WSivanthi Adityan was an Indian media baron who ran Tamil newspapers Daily Thanthi and Maalaimalar. Sivanthi started the first evening Tamil Daily Maalai Murasu at Tirunelveli in 1959. He was an educationist, an industrialist and a philanthropist. He was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India. He was popularly called "Chinna Ayya" as a mark of respect by the people. In 2012 Adithan bought the NDTV Hindu news channel and renamed it as Thanthi TV. He was the President of Indian Olympic Association from 1987 to 1996.
WUrvashi Butalia is an Indian feminist writer, publisher and activist. She is known for her work in the women's movement of India, as well as for authoring books like the path-breaking The Other Side of Silence: Voices from and the Partition of India and Speaking Peace: Women's Voices from Kashmir.
WAshok Chopra is a publisher, author, editor, and literary columnist. Author of Memories of Fire: A Novel, A Scrapbook of Memories: My Life with the Rich, the Famous and the Scandalous and Of Love and Other Sorrows, he has co-authored Agnostic Khushwant: There Is No God with the Indian author-columnist Khushwant Singh and A Grain of Sand in the Hourglass of Time with Arjun Singh, which he completed after his death on March 4, 2011, in 2012. He was executive editor with Vikas Publishing House, vice-president Macmillan India, publishing director UBS Publishers, executive director and publisher of the India Today Book Club and Books Today, as well as chief executive and publisher of HarperCollins Publishers India. Presently, he is the chief executive of Hay House Publishers in India.
WVijay Kumar Chopra is the chief executive officer and editor in chief of the Punjab Kesari print news organisation. He is involved in social welfare work and has received a Padma Shri award. In August 2009, he was elected by the Chairman of the Press Trust of India.
WAnant Shivaji Desai was an Indian businessman from the erstwhile Sawantwadi State in British India. He established himself as a publisher in Bombay, selling prints of Raja Ravi Verma's paintings. After Varma's death in 1906 Desai acquired the rights to the Baroda and Mysore collections, publishing them until 1945, when the original Ravi Varma Press firm went out of business.
WHarohalli Srinivasaiah Doreswamy is an Indian activist and journalist. He was a freedom fighter in the Indian independence movement who became a centenarian in April 2018. He ran the publication house of Sahitya Mandira and the Indian nationalist newspaper Pauravani during the British Raj and the period afterwards. The historian Ramachandra Guha describes him as the "conscience of the state (Karnataka)" due to his activism.
WSita Ram Goel was an Indian religious and political activist, writer, historian and publisher in the late twentieth century. He had Marxist leanings during the 1940s, but later became an outspoken anti-communist and also wrote extensively on the damage to Indian culture and heritage wrought by expansionist Islam and missionary activities of Christianity. In his later career he emerged as a commentator on Indian politics, and adhered to Hindu nationalism.
WNamita Gokhale is an Indian writer, publisher and festival director, and the author of twenty books including ten works of fiction. Her recent novel Jaipur Journals was set against the backdrop of the vibrant Jaipur Literature Festival, of which Gokhale is a founder-director. Her forthcoming books include Betrayed by Hope: A Play on the Life of Michael Madhusudan Dutt and a new novel The Blind Matriarch.
WNari Hira is the owner of the Mumbai-based Magna Publishing Co. Ltd. that publishes magazines such as Stardust, Savvy, Showtime, Society and Health. He is also into film production through Magna Films, a subsidiary of his publishing company.
WMundakkal Mathew Jacob, alias M. M. Jacob, was an Indian politician, working in Indian National Congress. He married Achamma Kunnuthara from Tiruvalla, Kerala and had four daughters. He was appointed Governor of Meghalaya in 1995 and again in 2000 for a second term. He also discharged the function of the Governor of Arunachal Pradesh as well for some time in 1996. He is longest serving governor of any Indian state. He served for more than 11 years.
WKandathil Varghese Mappillai was an Indian journalist, translator and publisher who was the founder of the newspaper Malayala Manorama and the magazine Bhashaposhini.
WArchbishop Augustine Kandathil was the first and longest serving Metropolitan and Head of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, the principal Church of the Saint Thomas Christians in India. He was the first Indian to assume powers and reign as an Archbishop of the Catholic Church.
WRavindra Kelekar was a noted Indian author who wrote primarily in the Konkani language, though he also wrote in Marathi and Hindi. A Gandhian activist, freedom fighter and a pioneer in the modern Konkani movement, he is a well known Konkani scholar, linguist, and creative thinker. Kelkar was a participant in the Indian freedom movement, Goa's liberation movement, and later the campaign against the merger of the newly formed Goa with Maharashtra. He played a key role in the founding of the Konkani Bhasha Mandal, which lead the literary campaign for the recognition of Konkani as a full-fledged language, and its reinstatement as the state language of Goa. He authored nearly 100 books in the Konkani language, including Amchi Bhas Konkaneech, Shalent Konkani Kityak, Bahu-bhashik Bharatant Bhashenche Samajshastra and Himalayant, and also edited Jaag magazine for more than two decades.
WKerala Varma, most commonly known as Mahakavi Pandalam Kerala Varma, was an Indian poet, scholar, and publisher. He was born at Pandalam, and belonged to the Pandalam Royal Family. He wrote two mahakavyas, more than a hundred narrative poems, translations, and children's poetry. He is widely regarded as the author of the first complete mahakavya in Malayalam. He was the owner and Chief Editor of Kavana Kaumudi, the first Malayalam periodical, which was also the first to introduce special issues in Malayalam.
WSanthosh George Kulangara is an Indian entrepreneur, traveller, publisher and media person. He is the founder and managing director of Safari TV, a channel dedicated to travel and history-based programmes, which is a unique experiment in the Indian media industry. Some of the other enterprises he heads are Labour India Publications Ltd. based at Marangattupilly in Kottayam district, Labour India Educational Research Centre, Labour India Software Laboratories, Labour India Rural Employment Program and Pondshore Resorts Private Ltd., an initiative in the heritage tourism sector.
WPurushottama Lal, commonly known as P. Lal, was an Indian poet, essayist, translator, professor and publisher. He was the founder of publishing firm Writers Workshop in Calcutta, established in 1958.
WAnnapurna Maharana was an India pro-independence activist active in the Indian independence movement. She was also a prominent social and women's rights activist. Maharana was a close ally of Mohandas Gandhi.
WRaja Dakshinaranjan Mukherjee was the Taluqdar of the formerly confiscated taluq of Shankarpur in the West Bengal. He was one of the leaders of the Young Bengal group in 19th-century India. As an orator, editor of several periodicals, and a social reformer, he donated land for the Bethune School and assisted David Hare in his social works. His descendants are based in India, Australia, and North America.
WBangalore Nagarathnamma was an Indian Carnatic singer, cultural activist, scholar, and courtesan. A descendant of courtesans, she was also a patron of the arts and a historian. Nagarathnamma built a temple over the samadhi of the Carnatic singer Tyagaraja at Thiruvaiyaru and helped establish the Tyagaraja Aradhana festival in his memory. Within a male dominated festival, she was the feminist aggressive enough to ensure that women artists were given equality to participate in it. She "was among the last practitioners of the devadasi tradition in India," and the first president of the Association of the Devadasis of Madras Presidency. She also edited and published books on poetry and anthologies.
WNanjanagudu Tirumalamba (1887-1982) was the earliest new age Kannada author, newspaper editor, publisher, and printer who strived for the upliftment of women. She was born on March 25, 1887 in Nanjanagudu of the erstwhile state of Mysore under British India. Her father, Venkatakrishna Iyengar, was a lawyer and her mother was Alamelamma. Like the Srivaishnavas of their time, her mother tongue was Tamil. She had a special predilection towards Kannada language which was the language of the city in which she lived. She knew Kannada, Tamil, and Telugu languages.
WRameshwari Nehru was a social worker of India. She worked for the upliftment of the poorer classes and of women. In 1902, she married Brijlal Nehru, a nephew of Motilal Nehru and cousin of the first prime minister of independent India, Jawaharlal Nehru. Her son Braj Kumar Nehru was an Indian civil servant who served as governor of several states.
WMuhammad Saeed Noori is an Indian Sunni Barelvi leader, activist, founder and president of the Raza Academy, based in Mumbai. The Raza Academy has published books, treatises and journal articles. He has also done relief and charitable activities during Gujarat Riots, Bareilly riots, Kashmir flood, and in Nepal earthquake. Rallies and protests have been organised around the country by Raza Academy.
WAyyappan Pillai Raman Pillai (1880–1938), also known as A. Raman Pillai or A. R. Pillai, was an Indian expatriate who worked for India's freedom in Germany, journalist, writer and a book publisher in Göttingen in Germany.
WAroon Purie is an Indian businessman, and the founder-publisher and former editor-in-chief of India Today and former chief executive of the India Today Group. He is the managing director of Thomson Press (India) Limited and the chairman and managing director of TV Today. Aroon Purie is the recipient of the Padma Bhushan award. He was also the editor-in-chief of Reader's Digest India. In October 2017, he passed control of the India Today Group to his daughter, Kallie Purie.
WN. P. Rajendran is the chairman of Kerala Press Academy; he was appointed in August 2011. He is also the deputy editor of Mathrubhumi, a Malayalam daily, which he joined in 1981 after postgraduate studies in Economics. N. P. Rajendran has prepared numerous investigative reports, which have won him several awards.
WGita Ramaswamy is an Indian social activist and writer.
WMathew Samuel is a former managing editor of the Indian news magazine Tehelka. He is one of the founding members of the magazine, and as a special correspondent there, he instigated Tehelka's biggest corruption investigation, Operation West End. This sting operation led to the resignation of four senior ministers of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and nearly brought down the BJP-led national government in 2001. The top politicians and officials caught in the sting were later convicted by the court of law.
WHaji Mohammed Allarakha Shivji, also spelled Hajji Mohammad Alarakhiya, was a Gujarati literary journalist and author.
WDiwan Bahadur Rettamalai Srinivasan (1860–1945), commonly known as R. Srinivasan, was an Indian politician, activist and social reformer. He is a Dalit Icon and was a close associate of Mahatma Gandhi and was also an associate of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar. He is remembered as one of the pioneers of the Dalit upliftment movement in India and was founder of Adi Dravida Mahajana Sabha in 1893.
WSumathi Srinivas is best known as a Social Entrepreneur and an inspirational Speaker. She is the CEO & Founder of The Twilite Group, a media house with multiple divisions. She is the managing Trustee of an NGO called Soulmates Foundation, Founder of Twilite Creations event management company, Producer of Mrs. Home Maker – a reality show for women, Founder of a business networking forum called EWC - Elite Women Club, and the publisher, Editor-in-chief of WE Magazine and Club Elite Magazine.
WChadalavada Sundararamasastri (1865–1925) was Telugu Pundit and owner of Telugu Publishing house, Saradamba Vilasa Mudraksharashala. He also authored multiple books and wrote commentaries to many Sanskrit texts in Telugu. He was also awarded a gold bracelet from the Prince of Wales in 1922 for his contribution to Telugu literature.
WTarun Tejpal is an Indian journalist, publisher, novelist and former editor-in-chief of Tehelka magazine. In November 2013, he stepped down as editor for six months after a female colleague accused him of sexual assault. He was arrested on 30 November 2013 and is currently on bail since 1 July 2014.