poetry), among others.
Shivmurti
Since the beginning of his writing career, Shivmurthi has impacted the field not only of fiction but also of Performing Arts. Many of his stories, Kasaibada, Bharatnatyam, Tiriyacharittar, Siri Upma Jog and Tarpanetc. have been dramatised, serialised and made into films Tiriyacharittar, Bharatnatyam, Kasaibada and ‘Kuchchi ka Kanoon’ have been staged beautifully at various platforms many a time His books have been translated into many languages. Popular literary magazines like MANCH, LAMAHI, SAMVED and INDIA INSIDE have published special numbers on his contributions Recipient of awards such as Anand Sagar Smriti and Kathakram Samman among many others, he is known for outstanding delineation of characters and situations in day today lifeHis story Kuchhi ka Kanoon has been nominated by MAMI (Mumbai Academy of Moving Image) as the best creative cinematic representation of a modern classic
Sudeep Sen
Sudeep Sen’s prize-winning books include: Postmarked India: New & Selected Poems (HarperCollins), Rain, Aria (A. K. Ramanujan Translation Award), Fractals: New & Selected Poems | Translations 1980-2015 (London Magazine Editions), EroText (Vintage: Penguin Random House), Kaifi Azmi: Poems | Nazms (Bloomsbury) and Anthropocene: Climate Change, Contagion, Consolation (Pippa Rann). He has edited influential anthologies, including: The HarperCollins Book of English Poetry (editor), World English Poetry, Modern English Poetry by Younger Indians (Sahitya Akademi), and Converse: Contemporary English Poetry by Indians (Pippa Rann). Blue Nude: Ekphrasis & New Poems (Jorge Zalamea International Poetry Prize) and The Whispering Anklets are forthcoming. Sen’s works have been translated into over 25 languages. His words have appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, Newsweek, Guardian, Observer, Independent, Telegraph, Financial Times, Herald, Poetry Review, Literary Review, Harvard Review, Hindu, Hindustan Times, Times of India, Indian Express, Outlook, India Today, and broadcast on BBC, PBS, CNN IBN, NDTV, AIR & Doordarshan. Sen’s newer work appears in New Writing 15 (Granta), Language for a New Century (Norton), Leela: An Erotic Play of Verse and Art (Collins), Indian Love Poems (Knopf/Random House/Everyman), Out of Bounds (Bloodaxe), Initiate: Oxford New Writing (Blackwell), and Name me a Word (Yale). He is the editorial director of AARK ARTS, editor of Atlas, and currently the inaugural artist-in-residence at the Museo Camera. The Government of India awarded him the senior fellowship for “outstanding persons in the field of culture/literature.” Sen is the first Asian honoured to deliver the Derek Walcott Lecture and read at the Nobel Laureate Festival.
Prof Sudhir Chandra
Sudhir Chandra is the author of Gandhi: An Impossible Possibility (2016), and the editor of Violence and Non-violence Across Time: Religion, Culture and History (2018). He is currently engaged with the question of the possibility of non-violence in today’s world. Radiating profound insights into the consciousness of the English educated in India, his trilogy comprising Dependence and Disillusionment: Emergence of National Consciousness in the Later 19th Century India (2011), Enslaved Daughters: Colonialism, Law and Women’s Rights (1998) and The Oppressive Present: Literature and Social Consciousness in Colonial India (1992)—has created ripples in the Hindi Public Sphere He has been associated with various academic institutions in India and abroad.
Prof Sudhish Pachauri
Prof Sudheesh Pachauri, the well-known academician and literary critic with multiple groundbreaking publications in the field of Media Studies, Cultural Studies and Literary History, retired as the Pro Vice-chancellor of the University of Delhi. A public intellectual known for his integrity of approach and also for his discerning eyes on the friendly contradictions and aporias pervading life and literature of our troubled times, he has been a legendary teacher, social commentator and an editor’s choice both in newspapers and the choicest of academic journals. He has revisited many classics, offering fresh perspectives almost everywhere.
Ushakirankhan Khan
One of the bestselling authors of Maithili and Hindi, Dr. Usha Kiran Khan hailed for her rare insight into the ironies of rural life in India today With 40 books of fiction and many dramatic rendering of her work to her credit, she has been felicitated with the Padma Shri by the government of India A recipient also of Sahitya Akademi Award, she has written historical novels where characters come alive, almost revisiting our sites of contests. She has taught history in a College at Magadh University from where she sought an early retirement to devote all her energy to creative writing.
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