K. Satchidanandan is an Indian poet and critic, writing in Malayalam and English. A pioneer of modern poetry in Malayalam, a bilingual literary critic, playwright, editor, columnist and translator, he is the former editor of Indian Literature journal and the former secretary of Sahitya Akademi. He is also social advocate for secular anti-caste views, supporting causes like environment, human rights and free software and is a well known speaker on issues concerning contemporary Indian literature. He is the festival director of Kerala Literature Festival.
Jayaprakash Narayan Srivastava, also known as JP and Lok Nayak, was an Indian politician, theorist and independence activist. He is mainly remembered for leading the mid-1970s opposition against Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and calling for her overthrow in a "total revolution". In 1999, Narayan was posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award, in recognition of his social service. His other awards include the Magsaysay award for public service in 1965.
Shashi Warrier is an Indian author who wrote Hangman's Journal. He was born in Kerala and has an MSc(Hons.) in Economics from BITS Pilani. His father was in the Indian armed forces and Warrier spent his childhood in different parts of the country. He is also an avid biker and has travelled around India on his Royal Enfield Thunderbird. Shashi is married to writer Prita Warrier. They live in Mangalore.
Khushwant SinghFKC was an Indian author, lawyer, diplomat, journalist and politician. His experience in the 1947 Partition of India inspired him to write Train to Pakistan in 1956, which became his most well-known novel.
Mundattuchundayil Paul Scaria, popularly known as PaulZacharia or Zacharia, is an Indian writer of Malayalam literature. Known for his body of literary works composed of short stories, novellas, travelogues, screenplays, essays, columns and children's books, Zacharia is a distinguished fellow of Kerala Sahitya Akademi. He is also a recipient of the Ezhuthachan Puraskaram, Kendra Sahitya Akademi Award and the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for Story.
G. Sankara Kurup, also referred to as Mahakavi G, was an Indian poet, essayist and literary critic of Malayalam literature. Known as one of the greats of Malayalam poetry, he was the first recipient of the Jnanpith Award―the highest Indian literary honor. He served as a nominated member of the Rajya Sabha from 1968 to 1972 and received the Padma Bhushan, the third highest Indian civilian award, in 1967. He was also a recipient of Sahitya Akademi Award, Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award and Soviet Land Nehru Award.
Amitava Kumar is an Indian writer and journalist who is Professor of English, holding the Helen D. Lockwood Chair at Vassar College.
Jayanta Mahapatra was an Indian poet. He is the first Indian poet to win a Sahitya Akademi award for English poetry. He was the author of poems such as "Indian Summer" and "Hunger", which are regarded as classics in modern Indian English literature. He was awarded a Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian honour in India in 2009, but he returned the award in 2015 to protest against rising intolerance in India.
Kuldip Nayar was an Indian journalist, syndicated columnist, human rights activist, author and former High Commissioner of India to the United Kingdom noted for his long career as a left-wing political commentator. He was also nominated as a member of the upper house of the Indian Parliament in 1997.
Shekhar Gupta is an Indian journalist and author. He is the founder and the current editor-in-chief of ThePrint. He is also a columnist for the Business Standard and pens a weekly column which appears every Saturday.
K. Ramakrishna Pillai (1878–1916) was an Indian nationalist writer, journalist, editor, and political activist. He edited Swadeshabhimani, the newspaper which became a potent weapon against the rule of the British and the erstwhile princely state of Travancore and a tool for social transformation. His criticism of the Diwan of Travancore, P. Rajagopalachari and the Maharajah led to the eventual confiscation of the newspaper. Ramakrishna Pillai was arrested and exiled from Travancore in 1910. Vrithantha Pathra Pravarthanam (1912) and Karl Marx (1912) are among his most noted works in Malayalam, Vrithantha Pathra pravarthanam being the first book on journalism in Malayalam and Karl Marx, the first ever biography of Karl Marx in any Indian language. But it has been alleged that he plagiarized the biography from an essay, "Karl Marx: A Modern Rishi", by Lala Hardayal, published in 1912 March issue of the Modern Review, published from Kolkata.
Media in Bihar started with Bihar Bandhu, the first Hindi newspaper published in Bihar.
Pinki Virani is an Indian writer, journalist, human-rights activist and writer. She is the author of Once was Bombay, Aruna's Story, Bitter Chocolate: Child Sexual Abuse in India, and Deaf Heaven. Her fifth book is called Politics of the Womb -- The Perils of Ivf, Surrogacy & Modified Babies.
Akkitham Achuthan Namboothiri, popularly known as Akkitham, was an Indian poet and essayist who wrote in Malayalam. He was known for a simple and lucid style of writing, exploring themes of profound love and compassion in his works. Some of his prominent works included Irupatham Noottandinte Ithihasam, Balidarshanam, and Nimisha Kshetram.
Jeet Thayil is an Indian poet, novelist, librettist and musician. He is the author of several poetry collections, including These Errors Are Correct (2008), which won the Sahitya Akademi Award. His first novel, Narcopolis, (2012), won the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, and was shortlisted for the 2012 Man Booker Prize and The Hindu Literary Prize.
Ussangaantakathu Abdul Khader was an Indian author. He published in Malayalam, including novels, novellas, short stories, travelogues and non-fiction. His works have been translated to various languages including English, Hindi and Kannada. He was a recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2009 for his novella Thrikkottur Novellakal and had earlier received the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award in 1984 for Thrikkottur Peruma.
Pothan Joseph (1892–1972) was a journalist in 20th-century India whose career spanned the twenty years before and twenty years after India's independence. He worked with notable people of the time such as Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Annie Besant, Mahatma Gandhi, Sarojini Naidu, and Motilal Nehru. He was the first to write a daily political column for five decades, called 'Over A Cup of Tea', sprinkled with Biblical and Dickensian quotes. He also discovered and nurtured the Indian cartoonist Shankar, helping to make political cartoons a staple of newspapers.
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.
Vijay Nambisan (1963-2017) was a poet, writer, critic and journalist from India writing in English. He won First Prize in the first All India Poetry Competition in 1990 organized by The Poetry Society (India) in collaboration with the British Council. He died on 10th August 2017.
Ajit Bhattacharjea was a veteran Indian journalist, newspaper editor and campaigner for democratic rights, and the Right to Information Act. In a career spanning nearly 60 years, he remained the editor of the Hindustan Times, The Times of India and The Indian Express and after his retirement in 1983, was the director of the Press Institute of India till 2004.
