Vaad

S. Vijay Kumar is a Singapore-based finance and shipping expert who is general manager of a leading ocean transportation company. In 2007–08 he started a blog on Indian art.   

In 2010 Vijay got involved with both Indian and United States law enforcement agencies that were investigating cases of idol theft and smuggling.   Vijay has played a role in the arrests of several idol thieves and smugglers. 

He has also successfully matched several stolen idols with pieces that have been acquired by museums, thereby ensuring their repatriation to India. Based on these experiences, he wrote his first book ‘The Idol Thief’.

Arjun Singh Kadian is an academic and policy professional. A geologist by training, he graduated from Hansraj College, University of Delhi, and is a gold medalist in his master's degree. In addition to teaching, Arjun has worked at the chief minister's office, Haryana and travelled widely across the region to understand the nuances of the state.  

Arjun is an alumnus of the Observer Research Foundation and ZEIT-Stiftung. He is also a fellow at Konrad-Adenanar-Stiftung. Arjun is also involved with projects like Indic Academy, Rath Foundation and has initiated the Haryana Thinkers Forum.

Prof. Vasant Shinde is internationally renowned archaeologist and former Vice-Chancellor of the Deccan College, Pune. Prof. Shinde has been a pioneer in archaeological research for almost 40 years, specialising in the Protohistory of South Asia as well as Field Archaeology.  

He has directed a vast number of excavations around the country, from Harappan sites in Gujarat and Haryana to Chalcolithic sites in Madhya Pradesh and the Deccan, to Protohistoric and Early historic Sites in Rajasthan and Maharashtra. Presently, he has been directing a very prestigious research project at the largest Harappan site of Rakhigarhi in Haryana.  

Several crucial elements of South Asian archaeology, from hitherto unknown protohistoric cultural phases to models of urbanisation in Mewar, Rajasthan, owe their discovery to him. He has initiated several levels of International Collaboration with Institutes around the world, bringing Indian archaeology to a truly global level. He has established the Society of South Asian Archaeology (SOSAA) with a view to promoting young archaeologists and further global collaboration.

Harsh Gupta is a public markets focused investor who is "Long India". He was earlier with Ashika Group as chief investment officer, with Bain as a consultant focusing on DDs for PE/HF clients, and with MIT Poverty Action Lab as a research associate.  

He is an INSEAD MBA and Dartmouth College Economics graduate. A CFA® charter-holder and IIT Delhi dropout, he has coauthored two books: Derivatives (Cambridge University Press) and A New Idea Of India (Westland/Amazon).

Rajeev Mantri is the founder and managing director of India-focused venture capital firm Navam Capital. Prior to founding Navam, Rajeev worked as a venture capital investor at New York-based Lux Capital, focusing on investments in deep technology ventures. Rajeev is widely published columnist on technology, investing, venture capital and entrepreneurship in India.  

In 2020, Rajeev authored (with Harsh Madhusudan) A New Idea Of India - Individual Rights In A Civilisational State, a best-selling and widely acclaimed book on the history and future of modern India, Rajeev graduated with a BS in materials science and engineering from Northwestern Universityand earned his MBA, specializing in private equity and investment management from Columbia University.

Priya Mishra is India’s leading गांजा activist who has been researching its benefits over the last few years. With the help of doctors and professionals, she has helped get better scores of patients suffering from diseases that are known to respond to consumption of this medicinal plant. Almost a decade back, she cured herself with third stage Tuberculosis and that’s how and where her tryst with गांजा began.  

Popularly known as Hempvati, many companies in India and abroad have engaged Priya’s expertise to develop various products - for medicinal as well as industrial uses. Her tiring efforts have started bearing fruits with many states now allowing industrial products as well as medicinal treatment with Gaanja/marijuana/bhaang/charas.

Dr. Kapil Tiwari is a 2021 Padma Shree awardee in ‘Literature and Education’ field. He received the honour for his stellar contribution over 30 years in studying and documenting oral traditions among various communities in India, especially the tribals.   

Thanks to him, invaluable part of Bharat’s heritage i.e. oral tradition of folk and tribal communities is preserved in over 50,000 printed pages today.  Born in Madhya Pradesh's Sagar, Dr. Tiwari, a PhD in Hindi Literature, has edited scores of books related to folk and tribal culture. He has been the Director of Madhya Pradesh Adivasi Lok Kala Academy and is currently an advisory member of Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts and a member of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations.

Ami Ganatra is an alumna of Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA). A management professional, she is also a devout yoga practitioner, a certified yoga instructor, and a student of Sanskrit and Indian knowledge systems.  

Her book “Mahabharata Unravelled: Lesser-Known Facets of a Well-Known History” brings to light fascinating details and aspects of the people and events in the great epic not commonly known, to answer some often-asked questions and clarify prevalent myths.

Radhavallabh Tripathi is one of the senior-most professors of Sanskrit in the country.  

Widely acclaimed for his original contributions to the study of Natyashastra and Sahityashastra, he has published 129 books, 187 research papers and critical essays as well as translations of more than 30 Sanskrit plays and some classics from Sanskrit into Hindi.   

He has received more than 25 national and international awards and honours for his literary contributions.  

He has been authoritatively referred in various research journals on Indology. Some literary journals have published special numbers dedicated to his life and writings.

Dr. Anand Ranganathan is a Professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi (JNU). He obtained his BSc (Hons) degree in Chemistry from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi after which he left on a Nehru Centenary Scholarship for Cambridge, UK, where he obtained his BA (Tripos) in Natural Sciences, his MA, and his PhD. After a post-doctoral stint at Cambridge, Anand returned to India to join International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Delhi where he ran his lab for 16 years.  In 2015 he joined JNU’s Special Centre for Molecular Medicine as an Associate Professor. His laboratory works in the area of Directed Evolution and Pathogenesis, with special emphasis on Tuberculosis and Malaria.  Anand has written three books, all novels: The Land of the Wilted Rose (Rupa, 2012); For Love and Honour (Bloomsbury, 2015); The Rat Eater (Juggernaut, 2017; co-authored with Chitra Subramaniam)