5 - 7 December 2019 , Thu - Sat.
GALF 2019 : Speakers | Programme | Partners | Performances | Artwork | Videos
Photo Gallery: Inaugural Day | Day 1 | Day 2
Samar Halarnkar
Samar Halarnkar is a columnist and author of Nirvana Under the Rain Tree (2002), an early chronicle of India’s internet revolution and A Married Man’s Guide to Creative Cooking: And Other Dubious Adventures (2013). He has been a visiting lecturer at the University of California-Berkeley and a fellow at the Nieman Foundation, Harvard University. A journalist for 30 years, he has been the Editor of IndiaSpend.org, a nonprofit focussed on data-driven, public-interest journalism and Managing Editor of the Hindustan Times. An enthusiastic cook, his culinary experiences find their way into a cooking column for Mint Lounge.
Nandita Haksar
Nandita Haksar was a journalist before her involvement in the women's rights movement forced her to take to law. For the past three decades she has worked as a human rights lawyer, campaigner. She has set many precedents in human rights and refugees law. She has taken up cases in the courts in India as well as appearing before international courts and committees. She has evolved and taught courses on human rights in various universities.
She was awarded a Degree of LL.D. (Honoris Causa) from NALSAR in recognition of her work in the field of human rights.
Haksar is no longer practicing law and has devoted her time to writing. She writes for various national and international journals including Scroll.in, Newsclick and Aawaz. She has published more than 15 books. Her publications include:
Framing Geelani, Hanging Afzal: Patriotism in the Time of Terror (2007) in which she writes about her experience of defending two Kashmiri Muslims accused of attacking the Indian Parliament, and Rogue Agent: How India's Military Intelligence Betrayed the Burmese Resistance (2009) in which she exposed the RAW, Indian’s external intelligence agency ; The Judgement That Never Came: Army Rule in North East India (with Sebastian Hongray, 2011); ABC of Naga Culture and Civilization (2011) which has been taught in schools for Naga children and; Across the Chicken Neck: Travels in North East India (2013); The Many Faces of Kashmiri Nationalism: from Cold War to the present Times (2015) and Framed as a Terrorist (with Mohammad Aamir Khan) (2016), The Exodus Is Not Over: Migrations from the Ruptured Homelands of Northeast India (2016), Antarctica: profits of Discovery Nationalism Beyond Borders (2018) and Kuknalim Naga Armed Resistance testimonies of leaders, pastors healers and soldiers (2019; co-authored).
Akshay Singh
Akshay Singh received the Mohammed S Farsi Foundation Scholarship for Arts to pursue an MA in Screenwriting from the National Film & Television School, UK. Back in India he wrote and produced the feature films - ‘The Gold-Laden Sheep and The Sacred Mountain’ & ‘Mehsampur’. An enthusiast of stories on the fringes, Akshay was born in Varanasi and now calls Goa home.
Keki N. Daruwalla
Keki N. Daruwalla writes poetry and fiction and lives in Delhi. His last poetry volume is Naishapur and Babylon (2018 Speaking Tiger), which includes work between 2006-2017. His last novel is "Swerving to Solitude" (2018 , Simon and Schuster). His last award was Poet laureateship of the Literature Live Festival in Bombay, 2017.
Dhruba Hazarika
Dhruba Hazarika was born in Shillong and educated in St. Edmund’s School & College. He served as a lecturer in economics for a brief period before joining the Assam Civil Service in 1983. In 1999, he was inducted into the Indian Administrative Service, serving in various capacities, and retired while in the rank of Commissioner and Secretary to the Government of Assam in early 2016. Post retirement, he was appointed as Member of the Assam Public Service Commission from where he retired in July 2018.
Dhruba Hazarika’s first step into the literary world began early in life, influenced as he was by his mother’s wide reading as well by the encouragement that he received from his teachers. From being the editor of the college magazine to his many published works over the years Dhruba Hazarika has written over a 100 short stories, essays published in various journals and newspapers. Till date, Penguin has published three of his books comprising two novels, A Bowstring Winter and Sons of Brahma; and a short story collection, Luck. His next collection of short stories Savage Men is due for release later by Speaking Tiger this year.
He has been a regular contributor during the last thirty years to The Sentinel, The Telegraph and, presently, to The Assam Tribune as well as to various magazines. Several universities in India have included his works in their academic syllabi. He has addressed various gatherings, academic and non-academic, on the art and craft of creative writing.
Dhruba Hazarika is a recipient of the DY365 Literary Award and the All-India Katha Award for fiction in English. He is a founder member of the vibrant North-East Writers’ Forum and is presently its President. Apart from reading and writing, his other interests include painting, woodwork, trekking and cosmology. He has travelled widely both at home and abroad but is happiest when with his family.
Stacy Rodrigues
Stacy Rodrigues resides in Margao Goa. She completed her education in music. Being visually impaired, she is an artist by profession for the past 6 years and as of now, she is a full-time yoga instructor & a spiritual counsellor. So far she has held 4 solo exhibitions and she has been part of a few group exhibitions in Goa. In the year 2012, on a small scale, she released her poem book entitled "reflections". Recently she has written her first novel "In Search Of" which was launched in the month of October 2019. In Search Of is a book about a visually impaired individual who dared to live a normal life. The experience that life put her through taught her the meaning of life and helped her find her true self.
Miniya Chatterji
Dr. Miniya Chatterji is CEO of Sustain Labs, a company based out of India, France, and New Zealand that turns around large traditional organisations to make them more sustainable. Sustain Labs’ current portfolio consists of large infrastructure companies, leading universities, government infrastructure projects in India, Europe, Africa, and Asia Pacific.
Miniya was Chief Sustainability Officer of Jindal Steel & Power group of companies 2014 - 2017, and prior to that she was in the senior management of the World Economic Forum 2011-2014 in Geneva where she led the WEF in Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia. Before that, Miniya was managing a Eur 200 million hedge fund in Paris for a few years. She started as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs in 2006 in London. Earlier, Miniya worked as policy analyst with Jerome Monod the Chief Counsellor to the President of France Jacques Chirac 2003 - 2006. Miniya is a frequent speaker at Davos and at other World Economic Forum regional summits. She is a Jury Member for the Million Dollar Global Teacher Prize and for The Circulars award that is given away each year at Davos. Miniya is a member of the parliament of Francophone writers.
She is a columnist for The Harvard Business Review, The Indian Express and The Pioneer.
Indian Instincts - essays on freedom and equality in India is Miniya Chatterji’s first book. The book was published by Penguin Random House and launched in India in March 2018. The book is a best seller in India and was reviewed by all leading publications. Additionally, it was launched and distributed in Switzerland, Singapore, and Sri Lanka. The book is being translated in to several languages. The Bengali language edition of the book, published by Sampark Publishing House will be out in November 2019. The French language edition of the book, published by Penguin Random House will be out in April 2020.
Miniya has a PhD from Sciences-po Paris. She was a research fellow at Columbia University and Harvard University. She is a Global Leadership Fellow alumna of the World Economic Forum.
Mridula Garg
Equally proficient in Hindi and English, Mridula Garg has written in almost every genre in Hindi; 8 novels, 4 plays, 4 collections of essays, 1 memoir of fellow writers, 1 travel account and 90 short stories. Her latest work is a novel in English called The Last Email published in December 2017.
Her work displays both a wry sense of humor and self reflection. She does not adhere to traditions, Marxist, feminist or region specific. The familiar turns unpredictable as she discards stereotypes to uses irony to elucidate the axiom, I am my choices. If a book makes people angry yet does not allow them to put it down and ultimately forces them to rethink, it is most probably written by Mridula Garg.
Among other awards, her novel, Kathgulab was awarded the Vyas Samman in 2004 and Miljul Mann, the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2013. She received the Hellman-Hammet Grant from The Human Rights Watch, New York in 2001. She also received the Ram Manohar Lohia Samman from U.P Hindi Sansthan in 2014.
Sunanda Mehta
Sunanda Mehta is a journalist with over twenty-five years of experience. She began her career at Femina and moved on to Magna Publishing, where she became the founder-editor of the Pune city magazine Citadel at the age of twenty-five. After this, she worked for the Indian Express for two decades, breaking many stories throughout her tenure. From 2010 to 2017, she was Resident Editor of the newspaper’s Pune edition, which made her the first woman editor of a national English daily in Pune.
A graduate of Lady Shri Ram College for Women where she studied History, Sunanda also has degrees in Education and Journalism. A former Chevening fellow, she has been a visiting lecturer at the University of Pune. Sunanda divides her time between Mumbai and Pune.
Sudeep Sen
Sudeep Sen is widely recognised as a major new generation voice in world literature and “one of the finest younger English-language poets in the international literary scene” (BBC Radio). He is “fascinated not just by language but the possibilities of language” (Scotland on Sunday). At the 2004 Struga Poetry Festival (Macedonia), he received the ‘Pleiades’ honour for having made “a significant contribution to contemporary world poetry”. His prize-winning books include: Postmarked India: New & Selected Poems (HarperCollins), Distracted Geographies, Rain, Aria (A K Ramanujan Translation Award), Fractals: New & Selected Poems|Translations 1980-2015 (London Magazine Editions), EroText (Vintage: Penguin Random House), and Kaifi Azmi: Poems | Nazms (Bloomsbury). He has edited important anthologies: The HarperCollins Book of English Poetry, World English Poetry, and Modern English Poetry by Younger Indians (Sahitya Akademi). Blue Nude (Jorge Zalamea International Poetry Prize) and The Whispering Anklets are forthcoming. Sen’s works have been translated into over 25 languages. His words have appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, Newsweek, Guardian, Observer, Independent, Telegraph, Financial Times, Herald, Literary Review, Harvard Review, Hindu, Hindustan Times, Outlook, India Today, and broadcast on bbc, pbs, cnn ibn, ndtv, air & Doordarshan. Sen’s newer work appears in New Writing 15 (Granta), Language for a New Century (Norton), Love Poems (Knopf/Everyman), Out of Bounds (Bloodaxe), Initiate: Oxford New Writing (Blackwell), and Name me a Word (Yale). He is the editorial director of aark arts and the editor of Atlas. Sen is the first Asian honoured to read his poetry and deliver the Derek Walcott Lecture at the Nobel Laureate Festival. The Government of India’s Ministry of Culture has awarded him the senior fellowship for “outstanding persons in the field of culture/literature”.
