Bansi Kaul was an Indian theatre director and the founder of Rang Vidushak, a theatre group in Bhopal. He was a recipient of the Padma Shri, India's fourth highest civilian honor, in 2014, and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1995. Some of his notable plays included Aala Afsar, Kahan Kabir, and Sidhi Dar Sidhi urf Tukke pe Tukka. He was a designer and associate show director for the 2010 Commonwealth Games opening ceremony and also the art director for the 1986 and 1987 Khajuraho Festival.
Narendra Singh Negi, also referred as 'Garh Ratna' and 'Bob Dylan of the hills' is one of the most prominent folk singers, composer and a poet of the Garhwal and Uttarakhand who prominently sings in Garhwali language. Reportedly, he has sung more than 1000 songs. His unparalleled work in the field of folk music of Uttarakhand is an inspiration for all the upcoming singers of Uttarakhand.
Chetan Joshi is a noted flautist in the Hindustani classical music tradition. He was born in Jharia and brought up at Noamundi and Bokaro Steel City. He was trained under Late Acharya Jagadish (Bokaro), Late Pandit Bholanath Prasanna (Allahabad), Late Pandit Raghunath Seth (Mumbai) and Pandit Ajoy Chakravorty (Kolkata).
Malini Awasthi is an Indian singer, more commonly referred to as Folk Queen of India. Having been trained classically, she is equally adept in various forms of Hindustani music like vintage Dadra Thumri Kajri Chaiti etc. Her colossal knowledge of music finds a reflection in her renditions of Ghazals and Sufiyaana Kalaams too. A Ganda-baandh disciple of Padma Vibhushan Vidushi Girija Devi, she is a connoisseur of 'Chaumukhi gayan' of Benares Gharana. She commands equally over multiple dialects like Awadhi, Bhojpuri, Bundeli, and Braj.
Manjul Bhardwaj is an actor, director, writer, facilitator, and initiator in theatre. He is from Dahkora Village in Jhajjar District of Haryana, India. For the past 25 years, he has been based in Mumbai and dedicated himself to creating "The Theatre of Relevance." As a writer and director, he has written and directed more than 25 plays.
Dr Ranjay Vardhan is an Indian sociologist who is serving as Head, Department of Sociology at the Post Graduate Government College for Girls, Sector 42, Chandigarh. He has developed the concept of Covidalization, i.e., Covid Socialization. He has published works in the field of Family and Gender Studies and has done pioneering works in the field of broken hearts.
Bharti Singh is an Indian comedian and television personality. Singh has created numerous comedy shows as well as hosted various award shows. She participated in the reality shows Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa 5 (2012), Nach Baliye 8 (2017), and Fear Factor: Khatron Ke Khiladi 9 (2019). In 2019, she appeared on Khatra Khatra Khatra, a show conceptualised by her husband Haarsh Limbachiyaa for Colors TV. Since 2016, Singh has appeared in Forbes India's celebrity 100 list.
Balraj Pandit was a well-known Hindi and Punjabi playwright besides being a theatre director, poet, painter and a popular teacher. His Paanchwan Sawaar is considered a classic and a significant play of Indian dramaturgy. The play has been staged many times by different theatre troupes with actors like Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri and Manohar Singh among other playing roles. Lok Udaasi in Punjabi was another of his well-known plays besides Biwiyon Ka Madrasa an adaptation of Molière's L'École des Femmes.
Neelakshi Singh is an Indian Novelist and short-story writer in Hindi language. She won Sahitya Akademi Golden Jubilee Young Writers Award, Kalinga Book of the year award 2021 & Valley of Words Award 2022.
Raj Bisaria was an Indian director, producer, actor and educationalist, described by the Press Trust of India as "the father of the modern theatre in North India". He founded Theatre Arts Workshop in 1966, and Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1975 and the repertory company of Bhartendu Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1980. He blended artistic concepts of the East and the West, and the traditional and the modern.
Jatin Sarna is an Indian actor who appears in Hindi films and theatre. He is best known for his work in Meeruthiya Gangsters, Saat Uchakkey, Sonchiriya, Darbar, 83 and Sacred Games, an original Netflix series, Khakee: The Bihar Chapter. Jatin is known for his work with several Bollywood film directors such as Anurag Kashyap, Vikramaditya Motwane, AR Murugadoss, Hansal Mehta, Abhishek Chaubey, Kanu Behl and Kabir Khan.
Prem Nath Dar was an Urdu-language short story writer from the Kashmir Valley. His short stories are generally recognised as progressive writings of the mid-20th century.
Vinay Varma is an Indian actor, script writer, and casting director who primarily works in Telugu and Hindi-language films.
Namvar Singh was an Indian literary critic, linguist, academician and theoretician. He received his doctorate degree from Banaras Hindu University where he also taught for some time. He served as a professor of Hindi literature in several other universities. He was the founder and first chairman of Jawaharlal Nehru University's Centre of Indian Languages and continued to remain as a professor emeritus after his retirement in 1992.
Diwan Manna is an Indian conceptual artist and photographer. He completed his study in graphic art and printmaking from the Government College of Art, Chandigarh in 1982. He exhibited in India, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Poland, and Italy. From 2014 to 2015 he served as the director of Triennale India, organised by Lalit Kala Akademi, National Academy of Art, Ministry of Culture, Govt of India. He served as the chairman of Chandigarh Lalit Kala Akademi, State Academy of Art, Department of Culture, Chandigarh Administration. Currently, he is serving as the president of Punjab Lalit Kala Akademi, State Academy of Art, Ministry of Culture, Government of Punjab, India.
The Madhya Pradesh School of Drama or MPSD, is a theatre training institute situated at Bhopal, India. It is an autonomous organization under Ministry of Culture, Government of India. It was set up in 2011 by the cabinet of Madhya Pradesh.
Alok Chatterjee is an Indian theatre actor and director known for his theatre productions like Death of a Salesman, Nat Samrat and #Anandmath latest play 2022. He has been teaching at NSD and Pune based FTII. He also taught acting in the institute of Anupam Kher, Actor Prepress in Mumbai. At present, Chatterjee, in Madhya Pradesh Natya Vidyalaya Bhopal, is known for his vast range of acting (teaching) with deep literary understanding. He is a gold medalist from the National School of Drama, Delhi for best acting. At present Alok Chatterjee does theatre in his hometown at Bhopal. He also awarded with Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for the year 2019 by the president of India Droupadi Murmu at Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi.
Syed Sahil Agha is an Indian storyteller, actor, writer and car collector, who is specialised in the verbal art of Dastangoi, a 13th-century art of oral storytelling in Urdu language. He discovered the old form of QissaKhwani and revived it by naming it QissaGoi. He is known for his role as Shibli Nomani in the Sir Syed Ahmed Khan: The Messiah, a web-series released on Apple TV.
The Bhagavadajjukam is a Sanskrit farce composed in the 7th century CE, usually attributed to Bodhayana. However, inscriptional and scholarly evidence indicate that the play was written by the Pallava king Mahendravarman I, who also wrote a prominent farce known as the Mattavilasa Prahasana. It is one of the two earliest surviving examples of a satirical play in Sanskrit literature. Featuring witty exchanges, an episode about the transmigration of souls and a discussion on Hindu dharma, the comical play was intended to mock the doctrines of Buddhism, whose rise at the time presented a challenge to the dominance of Hinduism in India.
Prof. Baldev Singh Bali is an Indian classical musician and Professor emeritus at the Institute of Music and Fine Arts Jammu where he also served as the Dean of the college and Head of the Music Faculty.
