T C A Raghavan is a former Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan (2013-15). He had earlier served as Deputy High Commissioner in Pakistan (2003-2007) and High Commissioner to Singapore from 2009 to 2013. He was Director General of the Indian Council of World Affairs, New Delhi from 2018 to 2021.
Shobhaa Dé is a celebrated author, journalist, columnist, and social commentator.
Anupama Chopra is a film critic, national award-winning book author and journalist. She is the editor of The Hollywood Reporter India, founder of Film Companion Studios and chairperson of the Film Critics Guild.
Jaspreet Bindra is the author of Winning with AI: Your Guide to AI Literacy (Juggernaut Books) and The Tech Whisperer: On Digital Transformation and the Technologies that Enable It (Penguin Random House India). He is the CEO of AI&Beyond.
Arati Kumar-Rao is a National Geographic Explorer and an independent environmental photographer, writer, and artist who documents ecological degradation. She is currently on a National Geographic grant to document human migration in India.
William Dalrymple is one of Britain’s great historians and the bestselling author of the Wolfson Prize-winning White Mughals, The Last Mughal, which won the Duff Cooper Prize, and the Hemingway and Kapuściński award-winning Return of a King.
Rajdeep Sardesai, 59, is an award winning senior journalist, author, TV news presenter. His latest book 2019: How Modi won India is a national bestseller as was his previous book 2014: The Election that changed India which has been translated into half a dozen languages. His book Democracy’s Eleven: The Great Story of Indian Cricket was shortlisted by MCC Lords as cricket book of the year in 2017-18.
Ramachandra Guha is a historian and biographer who is currently Distinguished University Professor at Krea University. His books include a pioneering environmental history – The Unquiet Woods, an award-winning social history of cricket – A Corner of a Foreign Field, and a widely acclaimed history of his country – India after Gandhi
Chitra Divakaruni is an award-winning writer, activist, professor and speaker, and the author of 21 books such as Mistress of Spices, Sister of My Heart, Before We Visit the Goddess, Palace of Illusions, The Forest of Enchantments, and The Last Queen. Her newest novel, Independence, depicts the experiences of three sisters in strife-torn Calcutta as India frees itself from the British yoke and received a 2024 American Book Award. She writes for adults and children.