Hyderabad: Hyderabad Literary Festival (HLF) 2020 is organized by “Hyderabad Literary Trust” in association with the Government of Telangana and with the support of several academic, literary, cultural organizations and publishing houses. The three-day festival will be inaugurated at Vidya Ranya High School in Saifabad on January 24 and conclude by January 26th.
Talk by Director Adoor Gopalakrishnan
Timings: 10:20 am – 11:00 am
Adoor Gopalakrishnan has written and directed 12 feature films, participated in all major film fests, and has won the National Award for Best Director five times, and the International Film Critics’ Prize six times consecutively. His film Elippathayam won the BFI Award for the “Most Original and Imaginative Film of 1982”. He is also the author of four books on cinema. Among the many honours he received are the French Government’s Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters (2004), the Dadasaheb Phalke Award (2005), the Padma Vibhushan (2006), Life-time Achievement Awards at Cairo, Denver, New Jersey, Colombo, and DLitt from MG University, Kerala University, and Visva Bharati University.
Talk: Fake News—The True Story
Pratik Sinha
Chair: Ranjan Chak
Timings: 11:05 am – 11:45 am
Pratik Sinha is the founder-editor of Alt News, a leading fact-checking portal that that is battling misinformation propagated in the Indian social media ecosystem, by mainstream media organisations, and by political parties. Previously, he worked as a software engineer for over 13 years, and specialised in embedded systems and wireless stacks. Alt News has been following a three-pronged approach—journalistic, technical, and educational. While the portal itself focuses on debunking and documenting misinformation, it has also launched an APP to help individuals recognise misinformation. It has also partnered with Google to train journalists, and is now training college students across India.
Panel: We Are What We Eat
Pushpesh Pant, Sabita Radhakrishna
Moderator: Puneet Mehta
11:50 am – 12:30 pm
Pushpesh Pant is the author of the New York Times listed bestseller India: The Cook Book (2010). He is also the author of Gourmet Journeys in India (2012) and The Indian Vegetarian Cookbook (2018). He taught International Relations at Delhi University and Jawaharlal Nehru University for over 40 years after studying History, International Relations, and Law. He writes regularly for the BBC, and columns in Hindi and English Indian dailies. At present, he is also working on a monograph on Gandhi’s enduring legacy.
Sabita Radhakrishna is a freelance writer, playwright, textile expert, social worker, and foodie. Associated with radio and national television, she scripted Doordarshan’s Beyond the Storm, a documentary on leprosy rehabilitation, winning an international award. She also served on the Central Board of Film Censors. She has authored three cookbooks, two of which won her international recognition. Tharawad: Kerala Cookbook is her latest publication.
Tales from Indian History
Manu Pillai in conversation Chimay Tumbe
12:30 pm – 1:10 pm
Manu S. Pillai is the author of The Ivory Throne (2015), Rebel Sultans (2018), and most recently, The Courtesan, the Mahatma & the Italian Brahmin: Tales from Indian History (2019). Written over six years and researched in three continents, The Ivory Throne won the 2017 Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar. Formerly Chief of Staff to Dr Shashi Tharoor MP, he has in the past worked at the House of Lords in Britain, and with the BBC on their Incarnations history series. His other writings have appeared in The Hindu, Open Magazine, the Times of India, Hindustan Times, The New Statesman, Mint Lounge and other publications.
Panel: Ghalib: The Man and the Poet
Amina Kishore, Y Satyanarayana
Moderator: Adhiraj Parthasarathy
2:45 pm – 3:25 pm
Amina Kishore worked in Aligarh Muslim University as professor of English for over 38 years, and as Principal of AMU Women’s College. She moved to Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad where she worked for over eight years as Head & Dean and then as Professor, Maulana Azad Chair. She has been associated with the University of Hyderabad and English and Foreign Languages University as visiting faculty and as evaluator of theses and projects. She is fluent in Urdu, Telugu and Hindi and translates between these languages and English. She is associated with NGOs like FEA Aligarh and Apna Watan Hyderabad.
Satyanarayana, Y. is a student of Urdu poetry. He taught English at Anwarul Uloom College for 33 years. He has a PhD on American Comedy of the 1920s and 30s. He was a Fulbright Fellow at University of Wisconsin-Madison (1991-92).
Panel: The Kashmir Conundrum
Gowhar Geelani, Humra Quraishi
Moderator: MR Vikram
5:00 pm – 5:40 pm Gowhar Geelani is the author of Kashmir: Rage and Reason (2019), the Valley’s new age writing, which traces the region’s tortured history, the many facets of Kashmiri ‘nationalism’ and the betrayals. He worked for Eenadu Television (ETV); Deutsche Welle, Bonn; and is currently based in Srinagar as an independent broadcast journalist, political analyst, and television commentator. He is a South Asia Journalism Programme Chevening Fellow (2015), Munich Young Leader (2014) and has written for the BBC, Race & Class, The Telegraph, Dawn, India Today magazine, DailyO, CNN-IBN, Daily News and Analysis, Globe Post, The Defense Post, Economic and Political Weekly among others.
Humra Quraishi is a Delhi based writer, columnist, and journalist. Her books include Kashmir–The Unending Tragedy: Reports From The Front lines (2019); Kashmir- The Untold Story (2004); Meer: A Novel (2015); two short story collections, Bad Time Tales (2007) and More Bad Time Tales (2014); a volume on music, Divine Legacy: Dagars & Dhrupad (2016); a volume of collective writings, Views: Yours and Mine (2005). She has written for several anthologies and journals, and has co-authored Absolute Khushwant (2010) and a series of writings with the late Khushwant Singh.
Apart from the above mentioned, many other intellectuals are set to participate in the festival. For more details please visit hydlitfest.org