Events

Day 1 : September 15th, 2023 (Friday)

4:30 PM - 4:35 PM

Lamp Lighting

A.Namassivayam, Tejasvi Surya, Partha Hariharan, Alo Pal, Ajit Datta

4:35 PM - 4:50 PM

Speeches

Partha Hariharan, A.Namassivayam, Kanchan Gupta's Message

4:50 PM - 5:30 PM

SMaRT - Swarajya Awards

5:30 PM - 6:00 PM

Keynote Address

Tejasvi Surya

6:00 PM - 7:00 PM

Sri Aurobindo, India, and the world

Nandini Sengupta(Moderator), Gautam Chikermane, Dr. Sampadananda Mishra, Dr. Pariksith Singh, Devdip Ganguli

7:00 PM - 8:00 PM

Hindus of Hindu Rashtra(Book Launch and Discussion)

Alo Pal(Moderator), Prof. Anand Ranganathan, Adv.Vishnu shankar Jain, Dr. Meenakshi Jain, Dr. Ratan Sharda

Day 2 : September 16th, 2023 (Saturday)

9:30 AM - 10:15 AM

Veer Savarkar and the Early Revolutionary Movement in India

Dr. Vikram Sampath

10:15 AM - 11:00 AM

This is Sanatan Dharma (Book Launch and Discussion)

Gautam Chikermane (Contributing Moderator), Partho

Book Stall Break

11:15 AM - 12:15 PM

Indian Knowledge Systems and the Perpetuity of Civilization

Prafulla Ketkar (Contributing Moderator), Sandeep Balakrishnan, Dr. Sampadananda Mishra

12:15 PM - 01:00 PM

Godi Media -Supine, Constructively Critical or Pointlessly Combative

Abhijit Iyer Mitra (Contributing Moderator), Shehzad Poonawala

01:00 PM - 01:30 PM

The Past as Present: Battles Over History

Dr. Swapan Dasgupta

Lunch Break

02:00 PM - 02:30 PM

Civilization Memory Validated: The Case for Mathura and Kashi

Alo Pal(Moderator), Adv. Vishnu Jain, Dr. Meenakshi Jain

03:30 PM - 04:15 PM

Resurgent Indic Narratives

Arun Krishnan, Abhinav Agarwal(Contributing Moderator), Sivakumar GV

04:15 PM - 05:15 PM

Vedas Made Simple (Book Launch and Discussion)

Dr. Pariksith Singh, Dushyanth Sreedhar

05:15 PM - 06:00 PM

Chandrayaan And Beyond: India's Space Race

Prof. Aloke Kumar, Prof. Gautam Desiraju

Book Stall Break

06:15 PM - 07:00 PM

India's Neigbours: Pakistan, China and the Seas

Siva Aroor (Moderator), CMDE. Srikant Kesnur, Ari Marshal Anil Chopra

07:00 PM - 08:00 PM

Domestic Politics and Strategic Autonomy

Rahul Shivshankar, Rashmi Samant, Ashok Chowgule, Dr. ratan Sharda (Moderator)

Day 3 : SEPTEMBER 17th, 2022 (Sunday)

09:30 AM - 10:00 AM

India's strategic Autonomy and Air Power

Air Marshal Anil Chopra

10:00 AM - 11:00 AM

Histroy Narratives ans Research

Nandhini Sengupta (Contributing Moderator), Disha Ahluwalia, Prasenjit Basu, Vijayalakshmi Vijaykumar

Book Stall Break

11:15 AM - 12:30 AM

Breaking News Into Pieces: What Ails the Media

Deep Halder (Moderator), Shiv Aroor, Rahul Shivshankar, Monika Halan, Abhijit Majumder

12:30 PM - 01:30 PM

India's Soft Power

Lalitha Kumaramangalam, Dr. Swapan Dasgupta, Abhijit Iyer Mitra (Contributing Moderator),

Lunch Break

02:30 PM - 03:30 PM

India's Neighbours: Looking East

Abhijit Iyer Mitra (Contributing Moderator), Sandeep Unnithan, Deep Halder, CMDE. Srikant Kesnur

03:30 PM - 04:30 PM

Is India Witnessing Amrit Kaal?

Prof. Gautam Desiraju, Monika Halan (Contributing Moderator), Prasenjit Basu, Ashok Chowgule

04:30 PM - 05:00 PM

The Never Dying Fire (Book Launch ans Dicussion)

Devdip Ganguli, Rakhul Venet

05:00 PM - 05:45 PM

Tackling Neglected Diseases - Indian Healthcare Breakthoughs

Prof. Anand Ranganathan, Prof. Shailja Singh

Book Stall Break

06:00 PM - 06:45 PM

26/11: 15 Years On

Sandeep Unnithan, Shiv Aroor

06:45 PM - 07:15 PM

Revisiting Ganga-Jamni Tehzeeb

Dr. Meenakshi jain

07:15 PM - 08:15 PM

Is the Indian state designed to fulfill our strategic goals?

Prafulla Ketkar, Abhijit Iyer Mitra, Abhijit Majumder, Anand Ranganathan (COntributing Moderator)

Awards 2023

15 September | Pondy Lit Fest


Swarajya Awards

Swarajya Award

The seventh edition of Swarajya Awards will be presented on September 15th
during a special session at the Pondy Lit Fest 2023

Four awards encompassing economics (Dr B R Shenoy Award), politics (Dr S P Mukherjee Award), society(Sree Narayana Guru Award) and cultural (Ustad Bismillah Khan Award) spheres will be presented.

Motwani Jadeja Award

The Rajeev Circle Scholars Program

The Motwani Jadeja Foundation’s flagship initiative, the Rajeev Circle Scholars Program, will be introduced at Pondy Lit Fest 2023.

The Rajeev Circle Scholars Program seeks to publish high quality, well-researched and accessible popular books on Indian history each year through the grant of a coveted Fellowship awarded to eligible scholars.


“With 17 percent of the world already living in India (and an estimated population of 1.5 billion by 2030), it is imperative that the citizens of India leapfrog into the future as rapidly and efficiently as possible. We need new systems, a new way of looking at the world and a new to make this possible.”

-Asha Jadeja Motwani