The fifth edition of The New Indian Express’ Odisha Literary Festival will be held at Mayfair Convention Centre in Bhubaneswar on November 5 & 6, 2016. We have planned a fun sports quiz for Plus II and college students on Sunday, November 6 morning. Entry is free, but do remember to register early on newindianexpress.com. In addition, we have an impressive speakers’ list that includes the following persons:
Bibek Debroy, Member, NITI Aayog
Bibek Debroy is an economist and a permanent member of Niti Aayog. He has authored and edited several books, papers and popular articles. Between 2010 and 2014, he authored a ten-volume unabridged English translation of The Mahabharata. Debroy was educated at Ramakrishna Mission School, Narendrapur; Presidency College, Kolkata; Delhi School of Economics and Trinity College, Cambridge. He was awarded Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award of India, in 2015. He has worked in the following professional bodies: Presidency College, Kolkata (1979-83); Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune (1983-87); Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Delhi (1987-93); as Director of a Ministry of Finance/UNDP project on legal reforms (1993-98); Department of Economic Affairs (1994-95); Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies (1997-2005); PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry (2005-06); and the Centre for Policy Research (2007-2015).
Salman Khurshid, Politician, Lawyer, Author
Salman Khurshid is an eminent politician, designated senior advocate, author and a law teacher. He started his political career in 1981 as an officer on Special Duty in the Prime Minister’s Office under Indira Gandhi, and went on to hold various portfolios in the Union Cabinet. Khurshid has been writing and acting in plays since his student days in Delhi and Oxford. He is the author of the play Sons of Babur, which has been staged at the Red Fort in Delhi. His latest offering is At Home in India: The Muslim Saga. It is a comprehensive and forceful book that highlights the fact that Muslims feel at home in India and provides rare insights into their thought processes, aspirations and problems.
Raheel Khursheed Head-News, Politics, Govt, Twitter India
As the head of news, politics and government at Twitter India, Raheel Khursheed is responsible for onboarding, content strategy and offering front-line technical support for content creators in news, government, and political verticals. The former journalist and online activist, Khursheed also leads the disaster response and faith verticals at Twitter India. He works towards managing, tracking and expanding Twitter’s impact on culture in India, and helps increase the active usage of Twitter in India. He has also been instrumental in the conception, development and roll-out of India-first products such as Twitter Seva, which is being used by MEA, Telecom Ministry, Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Twitter Samvad and the Disaster Response Smart Feed. Khursheed has also worked as the director of communications-India at Change.org, the world’s largest petition platform. He did his schooling and college from Anantnag district in Jammu & Kashmir, and masters in mass communication from Symbiosis Institute, Pune.
Burak Akçapar Ambassador of Turkey to India
Burak Akçapar is a diplomat, scholar and author, and current Ambassador of Turkey to India, Nepal and the Maldives. He has written on history, international law, European Union studies, disarmament and international security. His most recent book People’s Mission to the Ottoman Empire: Dr. Ansari and the Indian Medical Mission, 1912-13, was published by Oxford University Press in 2014 and launched in 2015 at Oxford University. The book details how Indian Muslims mobilised and despatched three medical teams to treat wounded Ottoman soldiers during the Balkan Wars of 1912-13. Akçapar studies the letters by the director of the mission and the political and ideational context of the period to provide the first full narrative history of the mission and concludes that the mission was as much a humanitarian initiative as it was an effort to heal the pride of the Muslim population in India.