Day One at the India Non Fiction Festival
Tavleen Singh, Kiran Karnik, Prof.Vivek Dedhejia, R.Jagannath at the inauguration ceremony
The first day of the India Non Fiction Festival was graced by eminent personalities and culminated with hard-hitting, insightful sessions. Ms. Tavleen Singh addressed the audience at the Inaugural Session of the festival alongwith Mr. R Jagannathan, Mr. Kiran Karnik and Prof. Vivek Dahejia. During the session For Real, Blogging is Non-Fiction, India’s most popular blogger Ms. Malini Agarwal talked about her essentials of blogging; about respecting your reader, having fun with it and never posting what you would not read.
Being Bold With Our Digital Lives: Cool and interesting things you can do with your smartphone, social media and much more saw Mr. Ankit Fadia in conversation with Mr. Suresh Venkat, talking about some fun tricks you can use for your electronic devices while talking about cyber crime and the question of privacy. Meena Menon and Harish Nambiar were engaged in an intense discussion with Mr. Naresh Fernandes on the topic ‘Politics, Communalism and the social fabric of India’. During the session, Non Fiction for an informed electorate and better policy making: How Data Journalism can help, Mr. Govindraj Ethiraj alongside Mr. Ajit Ranade talked about the need to know about important facts which will lead to the raising of pertinent questions which can lead to a discourse.
The Panel on Bold Cinema for Real India was presided over by Mr. Mahesh Bhatt who raised the question to his panelists about whether there is anything which is bold about cinema or is it just functioning under the prescribed limits. Mr. M K Raghavendra commented that films were bolder 15 years ago due to the need to facilitate consumption is reducing the current boldness, to which Ms. Bhawana Somaaya stated that the industry cannot be compartmentalized and that every decade someone would emerge as a mould breaker. Contemplating that a cinema lover must be both close and distant to different types of cinema irrespective of the general consensus was Mr. Rahul Bose, to which Mr. Sanjay Gadhvi stated that a bold step is for the filmmaker making the film at a particular time and the audience for watching it; winding up the discussion, Ms. Minissha Lamba stated that everything bold has been done before and the audience has been desensitized to it.
A conversation ensued with bestselling Authors, Branding and India experts Mr. Santosh Desai and Mr. Anand Halve during the episode ‘India: Real Consumers, Markets and Bold Brands’. Just as the above, another stirring session was taking place on ‘Leadership in Imperfect Times: Daring. Spirited’ where author and founder Chairman of Prasanna Trust, Shri Swami Sukhobodhananda and leadership author Dr. A K Khandelwal were in heated discussion with author, TataLog and MD of Tata Global Beverages, Mr. Harish Bhat.
As celebrations around day one winded down, there was an atmosphere of sheer excitement and anticipation of what is to come in the two ensuing days of the non-fiction festival.
