Ritu Dalmia (born 1973) is an Indian celebrity chef and restaurateur. She is the chef and co-owner of the popular Italian restaurant Diva in Delhi, which she established in 2000, with co-founder Gita Bhalla under partnership firm "Riga Food".
Gazal Dhaliwal is an Indian screenwriter who recently wrote the screenplay and dialogues for Vinod Chopra Films’ Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga, starring Rajkummar Rao, Anil Kapoor and Sonam K Ahuja. Previously, she has worked on Alankrita Shrivastava's critically acclaimed Lipstick Under My Burkha as the dialogue writer and she wrote the dialogues and co-wrote the screenplay for Qarib Qarib Singlle, directed by Tanuja Chandra, starring Irrfan Khan and Parvathy. She also wrote additional dialogues for Wazir that starred Amitabh Bachchan and Farhan Akhtar.
She is also a public speaker and LGBTQ+ activist, who has spoken openly about being a transgender woman in several talks and in the media – most famously in an episode of the Aamir Khan-led talk show, Satyamev Jayate.
He has written screenplay and dialogues for independent films like The Pink Mirror and Evening Shadows as well as dialogues for several TV episodes of Rishtey, Gubbare, Kagaar and TV shows like Jassi Jaissi Koi Nahin, Left Right Left, Radha Ki Betiyaan among others.
Harish Iyer, also known as "Aham", hiyer and "Harrish Iyer" (born 16 April 1979) is an Indian equal rights activist. Iyer engages in advocacy for a number of causes, including promoting the rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community, children, women, animals, and survivors of child sexual abuse.
Firdaus Kanga (Born in 1960, age 61) is an Indian writer and actor who lives in London. He has written a novel, Trying to Grow a semi-autobiographical novel set in India and a travel book Heaven on Wheels about his experiences in the United Kingdom where he met Stephen Hawking. Trying to Grow was later turned into a film, Sixth Happiness, for which Kanga wrote the screenplay, and in which he starred.
Ashok Row Kavi is an Indian journalist and LGBT rights activist.
Devdutt Pattanaik is an Indian mythologist, speaker, illustrator and author, known for his writing on Hindu sacred lore, legends, folklore, fables and parables. His work focuses largely on the areas of religion, mythology, and management.
Akkai Padmashali is an Indian transgender activist, motivational speaker, and singer. For her work in activism she has received the Rajyotsava Prashasti, the second highest civilian honor of the state of Karnataka, and an honorary doctorate from the Indian Virtual University for Peace and Education.
Onir (born Anirban Dhar, 1 May 1969) is an Indian film and TV director, editor, screenwriter and producer. He is best known for his film My Brother…Nikhil, based on the life of Dominic d'Souza, starring Sanjay Suri and Purab Kohli Nikhil was one of the first mainstream Hindi films to deal with AIDS and same-sex relationships.
Onir won the National Award for his film I Am. He has won 16 total film awards.
Suniti Namjoshi (born 1941 in Mumbai, India) is a poet and a fabulist. She grew up in India, worked in Canada and at present lives in the southwest of England with English writer Gillian Hanscombe. Her work is playful, inventive and often challenges prejudices such as racism, sexism, and homophobia. She has written many collections of fables and poetry, several novels, and more than a dozen children's books. Her work has been translated into several languages, including Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Chinese, Korean, Hindi and Turkish.
Ismail Merchant (born Ismail Noor Muhammad Abdul Rahman (25 December 1936 – 25 May 2005) was an Indian film producer, director and screenwriter. He worked for many years in collaboration with Merchant Ivory Productions which included Director (and Merchant's longtime professional and domestic partner) James Ivory as well as screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.
Hoshang Dinshaw Merchant (born 1947) is a poet from India. Most of his writings are in English. He is best known for his anthology on gay writing titled Yaarana.
Maxim Mazumdar (27 January 1952 – 28 April 1988) was an Indo-Canadian playwright and director. He is known for his one-man show, Oscar Remembered, which tells the story of the Irish playwright Oscar Wilde as seen from the perspective of his lover and nemesis, Lord Alfred Douglas.
Anand Mahadevan is an Indian-Canadian writer, who was awarded an Honour of Distinction from the Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBT writers in 2013.
Born and raised in Tamil Nadu, India, Mahadevan moved to the United States at age 17 to study. He moved to Canada in 2002, and teaches science at the University of Toronto Schools and creative writing at the Humber School for Writers.
The Strike, his debut novel about a young Tamil man's gay sexual awakening, was published in Canada by TSAR Publications in 2006.[4] Its publication in India followed in 2009.
His second novel, tentatively titled American Sufi, is slated for future publication.
He has also been an active supporter of the campaign to strike down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which criminalized homosexuality in India.
He subsequently served on the jury for the 2015 Dayne Ogilvie Prize, selecting Alex Leslie as that year's winner.
Vyjayanti Vasanta Mogli is an Indian transgender activist, RTI activist, singer and motivational speaker.She intervened in the “Suresh Kumar Kaushal & Other vs Naz Foundation & Others” Case in the Supreme Court in 2014 in which she highlighted the deleterious effects of conversion or reparative therapy on queer people through her affidavit.
Vijayarajamallika, known as Daivathinte Makal, is a transgender poet in Malayalam literature, She is a writer, teacher, social worker, inspirational speaker, and activist.
Vasudhendra is an Indian author in Kannada language known for his short stories and personal essays.
Ruth Vanita is an Indian academic, activist and author who specialises in British and Indian literary history with a focus on gender and sexuality studies. She also teaches and writes on Hindu philosophy.
Manil Suri (born July 1959) is an Indian-American mathematician and writer of a trilogy of novels all named for Hindu gods. His first novel, The Death of Vishnu (2001), which was long-listed for the 2001 Booker Prize, short-listed for the 2002 PEN/Faulkner Award and won the Barnes & Noble Discover Prize that year. Since then, he has published two more novels, The Age of Shiva (2008) and The City of Devi (2013), completing the trilogy.
Gopi Shankar Madurai (Tamil: கோபி ஷங்கர் மதுரை, born 13 April 1991) is an Indian equal rights and Indigenous rights activist. Shankar was one of the youngest, and the first openly intersex and genderqueer statutory authority and one of the candidates to contest in 2016 Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly election. Shankar is also the founder of Srishti Madurai Student Volunteer Collective. Shankar’s work inspired the Madras High Court (Madurai Bench) to direct the Government of Tamil Nadu to order a ban on forced sex-selective surgeries on intersex infants. In December 2017 Shankar was elected to the Executive board of ILGA Asia. In August 2020 the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment appointed Shankar as the South Regional representative in the National Council for Transgender Persons.
Vikram Seth CBE, FRSL (born 20 June 1952) is an Indian novelist and poet. He has written several novels and poetry books. He has received several awards such as Padma Shri, Sahitya Academy Award, Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, WH Smith Literary Award and Crossword Book Award. Seth's collections of poetry such as Mappings and Beastly Tales are notable contributions to the Indian English language poetry canon.
Nibedita Sen is a queer Bengali-born writer of speculative fiction. She has been a finalist for the Astounding, Nebula, and Hugo Awards.
She was born in Madurai, India, on December 15, 1861, the only child of David Coit Scudder (of the Scudder family of missionaries in India) and Harriet Louise (Dutton) Scudder. After her father, a Congregationalist missionary, was accidentally drowned in 1862, she and her mother returned to the family home in Boston. Apart from travel in Europe, she attended private secondary schools in Boston, and was graduated from the Boston Girl's Latin School in 1880. Scudder then entered Smith College, where she received her BA degree in 1884.
A Revathi is a Bangalore-based writer and an activist working for the rights of sexual minorities. She is also a trans woman and belongs to the Hijra community.
Ramachandrapurapu Raj Rao (born 1955) is an Indian writer, poet and teacher of literature who has been described as "one of India's leading gay-rights activists". His 2003 novel The Boyfriend is one of the first gay novels to come from India. Rao was one of the first recipients of the newly established Quebec-India awards.
Sridhar Rangayan (also spelt Sridhar Rangaihn or Sridhar Rangayyan; born 2 April 1962) is an Indian filmmaker who has made films with special focus on queer subjects. His queer films, The Pink Mirror and Yours Emotionally, have been considered groundbreaking because of their realistic and sympathetic portrayal of the largely closeted Indian gay community. His film The Pink Mirror remains banned in India by the Indian Censor Board because of its homosexual content.
Rangayan was born in Mandya, Karnataka. As a gay activist, he has been one of the front-rank leaders in the LGBT movement in India and has contributed immensely towards the growth of awareness about sexual minorities in India.
He is a Founder Member and Trustee of The Humsafar Trust, the first gay NGO in India, along with Ashok Row Kavi. He served on its board till January 2013. He also designed and edited India's first gay magazine Bombay Dost between 1999–2003.
Bindumadhav Khire is an LGBTQ+ rights activist from Pune, Maharashtra, India. He runs Samapathik Trust, an NGO which works on LGBTQ+ issues in Pune district. He founded Samapathik Trust in 2002 to cater the men having sex with men (MSM) community in Pune city. He has also written on the issues on sexuality in fictional and non-fictional forms including edited anthologies, plays, short-stories, and informative booklets.
Saleem Kidwai (7 August 1951 – 30 August 2021) was a medieval historian, gay rights activist, and translator. Kidwai was a Professor of History at Ramjas College, University of Delhi until 1993 and thereafter an independent scholar.
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