Line-up of speakers announced for Jaipur Litfest 2023

19- 23 January at Hotel Clarks, Amer, Jaipur

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IPP Desk
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JLF
Historian Aanchal Malhotra. Photo JLF

The Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) has announced its line-up of speakers for its 2023 edition comprising some of the world’s best thinkers and writers.

The festival is all set to run from 19 – 23 January 2023. The literary extravaganza will feature an esteemed host of speakers, writers, and humanitarians to celebrate the best of fiction, non-fiction, food, history, current affairs and politics, AI and technology, translations, poetry, adaptations and music, language, climate crisis, noir, identity, medicine and health, and cryptocurrency and economy at Hotel Clarks, Amer, Jaipur.

The final set of speakers comprises names such as writer Akshaya Mukul; author Alka Saraogi; author Amia Srinivasan; publisher Ananda Devi; Pulitzer-Prize winning author Caroline Elkins; academic David Wengrow; 2022 Hasselblad Award recipient Dayanita Singh; member of Lok Sabha Feroze Varun Gandhi; Indian Monk and the winner of the prestigious Dadasaheb Phalke International Film Festival Award, Gaur Gopal Das; flute maestro Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia; scriptwriter, lyricist and poet Javed Akhtar; author Jonathan Freedland; award-winning correspondent for The Guardian Luke Harding; academic and author Maryam Aslany; author Merlin Sheldrake; CEO of cult.fit Mukesh Bansal; Co-Founder and Chairman of Infosys Technologies Limited Nandan Nilekani.

The list goes on to mention filmmaker Onir; historian and writer Orlando Figes; 2007 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism Literature and Creative Communications Arts P Sainath; Sahitya Akademi Golden Jubilee Award and the JLF Mahakavi Kanhaiya Lal Sethia Awardee Ranjit Hoskote; historian and academic Ruth Harris; economist and writer Sanjeev Sanyal; author and practising senior advocate Saurabh Kirpal; author and politician Shashi Tharoor; Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction, Siddhartha Mukherjee; internationally bestselling author Simon Sebag-Montefiore; writer and rapper Sumit Samos; author Toby Walsh; Director of the V&A, the world’s leading museum of art, design and performance Tristam Hunt;  renowned pop singer Usha Uthup; writer Vidya Krishnan; political scientist Yascha Mounk; and translator of the winning novel of JCB prize for Literature 2022, Baran Farooqi. The Festival will also feature some of the award-winning historians like Tom Holland, Alex von Tunzelmann, David Olusoga, Edward Chancellor, and Katy Hessel, among others.

The previously announced list of speakers includes eminent journalist, writer and translator Arunava Sinha; Sahitya Akademi Award winner Aruna Chakravarti; award-winning writer Ana Filomena Amaral; leading bi-lingual editor, writer and translator Manisha Chaudhry; Padmabhushan awardee Mridul Kirti; and former diplomat Navdeep Suri.

The 2023 edition will offer an immersive experience of literature, discourse, musical performances, art installations, merchandise, local cuisine and more to all art, literature and culture enthusiasts gathered to bask in the glory of the ‘greatest literary show on Earth’. Celebrating the uniting power of language, the Festival will provide an inclusive platform to all Indian and multiple foreign languages with sessions spread across five venues with over 250 speakers.  

2023 promises an interesting ride for print in India

Indian Printer and Publisher founded in 1979 is the oldest B2B trade publication in the multi-platform and multi-channel IPPGroup. While the print and packaging industries have been resilient in the past 33 months since the pandemic lockdown of 25 March 2020, the commercial printing and newspaper industries have yet to recover their pre-Covid trajectory.

The fragmented commercial printing industry faces substantial challenges as does the newspaper industry. While digital short-run printing and the signage industry seem to be recovering a bit faster, ultimately their growth will also be moderated by the progress of the overall economy. On the other hand book printing exports are doing well but they too face several supply-chain and logistics challenges.

The price of publication papers including newsprint has been high in the past year while availability is diminished by several mills shutting down their publication paper and newsprint machines in the past four years. Indian paper mills are also exporting many types of paper and have raised prices for Indian printers. To some extent, this has helped in the recovery of the digital printing industry with its on-demand short-run and low-wastage paradigm.

Ultimately digital print and other digital channels will help print grow in a country where we are still far behind in our paper and print consumption and where digital is a leapfrog technology that will only increase the demand for print in the foreseeable future. For instance, there is no alternative to a rise in textbook consumption but this segment will only reach normality in the next financial year beginning on 1 April 2023.

Thus while the new normal is a moving target and many commercial printers look to diversification, we believe that our target audiences may shift and change. Like them, we will also have to adapt with agility to keep up with their business and technical information needs.

Our 2023 media kit is ready, and it is the right time to take stock and reconnect with your potential markets and customers. Print is the glue for the growth of liberal education, new industry, and an emerging economy. We seek your participation in what promises to be an interesting ride.

– Naresh Khanna

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