Pondy Lit Fest 2024 will be the 7th edition of the festival. We have always invited distinguished speakers with proven impressive bodies of work. The event has systematically avoided noise from debates that are curated for the sake of polemics, thus giving an undesirable lease of life to debunked narratives. We instead empower with knowledge on spiritual, religious and cultural subjects that showcase Bharat Shakti and critically evaluate what holds her back via Lectures and Conversations, Book Talks and presentations on Science & Technology, Defence & Security. This year we focus on Bharat in the New Age. “Bharat Shakti” is a phrase we have chosen from the writings of Sri Aurobindo to serve us as guiding principle. Pondicherry is Sri Aurobindo’s seat of sadhana and we take these associations with reverence and respect.

In past editions our Lectures and Conversations have included luminaries such as (alphabetically on last name). K. Annamalai, Dr. Swapan Das Gupta, Bibek Debroy, Kanchan Gupta, Dr. Meenakshi Jain, Vishnu Jain, Dr. Sampadananda Mishra, Prof. R. Nagaswamy, Aravindan Neelakandan, Dr. Shamika Ravi, Sanjeev Sanyal, Dushyanth Sridhar and Sridhar Vembu. Our archives are a priceless repository of their wisdom.

The Pondy Lit Fest Book Talks stand out for their in-depth well-prepared analysis, since one of our main aims is to empower our audience with bankable scholarship via books. The distinguished authors featured include Vivek Agnihotri, J. Sai. Deepak, Deep Halder, Prof Ranganathan, Dr. Vikram Sampath. Nandini Sengupta, Dr. Pariksith Singh, Harini Srinivasan and Air Vice Marshal Arjun Subramaniam.

The stride of a nation is crippled without progress in Science & Technology. We have established a reputation within the scientific community of being the foremost platform that gives space to Indian scientists to bring cutting edge research to the layman. Our superlative guest list of scientists at the very top of their areas of research includes Prof. Gautam Desiraju, Prof. Aloke Kumar, Dr. S. K. Manjul, Dr. Soumya Pati, Dr. Niraj Rai, Prof Vijay Sathe, Prof. Shailja Singh, and an exclusive first as a scientist, Prof. Anand Ranganathan.

Bharat’s Shakti in the domain of Defence & Security has always featured at the Lit fest. We have had the honour to host veterans including, Air Marshal Anil Chopra, Lt. Gen. Satish Dua, Commodore Srikanth Kesnur and Maj. Navdeep Singh. We consider it our privilege and duty to pay homage to our heroes and great wars by featuring discussions and books on military history authored by the sharpest of defence reporters and analysts such as Shiv Aroor, Abhijit Iyer Mitra., Sandeep Unnithan and Shiv Kunal Varma

This year we will strive for greater excellence, depth and heights with a lineup and content that will showcase Bharat Shakti entering a New Age.