Speakers 2013
MAHMOOD MADANI
THE INFORMED SCHOLAR Ever since Partition, being Muslim in India has been a complex experience, one filled with discrimination, vilification and condescension. As the Sachar Committee Report shows, it means the system colludes to keep you out of positions of power, robs you of the right to succeed on your own terms. Yet, there are Read More…
MANISHA DEVI
THE FORMIDABLE ACTIVIST As a student in class XI, Manisha Devi once called out her government school teacher for treating her differently from her prettier upper caste schoolmate. For her guts, Manisha, a Valmiki Dalit, was kicked and thrown out of the class by him. For many teenagers, this could be a defeat, or an Read More…
MANSOOR KHAN
MASTER OF REINVENTION In 1988, Mansoor Khan was drifting through life, unsure of whether he wanted to work as an engineer, having studied at IIT Bombay, Cornell and MIT. His father, Nasir Hussain, offered him the chance at directing. He responded with Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, which not only launched the career of one Aamir Read More…
MARTIN HABLESREITER & SONJA STUMMERER
THE CULINARY ARCHITECTS Columbus discovered America when searching for spices. The Boston Tea party was protesting taxes on tea. The East India Company traded extensively in spices and tea. Some of history’s most game-changing events, it turns out, owe their roots to food. But so, too, do dozens of other habits, norms, cultural and social Read More…
MEDHA PATKAR
THE PEOPLE’S PROTESTOR Not everyone can alter the course of a river. Medha Patkar, or Medha tai as she is known to people from Nandigram to Nandagudi, was 31 when she first became associated with the Narmada Bachao Andolan, protesting against the Narmada Valley Development Project which would potentially affect the lives and livelihood of Read More…
MORAN CERF
THE HACKER-TURNED-NEUROSCIENTIST WHO CAN READ YOUR MIND Moran Cerf has a tendency to depress people who are not Moran Cerf. When we imagine a neuroscientist doing some of the most cutting-edge work in brain research around the world, we don’t think of a 37-year-old who has also, in turn, been a pilot, a radio host, Read More…
MULLAH ABDUL SALAM ZAEEF
THE TALIBAN INSIDER To call Mullah Zaeef’s life extraordinary would be to understate the obvious. One of the founding members of the Taliban, and a former close confidant of Taliban head Mullah Mohammed Omar, Abdul Salam Zaeef’s origins were unremarkable – possibly because the achingly poor household to which he was born was so commonplace Read More…
NANDAN NILEKANI
THE IDENTITY ALCHEMIST It would have been hard, in the heady days when Infosys hit the big league, to imagine Nandan Nilekani pulling off anything off that magnitude ever again. After all, for a handful of technology professionals with no experience of entrepreneurship to set up one of the world’s most successful software companies ever, Read More…
Nariman El Bakry
THE REBELLIOUS ARTIST Nariman El Bakry was born in Abu Dhabi, UAE, to a Lebanese mother and Egyptian father. She moved to Egypt at the age of 16 and completed her bachelors in advertising and public relations at MSA University. She works as a marketing and PR executive for the Cairo Jazz Club, an iconic Read More…