Mumbai gets ready for the 2nd edition of Asia's largest non fiction festival

After successfully hosting the inaugural edition of the India Non Fiction Festival, which is Asia’s largest nonfiction festival, Mumbai once again gears up to welcome the audience at the 2nd edition of this unique festival. To be held from Friday, 24th January’14 to Sunday, 26th January’14 at, Nehru Centre, Worli, the event will start from 12 pm and will last till 7 pm everyday.

An unique aspect Get Booked: A chance to get published, the festival will offer an open platform to budding non-fiction authors to talk directly about their work to prospective readers, publishers, and literary agents and get their work published.

The 2nd edition of the festival will offer a mix of engaging panel discussions on interesting and untouched topics, and book launches. While audience will get the opportunity of one-to-one interaction with eminent authors and practitioners during the panel discussion, they will get to buy books and be a part of book signing sessions during the launch of books.

The three days of the festival will be packed with interesting and stimulating sessions from established authors and eminent personalities in their respective genres. Kiran Rao, Ajit Balakrishnan and Subroto Bagchi will began the first session of panel discussion on the subject ‘India: Our Time is Now’ and touch upon the topics like Youth, Society, Culture, Entrepreneurship, and Ambition. The festival will register the presence of host of other renowned speakers, specialized in the wide range of genres, such as sociologist Dipankar Gupta, spiritual guru Radhanath Swami, documentary film makers Pankaj Butalia, Anil Zankar,  ultra runner Rajat Chauhan, leader Meera Sanyal, leadership and motivational speakers Priya Kumar, Sneha Mehta, and Deepak Chatterjee, corporate executive R Gopalakrishnan, and media honcho Uday Shankar.

Raghu Ram of roadies fame, chef Vicky Ratnani, foodie Kunal Vijayakar, child psychologist Zirak Marker, parenting expert Gouri Dange, authors Ashwin Sanghi, Geeta Anand, Jerry Pinto, Naresh Fernandes, Hussain Zaidi, Shankkar Aiyar, Mini Menon, C Balagopal, Sudeep Chakravarti, Sidharth Bhatia, Vaibhav Purandare, senior journalists and writers R Jagannathan, Sachin Kalbag, Niranjan Rajadhaksha, Pradyuman Maheshwari, Indrajit Gupta, Peter Griffin, and many other thinkers and writers will also be a part of the discussions at the festival.

Some international authors who will participate at the festival are Sumantra Bose, Rana Dasgupta, Somnath Batabyal and Faith Johnston. The subject of discussions will range from management, leadership, politics, economics, and sociology to health, fitness, media, cinema, and food, including welfare, personal development, motivational and inspirational, along with many more genres.

Another exciting feature of the event will be the exhibition of cartoons and caricatures titled ‘The Politickle Pickle’ by editorial cartoonist Shreyas Navare. The festival continues to serve as a platform for discussion and to create awareness around important but often neglected citizen issues.
On these lines, the ‘National Voters Day’ will be celebrated, along with panel discussions, exciting contests and book launch related to the subject. On 26th January, the festival shall also celebrate the Republic Day with a key panel discussion and contest.
Going to be a centre for several book launches on diverse topics, the festival caters to the reading needs of people from various age groups and professional backgrounds such as students, business professionals, scholars, homemakers, health & fitness enthusiasts, foodies, the spiritually inclined and just about anyone interested in the various genres of the Non Fiction world. The festival will mark the launch of some exciting books on political topics such as The New Clash of Civilizations: How the Contest Between America, China, India and Islam will Shape Our Century by author Minhaz Merchant, and Konjo: the fighting spirit by author Sandeep Goyal. On the same lines Suraj Sriram’s Excuse Me, Can We Have Our Country Back? and Sanjay Kumar’s Indian Youth and Electoral Politics: An Emerging Engagement will be launched on the National Voters day. Acting Smart: Your Ticket to Showbiz by Tisca Chopra, Rules of the Game by Sumit D Chowdhury and Magic Mantras: For Young Adults to Achieve Success in Life by Laxmi Dhaul are some of the interesting books to be launched on the Republic Day that ardent readers will look forward.
Speaking about the occasion Kumaar Bagrodia, Festival Founder, India Non Fiction Festival said, “After our successful inaugural edition in Mumbai last year, we are now very excited to present the initiatives and celebrations around Republic Day and National Voters Day, the various book launches and very interesting and important works of our speakers to our audiences.”

Various chambers have collaborated to organize this festival. Some of these are American Chamber of Commerce in India, Australia & New Zealand Business Association in India, British Business Group, European Business Group, Federation of Indi Israel Chambers of Commerce, Indo Canadian Business Chamber, Indo French Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Indo Italian Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Indian Merchants Chamber, Indo American Chamber, Beside these Mumbai First, Crossword Book Stores, Harper Collins, Jaico, Aiesec, GiveIndia and many others are also partner of the India Non Fiction Festival.