Tag: India

Announcing the India Global Forum Archer-Amish Award for Literature

We’d Like A Word hosts Paul Waters and Stevyn Colgan hear from bestselling authors and prize judges Jeffrey Archer and Amish Tripathi about the new IGF (India Global Forum) Archer-Amish Award for Literature. The prize is $25,000 and it’s not just for Indians – but listen carefully to hear the rules & entry criteria! This prize is for books excelling in storytelling rather than writing. Want to know what that means? Listen to Jeffrey and Amish explain here – or wherever you get your podcasts.

This episode also welcomes new listeners on the Jiosaavn podcast platform and congratulates India on winning the T20 Cricket World Cup. What a final innings! And we’ll also tell you about some of the fabulous guests from around the world who we’ve had on past episodes. We hope you’ll be tempted to try some earlier episodes after you hear this one – some of them are 3-parters. Both Amish & Jeffrey have their own episodes – highly recommended listening.

And we update you a little on what co-hosts and authors Paul and Stevyn are up to. Some of Steve’s stuff is really strange.

Thank you to the India Global Forum 2024 for welcoming We’d Like A Word to their very enlightening, eclectic and cutting edge gathering in London & Windsor. You too, dear listener, might also enjoy their future events.

Also – you’ll notice that Stevyn is back. Thank you to Jonathan Kennedy for co-hosting in Steve’s absence. (Jonathan was Director of Arts in India for 5 years for the British Council and has been everywhere in India & knows everyone there involved in culture.) Jonathan will be back-ack-ack. We hope. Apologies for the dip in sophistication until then.

Khushwant Singh Lit Fest 2024: Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi authors

In this special We’d Like A Word India episode at the Khushwant Singh Literary Festival, co-hosts Paul Waters & Jonathan Kennedy (standing in for Stevyn Colgan) hear ideas from top authors of fiction, non-fiction, memoir and poetry, and other experts. WARNING – one of our interviewees (Farrukh Dhondy) gets a bit sweary. Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts. (Details on illustrious guest presenter and guests below.)

WHO IS JONATHAN KENNEDY? WHY IS HE HERE? AND WHERE IS STEVYN COLGAN? Jonathan was Director of Arts in India for 5 years for the British Council. He’s been everywhere in India and knows everyone there involved in culture. He was also for 12 years the Executive Director of Tara Arts, looking at the world through a South Asian lens. Jonathan does some India and South Asian episodes of We’d Like A Word with us. We’ll drop them in every now & then. Normal service will be resumed with Steve and Paul shortly.

Our guests on this WLAW KSLF episode include:

Harinder Singh, who with The Singh Twins & Gopinder Kaur has created the book Jewels of Sikh Wisdom.

Pinky Lilani, cook, networker extraordinaire, founder of Asian Women of Achievement, and author of Some Kind of Wonderful. (This is the worst angle for a photo, but as you can see, Pinky looks good from any angle.)

Nadia Kabir Barb of The Whole Kahani south Asian women’s writers’ collective and author of the short story collection, Truth or Dare.

Farrukh Dhondy, author, playwright, media executive and activist – who writes about his bookish relationship with the notorious serial killer Charles Sobraj.

Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi and her debut novel, The Centre. (She was kept busy signing copies of her book.)

Sisters Shirin and Marina Wheeler, who write separately about their parents – Shirin on her father, the iconic journalist Charles Wheeler – Witness to the Twentieth Century. And Marina on her mother, Dip – The Lost Homestead – My Mother, Partition and the Punjab.

Poet Imtiaz Dharker on her latest collection, Shadow Reader.

Aneysha Minocha, founder and CEO of Quantaco.AI, the green tech, clean tech carbon-reducing start-up that’s grabbing attention. And Akshat Rathi, author of Climate Capitalism, also senior reporter for Bloomberg news and host of the Zero podcast on climate change.

So what is the Khushwant Singh Literary Festival? The Indian version happens in breathtakingly spectacular surroundings inside the military cantonment in Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh, in the foothills of the Himalayas. Paul did a session with Amitav Ghosh at it.

This recording is at the London spin-off at the Brunei Gallery at SOAS – the School of Oriental and African Studies. Khushwant Singh was one of India’s most prolific authors, a scholar, journalist, iconoclast & dubbed “the most honest man in India.” The festival is keen to promote closer ties between India & Pakistan; equal opportunities for women worldwide; and disseminate the values of democracy, tolerance, compassion in a world that is increasingly more polarised.

And the festival shop even sold at least one copy of Paul’s book, Blackwatertown. Look at his happy little face…