The
Festival
INDIA
of
The Festival of India is designed to bring ‘the ideas of India’ to audiences, especially younger audiences, across India, and around the world.
The festival is designed to promote and celebrate ideas that came from India, and which enrich the world.
In its inaugural event in 2017, The Festival of India was organised in collaboration with the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (now Pradhan Mantri Sangharalaya), the British High Commission and
NewsX.
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It was headlined by Smriti Irani, then Minister of Textiles.
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This festival featured,
1. Textile expert Rajeev Sethi about the magic of Indian textiles,
2. The noted mathematician C. K. Raju on the global contribution of Indian mathematics,
3. Author and historian Sanjeev Sanyal on the history of the Indian Ocean,
4. Historian Hindol Sengupta on the valour of Guru Gobind Singh,
5. Ustad Shujaat Khan on the beauty of the construction of ragas.
The second edition of the festival headlined by Piyush Goyal, then Minister for Railways and Coal.
This festival featured,
1. Member, Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, and economist Shamika Ravi, the
power of the united Indian economy,
2. Danseuse and guru Manjari Chaturvedi on the subversive feminist idea of Kathak,
3. Scientists Dr. Gobardhan Das and Dr. Anand Ranganathan on the scientific history of fighting
tuberculosis,
4. Award-winning photo artist Bandeep Singh on ‘tribhanga’, the unique way India looks at the
body,
5. Historian Hindol Sengupta on the figure of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel as the prime example
of Indian pragmatism.
What Next ?
We are building The Festival of India to become a roving festival as a prime vehicle of Indian soft
power travelling across India, and then outside India to promote ‘Indian ideas for the world’.
Grin has turned publisher, so we are looking to build a seamless supply chain of ideas connecting
books publishing, events, and online videos.
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Our online platform already has 100,000 views even though it is still in testing phase.
We have already published 3 books in the last two months which have sold more than 5,000 copies using only digital distribution platforms. We have a list of 24 more books coming up, and we are chalking out physical distribution with a major distributor.
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