Greg Sheridan, Harinder Sidhu, Swapan Dasgupta and Amitabh Mattoo | Oceania: Yonder and Beyond

Oceania: Yonder and Beyond: Greg Sheridan, Harinder Sidhu, Swapan Dasgupta and Amitabh Mattoo

Greg Sheridan is a foreign affairs journalist and commentator. He joined The Australian in 1984 and worked in Beijing, Washington and Canberra before starting his tenure as the paper’s foreign editor in 1992. He specialises in Asian politics and has written four books on the topic.

Harinder Sidhu has held the post of Australia’s High Commissioner to India since February 2016. She also holds non-resident accreditation to the Kingdom of Bhutan. Sidhu brings over 30 years’ experience in government. She began her career as a diplomat with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Between 2008 and 2013, Ms Sidhu held the post of First Assistant Secretary in the Department of Climate Change. Prior to that, she served in several senior roles in government, particularly on defence and national security matters. Sidhu has served overseas at Australian Embassies in Damascus, Moscow and Cairo.

Swapan Dasgupta is a Member of Parliament and columnist for major Indian newspapers. A journalist for 30 years, he occupied senior editorial positions at the Times of India, Indian Express and India Today. He writes regular columns for Times of India, Telegraph and Pioneer, and is a commentator on TV networks. He is the author of Awakening Bharat Mata: The Political Beliefs of the Indian Right. In 2015, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan and was nominated to the Rajya Sabha.

Amitabh Mattoo is the CEO and Honorary Director of the Australia India Institute in Delhi and Professor of International Relations at the University of Melbourne. Professor Mattoo also serves as advisor to the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir. He is a Professor of Disarmament Studies in Jawaharlal Nehru University. He has been a member of the National Security Advisory Board and also a member of the National Knowledge Commission to the Prime Minister of India. Mattoo received his doctorate from the University of Oxford and has been a visiting Professor at Stanford University, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and at the Maison des Sciences de l’homme at Paris. Mattoo was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Jammu from 2002-2008. Recognising his contribution to education and public life, the President of India honoured Mattoo with the Padma Shri, one of India’s highest civilian awards.

Oceania: Yonder and Beyond:
India and Australia reach out to each other from across the antipodal ends of the Indian Ocean. In an age of changing global alliances, their shared legacy, global and political history and democratic convictions form a natural part nership. A distinguished panel of Australian and Indian journalists, w riters. diplomats and parliamentarians search 21st century strategies and meeting points across culture and the arts. trade and commerce to create new narratives and synergies.

THE JAIPUR LITERATURE FESTIVAL
Described as the 'greatest literary show on Earth', the Jaipur Literature Festival is a sumptuous feast of ideas.

The past decade has seen it transform into a global literary phenomenon having hosted nearly 2000 speakers and welcoming over a million book lovers from across India and the globe.

Festival Co Directors Namita Gokhale and William Dalrymple, alongside Producer Sanjoy K Roy and Teamwork Arts, create a platform for an array of speakers to debate, discuss and present their ideas in the annual five-day programme set against the backdrop of Rajasthan's stunning cultural heritage and the Diggi Palace in the state capital Jaipur.

Past speakers have ranged from Nobel Laureates His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, J.M. Coetzee, Muhammad Yunus and Orhan Pamuk, Man Booker Prize winners Ben Okri, Howard Jacobson, Margaret Atwood, Marlon James, Michael Ondaatje, Paul Beatty and Yan Martel, Pulitzer Prize winners Andrew Sean Greer, Benjamin Moser, Colson Whitehead and Jhumpa Lahiri, Sahitya Akademi winners Gulzar, Javed Akhtar, M.T. Vasudevan Nair as well as the late Girish Karnad, Mahasweta Devi and U.R. Ananthamurthy along with literary luminaries including Amish Tripathi, Chima¬manda Ngozi Adichie, Vikram Chandra and Vikram Seth. An annual event that goes beyond literature, the Festival has also hosted Amartya Sen, Amitabh Bachchan, the late A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Oprah Winfrey, Stephen Fry, Thomas Piketty and former president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai.

The Jaipur Literature Festival is a flagship event of Teamwork Arts, which produces over 33 highly acclaimed performing arts, visual arts and literary festivals across more than 40 cities globally.

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