A.S. Panneerselvan is the fellow at Roja Muthiah Research Library and head of its Centre for Study in Public Sphere. He was the Readers' Editor of The Hindu, an independent internal news ombudsman functioning with clearly formulated Terms of Reference for nearly a decade. Apart from being a regular columnist, he is also a journalism teacher and is an adjunct faculty of the prestigious Asian College of Journalism, Chennai. He has wide experience in both print and television journalism. He is a member of the governing board of K M Adimoolam Foundation for Arts in Chennai. He was a fellow of Reuters Journalism Fellowship programme in University of Oxford in 1998. He has written an extensive biography of M. Karunanidhi, published by Penguin Random House in 2021. The Tamil version was published in December, 2022. The Government of Tamil Nadu has awarded the G U Pope award for his literary and journalistic contribution. He was the head of the jury for the 2022 JCB Prize for Literature.
Andrew Whitehead had a long career with BBC News during which he spent five years as BBC India correspondent and a long period as the Editor, BBC World Service News. He is now an Honorary Professor at the University of Nottingham in the UK and a widely published historian. His books include The Lives of Freda, the biography of an English woman who became an Indian freedom fighter. In 2021, he chaired the jury which decided the ACJ awards for investigative journalism and for social impact journalism.
Deepika Arun is the founder of the award-winning Kadhai Osai podcast and leading Tamil audio book narrator/podcaster. With over 100 narrated titles and a key role in building Storytel's Tamil catalog, she is currently working on 6 podcasts. Her work spans directing Spotify's thriller podcast to educating future podcasters, solidifying her status as a pioneering figure in the podcasting industry.
Dinesh Krishnan is a photojournalist, visual editor and a journalist from India. He began his career in New Delhi with the Hindustan Times in 1991. After covering many significant events of 1990s and 2000s with the camera, he went on to lead teams of photographers at some of the leading newsrooms in the country, including Hindustan Times, Forbes India, Businessworld.
Gowhar Geelani is a journalist-author who has served as Editor with Deutsche Welle, and studied German in IFS in Bonn. His book Kashmir: Rage & Reason has received rave reviews. He is Chevening Fellow (2015), Munich Young Leader (2014), and a resource person on communication skills and leadership workshops. His words are published in BBC, Deutsche Welle, Telegraph (UK and India), Race and Class (London), EPW, Outlook Magazine, The Federal, etc. The author is well versed with Kashmiri, English, Urdu, German, Hindi, and other languages.
Journalist, vocal accompanist to MS Subbulakshmi, artistic director/ inhouse playwright, JustUs Repertory, chairperson, Rukmini Devi Arundale Trust, adjunct faculty, Asian College of Journalism, Gowri Ramnarayan has served on the Fipresci Jury at international film festivals, authored books and plays, and translated Vijay Tendulkar’s Marathi plays and Kalki Krishnamurthy’s Tamil fiction.
Dr. Jaya Shreedhar is a medical doctor and award winning health journalist with experience in public health communications focused on the intersectional aspects of health security and pandemic preparedness with governance, gender, conflict, development and planetary/One Health. Formerly a Special Health Correspondent for Frontline Magazine at The Hindu, she is Senior Health Media Advisor for Internews and a WHO consultant.
Prof. K.Nagaraj is a development economist who teaches the Covering Deprivation course. He worked at the Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS) for 30 years and his research interests are in the areas of poverty, healthcare, labour, employment/unemployment, and developmental issues in the rural areas. He completed his PhD from the Indian Statistical Institute, in Delhi and Calcutta.
K.C. Vijaya Kumar, Sports Editor with The Hindu, has been a sports journalist for more than 25 years. An alumnus of Loyola College, Chennai, and ACJ (when it was based in Bengaluru), Vijay has previously worked with Tata Motors, Mumbai, and The Asian Age, Bengaluru.
Kavita Chowdhury is an independent journalist and commentator on development, women rights, gender justice and politics. With over two decades of experience working for several national news publications including The Indian Express and Business Standard; she teaches young journalists why and how gender perspectives are imperative when covering general issues. She also enjoys writing on art, popular culture and travel.
Manoj Joshi is a Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation. He is the author most recently of Understanding the India-China Border: The enduring threat of war in high Himalaya (London, C. Hurst and New Delhi Harper Collins 2022) . He is a journalist and commentator who has specialised on security issues and he is a Ph.D from the School of International Studies (SIS), JNU.
Was correspondent, producer and editor at the BBC specialising in South Asia. Now teaches broadcast journalism with a focus on reporting and presenting the news. Has written an authoritative biography of Rajiv Gandhi and (forthcoming from the British Library) The Spice Ports, a history of the trade in spices.
The power of the documentary comes from its engagement with the world around us, its exploration of urgent and compelling stories. Since the birth of cinema, non-fiction film has evolved through a diverse range of forms and styles. As a journalist working in a world of mixed media with an increasing demand for visual content, an appreciation and understanding of the documentary form is vital for your education and career. Through a series of lectures and screenings of Indian and International documentaries this course will provide students with a firm understanding and appreciation of the genre’s wide-ranging possibilities. Any documentation is equally about the form as the content, as much about the filmmaker herself as the world she explores. All documentation is influenced by the technology available, by ideology, aesthetics, by the demands of storytelling and spectatorship, the logistics of distribution and funding. Often filmmakers grapple with constraints imposed by state control and censorship. This course will nurture an informed and nuanced understanding of the documentary form with a view to creating ethical and creative practitioners, scholars, and audiences. You will learn about expository, observational, interactive, reflexive, poetic and performative documentary modes of expression. On a weekly basis, you’ll be inspired by films shown in class, detailed film analysis and discussions. Short weekly exercises will lead to the creation of your own short film. Films made in this class have been accepted for screening at student film showcases in festivals! Nilita Vachani is an internationally awarded filmmaker and editor and writer of fiction and non-fiction. She is Adjunct faculty at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. www.nilitavachani.com
Dr. V. Padma, a.k.a A.Mangai, is a retired Professor in English from Stella Maris College, Chennai. She has been actively engaged in Tamil theatre as an actor, Director and Playwright for close to four decades. She hopes that her academic, activist and artistic selves can find a vibrant intersection.
R Ramanujam is a researcher in mathematical logic and its applications in computer science. He has been active in science communication for many years, and is editor of Thulir, a monthly children's science magazine in Tamil.
Sasi Menon is currently working as a Consultant Designer at the Times of India, Chennai. He started his career as a Designer with Ace Malayalam Film Director late Sri. Bharathan for over a decade. Later on, he had a brief stint at Aries Advertising, Chennai before switching over to India Today magazine (Southern edition) for over two decades. Thereafter, he joined the Times of India in 2015. He has a Bachelor's Degree in Physics and a Postgraduate Diploma in Visual communication from Loyola College, Chennai.
Dr Shubashree Desikan is from Chennai. After getting a PhD in theoretical condensed matter physics, she worked as a lecturer with BITS Pilani, copy editor and publisher’s editor with Universities Press. After this, she found the career of her choice in science journalism with The Hindu, where she worked for 10 years. During this time, she wrote extensively on the fundamental sciences and mathematics. In 2022, she moved to IIT Madras Shaastra magazine, where she now works as an Associate Editor. There, she has written about new developments in artificial intelligence and quantum computation. She is interested in literature and poetry. She teaches an elective on science journalism at the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai. She was presented with the National Award for Science Communication in Print, by the Department of Science and Technology, GoI, in 2017.
Stanly Johny is the International Affairs Editor with The Hindu. A PhD in West Asian studies, Stanly is a Visiting Fellow at Kerala University. Stanly has authored two books, The ISIS Caliphate (2018, Bloomsbury) and The Comrades and the Mullahs (2022, HarperCollins, co-written with Ananth Krishnan).
Sudha Ramachandran is South Asia editor at The Diplomat. She has written extensively on South Asian political and security issues, focusing on the region’s conflict zones, including Jammu and Kashmir, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and the Maoist areas. She has a doctoral degree from the School of International Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.
Uma Vangal is a filmmaker, film professor, curator, a TedX speaker and a recent poet. A Fulbright scholar, she has taught film, film studies, gender studies, creative copywriting and script writing at Loyola Visual communication, LV Prasad Film academy and the International Institute of film, Chennai and at Kenyon college, Ohio. She has mentored scriptwriters and directors who are now leading filmmakers in several indian film industries.
Author, columnist, translator, former editor of Sruti magazine and a leading cricketer of the 1970s, Ramnarayan has taught at ACJ since 2006, starting with lectures on language and style, and now offering the elective Cricket Without Borders. His translations of Ashokamitran and Tho Paramasivan, his books on domestic cricket and his memoir Third Man are his best known works.
Venkatesh Athreya is an economist interested in the political economy of development. He has taught and researched on issues of economic development for over five decades. His research interests have included political economy of agrarian and rural transformation, food and nutrition security, human development and inequality.
Vignesh Radhakrishnan leads the Data Team at The Hindu, overseeing a team of three journalists who manage Data Point, a daily data-driven section featured in the op-ed page. He also leads the production of a YouTube channel for data stories, a data podcast, and a data newsletter. From ideation to design, Vignesh covers a wide range of topics, delivering insightful stories on business, politics, science, and everyday life, both in print and online.
Pankaj Saxena is a Film and TV Institute of India (FTII) alumnus with Diploma in Film Editing and Post Diploma in Film Direction. In a professional career spanning four decades, Pankaj has written, edited, directed and produced a large number of documentaries, short fiction films, television programs, public service advertisements and news stories. He has also held senior management positions including those of Vice President at Discovery Channel, Head of Programming at BBC Worldwide and Executive Director (Programming) at Lok Sabha TV. All through his work life, Pankaj has taken time off to teach Cinema and Television at institutions as diverse as FTII Pune, Asian College of Journalism Chennai and KIIT University Bhubaneswar, among many others. He has also been a major contributor to FTII's Skilling India in Film and Television (SKIFT) initiative and has contributed to this Institute holding triple charges of Professor of Screen Studies, Academic Coordinator and Controller of Examination. Pankaj Saxena follows cinematic arts as a keen student and often holds teaching, training, lectures, workshops and panel discussions on subjects pertaining to the field of films and allied arts. An intrepid traveller and a published writer, Pankaj is currently based in Delhi, working at the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) as their Artistic Director (Programming).