2026

Ann Poyser was born to Stuart Vernon Poyser and Monglee Kol in a remote village in Pengaree, Assam. Her early childhood was spent in an orphanage. With her sheer grit and never giving up spirit, she became the First Lady Tea Planter of Assam.

Hailing from Assam’s Barak Valley, Anurag Rudra lives and writes in Guwahati, his adopted home, where he studied English Literature at Cotton College. His poems and writings have been published, both at home and abroad, in The Hindu, Tehelka, Kinaara, Kritya, The Glasgow Review, Gloom Cupboard, The Northeast Review etc. He is currently working on his first book of poetry and a book of non-fiction.

Anuradha Sarma Pujari is a popular author, columnist and senior journalist of Assam. She is the editor of leading Assamese weekly Sadin and also that of literary magazine Satsori, which is enlisted by UGC-CARE.

She has authored 27 books, including 12 novels, 6 short story collections, and 9 autobiographical essays among others. She has also edited several books, journals and magazines. She regularly contributes articles to leading newspapers and magazines. Her first Assamese novel Hriday Ek Bigyapan (My Poems are not for your Ad-Campaign) is widely regarded as a bestseller. Several of her other novels have been translated into English, Hindi and some other Indian languages.

Among her noteworthy awards are Sahitya Akademi in Assamese language and Film Fare Award for best story for Assamese cinema.

Arabinda Rajkhowa is a short story writer, literary critic and heritage researcher. He teaches in North Lakhimpur University in Assam. He has published 11 books, including Jatiya Oitijya Aru Sahitya, Niyambor Konobai Bhangibai Lagibo, Oitijya-Anushanga, and Alap Nirjanata. He has also edited over 30 academic and literary volumes.

Arjun Singh Kadian is an academic and policy professional. A geologist by training, he graduated from Hansraj College, University of Delhi with a gold medal. Arjun is an alumnus of the Observer Research Foundation and ZEIT-Stiftung. He is also a fellow at Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung. Arjun is also involved with projects like Indic Academy, Rath Foundation and has initiated the Haryana Thinkers Forum.

His first book Land of the Gods: The Story of Haryana was published in 2021 and his second book, Neeraj Chopra: From Panipat to the Podium, in 2022. His most recent works include, The Modi Disruption-India in Transition and Power Pivots-Politics of Haryana in 21st Century.

Air Vice Marshal (retd) Arjun Subramaniam is the author of five books, including India’s Wars: A Military History: 1947-1971 and its sequel India’s Wars 1972-2020. His Shooting Straight: A Military Biography of Lt Gen Rostum K Nanavatty was released recently. He is also the editor of an anthology of essays titled Force in Statecraft: An Indian Perspective. He is on the review editorial board of several journals and writes extensively for leading newspapers and magazines on military and strategic issues. An air power doctrinal expert, Subramaniam is also the former President’s Chair of Excellence in National Security Affairs at National Defence College, New Delhi. He has been a visiting faculty/fellow at several foreign and top Indian universities and war colleges. He is currently an Adjunct Faculty at the Kautilya School of Public Policy.

Aruna Chakravarti is an academic, creative writer and translator with nineteen published books on record. They comprise five novels, three collections of short stories, two academic works and nine volumes of translation.

Her first novel The Inheritors was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and her second, Jorasanko received critical acclaim and also became a best seller. Its sequel Daughters of Jorasanko, , has received rave reviews. Her novel Suralakshmi Villa, has been adjudged “Novel of the year (India 2020)” by Indian Bibliography published in The Journal of Commonwealth Literature UK. Her latest novel, The Mendicant Prince, a semi-fictional account of the Bhawal legal case, was published in July 2022. It was shortlisted for the Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize 24-25. Her latest collection of short stories, Creeping Shadows: 13 Ghost Stories, has just been released.

Her translated works include an anthology of songs from Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitabitaan, Saratchandra Chattopadhyay’s Srikanta and Sunil Gangopadhyay’s Those Days, First Light and Primal Woman: Stories. A collection of short stories, selected and translated by her Rising from the Dust contains twelve stories on the lives of Dalit women.

Arupjyoti Saikia is a professor of history at the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati. He held the Agrarian Studies Programme Fellowship at Yale University, and visiting fellow positions at Cambridge University, University of London and University of Calcutta. 

His published works include Forest and Ecological History of Assam, 1826–2000 AD (OUP, 2011); A Century of Protests: Peasant Politics in Assam since 2000 (Routledge, 2014); The Unquiet River: A Biography of the Brahmaputra (OUP, 2019); The Quest for Modern Assam: A History: 1942–2000 (Penguin, 2023) and India’s Forests: Revisiting Nature and History (Penguin, forthcoming, coedited with Mahesh Rangarajan). The Unquiet River was short-listed for Kamala Devi Chattopadhayay Book Award in 2020 and long listed for Atta Galatta–Bangalore Literature Festival Book Prize in 2020 and got ‘Honorable Mention’ for Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy Book Prize in 2021 given by the Association of Asian Studies. 

Ashwin Ahmad is a senior journalist and editor for over 20 years. He has worked at several leading publications, such as The Times of India and Indian Express and has been the Opinion Editor at Mail Today and DNA. Currently, he is the Foreign Affairs Editor for Free Press Journal. On the academic front, he lectures on international relations at the Indian Institute of Law and Management in Gurugram. He has also extensively reported on West Asia and the Af-Pak region, on which he has written several columns for Mumbai-based think tank Gateway House.

With over 30 years of editorial experience in print, publishing and digital media, Atima Mankotia has worked with several renowned organizations. Recently, she worked as communication specialist in the field of climate change at United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and at Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation. Currently she is a Professor at a prestigious Business School teaching Communication, Organisation Behaviour and Human Resources.

She published her works of fiction Staring at the Square Moon in 2017 and Better than Sex in 2020, both social satires with a strong emphasis on women-centric issues.