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Aditi Maheshwari

Aditi Maheshwari holds Master's degrees in English Literature (Hansraj College, Delhi University) and Business Management (Strathclyde Business School, Scotland) and a pre-doctoral/ M.Phil. degree in Social Sciences (Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai). She also holds a diploma in Public Relations and Advertising. She heads the Department of Copyrights and Translation at Vani Prakashan and is the Managing Trustee at Vani Foundation.

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Janhavi Prasada

Janhavi Prasada is one of the founding members of the Kumaon Literary Festival. She was the co-host for the 1st edition of KLF at her heritage property in Nainital - Abbotsford ( Prasada Bhawan) www.abbotsford.in

A graduate of St Stephen’s College, Delhi University and pursued her higher studies from Cardiff School of Journalism, UK. Sixteen years in the field of media she started her NGO – Youth 4 Gandhi Foundation in 2009 and worked for the next 3 years to research and bring back Gandhi in the daily lives of people.

Under the aegis of the foundation she ran a first of its kind online multimedia campaigns on re-discovering Gandhi across 3000 schools in Delhi , NCR and has the repertoire of collating one of the most extensive artwork archives on Gandhi in the 21st century in all formats (print, audio, digital) of new media. Her wide ranged experience led her to launch her NGO that uses media and technology tools to promote awareness about Gandhi and other issues such as health, education, environment, social justice.

More recently she conceived and created the only existing digital portal on Gandhi for children.

The publishing house – Harper Collins has approached Janhavi to write the first ever-graphic novel of Gandhi. It is to be launch shortly.

Janhavi is a contributor for travel articles as well as for her photography skills.

She is currently working as a “Peace Activist” in the area of “Technology.”

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Kiran Manral

Kiran Manral was a journalist with the leading newspapers in India before she moved out to set up a content supply company during the first dot com boom. An erstwhile blogger, both her blogs were considered amongst India's top blogs and she was a Tehelka blogger columnist on gender issues. She was India Cultural Lead and Trend Spotter with an US based Consumer Insights Firm and is currently a senior consultant with a qualitative market research company.

Her books include The Reluctant Detective (Westland, 2011), Once Upon A Crush (Leadstart, 2014), (All Aboard, Penguin, 2015) and Karmic Kids: The Story of Parenting Nobody Told You (Hay House, 2015) and The Face at the Window (Amaryllis, Feb 2016).

She is on the planning board of the Kumaon Literary Festival, a mentor with Sheroes and is an advisor on the Board of Literature Studio, Delhi. She lives in Mumbai.

Twitter: @kiranmanral

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Rishi Suri

Rishi Suri is a senior editor covering international affairs at The Daily Milap, India’s oldest and largest circulated Urdu daily newspaper. He is an internationally recognized journalist known for his strong views and opinions on global politics and diplomacy. His interviews with various international personalities and heads of states and his articles on different subjects in India and the Middle East have been widely acclaimed and appreciated.

Rishi is one of the select few certified diplomatic correspondents by the Ministry of External Affairs in India and has been part of various international delegations and programs like the International Visitor Leadership program run by the State Department of the United States of America. Apart from being a Fellow (Media) with the Australia India Council and a Chevening Scholar in 2013, he is also involved in the planning boards of various national and international organizations like the Australia India Youth Dialogue in Sydney, the Global Partnerships Program run by the Tampa Bay City Council in Florida in the US, the Taj Colloquium in Agra, Uttar Pradesh and the Kumaon Literary Festival in Uttarakhand. Rishi also serves on the advisory boards of a couple of Delhi based NGO’s like the You Can Foundation and the Sarvam Foundation and also a news organization called Grin News.

Other than being an Editor, Rishi also plays an administrative role in the publication as he is part of the fourth generation of the family running the newspaper, started by Mahashay Khusal Chand Ji, later known as Mahatma Anand Swami Saraswati in Lahore (now in Pakistan) on the 13th of April, 1923. The Daily Milap was a social reformist newspaper and an instrument of social change while fighting tooth and nail for the freedom of the country. Gradually through the love of the people, Milap grew and prospered and, even in its current functioning carries with it many values which it has stood for over the years. It is this lineage which has greatly contributed to Rishi’s knowledge, personality and development of his thought process.

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Saif Mahmood

Saif Mahmood is a New Delhi-based literary personality, Urdu poetry and literature expert, culturist, commentator, critic, translator and rights activist. An Advocate of the Supreme Court of India, holding a doctorate in Comparative Constitutional Law in South Asia, he speaks and writes on diverse issues ranging from law to literature and is founder of the South Asian Alliance for Literature, Art & Culture (SAALARC).

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Sujata Parashar

Sujata Parashar is a novelist, poet, short story writer and social activist. She has written seven books so far. Her debut novel, In Pursuit of Infidelity (2009) was a bestseller. She also has a poetry book series to her credit, titled, Poetry Out and Loud. Her latest book is a collection of short - stories, titled, That Woman You See (2015). She has won awards for her first poetry book and her first short - story.

Apart from these, Sujata is on the planning board of a couple of prestigious literature festivals of the country (Kumaon Literary Festival & Delhi Poetry Festival). She’s also a founding board member of Empowering Minds; a Delhi based NGO focusing on education and mental health issues and works with them on different social projects. She has also been selected for the Karamveer Chakra Award 2016- instituted by iCongo in association with the UN conferred to individuals who bring about positive social impact.

Website: www.sujataparashar.in

Twitter handle: https://twitter.com/sujatavidu

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Sujata-Parashar-Author-Poet-252127558269604/?fref=ts

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Vikram Sampath

Bangalore based historian and author, Vikram is a visiting Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin and the University of Queensland, Australia. He is the Founder of the country's first online digital repository for vintage gramophone records of the country called Archive of Indian Music (AIM) and is the Director of the Bangalore Literature Festival (BLF). He serves on several Government Committees like the Karnataka Knowledge Commission, Karnataka Tourism Vision Group and the Prasar Bharati Archives Core group. Vikram was among the 4 Artists and Writers selected by the President of India for an In-Residence Programme at the Rashtrapati Bhawan in March 2015. He served the Government of India's Ministry of Culture as Executive Director of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), Southern Regional Centre and is currently the Director of Symbiosis School of Media and Communication (SSMC)- Bangalore.

A trained Carnatic vocalist under several eminent Gurus, he writes regularly for newspapers and magazines on a wide variety of subjects.

Vikram is the author of three acclaimed works of non-fiction "Splendours of Royal Mysore: the untold story of the Wodeyars", "My name is Gauhar Jaan! - the life and times of a musician' and "Voice of the Veena: S Balachander, a biography". His book on Gauhar Jaan won him several laurels including the Sahitya Akademi's first Yuva Puraskar for English Literature and the ARSC International Award for Excellence in Historical Research in New York.