Speakers 2013
HARSH PANT
THE FOREIGN POLICY PLAINSPEAKER Distance may or may not have made Harsh Pant’s heart grow fonder, but it has certainly given him clarity in understanding the complex challenges and nuances of Indian foreign policy. A Reader in International Relations in the Defence Studies Department at King’s College London, Harsh – who is also an associate Read More…
Ima Ngambi
In the 1970s the Meiti women of Manipur, the state’s largest ethnic group, came together to drive out alcoholism and drug abuse from the state. They would patrol the streets at night, fining drunks and burning alcohol. One of them was Ima Ngambi, a daily-wage labourer struggling to feed her four children. This movement evolved Read More…
JAY PANDA
THE GOLDEN BOY Baijayant Panda could have led a a very different life. Born into a business family with enough wealth for him to study in Michigan, ‘Jay’ Panda didn’t have to roll his sleeves up and get his hands dirty in the slow, frustrating, often corrupt machinations of Indian politics. He and his wife, Read More…
JERRY SANDERS
THE MODERN JETSON It’s a bio designed to give superheroes a complex. He’s a former Navy SEAL who went on to found a technology company, San Francisco Science; acquired a law degree; holds post-graduate qualifications in German socio-economics from Germany and comparative constitutional law from Mexio; is a fellow of the New York and California Read More…
JOHN MAKINSON
ARGUABLY THE MOST INFLUENTIAL MAN IN PUBLISHING It’s easy to underestimate – or, unless you’re directly connected with the publishing business, ignore entirely – the role of the publisher in bringing you a book. Publishers decide what gets published and what doesn’t. That means they decide the framework of what you should be reading – Read More…
JOHN PILGER
THE ORIGINAL WHISTLEBLOWER Can one individual really make a difference in tackling injustice, propaganda, corruption, war? Two words are all you need in answer: John Pilger. In a New Statesman survey of the 50 Heroes of Our Time, Pilger came fourth, in the company of legends like Aung San Suu Kyi and Nelson Mandela. Pilger Read More…
JYOTIRMAYA SHARMA
Jyotirmaya Sharma is the professor of political science at the University of Hyderabad. A prolific academic and writer, he was the Fellow for the Spring Semester of 2012 at the the Swedish Collegium of Advanced Study at Uppsala, the Fellow for the academic year 2012-13 at the Lichtenberg-Kolleg at Goettingen, a fellow of the Centre Read More…
LAILA TYABJI
THE KEEPER OF HERITAGE Laila Tyabji once wrote that there is a perception of Dastkar as an organisation of “arty-farty ladies obsessed with design… revealing our inherent superficiality and inability to think in truly ‘developmental’ ‘issue based’ terms”. Tyabji, it turns out, couldn’t be further from the stereotype of the “arty-farty” lady. Over the course Read More…
LOUISE LEAKEY
THE FOSSIL HUNTER Pretty much most of what we conclusively know about the origin of ourselves as a species – as human beings – we know because of the Leakeys. To some, digging for humanity’s origins in a remote, vast basin in East Africa may sound like a romantic notion. To Louise – third generation Read More…
