Patel is director of Hill Road Media and a columnist for Mint. He has been a newspaper editor for 15 years. His last two editorships were at Gujarati daily Divya Bhaskar, and before that at Mid Day.

Aamir Bashir is an Indian actor and director. In 2010, Bashir's directorial debut, Harud, premiered at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival. The film stars Reza Naji and Shahnawaz Bhat and takes place in Kashmir.

PAatish Taseer is a British born writer-journalist. Taseer has written a highly acclaimed translation of Saadat Hasan Manto's short stories from the original Urdu, Manto: Selected Stories (2008). He has also written three critically acclaimed books- A Stranger to History: A Son's Journey Through Islamic Lands, The Temple Goers and Noon. Taseer has worked for Time Magazine and has also written for Prospect magazine, The Sunday Times, The Sunday Telegraph, The Financial Times, TAR Magazine and Esquire. He studied French and Political Science at Amherst College, Masachussets.

Abhijit V. Banerjee is a Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Econometric Society and has been a Guggenheim Fellow. He has also received the inaugural Infosys Prize (2009) in Social Sciences and Economics. Banerjee is a co-founder of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab and a Research Affiliate of Innovations for Poverty Action. He finished his first documentary film, "The Name of the Disease" in 2006 and published the bestselling book Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty.

Abhiseck Lodha is the thirty year old managing director of the Lodha group, which is Mumbai’s premier real estate developer. The Group is currently developing in excess of 30 million sq ft of prime real estate, over 27 projects in and around Mumbai, from Napean Sea Road to Dombivali. Lodha holds a Bachelor's and Master's Degree in Industrial Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and is involved in the overall planning for the Lodha Group of companies. His experience includes tenure at McKinsey & Company, USA and over 11 years of experience in the field of corporate administration & management and construction.

A.D. Miller was born in London in 1974. He studied literature at Cambridge and then at Princeton, where he began his journalistic career writing travel pieces about America. He moved back to London to work as a television producer after which he joined The Economist to write about British politics and culture. In 2004, he became The Economist's correspondent in Moscow. He is currently the magazine's Britain editor. Snowdrops is A.D. Miller's first novel and was nominated for the Man Booker Prize Award. He is also the author of the non-fiction work, The Earl of Petticoat Lane.

Altaf Tyrewala is the bestselling author of No God In Sight and the editor of a collection of short stories, Mumbai Noir. He lives in Mumbai.

Anne Enright was born in Dublin, where she now lives and works. She has published one previous collection of stories, The Portable Virgin, which won the Rooney Prize, one book of non-fiction, Making Babies, and four novels, The Wig My Father Wore, What Are You Like? – shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel Award and winner of the Encore Award, The Pleasures of Eliza Lynch and The Gathering. A story in this collection, ‘Honey’, won the Davy Byrne’s Irish Writing Award.

Anjali Joseph was born in Bombay in 1978. She read English at Trinity College, Cambridge, and has taught English at the Sorbonne, written for the Times of India in Bombay and been a Commissioning Editor for ELLE (India). Her first novel, Saraswati Park (2010), won the Desmond Elliott Prize, the Betty Trask Prize and India's Vodafone Crossword Book Award for Fiction. Another Country is her second novel.

Anusha Rizvi is an Indian film director and screenwriter who made her directorial debut with the film Peepli Live. Before venturing into film direction. Rizvi was a journalist who had graduated in history from St. Stephens College.

Amitabha Bagchi is the author of best selling novel, Above Average. His second novel, The Householder, was published in April 2012 by Fourth Estate, an imprint of HarperCollins India. He is an assistant professor at IIT Delhi.

Anita Mazumdar Desai is an Indian novelist and Emeritus John E. Burchard Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has been short-listed for the Booker Prize three times and was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1978 for her novel, Fire on the Mountain, by the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters.

Arshia Sattar is an Indian translator, facilitator, author, and director. Her abridged translations of the epic Sanskrit texts, Kathasaritsagara and Valmiki's Ramayana, have been published by Penguin Books. Sattar is one of a handful of women academics who have translated the Ramayana. Her book reviews and articles appear regularly in The Times of India, The Illustrated Weekly of India and the Indian Review of Books.

Arnab Goswami is the Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Director of Times Now. Arnab presents India's most watched 9 p.m. broadcast, The Newshour, every weeknight. A post graduate from Oxford University and a visiting fellow at Cambridge University, he is a much sought after speaker at various national and international forums and is the recipient of several of the highest accolades and awards in journalism in India.

Arunava Sinha has co-authored best selling books, What Really Happened, Chowringhee, The Middleman and There Was No One at the Bus Stop.

Ashwin Sanghi is an Indian author and entrepreneur. He is a director of the M. K. Sanghi Group of Companies, and the author of three best selling novels. His first self-published novel The Rozabal Line became so popular that it was subsequently published by Westland in 2008. His second novel Chanakya’s Chant won the Crossword-Vodafone Popular Choice Award 2010, and film producer UTV acquired the movie rights to the book. Ashwin’s third novel, The Krishna Key was published in August 2012 and shot to #1 on the AC Nielsen India Fiction list within the first week of publication.

Bachi Karkaria, a veteran of The Times of India, was the first Indian journalist on the Board of the Paris-based World Editors Forum. Erratica, her satirical column in the TOI, has had a devoted following since 1994, as has her straight talking advice column in the Mumbai Mirror, Giving Gyan. Her books include Dare to Dream, a best-selling biography of the legendary hotelier MS Oberoi; Behind The Times, stories from the trenches and war-rooms of the TOI; Mumbai Masti, a richly illustrated book capturing the city’s quirky soul with Krsna Mehta; The Cake That Walked, on Calcutta’s iconic tea-room; plus collections of her columns, Erratica, and earlier writing, Your Flip is Showing. She has written two corporate biographies of the Times of India Group.

Barkha Dutt is an Indian television journalist and columnist. She is currently the group editor with NDTV. Dutt gained prominence for her reportage of the Kargil War. She has won many national and international awards, including the Padma Shri, India's fourth highest civilian honour. She writes a column for the Hindustan Times called "Third Eye.

Bhaichand Patel has lived in Fiji, London, New York, Caracas, Cairo, Jerusalem, Manila, Bombay and New Delhi. Spirits and wines have always been his traveling companions. A graduate of London School of Economics, Bhaichand has served before the bar as a barrister, and behind the bar as a bartender. His books include Chasing the Good Life and Bollywood’s Top 20. He writes columns for The Hindustan Times, one of India's leading newspapers and Outlook India, a weekly magazine.

Boria Majumdar is a Rhodes scholar and a Research Fellow at La Trobe University, Melbourne. He has taught at the Universities of Chicago and Toronto and has written extensively on the history and politics of cricket in India, and across the world. His books include but are not limited to Twenty-Two Yards to Freedom: A Social History of Indian Cricket 2004, Lost Histories of Indian Cricket: Battles of the Pitch 2005. He received his Phd in history at the University of Oxford.

Camellia Panjabi is not only an author, but also one of the creators behind the successful international Masala Zone restaurant chain, which has been credited with making regional Indian cuisine a favorite in the western world. She is also one of the directors of Masala World that owns the legendary Chutney Mary, Veeraswamy, Amaya and the Masala Zone restaurants in London. Amaya, one of her six London restaurants, was the first to receive a Michelin star and has also won the TIo Pepe ITV Award for the best Restaurant of the Year.

Chetan Bhagat is the author of six blockbuster novels, Five Point Someone, One Night @ the Call Center, The 3 Mistakes of my Life, 2 States, Revolution 2020, and What Young India Wants (2012). Chetan’s books have remained bestsellers and have been adapted into Bollywood movies. He has become a voice of inspiration for the youth of India and is not only a motivational speaker, but is also a columnist for leading English and Hindi newspapers.

Chiki served as Editor-in-Chief at Random House for four years before finally moving to Penguin India to become its Publisher. Sarkar has worked with best-selling authors including Jhumpa Lahiri, Anita Desai, Salman Rushdie, Mohammed Hanif, Daniyal Mueenuddin and Rujuta Diwekar. She is a graduate of Oxford University and worked at Bloomsbury London for 7 years before moving back to India.

Chirodeep Choudhari is a photographer whose works have been exhibited extensively in India and in the USA, UK and China. They are a part of the permanent collections of the Peabody Essex Museum; Salem (USA), Museum of Photographic Arts; Houston (USA) and the Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts (Japan) and many private collections in India. His book A Village in Bengal is going to be launched at the Times of India Literary Carnival.

Daniyal Mueenuddin is an acclaimed Pakistani-American author. His short-story collection In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, has been translated into sixteen languages and has won The Story Prize and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize among honors and critical acclaim.

Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik is an Indian physician turned leadership consultant, mythologist and author. His works focus largely on the areas of myth, mythology, and management. He has written a number of books related to Hindu mythology that include Myth = Mithya: A Handbook of Hindu Mythology, a novel, The Pregnant King, and Jaya: An Illustrated Retelling of the Mahabharata (2010). He is the Chief Belief Officer of Future Group, bringing the wisdom of Indian mythology into Indian business. He also writes a column for the newspaper MiD DAY.

Dibakar Bannerjee is an Indian filmmaker and screenwriter. Among the films he has written, Oye Lucky Lucky and Khosla ka Ghosla won National Film Awards. He has also directed the critically acclaimed movies Love, Sex and Dhoka and Shanghai. He lives in Mumbai with his wife and two year old daughter.

Eunice de Souza is a contemporary Indian English language poet, literary critic and novelist. She is known for her book. Women in Dutch painting (1988). She studied English literature with an MA from the Marquette University in Wisconsin, and a PhD from the University of Mumbai. She taught English at St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, and was Head of the Department until her retirement.

Dr. Faramerz Dabhoiwala is a Fellow, Tutor and University Lecturer in Modern History at Exeter College, Oxford University. His research interests are mainly in the social, cultural, and intellectual history of the English-speaking world since 1500. His is the author of The Origins of Sex: A History of the First Sexual Revolution and is now working on a global history of English since the middle ages.

Gurcharan Das is an Indian author, commentator and public intellectual. He is the author of The Difficulty of Being Good: On the Subtle Art of Dharma which interrogates the epic, Mahabharata. He is a regular columnist for six Indian newspapers and writes periodic pieces for The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, and Newsweek. He has also written A Fine Family, A Book of Essays, The Elephant Paradigm, and Anthology, Three English Plays.

Gautam Patel is a notable lawyer and founder of the multi-faceted blog, A Prisoner of Agenda.

Gita Piramal is a renowned media personality, freelance writer, business historian, managing editor of The Smart Manager magazine, Director of BP Ergo and former director of VIP Industries Limited. She has written several books on Indian business and has been featured in 25 Most Powerful Women in Indian Business in 2004.

Gulzar, an eminent writer of rare talent, is also a leading filmmaker, lyricist and script-writer. Gulzar is an author of several collections of poems and short stories in Urdu. His film scripts have been published in a series of books entitled Manzarnama. Gulzar has been honored with 'Life Time Achievement Award' for his contribution to Hindi Cinema in 2002 and with the Padma Bhushan in 2004. The most recent honors conferred upon are the Oscar (2008) and the Grammy (2010) Awards for writing of the song Jai Ho in Slumdog Millionaire.

Imtiaz Ali is a film director and writer. He is known for penning and directing hit films like Jab We Met, Love Aaj Kal and Rockstar. Imtiaz Ali was born and brought up in Jamshedpur.

Javed Akhtar is an Indian poet, lyricist, scriptwriter and activist. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2007 and the Padma Shri award by the Government of India in 1999. Some of the popular films he has co-authored Zanjeer, Deewar, Sholay, Trishul, etc. He has also written successful films like Sagar, Mr. India, Betaab, Arjun, and Lakshya. He is married to actress Shabana Azmi and has two children- Farhan and Zoya Akhrtar, both of whom are also involved in the film industry. India Today has included Javed Akhtar's name in the list of 50 Most Powerful people in the Country.

Jeet Thayil is an Indian poet, novelist, librettist and musician. He is best known as a poet and is the author of four collections: These Errors Are Correct, English, Apocalypso, and Gemini. His first novel, Narcopolis (Faber, 2011) is set mostly in Bombay in the 70s and 80s, and sets out to tell the city's secret history, when opium gave way to new cheap heroin. He is the editor of the Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets, 60 Indian Poets and a collection of essays, Divided Time: India and the End of Diaspora.

Jerry Pinto is a journalist and writer of poetry, prose and children's fiction in English. His noted 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. He is on the board of directors of MelJol, an NGO that works in the child rights space. He is also a Committee Member of the Indian PEN and a member of the Poetry Circle, Mumbai.

Jitish Kallat is an Indian artist who works in varied media, including painting, large scale sculpture installations, photography, and video art. His work speaks of both the self and the collective, fluctuating between intimacy and monumentality, and characterized by contrasting themes of pain, hope and survival.

Juhi Chaturvedi is known for penning the hit Bollywood movie Vicky Donor. A former advertising girl (she was creative director at Bates), Juhi ventured into script writing after working with filmmaker Shoojit Sircar on the yet to be released, Amitabh Bachan starrer, Shoebite. Vicky Donor’s success catapulted Juhi into scriptwriter stardom and her skills are so much in demand by veteran directors and filmmakers that she is already committed to three new projects.

Justine Hardy is the author of six books ranging in subject from war to Hindi film. Her book, The Wonder House, 2005, is a novel set in Kashmir against the background of the conflict, and based on Justine’s experience of frontline coverage, time spent in militant training camps. Justine has also founded the rapidly expanding Healing Kashmir project in 2008, an integrated mental health project addressing the debilitating mental health situation in the region. She lectures regularly at various universities in the UK, US and India and is also a documentary maker and presenter.

Kajol is an actress who has churned out hit after hit. She has won six Filmfare Awards for her work in super hit films such as Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham. In 2011, she was awarded the Padma Shri. She is married to actor Ajay Devgn.

Boo began her career in journalism with editorial positions at Washington's City Paper and then the Washington Monthly. From there she went to the Washington Post and her series for the Post about group homes for mentally retarded people won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. One of her subsequent New Yorker articles, The Marriage Cure, won the National Magazine Award for Feature Writing in 2004. Another of Boo's New Yorker articles, After Welfare won the 2002 Sidney Hillman Award. She is also the author of bestselling non-fiction book Behind the Beautiful Forevers.

Ketaki Sheth is an Indian photographer. She began taking pictures of Bombay in 1980 under the tutelage of renowned photographer Raghubir Singh. Ketaki Sheth won the Sanskriti Award for Indian photography in 1992 and the Higashikawa Award 2006 in Japan for best foreign photographer. She has published two well received books of her photography- Bombay Mix (with an introduction by Suketu Mehta) and Twinspotting: Patel twins in Britain and India.

Chetan Bhagat is the author of six blockbuster novels, Five Point Someone, One Night @ the Call Center, The 3 Mistakes of my Life, 2 States, Revolution 2020, and What Young India Wants (2012). Chetan’s books have remained bestsellers and have been adapted into Bollywood movies. He has become a voice of inspiration for the youth of India and is not only a motivational speaker, but is also a columnist for leading English and Hindi newspapers.

Kiran Desai is an Indian author. She is a citizen of India and a permanent resident of the United States. Her novel The Inheritance of Loss won the 2006 Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award.

Khalid Mohamed is an Indian journalist, editor, film critic, screenwriter and film director. He formerly worked for the Hindustan Times as the national cultural editor as well as the editor of the supplement HT Café and was the lead editor for Filmfare magazine. He was the screenwriter for Zubeidaa, Sardari Begum and Mammo. He was the director and screenwriter for Fiza, Silsiilay, Tehzeeb and Tareekh. He has also written To Be or Not to Be: Amitabh Bachan.

The first woman Chief Justice to the High Court in India, the first woman Judge of the Delhi High Court and the first woman to top the Bar examinations in London: seventy-three-year-old Leila has led a full life. Leila Seth's autobiography, On Balance, was recently published by Penguin India, in which she describes the experience of bringing up three remarkable children: writer Vikram Seth, whose novel, A Suitable Boy, captivated the world; peace activist Shantum and film-maker Aradhana.

Madhu Jain has written on culture, society, the arts, and politics for three decades now. She has held senior positions at two of India's foremost newsmagazines, Sunday and India Today, where she was responsible for the coverage of arts and culture. Jain was also an editorial consultant with Outlook magazine for two years. She was the Delhi correspondent of leading French daily La Croix for several years, for which she wrote extensively on Indian politics and culture

Dr. Mahinder Watsa is a Sex educator and Counselor who practices in Mumbai. He is known for his daily column Ask the Sexpert which is featured in the Mumbai Mirror.

Manu Joseph is an Indian writer and journalist. His novel Serious Men received the PEN Open Book Award in 2011, The Hindu Literary prize in 2010 and was short listed for the Man Asian Literary Prize. His new novel The Illicit Happiness of Other People was published in August 2012. He is the editor of OPEN and has been the features editor of The Times of India and has written for The Independent and Wired.

Mary Kom is an Indian World Boxing Champion and the only woman boxer to have won a medal in each one of the six world championships. She is the only Indian woman boxer to have qualified for the 2012 Summer Olympics, competing and winning the bronze medal in the flyweight (51kg). She has also been ranked as No. 4 AIBA World Women's Ranking Flyweight category

Meru Gokhale, editorial Director of Vintage, a branch of RandomHouse India, has been in the publishing world since 2004, when she worked as Commissioning Editor for Penguin. Moving up through the publishing world, Meru has worked on books by Kiran Desai, Jamil Ahmad, Sonia Faleiro, Tahmima Anam and Rahul Pandita, among others.

Mira Nair is an Indian film director and producer based in New York. Nair was a nominee for the Academy Awards, Golden Globe, BAFTA and Filmfare. She has won various film festival awards, including the Golden Camera Award at Cannes and the National Film Award. In 2012, she was awarded the Padma Bhushan. Some of her well known films include Vanity Fair, The Namesake and Monsoon Wedding. She is currently working on the film adaptation of Mohsin Hamid’s best selling novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist. She is an adjunct professor in the Film Division at the School of Arts in New York City.

Mrinal Pande is an Indian television personality, journalist and author, and till recently was the chief editor of Hindi Daily, Hindustan. She is now chairperson of Prasar Bharti, the apex body of official Indian Broadcast Media and she also hosts a weekly interview show called Baaton Baaton Mein on Lok Sabha TV. She has written several books centering around women which include Devi:Tales of the Goddess In Our Time, the Subject is Woman, and My Own Witness. She spent several years on the National Commission for Self-Employed Women.

Nandita Das is an award winning film actress and director and is most known for her performance is in Fire (1996), Earth (1998), Bawandar(2000), Kannathil Muthamittal (2002) and Aamaar Bhuvan (2002). As a director, she is known for her directorial debut Firaaq (2008), which has won a number of national and international awards. Nandita Das was the first Indian to be inducted into their International Women's Forum's hall of fame. She is currently the Chairperson of the Children’s Film Society, India whose vision it is to produce and distribute high quality films for children.

Nasreen Munni Kabir spends her time chronicling the life and work of notable film personalities. She has made documentary films on Amitabh Bachan and Shahrukh Khan and has written books on singer Lata Mangeshkar and A.R Rahman. She is set to launch her latest book, In the Company of A Poet, at the Times of India Literary Carnival.

Neelesh Misra is an Indian journalist, author, radio storyteller, Hindi script and lyrics writer, photographer and the Deputy Executive Editor of Hindustan Times. He also heads India's first Writer led band, Band Called Nine where storytelling meets songs.

Nikhil Rao is an Assistant Professor of history at Wellesley College. His interests include urban history and urban economic and political development in South Asia. His current project investigates the formation of suburbs and suburban communities in late colonial Bombay. Prior to joining Wellesley College in 2005, Professor Rao taught at Dartmouth College. He obtained a B.A and M.A from Stanford and a PhD from the University of Chicago.

Niranjan Iyengar is a screen writer and lyricist who is particularly known for his work with Director Karan Johar. He is also author of the book, The Making of Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham

Nilanjana S. Roy is a well-known Indian journalist and literary critic. A columnist for The Business Standard, she has worked as the Assistant Features Editor and Deputy Features Editor for Business Standard. She did a brief stint as Books Editor for Outlook magazine and worked with Biblio before spending several years as a freelance writer. Her last job was as chief editor, Westland Books. Her novel The Wildings was published by Aleph this year.

Madeline Miller was born in Boston and grew up in New York City and Philadelphia. She attended Brown University, where she earned her BA and MA in Classics. For the last 10 years she has been teaching and tutoring Latin, Greek and Shakespeare to high school students. She has also studied at the University of Chicago’s Committee on Social Thought, and in the Dramaturgy department at Yale School of Drama, where she focused on the adaptation of classical texts to modern forms. The Song of Achilles, her first novel, was awarded the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction.

Prasoon Joshi is an Indian lyricist, screenwriter and advertising copywriter. A prolific writer and poet, he published the first of his 3 books, Main aur Woh, when he was just 17. He won the respected Filmfare Best Lyricist Award, in 2007 and 2008 for Fanaa and Taare Zameen Par respectively. He is also the Chairman of McCann Worldgroup India. Recently Prasoon and Actor Aamir Khan decide to join hands to produce fifty short films on the issue of malnutrition.

Pritish Nandy is an Indian poet, painter, journalist, politician, media and television personality, animal activist and film producer. He has held positions of Publishing Director at The Times of India, Editor at The Illustrated Weekly of Indiaand Publisher of The Illustrated Weekly of India, The Independent, Filmfar, Femina, Science Today, Dharmayug and Madhuri. In 1993, he founded Pritish Nandy communications and remains its non-executive chairman. It has produced various television programmes and films some of which include Chameli, Jhankaar Beats and Pyaar ke Side Effects. He has won several awards including but not limited to- the E.M Forster Literary Award, the Padma Shri, the Outstanding Citizen Award. He was also a member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of Indian Parliament.

Rajesh Devraj is an Indian film screenwriter and researcher. He is the author of a book on Indian film posters, The Art of Bollywood, published by Taschen GmBH. He is also the screenwriter of Quick Gun Murgun and was the former creative director of Channel [V] in Mumbai.

Rahul Mehrotra is Professor of Urban Design and Planning and the Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design at Harvard University. His firm, RMA Architects, was founded in 1990 in Mumbai and has designed and executed projects for clients that include government and non-governmental agencies, corporate as well as private individuals and institutions. His writings include coauthoring Bombay—The Cities Within, Banganga—Sacred Tank; Public Places Bombay; Anchoring a City Line; and Bombay to Mumbai—Changing Perspectives. He has also coauthored Conserving an Image Center—The Fort Precinct in Bombay.

Maximum City, Suketu Mehta’s autobiographical account of his experiences in Mumbai was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2005. He was born in Kolkata, India, and raised in Bombay where he lived until his family moved to the New York area in 1977.

Sunil Khilnani is a Professor of Politics, and Director of the King's College, London India Institute. He is the author of the well known book, The Idea of India.
Sunil received his PhD at King’s College, Cambridge.
He was Starr Foundation Professor at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies and Director, of South Asia Studies. He is a 2010 Berlin Prize Fellow.

Ramachandra Guha is an Indian historian and writer whose research interests include environmental, social, political and cricket history. He is also a columnist for The Telegraph and Hindustan Times and is a regular contributor to various academic journals. Additionally, Guha has written extensively for the magazine Outlook.

Ram Gopal Varma is an Indian film director, screenwriter and producer. He won the National Film Award for Shool and the Bollwood Movie Award for Best Director for Satya, Company, Jungle and Bhoot. He has also won various Filmfare and Nandi awards for his films. His films span across multiple genres including, psychological thrillers, underworld gang warfare, road movies, horrors, fictional films, politician-criminal nexus and musicals.

Rana Dasgupta is a British Indian novelist and essayist. His first novel, Tokyo Cancelled, is an examination of the forces and experiences of globalization. Billed as a modern-day Canterbury Tales, it was shortlisted for the 2005 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize.

Ranvir Shourey is an Indian actor and former VJ. He has acted in popular films such as Jism (2003) and Lakshya (2004). He has also starred in the critically acclaimed films Traffic Signal, Bheja Fry (2007) and Mithya (2008). Along with friend and co-star Vinay Pathak, he was the host of the successful talk show Ranvir Vinay Aur Kaun? and The Great Indian Comedy Show which aired on STAR One. He is married to actress Konkana Sen Sharma.

Ruchir Sharma is Managing Director and head of the Emerging Markets Equity team at Morgan Stanley Investment Management. He is also the author of international best seller Breakout Nations: In pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles

Samanth Subramaniam is a journalist who has written for The New York Times, Mint, Newsweek, the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, the Far Eastern Economic Review, The New Republic, The Huffington Post, Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, The National and The Hindu. His first book of narrative non-fiction, Following Fish: Travels around the Indian Coast, won the 2010 Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize.

Sania Mirza is a professional Indian tennis player. She is the current Indian No.1 in both singles and doubles and has held this position since 2003. In her career, Mirza has had notable wins over Svetlana Kuznetsova, Vera Zvonareva, Marion Bartoli and former World No. 1s- Martina Hingis & Dinara Safina. She has been awarded the Arjuna Award and the Padma Shri by the Indian Government and is the highest ranked female tennis player ever from India, with a career high ranking of 27 in singles and 7 in doubles. She recently won the 2012 French Open – Mixed Doubles Event (her second Grand Slam title).

Santosh Desai is a leading ad professional and is the MD & CEO of Futurebrands India Ltd. He is also the author of City City Bang Ban’, a weekly column in The Times of India which looks at contemporary Indian society from an everyday vantage point. His first book Mother Pious: Lady Making Sense Of Everyday India was published by Harper Collins.

Sarnath Bannerjee is an Indian graphic novelist, artist, and a co-founder of the publishing house, Phantomville. Sarnath's graphic works center on everyday Indian experiences. Often anecdotal and autobiographical in nature, they are imbued with a rich, distinctive sense of humor. Most recently, Sarnath's project, the Gallery of losers, was on display on billboards across the six Olympic Host Boroughs in East London

Shanta Gokhale is a Mumbai-based Marathi novelist, playwright, translator, bilingual columnist, theatre historian and critic. She has co-authored books, The Man Who Tried to Remember and soon to be released Guru Dutt.

Shaheen Mistri is the Founder CEO of Teach For India and is also the Founder and Chairperson of the Akanksha Foundation, a non-profit organization with a mission to impact the lives of less privileged children. Shaheen is an Ashoka Fellow (2001), a Global Leader for Tomorrow at the World Economic Forum (2002), an Asia Society 21 Leader (2006) and serves on the boards of Ummeed, The Thermax Social Initiatives Foundation and is an advisor to the Latika Roy Foundation. She also serves as a committee member for National Council for Teacher Education.

Shamya Dasgupta is a sports journalist who has dabbled in pretty much every medium that journalism has to offer: the web, newspapers, radio, magazines, even academic journals and, for the last seven years, news television. He is currently a senior editor with Wisden India. His first book Bhiwani Junction: The Untold Story of Boxing in India, was published by Harper Collins India.

Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy is an Academy Award and Emmy Award winning documentary filmmaker. Her recent films include Saving Face, Transgenders: Pakistan’s Open Secret and Pakistan’s Taliban Generation. Sharmeen’s work centers around human rights and women’s issues and she has worked with refugees and marginalized communities from Saudi Arabia to Syria and from Timor Leste to the Philippines. In 2012, Time Magazine included her in the magazine’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Sharmeen was born and raised in Karachi, Pakistan.

Shefalee Vasudev is the former editor of Marie Claire and currently works with The Indian Express as Associate Editor. She writes on popular culture, fashion and society Her first book The Powder Room, is a study of the Indian Fashion industry and was published in 2012.

Shiv Visvanathan is a Professor at O P Jindal Global University, Sonepat. He is a social science nomad whose interests center on cultures of knowledge, popular culture, urban studies, the sociology of corruption, sociology and philosophy of science, history of technology, social movements, globalization, culture and the politics of environmentalism, disaster management and futures.

Sudeep Chakravarti is the author of Red Sun: Travels in Naxalite Country (2008, 2009), a work of narrative non-fiction about India’s ongoing Maoist rebellion that was short-listed for the Vodafone Crossword Non-fiction Award 2008. He is also the author of three novels- Tin Fish, The Avenue of Kings and Once Upon a Time in Aparanta. Before he turned to writing books Sudeep worked as a journalist for 25 years and has held senior positions at Sunday, India Today and HT Media. His writing has been published in India Today, AWSJ, Hindustan Times, Mint, Forbes, Business World, Die Zeit, Rolling Stone and OPEN. Sudeep lives in Goa.

Sunil Alagh is the founder and chairman of SKA Advisers, a Business Advisory/Consultancy firm with a focus on Marketing and Brand building strategies.  He is also a Member of the Round Table on Higher Education of the Ministry of HRD, Government of India.

Sushil Premchand is the chairman of the Premchand Roychand and is one of the founder members of the Bombay Stock Exchange. He was educated in London and at the University of Bristol.

Srinath Raghavan is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. in War Studies from King’s College London. Prior to joining academia, he spent six years as an infantry officer in the Indian army. His book, War and Peace in Modern India: A Strategic History of the Nehru Years was published in 2010. Srinath is the editor of Routledge Studies in War and International Politics. He comments regularly on contemporary security issues in Indian newspapers and magazines.  

Swaminathan Aiyar is a prominent Indian journalist and columnist. He is consulting editor for the Economic Times and writes regularly for the Economic Times and The Times of India He is also a research fellow at the Cato Institute ( a prominent libertarian think-tank in Washington DC), and an occasional media consultant to the World Bank. He earned a master's degree in economics from Magdalen College, at the University of Oxford. 

Tarun Tahiliani is a notable Indian fashion designer. After completing a degree from FIT, NY; he founded his own design studio in 1990. His distinctive style has since evolved as a fusion of textile detail, refined luxury, and meticulous tailoring. The czar of couture designs outfits for most of India’s rich and famous and recently opened at the India Bridal Fashion Week.

Usha Uthup is a popular Indian pop, jazz and playback singer who sings in more than thirteen Indian and eight foreign languages. She has been awarded the Padma Shri award among several other awards for her singing.

Urmi Juvekar is an Indian screenwriter and documentary filmmaker. She has written hit after hit like Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye, Rules – Pyar Ka Superhit Formula and the latest Shanghai.

Vijender Singh is an Olympic boxer. At the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, he defeated Carlos Góngora of Ecuador 9–4 in the quarterfinals, which guaranteed him a bronze medal—the first ever Olympic medal for an Indian boxer. He was awarded the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award—India's highest sporting honor. He also represented India at London 2012 Olympic Games.

Vikas is the owner and consultant to several restaurants and food organizations including The Café at the Rubin Museum of Art. In New York, his Michelin starred restaurant, Junoon, is a great success. He has authored many books, including The Spice Story of India, Modern Indian Cooking and Flavors First and is the founder of Cooking for Life and SAKIV Organizations.

Vikram Doctor is editor, special features at The Economic Times, where he writes on several issues including food and the role it plays in Indian culture.

After training to be a chef at Mumbai’s prestigious Oberoi Hotel, Vineet Bhatia immigrated to England. His work at Zaika then made him Europe’s first chef of Indian cuisine to be awarded a Michelin star.
Since leaving the home of his early success, his own restaurant - Rasoi - has won a Michelin star of its own.

Vinay Pathak is an Indian actor and theatre personality who is known for his comic timing. He has starred in various critically acclaimed films like Khosla Ka Ghosla, Bheja Fry, Johnny Gaddaar and has also acted in major supporting roles in mega Blockbusters like Rab Ne Bana Di Jod.i Along with friend and co-star Ranvir Shorey, he was the host of the successful talk show Ranvir Vinay Aur Kaun? which aired on Star TV.

Vir Sanghvi is a well known Indian journalist. Currently, he is Editorial Director of the Hindustan Times. At the age of 22, he started Bombay, India's first city magazine, making him the youngest editor in the history of Indian journalism. Sanghvi is also a foodie and writes the Rude Food column in Brunch, Hindustan Times' Sunday magazine. A collection of these columns was published by Penguin in 2004. Sanghvi also won the Best Food Critic award from the Indian Culinary Foundation. He did a television version of Rude Food called A Matter of Taste which was a big success in India. In 2008, he received the prestigious Rajiv Gandhi Journalism Award. Penguin will publish his biography of Madhavrao Scindia this winter.

Wendell Rodricks is a prominent Indian fashion designer whose work involves a wide range of fashion—from lecturing on world costume history to writing about fashion and styling for international advertising campaigns. Rodricks was the first India designer to be invited to IGEDO (the world's largest garment fair); and the first Indian designer to open the Dubai Fashion Week. Most recently he has written a book, The Green Room, which explores the true face of Indian fashion.

William Dalrymple is the author of seven acclaimed works of history and travel, including City of Djinns, which won the Young British Writer of the Year Prize and the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award; the best-selling From the Holy Mountain; The Age of Kali, which won the French Prix D’Astrolable; White Mughals, which won Britain’s most prestigious history prize, the Wolfson, and The Last Mughal which won the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize & The Crossword Prize for Non Fiction. He published Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India to great acclaim in October 2009. He is a founder and co- director of the DSC Jaipur Literature Festival.

The limelight adores Queenie Singh. The former Ms India, turned jewelry designer is often seen at the social dos of the rich and famous in Mumbai and is known for her charm and fashion sense. Queenie even made her foray into writing, with her columns in the Mumbai Mirror and The Deccan Chronicle. This Septemeber, she showcased her glittering jewelry collection at the India Bridal Week.