Achyut Palav

Achyut Palav is a calligrapher with a bachelor degree in Graphic Design from Sir J.J. Institute of Applied Art, Mumbai, where he was also a faculty member. His research focuses on Modi Script. He received a Research Scholarship from Ulka Advertising for his thesis on Modi script (15th to 17th Century).

Cheriyan Alexander

Cheriyan Alexander is the President of Headstreams, and is an associate professor of English and currently HOD of the Dept of English at St. Joseph’s College. His Ph.D (Bangalore University) was on the effect of totalitarian political regimes on the Post-war East European literature. He has written on issues of literature, culture and the arts, edited the book ‘Many Rooms, Many Voices,’ given radio talks, and served on textbook committees (PU Board and Bangalore University).

EP Unny

Unny is one of the most important Indian political cartoonists of our times, and has been one of LILA’s greatest supporters. It is EP Unny’s lila that one sees on the Inter-Actions masthead. His little figures have helped us retain the human touch in a largely digital world. On The Indian Express, he has been doing ‘Business as Usual’ for the past 15 years without a day’s break!. His publications include Spices and Souls – A Doodler’s Journey through Kerala and Santa and the Scribes: The Making of Fort Kochi among others. Currently, he is working on a comparative ‘biography of cartoons’ in India. His regular panel Leelatoon will be a permanent feature on Inter-Actions.

Girija Ravikrishnan

Girija Ravikrishnan is a teacher by profession and has been working in Trivandrum International School as a Special Educator for the past two years. She was originally a maths teacher, and taught the subject for around 12 years. She did a course on Learning Disabilities by the British council in London. She also completed a certificate course in the Management of Learning Disabilities) by State Resource Centre, Kerala Government.

Harshita Arora and Aradheea Gawde

Harshita Arora is a 17 year old engineer, scientist and entrepreneur. Aradheea Gawde is a National level golf player. Both of them dropped out of school and have been unschooling since.

Krishna Kumar

Krishna Kumar is an Indian intellectual and academician, noted for his writings in the sociology and history of education. From 2004-2010, From 2004 to 2010, he was Director of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), and it was under his leadership that the National Curricular Framework (2005) was prepared. He was awarded the Padma Shri by the President of India in 2011.

Team LILA

​​Sadanand Menon​

Sadanand Menon has been exploring the charged space linking politics and culture for several decades through his work in media, pedagogy and the arts. A writer, photographer and stage lights designer, he was an Arts Editor with The Economic Times, and has taught arts journalism and media at the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai and at IIT, Madras. He has been in an advisory or executive capacity with National Museum, Delhi, National Gallery of Modern Art, Bengaluru, Lalit Kala Akademi, Delhi, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, and the National School of Drama, Delhi. He is managing trustee of the arts foundation, SPACES, Chennai. Among the several exhibitions he has curated are major retrospectives of the late Dashrath Patel as well as of senior artists Balan Nambiar and S.G. Vasudev, for the NGMAs, Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru. A long-time collaborator with radical thinker/choreographer Chandralekha, he is deeply involved with issues connected with critical practices in contemporary Indian dance.

Mikael and Roman

Roman Tschäppeler is from Switzerland. He is an accurate, viusal thinker and also produces documentaries and cultural projects in his studio guzo. Mikael Krogerus is from Finland. He is an enthusiastic, fast thinker and also works as an editor with Switzerland’s biggest weekly magazine Das Magazin. Both are Kaospilot graduates and authors of the international bestseller The Decision Book

Navtej Johar

Pankaj Chandra

Pankaj Chandra is the Vice Chancellor and Chairman, Board of Management, Ahmedabad University. He was the Director of the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIMB) and a Professor of Operations and Technology Management at IIMB. He has also taught at various institutions across India and abroad. He was also a member of the two High Powered Committees – the Government of India Committee on Rejuvenation of Higher Education (Yashpal Committee) that re-looked at the Indian Higher Education system as well as the committee on the Autonomy of Central Institutions. He has also taught at IIMA and IIMB. His recent book is Building Universities that Matter: Where are Indian Institutions going Wrong?

Pepita Seth

Pepita Seth trained as a film editor, worked on many British and American feature films. She first visited India in 1970, to retrace her soldier great-grandfather’s diary account of his role in the 1857 march from Calcutta to Lucknow. All her subsequent visits were to Kerala, where she photographed Hindu rituals throughout the state. She currently lives in Kerala and is working on a book about the Theyyam culture. She has also authored the book Heaven on Earth: The Universe of Kerala’s Guruvayur Temple. In 2012 she was awarded the Padma Shri.

Prema Rangachary

Prema Rangachary is the Secretary and Director of Vidya Vanam. She received training at Oxford University in the U.K., to teach English as a second Language. She has long promoted the need to advance novel changes in the curriculum and to foster education, especially in regions where resources are limited.

Prima Kurien

Prima Kurien is a food maker, art facilitator and free thinker. She cooks Malayali food and serves it with passion and love. She ran the pathbreaking art gallery Art Inc. from 1995-2003 in Delhi’s Shahpur Jat.

Probir Gupta

Born in Kolkata in 1960, Probir graduated from the Government College of Arts and Crafts, Kolkata in 1981. He went on to study at École National Superiere de Beaux-arts, Paris on a two year French Government scholarship in 1982 and continued to live and work there till 1987. He was recently exhibited at the Kochi Muziris Biennale, the Korean Biennale and other group shows in the UK and Austria. His works were also exhibited in solo exhibitions across the US, UK and India.

Rishi Barua

Rishi Barua is a faculty member at the Department of Sculpture, Kala Bhavana, Visva Bharati, Santiniketan. He is also a practising artist.

Sanjay Gupta

Sanjay Gupta is currently Vice Chancellor of World University of Design, Sonipat. He’s an alumnus of IIT Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad. Formerly the Dean of NIFT (National Institute of Fashion Technology), he has been instrumental in establishing Design as a mainstream field of study and career choice in India.

Sayan Chaudhuri

Sayan Chaudhuri is currently pursuing a PhD in English Studies at JNU and teach Critical Writing at the Young India Fellowship program based out of Ashoka University. His PhD work studies the framing of English Studies in post-liberalisation India, with particular emphasis on how pedagogic practices influence disciplinary learning.

Shivani Karmarkar

Shivani Karmarkar is an anthropologist with specialisation in social development and a background in journalism, research and project coordination. Her experience includes designing and conducting surveys and interviews for academic as well as journalistic projects and developing courses and pedagogic methodologies for adult learning programmes. Having worked as a journalist with organisations like Bloomberg and Cogencis (formerly Newswire18), she also has a natural disposition to engage with diverse people and document their stories.

Shivani in conversation with Avinash Patil

Sohail Hashmi

Sohail Hashmi graduated from Delhi University and completed his post-graduation and M.Phil, from JNU. He gave up his Ph.D. mid-way to work full time with the CPI (M). He conducts Heritage walks in Delhi, writes about Delhi, its language, its food, its water bodies and its monuments. He also makes documentaries, writes and blogs on Issues of Culture, Language, Education and Communalism. Sohail has worked with PTI TV, National Literacy Mission, Home TV, BITV and kingfisher.com. He was Director of Leap Years – a Creative Activity Centre for Children, and is the founding Trustee of SAHMAT.

Sudarshan Iyengar

Sudarshan Iyengar, Ph.D. Economics, is the Former Vice Chancellor of Gujarat Vidyapith, Ahmedabad founded by Mahatma Gandhi. He has worked with various ICSSR recognised socioeconomic research institutions in Ahmedabad and Surat. He was also Chair Professor, Gandhian Philosophy, at IIT, Mumbai. He is presently living and working at Action Research in Community Health and Development (ARCH) at Dharampur, Valsad, Gujarat.

Sundar Sarukkai

Sundar Sarukkai has been a professor at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore as well as the Founder-Director of Manipal Centre for Philosophy and Humanities. His work is primarily in the philosophy of the natural and social sciences, about which he has written many books. He has also co-authored two books with Gopal Guru: The Cracked Mirror: An Indian Debate on Experience and Theory (Oxford University Press, 2012) and Experience, Caste and the Everyday Social (Oxford University Press, to be released this summer). He has been instrumental in bringing philosophy into the public domain through his newspaper column in a leading newspaper in India, The Hindu, as well as through his initiative called Barefoot Philosophers.

Team Interactions

Tripura Kashyap

Yashasvini Rajeshwar

Yashasvini Rajeswar is the Founder and CEO of AuxoHub that works on catalysing funding and training for grassroots organisations in Tier II cities. She has been a teacher at Vidya Vanam in the past, and has also worked as a content writer and developer for various organisations

Zahira Rahman

Zahira Rahman is a retired associate professor of English literature. Her Ph.D. was on Theatre in Education, and her essay on ritual performances was published in RiDE, a Routledge publication. She has co-authored a text for B.A.literature students of Calicut University, and has also published several poems and translations in Indian Literature and other publications.