Prema Jayakumar is an author and translator based in Kochi

Navin Chawla is a former Chief Election Commissioner of India

Kapka Kassabova participated in the Jaipur Literature Festival with the support of The British Academy. She is the author of Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe (Granta)

Surjit S Bhalla, a former executive director at IMF, has served on the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister and is the author of, among other titles, Citizen Raj

Vivek Wadhwa is a US-based entrepreneur of Indian origin and an academic; Shwanika Narayan is a San Francisco-based journalist