Meet Our Speakers
An author, politician and former senior diplomat with the United Nations, living in India. During his nearly three-decade long prior career at the United Nations, he served as a peacekeeper, refugee worker, and administrator at the highest levels, serving as Under-Secretary General during Kofi Annan's leadership of the organisation. Dr. Tharoor is also an award-winning author of works of both fiction as well as non-fiction. He has written twenty books.
Author, Senior diplomat with the United Nations, and Politician
Shashi Tharoor
He completed his Masters in Comparative Religion and has a Postgraduate in Organisational Psychology from the University of Freiburg. He is currently working on several translation projects, including the Ten Upanishads of the Vedas, the Yoga sutras of Pantanjali and the Essence of the Rigveda.
Head of Sanskrit and Indian Philosophy at the Omkarananda ashram
Acharya Vidyabhaskar
He holds a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Cambridge. He has taught philosophy at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He is the winner of the prestigious Bastiat Prize for journalism for his columns in the Financial Times. His books include Bad Thoughts: A Guide to Clear Thinking in the UK; 2003), A Load of Blair (2005), Free Thoughts (2012) and Quack Policy (2013).
Liberal economist, and the ex-Director of research at the Institute for Economic Affairs, a London based think-tank.
Jamie Whyte
He is an Emeritus Fellow of St Antony’s College at Oxford, and an Associate Fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House).
Director of the SOAS China Institute, London
Steve Tsang
He is a professor of evolutionary psychology at Concordia University and is the research chair in evolutionary behavioural sciences and Darwinian consumption. He is an author of three books including his latest called The Parasitic Mind.
Professor of evolutionary psychology & author
Gad Saad
He is the General Secretary of the ruling Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) of India. He is the author of “Uneasy Neighbours: India and China after fifty years of the war”. He is widely known as the strategist behind the rise of the BJP in India’s elections and advocating for a more active foriegn policy in South-east Asia.
Founder and Director of India Foundation, a Policy Institute based in Delhi
Ram Madhav
A lawyer by training, she has helped steer the foundation towards being recognised as a leading voice for civil rights, human rights, and religious freedom.
Executive Director of the Hindu American Foundation (HAF)
Suhag Shukla
He is the founder of the American Philosophical Practitioners Association, and is an international best-selling author. He is a world authority on applying philosophical traditions to problems of everyday life. His books include Plato: not Prozac (1999), The Middle Way (2007), On Human Conflict (2019).
Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York
Lou Marinoff
His recent book called Angrynomics (2020) co-authored with Mark Blyth explores how increasingly economic models no longer relate to what real people experience. He has written widely for Financial Times, Foriegn Affairs and the Economist.
Author, Macro-Hedge Fund Manager and Economist
Eric Lonergan
She is a psychologist by training, and a story-teller of ancient Irish tales. She works with a growing number of OBOD members from across the United Kingdom organising camps and retreats to resurrect Pagan culture.
Head of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids
Eimear Burke
He has obtained his PhD from the University of Illinois and has been a Professor of English at Jawaharlal Nehru University for over twenty years. His latest books include Swami Vivekananda: Hinduism and India’s Road to Modernity (HarperCollins 2020), New Perspectives in Indian Science and Civilization (Routledge 2020).
Director, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla
Makarand Paranjape
He was the Chairperson of the Drafting Committee at the 69th Session of the ILC. His areas of expertise include dispute resolution, boundary disputes, law of the sea, international investment law and international trade law. He has taught international law at the Indian Law Institute, New Delhi and National Law University, Delhi. He is an advocate at the Supreme Court of India.
Member of the United Nations International Law Commission (2017-21)
Aniruddha Rajput
He is an ordained Church of England priest, and has a doctorate in Theology. He is an academic and teaches the history of doctrine at Oxford.
Senior Research Fellow at Worcester College, Oxford
Rev. Peter Groves
He is an Eisenhower Fellow and Director of London’s Nehru Centre. He was listed amongst the 50 most influential Indians by India Today magazine in 2019 having sold millions of copies of his books - The Shiva Trilogy and Ram Chandra series.
Indian diplomat, columnist and author
Amish Tripathi
He is an economist, who has a MBA from INSEAD and is a Dartmouth alumnus. He is a published author - Modinomics (2014), and has written extensively on economics. He is widely published and has spoken across the world about an emerging India.
Chief Investment Officer at the Ashika Group, India
Harsh Gupta
He specialises in defence economics & has been a visiting fellow at Sandia National Laboratories and the Stimson Centre, and regularly publishes on Defence and Foreign Policy.
Senior fellow at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies
Abhijit Iyer Mitra
She is the President of the National Hindu Students Forum (NHSF) which is the largest Hindu student organisation outside of India with over 3,500 members. She was born into a typical Muslim family in the United Kingdom. She left Islam at the age of 19, and had to leave home. Today she is an Enterprise Architect at Unilever.
President of the National Hindu Students' Forum (UK)
Drishti Mae
He has interests in India focused advisory services, angel investing, government affairs, and publishing. For 15 years Manoj practised as a corporate lawyer running his own firm with offices in Westminster & Mumbai before turning his attention to business, charitable, and political interests in the UK & India.
Founder of India Inc, a London based Media House
Manoj Ladwa
He has over 30 years experience in leading operations and logistics functions in the global Aerospace sector. He lectures on both undergraduate and postgraduate programmes with special interest in Change management, strategic change, and creative problem solving.
Associate lecturer at Loughborough University’s Centre for Information Management
Andy Bayley
He is an upcoming podcaster from Mumbai, India. His podcast called Carvaka is growing in popularity and most of his well wishers are Indians who live in the United States. He is a student of Philosophy, and is attempting to resurrect the serious study of the Carvaka school of Philosophy.
Podcaster, host of the Cārvāka podcast
Kushal Mehra
He sits as an Executive and Non-Exec in several scale-up businesses.He has a doctorate in Political Philosophy, and has a keen interest in the study of Liberty and Liberalism. He has a Postgraduate in Christian and Islamic Theology, and wrote his thesis on the incompatibility of Islamic doctrine and Liberty. He is also the International Coordinator for Vichaar Manthan.
CEO of PillboxCapital, Public philosopher
Sachin Nandha
He is a specialist Gastroenterologist and Hepatologist and has a special interest in the study of religion
Medical Director, Founding trustee of Rashtram
Anil Asthana
He is a Professor of Politics at Whitman College, Washington State. He has authored several books, notably “The Rise of Postmodern Conservatism”. He has written extensively on a range of topics from “Liberalism and Socialism, mortal enemies or estranged kin?” to “Making Human Dignity Central to International Human Rights Law.
Professor of Politics at Whitman College, Washington
Matthew McManus
