Khwaja Ahmad Abbas was an Indian film director, screenwriter, novelist, and journalist in Urdu, Hindi and English.
Sooni Taraporevala is an Indian screenwriter, photographer, and filmmaker who is the screenwriter of Mississippi Masala, The Namesake and Oscar-nominated Salaam Bombay!, all directed by Mira Nair. She also adapted Rohinton Mistry's novel Such A Long Journey and wrote the films Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, her directorial debut Little Zizou, and Yeh Ballet, a Netflix original film that she wrote and directed.
Luís Remo de Maria Bernardo Fernandes, known professionally as Remo Fernandes, is a Portuguese singer, actor and musician. Known as a pioneer of Indian pop music, he performs pop/rock/Indian fusion and is also a film playback singer. His musical work is a fusion of many different cultures and styles that he has been exposed to as a child in Goa and in his later travels around the world. Such influences include Goan and Portuguese music, Sega music, African music, Latin music, the music of erstwhile European communist states, those of the dance halls from Jamaica and Soca.
Shashi Deshpande is an Indian novelist. She is a recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award and the Padma Shri Award in 1990 and 2009 respectively.
Maria Aurora Couto was an Indian writer and educator best known for her book Goa: A Daughter's Story and for promoting literature and ideas within Goa and beyond. In addition to her books, she wrote for newspapers and magazine, and also taught English literature at Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi and Dhempe College of Panjim. She also helped start the DD Kosambi Festival of Ideas in 2008.
Ranjit Hoskote is an Indian poet, art critic, cultural theorist and independent curator. He has been honoured by the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, with the Sahitya Akademi Golden Jubilee Award and the Sahitya Akademi Prize for Translation. In 2022, Hoskote received the 7th JLF-Mahakavi Kanhaiyalal Sethia Award for Poetry.
Githa Hariharan is an Indian writer and editor based in New Delhi. Her first novel, The Thousand Faces of Night, won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for the best first novel in 1993. Her other works include the short story collection The Art of Dying (1993), the novels The Ghosts of Vasu Master (1994), When Dreams Travel (1999), In Times of Siege (2003), Fugitive Histories (2009) and I Have Become the Tide (2019), and a collection of essays entitled Almost Home: Cities and Other Places (2014).
Hema Sardesai is an Indian playback singer and lyricist. Hema hails from the coastal state of Goa, in India, and was born in Mumbai. She shot to fame in 1997 with songs from movies like Sapnay, Biwi No. 1 and Jaanam Samjha Karo.
Lambert Mascarenhas was an Indian journalist, independence activist, and writer.
Sharad Sharma is an Indian cartoonist based in New Delhi, India. He was associated with many newspapers and magazines before he switched to electronic media and introduced political animation to Indian TV news channels. In the late 1990s, he formed the organisation World Comics India to introduce the idea of grassroots comics. The idea was to take this new communication medium to the masses. He took the art of cartooning and comics to the rural hinterland of India and other South Asian countries. He has extensive experience from workshops with a variety of organisations in India and internationally. His cartoon strip Developmentoon has been published in several newspapers and websites internationally. He has also published several books and manuals.
Jerry Pinto is a Mumbai-based Indian-English poet, novelist, short story writer, translator, as well as journalist. Pinto's works include Helen: The Life and Times of an H-Bomb (2006), which won the Best Book on Cinema Award at the 54th National Film Awards, Surviving Women (2000) and Asylum and Other Poems (2003). His first novel Em and the Big Hoom was published in 2012. Pinto won the Windham-Campbell prize in 2016 for his fiction. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2016 for his novel Em and the Big Hoom.
Nand Kishore Chaudhary is an Indian social entrepreneur. He currently serves as the Chairman and Managing Director of the social enterprise Jaipur Rugs, which he founded in 1978.
Anita Pratap is an expatriate Indian writer and journalist. In 1983, she was the first journalist who interviewed LTTE chief V. Prabhakaran. She won the George Polk award for TV reporting for her television journalism related to the takeover of Kabul by the Taliban. She was India bureau chief for CNN. She has written the book Island of Blood based on Sri Lanka. In 2013 she was presented with the Shriratna award by the Kerala Kala Kendram an organisation associated to the Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi. She was nominated as the Aam Aadmi Party candidate from Ernakulam, Kerala, for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
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).
Prerana Shrimali is a senior dancer of Jaipur Gharana of Kathak. Born in Banswara in Rajasthan, Shrimati Prerana Shrimali was initiated in Kathak dance by Guru Shri Kundan lal Gangani in Jaipur. Later, she was groomed in the art at Kathak Kendra, New Delhi, under the same Guru late Shri Kundan Lal Gangani of the Jaipur gharana. She has also choreographed several productions and has participated in several international dance seminars and conferences. She has also imparted training to young dancers at Gandharva Mahavidyalaya and Shriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra. She has served as Repertory Chief of the Kathak Kendra, Delhi from the year 2007 to 2009, and later served as a senior guru in Kathak kendra Delhi from 2012 to2017. Shrimati Prerna Shrimali has been awarded the Rajasthan Sangeet Natak Akademi Award and the Rashtriya Ekta Award of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation. Her dance has been featured in the film The Far Pavilions produced by BBC. Shrimati Prerana Shrimali was awarded central Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for the year 2009 by the president of India for her contribution to Kathak dance. Now she is based in Jaipur, Rajasthan and started her own institute 'KALAAVART' Prerana Shrimali centre of Kathak in 2021.
Bhagwan Das Garga, also known as B. D. Garga, was an Indian documentary filmmaker and film historian.
Abha Singh is an Indian activist and advocate currently practicing in the High Court of Judicature at Bombay. Her activism has focused on women's rights, gender equality, and justice.
Rashmi Anand is an Indian activist and writer concerned about domestic violence. The President of India awarded her the Nari Shakti Puraskar. This is the highest award for women in India. She founded the "Woman of the Elements Trust" which supplies support to victims of domestic abuse in Delhi.
The Good Girls: An Ordinary Killing is a 2021 narrative non-fiction book by Sonia Faleiro. It tells the story of the 2014 Badaun gang-rape incident. Faleiro initially started the investigation with a plan to write a book about rape in India, but as she learned more about the case, she realised it was much more complicated than what everyone knew. She spent four years researching on the subject, traveled to the village, interviewed over 100 people including the relatives, the accused and the cops, compiled transcripts of the polygraph tests and other reports. It was released on 9 February 2021 via Grove Press and was well received by the critics.
