Mahesh Bhatt is an Indian film director, producer and screenwriter known for his works in Hindi cinema. He has received several accolades, including four National Film Award and three Filmfare Awards. A notable film from his earlier period is Saaransh (1984), screened at the 14th Moscow International Film Festival. It became India's official entry for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film for that year. The 1986 film Naam was his first piece of commercial cinema. In 1987, he turned producer with the film Kabzaa under the banner, "Vishesh Films", with his brother Mukesh Bhatt.
Anand Patwardhan is an Indian documentary filmmaker known for his socio-political, human rights-oriented films. Some of his films explore the rise of religious fundamentalism, sectarianism and casteism in India, while others investigate nuclear nationalism and unsustainable development. Notable films include Bombay: Our City (1985), In Memory of Friends (1990), In the Name of God (1992), Father, Son, and Holy War (1995), A Narmada Diary (1995), War and Peace (2002) and Jai Bhim Comrade (2011), Reason (2018), and The World is Family (2023), which have won national and international awards.
Sridhar Rangayan is an Indian filmmaker who has made films with special focus on queer subjects. His queer films, The Pink Mirror, Yours Emotionally, 68 Pages, Purple Skies, Breaking Free & Evening Shadows have been considered groundbreaking because of their realistic and sympathetic portrayal of the largely closeted Indian gay community. His film The Pink Mirror remains banned in India by the Indian Censor Board because of its homosexual content.
Final Solution is a 2004 documentary film directed by Rakesh Sharma concerning the 2002 Gujarat riots in the state of Gujarat in which 254 Hindus and 790 Muslims were killed. Hindu right wing organizations were made responsible for these riots which took place as a "spontaneous response" to the killing of 70 Hindu Pilgrims in the Godhra Train Burning by a mob of radical muslims on 27 February 2002. But as the film proceeds with victims continuing to come forward and share their experiences, a more unsettling possibility seems to emerge- that far from being a spontaneous expression of outrage. The makers of the film claim that the violence had been carefully coordinated and planned.
Sahni, Sawhney, Sahani, or Sahney is a Punjabi Khatri surname found among the Hindus and Sikhs of Punjab, India. It is also used by people from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Bengal and other parts of Central India.
Ashok Vajpeyi is an Indian Hindi-language poet, essayist, literary-cultural critic, apart from being a noted cultural and arts administrator, and a former civil servant. He was chairman, Lalit Kala Akademi India's National Academy of Arts, Ministry of Culture, Govt of India, 2008–2011. He has published over 23 books of poetry, criticism and art, and was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award given by Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, in 1994 for his poetry collection, Kahin Nahin Wahin. His notable poetry collections include, Shaher Ab Bhi Sambhavana Hai (1966), Tatpurush (1986), Bahuri Akela (1992), Ibarat Se Giri Matrayen, Ummeed ka Doosra Naam (2004) and Vivaksha (2006), besides this he has also published works on literary and art criticism: Filhal, Kuchh Poorvagrah, Samay se Bahar, Kavita ka Galp and Sidhiyan Shuru ho Gayi Hain. He is generally seen as part of the old Delhi-centric literary-cultural establishment consisting of bureaucrat-poets and academicians like Sitakanta Mahapatra, Keki Daruwalla, J.P.Das, Gopi Chand Narang, Indra Nath Choudhari and K.Satchidanandan.
Gurvinder Singh is an Indian film director. He is best known for his Punjabi language films Anhe Ghore Da Daan, and Chauthi Koot which premiered at Venice and Cannes Film Festival respectively. Gurvinder is an alumnus of the prestigious Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune from where he studied film-making and graduated in 2001. He travelled extensively through Punjab between 2002 and 2006, living and traveling with folk itinerants, documenting folk ballads and oral narratives. It led to his first documentary 'Pala'. He continued to make short experimental works and documenting arts/artists for the next few years. In 2005 he was invited by avant-garde Indian filmmaker Mani Kaul to be his teaching assistant for a master-class at FTII, which led to a close association with the filmmaker who became his mentor. He translated and published a book of conversations of Udayan Vajpeyi with Mani Kaul, titled 'Uncloven Space'. His latest film is 'Infiltrator' starring Veer Rajwant Singh which is a 15-minute short story in an international omnibus called 'In the same garden'
Gogu Shyamala is a Telugu-language writer and women's activist and a prominent Dalit.
Satyapal Dang (1920–2013) was an Indian independence activist, writer and later-day politician from Punjab. He was a legislator of Punjab State Legislative Assembly, representing the Communist Party of India for four terms and a Minister of Food and Civil Supplies in the United Front ministry led by Justice Gurnam Singh. He was also involved in trade union movement in India, aligning with the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC). The Government of India awarded him the third highest civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan, in 1998, for his contributions to society.
The clashes between the Jat and Muslim communities in Muzaffarnagar district of Uttar Pradesh, India and injured 93 and left more than 50,000 people displaced. By date 17 September, the curfew was lifted from all riot affected areas and the army was also withdrawn.
Kabir Kala Manch was a cultural organisation that was formed in Pune, Maharashtra, India, in the wake of the Gujarat riots in 2002. Through music, poetry and theatre, it aims to spread an anti-caste, pro-democracy message. It comprises students and young professionals who perform protest poetry and plays in slums and streets.
Hukum Singh was an Indian politician who served as the Member of Parliament from Kairana in Uttar Pradesh as a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate. He was a member of the Panel of Chairpersons of the 16th Lok Sabha, and the Chairperson of the Standing Committee on Water Resources.
Neha Dixit is an Indian freelance journalist covering politics, gender and social justice. She has been awarded over a dozen awards including the Chameli Devi Jain Award (2016) as well as CPJ International Press Freedom Award (2019).
Rohith Vemula was an Indian PhD scholar at the University of Hyderabad. From July 2015 to December 2015, the university stopped paying Rohith his monthly stipend of ₹25,000 till December 2015, with friends alleging that he was targeted for raising issues on campus under the banner of Ambedkar Students' Association (ASA), an Ambedkarite student organisation.
The Unbearable Being of Lightness is a 45-minute documentary film made in 2016 and directed by Ramchandra PN. The documentary documents a workshop that the filmmaker had conducted for a group of students at the University of Hyderabad, immediately after the student protests on the issue of the suicide of Rohith Vemula had ended at the university.
Brahmanand S. Siingh is a filmmaker and author from Mumbai, India. He is best known for the films Kaagaz Ki Kashti, a biopic on Jagjit Singh and his feature-length documentary on R. D. Burman, Pancham Unmixed: Mujhe Chalte Jaana Hai.
The Death of Merit is a four-part documentary series. The first three parts were created by the Insight Foundation, a Dalit-Adivasi student group. The fourth was posted by Round Table India. The whole series has been edited by Gurinder Azad and team. The documentary series focuses on caste-based discrimination in the Indian higher education system and the suicides of Dalit students in Indian campuses. The Wire, states that the "Death of Merit, remains one of the most crucial documentations of forms of discrimination faced by Bahujan students in university spaces."
Chalchitra Abhiyaan is a film and media collective based in Shamli district in Uttar Pradesh, India. It covers five districts of Western Uttar Pradesh, Shamli, Muzaffarnagar, Baghpat, Meerut, Saharanpur.
