Speakers 2012

Adonis

Adonis

THE PROPHET POET In Greek Mythology, Adonis has a complex role. As god of beauty and desire, he also presides over the life-death-rebirth cycle, over the promise and peril of eternal youthfulness, over vegetation and fertility, and has been one of the most studied, oft-debated of the gods, the allusions linked to him at once Read More…

AMITA TUTI

AMITA TUTI

THE TRIBAL CAMERAWOMAN In the right hands a camera, it turns out, also has the power to be mightier than the sword, something Amita Tuti has demonstrated better than most. As a young tribal woman growing up in a village in the Khunti district of Jharkhand, she was no stranger to hardship, living in the Read More…

ANNA HAZARE

ANNA HAZARE

THE MAN WHO SHOOK A NATION If you were an editor at one of those magazines that task themselves with nominating a ‘Man of the Year’, you would be hard-pressed to look beyond the most compelling double act in Indian politics of late: Arvind Kejriwal and his mentor Anna Hazare. The latter, in particular, has Read More…

Anusha Rizvi

Anusha Rizvi

THE SUBTLE SATIRIST We first woke up to the genius of Anusha Rizvi when she tickled two of the country’s most raucous industries into stunned silence. Her first film, Peepli Live — a dark comedy about farmer suicides, poor governance and a frenzied media — became an instant favorite with both the film industry and Read More…

Arvind Subramanian

Arvind Subramanian

THE DISRUPTIVE ECONOMIST Arvind Subramanian doesn’t agree with forecasters who predict China’s economy will be the world’s largest in 20 years. He is convinced it already is. That’s not the only economic heresy Subramanian has committed in recent times. In May this year, he wrote an opinion piece for the Financial Times suggesting that defaulting Read More…

Ausama Monajed

Ausama Monajed

THE SYRIAN STRATEGIST The sharp-talking man in a well-cut suit seems like the antithesis of a revolutionary but make no mistake: Monajed is a man fervently devoted to the cause of freedom. In many ways, he represents the intriguing new face of freedom protests – the strategic thinker rather than gun-toting guerilla. In many ways, Read More…

Ben Hammersley

Ben Hammersley

THE WIRED GUY It’s kind of hard to slot a man who is editor-at-large of one of the world’s top tech magazines; a freelance reporter for the BBC; head of digital at a creative agency dealing with fashion brands; undercover war correspondent in Afghanistan and Iran; founder of a company called Dangerous Precedent and part-time Read More…

Bob Geldof

Bob Geldof

THE ROCKSTAR WITH A CAUSE He’s a rockstar who seems to stand against everything conventional rock and roll was all about – sex, drugs and the ‘who gives a damn’ culture. Instead, Bob Geldof seems to give a damn about everything others don’t. He gives a damn about poverty. About hunger and famine and disease Read More…

Christopher Turner

Christopher Turner

THE CULTURAL COMMENTATOR Chris Turner seems inexorably drawn to the unusual. After reading anthropology, archaeology and art history at Cambridge University, he went on to complete a PhD on the cultural history of ‘Disgust’ at the London Consortium, a post-graduate PhD programme in the Humanities at the University of London, where he has also taught. Read More…